Nicholas Roerich

Before coming to Russia I read a short story by H P Lovecraft called ‘The Mountains of Madness’. In it he mentioned strange paintings by a man named Roerich. One of the great things about the internet is you can look up this sort of obscure and miscellaneous reference straight away, before you have forgotten about it.

I checked out a small collection of Roerich’s paintings soon after arriving in Moscow at the Museum of Oriental Art and had thought that was all there was on display in this city – many of his works being in the Nicholas Roerich Museum in New York. That is, until the other day when I was going through my guidebook looking for new places to go and realized that the Rerikh Museum in in the guidebook index was actually another transliteration of the more usual Roerich.

Nicholas Roerich

One could be forgiven for thinking Nicholas Roerich was the original New Age guy. Possessing a powerful intellect (he is said to have spoken 30 languages, whereas I can still barely manage to get a cappuccino with my Russian), he was an excellent artist; an explorer, spending much time on archaeological expeditions in the Himalayas; and something of a mystic.

Roerich was born in Saint Petersburg in 1874. Originally involved in post-Revolution arts, he rapidly grew disillusioned with the authoritarianism and repression of the Bolsheviks and emigrated to Finland. Soon after he moved to London, and then to the United States, where he lived in New York. Over several years in the 1920s and 30s he spent a considerable amount of time in Tibet, India and other parts of Asia. In 1929 he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Today I visited this really quite excellent museum/gallery. If you ever intend opening a New Age shop in downtown San Francisco (maybe sell a few crystals and tarot cards), parts of this place might provide some helpful décor hints.    

Roerich Museum

The museum is located not far from the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, in Mylinki Znamensky. Take the Metro to Crackpotskaya (OK, it’s really Kropotkinskaya, but I'm not Roerich and I need some way of remembering these awkward Russian names). Please be aware that there are signs with maps on the main road outside the station which show the museum in the wrong location (it is not on Bolshoi Znamensky).

My apologies for the image quality today –they are scanned from a book and some prints I bought in the small museum shop. My only complaint (apart from the hefty 650 rouble admission fee) is that you are not allowed to take photos in the museum. Elderly ladies diligently watch to make darned sure you don’t. I was in the museum on my own and it was quite disconcerting to be followed from the entrance of a room to its exit, only to be met at the door by the guardian of the next room, and the next, and the next...

Some examples of Roerich's art

 

The Cosmonaut Museum

This really is a great museum, and it’s in an area where there is quite a lot of interest. 

Nearby is the huge VDNK exhibition park (another post needed for that), the Moscow monorail (yet another post to come), and Ostrankino Tower (the tallest free-standing structure in Europe and 7^th tallest in the world - see post dated 22 May 2013). Beyond the Exhibition Park is a pleasant forest park, also called Ostrankino, which backs on to the Botanic Gardens. So there’s a good weekend’s worth of sightseeing in this area. If you have a week or so in Moscow, I strongly recommend spending some time around here.

To get there, take the yellow line metro (line 6) north to VDNK. You can’t miss the museum – it has a magnificent statue of a rocket taking off on the roof. 

Every European city square seems to have a statue of some guy on a horse pointing at something in the distance. Statue designers take note - please,  no more guys on horses - THIS is a statue.

  Entry (at the time of writing) was the more or less usual price for Moscow museums of 250 roubles (about $7 US) - plus another couple of hundred roubles if you want to take photographs. 

Yuri Gagarin (first man in space) welcomes visitors. Gagarin is very highly regarded in Russia.
A replica of Sputnik - the first thing humans flung into space, is top left.

Belka (foreground - means 'Squirrel') and Strelka ('Arrow'). They went into space in August 1960 and survived the trip.
One of Belka's puppies was given to President Kennedy's daughter.

There's a full-sized replica of the Mir (means 'peace' or 'world') space station to explore...

...hmm, not quite the Starship Enterprise.

The funny looking craft in the middle (with the solar panel) is a Lunikhod. One was sent to the moon in 1970 and wandered a round for a while taking snapshots. Its still there. The spacesuit on the right was worn by Michael Collins in Apollo 11. I'm not sure how it ended up here - a search of Google shows it was auctioned in 2009, so maybe this museum bought it.

So that's what it's like inside a Soyuz.
I like the little globe on the dashboard - so they can see where they are I suppose.

Diorama of Vostok 2, whose crew landed about 1800 kilometres off target in a Siberian forest.
Pinnacle of contemporary technology one minute - campfire the next.

The space shuttle program that didn't happen. Replica of a Russian Buran shuttle

 

And if you happen to be in Gorky Park, there's one of the original Buran shuttles there. Unfortunately, you can't go inside.

Gulag Museum

I know I put a similar picture in a previous post, but I couldn't resist adding this one. The building is 7 stories high and although the worker is wearing a harness, it is not connected to anything.

