CITIES OF THE WORLD

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Moscow spreads out in successive concen-tric circles like a giant low-growing mush-room that has sprouted from the flat Russ-ian earth. It is a colony-city, a burgeoning,collapsing, contradictory metropolis thatreminds one of Yevgeny Zamiatin’s futuris-tic dystopia. Moscow is not one city butdozens of cities, each concealed within theentrails of the other, like Chinese boxes orthe Russian Matriouska dolls. Anyonelanding in the centre of Moscow will notfind oneself in a city but inthe midst of a chaotic ur-ban archipelago.

People say that timehas great power inMoscow. Perhaps it is so,for here all epochs coexistin the space of a few cityblocks. I once lived in an a-partment in the area ofChisty Prhudy. The dark,four-storey house in Kazar-mennij Pereulok Lane hadbeen built at the end of the19th century. It had beenthe mansion of a noble ormaybe some wealthy bour-geois, situated in the mid-dle of the boulevard that encircles the cen-tre of the city like a Cossack belt. It was ahouse strangled in a noose of evergreentrees, a labyrinthine house on the verge ofcollapse. During the revolution it was di-vided up into high-ceilinged, one-roomflats for the populace. A communalka, likethose one comes across in Bulgakov’s TheMaster and Margarita. Like the very com-munalka described in the novel, which isin Bolshaya Sadovaya Avenue, on the oppo-site side of the boulevard. The staircaseleading to the second floor resembled the s-tairs in a mediaeval castle. It was dark anddamp. The stone steps were worn down by

time and here and there a few were miss-ing. In the corners piles of rubbish accu-mulated, and empty Baltica beer bottleslike those you see strewn all over Moscowand always bring to mind the smell of piss.Next door to me lived a mysterious oldwoman whose dog slept on the top step,his lead attached to the corridor rail. I’dbeen told to avoid this neighbour and notto make difficulties for the building. I neverunderstood why I should be afraid of that

silent old woman. Her dog loved me andwhined in complaint whenever he sensedmy presence.

In Moscow you encounter a strange fearthat takes the form of excessive suspicion.Nothing is obvious in Moscow. In Moscownothing can be taken for granted, there isalways someone from whom you need tosafeguard yourself, whether it’s the corruptMilitsia that patrols the central streets, orthe Mafiosi in their limousines on Tver-skaya Ulitsa, or the surveillance camerasthat surround the Lubyanka – even thoughthe statue of Dzherzinsky now lies discard-ed in the graveyard for unwanted statues n-

ear Gorky Park. Every night, returning tothe apartment in Kazarmennij Lane in theantiquated trolley bus, I’d stand for a littlewhile outside the house opposite. It was anold house, long shut up and as dark as acenotaph. Strangely enough, through itswindows you could make out a mass ofmulticoloured little lights flashing on andoff like a Christmas decoration. People toldme it was a secret control station for thenuclear warheads buried deep beneath the

city, ready to be fired fromthe bowels of the Mus-covite earth.

Moscow is a difficult c-ity. It resists the visitor andharasses the people whobelong to it. The realMoscow lies below ground,in the maze of under-ground crossings that passbeneath the inhuman av-enues and in the tiny eat-ing-places selling pirogiand shashlik in the under-ground arcades. The dim,rusty lights never go off inthese sad little cafés, whosewindows remain misted

over from the cold, throughout the length ofthe Russian winter. These minute, ill-litnests smelling of fried meat and bleach, re-main open twenty-four hours a day, andround them gather dark-skinned men fromGeorgia and Armenia, unemployed youngMuscovites, travellers from Kirghizia andMongolia. These small shops with their la-conic signs reading “M CO” (meat) bringyou as close as you can get to the heart ofMoscow. For the heart of this city does notbeat in Red Square or in Cazan Cathedral orin the restored GUM, but deep beneath theground, in the stations of the Stalinistmetro, which were designed to serve as nu-

R

ITHACA ñ 27

In the Bowels of Moscowby CHRISTOS CHRYSSOPOULOS

Moscow toilet

28 ñ ITHACA

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Christos Chryssopoulos wasborn in Athens in 1968.His first book, The Parthenon

Bomber, was published in1996 by Anatolikos Editions.He has subsequently pub-lished The Recipes of

Napoleon Delastos (Odys-seas, 1997). Shunyata (O-dysseas, 1999), The Mani-

curist (Odysseas, 2000), The

Black Dress (bilingual Eng-lish-Greek edition, RCIPPEditions, New Jersey, 2000)Encounters (Reykjavik ArtMuseum, Reykjavik 2003).His forthcoming novel Theatre

of voices will be published byEditions Kastaniotis in theFall 2003. He translates fromEnglish. He has been invitedto writers' centres in Sweden,the Czech Republic, theU.S.A. and Iceland.

clear shelters, decorated with chandeliersand hammers and sickles. Moscow’s heartbeats deep inside the entrance tunnels,which go down vertically, like wells.Moscow lies hidden behind the heavy gatesof massive steel which, when hermeticallyclosed, transform the metro platforms intoairtight capsules of the Cold War.

I once lived on the tenth floor of a hugebuilding complex dating from the Brezh-nev era. It was as complicated as a space-ship. My address was: Prospect Mira,House N171, Corpus N2, Apt.N174, 10thfloor, Entrance 2. When I opened my k-itchen window, I could see opposite me themonumental statue by Vera Muhina, TheWorker and the Collective Farm Girl. Iloved this statue and would gaze at it everynight, bathed in the orange light of thestreet lamps. I understood very well why S-talin asked to be taken there at night, out-

side the VDNKh, so that from his car hecould admire the most beautiful statue tobe produced by mankind in the year 1937.It is not easy to make out the small hatchhidden in the folds of the girl’s skirt. Thehomeless, however, know it well and inwinter huddle into it, finding refuge in theentrails of the colossal steel couple.

WORKS

THE PARTHENON BOMBER, ATHENS, ANATOLIKOS,

1996. 64 PP. ISBN: 960-8429-05-6 THE RECIPES OFNAPOLEON DELASTOS, ATHENS, ODYSSEAS, 1997. 155

PP. ISBN: 960-210-294-2 SHUNYATA, ATHENS,

ODYSSEAS, 1999. 157 PP. ISBN: 960-210-315-9 THEMANICURIST, ATHENS, ODYSSEAS, 2000. 128 PP. ISBN:

960-210-388-4 ENCOUNTERS (REYKJAVIC ART MU-

SEUM, REYKJAVIK 2003)

TRANSLATIONS

THE BLACK DRESS, DIARY, RCIPP EDITIONS, NEW

JERSEY, USA, 2000

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In the Moscow sculpture graveyard