Tower and Town, October 1986

RUSSIA REVISITED

Over 50 years ago, in September 1932, I ended a 6 months stay in Munich by joining some 60 others of varying ages and mostly German on a 3 weeks Students' Tour of Russia. We travelled by train from Berlin through Poland to Leningrad and from there to Moscow, Kharkov, Yalta, Sebastopol, Odessa and Kiev before returning through Warsaw to Berlin. We should have gone to Rostov after Kharkov but as a special favour (so Intourist told us) Yalta and Sebastopol had been substituted. What we did not know then, and the full horror was not widely known until much later, Rostov, like the Ukraine, was in the grip of Stalin's ruthless campaign to impose collectivisation and to destroy the kulaks - which had led to widespread starvation and unrest among those peasants not already deported or dead - and clearly not a place for foreign tourists to be allowed to visit.

The second, very different, visit was last June, when my wife and I went to Russia for a fortnight - 3 hours by air instead of a tedious two day train journey. For me, however, seeing the exoanse of the Red Square dominated at one end by the fantastic many-domed St. Basil's Cathedral built by that mad tyrant Ivan the Terrible, the towers and gilded domes of the Kremlin behind its protecting wall and, in the centre, Lenin's black and red marble tomb brought the same thrill as on the first occasion. During our 5 days in Moscow we visited the Kremlin twice, once to see the famous Cathedral Square and then to that treasure house, the Armoury Palace Museum, attended an excellent performance of the Swan Lake Ballet, were surprised by the high quality of the work of modern Russian artists in the huge Picture Gallery of the USSR, spent two fascinating hours travelling in the Metro admiring its efficiency and the cleanliness of its stations adorned by heroic sculptures, stained glass, paintings and mosaics - and all for 5 kopeks, about 5 pence, and enjoyed a thrilling evening at the unrivalled Moscow State Circus.

In place of Kiev, because of Chernobyl, we spent 4 days in Suzdal, 140 miles east of Moscow, for centuries a main religious centre; two monasteries, two convents and twenty churches remain but, alas, very few still functioning - an historic and fascinating city to visit. Equally important in its heyday is nearby Vladimir with its outstanding 12th Century Cathedral of the Assumption which regularly has a large congregation (a christening party left as we waited tp go in).

Our last 5 days were in Leningrad, founded by Peter the Great on the banks of the River Neva, and badly damaged in the last war when a million (one third of the population) died. The quality of the restoration work is superb, with the result that its magnificent buildings - which include the Winter Palace, the sumptuous Kirov Theatre where we saw the Ballet Don Quixote, St. Isaac's Cathedral, that finest of Art Museums the Hermitage (26 Rembrandts, several Leonardos and Raphaels and the pick of the French Impressionist among its paintings) as well as those outside such as Peter the Great's copy of Versailles at Petrodvorets, once again make Leningrad one of the world's most beautiful cities and a source of pride to many thousands of Russian tourists who yearly go there.

Impressions on such a short visit are necessarily superficial but they can nonetheless be significant. Ours were far more favourable than we had ever expected. To say that we look forward to going to Russia again is perhaps a fitting end to this account of a memorable journey.

John O'Regan