I probably shouldn’t write today, as I am feeling a bit sour. Almost being run over by a young woman at a pedestrian crossing (what’s unusual about that?) didn’t help my mood.

A Canadian friend, also a geologist, said to me many years ago that he couldn’t figure out why the British had sent their free-settlers to an ice-box (Canada) and their convicts to paradise (Australia). In this Russian ice-box it has been snowing again these past three days and I have been feeling a bit homesick for paradise. No doubt I’ll perk up when spring arrives, but these Moscow winters are so darned long.

My topic for today suits my disposition – the Gulag Museum. This museum is located at 16 Petrovka Ulitsa. People say it is hard to find, but it’s more a matter of it not being obvious. One has to walk down a short tunnel almost directly opposite Stoleshnikov Pereulok. The museum is small, with thoughtful and poignant displays showing the lives and meagre possessions of individuals who went through these awful labour camps.

Entrance to the Gulag Museum, only visible after passing through a short tunnel.

 I’m not going to say anything more about the gulags. You can read about them on Wikipedia if interested. Nasty places. Interestingly, Stalin, who instigated the gulag system, is now becoming increasingly admired in Russia (just Google ‘Stalin popularity’). 

Stairway up to the museum.

Stalin's picture might be shown, but this is one place where he is not admired.

Museum of Contemporary History

After very heavy snowfall last Monday, the daytime temperature has been hovering around zero. While the city is pretty efficient at clearing snow from the streets, what happens on the footpaths is a bit hit-and-miss and often seems to depend on what the adjacent building owner feels like doing. These temperatures mean that snow partially melts and then refreezes overnight, becoming icy and dangerous. It’s not much fun walking around at the moment.

Snow and ice on roofs is also a hazard to passers-by and there has been plenty of activity clearing it off. Unfortunately this often means blocking off sections of the footpath, temporarily rerouting long-suffering Moscow pedestrians on to the roads to take their chances with the cars. The following photo I took today of some guys clearing snow off the roof of a 6-storey building. I noticed a couple of them were wearing harnesses, but they weren’t actually connected to anything. I guess they rely on that flimsy looking fence if they start sliding down the roof. Most buildings have them. There can be a fairly casual approach to workplace safety in Moscow. Workers using jackhammers, for example, often use no ear protection.  

Clearing snow off a 6 story building. I'm not sure I'd like to rely on that little fence in an emergency

 Anyway, I’ve gone off the track, because today I really intended writing about the Contemporary History Museum in Tverskaya Ulitsa.

This museum covers the period from the mid-19^th century to the end of the Soviet Union. It contains a remarkable collection of original documents and artifacts. If you have any interest in revolutionary Russia, this museum is a must-see. The presentation is logical, with numerous rooms of displays guiding the visitor chronologically through the tumultuous events that have made modern Russia.

Each room has a well-written interpretive plate in both Russian and English. I think these must be fairly new, as I don’t recall seeing them on my previous visit nearly 12 months ago. In addition, the rooms also have an English language A4 sheet which explains, in more detail, many of the displays, though these sheets are becoming a bit tatty. 

If I have any misgivings about the museum, it is that some of the more unpalatable aspects of recent Russian history tend to be smoothed over. Stalin’s brutal reign, for example, is given a fairly light touch. One could easily come away from the display of contemporary propaganda posters and other paraphernalia with the impression he was a kindly and benevolent ruler. His execution of large numbers of army officers prior to the Great Patriotic War/Second World War is described as a reorganisation of the army. The department that employed me for many years in Australia was also recently restructured - thankfully I survived the experience.

Stalin taking time out from the dull routine of purges

 That aside, this museum contains some amazing stuff and if you think you’d enjoy seeing such things as actual banners that were waved around during revolutionary demonstrations, you won’t begrudge the 250 rouble/$7.50 entry fee (plus an extra 100 roubles if you want to take photos).

This museum is easy to get to, it’s on Tverskaya Ulitsa, almost opposite Tverskaya metro station (just up the road a bit towards Mayakovskaya). You can’t miss it, it’s the grand red building with crouching lion statues and a little armoured car in the courtyard. 

The building is also worth visiting in its own right. It was built around 1800, damaged in Napoleon’s 1812 fire, renovated and extended, then sold to the English Club in 1831 by the owner, Count Razumovsky. The English Club, which was formed in 1772 as an expats social club, was disbanded after the 1917 revolution and the building taken over by the Bolshevik government.

Parts of the museum, once used as the English Club, are quite grand

A great collection of revolutionary artifacts.

What the well-dressed Russian geologist was wearing before the revolution. All I used to wear was a pair of old shorts and a tatty teeshirt. At least the hammers haven't changed much.

Sigh...reminds me of the good old Cold War days