On October 3-17, I was privileged to take a river cruise with Grand Circle Cruise lines called “Russia Revealed.” I can best sum up the trip by saying that “revealed” is an appropriate title for a trip that far exceeded my expectations and shattered my pre-conceptions, particularly in my encounters with the Russian people.
Since Dostoevsky is one of my favorite novelists, I thoroughly enjoy Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov , and Chagall is among my favorite painters, I expected Russia to be aesthetically stimulating. But the reality exceeded my expectations. I found the exteriors of Russian Orthodox churches with their often-gilded onion domes to be colorful, intricate, and graceful. Among the most intricately and colorfully domed were the Church of Our Savior on the Blood in St. Petersburg and the very similar and very well known St. Basil’s on Red Square in Moscow, with their interwoven motifs of red, blue, green and white highlighted with gilding. I had seen Orthodox churches in Romania, but none as elaborately and colorfully decorated as those in Russia.
As part of my doctoral program, I did extensive research on Eastern Orthodox Byzantine civilization as reflected in its church iconography. Consequently, I was eager to see the church interiors and their highly symbolic icons. The interiors, particularly in St. Isaac’s Cathedral and the Church on the Blood in St. Petersburg, were spectacularly beautiful, their walls almost entirely covered with iconography. The central icon, Christ Pantocrator (Christ Almighty), stretched arms wide as if to embrace the apostles and saints depicted below him. While many of the icons in St. Isaac’s were frescoes, all of those in The Church on the Blood were mosaics, made up entirely of tiny, richly colored, sometimes gilded pieces of flat stone, glass, and/or ceramic.
More secular buildings were also striking, including the massive green and white Winter Palace, one of several buildings holding the vast art collections of the Hermitage, and the very elaborate and extensive fountains, gardens, and buildings of Peterhof, built to rival Versailles and quite successful in doing so. The Gum department store on Red Square was surely the most elaborately decorated (and expensive) store (more like a shopping mall) we’ve seen. The city squares themselves were vastly beautiful, particularly three of them: the St Petersburg square behind the Winter Palace, which we found on our own as we wandered the city on our last day in the city: Red Square, which means “beautiful” in Russian with St. Basil’s at one end, the brick wall of the Kremlin along one side with Lenin’s tomb in front of it, and the enormous Gum (department store or shopping mall) facing it; and, finally, the vast triangle of the Kremlin itself with its seven gilded-domed churches and its bright red brick walls and intricately constructed towers. Perhaps most surprising were the Moscow metro (subway) stations, elaborately decorated with carved marble walls and massive bas reliefs. Huge, efficient, extremely crowded, and noisy, the Moscow metro was Stalin’s successful effort to show that Soviet Russia could build a metro system to rival any in the world. Still, Moscow’s traffic, surely the worst I’ve ever seen, suggests that its metro was not big enough adequately to serve this city of 12 million people. We also saw a very interesting cemetery where Russian dignitaries were buried. The cemetery included the tombs of Nikita Khrushchev, Mikhail Gorbachev’s wife, and various famous musicians as well as a much-loved comedian who apparently did not hesitate to turn his satire upon the authorities. Many of the graves were graced with beautifully carved statues or bas reliefs ingeniously revealing the decedent’s vocation.
But for me, much as I love the arts, the most exciting part of traveling is meeting new and different people. The Russian people made this trip the most interesting and exciting I’ve ever experienced. I was not particularly surprised to find them very responsible and conscientious and their cities virtually immaculate (no litter here). But I came to realize that I had certain pre-conceptions about the Russian people that were far from accurate. I expected them to be colorless, dour, humorless, and unfriendly. To my surprise, I found many of them to be colorful, friendly, helpful, and, in several cases, very, very funny.
