Day 12, Mon, 8/3
Moscow, Russia
Thankfully, this household didn’t resort to yelling and the clapping of hands in order to get us awake for breakfast. “Whenever you guys are comfortable,” they had told us the night before. So JW and I shrugged and slept in until around one in the afternoon.
Our train to St. Petersburg left at 7 tonight, so we had a good few hours to visit a cathedral, a grave, a university and the Kremlin.
I’ve forgotten to mention JW’s love for cats. In fact, the day he began smoking was the day his cat died about three years ago, a cuddly companion he’d been living with for nine years. So whenever we pass by a stray cat in the middle of one of our walks, he sits and takes dozens of pictures of it, telling me each time that he wishes he could take it back to Korea.
When we visited Archangel Cathedral, a burial of all the Grand Princes and Tsars of Moscow. JW was probably more interested in the baby cat that was sleeping in the lawn than the cathedral itself. It was pretty cute though, I can’t lie. And the cathedral wasn’t terribly impressive, either. Oh, also on the lawn was a pair of crows fighting over the flesh and innards of a dead pigeon, which didn't really tickle our funny bones.
Adjacent to the Archangel lies the enormous Novodevichy Cemetery, home - or resting place, rather - to many of Russia’s most prominent citizens since 1898 (namely scientists, soccer coaches, musicians, war heroes, etc.). I couldn’t find Dostoyevsky from the list of names, but JW found composer Dmitri Shostakovich's name among other tombstones of pianists, violinists and cellists, all of whom have had a significant impact on his musical career. We bought several bouquets of flowers to pay homage to these legends.
The cemetery was built like a maze, and each grave was worth at least a minute of attention, as most of them were embellished with at least a full-scale marble statue of whoever that lay underneath it. We spent over an hour looking for just four people, as we were distracted by soccer fans chanting the name of a coach who recently passed away, and a group of decorated soldiers saluting and draping a large Russian flag over a general’s grave.
By 3:30, we rushed to the Kremlin before it closed at 5. On our way, we passed by a horde of tourists surrounding a flickering flame just outside the Red Square, which apparently has been going since the end of World War II. We also ran into probably the most peculiar sight you’ll ever encounter in Russia (apart from the gum drop rain): a semi-circular wall riddled with holes just big enough for coins to be wedged inside. People were climbing all over these walls like spidermen, desperately sticking a finger or two in each hole to dig out treasure. Some were even using digging tools. JW and I couldn’t stop laughing at the mayhem.
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The Kremlin, which is Russian for "citadel," has been boasting its fortitude since the second millennium BC. The complete tour is made up of five different sessions, but JW only had time for one. We chose the weapon and armory exhibition, because that sounded the coolest and was worth 50 more rubles than the rest.
Now before you take this the wrong way, let me say that my parents have always raised me as a goodnatured boy, that is, to despise guns, knives, and anything that’s related to killing. This seemed to have worked, for I used to feel guilty owning even a water gun. But once I saw the display at the Kremlin, I never wanted to own a weapon more in my life, not to use to induce death upon my enemies but rather to bedeck wall. The swords, maces, knives, guns and rifles were gold plated and studded in ores, garnets, sapphires and even diamond. How unpleasant it would’ve been to have blood smeared on one of these! We also saw jewel-encrusted bibles thrice the length, width and thickness of the average science textbook; so much for the bible's imploration to be frugal. JW and I couldn’t help but imagine the priests struggling to open the cover. We wondered why bibles were on display in the weapon section, and eventually assumed that these books must’ve been weapons themselves, as they looked hard and heavy enough to inflict considerable damage. Although there seemed to be more watch guards than tourists, JW risked a few pictures of the priceless display.
We entered another room and noticed a huge, oval-shaped carpet enclosed in a glass case. As we neared it however, we realized that the carpet-like object was actually the tail of a dress that dragged along the floor. Sheezus. Imagine having to wash that. Other dresses came with waists so skinny that I was convinced I could make my thumb and middle finger touch if I wrapped my hand around it.
The final room included about a dozen carriages, all of which dwarfed the impotent pumpkin vehicle that appears in Cinderella. The wheels’ diameters were nearly twice my height. I peeked inside and saw that I could probably live in there. For some reason I also wondered if the dusty, yellowing seats were ever washed.
