Sacred and Secular in Moscow

We went to the Trinity St.Sergius Monastery just outside Moscow in a rented minivan with a driver. The monastery is an amazing collection of churches inside a fortress, one of the most ancient and holiest places in the Russian Church. It’s a beautiful, and historically significant, spot.

We wandered the grounds and explored the myriad churches big and small, old and new. We didn’t have a tour guide, so when I tried to buy tickets for the Treasury I was flatly refused entry. Well, I appealed to the compassion of the ticket agent – a rather dicey proposal sometimes – and was allowed to speak to the manager. I convinced her that we were “quiet, peaceful people” and that she should sell us tickets for a Russian tour that I could translate for my non-russian speaking family. She finally gave in to my pleading and let us in. The treasury is the repository of all the precious things that have been given to the monastery over the centuries, and as such an awesome collection of ecclesiastical opulence. The tour was a typical guided Russian tour – exceedingly deep in detail about nearly every aspect of the items. After one particularly lengthy interlude near the end I wearily translated the long discourse as “this is important church stuff” and left it at that. Dad didn’t buy my summary. Truth is, when the discussion begins to get into things like materials and methods my Russian skills are quickly left behind.

Chaz and Claire met an old woman who gave them some sort of prayer card. They returned the favor with a card they had brought from home. The old lady was quite pleased with the gift (and with a few rubles that went with it) and went on and on. Then she asked my name. I told her, and she said she’d pray for me. Nice deal. I didn’t give her anything or do anything but translate and I’m the one she’s going to say prayers for.

On the way out of the monastery, I gave a few rubles to a monk holding a donation box. We exchanged pleasantries and he asked my name. Turns out, his name is Victor Adamovich – Adam was his dad’s name. He asked me if I was Serbian, but when I told him I was from NYC he told me about his 3 months in Brooklyn. We compared notes like all displaced New Yorkers do when they cross paths in some far-flung place. And for New Yorkers, far-flung has an entirely different scale. Anyway, he also visited relatives in Minneapolis, but frankly found the city too boring for his taste. Now, personally, I kind of like Minneapolis; But when a monk thinks a place is boring, well, that’s quite an indictment.

Back in Moscow, we headed for a nice restaurant near the hotel. There was a large birthday party going on next to us, and we slowly got incorporated into the festivities. The dancing started, and the merrymakers invited us to join them with the exhortation that “it’s free.” So, up we got and danced. Mom and Dad are pretty good dancers, and impressed the whole place with their moves. I got dragged up too, and did a pretty good impression of someone who had already had just a little bit too much to drink. I wanted to fit in, after all.

Dinner was over, and during a popular song the birthday group hit the dance floor en masse, this time calling everyone into the mix with the phrase “even the foreigners!” Well, that was a couple of toasts later – and I ended up dancing with the birthday girl who went on and on about friends and how you can rely on them, etc. I got a couple of wet, sloppy kisses from various women before we extricated ourselves and wished them all the very best.

I had fun, but it was an especially great experience for the family. They got to see a little bit of the overwhelming Russian spirit of hospitality.