So I was super-tired when I wrote the last blog about Moscow, and i wanted to share with you a few more things about the end of that day. (I was a little motion-sick all day, so that's where the blurry parts come in!)
I mentioned the Hebrew teaching thing -- and I wanted to share that we met with a guy who is basically totally responsible for all the Hebrew education in the Former Soviet Union -- he was teaching Hebrew to Jews in secret all through the Soviet days, when Hebrew was completely illegal -- and he was the founder of an Ulpan that is still very well attended. The ulpan that we attended is no long held in people's apartments secretly but instead in teh Jewish Agency (Sochnut) building in Moscow. It was quite cool to hear people speaking Hebrew in the FSU -- I don't know about all of you, but my memories of the refusenik days were quite clear. It's hard for me to even begin to explain to you the amazing miracle of the renaissance of Jewish life in the FSU.
Then on Tuesday, we checked out of our hotel and we went to the memorial for the Siege of Leningrad (see this site for more on this). This was really very interesting -- the siege was during WW2 and went on for about 900 days -- think about it -- that's almost three whole years! And some of the things we learned were amazing. For example, there was no disease, as there often is in besieged cities, because people were religious about cleanliness. But still, hundreds of thousands of Leningrad residents died, and most are buried at the site of this memorial, in huge mass graves. It was very powerful to be in this site. We read poetry and tehillim (psalms) together even though it was quite cold...
Then we went to the Hermitage Museum. What an incredible place! It is the former palace of the czars and we were given the "highlights" -- they said that if you spent 2 minutes in front of each item in the enormous museum that it would take you 7 years to get through the whole thing! There were some beautiful and famous pieces of art there, as well as a bunch of "stolen" art that the Soviets appropriated from various countries that they occupied. Interesting that it's still there, and now on display. Hey, we stole this stuff -- wanna see it!? Weird.
After this incredible journey through this amazing palace which was occupied by Catherine the Great (and we saw many many many of her dresses and carriages!), we had lunch (don't get me started on the quality of food in Russia...especially for those of us who do not eat MEAT) at a Kosher restaurant....okay, at THE Kosher restaurant. After all, even with a renaissance of Jewish life, there isn't that much Jewish life.
That was a pretty incredible thing about this. Even with all the great work of the Joint Distribution Committee and all the stuff that is being done for Jews in the former soviet union, we still don't really know how many Jews there are and really how many people are being served....and if they really will continue to maintain a Jewish community and presence in this area of the world. After all, it's never been the best place to be a Jew, so perhaps many of them will continue to make aliyah to Israel as they've been doing in droves.
We did visit the Jewish cemetery in St. Petersburg, but I must admit to being very motion-sick and can't tell you a lot about it. But it was snowy and hard to figure out what the graves said. It's also not used any more but holds the graves of many of St. Petersburg's most famous Jews.....
After the cemetery, we went to the airport....and we got on our plane to Moscow. We flew Aeroflot, which is a Russian airline, and I tell you we weren't sure what was holding the plane together. There wasn't a lot of legroom, in fact there was hardly any. I have no idea what kind of antique plane it was but let me tell you, we all said our Tefillat haDerech rather fervently....
It was a short flight and we landed in Moscow quite late to a very yucky box dinner (Kosher, of course) which no one really ate.
Really quick, back up -- in St Petersburg, we stayed in a gorgeous hotel called the Grand Hotel Europe . Not at all what you'd expect a former Soviet Union hotel to be like....it was beautiful. In Moscow we stayed at the Hotel Metropole, a grand place as well, a remnant of the elegance of Russia...and it was very close to Red Square. This made the trip very pleasant in terms of accommodations. We were hardly in our rooms, however, as we were up at around 6am each morning and went to bed really really late each night....but it was lovely while we were in the rooms!
More to follow....
No comments:
Post a Comment