When you reach a certain age you suddenly realise that time is running out and whatever you have in your bucket list has a shelf life, you either do it now or you will never do it. I had always wanted to go to Russia if only to find out if the Russia as seen on TV was the Russia I knew or something different. Where better to go then than Moscow and St.Petersburgh, both had held the office of Capital and both were connected the first leg of The Trans Siberian Railway. But first I went to Moscow. THE SILENCE OF A TOURIST When you decide to visit a place like Russia it is perhaps best to travel with a mind similar to a blank canvas for the preconceived ideas we have in the “West” are to a large extent manufactured by the media. Apart from the very young who do not remember the Russia of the 1950’s/60’s/70’s and even the 1980’s the perception of the country is by and large restricted to television pictures shown when a story of note occurred. They were mostly library pictures of uniformly grey monosyllabic buildings lining a road or street which may have been similar or indeed a “near miss” of the essence of the news story. Perhaps what might be embedded in the western mind are the black and white pictures of the May Day parades in Red Square which could only be seen as a threat. Then there was the enforced insularity of the Berlin Wall and the ensuing air-lift or the antics of Nikita Kruschev and JFK when a nuclear war was only minutes away. Similarly the memory might be of the meltdown of a nuclear reactor at Chernobyl or the massacre of children at Beslan. Perhaps the eyes of westerners remember the Russian-Afghan war of the 1980’s or all of these. The point is that a lasting impression was instilled and an opinion formulated upon the sort of place Russia was. The preconceptions rightly or wrongly drawn were reinforced by the somewhat secretive nature of the Socialist political machine which went to great lengths to ensure that the Russian state was never seen in a bad light. If they had been more forthcoming then the current perception of Russia might have been very different. The collapse of communism in Russia brought about a second Russian Revolution not at the point of a gun but in pursuit of the bottom line of a balance sheet. In 1917 the first Revolution swept away the Russian monarchy and the social strata of a class system that kept the Russian people bound to little more that serfdom. The intelligencia, industrialists and the impotent feudal system held a vast country in a stranglehold. Revolution was inevitable. Names like Lenin and Trotsky became synonymous with bloody revolution and the worst face of socialism. Though Trotsky was murdered in Mexico with an Ice-Pick Lenin went on to become head of the Russian state for many years. It was Lenin that began the restoration of the Hermitage` though to be accurate it was not for any altruistic reason. The world was to see a re-run of the Lenin-Trotsky scenario some 40 years later in Cuba when Fidel Castro took power with the aid of Che` Guevara, Castro ran Cuba until the first decade of the 21st century but Che` was executed in Bolivia shortly after the Cuban revolution and a failed insurrection in the Belgian Congo [now called Zaire]. Lenin brought about a great deal of social change in Russia during his office and though revered he only had time to start to modernise the country. By the time he died many Russians feared the worst, he was the father of post Revolutionary Russia. He was embalmed and placed in a tomb just outside the walls of the Kremlin which even today is sacred to the Russian people. By the beginning of the Second World War another leader was chosen, a Georgian called Joseph Stalin who was adept at the Russian political game but ruthless with it. To be regarded as eminent scientist/writer or politician in Stalin’s time incurred the risk of arrest, imprisonment or transportation to the wastes of Siberia. He saw the intelligencia as a threat and wasted little time in eradicating them from the Russian mainstream. He was said to be responsible for many atrocities. His creed was that where two men meet is a meeting if a third should join them it becomes a conspiracy. As time wore out his life his paranoia saw conspiracy in the most innocent of places. When he died there was an audible gasp of relief from some quarters. Much of Stalin’s excesses were not common knowledge or if it was then it was disregarded. When he died he too was embalmed and placed in the same mausoleum as Lenin. The creeping realisation by subsequent Russian leaders and the Russian people that Stalin was not of the same moral fibre as Lenin forced his removal from the tomb and his re-interment to the rear of Lenin’s tomb close to the Kremlin wall. It is thought that although his excesses detract from his status on a par with Lenin his leadership during the Second World War remains recognised. In the wall of the Kremlin to the rear of Lenin’s Tomb a different method of remembrance is afforded to all of the Russian