Thursday 31 October 2013

Across Asia With A Lowlander: 3m: Moscow (III)

world-map moscow

Greetings!

Here in Stoke the nights draw in and it all gets a little colder. But thankfully, not as cold as Moscow where it can get to minus 20 or 30 in the winter. Thankfully, it wasn’t like that when we visited all those years ago, before heading onwards to Ukraine and the last part (next week) of Across Asia With A Lowlander.

Keep travelling!

Uncle Travelling Matt

Links to all parts of the travelogue

Book 1: Embarking Upon A New Korea

1a: Toyama to Pusan

1b: Pusan

1c: Seoul

1d: The DMZ

1e: Seoul, Incheon and Across the Yellow Sea

Book 2: Master Potter does Fine China

2a: Qingdao

2b: Beijing (I)

2c: Beijing (II)

2d: Beijing (III)

2e: Yinchuan (I)

2f: Yinchuan(II)

2g: Lanzhou

2h: Bingling-si

2i: Xiahe

2j: Lanzhou and Jiayuguan

2k: Jiayuguan

2l: Dunhuang

2m: Urumqi (I)

2n: Urumqi (II)

2o: Urumqi (III)

Book 3: Steppe to the Left, Steppe to the Right…

3a: Druzhba to Almaty

3b: Shumkent to Tashkent

3c: Tashkent (I) 

3d: Bukhara

3e: Bukhara to Samarkand

3f: Samarkand

3g: Samarkand to Urgench

3h: Khiva

3i: Tashkent (II)

3j: Tashkent to Moscow

3k: Moscow (I)

3l: Moscow (II)

3m: Moscow (III)

3n: Konotop to Varna

european russia 1

moscow_map_1

27th - 31st August, 2002 – Moscow, Russia

But of course, great and varied though Moscow’s many attractions undoubtedly are, there is one place that is one everybody’s list, one must-see, one site of pilgrimage for the world’s socialist faithful.

Red Square.

Any child of the Cold War will remember those vast parades of military might across those hallowed red cobbles, (from which the square gets its name, no I’m sorry to say, it is nothing revolutionary), the onion domes of St. Basil’s at one end and the towering wall of the Kremlin down the side. And in front of that wall was the one thing in Russia that I wished to see more than aught else.

Lenin’s tomb.

Vladimir Ilych Lenin. That diminutive, bearded gent whose visage is familiar across the globe. The man who masterminded those ‘ten days that shook the world’. The orchestrator of the first successful worker’s revolution and creator of the first socialist state. And thinker, and writer, and, (if you’re to believe the Soviet Era school textbooks), friend of all the little children a la Jesus Christ, and, (if you’re Inessa Armand), a great lover to boot.

A great man, yet a tiny man.

I entered the smart-soldier guarded gloom, turned left, turned right, and then turned right again. There he was. In an illuminated glass case. Even smaller than I’d imagined, yet less wax-like than I’d been led to believe. I gazed on that famous face. How often is it that one has the opportunity to view a person, (albeit dead), who has rocked the world? It was a moving experience. The sunlight blinded me as I re-entered the outside world.

After Lenin there was the opportunity to view some of the graves of the other great names in Soviet history; those who are commemorated in the Kremlin Wall. Foremost was Stalin who had once lain besides Lenin. Butcher of millions, winner of the Second World War. The man who’d inherited a USSR worked by the plough and left it with nuclear weapons. Then there was Gagarin, the first man in space, John Reed, the author of that ‘Ten Days’, Inessa Armand who’d also lain beside Lenin, though not in the mausoleum, and my favourite Soviet leader, the peasant who ended the terror, Nikita Khrushchev.

And from the temporal to the spiritual. Red Square might have been the heart of world atheism, but its most familiar landmark is dedicated to Christ. St. Basil’s Cathedral, oft portrayed as a random riot of colourful onion domes is actually entirely symmetrical. Its beauty and the genius of its architects was reportedly so great that when they had finished the work, Ivan the Terrible reportedly had their eyes gorged out so that they may never produce a work of such beauty. Its interior is a maze of dark passages which we filed around, occasionally bumping into one another unexpectedly and also coming across beautiful music sung by a choir in the haunting incense-filled central chamber.

AWL234

AWL235 Red Square

But all things must pass and the time to leave the Russian capital soon came. First off was the Lowlander who was to catch a Swissair flight back to his homeland. I travelled with him on the metro line to the stop for Domodedovo Airport. So, how was it, leaving a travelling companion of over a month and a half? We’d done well considering. We never argued or came to blows once, although the stresses and strains of Uzbekistan had brought us both to the edge of our tempers, and in my opinion at least, we contributed positively to each other’s journeys. Well that’s what I think anyway, I’ll live him to give you his take on it all. I knew for one thing that I’d miss his company, even though I did have the Sibling and Hazel to fill his boots onwards to Varna. We shook hands firmly before he boarded the minibus that went onwards to the airport itself.

And then it was our turn. We went to Yevgeny who sorted us out with tickets onwards to Bucharest and also checked at the Ukrainian Embassy about our visa situation. The Ukrainians in London and Tokyo had said that if we had a ticket onwards to a destination beyond the Ukraine, then we needed no visa, and the Ukrainians in Moscow confirmed this. Great! We were on the home straight now, and the way was clear to Bucharest! And so it was that we were waiting in the vast and gorgeous hall of Moscow’s fine Kievskaya railway station for a train to the grainlands and beyond.

As I wandered around that fine Palace of the People with its murals of the Ukrainian SSR and gigantic statue of Lenin looking boldly towards his old domains, I mused upon the experiences of the last three weeks or so, my first visit to former Soviet territory, the lands that I’d always longed to visit.

I’d expected a lot. And I was delivered a lot. Not necessarily what I’d expected, but a lot nonetheless. As I’ve explained before, the USSR had long held a place in my heart and that was always going to be difficult to live up to. Yet Moscow had lived up to it, and more besides. I shall not bore you reader, with more odes and praise directed towards that famous capital. What I said before, that no other city that I’ve had the good fortune to visit, matches her, is all that one needs to know.

But the rest of the Soviet Union, (ok, so it’s fifteen different countries these days, but allow an old romantic some license), what of it? Perhaps the most overwhelming factor is the size. Those visitors who come back from the USA informing us all about the sheer size of some countries, they know nothing. You could fit four or more USAs into the former USSR. Six hours on a train here is a local journey. We travelled for four days and yet our trip was not huge by Soviet standards. Two of those days were in Russia itself and we travelled through an area of the country comparable in percentage to if we’d visited Britain and journeyed only from Dover to London. In other words, we’d seen nothing. The size, the unchanging landscape, the countless villages and towns. The human mind cannot comprehend it. Leastways, mine cannot.

And the politics and economics. Perhaps I still cling to the USSR identity so much since, (Moscow aside, it was a completely different story there), not a lot seems to have changed. Here in Eastern Europe, even lowly and lagging behind Bulgaria, things are moving. The days of socialism are but an ever-retreating dream. Yet in the Soviet Union, particularly Turkestan, it is as if it all ended yesterday, if at all. Indeed in those countries, I am sorry to say, but indeed anything good seems to be Soviet. Nothing seems to have been developed since 1991 bar a (bankrupt) Daewoo plant and a worrying explosion of nationalism. If anything they’ve retreated, particularly Turkmenistan with its astonishing personality cult, back to the dictatorial days of Josef Stalin. And yet it’s a strange, incomplete retreat. The religion for example, once an overwhelming force in conservative Bukhara and Khiva, now seems to be in name only. Little Muslim piety or Islamic habits did we witness during our trip. In fact, if anything, only the Orthodox Russians who filled their cathedrals in Almaty and Moscow, seem to have undergone any sort of religious revival. No indeed, those are strange lands. Not backward, yet somehow stuck in the past. And for all its faults, for Central Asia at least, the greatest tragedy of the Soviet Union is that it’s not still there. Then perhaps there might be hope for the future. Tragically at present, I can see none.

