Day Trips

Members of the U.S. embassy enjoyed getting out of Moscow on day trips. The most popular destinations were Zagorsk, Tsaritsyno, Kolomenskoe, Yasnaya Polyana, and Tchaikovsky’s home museum in Klin. One could not simply pile into a car and go, however.

There was an imaginary ring, forty kilometers in radius from the Kremlin, outside which no foreigner could travel without notice, and even inside this ring there were a good many forbidden zones.

Every embassy official had to request permission from the Soviet government at least forty-eight hours in advance and to provide the date of travel, automobile license number, name of the driver and all passengers, and also the route to be taken.

This last bit most Americans found humorous, for one could travel on only four designated roads leaving the city, and so it was obvious given one’s destination which road one would be taking. Even then, travel was not straightforward. The roads were poorly marked, and maps were largely non-existent, and thus Americans often lost their way, only to be then stopped by the police and told to turn around and go back the way they came.

Ambassador Alan Kirk and his wife, Lydia, drove to Yasnaya Polyana, Zagorsk, and Klin during his tenure. Once, on the way to Yasnaya Polyana, they pulled over for a roadside picnic, only to have the police appear out of nowhere, tell them it was forbidden, and to get back into their automobile and keep driving. Under no circumstances, the police informed them, were they to stop until reaching their destination. On the way to Zagorsk, as soon as they had crossed the invisible circle limiting travel around Moscow, their car was pulled over and all their documents were checked before they could continue on their way. 

On his trip to Zagorsk, the U.S. naval attaché Leslie C. Stevens noticed being tailed by plainclothes police in a black Pobeda. He tried to keep a distance and stay out of sight, but Stevens couldn’t help noticing that he was being watched. It didn’t upset his trip, however, and he found Zagorsk, after the Hermitage in Leningrad, “the most impressive display that I have seen in Russia.” Its beauty and historical importance left a large impression on him. 

Air attaché Philip Hawes and his wife, Jean, also made the drive to Zagorsk one warm July day. They went with a few friends and their Russian chauffeur, Yasha. Jean was struck by the large number of women doing heavy construction—building roads and overpasses—in the hot dusty sun. This was something you just didn’t see back in the States.

She was also taken aback to see so many people hauling water home from wells; most Americans couldn’t imagine how limited indoor plumbing was outside the capital. On the drive the smooth paved road turned to rough cobblestones. “Our car bucked and jogged like mad,” Jean wrote in a letter. Uncomfortable though the ride had been, it was worth it.

Everyone was moved by the extraordinary beauty of the architecture and the church services. The only trouble they encountered was when the police stopped Jean from taking pictures and sent her off to the police station to obtain written permission. She was relieved to receive this since she had made certain to bring color film with her especially for that day’s outing.

Martin and Jan, too, enjoyed going on excursions in the Moscow area, most of which Martin recorded on film. On a sunny day in June 1952, they drove out to Serebryannyi bor to take in the cool, scented air.

There were numerous trips to Tarasovka near the embassy dacha as well. The spring and summer of 1953 was an especially busy time. In early May they drove to Tsaritsyno. As he frequently did, Martin sat in the front passenger’s seat with his camera at the ready.

Many of his photographs include in them the sleek silver hood ornament of an Oldsmobile 88 De Luxe 4-Door Sedan from the embassy motor pool.

The next month he and Jan spent the day at Kuskovo, the grounds thronged with pleasure-seeking Muscovites, and made the trip out to Zagorsk, their second time, having first visited the previous December.

That same month they visited another former Sheremetev palace at Ostankino. A large group of Pioneers piled in an open truck can be seen in one of the photographs Martin took that day. From there, they stopped at the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition (VSKhV) to admire Vera Mukhina’s “Worker and Kolkhoz Woman.”

In September, they traveled further from the capital, all the way to Tula on a gray day, and then a few days later visited Kuzminki and Kuskovo for a second time. The summer crowds had gone by now, and the park was largely deserted, except for three boys in a row boat who turned to watch Martin take their picture.

This is one of the things that stands out in his photographs. Adults were clearly loath to pose for him, but children, so it appears, were not. The day after visiting Kuskovo, Martin photographed a group of smiling, young girls at Kolomenskoe, their faces open, trusting, and void of suspicion.

Earlier that spring two girls relaxing on the grass at Novodevichi Convent paused to let him take their picture as well. On a gloomy autumn day, they drove one of the embassy’s Plymouth Special Deluxe Woody Station Wagons to Klin. Tchaikovsky’s old home was empty, and they had the lovely, atmospheric park all to themselves.

An important destination for sightseers at the time was the new Moscow State University complex atop Lenin Hills. Martin clearly found the building an impressive structure, for he took large number of photographs of its exterior from a great many vantage points, as well as interior shots, on a guided tour in early 1954. 

Although no photographs of this excursion have survived, one of Martin and Jan’s favorite outings was to the old Yusupov palace at Arkhangelskoe in October 1953 in an area that had only recently been opened up to foreigners.

They were dazzled by the museum and the beautiful grounds, which offered a break from the dull gray stone and concrete of Moscow. As they strolled about, they noticed a plainclothes policeman was following them. He pretended to be out for a walk, but they weren’t fooled. Whenever they caught his eye, Martin and Jan would stop and say, “Hello!” The two of them found this terribly amusing.