I didn’t really pay too much attention to learning Cyrillic the first few days in Russia, although we ought to have known better after the first day in St. Petersburg, when we came home with a bag of frozen meatballs thinking they were cheese perogies.
But upon arriving at the Moscow subway, a certain degree of fluency was suddenly deemed important.
In fact, reading the language turned out to be fairly straightforward.
P = R, C = S, B = V, b = B … that sort of thing. A basic substitution cypher to make the cryptographers happy, and a lot of phonetic similarities for us uniglots.
Down, down, down deep into the underground of the Moscow Metro. Reminded us of descending into a coal mine in Australia a couple of years ago.
Crisp and clean!
I’d heard earlier about the astonishing and dramatic works of art in the subway system and it was true.
When Stalin ordered the artists and architects to design a structure that embodied a brilliant and radiant future, it was his intent to remind the riders that he and his party had delivered something substantial to the people in return for their sacrifices.
Stalin tried to create an environment that would encourage people to look *up,* admiring the station’s art (and perhaps thinking of him in god-like terms?). At the time, the chandeliers were the most technically advanced elements of the metro.
And the metro truly is beautiful. It’s clean, no litter or graffitti, despite transporting more than nine million passengers per day!
Interestingly, voice announcements refer to the lines by name, with a male voice announcing the next station as one travels toward the centre of the city, and a female voice when going away from it.
Of course, you must remember which is which…
Sushi, anyone?
And after braving the rabbit warren below, it was time for a break in the daylight.
Okay, so here’s the query: What well known company is represented here?
(with a clue or two at the start of the post)
The Country Mice 