From Russia with Love -- Part 4

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Victory Day - 9 May 2009

Every year Russians celebrate the Victory Day commemorating their victory over the Nazis. They won the victory at a very great cost. 27 Million Russians had lost their lives in the war.

Russia parades her military strength in the Red Square on Victory Day. Select troops from her army, navy and aircraft goose-step to the tune of military band and the latest ICBMs and fast planes are exhibited.

Since the admittance to Red Square on V-Day is only for VVIPS and we did not fall in that category, we decided to watch it on TV. When the planes flew on the Red Square, we could watch them on TV and just after few seconds could see them from our hotel window. The hotel was in their flight path. So it was a lot of fun watching planes leaving the TV screen and then reappearing in the window frame.

The Victory Day Parade is strictly a military parade. It does not have any ‘floats’ with dancing damsels in regional costumes, like our Republic Day Parade. It is also short, just one hour.

The V-Day is a Public Holiday, so offices were closed but the places of entertainment were open.
When the Parade was over, we walked to the Novospasskey Terminal of the Moscow River Cruise, bought the tickets and boarded the boat.

(Our hotel was near the Novospasskey Bridge.)

The Moscow River cruise is a very pleasant experience in good weather. It is practically a ‘Moscow-Darshan’ tour. All the famous sights of Moscow - The House of Music, the Basilica, the south side of Kremlin, Peter the Great monument, The cathedral of Christ the Savior, ‘Kultur’ Park, Gorky Park, Sports stadia, (This is the plural of ‘stadium’) Novodevichi Convent, all lie along the banks of the river and are seen on this cruise.

The several bridges, spanning the Moscow River are also notable.

( Opinions are divided on this monument. The artist, who created this and the mayor who OKeyed this, perhaps think it to be beautiful. The rest of the world thinks of it as a monstrosity.

Neo-Bolshevics had threstened to blow up this monument if Lenin's body was removed from Red Square. I think, Lenin's body should be removed and given a decent burial as an incentive to Neo-Bolshevics, and then they should be held to their promise and given every encouragement to to blow up this ugly monument.

Mind you, I have nothing against Peter the Great but I have everything against this insult to his memory.)

The roller-coaster rides at the Kultur Park were full of children, screaming their enjoyment. From the cruise, we could only see their legs dangling from the seats, but it was very amusing.

The cruise ends at the Kievskaya Terminal.

From there, we had decided to walk to the Ukraina Hotel, where Avi had stayed 37 years back.

37 years is a long time and apparently, Avi had forgotten a lot of things. He showed me at least three buildings built in the ‘Stalin’ style on the opposite (right) bank of the river and claimed that they were The Ukraina hotel. But I had the map in my hands and it showed the Ukraina hotel to be on the left bank of the river.

I trusted the map rather than Avi’s dubious memory and so, I refused to cross the river in search of the three Ukraina hotels.

The map was right. It did bring us to the real Ukraina hotel. There was even the statue of someone in a small park in the front, which Avi remembered vividly.

However, the regal front of the hotel was now marred by tall water-storage tanks. It also had a dilapidated air.

A bit disheartened, we walked into the hotel’s inner court and asked the two guards, where the Reception was. We wanted to see whether they would allow us to visit the room Avi had stayed in, 37 years back.

They told us that the hotel was closed because it was undergoing renovation. This came as a big jolt to Avi.

We did not linger there much. The condition of the hotel had made us aware once again, how ephemeral everything is, including our own life.

'The White House' i.e Russian Parliament. This did not exist in 1972, so Avi could not identify such a big landmark right in front of the Ukraina Hotel.

This was built in 1981 and has seen two very dramatic events in its short life. in 1991, the August Putsch, which was something like Yelstin against Gorbachov. in 1993, October Events, in which the White House was bombarded from Ukraina Hotel again on Yelstin's orders.

Russian Politics in highly interesting but very difficult to understand.

Later we took a tram to the Red Square. It was open now and we wandered about it for a while. It was crowded with people carrying flowers for the brave soldiers. Then we walked along the St. Barbara street to Kitay-Gorod station, nodded to our friends Cyril and Methodius standing there in a park (who had finalized the Cyrillic script) and came home.

When I asked Avi whether he wanted to visit the Botkina Hospital, where he had undergone an Appendectomy, and had spent 18 miserable days recovering from that, he vehemently refused. He did not want to awaken those dreary memories of the loneliness and helplessness in the hospital.

However unpleasant those memories might be, it was so unusual an experience that I had written an article about it and sent to a well-known newspaper, only for it to come back with a polite refusal. I was so disenchanted with the notion of ‘publishing’ a piece that I did not write anything for almost 30 years.
The Internet has changed all that. Now I need not bother to go through an obnoxious Editor in order to publish my piece. I can and do, ‘web-publish’ it.

So, now I have persuaded Avi to write his experience at the Botkina Hospital in his own words. I will upload it as a separate blog.

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