But that was all behind us, and as we boarded the big blue train that was to ferry us to a new land, it was time to say goodbye to Orthodoxy’s Third Rome and turn our thoughts instead to another ex-Soviet Republic, the former grain-basket of the Union and cradle of Slavic culture: The Ukraine.

AWL236 By the Moskva River

Next part: 3n: Konotop to Varna

Thursday 24 October 2013

Across Asia With A Lowlander: 3l: Moscow (II)

world-map moscow

Greetings!

And once again we have an early posting on TOTV and once again it’s due to Friday night engagements. This week we’re still in Moscow but just to show that old travelogues can be relevant a decade on, I thought it interesting and sad to hear on the news this morning that Man City’s captain Yahya Toure was subjected to racial abusive in their game in Moscow last night. As my travelogue last week demonstrated, the problem is not a new one in those parts and sadly, has not been dealt with, all the more worrying considering that Moscow is hosting games in the 2018 World Cup.

But as this week’s travelogue will show, there is much more to Moscow than an unhealthy dollop of intolerance and whilst last night signified a lack of culture, what you may read now shows the distinct opposite.

But before we go on with the show, I thought I’d share with you all a nice little present I was given today, the first ever UTM-inspired tableware, (all the more apt considering my home city). Thanks a lot guys, it was really touching!

UTM plate

Keep travelling!

Uncle Travelling Matt

Links to all parts of the travelogue

Book 1: Embarking Upon A New Korea

1a: Toyama to Pusan

1b: Pusan

1c: Seoul

1d: The DMZ

1e: Seoul, Incheon and Across the Yellow Sea

Book 2: Master Potter does Fine China

2a: Qingdao

2b: Beijing (I)

2c: Beijing (II)

2d: Beijing (III)

2e: Yinchuan (I)

2f: Yinchuan(II)

2g: Lanzhou

2h: Bingling-si

2i: Xiahe

2j: Lanzhou and Jiayuguan

2k: Jiayuguan

2l: Dunhuang

2m: Urumqi (I)

2n: Urumqi (II)

2o: Urumqi (III)

Book 3: Steppe to the Left, Steppe to the Right…

3a: Druzhba to Almaty

3b: Shumkent to Tashkent

3c: Tashkent (I) 

3d: Bukhara

3e: Bukhara to Samarkand

3f: Samarkand

3g: Samarkand to Urgench

3h: Khiva

3i: Tashkent (II)

3j: Tashkent to Moscow

3k: Moscow (I)

3l: Moscow (II)

3m: Moscow (III)

3n: Konotop to Varna

european russia 1

moscow_map_1

27th - 31st August, 2002 – Moscow, Russia

For those of you thinking that I am perhaps a bit of a cultural ignoramus, ('He can't appreciate sculptures, “Stalin is a Stokie”, really! And he actually liked those monstrosities erected by Luzhkov-Tsereteli! Really!'), I'm sorry, but it gets worse. Much worse. I once described one of Christendom's greatest churches, the magnificent Aga Sofia in Istanbul as 'a bit crap from the outside' (it is), and the world-famous Parthenon in Athens as 'a ruined Birmingham Town Hall' (which it is as well). No culture vulture am I, I'm afraid, and alas I shall now sink to even lower depths.

I don't get art.

Yep, that's right, I don't get it. Of course I like some painting, but they're generally the ones where you can:-

a). Tell what they are of and,

b). Are of places that I've visited, (“Been there mate, and right nice it was too, though a bit crap from the outside... like Birmingham Town Hall.”).

No, it doesn't do it for me, especially the stuff where you can't tell what's going on, (or maybe you can... if you're on drugs, must try that one day[1]). And yet the Sibling is an artist, (at least he says so, I doubt it since I can tell what his pictures are supposed to be of), and my gran dabbles in the old water-colours as well, plus I have a GCSE Grade C qualification in 'Art: Drawing and Painting', which shows that if one puts their mind to it, even a GCSE in French might be possible... one day.

But if all that's the case, then why were the Lowlander and I now walking through the trendy glass doors of Moscow's famous Tretyakov Gallery? Culturally inspired by the Mouse? No, we'd not met her yet, (remember, this bit's not chronological, but instead as organised as I am). Feeling an overwhelming urge to ogle oils. Err, maybe? Or just because the guidebook, (which we still trusted implicitly, not having reached the Luzhkov-Tserenteli bit yet), described it as ‘nothing short of spectacular’[2]. Besides, like with dog soup, Turkish Baths and weird Central Asian states ending in 'Stan', if you don't know what something's about, then my advice is to try it!

And by the time that we exited those same trendy glass doors several hours later, we'd done just that. And what's more, we'd rather enjoyed it. Ok, so it wasn't all good. The countless portraits of kings, queens and generals didn't do it for me, (didn't know them you see, although a couple of the princesses were quite fit), nor did the modern stuff in the end gallery that depicted... well, I'm not quite sure what they depicted, that's why they were crap. But a lot of the other stuff, well that was nice. Big battle scenes, (and who can resist a big battle, eh?), stories from the Bible, (been there, read the book and sampled the wine), and a room full of paintings of Uzbekistan in Tsarist times, (not only been there, but only just come back!). Ok, so the Greek legends didn't really get my juices flowing really, (not exactly received a classical education you know, darling, and well, the place has changed rather a lot in three thousand years, more hotels than Homer these days), but overall, well call me Cultureman now!

One of the paintings of Central Asia particularly interested me. It was entitled 'Uzbek Woman in Tashkent’, it was by Vasily Vereshchagin (1873) and it depicted a bundle of cloth, not even an eye exposed to the world, shuffling along a street in the Silk Road town. Those who say that the revolution changed nothing for the better in Turkestan are wrong. We were amazed by the fact that very few of the Uzbekis girls even wear headscarves these days. Such attire as the lady in the painting was wearing, impractical for work, would be unthinkable and although the women of Central Asia are still a long way from achieving equality, the Russians helped them make great steps along that road. That picture clearly demonstrated that. There, but a hundred years ago, was a woman locked in a cultural regime more conservative than that of the Saudis. Nowadays the girls of the 'Stans' are more comparable to their sisters in Riga than Riyadh.

AWL221 Uzbek Woman in Tashkent

My favourite picture however was a gigantic one done by a fellow named Alexander Ivanov, (N.B. All the paintings in the Tretyakov are by Russian artists. Those by foreigners are largely in the Pushkin Gallery which was closed when we attempted to visit). It was called 'The Appearance of Christ to the People' (1837-57) and showed Jesus appearing to the masses after his time spent in the wilderness battling the Devil. This painting must have been remarkable since not only did I like it, but it also featured no place that I'd been to, nor was I that familiar with the story behind it. What struck me were the expressions on all the faces in the crowd; surprise, joy, horror, pain, and walking towards them, the Messiah, with an expression of pure serenity. It was enough to make anyone want to go to church, and so a little later on, we did just that.

AWL222 The Appearance of Christ to the People

Say 'The Kremlin' and you think 'power'. That vast mediaeval fortress by Red Square, from where many a mysterious leader, (and let's be honest, even today, how much do we actually know about Vladimir Putin?), has dictated the fate of the largest nation on Earth.

Inside that famous compound however, all is not what one might expect, for the chief attractions are not its war museums, corridors of power or even the armoury, but instead surprisingly, considering its role for eighty years as the heart of an atheist power, its cathedrals.

