The Hours - In Moscow
Hans Hanning Harmer
Here I am, on a June day, a man from Copenhagen in Moscow, writing a letter to people in Shanghai. Can it be more confounding?
An old friend of mine has invited me to Moscow, where we met 24 years ago. Since then we have been corresponding and, with long intervals between, visiting each other. Now we were meeting in the airport outside Moscow. Time is an enemy of stiffened memories. He, 30 kilos heavier than at our first meeting, with a gray beard, looked like a worn-out farmer from Georgia. I am white-haired and more fragile than ever.
By air, the Copenhagen- Moscow flight lasts two and a half hours. But between us are 24 years - a lifetime full of changes.Behind us we have dissolved marriages, grandchildren,travels,work. In front of us we have 3 weeks to rejuvenate our friendship.
Between the airport and Moscow we stop the car by the roadside, close to some gigantic rusty tank-blocks, reminders from the Second World War. Here the German troops, only 25 kilometers from the Kremlin, were stopped. I receive bread and salt, and in this traditional way we commemorate this decisive turn of history.
A witness to it, my friend’s 92 year old father, tells about the mobilization of the civil population, the digging of trenches and rising roadblocks. He was there in flesh and blood. In translation, I get a vivid picture of the horrifying situation. He ends his tale by saying:
“We stopped the Nazis and saved Europe.”
“You certainly did,” I say. I cannot hold back a sigh, “ And you exacted a price for it.”
“What price?”
“The price of the victors. They are the ones that define borders and create the narrative that is history,” I say.
Moscow is imposing. At night, the heavy buildings in the city center are illuminated. Lit facades deliver a theatrical effect of bombastic grandeur. I walk among a strange scenery of stage wings and set pieces, humbled by them, wondering what is behind them.
By daylight, the town’s old muscular architecture is exposed. Stalinesque Baroque exists alongside Parisian-like alleys and passages, intimate quarters flanked by Stalin-era poplars. Now in June these trees send their pollen puffballs (pukh), like summer snowflakes or campfire ash, through the streets, packing the gutters, where children sometimes set fire to them, burning them like bomb fuses. Yet the only true explosions are political discussions, occasionally ignited by my friend or me.
Trained as an architect, my friend insists on showing me around. Moscow City, a new prestigious complex of skyscrapers, which has taken all postmodern features to its bosom, now towers over the town center. Why does it seem that nationalism is so incendiary, that indulging in it is at the expense of other nations? Do you need enemies to strengthen your national pride and your ego?
I arm myself with patience, though I am not especially good at maintaining it during siege, that is, our continuously antagonistic dialogues. What new narrative will be constructed from this uneasy melange of culture, politics, power, and progress?
Maybe I need some instructions in conciliation, middle ways, taoism, in handling situations with wu wei. And maybe, who knows, I can learn that in Shanghai.
June. Moscow.