Mary thought it might not be a bad match, since men were becoming scarce for women of her age, but then she heard of his ‘barbarous manners’ and turned him down, even though he promised important concessions to an English trading company.
Ivan was a man of unlimited self-indulgence and a ferocious disposition. During his six-week occupation of Novgorod he had 60,000 of its inhabitants slain and thrown into the river. The city of Tver, with a history of incessant devastations, lost 90,000 of its people due to his cruelty. He was to beat his son to death in a prolonged fit of rage, dying from grief and remorse soon after.
Tuesday, 20 June
My first trip on a hydrofoil took us along the coast to Petrodvorets, a smooth ride, and comfortable except for a queasily strong smell of high octane fuel. The out-of-bounds naval base of Kronstadt was half concealed by the haze of Leningrad, a picture that might have been done by Turner.
The half-full hydrofoil eased its way to the landing stage, and we walked into the park along a canalised stream called the Ropcha. After great aquatic leaps from the terrace of the palace its water fed numerous fountains to either side before flowing into the sea.
In front of the palace, where the waterfall filled a pond, was a bronze-gilt figure of Samson parting a young lion’s jaws from its tonsils, the ferocious combat frozen in an everlasting pose. Samson knew what he was trying to do, while the noble lion wondered at such vicious purpose, when all it had done was thoughtlessly stray into a vineyard and roar at someone disturbing its enjoyment of the grapes.
The lion could never be as savage as Samson, who endeavoured with maniacal strength to break his adversary unto death. The sculptor Kozlovski had well caught the pitifully tragic scene of the contest, in which God had ordained that Samson do something previously unthought of by man or animal, who both realised when it was far too late that they had been coerced into a situation that could only have one end. From the anguished lion’s mouth a jet of water spurted sixty-five feet high, as thick as a man’s arms, liquid which might as well have been blood.
The Great Palace, with a façade nine hundred feet long, had been gutted by the Germans, not as an act of war but out of gleeful Teutonic spite. Only the exterior had been restored, to give some idea of what it had once been. The Marly House in the park had been built as a country mansion for Peter the Great so that he could contemplate his new fleet on manoeuvres in the Gulf. Its exquisite proportions were reflected in the surface of a rectangular sheet of water. I viewed the house from a distant point, the one sight from the complex of parks and palaces I would want to remember. I was told that fish in the lake were, until recently, summoned for feeding by the ringing of a certain tone of bell. Rye flour was given to them in accordance with Peter’s wishes; he had stocked the water with carp and chut from Prussia.
An oak tree began life as an acorn taken from George Washington’s garden. Planted on the Tsarina’s Island, it had been presented to Nicholas I in 1838 by the supercargo of an American ship calling at St Petersburg. I pencilled the ways of our several miles’ walk on a plan in the Blue Guide so as not to forget the marvels no sooner were they behind me. Maria Abramovna had booked a car for one o’clock, to take us back to the hotel.
In the afternoon George and I perambulated the Petersburgian quarters associated with events in Dostoevsky’s novels.
Wednesday, 21 June
A pink mist illuminated the cupolas and façades of buildings around the hotel, streets already busy as I collected the car from the parking compound, giving the guard a few extra roubles for keeping it safe. We were going to Moscow.
Luggage was stowed, and Maria Abramovna, who would go as far as Novgorod and return to Leningrad by bus, brought flasks of tea, coffee and sandwiches for the road. She then guided us out of the city by the Ismailovsky and Moskovsky Prospekts.
Traffic was heavy in the suburbs, mostly lorries and buses, but there was less after the right fork indicating Estonia and Kiev, and I took the road straight on for Moscow.
Clouds were low, the land flat and livid green from a recent saturation of rain. None of us seemed properly awake, and I needed full alertness in overtaking the heavily laden and often swaying two-unit lorries.
George and Maria were my invited guests who had to be looked after, so I tried to keep up the talk and not seem grumpy. Their lives were in my care, and I hadn’t driven for a couple of days. Whenever at the wheel in the early morning (and we had left at seven) it was not unusual for me to have, or imagine I might have, a near miss or potential accident. It could be in avoiding someone coming too carelessly out of a side turning, or on making a dodgy attempt to overtake, but today all went well because the road was straight and fairly empty. I kept the speed at fifty for a while, then let it creep up to sixty as my senses sharpened. There was no cause to worry, in any case, because it didn’t matter what time George and I got to Moscow. My speed went up to seventy.
In Western Europe one could find somewhere to stay the night with no trouble, but hotels in Russia had to be pre-booked and a schedule maintained. Moscow was almost five hundred miles away, and I’d been advised in Leningrad to cover the distance in two stages, but having set off early I hoped it could be done in one without mishap — or disaster.
We had breakfast by the roadside, and did the first 200 kilometres to Novgorod by ten o’clock. I parked by the bus station so that Maria could buy her ticket back. Novgorod the Great was now a quiet and pleasant town, with wooden houses on the outskirts, and blocks of flats and public buildings in the middle. Trees, gardens and wide streets increased the feeling of somnolent relaxation, very much in line with how we felt.
Near the Kremlin I decoded the word kvass on the side of a barrel-shaped wagon where people were standing with jugs and bottles. Being thirsty, and not so far having tasted the beverage, I joined the throng and asked the woman to give me some. For a few kopecks she drew half a litre from the spigot of a light brown liquid which went smoothly down my dry throat and benefited the stomach as well. Maria said it was made from fermented rye bread and flavoured with raisins, and she also enjoyed a mug, though George disdained it. I felt refreshed, and was glad to know you could get it on street corners almost any time of the day.
Some of the churches and monasteries within the walled and fortified Kremlin had been blown up or damaged by the Germans, precious frescos by Novgorod painters lost for ever. I hoped no other calamities would ever befall the town.
A wooden stairway up the side of a tower led to the walls, giving a south and easterly vista of flat fields and sluggish rivers. Slender spires and coppery domes above white churches seemed to doze on the silver green landscape.
Sitting over glasses of lemon tea, in a circular café of many windows outside the Kremlin, an old woman paused in her sweeping between the tables and asked Maria Abramovna if I was an Estonian. If so perhaps you would allow me to talk to him. I regretted not being from that country, for she might have had an interesting story, but on being told I was English she went away sadly, shaking her head.