#st basil's

This morning I woke up to absolutely gorgeous weather by Russian standards: sunlight pouring into the room and a clear azure blue outside the window. Because rain is a staple here - more so than potatoes - a sunny day is surprising in the same way that thunderstorms in Palo Alto are followed immediately by a frenzy of facebook status updates ("OMG did you just hear the THUNDER ROLLING"). Eagerly I had my breakfast, answered some emails, and stepped out into the a new day with The Beatles on my earphones. Even While My Guitar Gently Weeps sounds happy on a sunny day like this. 

I was due to meet V at 12, and reached on the dot at 12.20pm - (Russian timing, ahem). We had planned to walk around an old district of Moscow, Tretyakovskaya, but ended up eventually at St Basil’s Cathedral – the poster-cathedral of Moscow on most travel brochures: colorful domes, architecturally lego-style, domes like candle flames on a birthday cake. If not for the crosses that sit atop some of these domes you might think it’s a 16th century candyland. I was half-expecting a Russian Willy Wonka to jump out at me.

I’ve seen many churches and cathedrals around the world, so many that they no longer surprise me anymore, partly because most are cookie-cutters of each other (architectural experts might call me a philistine), and so there is a diminishing marginal Wow factor with such visits. Several places of worship I have had the chance to visit during my travels have left particularly deep impressions, though. Topping the list is the Sagrata Familia in Barcelona, designed by Gaudi a century ago, and is still in construction after some ninety years. It is hands-down my favorite cathedral in the world, and the most un-cathedral looking architecture you will ever meet. There is something very organic in the way columns meet spires, columns and apses meet - a style characteristic of Gaudi, if you spend enough time in Barcelona.

But I digress. Let's come back to St Basil's Cathedral.

The St Basil’s Cathedral is nowhere as grand and overwhelmingly imposing as the Sagrata Familia, partly because architecturally it seems to take itself so lightly. If I had been a traveler in the 16th century seeing this from afar for the first time it would have reminded me of a bonfire with Turkish delights and Torti icing - can I seriously be expected to pray here? Today one would think it is a theme park, or lego-model built by a child who takes his hobby too seriously. 

In a word, this is a bizarre cathedral. There really is nothing quite like this anywhere, or at any point in all architectural history. Most designs follow a certain tradition, a certain architectural style or language. This cathedral, on the other hand, has no analogues in Russian architecture, and nothing in the entire millennium of Byzantine tradition from the fifth to the fifteenth century even comes close. A complete departure from anything known at the time, with dazzling interleaving of manifold details that all seem like the product of a vivid dream. Or perhaps the architect’s blueprint had fallen into the hands of a curious child who decided that the domes could do with some colors, and proceeded to put his crayons to use. 

Legend has it that the Moscovites modeled the onion-shaped domes after candle flames burning bright, so that God may take notice and give Moscow its blessings. If I were God, though, I might mistake the domes for Khong Guan Fancy Gem Biscuits and pop them into my mouth with a sip of hot Milo.

The St Basil's is an architectural oddball, but it is a splendid oddball. On a sunny day like this one, there is something magical in the way ceramic tiles of emerald, white and red bounce light off each other on those hemispherical domes. Legend has it that upon its completion Ivan the Terrible blinded the architect behind the cathedral - the poor man's  name was Postnik Yakovlev - so that he could not construct a more splendid cathedral for anyone else. (What a way to thank the best architects of your fancy projects, Ivan. You sure live up to your name.)

Stepping inside the Cathedral, I wandered about a labyrinth of narrow vaulted corridors and dimly-lit chambers with characteristically tall ceilings, coffered ceilings, vertical cylinders and ornate gold. It was easy to get lost because, unlike most cathedrals, there is calculated asymmetry in the its complex multi-axial layout. The interior decor was a blend of early Muscovite elements with influence of Italian Renaissance, bringing about an eclecticism that is today unmistakably Russian but really not quite (in origins).

"In 1555, Ivan the Terrible built the Saint Basil's to commemorate the capture of Kazan and Astrakhan," I had learned from an adjacent tour group. Funny how it is - the cathedral, for all its trappings of religious piety, was really intended to be a trophy that sang paeans to the military triumphs of Ivan the Terrible.

But one man's treasure is another man's trash. Some 375 years later, the Communists had contemplated demolishing it, as they had done to many churches all around the USSR. Stalin, it was said, had picked up a model of the cathedral to contemplate how Red Square would look without it. The cathedral's fate hung in the balance, and it took some fierce opposition from hard-line Bolshevik - including conservation Baranovsky who sent Stalin a telegram saying he would rather kill himself  - to change his mind.

And so it was, that when cold war descended upon Russia and Khrushchev stood gazing sternly at a synchronized military procession from his Kremlin balcony, Saint Basil's would stand like a garish stage set for a Disney show or a Nutcracker ballet. It was, as someone once described, quite the clown's nose on the face of the communist empire.

Today, St Basil's belongs to T-shirts, tacky shotglasses and James Bond movies where it plays a quick signifier of Moscow. But it is also gaining a religious significance that did not used to exist. On my way out, I overheard a low voice mumbling a hectic prayer. In the dimlit chamber, I made out the figure of a headscarved lady, bowed over and reverentially kissing the holy relics. Within minutes, a second lady came by, bowed and did the same, this time with even more fervent Christian devotion.