City of Heroes

When I landed in Moscow, just as I would have expected spring chose to delay its arrival, winter was glad to overstay its welcome. Much to my surprise I was surrounded by quite a few caring folks who were ready to guide me every step lest I fall. Thankfully they were not aware I was so used to falling that it didnt matter on most of the occasions.
With the holy week coming to an end I chose reluctantly go to a nearby church and it was closed. So I chose another one the next one and much to my disillusionment that was closed too. I knew I had not done much to appease the Gods but all doubts were put to rest in the third attempt when I got a chance to enter the church.
I'd very little enthusiasm to go to the Red square, on multiple occasions I came near striking distance of the place but walked away hoping I would be there some other day. To kill my despondent thoughts I was about to splurge on a pricey tag heuer but somehow could gather myself at the last moment to turn away, only to have known later I would have probably paid 3 times the price.
It was yet another wednesday when I told my cabbie that I want to go to St Petersberg. I did not have a reason, I did not understand architecture or the language or the heritage nor did I value the history. Yet I tugged along and even if I did reason enough to find a reason I had judged long back that my reasons would never be good enough.
Saturday morning I was on the bullet train , I'd hoped the journey to be scenic but spring has deserted me long enough and I've made amends with winter. My expectations were at an astonishing low after the unexciting train journey in the bullet train kaizan which ran the 880km distance from moscow to St Petersberg in flat 4 hours. Only when the cabbie at St Petersberg told me that is the city of heroes who had held the city for 900 days before giving in during the world war, it resembled a faint chord in me, I could give my best only when I already knew that I'd lost the battle.
As he drove me to the first cathedral he showed me a few buildings, to me all of them seemed typical, european vintage they had preserved over the years. When I entered St Isaacs cathedral the atmosphere and the acoustics inside the dome structure seized me. I clicked as many times as I could but my eyes could not capture the fine architecture, the fantastic biblical paintings, I could not seek anything , I just wanted to breathe from my eyes. This was one of the best cathedrals I'd seen in my life , it seemed better than the St Peters square at vatican.
Time had stopped, I did not want to go anywhere when my cabbie called and took me to Pushkin where the famous Catherine's palace is located. It was quite a museum but somehow I was not in a mood to appreciate art and we hurried off to Peterhoff. It was quite a sight to see the palace standing tall over the bay of finland which was frozen as far as the naked eye could reach.
On our way we spent some moments in the Cathedral of Peter and Paul, it was quite a majestic structure standing tall on one side of a lake.
As we chose to unwind our day on the riverside very few were around to witness the lonely sunset at the Neva river where we were making our plans for the next day. Early morning we visited The Resurrection Cathedral which was constructed over a hundred years. On our way we took a glimpse of the famous bridges of St. Petersberg which would open up every summer to give way to commercial and cruise ships treading along the Neva river basin.
Finally it was time to visit the hermitage, the king's winter palace that housed a million paintings and artefacts which if observed carefully would take more than 3 years to cover everything. The word art never struck a chord , I was confident I would finish this visit quite soon. The first hall had Remembrandt's paintings, I looked around amused and with mischief. I was observing the people around and was pretty sure like me most of them could not appreciate art. But still I chose to have a look at the paintings. I strolled around the hall quite fast the first time, and then again the second time and then a third time. I was beginning to understand the painting , I could not believe my own eyes. As I walked around, the painting revealed themselves, a unique feature of the style was that as you viewed those paintings under the light from a distance the different facets of painting would emerge which could not be experienced from a close distance the first time. But once you notice them it stays with you even when you move closer to the painting.
As I reluctantly moved away from the paintings I could see many such halls with paintings of the great european artists of the 18th and the 19th century. I spent close to three hours in the hermitage, which is the king's winter palace now transformed into a museum and an art gallery.
Every city I visited I always chose to skip the museums but here I did not regret the decision of visiting the hermitage. This visit had transcended me from the daily monotony and mediocrity to a level of excellence and understanding I did not create or even grasp yet it made me realise that this was some magic we could only experience and capture in our memories where they would always stay unexplained as a mystery.
As I reluctantly walked out of the hermitage the next destination was the Church of the Savior on Spilled blood. The architecture, pictures on the wall, the dome , the pillars and every minute detail made me wonder how this could have been built so well and surprisingly preserved for the future generations to wonder at such great structures.
It was my last day in St Petersberg, I knew I had only a couple of hours and I wanted to visit the first cathedral I'd seen in the city for one more time. On our way back we visited the Peter and Paul Church and also checked out the first Russian ship built a 100 years ago and to this day it was preserved and functioning as a museum. My cabbie told me a story as how it was sunk on purpose in the neva river to save it from aerial attacks during world war II.
Just when I was wondering I'd visited so many cathedrals and churches very few of them was functioning as a real church. Though I do not consider myself to be religious, somewhere deep inside I longed to hear the proceedings of a church, the hymns , the worship sequence or may be even the choir. As I went to Kazaan , yet another cathedral , my prayers were partially answered , I could witness the service , but somehow I was impatient to see Isaac's cathedral one last time again.
This time when I entered there was quite a gathering inside the church, this was not a gathering of tourists, it seemed like a festive occasion for the locals where the choir was practising. I could see bishops making speeches followed by a presentation of songs from different choirs and the last song was sung by the whole group together. It was quite an experience to hear the beautiful choir supported by the acoustics of the dome based architecture on which the cathedral was built.
By the end of the trip I had the answer, I knew I was blessed enough to see one of the finest and oldest cities in Europe which had probably the world's best cathedrals and churches.

Humility

I always doubted if my mistakes were good enough to teach me unforgettable lessons in humility. After every perceived fall I would gather myself and wonder this does not seem to be the last fall. With every passing thought dissected in a dim lit closet, disturbed only by the humming sound of an irritating fan of the last generation of the thinkpad you would have loved to dump, I was trying to weed out the bad ones and sow the good seeds in my mind every night.

But somehow on most mornings I could only reap the dying weeds and be startled out of the deep cosy slumber. With darkness turning to light I would stay away from any object that would cause to self reflect. I dread both my internal and external reflections, I do not know which is worse. Every attempt to fit in made me doubt my intent or the facade I was trying to develop around me.

My actions deserted my thoughts,sometimes even defeat them and every good action seemed sinister, fading away in the darkness, passing as though it was some kind of a failed attempt at atonement. Every bad thought seemed magnifying very much like the ash emanating of the volcanic Iceland, I smirked first and then prayed if only the ash could cover the skies where my eyes could wander and stop the piercing rays to wake me up and push me once again to give a shot at humility.