Russia (#21) An Afternoon in Moscow, Pt. 1

    We de-trained when we arrived in Moscow and immediately boarded a bus for a city wide excursion. "Excursion," here, means a bus tour around the city: a drive past or a pause beside famous places. In that fashion, we passed by the Kremlin, Red Square, Saint Basil's Church, Peter the Great's Memorial, the 1980 Winter Olympic site, Moscow State University, the huge Great Patriotic War Memorial (where we were permitted to disembark and walk around), and Christ the Savior Cathedral.

    Having seen these wonders mostly from afar and in motion, we exited the tour bus at one end of Arbat Street, a kilometer-long open-market pedestrian "mall" in central Moscow, where we would eat lunch at McDonald's and shop for small keepsakes to take home. McDonald's was exceptionally clean, otherwise it was exactly as we all expected.

    Two-thirds of the shops on Arbat Street, which we walked after lunch, had already closed since this was a morning market area.

    As with most shopping opportunities, it was helpful to have an interpreter to help with negotiations or barter or for information. Below, Andrew is explaining something to me as he made the rounds as our team investigated various souvenir venues. 

    I was not a serious shopper on Arbat Street since I already had my treasure, Andrew's hand-carved and hand-painted nativity set, now safely packed in my suitcase. Stefan visited the many displays of original art for something engaging that would survive the trip back to the States.

     When we reached the other end of Arbat Street, purchases in hand, we entered the subway for our ride to our hotel. Although I am aware that we tend to learn in layers when we travel, questions remain. How does one begin to recognize what makes a place significant? What features tell us enough about a particular place? Clearly, I didn't know entirely what to pay attention to on these quick visits. The bus tour helped a bit. Being with translators like Andrew helped a great deal. But having "caught" some things the first time around, the traveler ideally needs to return to build on first knowledge.

    One of those tantalizing bits of information we were told was that a "terrorist" bombing on the subway two months before happened near where we were boarding. Forty-one people were killed and hundreds injured. The attack was linked somehow to the ongoing conflict with Chechnya that none of us had heard much about. It appeared on the "evening news," then quickly disappeared as our news stories commonly do. Few in the West speak of it, but  parallels with the present conflict in Ukraine are striking.

    The subway, by the way, we found to be gorgeous, ornate, clean, full of compelling mosaics -- so apart from the possibility of being bombed again, which was real if remote, the subway was a treat.

    An hour later we rode the subway back into the city for dinner at a Mongolian restaurant and, afterward, to tour Red Square.

     While not conspicuous from the outside, the eating area in the Mongolian Restaurant is shaped like a huge yurt, a word new to me at that time. There was a central, circular fire pit, around which the tables were arranged. The outside walls were constructed of logs and the inner walls were wood-paneled. Sadly, I did not record what we ate, but I know it was "meat." And why no one took photographs of the inside of the restaurant is puzzling.

    Our walk through Red Square needs its own conversation [see Pt.2]. In my look back on this quick tour, I wonder about the whole "tourist" experience, what it means or ought to mean. I have been to Russia, seen the gems of Moscow, briefly, and mostly from the outside. That visit was the first of what I had hoped to be several opportunities, several layers of seeing, although a return now appears impossible. I must confess I have never wanted to be a tourist, as we commonly think of that role. That is why I particularly treasure the months Donna and I were able to live in north London and in Busan, Korea. That is why it was so meaningful for us to participate in worship services and to visit in homes in Egypt and for our basketball team to visit a home church and to venture into the muddy back streets earlier in our visit to Vladimir.

    In short, I have a strong desire to go places, to see and hear, to get closer to the heart of what it means to be Egyptian or Korean or Chinese or, in this case, Russian, to meet people where they live. I have wanted to see beyond the pictures in the books, to see things in a different light.

[Credit: This and many of the clearer photographs were taken by John Woodard. While many of us stood at the same spot, here and elsewhere, and snapped the same scene, John's photos are often the best of the lot.]

