Landed in London on the 15th after a LONG flight on Virgin from Chicago. A fine airline but maybe I am getting older and that 7 hours in a tin can at 35,000 feet now makes me a lot more swelly and cranky. We were soon on to Cologne and went out to dinner with Paul's brother in law Johannes and his friend Frank Peters in an Italian neighborhood for a fine meal and the France/Italy football match which Italia thankfully won. Got a glimpse of the Cologne Cathedral once again and was again wowed by this Gothic colossus.
The following morning we were spirited at 140 KPH in a Mercedes wagon cab to the airport for our flight to Moscow.
Russia-Moscow
Got into Moscow to a midday drizzle that seemed fitting to the grey but booming former center of the Evil Empire. What is immediately striking in Moscow is the construction. Everywhere we went there was surveying, digging, banging and craneing...lots of craneing...oh, and the subway. The subway, Lenin's plasticized corpse and Socialist Classicist architecture seem to these eyes as one of the major remaining visible symbols of Soviet aesthetics. Moscow's Metro is worth a tour in and of itself.
Efficient, functional, inexpensive (in a city that is now one of the most outrageously priced in the world) gaudy, beautiful and a monument to public/collective space. Entering the stations you know from the beginning this is not a run of the mill people mover. The entrance ways tend to make a statement and then you descend, really descend, on tightly torqued escalators, that take one deeper into the depths than one would seem imaginable. All are then (millions a day) treated to all the world's styles of arches, vaults, chandeliers, mosaics, some socialist realism (less then I thought there would be), marble, columns and a lot more. And it works, well, and on time. Here's a video on the granduer that is the Moscow metro.
Our hotel was in an old converted Soviet building on the edge of the city in a working class neighborhood. Ann really enjoyed the wallk across the railroad track (there was a light for pedestrians although I am sure there have been a few casualities over the years) which we crossed daily on our way to the Metro.
In the few days we were in Moscow we walked the main tourist areas, visited Red Square, Lenin's Tomb,
the Kremlin, St Basil's Cathedral,
Pushkin Square, the Peter the Great Monument and sculpture garden
and the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour (which was destroyed in 1931 and recently rebuilt),
amongst other sites.
To be blunt, Russians are rude. Service seems to be learned at a gulag finishing school. In the subway the women workers, we saw no me, were never mean but rarely nice. Smiles are a rare commodity. Our favorite cranky service moment was in a kiosk that we frequented near our hotel. I had bought some cheese, bread and meat there a couple of times prior to our 2nd day when I went to repeat purchasing a Syrian loaf and I picked up the bread like I had previously. This set off our humble Slav. Grabbing the loaf aggressively she threw the bag of bread 8 feet back to its appropriate spot. I guess one is supposed to point to one's bakery and then she will retrieve it from the back NOT grab it yourself. I will not make that mistake again.
A word on Lenin's tomb: I have always, from a democratic perspective, been opposed to the idea of putting Krupskaya's husband on display in rigor. It supports all of the concepts us materialists supposedly oppose-the cult of personality, obscurantism, authoritarianism and an aesthetic that hearkens back to the religious relic collecting of the East. This being said I was surprisingly moved by the viewing. The overall process of the viewing helps build the gravitas of the event. When we were there there was a substantial line that was administered by cops. You then are required to hand over all bags, cameras, etc... You then pass through a metal detector and are searched. You then enter Red Square in an area restricted to those who waited on line. The Kremlin wall acts as a backdrop as you walk towards the triangular red marble mausoleum. The internationalism of the revolution is celebrated as the name of Irish and American (Big Bill Haywood) radicals, among others, share places with heroes of Russian Bolsheviki. As you enter the dark tomb ominous looking, formally dressed soldiers bark out SHUT UP to any chatterers. It sets the tone of sacredness and solemness (fear?) as you descend. Viewers then turn and then ascend again towards a well lit encased corpse. I guess his make-up artists have varied in quality over the years but the current artist is top notched. It amazed me to no end that this person had died in 1924. He looks pretty good. It reminded me of a wake. I was moved. It was quite creepy.
Leaving the mausoleum I now understood the power of the cult. It is solemn. It was powerful. If I had studied Marxism-Leninism since my early years and constantly read about the greatness of the balding one, I too would be moved, oh yeah, I was...even though I was born in the heartland of anti-communism.
Russia-St. Petersburg (Leningrad)
After a few days in Moscow we took the Moscow Metro for the last time to Lenin Station to catch the train to St. Petersberg.
The train was quite new, spacious with a very professional staff. Old Soviet movies were the entertainment which made this one of the most enjoyable train rides of the trip. Took this shot in a very old train station along the way to St Pete's:
Jeff and Natasha met us late at the train station which was quite nice given the late hour and new surroundings.
Two years ago Jeff and I stayed at Hotel Anabel on St. Petersburg's most famous street Nevesky Prospect. We again stayed there this time around with Don and Tim Revis of Kenosha who had joined Jeff earlier in Riga. The Wisconsin 5 where now in St Pete's for an action packed week.
Our first day we all jumped in a small bus, after quite a lot of line waiting and vague price announcements, to Peterhof, the 18th century palace built for Peter the Great. Once again the feelings of my first visit to the Hermitage two years ago returned as the decadence of the royals was displayed at the "cottage" and gardens. Words cannot describe the ornateness and vastness of this crib on the Baltic. Here a few shots to try and convey the degenerate nature of the Russian ruling class in a nation of serfs:
The gardens are vast with lots of fountains, boulevards, bird houses, galleries, etc....
For our return we hopped on a small speedy ferry that took us to the center of downtown, a pleasant surprise as the ride over was akin to a 1940's ride from Warsaw to Auschwitz given the amount of toxic fumes leaking into the passenger area.
Russia is in the midst of an economic boom fueled by gas and oil. The signs of economic growth are everywhere. Correspondingly there has been a rise in Russian nationalism. The Stalinist style military parade this pasted May Day is one of the most visible examples. In our discussions with Russians the primary way that they are experiencing the new nationalism is through sport. The past year has been a particularly succesful year for Russian teams and they won the only contest more insufferable than American Idol, the Eurovision Song Contest. But as in most of the world football reigns and while we were visiting the UEFA tournament was entering its final games and Russia was surprisingly competing with Europe's top teams. They made it to the semi-finals where they finally lost but in the meantime the people of Russia were in a frenzy I can only compare to the winning of the Superbowl by the Packers in 97. We experienced two wins, one in Moscow and one in St Pete's. The St Petersberg victory created a traffic jam along Nevesky Prospect that included gun shots in the air, public diplays of affection towards anyone that would agree, young men standing on the top of cars at frightening speeds, lots of chanting, etc... Quite the experience:
Dangerous behavior:
This guy would have been very upset if the Russian's had lost:
The following took us to the Hermitage, the Russian State Museum. I blathered on in a 2006 post about the wonderfulness of this place but once again I must strongly recommend a trip once to this amazing treasure of loot that the Russian rulers extracted from the Russian serf. Until I went to the Louvre, see below, I had never seen such a collection of paintings in my life.
Fun with the Revis's at Focus
and visits to St Isaac's Cathedral
finished up the Russian leg of the trip.....Oh and a word on Russian cuisine, one word-Crapdogs!
On to Helsinki.