But of course, not that surprising. After all, the Kremlin started in the 1150s, was for centuries the headquarters of the not only Russia's temporal power, the State, but also her spiritual domain, the Orthodox Church. And after Constantinople fell to the infidel Turks in 1453, the Russians declared that their capital should become the Third Rome, (the first having fallen to the heathen Catholics in 1054 after the split of the two churches).[3] And today's Kremlin is the result, with a Patriarch's Palace and no fewer than three cathedrals, a church and a big bell tower. We wandered around these magnificent structures, marvelling at the finery, paintings and icons, before heading out into the open and taking silly photos by a big bell with a piece missing and a ridiculously large cannon. Which was all very nice and educational, and interesting, and whatever, except that I for one felt that I was missing out on something, and both the Sibling and Hazel agreed. Well actually, that's not true. I knew what it was and we weren't missing out on these things at all, if anything we'd seen far too many of them, but what I'm trying to say is that I was missing out on what exactly they were all about.

Icons.

Walk into any Eastern Orthodox church and you'll be confronted by them. Lots of them. Gold-leafed Christs or Marys, Apostles or unknown saintly gents working miracles, healing the sick or just sat there in a holy fashion. If one item can symbolise Orthodoxy like the Rosary symbolises Catholicism, then it's the icon, and here in that branch of Christianity's Third Rome, they were out in force, not only in the churches and cathedrals, but also in the Tretyakov where I'd wandered uncomprehendingly through two galleries full of the things.

And yet, I am sorry to say that despite looking at so many, probably the finest on Earth, I still don't 'get' them. Perhaps it's because they're so noticeably absent in the English Church, I don't know, but I for one just can't see it. But what do you mean by 'it' you ask? Well, I just don't know. It's certainly not what they depict for sure. That bearded fellow there is obviously Christ, whilst the lady next to him is Mary. And the guy killing a dragon I can safely bet to be St. George, whilst this bearded, be-cloaked fellow, hmm... not too sure, let's look what it says... oh, he's a patriarch. No, what I don't get is the whole holy inspiring aspect of them. To me, they just look like rather one-dimensional paintings of holy fellows with a bit of gold stuck on for good measure, yet to countless millions, including scores of non-Orthodox, they raise the spirits to saintly levels. Why is this? Don't ask me. Why don't I get this holy rush? Again, don't ask. I'd like to appreciate icons, and I've tried to appreciate icons, but alas, it seems that I cannot and instead I find myself echoing the feelings of the Sibling uttered when we entered yet another House of God.

“What's inside here?” I asked he with the guidebook.

“Another load of gold Jesuses I should imagine,” came the reply.

AWL223 AWL224

AWL225 AWL226 Capering around the Kremlin

Yet Orthodoxy is not a faith that leaves me spiritually cold. Quite the contrary in fact. Walking along a street near to the Sculpture Park, we heard singing emerging from a small red church. I entered to find a Mass in full swing, with be-scarved babushkas and other Messiah-minded Muscovites standing solemnly in attendance, whilst a choir and priest sand the rites. I stood silently at the back, immersing myself in the chants, incantations and flickering candlelight, before emerging back out onto the sunlit street.

AWL227 The church where we attended Mass

But long days in the city can make one tired and dirty, even if that city is one of the Earth's finest, and so one day the Lowlander and I decided to go for a bath. And having sampled the Korean and Turkic variations of bathing this trip, was it not now only fitting to sample the famous Ruska Banya? And where better to do so, than in the equally-famous Sandunovskiye Baths, the capital's oldest and finest, where the cronies of both the Tsars and the People's Dictators once bathed.

Well, the idea sounded good to us anyway. I who, (as has been said several times already in this text), has long loved to bathe, and the Lowlander, who was fast developing a taste for it. Admittedly the entrance fee at twelve euros each was more than a little steep, but this was a one-off and these baths were meant to be something a little bit special.

And special they indeed were, more like works of art than places to clean oneself. The foyer and staircase were baroque excellence, whilst the changing rooms were like one had entered Hogwart's School of Witchcraft and Wizardry; an explosion of Gothic, with dark and finely-carved cubicles and a vaulted roof fit for an English stately home. And having shed our clothes, we went to deposit our valuables in the next room and lo! Where were we? But back in Uzbekistan, with colourful geometric patterns covering the walls and ceilings. It's strange to think about, but logical I suppose, that whilst the eccentric Georgians and Victorians were thinking of India whilst building Brighton Pavilion and other such edifices based on the styles of the Raj, the Russians looked to their own exotic colonies and Bukharan kitsch was obviously the 'in' thing in the days of the Romanovs.

But into the baths themselves, and quite a different heritage was revealed. No Asian traces here, like their churches, the Russians can trace their bathing habits back to the Romans, and the rooms of the Sandunovskiye clearly reflect this. Swimming around in a pool surrounded by doric columns and statues of heathen goddesses, one felt more in Rome than Russia. It was a scene straight out of an Asterix and Obelix comic book, even down to the fact that there was a big fat guy provided.

But great as the pool was for cooling off, one needed to get hot first, and for that there was a huge and hot sauna, peopled by bathers in pixie hats, (never worked out where they came from, the hats I mean), with bundles of birch rods with which they regularly beat themselves and wafted the hot air about. We entered sans hats but with birch bundles, and proceeded to heat up and hit ourselves; a bathing first for me and something that I highly recommend.

And so it was that we thoroughly enjoyed our final bathing experience of the trip, and as we dried off in the Gryffindor Common Room, (well, except for the fact that some of the inmates looked decidedly Slytherin), we declared the Russians to be as good at bathing as the Koreans, which in my mind, is high praise indeed.

We decided one day to head out of the town a little and aim for the city's greener suburbs. The centre of Moscow had been (surprisingly) almost Western European in its cleanliness and standards. Did that permeate out to the Muscovite outskirts though? What's more, out of town, there were two things that we really wanted to see.

The first was VDNKh, (Vystavka Dostizheny Naraodnogo Khozyaystva), or as it's officially known these days (though not commonly), the All-Russia Exhibition Centre.

'Why go to an exhibition centre though?' You ask. 'After all, there's not much to see at the NEC when there's no exhibition on, barring a load of empty halls.' Well, good point, though I'll have you know that I have actually visited the NEC when there was nothing on. However, the reason why we were heading VDNKh way was because the VDNKh is no ordinary exhibition centre.

AWL228 The entrance to VDNKh

Built in the fifties and sixties, VDNKh was the regime's attempt to show all and sundry just what a bloody good job they were doing. Two square kilometres in size, it consists of wide avenues, flanked by grandiose pavilions, each one highlighting the achievements of the USSR as a whole in a particular field, (e.g. Electrification, Space Travel), or the great advances achieved by each of the Republics in particular and nowhere else in the former USSR can the Soviet Dream be seen in so much glory, with glorious golden fountains, Classical or neo-Gothic pavilions and rockets thrusting towards the heavens. No NEC is this, more a twentieth century Versailles dedicated not to a king, but instead the collective power of the entire Soviet population. We walked around impressed, taking photos aplenty and observing the antics of a wedding party who were downing vodkas by a large kitschy fountain overlooked by the ever-sage V.I. Lenin.

AWL229 Wedding by the kitschy fountain

Yes indeed, a Soviet Exhibition Centre is something spectacular, but unfortunately without a Soviet Union, and with a Russia that has rather little to boast about these days, it is also somewhat without purpose. Admittedly, some of the new Republics had small displays in their respective pavilions, (alas, we never found the Turkmenistan one), but nowadays step inside most of those glorious colonnaded edifices, and you are faced not with any stunning technological advances, but instead an array of Korean videos, Japanese cameras and German toasters, for the sad fate of the VDNKh is to have become an elegant and architecturally-striking Russian equivalent of a car boot sale.

AWL230 VDNKh

Oh well, I needed a camera, (I'd left my last one at Kolya's house by accident), so I acquired a cheap little Korean one in the Ukrainian SSR Pavilion, from a tiny store situated next to a display of Kievian folk dress sponsored by the Government of the Republic of Ukraine. And camera bought, we moved onto the Kosmos Pavilion where we enjoyed a cup of tea.