leaders that succeeded Stalin. They are cremated and their ashes are interred behind a plaque bearing their name/dates in the wall of the Kremlin behind Lenin’s tomb. The word “Red” became synonymous with the word communism and it is thought to be drawn from the Kremlin itself as the walls of the Kremlin are red but the Kremlin walls were refaced with red brick long before the demise of imperial Russia. In Russia red is considered to be a beautiful colour and an accompaniment of affluence. The word “Red” has been transposed to China and indeed any Communistic institution but it was originally used to indicate the extreme wealth of the Tsars. At 90 degrees to the wall of the Kremlin lies the other landmark of Red Square at one end of the square, Saint Basil’s Cathedral with its onion domes of gold set against the backdrop of the city of Moscow and its ten million inhabitants. The domes look like the turbans of Tartars and it is no accident that they do for the church is dedicated to the Russian Victory over the Tartars long ago. Russians however maintain that the domes from a distance look like burning candles as they gutter in the sunlight. Much of the church is filled with icons and exhibits and is only used for an actual service of devotion on one day of the year in October. The Church is called Porkrovsky Cathedral and only one of its north eastern chapels is called Saint Basil’s. The church was built upon the site of a previous church in the mid 16th century to commemorate the conquering of a Tartar stronghold at Kazan. The Tartars had been a problem to Ivan the terrible as they frequently launched attacks against the Russian Empire. In the 16th century what is now Red Square was a market place and one of the sellers at the market was a man called vasily who wore no boots and was known as Vasily the barefoot. The Russian name Vasily translated into English is Basil. Vasily had the gift of prophecy or second sight and became well known as his predictions often came to pass. Some prophecies are wiser left untold and Vasily was nothing if not honest. Before Ivan the Terrible left to subdue the Tartars once again Vasily predicted the Damnation of his Tsar. He predicted that Ivan would murder a son as the Russian army left for Kazan and would not recant, Ivan had him executed before the battle took place and he was buried in the church that stood on the site before the church we now call St Basil’s. Vasily became known as a Barefoot Holy Fool and was later Canonised. Ivan the Terrible upon his return from the battle was forced to publicly confess in an act of contrition. All that Vasily had foretold came to pass. As penance the original church was torn down and a new one built to mark the fall of Kazan, the north eastern chapel of the new church was built over the grave of Vasily [Basil the Blessed]. Opposite the Kremlin across Red Square lies an Arcadian Shopping Mall. It is a new departure and the equal of anything that might be found in Paris, Rome or London. Familiar names of high fashion abound there and café style bars and restaurants are commonplace some are reasonably priced and some not but sorting the wheat from the chaff is an experience. Toward the north east corner of Red Square building work is now in progress to convert what was Moscow’s “Socialist experience” of western department stores into a hotel for a first line American hotel chain. The previously existing department store was a statement of Russia’s shortcomings in the field of retail endeavour. It was “The Gum” which was an acronym for the Govsudarstvenny Universalny Magazin a.k.a the State Department Store. It was known for its half empty shelves, exorbitantly high prices and queues that stretched into eternity for goods that the west took for granted as everyday commodities. To have such a spectacle opposite a premier tourist attraction was at best ill advised. It gave rise to a picture of Russia that did the country no service and a saying that became synonymous with Russian shortages. The saying was,”If you see a queue join it. You might not know what is being sold but you might be lucky and get it.” In the new Russia those days are but a distant memory, consumer goods are no longer in short supply. TV plasma screens adorn every bar and lounge, everyone seems to have a mobile phone and they spend a great deal of time using them, there is food in all of the shops and there is no shortage of customers willing or able to buy them. The Kremlin is the pinnacle of tourist attractions in Moscow and is Armoury is the place to visit. It is a repository of art so vast that it is impossible to describe in a few words but the artefact that most know is the Faberge` eggs. A fabulously wealthy statement of gift given at Easter to members of the Russian Royal Family. Not only are these eggs encrusted with precious stones on the outside beyond the dreams of avarice each of them also had to contain a surprise inside as well. One of them had a miniature train set complete with