Moscow, Day 2

Today began with a quick breakfast in the hostel before a walk over to Red Square. This morning was our long-awaited visit to the tomb of Lenin (linked to in my last post). A while back, I remember reading about the mausoleum and being amused that his body is still preserved, despite the fact that he died in 1924. Knowing this and having seen pictures, I expected him to look pretty waxy, which he did. Apparently, his body is “refurbished” once a year, and below his tomb is a complex, including a gym, for the people who work on his body.

We lined up around 09:45, as the tomb opens each day for tourists at 10:00. Also at 10:00 is the changing of the guards at the eternal flame that burns on the side of the Kremlin for the Russian soldiers who gave their lives during the fight against the Nazis in World War II. The whole experience of being at the Kremlin, surrounded by old and gorgeous architecture, uniformed men, and quaint chiming bells, it felt like we had stepped back in time. Things were at once modern and historic, and to see the changing of the guards—a simple but dramatic practice involving five soldiers—gave me chills.

Right after the changing of the guards, a group of individuals bearing a single flower each stepped up and stood in a sort of formation. I don’t know who, exactly, they were, but I think they were probably family members of soldiers who died during World War II who had come and been granted a special visit to the eternal flame, which was currently off-limits to all other visitors. In three groups, they marched up, laid down their flowers on the monument, did a synchronized about-face, and marched back down as the next row of their group got in formation and prepared to deposit their flowers.

In Russia, we are told, there is no family without some sort of personal connection to someone who died during World War II. Though a lot of Americans fought in the war and some died, Russia had the most fatalities during the war by an enormous margin. As a result, reminders of the war and those who died are everywhere in Russia, particularly in Moscow—even outside the Kremlin—as we’ve seen. Also, because we’ve never faced war on our own home turf, because our cities weren’t bombed out or turned into bloody battlefields, because our buildings aren’t pockmarked with bullet holes from wartime, Americans don’t have the same sense of the reality of war that Europeans do. War for us has been a more distant affair, which is of course a good thing—a blessing, but also a curse, I think, because we don’t fully appreciate the horrible consequences that war or invasion can have. In any case, it was really a neat experience to catch the changing of the guards, as I’m not sure how often this “ceremony” takes place.

We continued on in line to see Lenin, and after about fifteen minutes we were being ushered forward towards his tomb. We walked up a ramp that took us around the tomb, before being led down a stairway and, soon enough, into a dark passageway with the word “LENIN” inscribed above in big, red, Cyrillic letters. It was cold inside, which was a welcome change from the humid weather outside, and soldiers stood on guard at every turn.

We had about 45 seconds total to view Lenin’s body, herded slowly past by guards. When we turned the corner into the actual crypt, there was Lenin, lying in state behind thick glass in the middle of a dark room lit only by red candles. Since he’s been dead 80+ years, it’s no surprise that he looked mostly like wax. His fingernails were gray and yellowed, and the black blanket covering him from the waist down matched the color of his suit, so it made him look four feet wide, which was kind of amusing. It was creepy and disturbing to know in whose presence we were standing, but it was very humbling and put things into perspective. People can do great good, people can do great evil, people can wield unimaginable power over others, and people can also be completely powerless over their own lives and situations—but at the end of the day, death is the great equalizer, as the saying goes. Lenin—for everything he did during his lifetime and the effects of his historic legacy—was simply lying there in all his dead un-glory like anyone else.

Following a visit to Lenin and the other Soviets buried outside the Kremlin wall, including Stalin and Brezhnev and also the ashes of cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, we walked across town to the Gulag Museum that opened in 2004 in an old building. A sweet old Russian woman gave us a super thorough, two-hour tour—too many details and facts to report—and at the end, I asked (through David, interpreting) if she had a personal connection to all of the things she had taught us about: Did she have a personal connection to the gulags? Was someone in her family imprisoned during the Soviet era? Was she? The answer was what I expected: “Too personal. I can’t.” Again, back to the theme of how nearly every Russian family has someone who was affected by the prison/labor camps under the gulag system.

For lunch, we went to the former state department store, GUM, now a really fancy shopping mall, where we had lunch at Stolovaya No. 57—a Soviet-style, self-service diner thing. It was crowded, the line was long, the food was expensive, and overall it was ok. The only problem I have with these self-service restaurant things is that you can neither scout out the options beforehand nor put stuff back if you come across something later on down the line that you’d rather have. Noteworthy moment: One of the guys in the group, Kevin, bought and ate what he thought was vanilla ice cream—turns out it was a mix of cold sour cream and cottage cheese. :X

After lunch, we went out to the circus to buy tickets, as we’ll be at the Great Moscow State Circus tomorrow night. We then went to the massive souvenir market, spent about an hour and a half there, rushed back to the hostel, dropped stuff off, changed/freshened up, and then went to the Moscow Conservatory, where we saw a moving two-and-a-half-hour performance including something by Haydn, someone else, and then Mozart’s Requiem, complete with a choir joining the orchestra. (performance details?)

Following the concert at the Conservatory, the group went to a really cool café called Лук (“look”), where there was live music. The girl singing was really good and sang all English-language songs, including “At Last” by Etta James, to which we all sang along, impressed! After dinner, we came back to the hostel. Another long but exciting day.