We Start Quietly on Russia «

We Start Quietly on Russia

Saturday 28th April 2018

Russia is very big, as a place and a subject. Where to start? We started with St Isaac’s Cathedral. It’s the main cathedral but there are others, as we discovered. There was outrage when a Frenchman was pronounced by Tsar Alexander 1 as winner of the competition to build it. Early 19th century. ‘But he’s never been an architect,’ those spurned protested. Well, it certainly shows. What a frightful building! No rhythm, no movement, just a dead weight. It’s supposed to soar. In feet and inches, it does. The dome is one of the largest in the world. But you’d never know it. The Frenchman had no idea how to disguise and lighten the effect of the massive piers required to hold up the dome. So really, why bother? I was terribly worried: where the Tsars crowned here? And buried? Where did they all go in 1894, when Tsar Alexander 111 died and they had to keep kissing the body? Prince George of York complained of the smell. Later he was George V of the United Kingdom.Or maybe it was the Prince of Wales who complained. He was later Edward V11. Queen Vic never travelled, of course, except to that hotel at Menton.

Prince Dmitri said, ‘Where is the Russian Orthodox Church?’ The cathedral has been hollowed out, the Church banished by the Communists. And never let back. Now it is to be let back, as of 2017, but many don’t want it. There’s a struggle with the past that can’t be resolved. The people love this church, but not as a church, or at least a Russian Orthodox Church.

The Orthodox form is strange, by the way. A Greek Cross, if that. A tight huddle, although massive and vast, barely a nave or any aisles. No pews or chairs either. I realised I’d never been before into an Orthodox church.

We went on to the Youssapov Palace. That was more like it. A private Palace. To see where Rasputin was murdered, you have to take a special tour only in Russian. An incredible private palace. Nothing like it in England for scale and massiveness of matching sets. How many drawing rooms do you need, let alone a private opera theatre with its own entrance from the street? Mostly the palace de-based late 19th century, all very finished and matching and smoothed. Especially hideous the oak panelled rooms with a kind of built-in antler effect. What were they thinking of, flinging all this up with only 3o or 40 years to go before catastrophe? The Yousapovs escaped with many jewels sown into their frocks and became somewhat disreputable in Paris later. The Gay Granny, for some reason, was much taken with Prince Felix Youssapov, although she did not usually worship murderers.

The best thing about the Palace was the front door; the door handles were easily 5 feet off the ground and opened onto two further sets of inner doors – the cold, you see, as well as grandeur.