Russian History Trip

Over the Easter holidays, Historians ventured to Moscow and St Petersburg, to learn more about Tsarist and Communist Russia.

We arrived in Moscow and went to Lenin’s house at Gorky, where he spent the last few years of his life. Several of Lenin’s letters were there as well as his death mask and casts of his hands, which helped bring history to life. On our third day we visited the magnificent Kremlin and Red Square, with its colourful and crazy turrets that are so representative of traditional Russian architecture. There was a sense of its Communist past, as on one side of the square the embalmed body of Lenin has lain for 95 years. We visited the museums in the Kremlin and, despite seeing Faberge eggs, numerous old carriages and beautiful coronation dresses, we were not lucky enough to see what we were promised by our tour guide – Putin arriving by helicopter!

We left Moscow on the overnight train, four of us cosily crammed into a cabin. Despite our worries that the train looked very ‘Murder on the Orient Express’, we all survived the night, and woke up to see massive forests and piles of snow that thinned out as we approached St Petersburg. Called the Venice of the North, it lives up to its reputation with thousands of bridges intermingled with blue and gold palaces under an occasionally sunny sky – there are only 30 sunny days a year in Russia, and we had 4 of them. St Petersburg felt like an 18th century city – its beautiful grandeur a reminder of Tsarist Russia, in contrast to the Communist grey tower blocks that dominated Moscow.

We went to the famous Russian Ballet to see the Corsair, which was beautifully danced, but our understanding of what was happening bore a remarkable resemblance to our limited knowledge of Russian! We had a more successful trip to see the Russian folklore show which included Cossack dancing, Russian Orthodox hymns, and audience participation (unfortunately not from Miss McDougall).

We ended our trip with a visit to the Yusupov Palace – it had its own private theatre and was also the location of Rasputin’s murder. Upon descending a small spiral staircase, we entered a dark basement in which lurked terrifying waxwork figures of Rasputin and his murderer – we gladly escaped into the gift shop! I very much enjoyed the Russia trip and it helped my understanding of Russian history, but on returning home I was really glad to eat something other than potatoes and borscht.

Abbey, Lower Sixth