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3 Moscow I clearly recall my first steps in the grand city of Moscow. My brother Vasya I pulled me along with one hand and carried my belongings with the other as we hurried through the bustling streets. I stopped short, frozen to the ground, stunned by all the terrible noise and bustle-the horse-drawn cart-wheels clattering along cobblestone streets, the tram bells and train whistles-and awed by the three magnificent train stations of Kalanchevskaya Square2 Kazan Station especially caught my fancy, with its soaring tower that actually had clocks on it! I had never in all my dreams seen such tall and beautiful buildings, surpassing even the churches of Torzhok. And so many trams, so many people hurrying to and fro-in all my twelve years, I'd never witnessed anything like it. "Where are they all running to?" I asked Vasya. Vasya glanced at me, smiling, and said, "To their business." In surprise, I wondered, What business do they have? Here I am with 110 business at all. Riding the tram terrified me, especially when an oncoming tram clattered by furiously right next to us. I seized Vasya with both hands, screwing my eyes shut tightly. "Sukharevsky Market!" announced the conductor. My brother nudged me. "Look to the right. Do you see that tall building with the clock, in the middle of the street?" "Yes." "That's Sukharevskaya Tower3 Moscow's water supply used to come from there, in a tank on the top floors." "But why is it called Sukharevskaya?" I asked him timidly. "It's history!" said Vasya, laughing. "Everyone should know the history of his own country. It's just as important as studying math and our Russian language. I A nickname for "Vasily." 2 After 1932 called Komsomolskaya Square, the busy square is known informally as "Three Station Square" because of the three railway stations there-Leningrad, Yaroslavl , and Kazan. 3 Formerly one of Moscow's best-known landmarks, it was destroyed by Soviet authorities in 1934. Moscow 7 "Do you know anything about Peter the Great and his streltsy?,,4 he asked. "Of course not. How chould I know anything about tsars and streltsy?" "Well, there was once a very good tsar named Peter-" "There are no good tsars!" I broke in. "OK, fair enough. As for your question, Sukharevskaya Tower was named in honor of a strelyets colonel named Sukharev. He was the only commander whose regiment remained loyal to Tsar Peter during the streltsy uprising." "And why is there a street market here now?" I demanded. "Have you heard of the War of 1812?" "Isn't that when the French burned Moscow?,,5 "Well, sort of..." my brother continued, patiently answering my fusillade of questions. "Anyway, after the great fire and the French retreat, Muscovites started coming home and searching for their plundered property. The Governor-General issued a decree stating that any returning citizen finding loot in Moscow became its rightful owner and that on Sundays people could sell those goods in the square opposite Sukharevskaya Tower." Every so often the conductor called out another strange and fascinating tram-stop name above the din: "SA-MO-TYE-YE-KAAA!" "KARETNY RYA-AD!" 4 Plural of stre/yets (literally, "musketeer"), a member of a military corps created by Ivan IV (Ivan the Terrible) in the 16th century. By the late 16005, the streltsy had become a conservative, elite military caste with many special privileges. In 1682, a tenyear -old future tsar named Peter saw his uncles and others murdered by mutinous streltsy in the Moscow Uprising of 1682, which left him bitter. In 1698 several thousand slreitsy, suspicious of Peter's modernizing influence, rebelled against Tsar Peter (Peter the Great), giving him his opportunity for revenge. He defeated the uprising, and tortured and executed a number of the rebels. He disbanded the Moscow streltsy regiments and exiled the men and their families. 5 Although this was widely believed in Russia for many years, Napoleon's troops didn't burn Moscow-they wanted it intact. In Moscow 1812: Napoleon's Falal March, historian Adam Zamoyski contends that the military governor of Moscow ordered his police superintendent to set fire to anything the French could use as the Russian army abandoned the city after the epic Battle of Borodino (70 miles west of Moscow) of September 7. Zamoyski quotes Napoleon's description of the great conflagration: "It was the most grand, the most sublime, and the most terrific sight the...

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