Moscow & St Petersburg, July 7–14, 2007

I dreamed of this sleep. I dreamed of the swaying bunk and the iron-willed rails carrying me north through the night from Moscow to St Petersburg. Birch forests, tundra, misty swamps. Serfs and tsars, revolutionaries and oligarchs. Red days, white nights.
MOSCOW BESTS: Kremlin churches, icons, Red Square space, Stalin skyscrapers, metros, river trip, those pavement cafes on the street behind the Bolshoi (closed for renovation). Elku Pulku and Mou-Mou self service restaurants: healthy local food without a menu or a waiter. (In 1905 waiters went on strike against the ignominy of having to accept tips.)
ST PETERSBURG BEST BITS: White nights, rivers and canals, Russian Museum, writers’ house-museums. Food for thought: Chaika, by the canal, with jazz and Baltic fish; The Idiot – me too for not going there.
Disappointing not to hear any music in this land of towering composers, but in high summer cities are often emptied of their orchestras.
So much to read now: Natasha’s Dance, Pushkin, Anna Akhmatova, Osip Mandelstam...