AWL231

AWL232 AWL233 The Space Travel Monument at VDNKh

But there wasn't just an exhibition centre to see in this northern Moscow suburb. Oh no, we were here to see something else as well. As you well know by now, throughout the entire trip the Lowlander and I had developed a habit for getting as high as kites and whilst on our last excursion to the heavens, (at the Tashkent Tower), we'd been given a leaflet showing the relative heights of the world's tallest buildings.

And there in second place, only thirteen metres behind the CN Tower of Canada, was the Ostankino Tower of Moscow at an astonishing 540 metres! We had to go!

Luckily, this towering pinnacle of Soviet err.. TV achievement was but a short distance away, across the park of the same name. Unluckily however, it was shut that day to the general public, so after taking some photos, (with new Korean camera!) of us looking longingly at the old Ostankino, we boarded a trolleybus, (on which we couldn't work out how to pay for a ticket, so we didn't), and went back to the VDNKh metro station.

One of my favourite places in Moscow was a small shop tucked away in a sidestreet near to the Nikolai Gogol Museum. That shop was the ANGLIYA BRITISH BOOKSHOP and for an avid reader who’d been starved of a decent selection of English language reading material for over a month and a half, it was a gift from heaven. I sought it out the first time to try and locate a copy of Pushkin’s Yevgeny Onegin in my native tongue, (they didn’t have it), but returned afterwards to add to my already too-large pile of books, purchasing works by Bulgakov, Magnus Mills, Lawrence Durrell, Pasternak and Hardy amongst others, to keep me going throughout those long journeys across the Ukraine and Romania.

Next part: 3m: Moscow (III)


[1]Must point out here that that was said entirely in jest. Drugs are bad, incredibly so in fact and you must never even think of trying them kids.

[2] p.200 Lonely Planet: Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. 2nd Edition, April 2000

[3]There are other cities claiming to be the Third Orthodox Rome, foremost amongst which is the ancient Bulgarian capital, Veliko Turnovo. However, after having visited that city, I can resolutely say that such a claim is more due to an overdose of Balkan pride and nationalism than anything historically concrete.

Thursday 17 October 2013

Across Asia With A Lowlander: 3k: Moscow (I)

world-map moscow

Greetings!

And here’s something you don’t get very often on UTM; a post that’s early rather than late! Well, the truth is, I’m not likely to have time tomorrow evening due to an appointment with several pints of real ale in a public house or two so I thought it best to send this one out early. And besides, it’s rather fitting too, since a large part of this post is dedicated to drinking beer. I just hope that the people I’ll be drinking with tomorrow are a little less weird than those I met in Moscow all those years ago. However, since at least one of them was with me in Russia’s great city too, I’m not holding out too many hopes…

Keep travelling!

Uncle Travelling Matt

Links to all parts of the travelogue

Book 1: Embarking Upon A New Korea

1a: Toyama to Pusan

1b: Pusan

1c: Seoul

1d: The DMZ

1e: Seoul, Incheon and Across the Yellow Sea

Book 2: Master Potter does Fine China

2a: Qingdao

2b: Beijing (I)

2c: Beijing (II)

2d: Beijing (III)

2e: Yinchuan (I)

2f: Yinchuan(II)

2g: Lanzhou

2h: Bingling-si

2i: Xiahe

2j: Lanzhou and Jiayuguan

2k: Jiayuguan

2l: Dunhuang

2m: Urumqi (I)

2n: Urumqi (II)

2o: Urumqi (III)

Book 3: Steppe to the Left, Steppe to the Right…

3a: Druzhba to Almaty

3b: Shumkent to Tashkent

3c: Tashkent (I) 

3d: Bukhara

3e: Bukhara to Samarkand

3f: Samarkand

3g: Samarkand to Urgench

3h: Khiva

3i: Tashkent (II)

3j: Tashkent to Moscow

3k: Moscow (I)

3l: Moscow (II)

3m: Moscow (III)

3n: Konotop to Varna

european russia 1

moscow_map_1

27th - 31st August, 2002 – Moscow, Russia

And here alas, did my journal finish. The one that I'd so meticulously kept up for almost two months across an entire continent, the Earth's largest, the backbone of this work, I finally neglected. And now looking back, trying to recapture on paper the activities, accounts and emotions of those days spent in the Russian capital, I find the task difficult. They were memorable days and they were happy days, but they were also days that have blurred together as one. So, I apologise now, that this account is not chronological, not ordered and not the best. Like I was on the journey, I am now with the pen. Fatigued by it all, realising that I'm lucky to have had the opportunity to see all those fine places, but not really appreciating it all as fully as I should be, and instead at the back of my mind, growing ever larger as each day passed by, the desire to settle down, stay in one place for some length of time, to return to a normal, routine based existence. Yes indeed, as we took the train out of Kievskaya station, leaving that famous old city behind, that's how I felt. It was a feeling that had started with the rigours of Uzbekistan and grown slowly, almost unseen, continually...

Continually? No, not continually. For some strange reason, throughout our six days in Moscow, that feeling, that fatigue, just vanished. It was like the start of our trip once more. We were new to it and as eager to explore as we had been back in Korea. Was it the addition of two new faces to our company? Or was it just that this was not Uzbekistan, or perhaps was it simply the aura of that great city itself? Who knows? Not I anyway, but those six days were an oasis of freshness, energy and excitement.

The two new faces were from home. My home that is, not the Lowlander's. One was the Sibling, a twenty-year old art student with whom I've had the good fortune (and misfortune) to share a family, home and bedroom with for the majority of my life's younger years. His travelling was just starting: Japan last year, and Moscow to Bulgaria this. And with him a lady named Hazel whom I did not know, but had once met briefly in the pub (I think). This was her first big trip. They arrived the following day, turning up with the ever-smiling Yevgeny, (who according to Hazel was more than a bit sexy, I never saw it myself), at our hotel room high above Ismailovskii Park. That I remember clearly. The order of the rest is a blur.

We liked Moscow. Not just the Lowlander and I, but the two new recruits as well. The Sibling revelled in the art and architecture. Hazel, well I don't know exactly what it was that she liked about it, but we were assured that like it she did, a lot. The Lowlander even said that he was definitely coming back one day, (and I've never heard him say that about anywhere else except China because it was changing so fast and the Netherlands because he lives there), and I...

I fell in love with the place.

Moscow is without a doubt the finest city that I have ever had the privilege to visit, (well, apart from Stoke on Trent of course, but I am biased about that one). Barcelona comes close, and Istanbul is not far behind, but Moscow takes it. It is a city to see.

I was worried beforehand about the Russian capital. Apart from my fascination with communism, for years I've had a thing about Russia in general and her capital in particular, partially brought on by her great literature, partially her music and partially something else unknown. This was the one city, more than all the others on Planet Earth, that I'd longed to visit. Yet that was bad. How many times have you built your hopes up about a place, formulated some mystical image of it in your mind, only for the reality to be a bitter disappointment? Such had been Kyoto, Bukhara, Amsterdam and Athens for me. And the cities that I loved; Hong Kong, Manila, Thessalonica, Urumqi, Barcelona and Istanbul. Those I'd no prior expectations about.

Yet Moscow broke the mould, and it broke it because not only did what I'd expected to find there did I find, but there was much more besides that I'd not anticipated. What I'd visualised was the socialist city; Red Square, Lenin's Tomb, the Seven Sisters... For Tsarist history I could go to St. Petersburg. And yes, the Red stuff was there, but so too was the City of the Romanovs, streets that echoed the pages of Tolstoy, Goncharov, Bulgakov and Pasternak. And the mediaeval Russia too, shades of Ivan the Terrible and the glory of Orthodox Christianity's Third and Final Rome, the Holy City of onion domes and icons. Yet that too was not all, for here, unlike in the countryside that we'd passed through from Orenburg, were the signs of the new Russia, the latest era in a history of epic proportions. The latest chapter in the tale of a great country that is trying to re-establish its position in the world.

