Moscow, the holy and the bloody, the loved and the dreaded, last week was a historic focus of rejoicing and remembrance. Her crown of spires and belfries shone in freshly gilded splendor, and the cupolas of her innumerable churches sat m the sky like frozen clouds. The cross atop the Tower of Ivan the Great glistened m the sun, and told visitors approaching from all over Russia that they were near their goal. In the streets, the people lanced and blessed their city upon its 800th anniversary. It was as Moscow's son, Alexander Pushkin, had written "Moscow: those syllables can start A tumult in the Russian heart!" In 1947 those syllables produced tumultuous twinges not in Russian hearts alone.
Moscow, they said, east & west in China, in France and in Nebraska; they said it in devotion, fear and anger. Moscow, Moscow, Moscow, like the pealing of the city's thousand bells—Moscow, the shrine of the great new materialist faith, aspiring to be the new mistress of the world, was the most talked of city of the 20th Century.
Yet few actually knew this fabulous city on the border of Europe and Asia which, since its first stirrings under petty tyranny to its coma under a modern machine of domination, has been the most isolated of the world's great capitals.
The Face. Last week, Moscow was barely recognizable even to those who knew it well. It seemed as though the entire Cosmetics Trust of the U.S.S.R. had gone to work, covering Moscow's wrinkled face with layers of magic makeup. Almost overnight the Bolshoi Theater turned a shade of blushing pink; other buildings were newly yellow, light green and blue. Reported a visitor: "It looks like an explosion in a paint factory."
Mother Moscow's city fathers were working to get her in shape for a formal presentation to history. Streets were repaved, automobiles were ordered specially polished and passengers with overly bulky bundles barred from the elegant subway. Even the underground river Neglinka, got a new concrete conduit in place of the old wooden one.
Behind this Sunday-best façade (which cost an estimated 700 million rubles—$58 million) was everyday Moscow, a slow city, solemn friendly (when its masters permit it) and relatively clean—especially near the center. Dirt increases in direct proportion to distance from the Kremlin. Not even last week's ceremonial ablutions could douse Moscow's habitual smell—a musty and ageless compound of wet plaster, cabbage and inadequately dressed furs. Not even last week's hectic carnival rumpus could exaggerate the Muscovites' devotion to their white-walled, golden-headed city.
The People. One typical measure of this love is the superior attitude toward the rival city of Leningrad (or St. Petersburg, as many oldsters still call it), which Peter the Great built. Disaster cannot kill this feeling for Moscow, and exile only enhances it. Last week, a Muscovite who has not seen his birthplace in 30 years reminisced: