Thursday, April 21, Menshikov + Nabokov + Museum of Religion

Ubered over the river to The Menshikov Palace, home of a proud and ambitious man. His marble bust says it all.

It’s nothing like as graceful as the Yusupov Palace, but then Menshikov rose from humble beginnings to prominence, then plummeted to a bad end after the death of his great friend and patron, Peter the Great. They were besties during their salad days in Amsterdam, which might explains his devotion to Dutch tile. It was both the fashion and outrageously expensive. Menshikov paved the walls and ceilings with it. Kind of a nouveau riche move.

Here’s his sister’s room.

Along with a lathe and wood-working tools used by Peter the Great, There was this wooden strong box. The turn of one key open 26 bolts at once.

Couldn’t find the restaurant I was looking for, so famished I decided to take a chance on this place. It turned out to be a good call. Other patrons were Italian-suited business men and a few Chanel-suited tourist couples. I got the ‘would madam like to see the menu? ‘ move from the Maître d’, who squinted at my Chucks and tee and jeans and wanted to avoid mutual embarrassment by giving me a look at the prices. He did not realize the favorable exchange rate made this a cheap meal. The venue was nice. Light-filled, spacious, calm, excellent service, and not bad food (fish cakes, mashed potatoes, grilled veg).

There were birds squawking and singing at random moments. I thought it was some strange attempt at ambience by audio until I saw the pair of cockatiels caged by the bar.

Ubered back across the river to the Nabokov House Museum.  Opening the door was like entering a shrine. I’d read his engaging and lucid memoir, Speak, Memory years ago, and been listening to the audio book for the past week. I could see his home in my mind’s eye; especially the library, where his father practiced fencing in the morning. Ah, me. Today Nabokov’s boyhood home is nearly a ruin; a few dilapidated rooms with intact ceiling paneling, a wreck of cordoned-off stairs. The exhibits are meager; photos pinned to the walls, fragments of letters, random memorabilia.The flotsam and jetsam of his exile from the Russia of his youth. A few glass cases of butterflies alone had undiminished beauty.

A Russian language video documentary played in another room to rows and rows of empty seats and three other visitors. I guess they haven’t forgiven him. A prophet without honor in his own land.

Not ready to quit, I checked my homemade Google Map and saw the Museum of the History of Religion was only a few blocks away. Let me recommend  the audio guide. It was very informative and spoken by a dry English voice. Like listening to a benevolent and cynical old man recount fairy tales. All that’s missing is the intro, ‘Once upon a time.’ Or, ‘Then the princess pricked her finger and fell asleep for a hundred years.’

Unlike the Nabokov House, there was plenty to see and hear, from shaman rites and Greek temples to over-the-top orthodox vestments, purloined, I assume, when the Bolsheviks ransacked the churches and outlawed the opium of the masses**

There were hard to define oddities, like this priest in a box

Anti-Roman Catholic propaganda.

And this,  which was purported to be the actual nails from the actual cross. I doubt these are the real thing.

Unexpectedly, presenting all this as childish superstition had the opposite cumulative effect. Instead of engendering doubt, it fanned the fame of possibility. If all humanity through all the ages has worshipped, has sought and acknowledged a creator, why wouldn’t there be something greater than ourselves? Change the names, the dogma, the rituals, it all points the same direction. The idea man is the very pinnacle, the apotheosis of existence sounds absurd to me. Is hubris the word I’m looking for here? Arrogance, maybe.***

Biggest surprise was the exhibit of The Pure Land of a Buddha of infinite light, Amitabha.

The room was dim and blue. A shining path of starlight above and below led to a set of carved wooden sculptures representing the sphere of bliss. There was the humming drone of chanting. The Mahayana Buddha waits, enthroned. If I’d sat down, I don’t know when I would have gotten up. It was like sinking into a warm lotus pond, in the summer. Bliss.

My last stop was a line of bright gold and red prayer wheels. There was a notice inviting  the dear visitor to spin them, so spin I did. I went up and back and up again, saying the names of those I love in my mind, urged on by a smiling Indian babushka. It’s another trip highlight.

** “It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.” Karl Marx

*** ‘Hubris: insolent contempt that may be defined verbally as extreme or foolish pride.’