engine, tender, carriages and track carefully tooled in gold and contained inside the egg whilst another had a most delicate flower with a myriad of leaves and petals that turned as a music box contained inside the egg played simulating rain. To appreciate the Armoury you have to go there. Though the Kremlin is the central attraction it is surrounded by many churches and artefacts that lie beyond its walls, like the largest cannon ever made or the world’s largest bell at 200 tons. A day will never be enough to see or describe everything. The gate adjacent to the Red Kremlin wall is approached by crossing a cobbled Red Square the cobbles are not unlike the ones used by the Romans to surface roads like Watling Street and Ermine Street in England. They would have made the peculiarity of the Red Army difficult on those May Day parades. Once through the gate the city street is no more than 500 steps and in a way that is the divide that separates the historic Russia from the modern Russia. As I wait at the kerbside a visitor incognito the comparisons between England and Russia begin to make themselves known. Here they drive on the right and crossing a road means a whole new set of rules because one is never quite sure which way the traffic will come from. There are pedestrian crossings with stop/go lights but they also have a clock which counts down to the next red light for pedestrians. Some commissar has obviously timed the average time taken to cross any given road and made an allowance for the trek. The clock above the green walk light reflects the findings. Some streets are wider than others and some junctions far more complex than a simple crossroad. Most of the major thoroughfares have three or four lanes on each side of the road but some have six lanes and there is no refuge in the centre so the walker has to decide if there is time to cross. At one junction I timed the crossing it took seven minutes to cross the road. One might think that there is a central control room somewhere controlling the traffic on Moscow’s busy streets assisted by a bank of computers that might not look out of place on the bridge of the star ship Enterprise but no. Russian traffic cops have a sense of humour and a lust for power. When it dawned that the lights were changing at irregular intervals I looked for a reason, a camera perhaps or a monitor of some kind but the answer was far simpler. At every major intersection there is an impregnable fortress of glass and steel set about twenty feet above the ground and inside there is a lone traffic cop pressing buttons that control the lights. Yes, they still have “Point duty” a task once used as a punishment detail in England for those officers who had transgressed some minor regulation of the service. From time to time the Moscow traffic descends into gridlock usually once or twice a day at times that coincide with the exodus to the suburbs. It is then that the taxi driver shows his inventive mettle utilising every alley sidewalk and oh yes a footpath along the side of a river. Not content with choking the Streets of Moscow with cars and trucks of every size and description the city fathers introduced trolley buses, trams and articulated trams just to make it interesting. The result is a floorshow of absolute mayhem and chaos. Not everyone in Moscow has a car and for those that do not there is the metro. Somehow the underground trains get everyone from where they don’t want to be to where they do at a speed approaching terminal velocity through underground caverns that are so deep that coal miners go there for their holidays. First you buy a ticket which tells you absolutely nothing or at least not in any script recognisable as writing. The tickets are a patterned card and the only thing that can read them is the ticket barrier turnstile. You wave the card in front of an electric eye and if it likes you it opens the barrier. You are then “In the system” Next step on to the escalator a moving staircase that only has one equal but it travels in the opposite direction, the stair way to heaven. Descending further than the bowels of the earth you pass Dantes inferno, Hell and the earth’s core before you arrive at the platforms. You wait trying to see the name on the front of a train that would make the Japanese bullet train seem stationary. You blink and miss it but find yourself on the train anyway thrust forward by Muscovites in search of a bed for the night. The doors close and the train leaves at the speed of light, your insides often follow later. At your destination and I was convinced that the only way anyone knows they have reached it is by counting the times the train stops the train disgorges its content which is collected by an ascending escalator which will take several minutes to reach daylight. No one will collect your ticket or is even vaguely concerned that you might not have one. One several journeys I did not see anyone collect a ticket or even enquire if anyone had such a thing. I formed the opinion that the system is