Last Holy Week, a group of twelve from Güssing and other villages went to Moscow. Among them were the vice-president of the Burgenländische Gemeinschaft, Erwin Weinhofer and his family and me. It was not a trip to find out some Burgenländers living in Russia´s most important city (are there any Burgenländers at all over there?), but an interesting visit for sightseeing reasons.
Moscow is larger than Paris and London, and the problems caused by the huge traffic are almost insoluble. Millions of people use the subway, and when rush hour has begun, each single train is spitting out a giant crowd. But people have to take the subway, because the roads in the city are hopelessly overcrowded. The major urban roads have four or five lanes in one direction, but indeed, the drivers use six or seven of them. Very close… The city has to be able to get rid of the thousands and thousands of commuters who try to get home into their suburbs every evening. You feel that the giant kettle which you can Moscow compare to has to get cleared from the overwhelming human load each night before explosion.
But what else is Moscow? Is it still the centre of East-European communism? Are the inhabitants, the Moscovites, still suffering from past political mistakes?
They do, when you look at the multi-storey buildings with their tiny appartements. They do, when you consider the pension of about 70, 80 dollars old-aged people get each month. They do, when you watch the news on TV and see a small group of participants of a political manifestation being beaten by the police.
On the other hand, Moscow of course is profiting by tourism. Why not? A cup of coffee in a café near the Gremlin wall costs as much as it does in Paris, Monaco or Venice. You see a lot of “McDonalds”-restaurants, the “Hard Rock Café” and many stores where you get branded articles. This is a global matter.
Finally, we went to Sergeyev Posad, the former town of Zagorsk. The local monastery is the centre of the russian-orthodox church. The group of visitors was deeply impressed by the calm there. It was so much different to the loud and crowdy city. Conspicuously, a great deal of Russians again declares itself for Christian faith. What a great day at the monastery!
But likewise it was a great moment to step into the Lenin Mausoleum at the edge of the well-known Red Square of Moscow. Every person who wants to can take a look at the embalmed corpse of Wladimir Iljitsch Uljanow, called Lenin. He was the man who installed the communist system in Russia and founded the Soviet Union. It was an exciting experience to get into the well guarded mausoleum. Not allowed to speak at all. This was a small step for me, but a giant leap into the past times of the Soviet Empire. Maybe the dead Lenin still reminds the Russians of lost social power and political greatness.
The trip to Moscow was worth doing. This is a recommendation for you to visit the capital of Russia.

Doswedanja!

Walter Dujmovits, jun.