KOSTROMA

In Rostov the sign on the large and heavy hotel entrance door says, "Guests,
please do not allow cats into the hotel." The morning bells tell me it's time
to leave this magical and dryly naive enclave. It's been a good refuge for me, too,
like many others who took shelter here at some point in history. I'm off
by bus to Kostroma, via Yaroslavl, through the narrow, busy road lined with
golden forests and empty fields, past village cottages, many dilapidated, others
freshly painted, little sign of activity. At the new bus station where we stop
for 20 minutes a handicapped teenager begs me to buy the newspaper from him, and
I do. The lead story is a fairly lurid account of how neighbors are puncturing
each other's tires for parking in the wrong place. Blocking an entryway or another
car. Just a good stake into the tires, there's your lesson. Or break a window.
Parking has become a huge problem in Moscow, too. Cars block each other, but leave
their cell phone numbers on the windshield, so the owner can come running when
you call. A friend tells me the City has no rules, no plans, no garages, etc.
People park willy-nilly, on sidewalks, double park on streets, whereever at the
moment is possible. Today, however, I did see one car being towed from near the
Lenin Library. The exact violation wasn't clear, however, it looked like an
ok spot to me.
In an hour, forests gleaming and light playing on the lower plants under the
golden twinkling canopy, we are in Kostroma. The driver lets me off in the
center of town, as urgently advised by some kindly fellow passengers, and I
look for a hotel. After a long long walk with lots of directions, I come to
the Soviet period hulk of hotel, the Volga, with a nicely done over lobby
and other cosmetics, including a snappy and smiling staff of mainly pretty
girls, I find myself in a familiar (from ca. 1976) Soviet "nomer" (hotel room).
Tiny, Spartan, adequate, unremodeled but still functioning, with a balcony
looking out over the Volga. Mighty Mississippi-like Volga, one of those
rivers strikes some atavist chord within us. You want to keep looking,
to feel its power, flowing on, the other bank quite distant. Cars hum
constantly over its bridge, into late night.
The town itself (250,000) is bustling, dusty, some trash, even right downtown
uncollected garbage has blown all over the park-like buffer to the road,
right across from the Philharmonic Hall, another late Soviet landmark. It's
a small town, but an impressive concert hall and, as I later learn, a
fine community of first-rate musicians. The classical music world is
alive and well, even growing a bit in Kostroma. It's a trade center for the
county/region, and it's Sunday. Lots of people out, in holiday moods, buying
cakes, wine, cabbage, winter clothes in the big market. Birch trees line
the long main street, still called Sovietskaya (only Moscow and St. PBG seem
to have changed their street names, and this gives an odd anachronistic
feel to the urban atmosphere, as if, after all, one is in a time warp).
Young people, as always, are in high spirits. They socialize on the street,
some drinking, but not all, just "hanging out", some couples out on dates.
This highly socialized atmosphere is an appealing trait, one that Moscow
is too crowded to be able to manage, and it conveys genuine vitality,
in a kind of country way where people may know each other and there
is not any great degree of urban alienation, suspicion or lurking dangers.
There's a McDonald's, of course, and it's popular, but lots of little,
lesser cafes, too. I settle into one of those for supper, a place with
large manikins or dolls in the windows, all in 19th century dress and
poses. The meal is small and a bit pricey for the quanity of food, but
I enjoy observing the social scene - civilized, lively, friendly.
Sudden I notice through a window a man on the street, just stepped out from
his car, aiming his camera me, then again down the street (what is there to
photograph there, it's late late afternoon, undistinguised scene), then
suddenly whips around and back at -- two quick takes pointed at me (it's
a large camera), then he quickly steps into his car, and off.
What to make of this? Why did he want my photograph? Me in my crumpled
traveling clothes, and in general no special photogenic attributes.
A little shiver runs down by back and old KGB encounters creep to mind.
But no, no, that was another time, another century, and I toss my
paranoia out. Russia is often a strange place. Just let it go at that.
He wanted my picture -- simply so and that's it. I'll never know the reason
and don't really care.