omnipotent. To be fair any mass transit system that can deliver several million faultless journeys in less than two hours has to be regarded as a serious contender and the Moscow Metro is certainly that. The wise in Moscow do not drive or ride they walk though some do own motorcycles and bicycles, both strangely absent from the mayhem of morning and evening we might call “Rush Hour” The things that are missing from most Moscow streets are vagrants. Where they go I never found out but they must exist, every modern city has its share. Cops, though I saw a few there were not as many as I expected and those I did see wore a small sidearm but not in an obvious way. In a week I saw no more than ten in a city of 10 million though I would think that an army could be called to action if required at a moments notice. I draw the distinction between traffic cops and cops with a broad line because the people controlling traffic were quite frankly a different calibre to those who would deal with the “Heavy end” of the lawbreaking spectrum. Litter seemed absent from the streets though there were more than enough litter bins they were for the most part empty. Every city has its immigrants either economic or for other reasons and Moscow was no exception but in all of the time I was there I saw none one might class as “black”. There were Arabs, Turks, Estonians, Cypriots, Greeks, Poles and a great many from the former USSR satellites but no ethnic aboriginals. When I asked why this was the answer was “They just don’t come here”. There is a definite racial structure to which a Russian employer will consider for any given position, waiters/waitresses are from “Lower Russian” stock in the high profile of tourism but may come from one of Russia’s former satellites if “front” is unimportant. The maintenance is generally a Polish province; cleaners come from the immigrant community. There are exceptions but by and large the rule applies no matter where you go. Fuel is a commodity where price is spiralling in the west but in Russia a gallon of petrol [gasoline] will cost around 24 roubles that is around 50 pence in England where a litre of the same fuel now costs 127-130 pence. The cars on the roads in private ownership fall into two groups, the first is “Brand new”[no more than 2 or 3 years old] usually driven by fairly young girls, the second is comprised of beat-up wrecks that frequently break down driven by middle aged men usually with a family in the car with them. The curious aspect is that there seems to be no middle ground cars are either young or old. With upward of five million cars in the Moscow area it is a mystery. In England if we need hot water then we have to heat it first but in Moscow it comes from a hot tap provided by the state which means that if central heating was required than all that would be required is a few radiators and a pump, a boiler is surplus to requirements. It was a legacy left behind by the socialists but some ideas are just too god to discard. The only problem as far as I could see was maintenance of the system, it seems that the system was installed without isolating valves so it is not possible to close part of the system for repairs. A note in the elevator of my hotel warned that there will be no hot water on June 10th for two days due to maintenance. At the time we took it to mean that the hotels hot water system needed attention it was only later we found that no one in the city had hot water. But that is the socialist ideal “Sink or swim but together”. Moscow was an unexpected surprise it was not as we in the west have pictured it with grey buildings all making the same statement. It was not the authoritarian edifice it has been made out to be nor were there armed guards everywhere it is true that there is a western way of doing things and a Russian way. There is a system to it, a pattern of life and the system will coerce even the most vehement opposition to do things the Russian way. As I wait for the train to St.Petersburg on the platform of one of Moscow’s nine major railway stations it is time to assess Moscow. Did I feel uncomfortable there? No it was a place I could live in if I chose. Did I see any violence? None. Was there any graffiti? Very little. Did I feel safe on its streets? Yes even at 2am when I walked alone. Would I go there again? Very probably but next time in winter. Did I drink chai from a glass? Yes but I called it Russian tea. Did I eat borscht? Yes and I had never eaten beetroot soup before. Ah, the train is being assembled as I speak the carriage attendant is checking the tickets and has already begun practising gestures and hand signals knowing full well that the English rarely speak any language but their own yet there is one universal greeting they gave to the entire world that needs no words, the handshake and Russians seem to have taken that at face value. Tonight I will sleep in St.Petersburg……….das vidanya JP.
Posted on: Wed, 02 Apr 2014 11:27:36 +0000
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