In fact, our Moscow highlight was but five years old. That was the mighty Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, completed in 1997 in time for the city's 850th birthday under the auspices of the flamboyant mayor, Yuri Luzhkov. Originally, the cathedral was built between 1839-83 to commemorate the Russian victory over Napoleon, but Stalin, who was big on the old secularism blew it up, planning instead to erect a 'Palace of the Soviets' in its place, complete with a humongous statue of Lenin. That never got built though and instead all that filled the space was but a swimming pool.[1] When the USSR fell in 1991 however, it wasn't long before there was talk of rebuilding, with Yuri Luzhkov presenting the job to his favourite architect, Zarub Tsereteli. The result is a huge white Orthodox edifice topped by golden domes and decorated with scores of modern icons and images of the holy. We wandered around the mammoth interior, our heads fixed upwards, before descending the steps to the vaults beneath where an exhibition of the cathedral's past and an art gallery were hosted. The whole complex was magnificent and a fine addition to Moscow's panthenon of architectural masterpieces.

Or so we thought.

Our guidebook however, had other ideas.

'Just as Francois Mitterand left his mark on Paris through a series of mega-projects such as the Lourve pyramids and La Defense, so too Mayor Yuri Luzhkov wants to leave his mark on Moscow. However, to date his ‘mark’ has been more akin to what canines do to signal their territory – at least from an aesthetic view'[2]

moskva06 The Cathedral of Christ the Saviour

It then goes on to give it's open and balanced opinion on one of Luzhkov-Tsereteli's other big projects in the city: The Peter the Great Memorial.

'Impossibly ugly, ungainly, and lots of other unfavourable adjectives, the 60m statue allegedly depicts the Russian ruler on the prow of a stylised boat. In reality, the monstrous pile shows a strange blob of a man on an even blobbier boat with sails that look like so many sheets hung out to dry.'[3]

Now wait a minute! We had a look at that monument and whilst it is undeniably huge, 'blobby' is not an adjective that I'd use to describe it. 'Different' yes, 'exciting' too, and perhaps 'brave' as well. But 'ugly' and 'ungainly' no.[4] Such attitudes really piss me off actually. So the guidebook writers don't like Yuri Luzhkov, fair enough. I don't know enough about the guy myself to pass an opinion, but one can guess... But surely the character of the man and the things that he's had built are two different kettles of fish entirely? It doesn't stop there though. These fine recorders of all things touristy also have a word to say on the city's famous Seven Sisters, ('Stalinist neo-Gothic monstrosities'[5]), and in the Eastern Europe on a Shoestring guide that I also possess, Ceausescu's Palace of the People in Bucharest is similarly lambasted. Now I'm sorry, but this annoys me. Ok, so everyone's entitled to their own views on architecture, and I obviously think differently to those that write the guidebooks. I know that I think differently to many people about buildings since I actually agree with Prince Charles on the subject and what's more, when I visited Rotterdam some years back I was far from impressed by its renowned Kijk Kubus (Cube Houses) which I considered ugly, impractical, gaudy, egotistical crap. My comrade from nearby that metropolis takes the opposite view and on more than one occasion have we argued about the matter. No, diverging opinions are great, but what is not great is firstly when a writer of a guidebook thrusts their view on you and secondly, when I suspect that it's not really the building that they are criticising.

moskva05 Luzhkov’s folly or Zereteli’s masterpiece? The Peter the Great Memorial

Or maybe they are? Ok, I can see why some would not like the offspring of the Luzhkov-Tsereteli marriage. But the pattern that I see here is more a tendency to criticize buildings erected by those leaders who sway more than a little towards dictatorship. Stalin ordered it? Well then, it's an abomination! Ceausescu, it's monolithic. Mao, ugly and imposing. Fair enough, so these guys weren't exactly the gentlest and sweetest that the world's ever seen. But is it right to criticize what they ordered to be built, just on the basis that they were evil? Methinks no. But such criticism gets even more hypocritical when it comes to age. Suharto, Lenin and Hitler; the evil minds of the modern world get their contributions to the architecture of mankind pulled to pieces, yet the world's largest mass grave, the Great Wall of China, or the Pyramids, (whose construction it is reckoned cost thousands of lives, they just can't decide whether these were human or alien), why they're ok! So what if the people who ordered them to be built were complete bastards? It was so long ago that no one can remember! No, I'm sorry but whilst Stalin was bad, his Seven Sisters aren't. Luzhkov is full of himself, but his contributions to the Moscow skyline are great, precisely because of that, and the government of South Korea, whilst having produced a successful and dynamic modern country, are pitiful when it comes to producing good architecture and it is virtually in this field alone, in which they lag far behind the pitiful North.

Near to the Peter the Great Memorial is Gorky Park, made famous in the 1980s by (what was in my opinion, a rather crap) novel by Martin Cruz Smith of the same name. Crap or not, it sold and so the place is now known to all Westerners. Not that it's anything special mind, it is after all, just a park, largely green with trees, bushes and other similar vegetation, but at the far northern end there is one little gem to be found, and find it we did. The Sculpture Park.

Now to be honest, I'm not really a sculptures kinda guy. I've looked at a lot, from the blobby works of Henry Moore to the finely chiselled pieces of Ancient Greece, and I'm sorry to say that most have left a similar impression on me as say, a Genesis album. Not bad, but not brilliant, and certainly not something that I'd go out and buy.[6]

But I am a sucker for the old Socialist Realism, and that's what this place was largely full of. Old Soviet statues collected by artists, and then turned into new works of art symbolising the new realities in Russia. Old-time generals mingled with modernistic stick men and heroic soldiers fought with eco-warriors. The most haunting however, was a large proud-standing Uncle Joe Stalin, looking with confidence towards the future.

And surrounded by the stone faces of his victims, locked in rusting iron cages.

We so liked the place that we visited it twice, (well, maybe the second trip was due more to the fact that it was free?), the first to look at and admire the creations of the modern Muscovite artistic community, and the second to put Stoke City shirts on the Lenin and Stalin busts and have our photos taken next to them for the next issue of Famous Stoke City Supporters. 'Stalin is a Stokie!' Cool, eh?

moskva04  moskva03 The Sculpture Park in Gorky Park

Whilst in Japan, two of my closest friend and drinking comrades had been Russian. Dimitri Charikov and Natalia Dorozhkina, partners in many a barbeque, evening meal or game of football, had both been born and brought up in the country that was now hosting us. Not that that means a lot mind. The Russian Federation is a big place. (Correction, oceans aside, it is the biggest place). They both hailed from cities as near to Moscow as Dallas is to Stoke on Trent, but if you're Russian, then have roubles, will travel, and whilst there was no Dima or Natasha in the capital, (well ok, there were millions actually, but none that we knew personally), there was an Olga Vlasova who was Dima's cousin and wanted to meet up. And so, one evening, the Lowlander and I waited outside the Bolshoi Theatre to meet our Russian contact.

The Russians are of course, a strange, extreme and somewhat eccentric people, their history being littered with the flamboyant and the weird, from Rasputin to Stalin, Ivan the Terrible, the False Dimitri, the Second False Dimitri, Dostoevsky, Bulgakov and of course, those rapers of the Russian skyline (if you are a guidebook writer), Luzhkov and Tsereteli. Considering such a heritage, I suppose I should have expected something, but... but well, Dima had seemed normal enough.

“I'm Olga,” said the thin young lady, who greeted us outside that most famous of theatres. “But all my friends call me 'The Mouse'.”

“'The Mouse'?”

“Yes, 'The Mouse', because I love cheese! I adore it! I eat cheese everyday!”

Hmm...

Olga escorted us to an atmospheric bar on nearby Bolshaiya Dmitnovka Ulitsa that smacked of Bohemianism. There was a small bookshop selling arty works of world literature upstairs, whilst downstairs students and others with scarves around their necks and ethnic clothing on their torsos, drank and discoursed. This was more Parisian than Muscovite and was yet another indicator as to how European the Russian capital truly is.

