Every Easter eve a vigil far older than Russia begins in the Church of the Transfiguration of Our Lord, located in the village of Peredelkino, a residence of the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church. At midnight the clergy and members of the congregation walk in procession around the church and enter through its main doors to celebrate the Resurrection. The Soviet authorities discourage religion, but they tolerate this rite—after a fashion. Alexander Solzhenitsyn describes the vigil at Peredelkino in the following story. It is published here in translation for the first time.
WE are told by experts that, when painting in oils, we should not represent things exactly as they are: for this there exists color photography. We must, by means of broken lines and combinations of square and triangular planes, convey the idea of the thing rather than the thing itself. I can't for my part see how color photography could make a meaningful selection of figures and compose into a single image the Easter procession at the Patriarchal church in Peredelkino as it is held today, half a century after the Revolution. Yet that picture would explain a lot, even were it painted by the most old-fashioned methods and without the use of triangular planes.
Half an hour before the chimes begin, the scene outside the railings of the Patriarchal Church of the Transfiguration of Our Lord is like a wild party in the dance hall of a remote and dowdy workers' settlement. Shrill-voiced girls in brightly colored scarves and slacks (admittedly a few wear skirts) stroll about in threes, in fives, push their way into the church. But the nave is crowded. The old women took their places early on Easter eve. They snap at each other and the girls come out. They circle around the courtyard, shout insolently, call each other from afar, and inspect the small green, pink and white flames lit outside the windows of the church and beside the tombs of canons and bishops. As for the boys—tough and mean-looking—all have an air of victory (though what victories, except perhaps knocking a ball through a goal, have they won in their 15 or 20 years?). Nearly all are wearing caps (the few who are bareheaded haven't taken theirs off here). One out of four is tipsy, one out of ten is drunk. Every other one is smoking, and so disgustingly, with his butt stuck to his lower lip! So that long before the incense—in place of the incense—gray pillars of cigarette smoke rise from the church courtyard, with its electric lights, toward the Easter sky with its brown, motionless clouds.