Vol. 69 No. 3 2002 - page 458

458
PARTISAN REVIEW
Wednesday's all-day excursion took us outside Moscow, to the Trin–
ity Monastery of St. Sergi us. On the way, our guide pointed to the many
dachas
that seemed to have been erected, often helter-skelter, along the
roadside, and which range from tiny, dilapidated lean-tos to small vil–
las. Allegedly, most Moscovite families spend weekends at their
dachas,
and depend on some of what they grow there for victuals. This trip to
me was indicative of the poverty that is prevalent in this huge, sparsely
populated country, not only because children were begging outside the
walls of the Monastery, but because we passed so many seemingly aban–
doned building sites, and so many poorly dressed women (and some
men) carrying groceries in the middle of what appeared to be nowhere.
In
this vast steppe, reminiscent of the landscape in Pasternak's
Dr.
Zhivago,
the restored Monastery-whose cathedrals, chapels, refecto–
ries, palace and other buildings date back to between the fourteenth and
seventeenth centuries-has been restored to an oasis of wealth.
After another long day of sightseeing, while going around the Arbat
and into the Tretyakov Gallery, we took a sleeper to St. Petersburg on
Thursday night. During the following three days of visiting that city's
(restored) past, from Peter the Great's Peter and Paul fortress to Cather–
ine II's neoclassical buildings, while driving over the bridges of the Neva
and the famous canals, it was impossible not to think of the stories by
Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Gorki, and Turgenev, and of those by the many
dissident writers. St. Petersburg's splendor, and its grandeur, of course,
is renowned for the Hermitage-with its three million exhibits, among
them the impressionist paintings that for so many years did not travel
to the West. Still, I was astonished to discover the many excellent Russ–
ian painters which to me had been unknown.
Here, too, we were hampered by the historic presidential summit. I
failed to get into the Russian Museum because President Putin was
showing its treasures to President Bush. But this disappointment was
compensated by managing to attend the Kirov's performance of
Tchaikovsky's
The Nutcracker,
together with the presidents and their
wives. Security was tight; many blocks around the Mariinsky Theater
were roped off long before the performance and heavily guarded by
police-armed with guns and cell phones-as well as by Russian and
American Secret Service men. The atmosphere was elegant and electric,
the two Presidents' appearance in the royal box was enthusiastically
applauded, as both Russians and foreigners seemed to welcome this his–
toric moment-signing an agreement between these former arch–
enemies. Gergiev's breathtaking orchestra, and the perfect dancing–
supported by sumptuous costumes and imaginative sets-offered what
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