2016-07-01

【Aiden in English】

        Marking the tenth day of our trip, something a little special has been planned. Russia, to put it lightly, is a fairly large nation. Oddly, it only has 1.5 hundred million people living in its vastness. Then again, the gigantic Mars has a whopping population of zero humans, so I shouldn't be talking. 

        As one of the most sparsely populated countries, the cities were built as quite something, to say the least. Moscow lies in the Central Federal District of European Russia, surrounded by trees and mountains and basically no human civilization. All one can see on a quiet summer morning is the chugging of a Sapsan train. When a Muscovite views such sight, he or she is encouraged to feel a sense of a must. Like that feeling of the new toy.

        Moscow is our exact destination today. Coincidentally, the starting point was St. Petersburg, and even more, coincidentally, there was a tour taking passengers from St. Petersburg to Moscow on the Sapsan train. It was supposedly luxurious, but when I boarded it, the idea sort of resembled an airplane, unfortunately. 

        Moscow is the capital of Russia. With great history comes a lot of knowledge, and our guide was just spraying out information every minute that she had. Although the stories she told were fascinating, she understood how 95 percent of the information was going down the drain. To prove her wrong, I'm going to write down over five percent of the stuff I learned today so I can technically say that I'm special. The main aspect of the tour would be the Kremlin. Even after surviving all those USSR vs. USA action movies, the Kremlin is surprisingly still intact. In fact, it looks spectacular. Starting with the basic foundation, the Kremlin is surrounded by a tall, red brick wall. I stress this very much as, believe me, the obvious wall that juts out of the ground can be overlooked. Just ask mom, who apparently thought a local mall GUM was the mighty entrance to the legendary fortress of the world's largest country. The ace is commonly mistaken for the housing of Russian leaders, but in the modern years is untrue. The last person who lived in the Kremlin was Joseph Stalin, and everyone knows what happened to this iron man. His dictatorship has left the country, and nowadays, the economy has become a free market. Changes weren't all beneficiary, as people in the 90's weren't quite ready to have the idea of million-dollar apartments. To be fair, the communistic world didn't give the idea of anything being "expensive" since everything was the same. The present-day "presents" many new views to the economy and the government, with a division between the ideology of capitalism and communism. 

        Russia has a long line of Czars and emperors, and the tour guide got this one right: I don't remember any names. All I can call is the Romanov Dynasty with a long family of Peters, some great, some terrible. The Kremlin dates back to these medieval monarchies, having been built in the 17^th-18^th century. At the time, the fortress looked quite bad. Then, one of the Peters thought that the place looked too gloomy, and so did his wife, so it went through a nice change in style. Now, tourists can view the beautiful churches, exquisite architectural designs, and much useless stuff, like a 40-ton giant cannon with detailed carvings. It looked really intimidating, but the catch was the weird fact of how it never really fired. I am still scratching my head on that one. 

        The mighty Kremlin is so historic, and I could keep going for a long time. Hopefully, I've reached the five percent mark, and there is too much to write about. I wonder if this is how our tour guides feel. Sometimes, you get good guides, and they feed you the pieces, while others shove things down your throat by rather whole.

【红霞译文】

        出游第十天之际，我们打算把行程安排得稍有不同。俄罗斯幅员辽阔，不过它的国民总数却少得出奇，充其量仅有1.5亿而已。话又说回来，偌大的火星甚至连个人影也没有。算了，我最好趁早打住本无关联的话题。

        俄罗斯人口密度稀疏，名列世界前茅，即便如此，其城市仍被打造得精美绝伦，简直不可思议。莫斯科地处俄罗斯欧洲区域核心部位，安卧于绿树掩映之间、群山环抱之中，基本上空旷偏僻，偶见炊烟淡淡飘起。夏日清早“游隼号”列车隆隆声响终于打破沉寂，莫斯科人方才打起精神，像要疯抢玩具似的一窝蜂地涌向车站。

        今天我们把旅行目的地锁定于莫斯科，偏巧又从圣彼得堡出发，因此正好可以借机搭乘“游隼号”顺风车凑个热闹。别看这列火车够得上豪华档次，可惜我们感觉跟坐普通机舱没啥两样。

        莫斯科是俄罗斯联邦的首都，悠久的历史岁月孕育出丰厚的文化底蕴，导游争分夺秒向我们解读民族精髓，故事讲得娓娓动听，但她苦口婆心灌输给我们的东西恐怕95%都将付诸东流，要知道一口吃不成胖子，假如我能把剩下的5%复述出来，算她没白费力气。莫斯科之行我们主要把注意力集中在克林姆林宫上。尽管前苏维埃社会主义共和国联盟和美利坚合众国曾拍摄过无数动作大片，想不到克里姆林宫历经磨难却依旧完好无缺，而且看上去蔚为壮观。先从基础建筑说起，克里姆林宫是由又高又厚的红色砖墙围成的内城，相信我没错，之所以强调这一点是因为露出地面上的围墙看似普通，不信去问妈妈，她公然认为应该把红场上那座气宇轩昂的古姆国家百货商场当成世界第一大国童话堡垒的大门入口才是，别看俄国集权官邸旧时单调平庸，但它顺应时代潮流，景观可谓今非昔比。最后一位居住在克里姆林宫的国家元首是天下公认的铁腕人物──约瑟夫·斯大林，他的独裁统治早已一去不复返，现在俄罗斯正推行自由经济，当然并非所有的变化都是有益的，生活在上个世纪九十年代的普通百姓绝对难以想象价值百万美元的公寓。公道地说，在共产主义的字典里绝无“昂贵”可言，因为所有一切均采用平均分配。如今岁月变迁推动了思想进步，莫斯科从资本主义与共产主义两种意识形态中汲取力量，从而促进经济发展并强化政体建设。

        长期以来俄国一直经受沙皇帝王统治，导游不愧有先见之明：我没法记住其中任何帝王将相的全称，唯一能道来点只言片语的只有罗曼诺夫王朝，俄罗斯历史长河中掀出好几拨彼得大帝，有的留芳百世，有的遗臭万年，克林姆林宫鼎盛时期恰好可以追溯到中世纪这段君主社会（十七～十八世纪）。当时城堡相当难看，有位彼得大帝及其王后对之甚为不满，于是决定大兴土木彻底翻建。如今游客们鉴赏的不仅是巧夺天工的教堂艺术，更有独具匠心的建筑设计，当然也不乏一些华而不实的奢华装饰。就拿40吨重的巨型炮王来说，炮身上的雕刻精工细作令人叹为观止，但是这个庞然大物却从未派上用场甚至没发射过一颗炮弹，真让我百思不得其解。

        克里姆林宫雄伟建筑群背后隐含着深厚的历史文化，我得花很多工夫去理解消化，只要能学到其中的5%，我已然相当满意，即使收获了这点背景知识，对于沉淀思想都有很大帮助，想必这正是导游所期待的。看来，有的导游善于为你提供历久弥新的精神食粮，也有的导游让你囫囵吞枣吃不下兜着走。