From Russia, With Love
Moscow by Train
Taking the fast train to Moscow sounds like something out of a 1950s spy movie, and in many ways it felt like that too. The stops on the Seabourn Baltic cruise leading up to this point played out like the opening scenes, building suspense to the final climax, the highest point of the drama … and Moscow was the answer that made the story suddenly all make sense. The extravagant wealth of the Russian royals, the murder of the Romanoff family, the Russian Revolution, Stalin, World War II, The Cold War, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and rise of the modern country of Russia served as backstory. Relics, artifacts, and opulence mixed with history, memories, and sadness — with the Russian people playing a starring role in a dramatic century of turmoil.
Our port call in Tallinn, Estonia, tempted us with our first glimpse of Russian culture. The Soviet Union had occupied Estonia until its collapse in 1991, and the onion domes of Russian Orthodox churches peeked out above the walls of this medieval city, now listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The next three days in St. Petersburg were a blur of grand waterways, majestic churches, stunningly beautiful palaces, gilded doorways leading to gilded rooms that glowed with amber walls, and beautiful wooden floors that looked too precious to walk on.
But Moscow was something else indeed. And perhaps because it required special effort, rising at 4 a.m. to catch the 6 a.m. train from St. Petersburg station, only a small group of Seabourn guests took the excursion.
All Aboard
My antennae were on high alert, yet our Moscow train was clean and efficient and comfortable enough. A very serious train attendant in a crisp grey uniform checked our passports as we boarded, with a policeman or some other large-hatted security official hovering at her elbow. Was he looking for spies at 6 a.m. among this group of bleary-eyed tourists?
Our group of about 12 Seabourn guests shared the business-class cabin with men in suits reading their laptops or trying to sleep on the 4-hour train ride. A typical train breakfast of eggs and a wedge of what looked like solid cottage cheese and onion relish were a welcome distraction. “May I have a coffee?” I politely asked the train hostess as she walked by. “Come with breakfast,” she brusquely informed me.
I’d been looking forward to seeing the countryside between St. Petersburg and Moscow and was surprised to see how familiar it felt. Our guide reminded us that we were on the same latitude as Alaska and the pine forest and endless lakes looked very similar. But instead of mountains, this land was flat to the horizon. Not a hill was in sight as we sped through small villages with impossibly tiny A-frame homes peeking through the evergreens.
As our train pulled into the Moscow area, we disembarked quickly into the rush of a train station that was surprisingly quiet. We jumped into our bus to find ourselves locked into a traffic jam of epic proportions. “Moscow traffic…,” shrugged our Moscow guide, Elena. She was a heavyset older woman who was a professor of history at the University of Moscow, and the interpreter for former President Mikhail Gorbachev — “Michael” as she fondly referred to him.
Our target was the Kremlin, where we would spend the morning. Elena pointed out the red, crenelated walls of the Kremlin with some of its 20 towers clearly visible as we approached from the south side along the Moskva river. “There is no such thing as Kremlin,” Elena explained.
“Kremlin” is just a Russian term for citadel or walled fortress. This Moscow Kremlin housed five palaces and four cathedrals, plus the Grand Kremlin Palace, the former home of the czar which now serves as the official residence of the Russian president. Once you pass through the metal detectors at the wall, you’re free to wander at will.
The dark coolness of our main stop, the Kremlin Armory Museum, was a welcome relief from the warm August weather and bright sunshine. Hosting almost 3 million visitors annually, the Armory showcases centuries of elaborate clothing and jewelry from the Russian royals, their spectacular gilded carriages, and cases of jewel-encrusted treasures and military regalia that had been bought or gifted to the Russian czars over the centuries.
This was certainly not what I’d expected to find at the Kremlin. I thought the Kremlin would be a stark concrete monument to Soviet Communism, but here we were, standing on Cathedral Square surrounded by the shimmering golden domes of the three main cathedrals. And in the bright Moscow-summer sun, the nine delicate, gilded domes glowing atop the bright white walls of the Cathedral of the Annunciation (built in 1489) were more breathtaking than the jewel-encrusted gold treasury we’d seen inside at the Armory.
As we made our way out of the Kremlin to our restaurant for lunch, we were inexplicably stopped about five cars from a main intersection. The driver and our guide grumbled to each other until we saw the motorcade of black cars speed through the intersection. “Putin,” our guide muttered, shaking her head. We’d had our Putin sighting.
The traffic cleared as quickly as it had stopped, and we proceeded to a beautifully ornate restaurant hidden behind drab concrete. Inside, surrounded by gilded walls and colorfully ornate ceilings, I felt as if I was eating my beef stroganoff inside one of the ornate Fabergé eggs we’d just seen in the Armory. With renewed vigor, we headed to our next stop — Red Square.
The bright and cheerful exterior of this 16th-century church gave no indication of the bizarre nature of its interior.
Russia’s Center
Our bus pulled into a corner of the square where we got our first closeup look at the iconic St. Basil’s Cathedral, with its multi-colored onion domes swirling like a bouquet of the most colorful soft-serve ice-cream cones. The bright and cheerful exterior of this 16th-century church gave no indication of the bizarre nature of its interior. I have spent my life visiting churches, especially those from the Middle Ages, and I expected a typical Byzantine interior full of shimmering gold mosaics. St. Basil’s, however, is actually a cluster of nine tiny churches connected by dark corridors and perilous staircases. Our group huddled together in a tiny room to listen to a four-man choir sing an acapella hymn. Magical.
While in Red Square, we made a short stop at the famous GUM department store. “I used to line up here with my husband all day to buy boots at this place,” Elena told our group. “Then when we’d finally get to the front of the line after waiting hours, the boots would be all gone. Now, it’s full of Gucci and Prada.” And she was right. It was.
Our final stop was the Revolution Square station of the Moscow subway, built in 1938 in a Socialist Realism style. The city’s underground train system is known for being one of the deepest in the world, and for the beautiful, monumental art and architecture of its stations. Each archway featured a bronze sculpture celebrating the people of the Soviet Union — the soldiers, the farmers, the athletes, the laborers. This was the Moscow I expected to see. But I had to go deep underground to find it.
Like any good spy movie, where the plot is full of twists and turns and what you think you see maybe isn’t really what happened, I rode the fast train back from Moscow with more questions than answers. My one day in Moscow had taught me more than a library of history books. Pulling into the St. Petersburg train station late on a dark and rainy night, I realized how little I really knew about this amazing country and how much more there was still left to see and understand.