The House of Government

by Slezkine, Yuri

  They also went to the Russian Museum (where “the masterpieces of our own painters, so dear to our hearts, were collected”) and to a Tchaikovsky concert at the Leningrad Conservatory. But just as no composer could compare to Verdi and no Verdi opera could compare to Aida, nothing in the incomparable city of Leningrad could compare to St. Isaac’s.

  It was stunning. In short, I was looking at St. Isaac’s! The somber walls, tinged purple in the winter cold, the powerful crimson colonnades under their triangular porticoes, the numerous sculptures of divinities, the four belfries with their bright gilded domes and, finally, the huge, blindingly yellow main dome presented a breathtaking picture. Under its winter veil it was even more extraordinary than it had been that summer in 1937 when I was here…. Winter had softened it, shrouding it in snowy garments, coloring it blue and violet, leaving only the belfry domes and the main dome unchanged. It seemed so solid, heavy and yet majestic, that it made me feel proud for this whole city.41

  They spent a long time exploring the cathedral’s interior and then climbed to the balcony at the base of the main dome. “From here you could see all of Leningrad: the sparkling spire of the Admiralty, the red shape of the famous Winter Palace in the distance, and right below us, the snow-covered Bronze Horseman scaling the cliff astride his stallion. The view of this treasure-trove from above was truly world-conquering.” Finally, they made it to the very top:

  The bright golden arrows of the sun’s rays peeked through the tattered, ghostly, gauzelike clouds and lit up the surroundings. From above, the city seemed like some kind of fairy-tale village with its snow-covered roofs sparkling in the sun. Thick clouds of steam rose from the houses in the devilishly bitter cold, and the shimmering, fluorescent layers of vapor and fog flowed through the air, blurring and obscuring distant buildings and the horizon’s edge in an interesting way…. In the distance you could see the blue shapes of the churches, the Peter-and-Paul spire, and even, to my delight, the dark dome of the Kazan Cathedral. Right below our little balcony were the gold plates of St. Isaac’s dome, curving steeply downward, and looking at them, for some reason, made me feel a little dizzy.42

  They did their best to see as many of those churches as possible, following predetermined routes through the city and making sketches of as many “architectural treasures” as they could. As Lyova explained to his cousin Raya, his scholarly interests were now concentrated on “geology, particularly mineralogy and paleontology, and biology, in the form of zoology.” In the Zoology Museum, he and Zhenia “contemplated the gigantic skeleton of a whale, which took up two floors, fish, mammals, birds, and even some incredibly gorgeous butterflies on the top floor.” Lyova kept asking himself if he was dreaming. Describing his walk on the Moika Embankment on January 5, he wrote: “I was walking next to the railing looking down at the icy surface of the river and humming the finale of Act 1 from Aida to myself. The joyous thought that I was in Leningrad continued to flutter within me! I had not yet calmed down and could hardly believe it was not a chimera or an illusion.” The next morning his first words were: “Dear God, can this really be Leningrad?” The answer, assuming God was paying attention, might have been: “No, not really.” They did not go to see the cruiser Aurora, which had given the signal for the storming of the Winter Palace; the Smolny Institute, which had served as the Bolshevik headquarters during the October Revolution; or the Kirov Museum, which Lyova had vowed to visit on the fifth anniversary of the assassination. As children of the Soviet Augustinian Age, reared among the Pamirs, they took no interest in revolutionary Petrograd and emerged from St. Petersburg back into Leningrad on only a few rare occasions—such as when they saw Hitler standing next to Molotov in a newsreel (“the executioner was smiling and trying to act polite”); when Lyova told Zhenia that if they were in Germany, they would be hanged “for being, first, Slavs and, second, Jewish”; when they asked a “bearded man who was furiously sweeping the sidewalk” whether there was a museum inside the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood (built on the site of Alexander II’s assassination) and were “totally shocked to hear that it contained a warehouse instead”; and—finally and irreversibly—when the time came to return to Moscow:43

  For the last time I looked around the room that I had always found remarkable, trying to engrave every detail in my memory (who knew when I’d be there again?) and left my Leningrad abode. Even the stairway was difficult to say goodbye to!