We left at around 4:50. I don’t know how we didn’t realize that our train left in a little more than two hours, and that we hadn’t packed anything yet. Our home stay was maybe eight minutes away by subway, not including the ten minute walk afterwards to get to the apartment. It would take at least twenty minutes to shower, pack and pay frantically, but with our relentlessly heavy luggage, the walk back to the subway station could take as long as fifteen minutes. Buying the ticket, walking down the endless escalator and waiting for the subway would subtract more time. The Moscow metro station was seven stations away, meaning the ride would take about fifteen minutes. But once we arrived, the Moscow train station was on the other side of the eight-lane road, so getting out of the metro, dragging our luggage through the underground passage and carrying everything up the stairs would take another ten minutes.
Instead of rushing to our home stay to safely get on our train in time, we decided to walk from the Kremlin to the University of Tchaikovsky. How could we have been so ignorant? (The answer will be explained at the end)
We ended up getting lost and meandered down the wrong road for twenty minutes, arriving at the university by nearly 6. The immense bronze statue of Tchaikovsky frozen in the pose of conducting was truly magnificent, but only then did we suddenly, stupidly understand how late we were. All along we had faced this time crunch like the way a cow faces an oncoming train, only to recognize the danger after it’s been hit.
Panic found its way under our skin. We began to sprint to the subway station, but soon stopped in case we wore ourselves out and were unable to carry our bags later. If you’ve spent a lot of time hanging out with me, you probably know just how slowly I walk (this always frustrates my friend Kartinah, who has the longest legs in the whole world). I had to jog slightly in order to stay with JW’s pace.
“I love walking fast,” he told me. “I used to have a girlfriend, and the main reason I liked her was because she could keep up with me.”
We broke through our home stay door at 6:25. The owners expected that we had at least rescheduled the train, but when we said that we hadn’t, they chuckled and told us, “you’ll never make it, just give up now!” Gee, thanks.
We stampeded back out the door at 6:35. After going through countless simulations of our movement from then until we arrived at the train station, we estimated that with luck, there was a small but reliable chance that we would make it in time.
What followed a few minutes later was the exact opposite of what one would deem 'good.' Maybe it was karma, but for certain there was some supernatural aspect in the sheer degree of my misfortune. As we were dragging our heavy luggage, panting and shirts covered in sweat, I tripped over a small crack in the asphalt, landed on my side in a puddle of mud, cut my elbow and leg, got mud smeared not only on my clothes but also on my bags, fractured my camera and iPod that were in that side of my pocket, thereby seriously bruising the part of my thigh that sandwiched them against the ground. Unable to walk fast anymore, I now had to limp fast. I will never forget the tickling sensation of guilt that concentrated in the back of my throat.
Long story short, our luggage and my limp was just too much for our out-of-shape bodies. We arrived ten minutes late. The only hope we were banking on at that point was some spontaneous mechanical breakdown or technical problem with the train that would maybe, just maybe, delay it enough for us to arrive in time. Well the odds of that happening were nil, so if you made a bet that we would miss the train, well, congratulations - you win! (but I also hate you)
Only if the subway had arrived a little earlier, only if I hadn’t fallen in the mud, only if we hadn’t gotten lost looking for the University of Tchaikovsky, only if we had spent about three or four minutes less each in the Kremlin, in the cemetery and in the cathedral, only if we had done everything exactly as we did except starting off the day ten minutes earlier, we would have made it.
Again, anyone could look at this and only help but wonder: how were we dull enough not to see this coming? Here’s my answer (or my excuse, if that's what you want to call it).
Mlodinov also explains this phenomenon in his book. Basically, the more random factors that are involved in the future, the possibilities of events increase exponentially, making it nearly impossible to comfortably predict what will happen. A common example is a chess game, where the more moves you try to foresee, the “butterflying” scenarios makes it more likely that you’re wrong. Yet one can easily explain why someone made a certain move after the event takes place. This can be applied to all other aspects in life; with the benefit of hindsight (kind of helpful in my opinion, maybe because it never fails), one can see “why a film did well, a candidate won an election, a storm hit, a stock went down, a soccer team lost, a new product failed, or a disease took a turn for the worse, but such expertise is empty in the sense that it is of little use in predicting when a film will do well, a candidate will win an election, a storm will hit, a stock will go down, a soccer team will lose, a new product will fail, or a disease will take a turn for the worse” (202). It is also why some U.S. presidents (without pointing fingers) seldom learn from history. JW and I will use this as an excuse for our apparent irresponsibility.
Yes, we missed the train and spent another hundred dollars each on the midnight train to St. Petersburg, but we eventually learned from this experience. I also got a chance to rinse my legs, arms and clothes, avoiding the embarrassment of jumping on a train covered in mud. My iPod and camera functioned normally too, which was surreal considering just how hard I fell on them. JW had a great time with the punching bag in the arcade, releasing his frustration by setting the second and third highest scores of the day. How fulfilling.
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