Cathedral of the
Assumption at Sergiev Posed, headquarters
of the Russian Orthodox Church. In front
of the Cathedral is the little Church of
the Descent of the Holy Spirit
The New Russia
Peter Stupples had visited Russia many times. But he was astonished by what he discovered this year.
I first visited the Soviet Union in 1965 and
returned to Russia fairly regularly over the
next few years until 1992. I knew the dour
years of Brezhnev, the hope of perestroika
and the social and political dislocations accompanying
the break up of the Soviet empire. After a
long gap of twelve years I returned once more
to Russia in June 2004.
I had read about the changes but was not prepared
for the radical social reconstruction of the Russian
cities and the evident speed of change. What is taking
place now is nothing less than another revolution – this
time a rapid and full-scale transition to capitalism.
How does this strike the eye? Everyone in Moscow
and St Petersburg has a cell phone and uses it as
a regular part of daily life. Young people are dressed
in the latest fashions. There are many fast food
outlets – Russian chains, selling Russian food,
as well as McDonalds. Cafes and restaurants are booming.
There has been a massive growth in the number of
motor vehicles: in Moscow BMWs and Mercedes, less
up-market in St Petersburg. Both cities are approaching
gridlock. On the highway between them endless lines
of container-shifting trucks travel at speed. The
shops are full of goods of great variety, even country
mini-markets. A supermarket we visited a number of
times in St Petersburg had a better range of products
than in many Western cities. The growing addiction
to gambling was astounding – more casinos and
pokey-machine outlets than anywhere I have seen in
the West. New high-quality housing projects are mushrooming
on every Moscow horizon, but distinctly less noticeable
in the provinces. If people can’t afford new
apartments then they are frantically upgrading their
old flats. There are makeshift markets selling materials
to do up your home, or to repair your car, on every
spare piece of ground.
There is a hum, a positive feel, an urgency, even
a cheerfulness that sometimes takes the breath away.
Especially if you knew the old Soviet Russia, with
its shortages of consumer goods, their poor quality,
and the rundown feeling, the all-pervasive gloom.
There was a great deal of discussion and correspondence
this year in the St Petersburg Times (edited by New
Zealander Robin Munro) of the harassment of tourists
by gypsies and other predators. My recent experience
of the city, and other parts of Russia, was that
this grim picture has been overdone. Generally we
met honest traders and streets as safe as in any
other city where there are many tourists – as
safe as New York, London or Paris. That is not to
say much, it might be said, but Russia’s reputation
as a mugger’s paradise is undeserved.
This capitalist revolution affects everyone. Alongside
it is a religious revolution – the Orthodox
church triumphant. This is epitomised in Moscow by
the rebuilding of the massive Cathedral of Christ
the Saviour (below). The original cathedral took
decades to build, 1839-1883. It commemorated Russia’s
victory over Napoleon in 1813. It was blown up in
the 1930s by Stalin, who intended to replace it with
a Palace of the Soviets topped by a 100-metre statue
of Lenin.
In every city and town churches, monasteries and convents are being given back to the church. They are being restored and repainted. For example we visited the Holy Lake Iversky Monastery on an island on Lake Valdai. It now houses a small group of monks, but many of these restored institutions are assisted by lay brothers and a host of mainly women volunteers. A massive road is being built from the charming village of Valdai to the monastery to take the hundreds of tourists expected in the next few years.
In addition to foreign tourists many churches and monasteries are visited by busloads of Orthodox pilgrims, many looking quite poor. In every church there are sellers of candles and religious trinkets, tables with pencils and paper to request commemorative prayers to be chanted in mass by the priest, there are christenings and confessions, the kissing of icons, weddings and funerals, religious education and chari-table works – all centred on the church. This seems particularly the province of women, but I noticed some men and a larger number of young people taking part in the routines of church life.
Such a change from my first visit to St Petersburg in 1965 when there was barbed-wire around the church of the Resurrection of Christ on Spilled Blood (the title of the church refers to the fact that it was erected on the site of the assassination of the tsar Alexander II in 1881) and three old women had to clamber along the embankment of the Griboedov Canal at Easter to get close enough to kiss the locked and dilapidated doors.
Concert halls sell tickets on a two price basis – for tourists and for locals. Tourists pay almost double. We went to the Mariinsky Theatre to a performance of Shostakovich’s opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, conducted by Valery Gergiev, one of the most renowned conductors in the world today. It was the opera Stalin condemned, causing Shostakovich’s disgrace and fear of arrest, a fear from which he never recovered. The seats were as expensive as good tickets for similar events in New Zealand. The orchestra was first class. The theatre was wonderful – a dark green arc of many-tiered boxes decorated with gold painted baroque arabesques. There were marble corridors through which to stroll between acts, with wine and snacks in cafeteria alcoves. It was made memorable by the music, the quality of the playing,..00 the performers, the setting – as I have always remembered the theatre in Russia. Most of the audience were tourists. The arts now depend upon visitors to pay the bills instead of the state.
Is the new Russia only good news? I asked this question a number of times and always got the same reply. It is very good for some.the young and the enterprising, but terrible for the old and those without the means to take advantage of the new economic order. The new benefit system being introduced by Putin will give pensioners and invalids the equivalent of NZ$20 a week.
On the margins of both cities, and even towards the centres of provincial towns, I noticed hundreds of rundown flats, the slums that Khrushchev built. There is an urgent need to replace a vast amount of housing stock from the Soviet era. It is only the new rich who can afford the penthouses. Roads are quite incapable of taking the traffic. There are potholes that only Russians would be proud of. Behind many smart facades are garbage-filled, dilapidated yards. The old Russia was not far from the new.
But as I recalled my visits in the 1960s and 70s the new Russia seemed freer, less under siege, both from within and without. There are still the bookshops and concert halls, there is still the pride in heritage. Former palaces and art galleries are smarter and their contents better displayed. Russia has begun the long road to Western material prosperity. It may never catch up but it is certainly sprinting in the same economic direction, for good or ill!