From Russia with Love

Flying into Moscow's Sheremetovo Airport, I could see why the country is referred to by its denizens as "Mother Russia." In the vast, hilly expanse, all you can see is lush forest dotted with lakes - the city of Moscow itself (Europe's biggest) looks like just a human lake in the middle of an endless forest. My first impression was one of overwhelming fecundity, although I concede that a December landing would have yielded an entirely different impression.

Like the land around it, Moscow is a city of mammoth proportions. The avenues can be 10 lanes wide, the parks the size of Liechtenstein, the palaces and churches monumental. The only place I've personally experienced with the same degree of space and overwhelming vastness is Beijing. But unlike New York, which pushes upwards towards the clouds, Moscow is a relatively earth-bound city, with a few towers but most buildings not exceeding 15 stories or so. Also unlike New York, you get the distinct impression that the primeval forests circling the city seep into the cracks at every available opportunity: Moscow is a surprising green city, with huge old trees lining every street and avenue. Each apartment block, therefore, is transformed into a kind of park, ringed with woods and approached by a network of trails through the trees.

The huge scale of the city was brought home on my first full day, when Katya (Mirth and Matter's "Zorro") and I took a walk to Moscow State University (see picture). The main building of the university was constructed right after WWII as a monument to victory in the new, triumphalist Soviet style. Interestingly to a Westerner, all the old accoutrement of the Soviet area were left on the building's facade, from a large red star dotting the spire to the "CCCP" and hammer and sickle emblem. Katya tells me that when the Soviet Union collapses, these symbols were simply transformed from representations of a living political system into an important part of Russian history - there was no attempt at all to erase this legacy, and statues of Lenin still dot the city. Aside from the political aspects of the structure, however, I was amazed by its vastness - in America, the only structures of similar awe found on a university campus are the sports arenas. In Russia, academic learning is elevated to the same level of cultural importance accorded to football in the states. This orientation may be a clue as to why a nation with a relatively low GDP has been such a major player on the global stage for so long.

When we returned from our 3-hour, probably close to 6-mile walk, Katya inquired whether I enjoyed our "short walk." It is a testament to the scale of this place that what I consider to be a hike is in fact a "short walk" to a Muscovite.

More to come...