  Walking through the square, I kept looking at the powerful shape of the cathedral, purple in the frost, and, when it disappeared behind the hotel, thought out loud:

  “So, that’s it!!!”

  I walked down the Moika Embankment, past the kindergarten where Trovatore already seemed far removed from me, and turned onto Nevsky Prospect. To cheer myself up, I started humming the march from Aida and, to this accompaniment, walked down the prospect to the Fontanka Canal, saying goodbye to the Kazan Cathedral, the Catherine Monument, and various other treasures.44

  Lyova and Zhenia met at the railway station. Their train left at 1:00 p.m. They “honored the memory of Leningrad” by eating the food that each of their hosts had packed for them, commiserated with each other about having to leave, climbed into their bunks, and went to sleep.

  At around seven in the morning, the train stopped at the Leningrad Station in Moscow.

  Good old Moscow greeted us with its fiercest morning cold. It was still completely dark, and when we walked out onto the square, we saw that it was lit up by the floodlights on the station roofs.

  “Don’t even dream, Zhenya, of finding a street that would lead to St. Isaac’s!” I said tragically.

  “That’s right!,” he said. “In one short night, we’ve put so much distance between us…. And now it’s gone!”

  We were both clearly depressed, but the insidious cold drove us into the Metro, and we set off along that underground road for the city center.

  We said goodbye at the Lenin Library station.

  “Don’t worry,” said Zhenia cheerfully. “Not all is lost!”

  “True! We’re still alive, after all,” I nodded gravely.45

  31

  THE COMING OF WAR

  The next entry in Lyova’s diary did not appear until June 5, 1941—almost five months after his return from Leningrad and his eighteenth birthday. He had been thinking of Leningrad, dreaming of Leningrad, drawing Leningrad, and writing letters to Leningrad. Nothing in school or at home seemed interesting or significant in comparison. He had been ill with strep throat and had taken advantage of the month-and-a-half-long stay at home to apply himself to “creative work in the fields of drawing, literature, and the sciences.” He had almost finished his series on the Little Church and begun a new one on the Palace of Soviets. He had passed his ninth-grade exams, seen Aida at the Bolshoi, and marveled, once again, at the “patriotic, highly emotional, and noble scenes” of the arrival of the prisoners and the duet of Aida and Amonasro on the banks of the Nile. This reminded him of his own patriotism and his “political views, prompted by circumstances and acquired gradually over this entire time.”

  Although Germany is at present on friendly terms with us, I am absolutely certain (and it is well known to everyone) that it is all for show. I think that in doing so it is trying to lull us into a false sense of security, so as to stab us in the back when the time comes. This theory of mine is confirmed by the fact that the German armed forces have been focused on occupying Bulgaria and Romania, having sent their divisions there. When the Germans landed in Finland in May, I became fully convinced that they were secretly preparing to attack our country, not only from the former Poland, but also from Romania, Bulgaria, and Finland….

  Assuming that, after having spread its troops along our border, Germany will not want to waste time, I have become convinced that the coming summer will be a turbulent one for our country…. It is clear that, by the summer, the troop concentration will be complete and, obviously unwilling to attack us in the winter in order to avoid our Russian
frosts, the fascists will try to force us into a war in the summer. I think that the war will begin either in the second half of this month (i.e., June), or in early July, but not later, for it is obvious that the Germans will try to finish their war before the onset of winter weather.

  Personally, I am completely convinced that it will be the last arrogant action on the part of the German despots because they will not defeat us before the winter, which will finish them off the way it did Bonaparte in 1812. I am as sure of their fear of our winter as I am of the fact that victory will be ours! …

  A victory, of course, would be a good thing, but we could lose a lot of territory in the first half of the war….

  If I am going to be completely frank here, I have to say that, in view of the German war machine, which has been fed by all their industries for so many years, I am sure there will be major territorial advances by the Germans in the first half of the war. Later, when they have been weakened, we’ll be able to drive them out of the occupied areas, go on the offensive, and take the fight to enemy territory….

