Kremlin River Summer Wall Countdown Timer

Summer in Moscow and the whole city turns green and loud and slightly dusty, and the Kremlin wall just sits in the middle of it, red brick, green roofs, gold domes, looking like it was ordered from a catalogue. I walked along the riverbank with an ice cream I was losing a fight with. Cars queued on the embankment. Somebody's kid ran in circles. The clouds were enormous, the way they get in a continental summer, stacked white and grey over the towers. This is the same wall everybody photographs in snow, and honestly it is a different building in July. Softer. Less severe. The cathedral domes catch the sun and throw it back. Tourists queue at the gates. Guards stand in whatever shade there is. I like cities best when they are just going about their business and something enormous happens to be in the background. That was this afternoon. Nothing happened. The wall was there. A tour boat goes past with a guide talking into a microphone nobody can understand from this distance, and the wall just keeps being red and green and gold, indifferent to all of us. That was enough.