Travel - Viajes

Vodka in the Sun: A Sunnier, Warmer Russia

By Eric D. Goodman

Sí, Russia does have a summer, and it is warm. As I left Sheremetyevo airport, the unexpected Moscow heat enveloped me. Cold as it gets in winter, I assumed the weather would be moderate in summertime. It was in the 90s. That’s not so bad until you’re sitting in a compact car in Moscow traffic without air conditioning – and expecting moderate tempatures.

Moscow is the New York City of Russia. It’s a busy, hustle-bustle business center. While rubles, dollars and euros make the city go round, there are a number of sights in the capitol city worth slowing down for. Many of them can be found in or around the Kremlin and Red Square.

The Heart of Moscow

Most major Russian cities with a history have kremlins, or fortresses, but the Kremlin in Moscow is the granddaddy of them all. The Kremlin is a self-contained refuge—an entire city within a city. Inside, one can find signs of Soviet Russia within an Imperial setting. At the heart of the Kremlin is Cathedral Square, and at its core is the Cathedral of the Assumption. The grand cathedral is surrounded by smaller cathedrals, palaces and towers. And, seeming a bit out of place in the Imperial setting, there is a statue of Lenin. The Senate, a building commissioned by Catherine the Great, was the location of Lenin’s office and is now the official home of the President. But I didn’t see Putin there during my visit.

The Tsar Cannon and Bell are located within the Kremlin as well. The cannon, built under the reign of Ivan the Terrible’s son Fydor in the late 1500s, weighs 40 tons and has a barrel larger than five meters. The bell is the largest in the world—200 tons. So large, in fact, that it has never been successfully rung. A small scrap of the bell, weighing in at 11 tons, is displayed next to it.

Paint the Town Red

We walked from the inner walls of the Kremlin to the world-famous square of red. I recall the first time I saw Red Square some ten years ago. I was surprised it wasn’t bigger. Having seen the televised parades with horses and jeeps and tanks and troops crossing Red Square during the Soviet era in a sign of military might, I had expected it to be bigger. But with each successive visit to the square it seems larger due largely in part to the conditioning of my initial visit.

A group of teenagers passed us in the heart of Red Square with a blaring radio: “I’m back in the USSR, you don’t know how lucky you are, boys, back in the US, back in the US, back in the USSR!”

Probably tourists with hopes that Paul McCartney would one day perform the song in the square (which he later did). But the Beatles’ White Album tune stuck in my head like the background music of a sweeping movie scene as we crossed the Red Square, taking in the Assumption church with its sun-lit golden domes, Lenin’s sealed mausoleum and the rounded platform where Ivan the Terrible the had countless Russians decapitated.

The highlight of Red Square, and of Moscow, is the very symbol of Russia: the rich onion-domed St. Basil’s Cathedral. While I’ve been to the cathedral more times than I’ve flown into Russia, I had never before been admitted. It was always closed for renovations during my visits. Ivan the Terrible was looking down on me this day; I was allowed to enter the cluster of nine sanctuaries. This is, after all, Ivan’s most memorable monument. The tsar commissioned St. Basil’s Cathedral and then he had the architects’ eyes burnt out to ensure the cathedral remain one-of-a kind. To this day, there is no other cathedral quite like it.

As with Red Square, I was surprised to find that the interior of one of the world’s most recognized churches was not larger. But what it lacked in space it made up for in presentation. The brick interior was decorated with beautiful, ancient icons, and you could see all the way up into the insides of the domes. Compact as the self-guided tour was, it was like venturing through the old temples of a past civilization. In fact, that’s just what it was.

Armenian Appetizers in the Alley

After touring the nucleus of Russian history, we sampled the cuisine of kiosks and street venders in the urban suburbs. I’m familiar with the Russian kitchen, but every visit brings new surprises. As we walked the streets with our bottled beer, we ate shurma, a sort of Armenian gyro made with meat, onion and cucumbers in a cream sauce. It was good, but better was the pivo, or beer.

Russian beer has certainly evolved. When I first visited in 1994, I remember only a couple brands of pivo. Now, there are too many to remember, and most brands have a variety of marks, set apart from one another by their numbers. I highly recommend Baltica 4, 6 and 9 and Makari 10 and 12. Like a hearty Rusian, I enjoy a dark beer. And, like most good pivos, they can be found anywhere in Russia for about 50 cents a bottle.

But Russian beer isn’t the only thing that has altered during the last decade. Russia is not the nation I found when I visited as a student in 1994. Still at work reforming itself from socialism to capitalism, much has changed: from the number of cars, to the number of businesses, to the number of the “new Russians,” or the newly rich businesspeople. There’s even a new sort of joke in Russia to illustrate the mentality of those who have become rich off of Russia’s new market.

“How much did you pay for that tie,” asked one new Russian.

“I got it for $100,” is the proud answer.

“You were cheated,” is the smug response. “I bought the same tie for $200.”

New Russians are more common, but don’t constitute the average Russian. New Russians, the business of quick deals, and the fact that a tenured professor or practiced doctor can make much more money selling vodka on the street corner than they can practicing their skill—these are subjects for a different article. We’re here to have fun. So we buy another round of pivo at the kiosk and pop the bottle cap off on a nearby fence of wrought iron.

And next month, we’ll enjoy another shot of Vodka in the Sun.