Commie Kitsch

Russia’s recent presidential election may have been a victory for Boris Yeltsin and democracy, but, nevertheless, about 30 million Russians voted for Yeltsin’s Communist Party opponent, Gennady Zyuganov.

If a lot of voters in the former Soviet Union are nostalgic for the old days of socialism, they’re not alone. Visiting Westerners, hooked on the intrigue and the espionage of the Cold War, can still find ample reminders of both this summer.

In fact, Cold War attractions have never been more popular or more accessible to tourists.

There was a time not long ago when any visit to the capital of Communism had to be coordinated through Intourist, the official state visitors bureau. That not only meant travel and accommodations glitches but virtually guaranteed never seeing many of the things that made the Evil Empire so feared in the first place.

Now, though, with getting to Moscow easier than ever--more than a half a dozen Western airlines fly there daily--and plenty of new hotels and restaurants, it’s possible to enjoy the city’s vast array of Communist kitsch while living just like a bourgeois capitalist. And, after all, shouldn’t that be one of the benefits of winning the Cold War?

It may surprise first-time visitors to Moscow to see how many monuments to state socialism are still around. Statues of Joseph Stalin and other former notables of the old regime were torn down and dumped in a city park shortly after the 1991 coup attempt. Just the same, hundreds of Vladimir I. Lenin likenesses defiantly hold their ground; the founder of the ex-Soviet Union, whose body remains on display in its Red Square resting place, is enjoying a comeback in the wave of nostalgia.

Stalin, Nikita Khruschev and Leonid Brezhnev have gotten a new lease on life too. Cleaned up and, in some cases, remounted on their pedestals, their statues, located behind the new annex of the TretyakovGallery on the banks of the Moscow River, have been arranged into a sort of theme park where anyone can go to relive the past or merely to contemplate how the mighty have fallen.

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This eerie reminder of the way things were makes an excellent place to begin a Cold War tour of Moscow.

I spend roughly six months a year in the city and have found the best way of getting around to be the subway. It’s faster than a taxi cab and, unlike most things in Moscow--suddenly one of the world’s most expensive cities--it’s cheap. True, a bomb exploded in one Metro train recently, but all in all the subways are still the safest means of transportation.

Then, too, it’s worth keeping in mind that crime--like pickpocketing and mugging, which flourish in some sections of the city--is virtually unheard of in the well-policed subways. (For an update on security risks regarding travel in Russia, see Travel Advisory on page L21.)

The sprawling system also happens to be a veritable Cold War catacomb. Every station is different, and most pay homage to some great moment in Communist Party history. Komsomolskaya (named for the Young Communist League) commemorates various phases of Lenin’s career in colorful mosaics; Barrikadnaya celebrates the anti-czarist uprising of 1905. My personal favorite is Revolution Square (Ploshchad Revolyutsii), with its dozens of bronze figures of Russians from all walks of life, each one armed to the teeth against enemies of the people.

A short trip from the statue burial ground is the real thing. Novodevichy Cemetery, is the Forest Lawn of the former USSR, and the last stop for thousands of state heroes. Tombs and gravestones are decorated with tanks, missiles and other symbols of past national glory. Officially atheist in its approach to the hereafter, the Soviets memorialized some deceased bureaucrats as if they were still on the job. One high-level commissar is depicted sitting behind his desk, another is shown talking on the phone.

Cold War Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, known as “Comrade Nyet” for his hard-line posture, is buried in Novodevichy. So is Khrushchev, who built the Berlin Wall and ruled the Soviet Union during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Khrushchev’s tombstone, which features a vengeful rendition of his head in a vice, was designed by Ernst Nezvisty, an artist whose work the late leader had publicly denounced. Incidentally, Kim Philby, the British spy whose career epitomized double agentry, is planted far less memorably in Novo Kutuzovsky Cemetery on the other side of town.

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The Kremlin, where most of these former officials worked, is a 15-minute Metro ride away from the Novodevichy cemetery. Once the backdrop for the West’s worst Cold War nightmares, the massive brick fortress has lost much of its power to scare. Posters of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels used to hang from GUM, the gothic-style shopping mall on Red Square. The pictures of the fathers of socialism have now been replaced by ads for Pizza Hut and Benetton. Just the same, anyone interested in an Iron Curtain experience doesn’t have far to go.

The nearby Hotel Moscow, is a perfectly preserved relic of the Stalin era. Upscale vodka drinkers will easily recognize it as the same building on the Stolichnaya label. Overlook the slot machines and central-casting Mafia types in the lobby, and you can pretend you’re in a 1940s movie.

A short stroll across Marx Square--the name-change mania that swept Moscow a few years ago didn’t redo everything--is the elegantly appointed Metropol. Lee Harvey Oswald once stayed there while the KGB considered his job application. It’s been remodeled into a luxury Inter-Continental hotel and room rates have gone up since Communism fell five years ago. But it’s certainly worth a drop-in to see what a little foreign investment can do.