Russia (#20) Moscow, Travel Options

    Nothing says "Soviet Era" quite like a boxy locomotive with a red star on the front. Our departure from Vladimir was early and expeditious; we were up early (5:10) and boarded the train by 7:30, having eaten, packed, loaded our gear, collected our passports, and bounced across town on the trolley-bus. Being reunited with our passports was a relief since it meant we could leave on schedule. 

    Everywhere we had gone in Russia the present merged with the past.  At times it seemed there was no present. The train station was no exception. Police, indistinguishable from soldiers, were everywhere. We walked around the train station rather than through it. When we saw the army green train with its red star at the platform we began to think that the trip to Moscow would be grim. But then that vintage train pulled out without us.

 

    When it had gone, a newer train pulled in, blue and white, not green, and we climbed on. Two female soldiers checked our tickets and passports before we entered our car, #10, the last car. Our tickets indicated assigned seats, bench seats like an American school bus, but facing each other. We hoisted our bags into the overhead bins and slid in. A middle-aged woman was already sitting next to the window. We filled in the other five places, three facing three. 

    My ticket put me by the window across from the woman, almost knee to knee. She looked steadily out the window and withdrew her feet as far back as she could. I sat back as far as I could; by withdrawing my feet as well I managed about an inch between our knees. Next to me was Skip Lord, then Joel. We were seriously crammed shoulder to shoulder. Next to the woman was John Woodard, then Eric. The five of us Americans -- all fairly big guys -- chatted most of the way. 

    The woman was hemmed in. Every so often she would look past John to make eye contact with an older woman, a babushka, across the aisle. Her mother, perhaps? Or just an older Russian woman with whom she could exchange a sympathetic glance?

    Soon after the train began to move, a female conductor, also in a military uniform, came through to punch our tickets, making sure we are seated as assigned. So far, we had had our tickets torn, check-marked, and punched, our passports examined, by successive uniformed officials. This conductor smiled when she saw us and indicated she wanted to know who we were. We pointed to the logos on our jackets and said "Ba-skeet-ball" in that exaggerated way our phonetic phrase sheet indicated we should -- which made her laugh and nod.  A rare display of friendliness we had not expected.

    Outside the window the now familiar Russian scenes: forests, broad fields waiting to be plowed, old villages of brightly painted wood-framed houses, piles of garbage here and there, evidence of last year's dead grasses and weeds burning -- not all that different from what one might see from a train in many countries including our own.

    As I look back on this experience nearly twenty years in the past, I am disappointed our contact with the Russian countryside was always from the discrete distance of moving vehicles. Like the back streets of Vladimir that we were able to visit briefly one afternoon with its deteriorating houses and its hidden wood-shop, a closer view of land features, of farm and village life, and what these might have told us about the heart of Russia, remained beyond our knowing.

    I think, too, about the poor woman sitting across from me, who must have felt trapped. How does one reach across the barriers imposed by language, culture, expectations, speeding vehicles -- who knows what else?

   About 90 minutes into our two plus hour trip, unable to stand-up, move, or stretch, I developed a serious cramp in my right hamstring. For what seemed like an eternity I sat with the cramp -- unable to stand because of the overhead luggage rack, unable to stretch my leg out into this woman's space, and unwilling to make the whole group get up so that I could slide out. 

    The cramp eventually went away on its own, sort of, but the memory of it has remained fresh. For those few uncomfortable moments I remember feeling I had no acceptable recourse but to endure. What I make of that moment all these years later is that it is like so much in life:  knowing what the problem is and how one might resolve it is not the same as having the opportunity or the tools to solve it.

    

 

Russia (#19) Easter Sunday 2004

"Daniel! You Need to Get Out of Bed, Son!"

    The Sunrise Service was held at 6:25 a.m. below the District Administration Building, locally referred to as "the white house." I have been to many sunrise services in my lifetime of attending church, but I cannot remember another one where we showed up in the dark before the sun had even brightened the horizon. These days, it is more convenient for churches to hold sunrise services at an hour when folks are already up and have pulled themselves "together." 