  Hard as it is to contemplate, we may have to give up such centers as Zhitomir, Vinnitsa, Vitebsk, Pskov, Gomel, and a few others. As for the capitals of our old republics, Minsk will, in all probability, be abandoned. Kiev may also be taken by the Germans, but with much greater difficulty.

  I am afraid to speculate about the fate of Leningrad, Novgorod, Kalinin, Smolensk, Briansk, Krivoi Rog, Nikolaev, and Odessa—all cities lying relatively close to the border. The Germans are so strong that even these cities may be lost, except for Leningrad. I am absolutely certain that the Germans will never take Leningrad. Leningraders are like eagles! If the enemy does manage to take it, it will be only when the last Leningrader has fallen. But for as long as the Leningraders are still standing, the city of Lenin will be ours! It is not unthinkable that we could surrender Kiev because we would be defending it as the capital of Ukraine, not as a vital center. But Leningrad is incomparably more precious and important for our state….

  The fascists can surround Leningrad because it is, after all, close to the border, but they won’t be able to take it. As for Moscow, even if they do have the strength to surround it, they won’t be able to do it simply because of the time factor, for they won’t be able to complete the encirclement before the winter: the distances are too great. Come winter, the area around Moscow and beyond will be their grave! …

  I am not trying to be a prophet: I may be mistaken in all my theories and conclusions. These thoughts occurred to me as a result of the international situation; logical reasoning and guesswork helped me tie them together and add some things. In sum, the future will reveal all!!!1

  A week later, on June 12, Lyova and Zhenia Gurov took the train to Peredelkino, walked through “a green grove and some woods sparkling in the bright sun,” and set up camp on the edge of a large field. On one side was “a narrow little river almost completely choked with grass, its steep banks overgrown with luxuriant sedge and young aspens that looked like twisted gray ropes curving upward.” On the other, a clear spring “ran along its rusty red bed covered with last year’s dark leaves, swollen twigs, and other outcasts of living nature.” They spent the whole day “in this heavenly place, frolicking by the river, then drawing the view of the wooden footbridge over that same river, then making a rough sketch of the small railroad bridge that could be seen through the aspens growing along the banks, creating a very interesting effect behind the thick cobweb of young aspen trunks.”2

  Nine days later, on June 21, Lyova wrote: “I can feel my heart pounding whenever I think that any minute might bring news of Hitler’s latest adventure. To be honest, over the past several days, I have been waking up each morning with the question: ‘Perhaps, at this very moment, the first volleys have already been fired across the border?’” The following morning he woke up early, “as usual,” and was rereading and editing his diary when the telephone rang. His Aunt Buba told him to turn on the radio. “We are at war with Germany!” she said. “I was amazed at how closely my thoughts had corresponded to reality,” he wrote. “I would much rather have been wrong!”3

  ■ ■ ■

  The lives of the House of Government residents had been interrupted and remade three times by a telephone call or a doorbell ring: the one on December 1, 1934, which heralded the coming of the last judgment; the one in 1937 or 1938, which doomed individual families; and the one on June 22, 1941, which announced the beginning of the “Great Patriotic War” and the end of the House of Government as the home of top government officials.

  The Bolsheviks had been waiting for the great war since the triumph of their Revolution. It had almost broken out during the Civil War and had never retreated definitively. It had been the cause and consequence of the Party’s refusal to settle into life as a church, at peace with the world. It had made the Party’s greatest accomplishments—industrialization, collectivization, and cultural revolution—urgently necessary as well as inevitable. And it had been the reason why the assassination of an undistinguished official had led to the “general purge” that had consumed the House of Government, along with many other homes. The coming of the war fulfilled a prophecy that was much larger and older than Lyova’s. It justified all the previous sacrifices, both voluntary and involuntary, and offered the children of the original revolutionaries the opportunity to prove, through one more sacrifice, that their childhood had been happy, that their fathers had been pure, that their country was their family, and that life was, indeed, beautiful, even in death.

