Moscow Dispatch #3
Red Square is history major heaven, but I think it'd also satisfy those with even the dullest of aesthetic sensibilities. Emerging from what may be the worlds fastest subway ride, one skips past a statue of a dejected Marx towards a duet of arches that seperates the square from rest of Moscow. St. Basil's shape looms large in the doorway, hazy and indistinct in the morning smog. One wants to run there right way because it seems that it'll soon burn off with the rest of the morning haze.
It's a square of violent clashes (violent in the way that it disrupts your mental landscape like a Super Walmart destroys bucolic grandeur).
During that decades-long nuclear pissing contest (one part ideological, two parts megalomaniacal) the USSR paraded nuclear missiles amid throngs of green goosestepping boys. It was pagentry, pure and simple, the bolshevik ballet that sprang off the television screens back home and scared the pants off my parents' generation.
The Red Square is still a scene of violent clashes, still between east and west, too. Nukes don't parade past, and the sky is bomber free. This new clash is economic. Facing St. Basil and looking left is a mall, granitegrey, housing status-symbol shit from Dolce, Gabbanna, Vitton and godhelpmewhoeverelse. It's a compact 5th avenue or Rodeo Drive. The largesse of late capitalism has moved in on what was once the setting for the strength and might of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
Across the way, black and maroon marble compose a pyramid containing Vladimir Lenin's 80 years preserved corpse. For a political system that was atheistic to the core, this building reeks of religion. Solemn, sinister and spiritual, the air is wet with history and gravitas. Russian soldiers stand sentry throughout the tomb, their crisp uniforms sillhouetted in lowlight, faces sullen and serious. Lenin is in repose, crisp suit and tidy mustache, with a near smirk on his face.
The walk through the mausoleum is completed in absolute silence. The colour scheme and lighting suggest a tenebrae liturgy, but there's no hope of resurrection here. Just passing decades of deep shadows, a rose spotlight and cold skin.
Red Square is history major heaven, but I think it'd also satisfy those with even the dullest of aesthetic sensibilities. Emerging from what may be the worlds fastest subway ride, one skips past a statue of a dejected Marx towards a duet of arches that seperates the square from rest of Moscow. St. Basil's shape looms large in the doorway, hazy and indistinct in the morning smog. One wants to run there right way because it seems that it'll soon burn off with the rest of the morning haze.
It's a square of violent clashes (violent in the way that it disrupts your mental landscape like a Super Walmart destroys bucolic grandeur).
During that decades-long nuclear pissing contest (one part ideological, two parts megalomaniacal) the USSR paraded nuclear missiles amid throngs of green goosestepping boys. It was pagentry, pure and simple, the bolshevik ballet that sprang off the television screens back home and scared the pants off my parents' generation.
The Red Square is still a scene of violent clashes, still between east and west, too. Nukes don't parade past, and the sky is bomber free. This new clash is economic. Facing St. Basil and looking left is a mall, granitegrey, housing status-symbol shit from Dolce, Gabbanna, Vitton and godhelpmewhoeverelse. It's a compact 5th avenue or Rodeo Drive. The largesse of late capitalism has moved in on what was once the setting for the strength and might of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
Across the way, black and maroon marble compose a pyramid containing Vladimir Lenin's 80 years preserved corpse. For a political system that was atheistic to the core, this building reeks of religion. Solemn, sinister and spiritual, the air is wet with history and gravitas. Russian soldiers stand sentry throughout the tomb, their crisp uniforms sillhouetted in lowlight, faces sullen and serious. Lenin is in repose, crisp suit and tidy mustache, with a near smirk on his face.
The walk through the mausoleum is completed in absolute silence. The colour scheme and lighting suggest a tenebrae liturgy, but there's no hope of resurrection here. Just passing decades of deep shadows, a rose spotlight and cold skin.
Nice to see your doing well. Hope your keeping safe and guarding your rubles. Did you actually go into see Lenin? Was there much of a line?
Posted by
Joel Swagman |
2:24 PM
Your words are nearly edible.
Posted by
Anonymous |
3:15 AM