Making a Klin Break

The road to Klin is a petri dish of Russia’s rambunctious post-Soviet economy.

This is, after all, the vital Moscow-St. Petersburg artery. And development has been swift here. Ten years ago, the main signs of life were infrequent GAI (road police) outposts and the occasional, run-down filling station, inevitably closed for repairs. Today, every 10 miles there are gaudy minimarkets and sprawling oases for motorists—with shiny new gas stations and shashlik cafes. Faded wooden dachas still line the road, intermittent with goat-strewn fields of high green grass and yellow dandelions. Further from the road, red brick new money dacha developments rise high up out of the landscape, flaunting an architectural style that can only be called Early Lego Gothic.

Located just 89 km northwest of Moscow, Klin (pronounced “clean”; population 96,000) straddles this important highway, boasting an infrastructure a much larger town might envy, including six churches, competing Kodak and Fuji photo outlets, two hard currency exchange points, a supermarket, an oatmeal factory (producing the well-know Gerkules), a large bread factory, a prosperous meat processing plant (outputing the famous Doktorskaya sausage, among other products), and a local brewery—Klinsky, which brews a dozen brands, many popular in the capital. Last but not least, there is a McDonald’s here, conferring on the town a status even nearby Tver—an oblast capital of 457,000 souls—does not yet have.

Just a burger’s throw from the shiny, two-year-old McDonald’s is the simple, quaint St. Tikhon’s Orthodox Church. It has a freshness and life about it that begs investigation. As it turns out, the church is a veritable symbol of the Orthodox Church’s revival in Russia. In Soviet times, this church was all but demolished. Its adjoining complex, once a monastery, was turned into a prison. While it seems astonishing that a place of reverent worship could have been turned into a place of incarceration and torture, the restoration of the church (named for Patriarch Tikhon, who was persecuted for defying the Soviet authorities with his belief) is truly inspiring.

St. Tikhon’s, first built in 1909, was shut down early in the Soviet period (just one church was left open in Klin: the Church of the Mother of all All Sorrows in Joy, see photo, page 35), its church tower destroyed. The church was re-opened and reconsecrated in 1992, by Patriarch Alexei. Under the local leadership of one Father Anatoly, this dynamic parish has inaugurated a summer camp for over 40 local orphans, started a Sunday school attended by over 50 local children, established a widely respected choir and opened a school for traditional icon painting that has become famous across Russia (and has generated lucrative orders for iconstases and icons). The church has also developed strong ties with churches in Alaska, Pennsylvania, Chicago and Germany, which provide St. Tikhon’s with ongoing support and student exchange opportunities.

Father Anatoly is a pleasant, quiet-spoken man with a broad face that seems indelibly creased by a joyful smile. His office is cluttered with gifts left by visiting delegations, local and foreign—from bottles of fine wine to lacquered miniatures. He proudly plays through his choir’s new CD, while offering lightly sarcastic comments about local politicians and the alliances of his fast-food neighbors, or about the time he was invited to christen the new purifying systems at the local meat factory.

But behind this affable, pastoral exterior is a very shrewd manager. Father Anatoly has coaxed support from the business community for his endeavors, obtaining regular donations in kind from both the local bread and meat factories. And he has also pushed his parishioners to do more, reinstituting the practice of “kryostniki,” or Godparents, for the children at the Petrovsky Orphanage. Godparents commit themselves to visiting their “adopted” children weekly and having them over for dinner every Sunday.

Across town, near the town’s torgovye ryady (trading rows), there is another church, the Church of the Resurrection, which dates from 1712. Larger than St. Tikhon’s and with an impressive, separate bell tower, it occupies a picturesque perch above the Sestra river. Two energetic young workers labor by hand to clear away the detritus that piled up here over decades—in its most recent life, the building was used as a cooking school.

It seems an endless task, this cleaning up after thoughtless occupants. The long cliff below the church is littered with tons of debris, which elicits a knowing shrug from a female worker, who has proudly taken on the role of guide for her visitors from the capital. But her pride shows its limits—these visitors will not be allowed to peer into the half-finished sanctuary today. “Come back when it is finished,” she implores. “The services will be wonderful.”

Touring Klin on a warm spring day can cause even the most resilient journalists to work up a thirst. Thankfully, the afore-mentioned brewery provides the necessary pretext for stopping in at a local pivnaya (pub) in the heart of the dusty trading rows—one has to sample the local production after all.

