Day 239 - The beast and the beauty – a journey from Saint-Petersburg to Moscow

The Beast

I've heard so much about this new bullet train from Saint-Petersburg to Moscow with the cryptic name Sapsan (nobody could decipher it for me and I interpreted it as some sort of abbreviation). It's fast (250 km/hr), it's modern-looking, it's comfortable, it's clean, it has wi-fi, TV's, and fresh flowers on each table, and I'm finally on it!

I was so impressed by the looks of the train that I was compelled to finally look up its story on the know-it-all www.wikipedia.org. And what a story!

It is named Sapsan after falcon-sapsan (lat: falco peregrinus), famous for the speed of its flight.

Those trains were developed by Siemens specifically for the Russian railroad. The current fleet of eight speedy falcons cost €276 mln, plus the German Siemens is contracted to maintain the trains for the next 30 years for additional €354 mln. Ever since its launch in 2009, Sapsan has become a mass-media celebrity for whatever reason; it has its own blog and a Twitter account (!!!). There's even a series of cartoons with the character Sapsanchik: with the help of this particular media tool, the creators are trying to attract the public attention to some interesting railroad news, popular tendencies and current issues.

The train can technically develop the speed of 350 km/hr, but it usually moves at the rate of 250 km/hr. Still very fast, and what's amazing – you don't really feel it, unless, of course, you look out of the window to enjoy the scenery flying by…

The Beauty

The scenery is stunning. I have been so unbelievably lucky with the "golden autumn" here this time: the colors, the temperature, the sky. Every time I got out of my house for the past three weeks, I busily – by habit – set out rushing toward my destination, but the delicious smell of foliage made me stop, smile, and literally breathe in the moment, this gorgeous season, my favorite. Sentimentally, I recited different Pushkin's* autumn poems in my head (surprisingly and luckily, I still remember every word, diligently memorized a long-long time ago at school).

*Hmmm, wanted to quote a poem by Pushkin in English here, but realized that not much of his work is translated into any language. Strange on one hand - Alexander Pushkin is a grand Russian poet and writer of the 19^th century who is considered to be the creator of the literary Russian language. But understandable on the other hand – the incomparable mastery of his verse has eluded translation, so much of his wit and wisdom is still unknown to the world outside Russia. Apparently, there's even a special project by Julian Lowenfeld, an American poet-translator (also a lawyer, a playwright, and a composer!), aimed at acquainting the world with the literary genius of Pushkin. Unfortunately, the autumn poem whirling in my head is still not part of his translated collection, but there are some poems there that you might find interesting.

And now, on the train, flying through this wonderful foliage – woods, villages, fields dressed in their seasonal tri-color apparel of nature's transition – the insisting green of the stubborn summer, the devastated yellow of the treacherous fall withering, and the violent red trying to outdare the imminent winter – envelope me with a vibrant joy.

Again, I'm sad that I cannot write poems. A haiku-like (I'm not really following the rules of haiku here) is all I'm capable of for now:

Бесконечная железнодорожная полоса влечет меня в сонм будущих воспоминаний. Осень прекрасна неумолимостью движения.

The eternal railroad draws me into a host of future memories. The fall dazzles with its relentless movement.

The Journey from Saint-Petersburg to Moscow

Once upon a time, Aleksandr Nikolayevich Radischchev, a famous Russian writer of the 18^th century, wrote his main book "The Journey from Saint-Petersburg to Moscow". The work, often described as a Russian "Uncle Tom's Cabin", is a polemical study of the problems in the Russia of Catherine the Great – the powers of nobility, the serfdom, the issues in government and governance, social structure and personal freedom and liberty. He somehow managed to publish this openly anti-government work, but it was immediately banned and the writer was sentenced, first to death, but then to banishment in eastern Siberia. The book was published freely in Russia only in 1905. In the book Radishchev takes an imaginary journey between Russia's two main cities, with each stop along the way revealing various problems. The author was not a revolutionary, but rather a philosopher who realized the necessity of public enlightenment, the importance of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

I'm no Radishchev and my travel notes are very different from his, but I cannot help but think about similar issues, just on the personal level. Now both countries I consider my home are more or less publicly free and educated, yet – sadly – we so often forget the necessity of our personal enlightenment, the importance of pursuing the happiness that is authentic and not induced by some stupid societal norms. How do we change that, I wonder…