Letters to the Editor

To the Editors:

It’s great that “Cinema in the Round” (Russian Life, May/June) is still going. I vividly remember Kinopanorama in all its original glory in August 1961, when the show provided endless galloping horsemen and lengthy viewing of a gigantic metalworks in Voronezh. Another memory from that visit is of Stalin alongside Lenin in the Mausoleum, embalmed with a smug and self-satisfied expression, clearly unaware that Khrushchev would heave him out in October.

A third memory is of bewilderment in Berlin, where, at dawn and without explanation, the Moscow-London train was stopped and the passengers ejected and simply abandoned. We somehow muddled our way to the centre of East Berlin and the Brandenburg Gate, to find workmen building a wall, already about a meter high. All around were Soviet soldiers, armed Vopos, strained nerves and talk of war.

Sure, we got home in the end. But I had learned that Russia would never be boring.

Malcolm Gilbert, Carmarthen, Wales

To the Editors:

I have enjoyed receiving your excellent magazine for many years and having spent considerable time in both St. Petersburg and Moscow this past fall, I was very interested in Vadim Makhorov’s “Extreme Russia” photographs. I was particularly intrigued by the photograph on the cover of the May/June issue. I have studied the picture from every possible angle and conclude that the photograph was likely not taken from atop the Peter and Paul Fortress as labeled. With St. Isaac’s Cathedral in the far background, the Neva River should appear in the foreground from the island on which the fortress is located. Plus, with the many buildings below the dome and the colorful onion dome in the lower, right corner, I can only conclude that the picture was actually taken from atop the Church of Our Savior on Spilled Blood. Am I correct?

Gary Morrison<, Wrangell, Alaska

Dear Gary:

Indeed, you are correct. Many other readers also caught our egregious error. In our defense, none of the editorial staff has ever been atop that particular cathedral.

–The Editors