For example, while Sharon and I wandered through a highend department store on St. Petersburg’s Nevsky Prospect, we began looking for a restroom. We asked a security guard “wc?” only to find that he spoke no English and that “wc” is not as universal as we supposed. I made gestures as if to wash my hands, whereupon he said “ah, toilet” and proceeded to show us through extensive and elaborate hand signals how to find the restrooms. Several of our group, while out on their own and trying to navigate the complex and extensive Moscow metro system, were approached by Russians who recognized their bewilderment and showed them precisely how to find their destinations. On a night trip to Red Square (beautifully lit up!), several of our group got separated from the rest when the police had to close the square due to a bomb threat (a closing very well handled by the police without shooting, tasers, or teargas). Seeing their confusion, a Russian man approached our two traveling companions and, after looking at their boat boarding passes, called the boat, then waited with them until our program director could get to them. And Asia, our program director, was very level-headed and responsible in gathering her scattered flock after the Square closed. These were only a few of the examples of Russian helpfulness on the streets we heard about.
Our ship’s all Russian crew of about 100 were very attentive to our needs. Our captain, Boris, along with several of his sailors, always smilingly bid us farewell as we left the ship to board buses for a tour and greeted us upon our return with hot hand towels and sometimes a hot cup of delicious fermented tea. The waitresses that served the various tables we sat at were delightful and quick to fill empty coffee, tea, water, or wine glasses. We particularly liked two of them. Irina, a doll-like little redhead proudly and smilingly recounted in a soft and heavily accented voice the menu she had carefully memorized. She seemed almost to dance as she spoke. Lyudmila, who had a better command of English, often joked with us and was particularly attentive to the special needs of Roz, a vegan friend we made on the trip.
Most importantly, our four Russian program directors, who acted as guides for us on our tours, were superb. They were highly educated, articulate, fluent in English, and very well read and well informed. They probably knew more about American social, economic, and political issues than most Americans, and they certainly knew more about Russian, European, and world affairs (as probably do many Russians since Russia’s literacy rate is an enviable 98%). I was surprised at how much they differed on Russian politics, at how outspoken they were in their views, and how respectful and polite they were in disagreeing with each other (hear that, US Congress?). For example, our program director, Asia, who at age 50, had grown up under communism, unashamedly showed us her red Comcom scarf, medals, and id card from her school days, and often seemed nostalgic for communism. Avowed atheist though she was, she had voted for the openly Orthodox Putin all three times he ran because she considered him responsible for Russia’s economic resurgence since 2000 after the total collapse of the 90’s.
A younger director, Jenia, whose English was nearly unaccented and who was part owner of a small family business, was dismissive of communism and had not voted for Putin in 2012 because she felt his economic plan depended too much on exporting raw materials to the detriment of developing industrial capacity and supporting small business. A third, Natasha, a gifted comedian, was difficult to figure out politically because one never knew when, if ever, she was serious—though she certainly produced her share of one liners critical of Putin and Russian politicians in general. Grand Circle’s Moscow office director, Igor, whom we ate dinner with one night, was highly critical of the xenophobic, militaristic, and very narrowly focused American mainstream media; he also shares my liking for Jon Stewart.
As is usually the case on Grand Circle trips, we had an opportunity to visit a Russian school and to eat and drink in a Russian home. The school was a special public school for promising musicians. The very talented students performed for us and, back in the classroom, eagerly answered our questions and asked us questions of their own. The Russian home we visited was modest—only two rooms, but immaculate. Our hostess proudly served us tea, Russian gingerbread cookies, and piroshkis, rolls stuffed with cabbage or homemade cherry jam.
Perhaps most moving of all our encounters with Russian people was a question and answer session with three Russian veterans of WWII. Whereas approximately 400,000 Americans, including very few non-combatants, died in WWII, Russia lost 27,000,000, including many civilians—a measure of the difference between fighting a war almost entirely on foreign soil and fighting on your own. The Russian veterans were most gracious and, in a very moving gesture, expressed deep gratitude to our country for helping them defeat Nazi Germany. They made clear that they loved us and wanted peace with us.
Perhaps the impact of our encounter with Russian people might best be summed up in the words of Asia, our program director: “People are people, and politicians are politicians.” Russians, like Americans, love their children, their dogs, and their cats as well as talking and laughing with friends, and they too clearly enjoy making fun of their sometimes rather pompous leaders.