Category Archives: Russia Trip

From Murder to Mercy

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IMG_5512Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming on you. Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. Look! The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered the innocent one, who was not opposing you.

— Epistle of Apostle James Chapter 5

The senseless murder of innocents has often in history followed godless greed and unholy desire for personal gain. Midway through the 20th century experiment of atheist communism in Russia, Joseph Stalin felt the need to purify the system and find new sources of blame for his failing policies. Finding no blame in himself, he and his minions sought secretly and indiscriminately to purge undesired members of society in numbers before unimagined. Continue reading →

An Underground Museum

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I had an enlightened conversation the other day with the young daughter of my wife’s best friend in Moscow. In her young age of only 15, she has had the great fortune of living abroad with grandparents in Canada for half a year, and so she has some perspective on her own motherland. Since all of her family members are practicing artists, it is not surprising that our discussion revolved around art. But art for a Russian means something different than for an American, or rather the people have a different relationship to art. For a Russian, paintings are not simply objects which are consigned to museums, available for an elite segment of society that can afford the time and money to develop a taste for “that sort of thing.” They are rather like windows to the soul of every Russian, companions to them along the way, and just as everywhere present in society as icons are ever-present in the churches. Continue reading →

The Beauty of Language

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IMG_5286June 6, Birthday of Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin

It has happened to me twice now, so there is no denying its power. We travel today to the Moscow Pushkin Museum on the anniversary of A. S. Pushkin’s birthday Jun 6, 1799 for a concert of poetry and music performed by children of the age of my own. The show begins with a recitation of the great author’s poetry. Just like several years ago when I came for the same event for the first time, I understood not a word of it. But just like then, I still could not help but weep for the beauty of it. Continue reading →

Coffee Hour, Russian Style

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IMG_0598One of the big temptations in traveling to another land is to expect many of the familiar things there from your home country. Or if those things do not live natively in the host culture, the temptation is to somehow import them. Such a tradition for us is the great American church custom of coffee hour. Yes, that’s right, coffee hour is not a given at churches around the world but is a distinctively American custom for Christians to gather after a Sunday service for at least coffee and donuts and sometimes a whole lot more.

One of the churches we consider our home away from home in Moscow has long held the tradition of refreshments and social mingling after the Sunday Liturgy, but they don’t call it coffee hour and they don’t claim that the custom is borrowed from America. Continue reading →

A Routine Vacation

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Arrived yesterday to Moscow for our family’s seventh time in the land of the Rus. Mama Friar and our brood of four preceded me by two weeks. It is a great place to vacation as we have established patterns that we easily settle into here. A young family such as ours needs routine even when we are attempting to be adventurous and break out into something new.

Our daily schedule while we are here in Moscow runs more or less as follows. Wake up to morning prayers followed by tea and kasha. After breakfast, the middle of the day is usually a museum or show that is reachable by public transportation (bus, trolley, or subway). We return late afternoon to our apartment for tea and refreshments. Kids go with a designated adult to one of several local (and colorful) playgrounds while the others prepare dinner. In the evening, we gather for the most relaxed meal of the day and the most likely time to receive guests: suppertime. Continue reading →

Sochi on the Mind

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Just getting ready to sit down as a family and watch the Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony tonight in Sochi, Russia on the Black Sea. It is a long and often difficult road for any city to host a worldwide event like the Olympics, and we have personally traveled that road with Sochi. Went there several times as a family and blogged about it as well, for those interested in reading something else about this resort, seaside beauty besides Russia’s stance on homosexuality or difficulty with security. We can’t wait ourselves to see on TV how much they have built since we visited a few years ago.

Almost Home

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Funny on the day before taking a trip across the ocean, we already feel like we are in Boston even though physically we are still in Moscow. One really gets that feeling in the airport.

I personally spend the beginning of the day with a couple of friends walking in a large city park then having another tea with a very warm and lovely priest who speaks English like Charles Dickens. No, really, you wouldn’t believe how refined his speech is and how much he delights in our Mother tongue. He actually taught himself English by reading the Pickwick Papers by Dickens when he was a boy.

A very full and lovely way to say goodbye to Mother Russia!

Precious Moments for Repentance

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Saturday, July 22/August 4, 2012, St. Mary Magdalene

As our time in Russia nears its end, every moment becomes more and more precious. In the morning, we all attend Liturgy at St. Nicholas of Ugresha Monastery just outside of Moscow. It has all the elements of a quintessential spiritual fortress: very tall and slender bell tower, large and substantial cathedral with ample relics for veneration (including one small one of our own St. Herman of Alaska!), plenty of smaller satellite churches for weekday services, and to top it all off, a quiet nearby pond to reflect the brilliance. After lunch, I embark on my adventure of the evening: following directions on the metro to a church that has an English-speaking priest to hear my confession. Continue reading →

Uncovering Joy in Following the Rules

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July 19/August 1, 2012, Uncovering of the Relics of St. Seraphim of Sarov

36759-bWe travel to our friends’ house today in the afternoon and evening to celebrate the Baptism of their son and my new godson. That’s right. I became a godfather of a child in Russia! Another reason to keep coming back: heavenly family added to my earthly family here.

I was talking with our friend at the Baptism on Sunday, and she pressed me for the answer to the question I posed earlier in the blog about why Russians love St. Seraphim so much. I confessed to her that I had been working on the answer and had come to some conclusions, but I was pretty sure they were not correct or merely one-sided. Then I asked her what she thought. Continue reading →

The Harvard Square of Moscow

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Novokuznetskaya metro station

What is it about a city square which gives it such life and vibrancy? More often than not it happens not by some kind of grand design imposed from without, but by a more organic development from below and within the city itself. One of these great urban centers of culture in Boston is Harvard Square with its proximity to the oldest American university, its abundant street musicians, libraries and bookstores, museums and laboratories, and everything else that contributes to a volatile, teeming place to meet and get inspired. The Zamoskvorechye region near the Novokuznetskaya metro station is the Harvard Square of Moscow. Continue reading →