The pivnaya’s dimly lit hall hums with the mumblings of a dozen local muzhiks. Each new arrival approaches the sleepy, middle-aged woman at the counter and, without even a friendly greeting, spits out a number: “150” ... “100.”

Of course, they are talking about vodka, not the locally produced Klinskoye pivo (beer). Klinskoe is just a chaser here. And not always even that.

After slapping 15 rubles (50 cents) down on the counter for their 150 grams (just under 1⁄4 bottle of vodka, or about a cup), a slack-faced patron sloughs across the room to an empty, stand-up table, sets his drink down for a moment, as if to say a short prayer, then tosses the cupful of vodka back in one go, sniffing a piece of brown bread pulled from a pocket. He pauses a beat, glances to his left and right, collects himself and then goes. Total elapsed time: about 30 seconds. If you looked away, you would miss it.

Watching all this over their watered-down Klinskoe beers, the journalists realize that their research responsibilities have just expanded—it is one thing to observe, quite another to share in the experience. While wary of the less-than-spotless common drinking glasses, the fearless scribblers agree that the beer glasses were none the cleaner and order up 50 grams apiece of Topaz vodka.

Thankfully, the previous stop had been at the town’s fine bakery (further investigative pursuits), and the dark brown bread acquired there smoothed the edges off the cheap vodka, just as the vodka would round the dull edges off the town’s dusty appearance.

Yet an attempt to “capture the moment” on film in this public house proved, well, sobering, for our intrepid journalists. An intimidatingly robust local sauntered over, offered a firm handshake and wondered aloud, for all to hear, why this “little brother” was busying himself with a camera in “our pivnaya.” “Are you trying to make fun of us or something?” he asked.

Considering that beating up on “smart guys from the capital” is a welcome distraction in any provincial town anywhere (usually decided upon by a “simple majority of votes”), journalistic integrity was promptly cast to the wind. The mediocre Klinskoe pivo was suddenly transformed into “a marvelous brew that beats the stuff they make in the capital, hands down.” Only an offer to buy the house a drink would have more easily secured the journalists’ escape.

Of course, one does not travel to Klin for its beer, burgers or churches. The town’s claim to fame is as the last place of residence (1885-1893) of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.

The first mention of Klin in the history books dates to 1317, when the city was part of the Tver principality. In 1482 it was added to the growing lands of Muscovy. Klin was also the location for a Romanov family estate. The town was established as such in 1781, but Klin’s fate was sealed to the positive when, in 1851, the track of the Nikolaevskaya railway—between Moscow and St. Petersburg—was laid through the town.

Interestingly, Tchaikovsky is not the only famous Russian whose name is tied to Klin and the surrounding regions. Dmitry Mendeleev, whose name is forever attached to the Table of Elements he developed, lived in nearby Boblovo from 1886-1906. On August 7 1887, he took flight from here in an air balloon to watch a solar eclipse. Mendeleev’s son-in-law, the symbolist poet Alexander Blok, bought an estate in Klin district. The philosopher V. I. Taneyev had a mansion here and was visited by his brother, composer and pianist Sergei Taneyev, Tchaikovsky’s “most promising” pupil. Actor Mark Prudkin, one of the most successful pupils of MKhAT founders Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko, was born in Klin in 1898. The writer Arkady Gaydar (grandfather of former Prime Minister Yegor Gaydar) wrote many of his novels for children here from 1938-1941, before he left for the front. The beloved actor Yevgeny Leonov spent his youth in the village of Davydkovo, at his parents’ dacha. Finally, sculptor Vera Mukhina labored here in 1920. It is likely that it was during this time in Klin that Mukhina conceived her statue to Tchaikovsky—it now stands before the Moscow Conservatory named for him, and is rarely associated with the sorts of monumentalist works for which she is better known, like the grandiose work, The Worker and the Peasant.

The lush alleys of the park surrounding Tchaikovsky’s home (a tree is planted here every fourth year by the winner of the prestigious Tchaikovsky Competition) give it a feeling of remoteness, even though the main Moscow-St. Petersburg road is less than 200 meters away. Curator Lyudmila Vladimirovna Shapovalova immediately offers what is different about this, Russia’s first museum of music.

“The true value of the museum,” Shapovalova says, “is in its full authenticity. All other museums represent collections of different pieces from different places ... here everything was left religiously just the way it was when Tchaikovsky left the house for the last time. Nothing was moved. Moreover, we even have a plan—a scheme of all the nails! So even if we have to do some repair work inside or outside, later each nail goes back into its former place.”