The next day I visit the Ipatievsky Monastery, the site where powerful
boyars came to Mikhail Fyodorovich Romanov, who had been lodged there
by Boris Godunov, and asked MFR to become Tsar. He graciously accepted and
the 300 year plus Romanov dynasty was off and running. That was 1613, and in
1913, Nicolas II, Alexandra and children came to Kostroma to observe
this founding of their family's rule. As you know, they had only 3-4 more
years to live. The monastery is a beautiful place in a sublime setting,
on the banks of a tributary to the Volga and not far from the great
river itself. This monastery has now been returned to the Church, and
given its central place in national history has been lavished with attention.
Everything is nicely restored, unlike the Rostov Kremlin, and today, after
two tiny groups of French and American tourists depart, I and a sprinkling
of Russian visitors have the monastery to ourselves. The light sparkles, the
air is especially fresh, the rooks zoom and cry around the cupolas of the
Trinity cathedral. Inside the smell of incense is sweet and musky, saying
welcome to the other life, a conduit. The icons are many, the
iconstasis magnificent. No service is underway but women are lined up to buy
candles to be lighted later. Beautiful, silent except for the birds and a
few footfalls, and bells, tolling just for a spell.
In the neighborhood of well kept cottages and their gardens, the
streets also, even in this historical piece of group, have Soviet names.
One is Klubnaya, where the House of Culture and community club would have
been, incongurous now.
In the afternoon I visit the downtown square with its whimsical firestation
built during Catherine II's time, still a working firehouse, I'm told, with it's
high tower for spotting smoke in the city. I go to the art museum, its name
now restored--at least that--to the original Romanov Museum of Art and History.
A fine small collection of Wanders painters make up the essense of its collection,
including Savrasov, Levitan, Repin - all my heroes. I'm the only visitor except
for an occasional school group. I ask an attendant some questions about the
museum and the collection. She asks me if I am a native of Kostroma! Quite
a linguistic compliment, too great to be modest about and not report. (A blog
someday on the magical key that command of a foreign language is...Without it
where could I go here? What could I see and hear?)
I'm waiting for a bus to take me back to the area of my hotel when a man
(later he tells me he's 62: age is up front in Russia and has immediate importance).
He has a folded easel in his arms. He looks at me and says, as if in English,
"Tourist?" I introduce myself in general terms in Russia. His next question:
"Well how do things look to you?" I take a cautious approach: "People are well
dressed, look, mainly, well fed, kind of happy." "No, no, no!" he replies.
"It's not that way at all. It's awful. We've been sold out, we're ruled
by bandits (a favorite word for the people and system now in power), they've
taken everything from us and want more still. They'll get it all, take it
to Siberia, destroy our homes. You were wise to keep the Iron Curtain (his
version of who maintained it) and you should put it back to protect yourselves."
His rant continues on the bus, where he asks a bewildered adoloscent boy with the
face of a Caucasus nationality to back him up. I ask why they voted for
the incumbents (Medvedev was here recently, by the way, to Ipatiev Monastery
in a symbolic state visit.) Vote, ha! he replies. "They put somebody in, we
don't have a vote. And if you say anything they'll beat you to death. Not
on any command -- just whoever is passing and hears you." He had tried some
initiative and barely escaped with his life. He does admit to being something
of an anarchist, but there is real pain, not rhetoric, in his word, and anguish.
I mention something about his being an artist and maybe especially detached
and analytical. Again he hoots. "The artist thing is something I just took up.
I do a little daubing at pictures to bring in something extra. You have to
live, you know."
At night, the sidewalk to my hotel is dark and rough, huge potholes,
craters almost, and I pick my way carefully. The pedestrian streets
are totally neglected. That's up to people, let them walk carefully,
you can almost hear some powerful somebody say. We've got other priorities!
That same night I heard an excellent concert, Beethoven and Tchaikovsky,
the local intelligentsia (not wealthy people) in attendance, he hall is
not filled but the audience is strong in its applause and cries of Bravo. The contrast
between high culture and crumbling civic infastructure, or lack thereof,
is dramatic and sad. But why doesn't someone complain? I catch myself
before I complete the question: but to whom and at what cost of nerves
and energy, and risk, without any likelihood of success for one's complaint.

Closing time at the library. Tomorrow I'm off to St. Petersburg and more from
there later in the week.