July 22: Moscow, Day 3

Dear Friends and Relatives,

Today we had a day full of touring, all spots of great poignance and presence, focusing on the hardships and struggle faced by those in Soviet society.  The first stop was the Great Patriotic War Museum, on Poklonnaya Gora.  It is a history museum and was opened to the public in 1995.  It features exhibits and dioramas of a period that is known in Russia as "The Great Patriotic War."  The museum is set in Victory Park, featuring a large, paved plaza, fountains, and open spaces where military vehicles, cannons, and other apparatus from WW II are displayed.  Also in the park are the Holocaust Memorial Synagogue, the Church of St. George, the Moscow Memorial Mosque, a triumphal arch, an obelisk, and a number if sculptures.  

We visited, with a guide, the dioramas of the Siege of Leningrad, the defense of Kursk, the bombing of Moscow, and the  Battle of Stalingrad.  On this floor were photographs of wartime activities, weapons and munitions, uniforms, awards, newsreels, letters from the battlefront, and model aircraft.  In addition, the museum maintains an electronic memory book which attempts to record the name and fate of every Russian soldier who died in WW II.  

We also visited the Hall of Remembrance and Sorrow, which honors Soviet people who died in the war.  This room is dimly lit, and strings of glass beads hang from the ceiling, symbolizing tears shed for the dead.

After such a somber place, we had a quick traditional lunch of fish cake, borscht, breaded chicken cutlet with mashed potatoes, and a Napoleon.  After that we proceeded to an even more somber place than our morning venue.  We went to the Gulag Museum to learn how Stalin's policies were equally as deadly as bullets or bombs faced in war.  The Gulag Museum introduced us to the Gulag system and the history of mass political repression throughout the USSR during Stalin's era.  The beginning of the Cold War had immediate consequences for the history of the Gulags.  By the end of the 1940s, a second wave of mass repression had begun.  People were accused of spying, collaborating with the occupiers, and of being "cosmopolites."  The number of Gulag inmates increased abruptly, and there were a large number of foreign people among them (war captives and people arrested in the territories taken by Soviet troops).  

The collection of the museum includes the archive of documents, letters and memoirs of the former Gulag inmates; their private belongings related to the camp period; the collection of works of art created by the artists who passed through the Gulags, and by contemporary authors expressing their understanding of this era of Russian history.  In the exhibition halls, there are exhibits concerning the personal histories of different people who were the victims of this repressive policy and were sent to the camps.  One of the most important sections of the exhibit is the reconstruction of a camp environment; the prisoners' barracks; and the punishment cell.  An outstanding exhibit, well represented and supplied with fascinating newsreels of the time, but a definite downer if paired with the first museum.  Our guide, whose father had been killed during the Purge, was incredible!  

Afterwards, some expressed the wish to do some shopping to relieve the gloom.  They went off with Olga, while about eight of us went to the Novodevichy Convent, founded by Basil III in 1524.  Our object of contemplation was the Novodevichy Cemetery, and with us was Lena, our guide, as informed as any guide I have ever seen.  Many famous Russians are buried in this cemetery.  Among the leading cultural leaders are the playwright Anton Chekhov, writers Nikolai Gogol and Mikhail Bulgakov, composers Sergei Prokoviev, Dmitri Shostakovich, Alexander Scriabin, singer Fyodor Chaliapin; ballet dancer Natalia Bessmertnova, the great cellist Mstislav Rostropovich and his wife Galina Vishnevskaya, as well as Premier Nikita Khrushchev.  One of the most beautiful cemeteries I have ever seen, and the bells of the Novodevichy Convent, one low and sonorous, and then several smaller ones in quick succession, rang through the air, providing a somber yet peaceful background to the shank of the evening.  It was hard to depart.  We met the others who returned from shopping, and drove to our restaurant, Leaders, where a full-scale wedding celebration was taking place and the music, toasts, and speeches were coming thick and fast.  We were on the second floor and had a wonderful meal of salad, an eggplant Napoleon, duck and a potato croquette, and a kind of pudding with raspberry sauce for dessert.  The dessert, especially, was out of this world.  

And now I am finishing this blog, and it is almost 10 pm.  What a day it has been!  Only one more day of sightseeing, and then it's off to the United States on Monday, July 24.  I can't believe my time here has almost come to an end!  Sad...but what a privilege it has been to be here!  As ever, Sylvia