    We walked down to the white house in the cold and dark, cutting across empty lots of frozen mud. The prospect of actually seeing the sun seemed remote as the sky was heavily overcast. Forty-five believers formed a circle on grass in front of the white house. There was clear joy on the faces of young believers when they saw each other on that cold, dark morning -- in clear contrast to the sober faces we usually encountered. 

    We sang some songs using the common musical language of Easter hymns we knew in English and the Russians in Russian, and we heard testimonies. In the middle of our service the clouds on the eastern horizon parted for about 2 minutes and the sun appeared, brilliantly, shooting reds and pink and purple streaks through the dark clouds. As if on cue, when the sun appeared everyone began to shout, "Kristos voskrese! Voistinu voskrese!" (Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!).

    Then the clouds closed up, the service ended, and we walked back to the Mission Center. It was amazing how that brief, brilliant appearance of the sun had lifted all our spirits.

    Morning Service.  This second week at the Mission Center for church we felt more at home. I followed more of what was going on even without constant translation. Gary King gave a testimony. Ken Blake, the Global Partners missionary in Vladimir, preached on the resurrection. We sang many Easter hymns.  I had planned to leave with some of the others when the service ended, but I wound up taking four younger boys back into church. They had attended our 3-on-3 tournament the day before and had come to the Mission Center to find Andy, who was inside chatting.

    Dinner at Ken and Marilyn's. Tables had been set up in the Blakes' apartment to feed the hungry Americans and various other protestant missionaries serving in Vladimir. We had a wonderfully abundant Easter meal: chicken, beef, ham, rice, tomatoes, traditional deserts, especially Easter cakes. There were deeply red Easter eggs, dyed with beets in the traditional Russian way. 

    We left late in the afternoon to hustle back to the hotel to get ready for a late service at the house church we had visited the Sunday before.

    Evening Service.  A younger missionary couple picked us up for our 25 minute trolley-bus ride and walk to the house church. The week before there were perhaps 8 church folks plus the hosts meeting with us. This week there were easily double that number squeezing into the house. 

    We had a long discussion about courtship, as the local Russian pastor thought this would be helpful.  Gary King shared some Biblical principles. I shared as a father although again I found the experience working with a translator complicated. After our sharing there were some tough and pointed questions that I noted only in that general way. I wish I could remember more particularly what those questions were. Then we ate: a huge Easter "tea" -- lots of cakes, cookies, sliced oranges and bananas -- and many individual conversations. I hope in some small way that we were helpful. 

    Debriefing. Back at the Blakes, we had our last team time, a debriefing before going home. The Blakes talked us through what adjustments we might experience shifting back to American culture, especially as we would be expected to jump back into activities as if we had never been away. And they gave advice as to what kinds of things we might share with our home churches. Because we had gone to different places to meet with different groups during our days in Vladimir, our individual stories varied considerably.

    The Blakes asked us a series of questions I have come to see as standard "exit" questions: "What has been the hardest adjustment?", "The greatest blessing?", "The person I will never forget?" Andrew the woodcarver and our translator was the obvious answer to this one. "What do I wish I had known beforehand?" -- to which I answered, "bring less, wear dark pants not light to conceal the mud."  I found nearly everything "Russian" interesting and engaging. If anything, I wanted more of nearly everything. The emotional letdown we had been told to expect after two or three days in this new country had not happened me. 

    This short missions trip had been such an extraordinary experience for me personally, I was sad to see the time in Vladimir end.  My short list of extraordinary moments, if I were forced to be particular, would include singing hymns on the bus on the dark ride back from Kosrov, conversing with Andrew during his tours of the old city, visiting the woodcarver's secluded workshop/sanctuary, our too short visit to the Orthodox cathedral on Palm Sunday, and tonight's session discussing serious questions with the gathering of young Russian believers.

    At the head of this list of extraordinary moments would have to be the sudden, brief, brilliant appearance of the sun during our sunrise service and hearing the response of our brothers and sisters, "Kristos voskrese! Voistinu voskrese!"