Moscow Debunked

Red Square. The Kremlin. Lenin's Tomb. St. Basil's Cathedral. Today we walked among the only symbols of Russia and the Soviet Union that most of us had ever seen, usually as backdrops to a news report on CNN or BBC World. Red Square was much smaller than I imagined. The Kremlin is full of churches with not a single nuclear missile silo in sight. There wasn't a single Russian in line to view the waxy remains of Lenin. Only the onion domes of St. Basil's looked just as bizarre in person. The mystique of Moscow evaporated with the morning mist.\r

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After the Kremlin, I went to see the infamous KBG headquarters at Lubyanka. The serene classical facade belied the terrors that took place inside. Brightly colored roman-candle decorations stood where Dzerjinsky's statue used to keep an unblinking watch on the people of Moscow. Billboards blinked the latest in consumer electronics instead of proclaiming the glories of the Revolution.\r

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Next came Gorky Park, which I knew from the Martin Cruz Smith novel and the Scorpions' 'Wind of Change'. It was a place where Western agents were supposed to meet with disillusioned Soviet politburu members in order to forge vital links of understand through the Iron Curtain. Instead, I found a slightly shabby amusement park, families with laughing/screaming children enjoying a day in the sun, teenagers filling the tables around the beer tents, and the occasional tourist hoping in vain for a glimpse of men in trenchcoats and dark glasses.\r

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We finished the day at an outdoor cafe along one of the pedestrian malls. Pedestrian malls? Sidewalk cafes? Buskers? These are things I associate with pleasant European cities, not with the frozen capital of Russia. Oh, well. Another day and another stereotype bites the dust.\r

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Photo Album: Russia\r

http://www.ofoto.com/I.jsp?c=c931oof.1rt9k9dz&x=0&y=hhquc6