Reed Magazine May
2004

Paideia in Russia

Reedies explore
Orthodox art
and cold vodka

by Margaret Anderson ’05

Reed students Alea Adigweme ’06 and Hilary Brevig ’06
 
Reed students Alea Adigweme ’06 and Hilary Brevig ’06

January 10, 2004. A group of Reed students, alumni, and faculty has descended upon Moscow’s Red Square. The focus of our group’s excursion: to spend Paideia visiting six Russian cities and exploring Orthodox art and cathedrals.

After convening in Moscow and overnighting at the behemoth Hotel Rossiya, our group of 20 (ranging in age from 19 to 78) departs on a bus for Sergiev Posad, the Orthodox religious settlement founded by St. Sergius in the Middle Ages. Cerulean onion domes covered with stars tower before us as our bus rolls up onto crunchy gray snow. The scent of incense inside the dim cathedral and the ethereal sound of chanting overwhelm the senses. The most entertaining scene of the day was a bearded priest in black swinging a Christian Dior bag.

Back in Moscow the next day, we explore the city. At the Park of Fallen Idols, one of our group is chastised by a guard for climbing a statue of Lenin for a photo op. Thursday evening it’s off to St. Petersburg, and the all-night train ride is punctuated by nips of vodka and sausage sandwiches.

St. Petersburg is still dark when we pull into the train station. As the gray dawn melts into day it becomes clear why this is called the most European city in Russia. Welcome to the home of Peter the Great, Vladimir Putin, and the State Hermitage, one of the finest art museums on earth. The Hermitage overwhelms with the sheer scale of beauty and grandeur contained within its walls. During the 1930s, Stalin sold as many as 3,000 pieces of art from the collection of European masters to cover state budget deficits. We visit Pushkin’s last apartment and see the room where he died after the infamous duel.

As much as I enjoy the history, religion, and culture, the most fun time is spent with Andy Bruno ’03, who is on a Fulbright scholarship at European University. Andy takes us to a hole-in-the-wall Georgian restaurant and then to an avant-garde basement club, where we drink vodka with lemons and listen to a man in a green bicycle jump suit roar hilariously into a microphone. I can’t remember the last time I felt so cool. End of Article

Margaret Anderson is a junior political science–Russian major from Chicago.

Russia Paideia picture
   
Reed Magazine May
2004