The Great Siberian Railroad

After watching a documentary on the Trans-Siberian railway, I looked for an early account of this famous journey by Eugen Zabel. He was apparently the first foreigner to take the route from Moscow to Vladivostok, publishing his account in Germany in 1903.

Construction was yet to be completed and Zabel had to take a ferry at Lake Baikal to meet up with the under end. He seemed to revel in this long journey, which stretched over 9000 km, noting the beauty of the iron bridges. This is twice as long as the Trans-continental railroad in the United States, which the Romanovs used as a model.

Russia was being industrialized at a rapid rate and the only way to bring together this far-flung empire was with a railroad line linking East and West. It wouldn't be until 1916 that the railway line was completed, 25 years after its inception date.

Russia was in a massive state of upheaval, which would stretch beyond WWI into the civil war that divided Red and White Russia until 1922. The train figures heavily into Russian literature, no less than in Dr. Zhivago, in which we read of his family enduring long winter train rides to escape the revolution.

This lovely Faberge egg had been commissioned in 1900 by Tsar Nicholas II for Alexandra Fyodorovna with a lovely gold miniature train inside.

Paul Theroux evocatively captured this great rail experience in The Great Railway Bazaar, a trip he took in 1973, launching him on a great many travels that he would later write about. He included his experiences on the Trans-Manchurian railway, which connects to theTrans-Siberian railway at Tarskaya. I couldn't convince my wife to take the 17-day trip next summer, so this is probably the closest I will get to experiencing the journey.

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Ward No. 6

Ward No. 6 is a short story written by Chekhov in 1892. It has appeared in various collections of Chekhov short stories, including The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories translated by Constance Garnett in 1921. In this story, Chekhov explores the inner working of a run-down lunatic asylum in a provincial town. He introduces the readers to a coarse porter who speaks mostly with his fists, various patients, a doctor who presides over this ward, and expresses his thoughts with a local postmaster. It was recently made into a movie , featuring Vladimir Ilyin. Here's a clip . There's also this very recent short film (30 min.) by Suzana Purkovic, with English subtitles.

Light and Dark

I'm still trying to sort out the ending. The story had to end tragically but was surprised that Rogozhin actually sought forgiveness in Myshkin after what he had done to Nastya, although I think that Dostoevsky intended the two to be read as one, along similar lines as The Double . He kept Rogozhin a shadowy figure throughout the novel, ever lurking in the dark of the Prince's soul. Try as he might, Prince Myshkin could not alter events and thus the fantasy world he had lived in upon returning to Russia crumbled before his eyes, leaving him at a total loss as how to reconcile himself with it. Once again, Dostoevsky plumbs great depths of the human soul. This is a psychological drama told in theatrical terms, perfectly suited for the stage. Characters appear and disappear as if moving from the shadows of the stage. I can see the "green bench" as the central stage piece. In the final part, one gets the sense that Lebedev is orchestrating events, and may even

The Morning of Our Motherland

I was watching a History channel special on Socialist Realism art of the Soviet Union and this was one of the grand canvases that is now stuffed away in the Tretyakov State Gallery . The painter was Fyodor Shurpin and he had a wonderful eye for detail, right down to the secret service black car on the road to Stalin's right. To the left, one sees a row of combines turning over the field of golden wheat, which became symbolic of Stalin's Soviet Union. Утро нашей Родины is from 1949, with Stalin radiating a post-war confidence. It is also known as Dawn of our Fatherland and other titles. Shurpin was one of the better artists to carry over from the pre-war years. The narrator pointed out how socialist realist art changed dramatically as a result of the war, becoming much more static and propagandist in appearance. He pointed to two stops along the Moscow subway as an example of this divide. Here, Shurpin essentially transposes Stalin for an earlier "Mother"

Chekhov's Gun

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