The KGB’s mustard-colored main headquarters is right up the street (on Okhotny Ryad). Until the giant spy agency was reorganized several years ago, Lubyanka Prison in the basement was where countless political detainees began their one-way trip to Siberia. Public tours were available briefly after the demise of the Soviet Union; now, though, the curious will have to use their imaginations to picture what went on inside.

Granted, socialist architecture has all the warmth of a cell block, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth studying, if only to see how the inmates once lived and, in most cases, still do.

Take the new Russian Parliament or Duma, also on Okhotny Ryad. Home to loud-mouth, ultranationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky and other lawmakers, Russians call the place “the Nuthouse.” Yet could the new occupants possibly be any worse than the old ones?

The building used to belong to Gosplan, the Soviet economic agency in charge of implementing all those failed Five Year Plans. This was the Kremlin’s fiscal nerve center, and a gigantic Soviet coat of arms still decorates its upper facade.

The Lenin Museum, two blocks west at the foot of Tverskaya (formerly Gorky) Street, is “closed for repairs,” the Russian term for “out of business.” This is where teams of scientists spent years studying the interred leader’s brain. The Lenin Library (Novy Arbat Street), whose foundation has been threatened by subway construction, was another party think tank.

Following the crowds up Arbat Street, the tourist-shop filled thoroughfare that was widened in the early 1970s to impress President Nixon during one of his visits--and later a bustling (then dismantled) outdoor shopping arcade--brings us to the “White House.” This was the scene of Boris Yeltsin’s standoff with coup leaders in 1991 and his subsequent tank attack on the legislature two years later. Shaped like a 20-story space heater, the renovated Byelli Dom, as Russians call it, is where the Soviet Union ended and something else--although no one’s sure exactly what--took its place.

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While the political scientists ponder that one, the Metro takes us back to Red Square and Lenin’s Tomb, one more Russian landmark steeped in ambiguity. There are no more goose-stepping honor guards. Nonetheless, interested parties can still view the body on Saturday afternoons. It’s no longer Lenin’s brain that puzzles attending scientists, but what to do about the orange tint the dead leader has acquired after 70 years under the lights.

During May Day parades, when the might of the Soviet military went on chilling display in the square below, the country’s top brass appeared atop the tomb for their annual head count. Moscow is no less predictable today, but the city certainly remembers the guy who started it all.

In a market space not far away, a man who imitates Lenin shows up nearly every weekend to entertain passersby. Actually, he looks so much like the original, people pay to have their pictures taken with him. Which shows you just how far Russia has come since the Cold War.

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Thomas, a former reporter for the Baltimore Sun, is the author of several books, including “Red Tape: Adventure Capitalism in the New Russia” and his most recent, “Capital Confidential: A Hundred Years of Sex, Scandal and Secrets in Washington,” (Pocket Books).

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GUIDEBOOK: Cold War Moscow

Getting there: (For airline service information, see Guidebook on page L13).

Getting around: Tokens for the Moscow Metro cost 1,500 rubles each (about 25 cents) and can be purchased at any of the city’s subway stations. Metro operating hours are 5:30 a.m. to 1 a.m.

Tours: There are no “commie kitsch” tours of Moscow per se, but tours of the city can be arranged through the concierge in most hotels, or through the Moscow Sputnik Tourist Bureau, 6-2 Maly Ivanovsky Pereuluk, local telephone 925-1079.

Novodevichy Cemetery: Closest Metro stop: Sportivnaya. Open daily from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tickets cost 5,000 rubles (95 cents) and are available at the gate. Maps can also be purchased for about 50 cents. A nearby restaurant is U. Pirosmani (4 Novodevichy Proezd; local tel. 247-1926), which has Georgian food and music and counts Bill Clinton as a previous guest. Entrees: From $12 to $20. Reservations recommended.

Where to stay: The Metropol Hotel (1/4 Teatralny Proezd; tel. [800] 327-0200 or 011-7- 095-927-6000, fax 011-7-095- 927-6010) has luxury rooms starting at about $340 per night for a double room, plus 20% tax. A special summer package, based on availability, prices rooms at $250 per double, including tax, through Sept. 2. The Metropol’s Boyarsky Zal Restaurant (local tel. 927- 6063), serves continental and Russian cuisine, and is very expensive. (Closest Metro stop: Teatralnaya).

Hotel National, (1-14 Okhotny Ryad; tel. 011-7-095- 258- 7000, fax 011-7-095-258-7100) is located across from the Kremlin. Rates begin at about $295 per double room. (Closest Metro stop: Okhotny Ryad).

Where to eat: Patio Pizza (13-A Ulista Volkhonka; local tel. 201-5000) is across from the Pushkin Art Gallery and offers pizza ($6-$15), an all-you-can-eat salad bar ($8) and a good wine selection. (Closest Metro stop: Kroputnikskaya). Aruba Restaurant (4 Ulista Narodnaya; local tel. 912- 1836), has Cuban and Caribbean food, and Cuban cigars at $5 each. Entrees $10-$25. (Closest Metro stops: Targanskaya, Marxistskaya).

For more information: Russian National Tourist Office, 800 3rd Ave., Suite 3101, New York, NY 10022; tel. (212) 758-1162; fax (212) 758-0933.

--B.T.