Part 2.

We must have walked 10 miles today. Possibly more. All of it simply fabulous in the glorious Russian sunshine, Sunshine. We started with a ‘free walking tour’ which we always take in all cities we visit. Because they’re so much better than proper, pay-as-you-go tours because you only pay the guide what you reckon he/she was worth. And if they’re shit, then that’s all they’re gonna get. But if they’re good, you pay them in appreciation. So they always do it better. As did Anna today. And we learned more about Alexander the Great, Peter the Great, Catharina the Great. So I deduced that to be ‘The Great’ then you just call yourself that and let people argue the toss if they don’t think it a worthy title. Go on, criticise me, ya peasant serf, and starve for a year, see if I give a damn in my caviar baths with champagne showers. And some were good and some were bad but all got normally murdered by enemies (if they were bad) or by baddies (if they were good). Because the aristocrats didn’t want too much reform, too much leniency, they were all doing just fiiiiiiiiiiiiiine, thank you very much, and if 99.9% of the population were hungry and homeless, that was no skin off my powdered, pampered, perfumed nose. Piss off.

Thus the revolution. Had to happen. Been building up for centuries and then, in 1917, ka-boom, the inevitable became the new order. Marx, Lenin, Corbyn, all taking control of the land in the name of The People.

In the 1920s the communists were still making excuses as to why the vast majority of people in the country were still living on grass and air, so instead of regular meals or steady, paying jobs, they gave them really amazing tube stations. You can imagine the relief of some starving peasant out in the wilds of Siberia when he learned that St Petersburg now had superb art nouveau stations to rival those in Moscow. Like the one pictured here. Marble columns, beautiful flamboyant chandeliers, how could the good citizens not just love it?

The Russians today are living in ‘post-communism’. And our guide yesterday was passionate about her country. And its ‘freedoms’, which are, compared to the past, pretty vast. And she said what all Russians feel about Putin, that they live well under his leadership. Politics, poisoning and persecution of political foes come way second to food, house, car, health, education. So do they ‘love’ him? Irrelevant. Do they think they would live better under alternative rule? Never. And they all remember hunger and dark days. Only here could Putin represent ‘the light’, but he does, and they love him for it.

They still reserve the right to be rude and miserable though. Or we wouldn’t know they were Russians, would we?

Happy Monday

A The Great
xxxx