Above- Keystone Stereo View, ca 1935
Underground Service
In 1938 and 1940 Robert Service toured Russia. In his autobiography Harper of Heaven he spends a great deal of time, nearly a third of the book, relating his thoughts on the country, its people and its politics. Service planned on writing a suspense filled novel , Four Blind Mice, with the plot of the book an ecape story taking place in Russia.
The novel never was written, or at least never published, but his writings about his travels contained in "Harper of Heaven" shows Robert's great attention to detail which often reads like a tour guide book .Two items that he wrote about and were immortalized in verse were Lennen's Tomb and the Moscow Subway. The following are his thoughts on the latter, followed by his poem on the subject.
"Sara suggested that we go to the Metro, so at the nearest subway station she dismissed our chauffeur. A neon sign over the doorway could be seen a long way off. Two soldiers with bare bayonets guarded the entrance. On a marble staircase that would have done credit to a palace were stationed other soldiers. The walls were also of marble and two animated bundles of rags were busy polishing them with loving care. Another bundle of old clothes, but with a brassard, was busy punching tickets. She was enceinte by about seven months yet valiantly she stood up to the job.With her maternal rest spell in the near future she punched patiently, but they might have let her sit down.
In the station I counted a dozen different kinds of marble, some rare and all lovely. The lighting was artful, while every few yards were distinctive types of sculpture. It was rugged and forceful. The faces were strong, square, stern; the figures tall, athletic, massive muscled. "The models were all workmen, soldiers or peasants," said Sara, emphasizing their virile force and the almost crude vitality of their conception. "You see how we are developing new forms of art that are essentially proletarian."
Dazzling lights, frescoed walls, statues and marble arches, columns and pillars of malachite and lapis lazuli (or what might have been good imitations of them) it was more like a scene in an emperor's palace rather than a mere subway station, And keeping all this gorgeousness dazzlingly clean were these teams of ragged old women, themselves so unclean.
The platform was solid with soiled humanity who took the train by assault. In a mass they jammed the doorway fighting to be first. And there was no need for there was room for all. In the struggle for seats very few women succeeded. Ruthlessly the men elbowed them aside. The female can look out for herself. Gallantry would be misunderstood, consideration resented. Yet this mad scramble was good-natured , as if they were school children taking part in a Great Game.
And not the least of the game was the moving stairway. It was the longest and steepest I ever saw. Like eager children the crowd stormed it, laughing joyously. Of all the wonders of their magical Metro this was the most marvelous. They would have liked to cross over at the top and go down again but a stern soldier forbade them. Among the down-going crowd I watched an old peasant couple who gaped with consternation. They could not be persuaded to venture on that devil'[s descent to some earthly inferno. Finally they were pushed forward, and crouching and clinging to each other, they cried and prayed all the way down, to be projected forward on their faces when the bottom was reached.
Yes, the Moscow Metro is the finest thing of its kind in the world. No two stations are the same. Each vies with the other in gorgeousness. here is a sight almost to be compared with the Palaces of Pushkin and the Hermitage. And above all it is a Soviet achievement. All Russia is proud of it. New stations are continually being opened, even more marvelous than the old. Soon in their surpassing splendor they will be adorned with crystal and silver, ivory amber and precious stone- gaudy temples to the grinning gods of proletariat progress"
* Sara is Service's Intourist Guide
pages 239 -240 Harper of Heaven 1948.
Moscow Metro
by Robert W. Service
Although I'm not devoid of malice
And have for Bolshevics no brief,
I must admit that like a palace,
And beautiful beyond belief,
Gum-booted girls, asweat like swine,
|In squalor helped to tunnel it;
Each one a Soviet heroine
Climbed chalk-faced from the clayey pit,
Hoping to win a Crimson Star,
Or right to kiss a commisar.
Now glamorous beyond all dream
With fresco, bas-relief and frieze,
Its marble and mosaic gleam;
And one with eyes of wonder sees,
In alcoves ringed with ruby lights,
Proud statues of Stakhanovites.
The there arrives a jam packed train,
And is assailed with fury for
With curses one must strive and strain
Even to gain the corridor;
And no man in this trumoil human
Would yield a seat to pregnant woman.
Aye, it's a sight to marvel at,
Of amber, jade and ivory;
And though the proletariat
It lures from hovels, - all I see
Are soldiers grim who guard the doors,
And hags in rags who scour the floors.
*From " Songs for My Supper 1953"
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