And it suited our Olga down to the ground, for if the establishment had an aroma of Bohemianism, then she positively reeked of it. We soon learnt that apart from a daily dose of cheese, she also slept at irregular hours, was a vegetarian and had a love affair with St. Petersburg where she would often pop off for a weekend, spending her time at the Hermitage or gazing at the buildings. This was intriguing since I was fast falling in love with Moscow because of its cultural assets, so how did Leningrad compare?

“Moscow is fantastic too, but St. Petersburg is better. Oh, it's amazing! You should give up the idea of going to Bulgaria and instead work in St. Petersburg! We could get an apartment together and eat cheese everyday!”

Hmm... Perhaps. Maybe St. Petersburg was not such a good subject to dwell upon.

“So, how long is it since you've seen Dimitri?” I asked, considering cousinly common ground to be a good idea.

“Oh, far too long! Years! Last time he returned to Vladivostok from Japan, I was here in Moscow. It's such a shame since we are very close. I love him so much, even more than I love cheese!”

And that was evidently a very strong bond indeed. I made a mental note never to relate her admission to Natasha.

The following night we were back with the Mouse in the Bohemian Bar. Or at least I was. The Lowlander was feeling sick, but this time I was joined by Hazel and the Sibling. And our rodent-inspired friend was not alone this time either, bringing with her Bohemian self, several Bohemian friends as well. And so it was that the beer and vodka flowed and we enjoyed one of the most, erm, interesting drinking sessions of our lives, where the topics dipped and swirled like the patterns on Olga's friend's tie-dye T-shirt, from literary criticism of Dostoevsky and appreciation of the pictures in the Tretyakov, to one young man's announcement that, “I am not racist. I just hate niggers!”

“Excuse me?” Only a moment before we'd been on the emergence of the Cyrillic alphabet.

“I hate niggers.”

“But how can you hate niggers? [Being British, that once harmless word made me cringe.] There's none here to hate.”

“I hate their culture.”

“What's wrong with it? Tribal beats, the brightly-coloured costumes, primitive faiths...” (I'd have expected such Bohemians to dig such things, baby).

“No, not that, I mean rap music, R 'n' B, the ghetto culture, that sort of stuff.”

“But that's not fair. I hate rap too, but most 'niggers' don't rap. Most are in Africa. Why blame them for the travesties in music that rap, R 'n' B and hip-hop are?”

He thought about this for a moment. “Fair point,” he said, “I don't hate niggers. I hate Afro-Americans.”

But is his view all that bad? Well, erm, yes it is, or at least it is in my opinion. What it is not however, is unusual. Visitors to Eastern Europe are regularly shocked by the overt racism displayed by otherwise well-educated and sophisticated people, (like this guy). Gypsies, Jews, Blacks, Arabs, Turks and 'the Yellow Races' all are considered fair game, and those people who wonder how could so many have assisted the Nazis in their Final Solution, wonder no longer if they visit the vast majority of countries from whence the Jews and Gypsies were taken. To us it is shocking, unexpected. Yet, should it be? After all, it is us who have changed, not them. Talk to many British pensioners and you'll still hear tirades against the Papist, warnings that 'The Jew likes the feel of money in his hands' and a reassuring belief that the White Man is of course superior to his Black, Brown and Yellow cousins.

But racism aside, the night was good and we emerged onto the street a satisfied threesome indeed, before taking a long taxi ride through the dark streets of Moscow back to the Ismailovo Hotel.

moskva30

moskva31

moskva33 Drinks with the Mouse and her friends

Next part: 3l: Moscow (II)


[1]Humble though the swimming pool was, it was also much loved by many Muscovites. Later when writing this account, I talked to members of the Russian Consular Staff in the Varna Consulate. They lamented the pool's demise, saying that many's the happy winter's day they spent swimming in the now demolished pool.

[2]p.196 Lonely Planet: Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. 2nd Edition, April 2000

[3]p.196 Lonely Planet: Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. 2nd Edition, April 2000

[4] To be fair to the detractors though, there is one tale that may well be true, and that is that Tsereteli designed the statue as a monument to Columbus. Problem is the Americans weren’t interested in buying it. For a few modification in detail and price though, Luzhkov was.

[5]p.192 Lonely Planet: Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. 2nd Edition, April 2000

[6]N.B. Not including the very first Genesis album, From Genesis to Revelation which is not only something that I would go out and buy, but in fact something that I have gone out and bought. And very pleased with the purchase I was too.

Friday 11 October 2013

Across Asia With A Lowlander: 3j: Tashkent to Moscow

world-map moscow

Greetings!

This week’s offering tells of the longest single journey that I’ve ever made, (in terms of time). 72 hours non-stop on a train! I like long train journeys but that was too much even for me. However, if you’re going to take a long journey it should always be by train and there are no trains better than the old Soviet ones with a samovar always boiling at the end of each carriage, so a cup of tea is never far away. Plus, as this post shows, Soviet journeys always seem to involve meeting some interesting characters.

Anyway, all this talk of train journeys has made me think about some of the others that I’ve made and here’s my list of top ten train journeys (so far) in no particular order. And if I’ve already written about them on UTM, there’s a link attached:

1). Ankara to Istanbul, Turkey (6-8 hours)

2). Gifu to Toyama, Japan (4 hours)

3). Llandudno to Blaenau Ffestiniog, U.K. (1 hour)

4). Salva to Viseu de Jos, Romania (2 hours)

5). Thessaloniki to Athens, Greece (4-6 hours)

6). Blenheim to Christchurch, New Zealand (6 hours)

7). Jakarta to Surabaya, Indonesia (6 hours)

8). Bansko to Septemvri, Bulgaria (6 hours)

9). Shrewsbury to Pwllheli, U.K. (3-4 hours)

And my favourite of them all:

10). Sofia to Varna, Bulgaria (8 hours)

What about you?

Keep travelling!

Uncle Travelling Matt

Links to all parts of the travelogue

Book 1: Embarking Upon A New Korea

1a: Toyama to Pusan

1b: Pusan

1c: Seoul

1d: The DMZ

1e: Seoul, Incheon and Across the Yellow Sea

Book 2: Master Potter does Fine China

2a: Qingdao

2b: Beijing (I)

2c: Beijing (II)

2d: Beijing (III)

2e: Yinchuan (I)

2f: Yinchuan(II)

2g: Lanzhou

2h: Bingling-si

2i: Xiahe

2j: Lanzhou and Jiayuguan

2k: Jiayuguan

2l: Dunhuang

2m: Urumqi (I)

2n: Urumqi (II)

2o: Urumqi (III)

Book 3: Steppe to the Left, Steppe to the Right…

3a: Druzhba to Almaty

3b: Shumkent to Tashkent

3c: Tashkent (I) 

3d: Bukhara

3e: Bukhara to Samarkand

3f: Samarkand

3g: Samarkand to Urgench

3h: Khiva

3i: Tashkent (II)

3j: Tashkent to Moscow

3k: Moscow (I)

3l: Moscow (II)

3m: Moscow (III)

3n: Konotop to Varna

Uzbekistan_map5

central-asia-map

european russia 1 

24th August, 2002 – nr. Kyzylorda, Kazakhstan

Arising at a reasonable hour, the fatigues of the previous night had almost entirely abated. The windows revealed a harsh, stony landscape outside, dishearteningly identical to the one's that we'd come from in Uzbekistan, despite rumbling away through the night at a speed that in Central Asian terms could almost certainly be termed 'express'. The map however, told a much more encouraging tale. We stopped at a station named Kyzylorda, a town well inside Kazakhstan. How far it was from the border in kilometres I know not, but it was a distance of at least three centimetres on the map, and three centimetres on a map of Central Asia is a distance not to be trifled with.

journey03 A Kazakh station

I retired to the dining car with my Friend from the Flats, but alas my new-found jollity seemed not to have rubbed off onto him. Losing any game that we played in that increasingly crowded carriage didn't help his countenance either, and it wasn't long before he ventured back to our melon-filled hole for some more shut-eye. I decided to stay on however, enjoy the fayre and concentrate on Mark Twain's excellent The Innocent's Abroad, (which I'd started to read two days previously); a hilarious and insightful account of an 1869 voyage by some American pilgrims to Europe and the Holy Land. The churches of Italy and temples of Greece were just what I needed to take my mind away from the unbelievably boring, monotonous land outside that was not even green enough to be proper steppe.

