Excerpt
And I thought Natasha did a good job of telling us the history. For once she got away from ‘Lenin said this’ and ‘Lenin said that.’”
“Yes, she was very informative,” said Carlos, a student from the Fine Arts department. “But have you ever seen so many ugly buildings? Even that Hotel Rossiya is no prize—a big box is all it is. The biggest I’ve ever seen. I’d rather see the Stalin-style of architecture even if the buildings do look like wedding cakes.” He stopped abruptly, as if surprised he had said so much.
Maria began to describe a church in the Ukraine where her great-grandmother had been married, but she was constantly interrupted by Ted who kept pointing out other buildings along the way, each one more drab than the last.
Jennifer allowed her mind to wander on the many windowless, anonymous buildings they were seeing throughout the city. What were they? No signs were posted; no occupants came or went. Carlos is right. Moscow is utilitarian and drab. I can’t wait to get to Leningrad. One 19th century visitor had described it as a city full of palaces. She expected much contrast between the two: Moscow and Leningrad—one with an ancient history of a fortress settled by peasants, the other built on the Gulf of Finland by Peter the Great as his magnificent window on the west.
“Leningrad,” she murmured, for no particular reason, and then she recalled its older name: Sanct Peterburg. Saint Petersburg. Peter’s city.
