I've been in love with Russia for the last ten years before finally finding myself standing, in total awe, on the Red Square (Red in Russian means beautiful), walking through the endless corridors of the Hermitage and eating dumplings washed down with vodka at tiny, freezing cafes.
Our tour guide told us that Russia has three problems the roads, the idiots and the idiots on the road. Russia is Red. The palaces and residences of the Russian monarchy make English stately homes and castles look really rather quaint. The number of diamonds in the Diamond Fund housed inside the Kremlin border on suspicious.
Below (from top to bottom) is the grand entrance to the Winter Palace and Hermitage Museum, the Church of the Spilled Blood and two rooms from the Summer Palace just outside of St. Petersburg.
Our travels around Russia took us from Moscow to St. Petersburg and back again, all by bullet train in only a few hours. The train was comfortable, with free coffee and wifi, it could easily live up to, and even exceed, the unrealistic train travel expectations I have developed from Austrian public transport.
Outside the window the countryside was barren, and sparse, dotted with houses that resembled colourful garden sheds hundreds of miles apart from each other. I learnt a new word on this journey, tundra: a vast treeless zone lying between the ice cap and timberline of North American and Eurasia and having a permanently frozen subsoil.
Pulling into the station in St. Petersburg another train passed ours on the tracks. It was so full that hardly anyone had seats, the windows were grimy with metal prison-like bars stacked across them. Sitting inside our warm, spacious carriage drinking my free coffee I realised how many faces Russia has.
To keep within theme I downloaded Anna Karenina to watch during the train journey. I have been meaning to watch this film for ages it has a combination of several factors that essentially, and immediately, meant success in my eyes; Keira Knightley, Joe Wright and Russian literature. Probably there is no better time or way to watch Anna Karenina than on the bullet train between Moscow and St. Petersburg.
Initially, I did not love the key role of the theatre throughout the film. It was a little jarring. Balls, busy street scenes and even horse races are played out within the set of a theatre which is a bold and creative move by Joe Wright. Watching that other train pass us on the tracks, versus the ridiculously overstated glitz and glamour of the palaces across St. Petersburg made the idea of the Russian gentry living on a 'stage' with all of the world watching and gossiping over every single move they made perfectly logical. It's a poetic and accurate depiction of the way that Tolstoy, although I understand he hated the theatre as an art form, would have meant for the audience to perceive the story.
The story itself is undeniably beautiful and deeply sad and typically Russian in that sometimes it feels like it will never end. The novel runs 963 pages. Of course this film adaptation ran into some similar unavoidable issues. Keira Knightley, as Anna, gives a really fantastic performance - easily one of my favourite from her. Jude Law, slightly suprisingly, is awesome and not at all attractive in his role as her prim and wronged husband. Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Count Vronsky was believably self-centred and trouble - but not troubled.
Overall, sitting on that train racing across Russia I would not have chosen to watch anything else. Anna Karenina is a beautiful, bold, and slightly accidental, depiction of the theatrical and glamourous Russia that we watch on a historical stage.
Our tour guide told us that Russia has three problems the roads, the idiots and the idiots on the road. Russia is Red. The palaces and residences of the Russian monarchy make English stately homes and castles look really rather quaint. The number of diamonds in the Diamond Fund housed inside the Kremlin border on suspicious.
Below (from top to bottom) is the grand entrance to the Winter Palace and Hermitage Museum, the Church of the Spilled Blood and two rooms from the Summer Palace just outside of St. Petersburg.
Our travels around Russia took us from Moscow to St. Petersburg and back again, all by bullet train in only a few hours. The train was comfortable, with free coffee and wifi, it could easily live up to, and even exceed, the unrealistic train travel expectations I have developed from Austrian public transport.
Outside the window the countryside was barren, and sparse, dotted with houses that resembled colourful garden sheds hundreds of miles apart from each other. I learnt a new word on this journey, tundra: a vast treeless zone lying between the ice cap and timberline of North American and Eurasia and having a permanently frozen subsoil.
Pulling into the station in St. Petersburg another train passed ours on the tracks. It was so full that hardly anyone had seats, the windows were grimy with metal prison-like bars stacked across them. Sitting inside our warm, spacious carriage drinking my free coffee I realised how many faces Russia has.
To keep within theme I downloaded Anna Karenina to watch during the train journey. I have been meaning to watch this film for ages it has a combination of several factors that essentially, and immediately, meant success in my eyes; Keira Knightley, Joe Wright and Russian literature. Probably there is no better time or way to watch Anna Karenina than on the bullet train between Moscow and St. Petersburg.
Initially, I did not love the key role of the theatre throughout the film. It was a little jarring. Balls, busy street scenes and even horse races are played out within the set of a theatre which is a bold and creative move by Joe Wright. Watching that other train pass us on the tracks, versus the ridiculously overstated glitz and glamour of the palaces across St. Petersburg made the idea of the Russian gentry living on a 'stage' with all of the world watching and gossiping over every single move they made perfectly logical. It's a poetic and accurate depiction of the way that Tolstoy, although I understand he hated the theatre as an art form, would have meant for the audience to perceive the story.
The story itself is undeniably beautiful and deeply sad and typically Russian in that sometimes it feels like it will never end. The novel runs 963 pages. Of course this film adaptation ran into some similar unavoidable issues. Keira Knightley, as Anna, gives a really fantastic performance - easily one of my favourite from her. Jude Law, slightly suprisingly, is awesome and not at all attractive in his role as her prim and wronged husband. Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Count Vronsky was believably self-centred and trouble - but not troubled.
Overall, sitting on that train racing across Russia I would not have chosen to watch anything else. Anna Karenina is a beautiful, bold, and slightly accidental, depiction of the theatrical and glamourous Russia that we watch on a historical stage.
