The Moskva chronicles- Part Odno

“Two tickets to St.Petersburg.” He articulated each syllable slowly, hoping to make himself clear. The lady at the counter nodded doubtfully, and asked a question. Both he and I turned blank faces to her, and then looked at each other. She repeated her question. “Sankt Pieterburg,” I answered in the deepest tone I could muster, hoping that my faux accent would somehow get the message across. Then we realised that she was asking us for the date of travel. He wrote it out on a piece of paper, and slid it under the counter. She looked at it for a long time. I glanced back anxiously at the queue building up behind us, wondering how long it would be before the murmurs of impatience began, as the locals wearied of the stuttering tourists at the counter.

We had landed at the Domodedevo airport at midnight, blurry eyes scanning the still-unfamiliar Cyrillic script, joined an amorphous huddle that we later understood to be the queue at the immigration counter. An hour later, we were taking an hour-long taxi ride to the hotel, whizzing through the Moscovite pre-dawn darkness.

Now, after 35 minutes of testing the patience of the lady at the counter, we left the Kievskaya station with our tickets, marvelling at the forbearance of the people in the queue. We were ready for our day at Moscow.  

A country but almost a continent, European but almost Asian, insular yet surprisingly warm, a land of fairytales that turned to realism, of Orthodox Christianity giving way to atheist communism, a history of tug-of-war with the Western European powers: a country of many, many paradoxes. Fiercely nationalist, possessed of a steely determination and spirit that would prefer to let the capital burn than fall into Napoleon’s hands, that could survive a near-3 year siege laid by Hitler and live to tell the tale. A kaleidoscope of cultures, ethnicities and a (mostly) shared history. How can a traveller dare to make sense of this whimsical being in a matter of days? 

Cathedral Square

Resurrection Gate, Red Square

We set out  later that morning to find out what being Russian was all about- apart from displaying infinite patience while in a queue.  If you want to look Russian, pore over an e-reader on the train. Or a book. Or play chess on your smartphone – or that’s what we found out on our short Metro ride to the Biblioteka Lenini stop. We spent the better part of the morning winding our way through the pristine white, golden-domed cathedrals of Kremlin, the mammoth Bell from Ivan’s Bell Tower, getting our first impressions of Russian ikon painting and of the many unique elements of Eastern Orthodox Christian architecture. The Iconostasis, a stand of religious paintings,that was placed to separate the altar from the rest of the church reminded me of the veil that is usually drawn across the sanctum sanctorum of Hindu temples.

After a cloudy morning in the Kremlin cathedrals, I was walking past triangular-domed spires of the Kremlin towers, when, with a suddenness that took the breath away, I found myself staring straight down the jumble of shapes, spires, domes and colours that make up the iconic St.Basil’s Cathedral. Peaked domes, onion-shaped swirled domes, prickly domes, multiple arches, gilded ornamentation, golden spires and colours of every imaginable hue made it a visual spectacle too complex for the brain to process in a few moments.  It looked like a church, a multi-coloured bonfire, and a fairytale castle all rolled into one. It took a few minutes to take in its intricate details, the fact that there were really ten churches of various shapes and sizes interwoven into that extraordinary structure. The cathedral’s interiors were as unique as its external appearance. Apart from the abundance of medieval-style painting, gilding and iconography, we were treated to a performance by the Russian Men’s Choir as well. Like many churches in Russia, St.Basil’s Cathedral was built to commemorate a military victory- this one was for the defeat of the Khanate of Kazan, an event that spelt the beginning of the end of the Mongol-Turkic dominance and affirmed the power of the Russian Tsardom under Ivan the Terrible.

St.Basil's Cathdral

Up close- St.Basil's 

The State Historical Museum, where we had our fill of Russian history, was more detailed than we could have hoped for – ranging from prehistoric artifacts and ancient scrolls, the age of the Khans and the Tsars to the present day.

Mayakovskaya station

Reaching for the planes (not stars!)-  mosaic art at the Metro

Up next was a free (almost) course in Russian art and history through its fascinating Metro stations. No two stations were alike, and each successive one was more splendid than the other in its concept, art, architecture and manner of execution. The pink rhodonite-and-stainless steel arches of the Mayakovskaya station competed with the beautiful ceiling mosaic art representing 24 hours in the Soviet day. The themes in these mosaic panels were mostly built around rockets (zooming past the red ruby star of the Spasskaya Tower of the Red Square), planes (that a child in the arms of its mother was reaching out for), parachutes and other such images that reminded one of the age of the great Space race. We got off at station after station, passing porcelain figures depicting Belarusian life (Belarosskaya), large bronze statues depicting people in the Soviet (Ploschad Revolyutsii), stained glass panels representing (Novoslobodskaya) the intellectual professions, palatial spaces with vaulted ceilings and ornate, gilded mosaics (Komsomolskaya). All around us, as we stood around gaping, and clicking pictures, busy commuters walked briskly by, through the weekday evening rushhour, unmindful of the art galleries that they have to walk through to and from work everyday.

By now, my instincts had led me to pick up the bits of Russian script essential for survival, and as we stepped out of the Smonlenskaya station, I breezed into a restaurant, identifying the now-familiar sign that I transliterated into “pectopah” and settled down to coax vegan names off the menu.