On Moscow

Long overdue.

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I just came back from Moscow a few days back. The family flew there for the long planned trip to visit dearly beloved Kakak Hanan there. It was my first time to Europe and the fourth place I've been to outside of Malaysia after Makkah, Bangkok and Jakarta. A good friend gave me that shocked, kindof worried look when I told him I where I was going. Well yeah, I understood what he was thinking, Moscow, the capital of the former USSR, Communism, Lenin and Stalin. Not to mention the Russian Mafia as well as the fact that it is the biggest city in Europe and the most expensive city in the world. I told him that it's great when you start with the biggest and baddest city in Europe; Survive this and all else should be a piece of cake. Quote that please. Thank you.

Anyway, I like most of you have a mental image of Moscow. Mine is the stereotypical ones you often see in Hollywood movies. I imagine that it would be a big, wet and dirty city with tall, identical and authoritarian-ly organized grey buildings set upon streets that are cramped with homeless people crowding together for heat in the middle of a cold Russian winter.

Well, that's a few years back la actually. Thanks to the Internet and what not, my imagination of Moscow relaxed a bit. I learned about the beautiful Kremlin, the Red Square and St. Basil's. I read about the museum-like Metro stations but still, I was quite sceptical about the other parts of the city. The parts where Muscovites lives and not the tourist areas. It so happened that my sister lives in such a place and that is also where we would be calling home for a week: Konkovo.

At first the area looked somewhat like the Moscow-in-my-mind. Except that it was Summer and it was warm. There were no homeless people around. The buildings on the other hand is old, grey and somewhat undermanaged. It screamed 1960s Soviet Russia to me everytime I look at it. I don't know how 1960s Soviet Russia looks like by the way. Nonetheless, it made me appreciate how lucky I am to have that low-cost flat in Sri Kembangan as a place to call home. Nonetheless, for a while I was sorta happy to experience what it might be like to live in Soviet Russia albeit 20 years after that country ceased to be. Reminds me of Red Alert.. Heh.

The interesting thing that I notice about Moscow is the efficiency of its public transportation. Well, I've never been anywhere else but I still have Kuala Lumpur to compare. I don't know about you but to me, a 40 seconds interval between trains is something to be proud of. Seriously, 40 saat and I'm not talking about trains the size of our LRT. It's probably in the same size as our cherished KTM Komuter. 40 saat. Wow. In KL missing a Komuter would mean that you'll have to wait around half and hour for the next one. In Moscow, the next trains should be in front of you by the time you finish this sentence. Amazing.

Apart for the efficiency of the trains, the stations itself is a sight to behold. Who would've thought of building statues and putting up ornate chandeliers in a subway station? Or cladding the walls with marbles? Furthermore, all station are architecturally unique. It's amazing to see the stations I passed through, from the rather plain Konkovo to the grand Biblioteka Lenina and stopping at the ornate Arbatskaya. There are a few stations too that are dedicated to a particular event such as the Partizanskaya, dedicated to the fallen partisans who fought against Nazi rule during World War 2. To me, there is a very good reason why the Soviets built their subway in such away: The Cold War. In a way, it is presenting to visitors from outside the Union on how great the country was. It's like saying hey, this is just our subway.. wait till you see our museums, offices etc. It is also a great propaganda tool for the public. Imagine being a citizen, traveling up and down the city using the subway. What could be better propaganda then to be reminded of how great your country at every corner of your way? If that doesn't work, it still is a good thing for the commuters to see something. Your a few dozen feet under the ground. A nice architecture is always better than the dark tunnels right? 

I've read quite some on how Germany changed after World War 2 especially in the eradication off all things Nazi and I thought that the same would happen to Soviet Russia after the union collapsed. Again, I was wrong. The hammer and sickle was everywhere. I was waiting for a train, looked up on the ceiling and there it was. I was riding up the escalator from the platform to the ticketing counter and up there on the ceiling, there it was. I followed the Moskva, down to Gorky Park and there it was, engraved on the buildings along the banks. The winds might be easy to change, but it's not the same with stones.