Читать книгу Russian She-bear in American and British Settings - Юлия Кузьменкова - Страница 3

On a cold winter day our team boarded the plane due to take us to the unknown shores of America which we were eager to explore. And it was probably symbolic when after some four or five hours of tiresome flying we were rewarded by a unique chance of catching a breath-taking sight of vast fields intertwined by hills covered with snow glistening in the sun. The landscape below was fantastic reviving in the memory surreal polar scenes from Poe and Lovecraft. We searched for traces of human presence or interference and – unconsciously, despite our rational selves – for signs of strange and unknown creatures crossing the land and erecting their eerie buildings – but found neither. It looked as if those untouched and unknown vistas of rocks and snow lay guarding their fascinating and horrible secrets. Later we learnt that it was Greenland, the ‘green’ part of the name being rather misleading.

After our? exhausting 11 hours’ journey we landed in Washington, D. C. America welcomed us by chilling wind and zero temperature. The weather was unusually cold for this time of the year and ever-present evergreens and poor remaining pansies were suffering from frost. Slightly dazed we speculated how we were going to survive the after-effects of the jet-lag. Our programme was packed quite densely – starting at about 8.30 and going into the late afternoon – and we had only Sunday to recuperate before our lectures and visiting tours began.

Sightseeing proved to be an amusing source of gaining cultural experience. The tour around Washington was a great success; we had a local guide, young and enthusiastic, who really knew and loved his city. Still we were also able to show him a peculiar feature in the capital. While sitting in the Capitol that fine afternoon my attention was caught by a huge old clock – I noticed that the time it showed was somewhat strange. We’d seen quite a number of street clocks showing time in different cities of the world; but outside there were several clocks and here in the hall – only one. Then my glance suddenly fell on my watch which showed 8.30 p.m. Moscow time (I didn’t change it during the entire journey) and I suddenly realised that it was exactly the time I spotted on the wall clock. I turned for explanations to our guide but he only suggested that the clock had stopped. Content with that and thinking it was just a coincidence, I was curious enough to have another look at the clock in five minutes. Imagine my astonishment when it was showing 8.35 – the Kremlin time in the House of Representatives in the Capitol! I had a funny feeling as if my proud she-bear happily clapped her paws.

But our guide beleaguered with enquiries on the subject could only shrug his shoulders in bewilderment leaving room for abundant speculations over this inexplicable – though not unwelcome for us – synchronisation.

In New York we were lucky to meet my colleague’s acquaintance, a former architect and a Russian immigrant, who kindly offered to show us the spectacular panorama of an evening capital. It was he who shed some light on the mystery of the city’s architecture. I wondered if there existed a plan (like that of any ancient Russian town) for placing all those skyscrapers in Manhattan and to my surprise he answered in the negative. Apart from Broadway which served as a sort of historically preserved axis, all the sites in the vicinity were simply bought and the owners were free to choose for themselves what to build on their property. So after all, it was money that mattered rather than the beauty of the construction. No wonder you often get the impression of walking through a crazy labyrinth especially in central avenues. Looking up it is difficult to trace where skyscraper’s walls end and the space ahead strangely curves into another giant. And living on the third floor of a multi-storeyed New York hotel building in a room with a view to a back yard was like being plunged in a kind of a well, suspiciously similar to old St. Petersburg yards wells where you are unable to see the sky and guessing what kind of weather is ‘out there’.