  Nina Kosterina did not make any entries in her diary in the spring of 1941, either. On January 6, the day Lyova went to a Tchaikovsky concert at the Leningrad Conservatory, she had gone to a Beethoven concert at the Moscow Conservatory. (“Egmont overwhelmed me,” she wrote. “I don’t know how to describe it: I suddenly wanted to get up and go somewhere—I experienced an almost physical sensation of flying—my heart pounded anxiously, and it was difficult to breathe. I kept clapping for a long time, unable to take my eyes off the conductor, Natan Rakhlin.”) That entry had been followed by a short one on February 8 about Grieg’s Peer Gynt (“I am in total rapture”); one on February 20 about Thackeray’s Vanity Fair (“unfortunately, in our society, the well-fed, well-behaved philistine is crawling out of the woodwork, too”); one on February 24, about receiving (but not yet reading) Lenin’s Materialism and Empiriocriticism; and one on March 2 about standing “at the threshold of the enormous and marvelous temple of science and the arts” (“every step forward not only brings a great deal of knowledge, but also opens up horizons that take your breath away”). The next entry came three and a half months later, on June 20, after she had turned twenty and was living and working in the “Tambov forests” as part of a geological expedition:

  I have resisted the urge to write for a long time—either from fear of subjecting my actions to serious scrutiny or from an unwillingness to clarify things in my own mind. The same is true of reading: the desire is there, but what I read between the lines are my own thoughts, things that touch me more than the most interesting book. All I can see before my eyes is one single image, one dear face.

  The pictures and memories of days gone by rush past like tiresome nurses or guards. Light, superficial thoughts flit by, but then everything falls silent, leaving only the present and my “right now” happiness.

  There has been an immense change in my life. I no longer belong to myself. I am “someone else’s” now. I feel that my independence is gone, that this time I won’t be able to just pick up and leave if I have to. A very strong thread ties me to this man.4

  His name was Sergei. He was like a “solicitous brother” to the members of the expedition and “amazed everyone with his exceptional decency, sensitivity, and attention.” He told her once that he was too simple for her, but she responded, through her diary, that he had a “fine, sensitive soul.” She knew that she was “physically in love,” but was not sure about intellectual kinship. “It doesn’t mea
n that he must be a model of intellectualism, but he must meet my inner needs. I must see in him a man who understands my thoughts and emotions. He does not have to love what I love and share my every opinion, but we must be on the same level. That is my dream.” In the meantime, she was simply happy.

  I want to call him by all sorts of tender names, to keep telling him over and over again: “My love, my dear one! Press me closer to your heart, let me fall asleep on your chest, my joy. I love you, my big and tender man …” And hundreds more tender, loving words for the man who is sleeping so soundly right now….

  The wind is blowing. Somewhere far away I can hear the frightened cry of a passing train….

  I told him the truth: “I want a child.” I am not afraid that I am too young and that a baby will interfere with my studies. I want our love to leave a mark.5

  The next entry, in which she addresses herself, was written three days later, after news of the war had reached the forest:

  June 23

  Do you remember, Nina Alekseevna, how you secretly dreamed of living through some big, dramatic events, of storms and dangers? Now you have it—war. A black vulture has attacked our country without warning, from behind black clouds.

  Well, I’m ready…. I want to be where the action is, I want to go to the front.6

  The coming storms and dangers reminded her of her old friends—the ones she could be sure of, the ones who understood her thoughts and emotions. She recited Grisha’s poems, and remembering him gave her “a good, warm feeling.” On June 28, she wrote to Lena:

  Dear Lena, I want to tell you that I never stopped loving you, that not a day went by without my thinking of you. I tried to convince myself: “That’s okay, there’ll be new friendships!” But I was deceiving myself. There were no new friendships and never could be.

  … Outside my window is thick, impenetrable darkness. It’s the beginning of the new moon. A tiny crescent timidly appeared and quickly disappeared. But the dancing circle of bright stars stirs and thrills the soul in silent symphony. It is warm outside, and I feel like going somewhere, listening to the mysterious whisper of the forest and reveling in the boundless joy of living. But I have no one to do it with. I feel sad without my friends. There is no one I can talk to about what I am feeling…. The man I love … whom I think I love, won’t do for various reasons. The first and most important reason is that he worries about me too much….