The Symphony

Day 3

Today we had lunch at one of the many "pancake" places which serve crepes filled with meat, or in my case, chocolate and bananas. After an interminable walk (someone referenced the Exodus from Egypt and waiting to die while we were walking) we arrived at Christ our Savior Church. After covering our heads and passing though a metal detector, we entered the vaulted coziness of the candle lite church. One facet I couldn't stop staring at was a fifteen foot chandelier in front of the arching windows. Sunlight streamed in, richly glinting off the filigree and gold. We then went downstairs to a smaller chapel filled with pictures of the saints. I noticed one woman in particular who was delicately lighting a candle. She paused for a few moments, waiting for the person in front of her to finish. When it was her turn she walked quietly up to the picture. Then she drew her face near to the saint's and tilted her forehead to his as she gently whispered, reminding me of two lovers I had seen on the train the night before.

Once our time in the the church was up, we went to the Vernishazh Market. And just for the record, I actually negotiated (which was about as much fun as having a root canal during a Novocaine shortage.) Then we went to Arbat street where I savored a Starbuck's chai latte. By the time we got back to the hostel, we had very little time to get ready for the symphony. Five girls in a small, enclosed space trying to go from sweaty and frizzy to radiant and styled in fifteen minutes looks a little like the end of the world. We somehow managed to get to the concert on time and decently attired.

The concert was a tribute to Paganini and as the orchestra played the first couple pieces, I was under the impression that the audience was thinking, "Isn't it nice that we're so cultured, what enchanting music, what shall I make for dinner tomorrow?" But then the soloist/conductor said "Vivaldi" in his next introduction and there was a murmur, possibly even a twitter from the crowd. Finally, they would get to pay homage to a classical rock star. Shorty thereafter, as a mama's boy was wailing on the harpsichord, the crowd finally stopped wondering "Chicken or fish?" The soloist/conductor Sergey Stadler was a rather corpulent man. The intensity of the music was actually reflected in his jowls which quivered like a seismograph. It seemed that he should look more like the silver fox of a first violin with his metallic hair and trim figure. When the solo ended and soloist/conductor was taking his third bow, the applause of the Silver Fox was transparently dutiful.

After the concert ended, we got ice cream at McDonalds, even as the cold seeped through our coats. But we couldn't have cared less, we were so warm inside, so utterly intoxicated by Russia. We went back to the Red Square to see the already beautiful structures awash in magical lights. I stood there gawking, vaguely aware of other students taking goofy pictures and performing the Electric Slide. It just seemed like such an incredibly profound moment and I wanted to be in it so badly. As we left the Red Square, the thought that I will never see this sight again kept rolling and reverberating inside my head.