It is a fastidiousness that would have made the meticulous Tchaikovsky proud. But there is also something a bit eerie about it. Nonetheless, shuffling through the large country home in tie-on slippers, one cannot help but be awed by seeing the house just as Russia’s greatest composer saw it—the same color on the walls, the same pictures in the same places ... one also cannot help wondering what it would be like to sit down and coax a tune out of Tchaikovsky’s piano.

But this is not to be. In fact, Pyotr Ilyich’s unapproachable piano is only played twice a year: on his birthday, May 7, and on the anniversary of his death, November 6, when a famous pianist “is given the honor to play here,” Shapovalova reveals. Young pianists who win the Tchaikovsky Competition are also given the honor of playing on his piano—the post competition trip to this museum is a hallowed tradition, ever since Van Clibern won the first Tchaikovsky Competition in 1958.

This faithful preservation of all things Tchaikovskian is the legacy of the composer’s younger brother and confidante, Modest Ilyich, and of his nephew (and lover) Vladimir “Bob” Davydov, to whom Tchaikovsky dedicated his Sixth Symphony. Tchaikovsky had actually left all his possessions to his beloved servant, Alexei Safronov (who Tchaikovsky said, “was spoiled like a gospodin and thus wouldn’t be able to serve elsewhere”), and Modest and Bob had to slowly buy them back from Safronov, then, a few years later, buy the house from a local judge. Tchaikovsky had never owned the house, only rented.

“He enjoyed the house greatly. No one was supposed to disturb him here,” Shapovalova explains, pointing to a movable sign on the outside door which alternately displays “The Master is At Home” or “The Master is Not In.” There were clear visiting hours and Pyotr Ilyich kept to a very disciplined work schedule. It included long daily walks in the countryside, when he listened to the music he had heard in his head since discovering music at a very early age. And the seclusion that the Klin residence offered him “gave inspiration the opportunity to visit him,” Shapovalova said.

To settle in the countryside, to buy or rent a mansion in the Moscow region was a lifelong dream of the composer. He strove for a quiet secluded life, far from the city’s vanity. During his frequent foreign tours, Tchaikovsky was often homesick. In January, 1885 he wrote: “At present all my aspirations are aimed at settling for good somewhere in the countryside near Moscow. I can no longer resign myself to the nomadic life and I want to feel at home some place, whatever it costs”.

In all, during his eight years in Klin, Tchaikovsky spent just the last 18 months in this particular home. It was from here that he left for St. Petersburg to present his last creation—the Sixth Symphony. “When he left,” Shapovalova said, “he left on his table the latest thing he was working on. The date was October 3, 1893, old style. It was the Third Concerto for Piano ...” A facsimile of the concerto still lies on the simple table off the main room of the house’s upstairs (see photo, page 37).

How is it that the Germans, who occupied Klin in 1941, did not destroy or burn down this house, as was the case with so many other museums throughout the former Soviet Union?“All museum  pieces were evacuated from Klin to Tchaikovsky’s home town of Votkinsk in Udmurtiya,” explains Shapovalova. “As to the house, “they simply had no time to burn it down. The Germans were here for just some twenty days.” And yet, some damage was done: the Nazis turned the first floor into a garage, and the second floor was turned into a soldier’s barrack..

The Moscow counter-offensive, launched by the Soviet Army in 1941, prevented further damage. In fact, it is at Klin that the Soviet Army organized the first “kotyol” [encirclement] of Germans—long before Stalingrad. The Germans, who had hitherto seemed invincible, were not ready to accept the reality of the 1941 counter-offensive. So they turned down the offer to surrender after being encircled ...

Apparently, British Prime Minister [Anthony Eden] came to Klin after the town was liberated. “He came here to visit so as to measure the holes Russian shells made in the German tanks,” Shapovalova said. “He visited us in 1941. Shortly afterward, England began helping Russia ... It was important for them to see with their own eyes that the Germans could actually be beaten.”

If the Tchaikovsky House Museum was spared the worst of The Great Patriotic War, Klin residents were not. At the local soldier’s memorial, there is an eternal flame and a plaque telling visitors that at least 10,371 of the soldiers that this small town sent to the front perished there.

The population of Klin in 1939 was 29,300. Thus, more than one in three Klin residents died defending their homeland against the Nazis. On a warm day in May, not long after Russia’s celebration of the 55th anniversary of the Great Victory, one cannot help wondering, given the demonstrated tenacity and talents of Klin residents, how many Tchaikovskys or Mendeleevs from Klin were offered up in sacrifice.  RL