In such a fashion we journeyed on towards Moscow, which was fast becoming our eternal city, through the desolate towns of Leninsk, Kazaly and Aralsk. In the book they sounded quite interesting: Leninsk, only a few kilometres distant from the renowned Baykonur Cosmodrome where the Soviets launched their sputniks into space, and Aralsk, once a busy port, though nowadays without its source of life, the Aral Sea having largely dried up due to Khrushchev's not-so-farsighted 'Virgin Lands' irrigation programme. But with the water and the Soviets gone, there is virtually nothing to commend these towns these days, except that they looked marginally better off than their counterparts in Uzbekistan. 'Marginally' I must stress, being the important word.

One feature of interest in that vast world outside however, were the local arrangements for the deceased. Every so often, on the horizon, next to the never ending iron road and telegraph wires, we'd come across what appeared to be some lost city from an ancient Islamic kingdom, a riot of domes and buildings. Upon closer inspection however, those buildings turned out to be too small to hold any standing figures, and in fact were elaborate mini-Samarkand style tombs, with the name of the dearly departed emblazoned above the entrance. Such resting places for the dead were amongst the finest that I've ever come across and all the more surprising considering who had built them. The Kazakhs, who formerly lived in yurts and nowadays largely reside in small one-storey houses or drab apartment blocks obviously believe that the finest residences should be reserved for those who are in no position to appreciate them.

journey05 Kazakh Cemetery

With the Lowlander gone, I naturally acquired several other companions at my table who were wholly unremarkable except for the fact that they were ethnic Kazakhs and thus had a more Asiatic look about them. And that they all subscribed to that most awful of fashions that plagues the former Soviet Union: Gold teeth.

Bad teeth are a fact the globe over, and these parts seemed worse than most. However, even a mouth full of decaying and chipped knashers and grinders is in my humble opinion far preferable to a Glittering Grin of Gold. A lady of uncertain age opposite me, who would have been rather attractive completely spoiled any erotic appeal she might have had every time that she opened her mouth by presenting me with a view of the interior of Fort Knox. And alas, she was not alone! In fact, it was I who stood out, the only one with teeth whiter than my tea on the whole coach. In the end I could stand the Men with the Golden Grins no longer and headed back to Melonland.

journey02 My companions in the buffet

The Lowlander's mood had not improved, and with good reason too. Our friend, the Melon Man was continually entering our tiny and fruit-filled compartment and moving stuff about. Firstly he commanded Sinbad out of his bed and onto his brother's. Then a large swarthy man took his place, only for him to be moved and a Korean lady with her ten-year old son to occupy the birth. Thus our compartment, built to hold four, was occupied by four fully-grown adults, a kid, approximately fifty large oval fruits, baggage and a black and white rat. Things finally came to a head when the Melon Man tried to move me onto an upper berth. It was clear that he was running a ticket racket as well as a melon market on this trip, and lower berths got better prices. Needless to say, he didn't get what he wanted that time and the barrage of English, Dutch and Russian curses that greeted him ensured that he didn't come in again for some time afterwards.

The scenery outside had now changed somewhat. The vast undulating grasslands that spread out on either side of the track were the true steppe that the Kazakhs are famous for. They were strangely beautiful in their loneliness and monotony. It was like the Lord, when creating His world, had got bored towards the end and left these vast tracts undone. There was absolutely nothing there, and yet it wasn't even entirely flat; He hadn't even bothered to iron it all out, and so the railway line had to wind its way constantly through the wilderness. It was more akin to a Highland Moor than anything else, except that Highland Moors, large and desolate though they are, do not occupy an area the size of Western Europe.

journey04 Kazakh Steppe

We played cards for some time and afterwards I read Samuel Clements, transporting me far away from this boundless steppe, to the far more intimate and familiar Holy Land that he was touring along with some hard-core admirers of the Bible. His account was interesting and for one who has been to those parts, I can vouch that little seems to have changed in a hundred and fifty years, that I can be fairly certain of.

One thing that I can be wholly certain of however, is that North-West Kazakhstan has changed far less, and will doubtless stay much the same for the next hundred and fifty years and more too. And that is a reassuring thought.

As it means that you don't need to see it twice.

journey01 Kazakhstan!


25th August, 2002 – Orenburg, Russia

Russia, the greatest country on Earth, Land of the Tsars, Tolstoy, Tchaikovsky and Faberge Eggs. Heart of the Soviet Union and the Promised Land.

russia visa

Wait a min, the Promised Land? Where the hell did that come from? Surely the Promised Land lies somewhere on the banks of the River Jordan? Well, maybe if you're an Israelite or a Creator of Heaven and Earth it does, but if you happen not to be and happen to be me instead, then the Promised Land is Russia and none other. Throughout my whole life she was there, a vague, vast mass to the east that threatened to blow the world up with her countless nuclear weapons and supplied all the baddies for the Bond films. She was large and she was mysterious. At school we learnt that although we fought Hitler with all our might during the war, for every hundred British or American soldiers engaged in battle, there were over three hundred Russians. Ok, so they were actually Soviet, but to us the Soviet Union and Russia, well it was the same thing wasn't it? Even my Stanley Gibbons stamp album had mistakenly headed the USSR page with a word beginning with 'R'.

And after I met my first Russian, the curiosity had only intensified. That was at a party on a kibbutz in the Negev Desert when a young man by the name of Pavel Serebryakov engaged me in a conversation in broken English about the Beatles and introduced me to his favourite band, DDT. At that gathering of over thirty, I was one of only two from the capitalist side of the Iron Curtain present. Strangely enough, the other was the man now sleeping in the same compartment as I on this journey.

Since that date I'd thirsted for knowledge. I'd studied Russian and Soviet Politics at university, had read most of the major works of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Solzhenitsyn, Goncharov, Pushkin, Chekov and Gorky, befriended Russians in Israel and Japan, gained a basic understanding of the tongue from the latter and a few vodka-induced headaches from the former, sat through Geoffrey Hoskin's long and laborious History of the Soviet Union and countless films from the works of that mastermind of cinema, Eisenstein, to a Mills and Boonsy version of Catherine the Great's life starring Catherine Zeta Jones.

Oh yes, and I'd also acquired most of the CDs of the rather good DDT and even memorised the words to one of the songs.

Not bad, not bad at all, but nonetheless I'd never actually been there. Near yes. To two of her former satellite states in Europe's East, but near is not there. Of all the countries in the world, Mother Russia was the one that I longed to visit and for me all roads led to Moscow.

Well, now I was here. In the early morning, in a half-awake state, we crossed over the border where a friendly customs official helped us complete our declaration forms. That was a good start. Question was, would the rest of the country live up to my high expectation?

The first glimpses through the window revealed a landscape whole different from the harsh steppe of the previous day. A landscape in fact that would be best described by that famous phrase, 'A Green and Pleasant Land', for although it was not England, it looked pretty similar, with green fields, lush trees and undulating hills; an intimate countryside reminiscent of the Shires. The relief for us travellers who had seen no real greenery since Beijing over a month ago, was unbelievable. Not only were we now in Russia, but we were also undoubtedly back in Europe too and for a pair of tired Euro rail riders that meant a lot indeed.

But with all good news comes bad news and this time it was no exception. Mid-morning we pulled into the aged and elegant city of Orenburg. The town beyond the railway station looked inviting and intriguing with its steeples and cross-topped onion domes, but its sight was not a welcome one for us. Orenburg was only just over the border! How were we expected to reach Moscow in a little over six hours when she lay at the other extremity of the guidebook's very large-scale map? The answer was of course an obvious one and very soon confirmed. We had misheard before. Yes, we were to reach the capital at three in the afternoon, but tomorrow, not today. And that meant another day of riding, reading, gaming and melons.

