Moscow: Capital cathedrals, good food and luxury

We had fun in Moscow, we had a sense of achievement after our Trans Siberian journey. We explored the Red Square, St Basil’s and the Kremlin. Surprisingly the Kremlin has the 4 cathedrals and I suffered saint and icon overload.  Moscow has a many luxurious shops where Rita shopped.  We eat excellent food.

We stayed in a luxurious Airbnb apartment in Arbat with 3 bedrooms, an elaborate bathroom, open plan kitchen and living room. V different to the usual public built flats in Russia. Our German friend Ulricha joined us for a long weekend, starting on Wednesday.  We talked about our 9,000 kms trans Siberian rail journey.

We enjoyed using the Metro, at our station a sign said, “we speak English”,  a phenomenon not seen elsewhere in Russia where little English is spoken.  Our first stop was Red Square, sadly filled with chairs for a tattoo. We had coffee and cabbage pie in a café and worked out our plans. We visited St Basil’s that afternoon. It is a vast religious structure with too many chapels, elaborate  and gold icons. My head span with all the saints and their stories. There is no central area for worship.  St Basil’s is best from its outside view with its quirky beautiful architecture, inside the religion and devotion is too heavy.  We stayed on Red Square eating dessert in the elegant cafe Bosch, for me a beautiful tartiflor with melted chocolate. We walked home through the Alexander gardens enjoying  the hydrangeas in flower and then struggling crossing the roaring 6 lane traffic road. I enjoyed a Russian classic “herring in a fur coat” (covered with a beetroot glaze) and a cold cucumber and seafood soup for supper.

We shopped in the GUM department store on Red Square, now a collection of luxury shops. Rita and Vincent bought dark blue St Petersburg royal porcelain.

The next day at the museum of Russian art we saw a baroque church, now a museum piece with an elderly gent caring for the icons and giving Ann a detailed explanation.  We had coffee and snacks in a hipster café, then went by taxi to Red Square getting good views of central Moscow. Our Kremlin Tour started with Russian history from with the Great Patriotic war. The soldiers at the eternal flame change guard hourly with high goose steps. We looked at the map of the 1812 victory, and the monument to the Tsars. We queued to enter the Kremlin, but there was space inside. Four cathedrals dominate the Kremlin with many icons and church stuff. All the Tsars are buried in the last church. It is a powerful illustration of Russian history and the entwining of state and church, communism being a small part. We enjoyed the city views in nice small garden there.

We had champagne for Ann’s birthday in the flat, then a celebratory meal in Pushkins café, Ann and I had delicious trout with fish mousse and asparagus and white Russian wine. My pudding a fruit terrine with a mint sauce. Home by metro, tired after a long day.

On my last day Rita, Vincent and I and visited the Art Deco hotel Metropole, the location for the book, “A Gentleman in Moscow” by Amor Towles which I read on our Trans Siberian journey book and Rita was reading. Seeing the hotel and gives my reading depth. Regular hotel trips  are run by a fan that one can book. Vincent and I took the metro back to Smolenska station. I went by taxi to Belorussian station then to the airport on the aeroport express. I chatted to a Russian civil engineer working in Solihull, UK on her summer holiday and leaving her 4 children with their grandmother at their dacha. I enjoying more Russian food at the airport  and flew to London.

The days in Moscow were a good end for the month travelling across Russia. Lonely Planet had recommended doing the Trans-Siberian from east to west and we enjoyed the  monuments, good food and luxury in Moscow and it had a Russian context.

The cut out girl

Bart van Es

Fig Tree 2018

Penguin 2019

5 stars

This beautifully written book that explores the feelings of being a hidden child during the holocaust and the psychological trauma she lived with.  Bart, an oxford historian, realizes a family member, Lien, does not figure in family histories. His grandmother and Lien had a terrible row and she cut off contact. Bart approaches Lien by email. He befriends her and she tells her story. She was a Jewish child in Amsterdam and is hidden by his family in Central Holland during the second world war. She retells her story and we experience it thorough her eyes. She was 8 when her parents gave her for safe keeping to their friends.  On her 9^th  birthday she heard from them but then silence. He captures the pain she experienced, silence, then tears.  She had forgotten a lot.  It was not easy being a refugee, she had to work almost as a house maid in one home. She and another refugee escaped at one point. She did not understand what was happening, then become silent and withdrawn, then a slow anger built up, initially she was warm but then hot. Feeling unwanted was a major part of her experience. Aged 12 she was raped frequently by a family uncle. After the war she worked in child care and then trained as a social worker.  When she did talk about her rape it was acknowledged by the family but not acted upon.  She had different religions, brought up Jewish, then followed Dutch reform, at university she joined the Jewish student society. She married a Jew Albert and enjoyed the Jewish rituals.  She is now Bhuddist.

She repressed many feelings, it was all too painful.  Later in life she acknowledged her refugee status. She takes Bart to Schouwberg, the departure point for Dutch Jews to the concentration camps and they look at her parents names. She was helped by a conference in Amsterdam for child refugees and the conversations it opened up.  The then mayor of Amsterdam was himself a child refugee. She makes peace at Auschwitz by performing Buddhist rituals there over a week with her Dutch friends.

She was v sensitive to being excluded by the family.  At her wedding she was surprised that people were joking “is the husband Albert good enough for our Lien?”. She was hurt being excluded from the family funeral announcements of Pa Heromas death.  She had a small birthday party that she did to mention to Ma Heroma.  The two then exchanged angry letters, Lein wrote that she felt a second rate person in the family. Ma heroma had no further contact with her. These letters one can write because it an emotional release but one should not send them because they  can hurt so much.

Bart the historian is fascinated by Lein’s story, he backs up his work academically checking on the files of Dutch informers.  Through his interest he gains Lein’s trust. She visits Oxford and meets his family. In her her Amsterdam flat and she introduces him to her friends as “my nephew who will write my story”. The detective work has produced family healing.

Occasionally there is too much background, such as the description of the Dutch informers, it gives useful context. His fluent Dutch makes him at home there.

There are two journeys in this book; Lien’s story of being a child in hiding, and van Esses story of getting Lein to talk, the background research that he did on Dutch informers. It is his journey in writing the book.  Bridges have been rebuilt within the family.  He  describes his visits to Holland, seeing the towns and understanding Dutch history well.

Being half Dutch there were many personal resonances for me in the book. I recognized the grandparents generation and the academic exploring Holland. My mother repressed her PoW experience, she was in Japanese prisoner of war camp aged 18-20. She coped by rarely talking about the experience.  It made her a survivor when she faced problems.

So I admire Bart van Esse in getting his aunt to talk about her experience. My mother kept her story inside.