Stranger on the Train

Friday night was the opening of the Conservatory Festival here in St. Petersburg. Conservatories from all over the world have sent students and faculty to perform in concert over the next week, and there is a lot of exchange of music and talent. The opening concert featured the St. Petersburg Conservatory Orchestra performing Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique. And fantastique it was! Glazunov Hall is a beautiful setting for a concert, but the acoustics are not ideal for a full orchestra. Nonetheless it was exciting to experience this work close up and personal. The orchestra, conducted by Conservatory Rector Sergei Stadler, performed beautifully. There was a reception for the many foreign dignitaries and consulate representatives in attendance. After gulping down some beef tongue, a Russian specialty, I bolted for the train station.

My friends Alan and Jorge from London are escorting my buddy Bernie to visit me and see Russia. They flew to Moscow on Tuesday/Wednesday and spent several days there, visiting the Kremlin, seeing the Bolshoi Ballet, and attending Shostakovich operas in concert, along with Alan's favorite, the Ravel G-major piano concerto. The plan was for me to take the train to Moscow and meet them, and then we would all take the train back to Saint Petersburg together on Sunday.

I don't know if I have mentioned Kira, the brilliant young musicology student assigned to help me here in St. Petersburg. Kira very kindly accompanied me on a scouting trip to the train station, to help me buy my ticket and to show me what I needed to know for my trip. But Friday after the concert, instead of following Kira's instructions to take the bus to the Metro to the train station. I decided to walk. I had never been on the Eastern part of Nevsky Prospect, the beautiful shopping street that is Russia's answer to Chicago's Magnificent Mile, but it was stunning at night in the light snow. However, the station was much farther than I thought, and soon the light snow had turned into a minor pelting. So there i was, running for the train with my gym bag, my coat soaked, my face cold, but my bundled up torso sweating from the exertion.

At any rate I did make it on time. There are essentially two main types of train between St. Petersburg and Moscow. This was a sleeper train, and left at 12:40 am. It takes about 9 hours, so it travels at a moderately slow pace. I was assigned a cabin with three beautiful women of differing ages. Two of them spoke a little English and helped translate the instructions of the conductor. I was told later that it was unusual for a man to be assigned to a car with three women, but perhaps that was because I bought my ticket late, and was willing to take seat #13, which apparently is an unlucky number here as well as elsewhere. 

There were a few surprises ahead, they none caused any major problems. First of all, just after we left the conductor came by to take our dinner orders: chicken, fish, or vegetarian. I chose the chicken. That was all well and good, but no food arrived, and around 2:00 am we converted the seats to mattresses and went to sleep. I thought i would have trouble sleeping, but around 7:45 I was awakened from deep slumber by the conductor who threw three styrofoam containers into the compartment containing chicken, rice and a raw cabbage slaw. Good morning!

Surprise number two came when we got to the station. The interior of the Leningradskiy Station in Moscow is exactly like the interior of Moskovsky Station in St. Petersburg. I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. Had I merely taken an excursion and returned to exact point from which I departed? Only the different location of the men's room confirmed that I was in a different city.

The third surprise was that Leningradsky station was not the one I was expecting to arrive in. My guide book had mentioned another station, and there were no instructions as to how to get to where I was going. But I managed to read the Metro map and made it safely to the loving arms of my friends in their centrally located Moscow apartment.

At any rate, despite the fact that I was a little achy from sleeping on the train, and much less aesthetically presentable than I prefer to be, we leapt into action. We walked down to Red Square and got on line to see Lenin's body lying in state in his mausoleum. I can't imagine how much of his actual DNA is actually left by this time, but with the skillful presentation he did look like pictures of Lenin I had seen, and the eerie lighting did invite communing with his spirit in the other world.