A weekend in Moscow

Wow I'm tired, I spent all day at my new hostel in St Petersberg. After I got in this morning from the overnight train I immediately checked in, slept, read and surfed the net, went to the supermarket, cooked and ate. A nice guy in the hostel shared his beer with me too.

My two and a half days in Moscow were extremely busy. My brain was still set to an east Asian time zone (don't ask which one), so I was going to bed at 9 and waking up at the crack of dawn. On Saturday morning, I was up so early that I went to an Internet cafe before it closed for the night at 7 am. I had breakfast at McD's and then headed back to my hostel and waited for the free breakfast to start at 8. I felt really keen being up so early.

At the subway station, I was greeted with the sketchiest escalator I've ever used. The stair treads were covered with hard brown plastic, the moving railings were low and the thing ran faster than any moving sidewalk or escalator I've ever had the pleasure of using. It's hard to describe, but the way the steps separated wasn't sudden like in western escalators; it was gradual over a curve so that I thought I was being thrown over the over the edge casing me to swipe at and miss the low guard rail and making me feel the immanence of plunging 100 metres to my death. I made it to the bottom and got on a train that was driven with the same craziness as the cars on the street. The train passed the platform at a barely slowing, after which the doors opened and closed abruptly with no apparent concern for safety.




Safely on the train, I was feeling the drowsiness of having eaten two breakfasts. I made it downtown, but I had to drag myself out the station into the cold morning air. I trudged through the grey streets of Moscow soupy from a spring thaw and into the red square. The red square turned out to look exactly like is does on TV and in pictures. It's a large open area bordered by the red walls of the Kremlin on one side and a glitzy department store on the other. St. Basil's Cathedral, like the Taj Mahal, could never be done justice with a picture. The multicouloured onion domes were so vivid against the blue morning sky that I felt like I could pluck them out of air by reaching out.

I spent the majority of the day in the Kremlin museums looking at the old clothes, silverware, and other property of the Tsars and the orthodox Church. I also saw a few of the Churches on premises where the early Tsars were buried and the one where all coronations were held.







In the late afternoon, I decided to find a banya (Russian bath house), get circus tickets and find the service times for a church to go to the next morning. I had no luck getting circus tickets or going to the bathhouse, but I managed to collect enough information to plan the craziest Sunday in Moscow possible.

Sunday morning came and my body instinctively woke me up at the crack of dawn. I ate my breakfast and hopped on the metro to go to the Church of Christ the Saviour. The church itself is a bit of history. For whatever reason, Stalin decided to blow it up in 1930 and replace it with a swimming pool. A populist Moscow mayor rebuilt it around ten years ago.

The new Church is like the original, but the frescoes are brand new and the gold and brass is completely untarnished. I know I will probably see a million churches in Europe, but this one is the most beautiful church I have ever seen. The building exterior is made of white marble topped with a great golden dome bordered by four smaller domes at the building's corners. An Anglican or Catholic church often has a nave or central isle that runs the length of the church with a transept that crosses the nave to form a cross-shaped place of worship. This western design results in a roughly rectangular building. What was neat about this church was that it was a perfect square and all the crosses in and on it were as wide as they were long. I've since noticed other Russian churches to be square as well. I wonder if that's characteristic of all Eastern Churches.



I entered the sanctuary at 9:30 am and immediately noticed a few things that an Episcopalian blogger had mentioned about her first visit to an orthodox church. Firstly, there are no chairs. Secondly, everyone has their own small rituals. The church is full of icons-- pictures or symbols representing saints. Many of the congregated worshipers spent time going to the icons kissing them and bowing. A Third thing that the Episcopalian blogger mentioned was the way that Orthodox Christians form the cross over the chest. They start the same as western churches forehead to chest but then push their hand from the right shoulder to the left as opposed to pulling from left to right like Catholics.

The service was preceded by altar boys chanting scripture. I couldn't believe how fast they were reading. Eventually the clock stuck 10 and the priests came out. Everyone entered thought the two side doors and on occasion, the big golden doors in the centre opened to reveal the altar and a beautiful depiction of the last supper on the back wall. Periodically, a priest would purify the room with intense, but what was most impressive was the almost constant chanting and singing. Their was a baritone priest who led most of the singing and and a choir at the back did most of the responding. There was one piece during a prayer that was especially great. The deep voices of the second basses produced the sound that I expected from a Russian choir. Time crept on, and after an hour or two, some of the congregation took communion which was bread MIXED in the cup of wine and then served to them by the clergy with golden spoons. At this point my back had been killing me for about 40 minutes. I had to step out into the outer corridor to stretch for a minute. It's not often that you stand in one spot without moving for a long time.

I dropped back to the hostel to pick up my camera and bag and then headed to destination number two, the circus. I haven't been to the circus for a long time and it seemed like the best time and place to go to one. There were acrobat, jugglers, clowns, horses and dogs. Everyone was dressed in baroque french fashion (powdered wigs and the like). The tightrope walking and all that was fun to watch, but the clear highlight for me was seeing a parrot riding a tricycle.

After a cheap and entertaining day, I headed to the banya that took me so long to find the day before. The Russian bath felt like a gentleman's club. There were big leather benches where you deposited your belongings before heading to the sauna. The idea is that you sweat for a while, beat yourself with some birch leaves, sweat some more, jump in cold water and repeat the process. I noticed that the other guys' birch leaves were wet and mine were still dry and new. I took this to mean I needed to break mien in a bit more, so I just beat myself harder. The sensation on my whole body was like the inside of your mouth after a breath mint. I only noticed on my way out to the showers that newcomers were soaking their branches in hot water before entering he sauna. I must have looked funny beating myself with dry branches (they did get a bit wet from the steam and my perspiration).

After forcing myself to stay awake later than I had since arriving in Moscow, I boarded a midnight train and slept like a baby until I arrived this morning in St Petersberg. I've already told you about my lazy day, but what I didn't mention is the strange behaviour I saw on my way to the Internet cafe. First there were three girls, trotting by on horseback with beers in their hands. Then, there were a group of middle aged tourists who passed me on a foot bridge, but instead of crossing, they doubled back at the other side and I noticed from a distance, that the group of ten or so happy people was not leaving the narrow footbridge, but doing a circuit from one side of the bridge to the other. The last strange thing were two half clothed Russian girls (it was cold out). they started pleading with me about something in Russian, and when I said that I didn't speak Russian, they barely managed to communicate that they needed 10 roubles. I normally don't give money to strangers, but their request was so out of the blue and 10 roubles is only about 30 cents. I really wonder what was up with that.

Other then visiting the Hermitage, I have have no clear plans for St. Petersberg. I'll probably write about my time spent there this weekend.