Anya, Grisha, Lyova and I set out on Sunday morning for Grisha's sister's school. Varya is nine and we joined her class on their trip to Переделкино (Peredelkino), a village at which many Russian writers kept дачи (dachi/summer homes) in the Soviet era. Now the dacha owners are mostly obnoxious snobs with Range Rovers who don't seem to enjoy living near the museums. But Pasternak, for instance, once had a dacha there. We visited the dacha-museum of Korney Chukovsky--less exciting than Pasternak because he is less internationally famous and more exciting because he is beloved in Russia, was a children's writer, and his dacha is probably not a place most foreign tourists visit. Behind the dacha is a clearing in which he held bonfires for children with magicians, clowns, poets, and other entertainment. We waited there until our tour began. I liked the dacha very much. Two favorite things: 1. Next to the house, there is a tree covered with children's shoes. When Chukovsky's daughter was small, she buried a shoe in the yard and said it would grow into a shoe-tree. Chukovsky then wrote a story about the shoe-tree. 2. In Chukovsky's room, there is a table covered in books (mostly in English--he was a translator and spoke English fluently)--the books that Chukovsky planned to read, but never did because he died before he could get to them. Morbid, maybe, but I found it interesting. On the bottom right corner of the table sits Catch-22. I thought it was a shame he never read it.
After the trip, I returned to Moscow. In Peredelkino, it was possible to forget completely that the city was alive with tanks and people and planes and music--the Victory Day celebration, which seems to be the biggest, most important state holiday--but when I got back I traveled to the center, where people were swarming the area around Red Square. I wandered and watched people while I waited to find out what my friends were up to. I realized that being a lone девушка (young woman) in the swarm of people was going to get annoying after I was approached by a couple of guys, one of whom was pretty bold. The phrase "I really like you" is somehow creepier in Russian.
As much as I appreciated the offer of ice cream, I wasn't interested, and so I headed towards Christ the Savior/metro Kropotkinskaya/Beard Papa's to meet Darcy. We got some celebratory cream puffs and settled down near the river, enjoying the sunshine. It was easily 80 degrees. I got a text from Graham saying that he was at Park Pobyedi and that there would be fireworks later. Darcy and I said goodbye and I made my way to the park. I expected the metro to be packed, but it wasn't--until I got to the Park Pobyedi station. It's usually quite empty but everyone in Moscow was turning out for the celebration. It was so insane that I didn't even have cell phone reception for a while. I finally got ahold of my friends--Graham, Ben, Hanna, and Katie were there, along with a Russian guy Katie had met on Friday and some friends of his. Ben had purchased a пилотка (pilotka), a military-style hat that was being sold everywhere, and Graham had a gigantic Russian flag. The Russians in our group were the most laid-back strangers I'd met in Moscow, and we asked one another lots of questions and talked about the holiday.
It began storming very suddenly and beautifully. The thunder shook the ground and drove the revelers into the woods and under the cover of the Museum of the Great Patriotic War. Once the rain died down, we left the park and walked towards the next metro station (the Park Pobyedi station was closed to incoming traffic). But the rain stopped and so did we, waiting for the fireworks. The Russian girls started a game of charades, but it wasn't long before the show began--and it was beautiful. I wish I could have had a better view, but there were many people around and the euphoria and sense of collective celebration was more exciting than the lights in the sky. Everyone smiled, whooped, chanted, and sang. It was long, but over too early anyway and I didn't want to go home.
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