THIRTIETH OF APRIL, A MONDAY SCENE: A MOSCOW RAILWAY STATION, PLENTY OF PEOPLE MILLING ABOUT. A
TRAIN, THE OVERNIGHT ЗКСПРЕСС FROM LENINGRAD, PULLS INTO A PLATFORM A LARGE
GROUP OF FOREIGNERS GET OUT, LUGGING THEIR LUGGAGE. THEY PROCEED TO THE EXIT
AND FILL UP TWO INTOURIST BUSES. THEY RETURN TO THE HOTEL COSMOS AND HAVE
BREKKIE.
Breakfast was a sort of egg pancake rolled up. It was quite nice.
Apple juice day. After the meal we went on the Morning City Tour, just driving
around the streets of Moscow. More red banners and flags and huge hoardings
with Socialist paintings and slogans on them.
We had two stops only – the
first was just outside the Cathedral of the Intercession, otherwise known as St
Basil’s. The object of this stop was to watch the changing of the guard outside
Lenin’s current abode.
The other stop was at the
New Maiden’s Convent [Novodevichy Convent], which is surrounded by an effective defensive wall. This
is the place where czarinas had to go if they were divorced by the czar of the
time – ‘twas law.
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| Novodevichy Convent, thanks to Wikipedia. |
Moscow is certainly a very interesting city with its big old buildings
and its big new buildings. The old buildings look as if they’d fit well in a
film of ‘War and Peace’ and that sort of thing, though Leningrad would be
better for this. Then there are the massive “skyscrapers” built in the fifties,
all modelled on the Moscow State University building. These buildings would not
be out of place in Superman’s metropolis.
Dear oh dear, it was so long
ago I can’t remember all the little interesting pits and bieces that liven up a
boring account like this. After the tour, we went back to the hotel for
surprise, surprise, lunch.
After lunch I was terribly intrepid and went down to the Metro by
myself. More of that later if I think of it. I got out at Marx Prospekt where
the Bolshoi Theatre is (I couldn’t go in) and then I walked down to the 50th
Anniversary of the October Revolution Square and up Gorky Street as far as
Mayakovsky Square (named after the outstanding Soviet poet. There is a statue
in the square of Mayakovsky standing outside). On the way up I bought a yummy
ice cream [I
mean, really, one of the best ice creams I’ve ever eaten. Very memorable.]
and had a look at the Stanislavsky Drama Theatre, but not inside. They have a programme
of three or four plays which are performed on alternate nights. One of the
plays was Cyrano de Bergerac – it’s quite easy to read the Russian alphabet if
you know how. Stanislavsky [1863-1938] is important in the history of drama if
you didn’t already know. [The Stanislavsky Method, or just Method Acting.]
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| Stanislavski Theatre of Drama |
On Mayakovsky Square is the Peking Hotel, Moskva Cinema, the Satire
Theatre which is next to the Tchaikovsky Concert hall, which is used in July
and August as Intourist’s cultural centre.
I chucked a leftie here and walked along Bolshaya Sadovaya Street, a
ring road inside the big Garden Ring Road. (I think this section of it is
called Tchaikovsky Street.) Along it is the United States of America Embassy,
Tchaikovsky’s house (No. 46) and Chekhov’s house (No. 12, I think. Anyway, I
took a photo of it.) (I think.) I think they’re both museums now, I think.
I chucked another leftie [this does not mean I threw a Socialist, but merely I
took a left turn] and went down another broad crowded street, Kalinin
Prospekt. Along here on both sides are tall office/apartment blocks with a lot
of shops underneath. I went into Jupiter, a large shop dealing in cameras,
cine- and photo supplies. I can’t say much for the seemingly antique cameras,
but they stock a lot of photographic paper, piles and piles of it, and film is
expensive – four roubles for one type. I also went into a large bookstore,
where they sold foreign language books, such as Penguin editions of Elizabeth
Gaskell, George Eliot, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Grahame Green, Doris Lessing,
Bernard Shaw plays, Thomas Hardy, William Faulkner, Saul Bellow and the Penguin
Roget’s Thesaurus for 25 roubles. Also a book on David Attenborough’s animal
expeditions, lots of Shakespeare, the volumed set of The Literary History of
England, and French editions of Emil Zola. These foreign language books are
expensive.
I finally made it down to the 5oth Anniversary Etcetera and went to
a Metro Station to go to the hotel again, for dinner.
Then at 8.00, the City Evening Tour – up Gorky Street, along Tchaikovsky
street, around Garden Circle, a look at a large outdoor [largest in the world]
swimming pool used all year round, down Kalinin Prospekt (this is not in
order), and then opposite the Kremlin on the banks of the river. It looks very
nice all lit up. The streets are lovely too because they have the May ay
lights. May Night Lights, twit. [The swimming pool, the Moskva Pool, was made on the site of
the never-built Palace of the Soviets, which was to be built on the site of the
demolished-by-the-Soviets Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, which had been
consecrated in 1883. It had been built in honour of the victory over Napoleon,
and it is where Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture had its premiere in 1882. The
cathedral was re-consecrated in 2000 after five years of reconstruction, and is
where the punk band Pussy Riot was arrested.]
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| The Moskva Pool in 1980, thanks to Wikipedia |
The driver got booked by a policeman near the swimming pool for some misdemeanor
we couldn’t figure out – Tanya wouldn’t say. The bus driver we had from the
station the first night in Moscow was also booked. We’ve seen a lot of drivers
being booked every day. Apparently if they are booked three times they lose
their licences for a year; they get their licences hole-punched every time they
are booked.
We went to Lenin Hills, to look at the University – highly
impressive.
Guess what! Back to the hotel.
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