White, like every color, is in and of itself indescribable. It exists, but it begins to individuate and submit to definition only in juxtaposition with other colors. And here there are no other hues. There is only the boundless white cosmos and, sunk into it, like an insect trapped in a lump of amber, the microscopic shadow of our IL-62.
But at a certain moment, we observe that on the bright, clean surface below us, a line appears. For a time it runs solitarily. But then we see a second line. Now the two run parallel to each other, straight, until the place where they are intersected by a more distinct, stronger line. For some time nothing happens, just three lines stretched across a flat, vast background. Suddenly the white boundlessness begins to be covered with ever new lines, now there are more and more of them, laid out closer and closer together. The hitherto homogeneous, monotonously uniform plane breaks into squares, rectangles, rhombuses, and triangles, into an intricate geometric structure, forms piling up here, dissipating in all directions there: it is Norilsk, the mining and metallurgical basin of Siberia — like the Polish Ślαsk, the German Ruhr, the American Pittsburgh, only beyond the Arctic Circle.
BETWEEN NORILSK and Moscow lie the Ural Mountains. During the flight over them a change of season takes place. Until now it has been winter and more winter, and now, after passing the summits of the Urals, one flies straight into spring. The earth regains its gray-brown hue — natural in this region — the riverbeds fill up with running silver, and here and there stretch spots of pale green. Along the way there will still be some cities, there will be the Volga, there will be forests, and beyond the forests — Moscow.
IN MOSCOW I immediately fall into a whirl of discussions, the capital’s gossip, polemics, and quarrels. Everywhere encounters, meetings, conferences, and symposia. Every day all kinds of people stand around the statue of Pushkin, from morning to night, trying to outshout one another, sticking their fingers into one another’s eyes, shoving handfuls of leaflets under one another’s noses. These times are a paradise for debaters, for the silver-tongued, for polemicists and prattlers, preachers and orators, swordsmen of the word and seekers of the truth. There are dozens, hundreds, of such street-debating clubs in this country. You will see rabid debaters in the squares of Lvov and Omsk, Arkhangel’sk and Karaganda … everywhere. It all looks like a scene from the old photographs of the February Revolution of 1917.
Although there are plenty of interesting and even extraordinary things in these verbal geysers, one day I decide to escape from the polemicists and the debaters and go to the Kremlin.
I HAD LONG thought about going to the Kremlin. That intention was revived whenever, traveling to the city center from Leninski Prospekt (where I was staying), I passed the Kremlin’s lofty walls, buildings, and towers rising up on the right. I was always struck then by the immense stone wasteland surrounding the Kremlin complex on all sides — large, unending squares, wide bridges, concrete embankments, vast, desolate areas covered in asphalt and concrete slabs, stretching for kilometers.
On these squares that spread out in all directions, packs of cars, scattered, some here, some there, take off every few minutes, dash wildly along, taking every possible shortcut, and hurriedly disappear into the throats of streets that begin somewhere far from here. The infrequently stationed militiamen wisely stand out of their way. But besides them one cannot meet a living soul here, despite the fact that we are in the center of a city of ten million. One feels this desolateness especially on Sunday or during bad weather. The wind rips across the wasteland, driving rain or snow along with it. I sometimes ventured into these unpeopled spaces. Below, the river Moscow rolled its gray waters. To one side was the leaden massif of the apartment building for the elite — the only residential structure in the area. I was suspended in the vacuum that separates the inaccessible government (the Kremlin) from the living tissue of the city. There was no movement or buzz of the street here — rather, the silence and boundlessness of the steppe.
THE KREMLIN is a large complex of medieval and modern edifices standing on a hill and enclosed by a brick-and-stone wall. This mighty wall is crowned by twenty towers of various sizes, the largest being Spasskaya, Nikolskaya, Naroznaya, Troitskaya, and Borovitskaya. Inside are various government buildings as well as former Orthodox churches and cathedrals, turned into museums. Above all, the Kremlin is the workplace, and often also the residence, of the most important person in the Imperium. In short, since 1918, when Lenin moved the capital from Petersburg to Moscow (safety considerations decided the matter: Petersburg was too close to the sea, too close to Europe), the Imperium has been ruled from the heights of the Kremlin.
The shortest route to the walls of the Kremlin is from Red Square. Here is where, if the day is sunny and warm, one can encounter the greatest number of people. On one side of the square stands a long, long line to Lenin’s mausoleum. On the other side is the Spasskaya Tower. Black government ZILs (Soviet-made limousines) fly out every now and then through this gate at great speed. They are all identical (except that the most important ones don’t have registration plates), but as for who is riding in them, one cannot tell, for the windows are veiled with curtains. These vehicles drive out so frequently that one could easily be led to believe that there is a car factory in the Kremlin and that new models are leaving the assembly line one after the other.
To walk into the Kremlin just like that, simply to walk in, without a reason or a goal, is impossible. One can gain access for only three reasons: (a) to visit the museum as part of a group excursion from one’s place of work (it is a form of distinction and reward), (b) to attend one of a variety of important congresses that from time to time take place here (delegates and accredited journalists can enter then), (c) at the summons of one of the dignitaries who officiate here. In each of these cases, one is required, after having passed the gate, to move by the shortest route possible to the preordained destination — there and back.
I TRIED entering from the west side, from the Troicka gate, because I know that it is the entrance for people who come here on foot, for the commoners. Two officers of the militia stopped me: “A pass!”
I showed them my press credentials.
“That’s not enough! The pass to the Kremlin! Where are you going?”
“To the congress of the small nations of Siberia.”
As a matter of fact there was such a congress in progress. They sent me back for a pass. It was four o’clock in the afternoon. Office workers, secretaries, janitors, were leaving the Kremlin through the same gate. All of them were carrying bags stuffed with items from the Kremlin shops, nets full of veritable treasures — cold cuts, cheeses, oranges. Loaded down, they swayed in the direction of the distant bus stops and metro stations.
The next day at the same time I appeared at the Troicka gate with a pass. They inspected it, compared the photograph with the original, and made certain that I knew where the congress was taking place, in which building. In reality I didn’t know, for I also had no intention of listening to the debates of the Siberians. I wanted to see the Kremlin.
But this would not be easy, as I quickly realized. Having exited from the twilight of the deep and massive gate, I saw before me inside the walls a great stone-paved emptiness. In front of me stretched the flat expanse of the old Senate Square. On the right I had the modern marble mass of the Palace of Congresses, and on the left the rectangular arsenal building, painted yellow. It was empty everywhere and clean everywhere. The sidewalks quite obviously freshly swept, the shrubs trimmed evenly, in a uniform shape, the curbs whitened with lime. When the wind blew, dry leaves appeared on the square and the sidewalks, but they too seemed clean to me. This aseptic and severe cleanliness deepened in a strange way the bareness and desolation of the place. I had the impression that I was here alone, that I was of no concern to anyone. But that was an illusion.