From Moscow-With Love – Part I

Moscow in winters is a sight to behold, particularly if one is used to what passes for winters in December and January in Delhi. At the Domodedovo airport in Moscow, I could see a light sprinkle of snow on the tarmac below. While taking off from Doha in the afternoon the captain had cheerfully announced that the weather in Moscow would be nowhere like what it was in Doha and now in the twilight of a Moscow evening, with fellow travellers pulling on heavy woollens and snow everywhere, I could imagine what the captain was alluding to.

As I stepped outside the terminal, I felt an icy blast of cold and I wondered so this is how it feels to be in Moscow in December. Strangely, I did not feel uncomfortable, after all I was swathed in multiple layers of clothing and a heavy jacket that would do any Muscovite proud. In fact I felt positively exhilarated, the cold was delightful, the crunch of snow under ones boot, a wonderful feeling.

The drive from the airport to The Metropole took more than 2 hours. Unfortunately, my driver spoke no English and it seemed was in no mood to talk either. We drove from the airport to the city in the dwindling evening light on a road, which seemed lined with bare trees on either side. It seemed to be a wide road, much like any other western freeway, yet it was heavy with traffic and we often got stuck. I amused myself by identifying the makes of the cars on the road and I could see the Toyotas, Hyundais (I myself was in a Hyundai Sonata), Mazdas, Hondas, Fords, Chevvys, Suzukis and the occasional Ladas all jostling for space. Honestly, I couldn’t help but wonder when will we have our home-grown Tatas and Mahindras here and when I spotted a big Ssangyong SUV, I thought that very soon this will sport a Mahindra logo.

The Metropole is a historic hotel. It is located right opposite the Bolshoi theatre and a 5 minutes walk from the famous Red Square. The hotel now has a weary visage, the carpets are a little worse for the wear, the walls and the cornices, while ornate do look their age. The Metropole is now more than a century old, it was completed in 1907 . It predates the October Revolution of 1917, was nationalised by the Bolsheviks in 1918, renamed as the ‘Second House of the Soviets’ and was used as residence for the burgeoning communist bureaucracy. It reverted to being a hotel in 1930 and since than have been hosting celebrities, Presidents, Royalty, Prime Ministers, Heads of the States and the like. Today, it is a comforting presence, elegant and stately, right in the heart of the city, the grand old lady a little wrinkled and maybe a little worse for wear, but welcoming as ever.

We met Tanya the next day morning. Tanya works for the Voice of Russia, speaks English, Hindi and of course Russian and was to be our interpreter and guide during our stay in Moscow. After we finished our day’s work at the Voice of Russia, Tanya recommended that we visit the Tretyakov Art Gallery a bare 5 mins of walk from her office. With Tanya leading the way, we walked to this world-famous repository of Russian art. Pavel Tretyakov, a Moscow merchant started collecting Russian art of his time in 1856 and gradually built up his collection. In 1892, he presented it to the city of Moscow. The gallery today houses one of the largest and the finest collection of Russian art. The collection today has more than 130000 exhibits of fine art, created by Russian artists over the centuries. As we wandered around the gallery, completely dumbstruck, (almost all the artists unknown to us!!!), we could not help but marvel at their genius and the timelessness of their craft.

We walked back to the Voice of Russia office in the freezing cold, much excited, exhilarated by the riches we had seen at the Tretyakov art gallery. As we piled into a taxi to return to The Metropole, we explained to the taxi driver, that we were from India. ‘Hindustan …aha …Raj Kapoor…Abara hoon… abaara hoon….’ he crooned. We were dumbstruck once again, Raj Kapoor is long since dead and gone, we do not play his songs that often in our homes anymore, but here he was alive in the heart of a Russian taxi driver, who knows no Hindi but instinctively connects with an iconic song and an artist who played the lovable tramp in most of his movies.

Later in the night, we went out for dinner and on our way back, decided to walk around the Red Square. The Red Square is the heart of Moscow and on its periphery is the Kremlin, the fairy tale like St. Basil’s Cathedral, the State Historical Museum and the ultra luxe GUM department store. The square is also home to Lenin’s tomb, a gleaming granite edifice, erected in the memory of the revered founder of socialism in Russia. The Red Square is brilliantly lit in the night, the St. Basil cathedral, with its multi-hued onion domes is majestic, the imposing Kremlin wall and towers with the glowing red star at the apex is a sight to remember. We wandered aimlessly, taking in all the beauty around us, with the snow-flakes falling gently. The square was almost deserted, with a few die-hard tourists roaming around, like us, enjoying the stillness and the cold of the night. We captured the Kremlin wall clock striking midnight, its sound reverberating around the empty square.

All Pics by the author

To be contd