Thankfully though, the melons departed at Orenburg, but at another station soon afterwards our compartment filled up once again, this time with some new travelling companions, a young Korean lady and her two small daughters, and their luggage.

Perhaps now is a good time to mention the Koreans who were one of the more unexpected elements in Uzbekistan, (and I presume all former Soviet), society that we encountered. They moved to the country after the Second World War, presumably from the area that now comprises North Korea, (as that was the area that the Soviets initially administered), and settled into Soviet life with apparent ease. Azis's father couldn't praise them enough, pointing out that despite their radically different culturally and racial heritage, they have never caused problems in Uzbekistan, whilst the Muslim Turks, supposedly brothers, frequently riot.

Whatever the case may be, the Koreans now form approximately five percent of Tashkent's population and seem to be doing very well too. Almost half the staff in the Western Union office where we received our money were Korean and they were also the half who understood English and the importance of good manners, two lessons that both their Russian and Uzbeki brethren would be wise to learn.

What takes some getting used to however, is how completely Russified, (or Sovietised), these people have become. None seemed to understand a word of Korean nor knew anything about what was once their homeland. What's more, all seem to have adopted Slavic names. The pretty girl who served us at Western Union was named Tatiana Tsoi and the two young relatives of our new travelling companions introduced themselves as Dima and Misha when I played cards with them. Of course, there is no reason why a Korean should not be named Vladimir or Tsvetlina, but it seems strange nonetheless. Mind you, should it? After all, we don't find the names of Lucy Liu or Vanessa Mae unexpected. Perhaps we would be wise to remember that it is not only Western Europe and the New World and Australasian colonies that are bastions of multiculturalism. Russia for example, has almost two hundred nationalities living within her borders. The Soviet Union had more.

journey08 With the Koreans

And so on we rumbled for another day, through the small villages and towns of the Volga Region, each looking like the setting for a Chekov play or Tolstoy novel. We gamed, slept and read. I'd finished Mark Twain the previous evening and so I once more attacked The Walled Kingdom, (a history of China), reaching Sun Yat Sen's revolution before I could bear not a single Oriental fact more and swapped it for Dumas's The Man in the Iron Mask, which proved an interesting read, if completely different in plot to any of the many films that it has spurned.

In the afternoon we got chatting with our roommates who it turned out were men of the circus. Their mother lived in Tashkent which explained their trip, but they were now glad to be back firmly in Russia. The older, an acrobat, showed us his photos whilst the younger, a clown, complained about the corruption and police in Uzbekistan, (and assuring us that Russia was completely different), before moving onto tales of circus life in which it seemed that they had travelled all over Russia, even to remote Kamchatka where their sister now lived, having many adventures on the way.

journey06 The Lowlander joins the circus!

Later on we also got acquainted with the mischievous Dima and Misha, the ten-year old Korean boys from down the coach who liked to play cards, thumb wars and hit each other on a regular basis. They proved a welcome addition to the compartment as they were well-behaved and cheery. Later on, they took an interest in my electric shaver and even cleaned it for free.

I went to sleep early that evening, having received little the night before due to the activities of the customs officers of Kazakhstan and Russia, and besides, I wanted to be as fresh as possible for our arrival in the capital!

journey07 Crossing the Volga

26th August, 2002 – nr. Moscow, Russia

Unlike Beijing, Lanzhou, Tashkent or indeed any of the cities that we'd passed through since leaving Korea, Moscow does not spring up on you all of a sudden. It is big. Not just over ten million people big, but also over twenty miles across big, and it creeps up on you gradually; firstly scattered houses, then the outer ring road, the first suburbs, high-rise blocks, commuter trains running alongside our express, and commuter stations crammed with Muscovites, factories, higher high-rise blocks, highways, a glimpse of a star-topped Stalinist skyscraper and then slowly pulling into the vast Kazanskaya terminal. And I saw it all, hanging out of the window with Dima and Misha, the young Koreans as excited as I was shouting 'Moskva! Moskva!' at the tops of their voices to the passing trains. I wanted to join them of course, but the fact that I was twenty-four, not ten stopped me. After all, what would people think?

We got our luggage together and alighted from the train, the last to do so in our coach, and walked slowly down the platform to the great terminal building. There we changed money and phoned our travel agent, making arrangements to meet by the Novokuznetskaya metro station in the centre of town.

journey09 Journey’s end: Moscow Kazanskaya

The Moscow Metro is famous, world famous, and rightly so. One of the largest and busiest in the world, carrying nine million passengers per day, (apparently more than the Tube and the New York system combined), it is however, far more than just a transport system. The older parts were built deep underground so as to double as air raid shelters during the war, and many of the stations are ornate 'Palaces of the Proletariat', as prescribed by Mr. V. I. Lenin himself. Now admittedly we'd been given a taste of what to expect with the magnificent Tashkent system, but nonetheless, we were still awed by the bronze statues of working people and intricate mosaics of tractor plants, BOAC era airliners and the mighty machines of the Red Army. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. No one beats the Communists for style and where better to display your nation's artistic talent than on the oft gazed at walls and ceilings of a metro system?

Our travel agent turned out to be a very amiable young man called Yevgeny. He took us to his office, organised all the payments for the hotel and visa support letters in a manner so professional that all our Uzbekistan-induced bureaucracy fears simply melted away. They may have been one country a mere eleven years ago, but Moscow and Tashkent are worlds apart now.

“I can't believe that you just came from Tashkent,” said Yevgeny. “What made you want to go there?”

The Lowlander and I looked at each other. After the event we were far from sure.

“You're the first that we've ever had I think, that have come here by train from Uzbekistan,” continued our new friend.

I spied some foreign banknotes kept as souvenirs on a shelf behind him. “Here, have some sum,” I said, extracting a five hundred note from our still-thick bundle.

Driving to our hotel, Yevgeny told us the basics of getting around the Russian capital, what to avoid, what not to, and how corrupt the authorities could be. We however, were unphased. The offences that he mentioned seemed nothing compared to those of their comrades in Turkestan. And besides, how could we listen when there was so much to feast our eyes upon? Stunning architecture representing every period of the city's long history from the star-topped Seven Sisters, to Tsarist apartments to mediaeval churches and brand-new riverside office blocks.

Our hotel turned out to be the largest in Europe, the Ismailovo. It consisted of three great slabs of concrete by the famous Ismailovskii Park constructed for the Moscow Olympics of 1980. We were allocated a room on the fifteenth floor which commanded a fine view of the park, a place so huge that London's Hyde Park looks like a mere lawn in comparison. Yet looking at the map, one can clearly see that the Ismailovskii is by far not the biggest in the city. Both the Botanical Gardens and Sokolniki are of a similar size and the gargantuan Losiny Ostrov Park is at least fifteen times bigger! I have no figures at hand, but I doubt not that Moscow is one of the world's greenest capitals, if not the greenest.

We hungrily showered the grime of four days of rail travel off our bodies before heading into the centre for something to eat, alighting at the only metro station that we knew, (Novokuznetskaya). We dined at an exceptionally tacky yet tasty country cottage themed restaurant named Yolka Polka where the staff wore peasant smocks, (what more could one ask for?), and once our borsch and beer were safely in our bellies, we strolled over the Moskva River to that sight of sights, the more-than-famous Red Square with the onion domed St. Basil's, red granite Lenin Mausoleum and countless cobbles. In the early evening it was a sight to behold and by the time that we crawled into our fifteenth floor beds all the stress, annoyance and anxiety that had built up over the last three weeks was just a memory, and my only thoughts were of exploring the fine city before us and meeting the only sibling that I'd ever been gifted with.

Next part: 3k: Moscow (I)