GUM

My father looked up to the Soviet Union as a model society. He admired her Health system, her universities, her technology. Those were the eighties.

When the opportunity arose, the whole family embarked on an international vacation that included, literally, a dozen stops. Our plane made a first stop in Havana, a second in the Irish airport of Shanon, then landed in mighty Moscow.

We toured aboard a motor coach where a tourist guide spoke through a microphone as we passed sights. My father was no stranger to this country: he had visited at least twice. He had experienced the winters, the midnight sun. He might have been familiar with some streets, places, the trolley system... I picture him wearing a thick fur coat, his white hair flown by the cold breeze, walking clumsily in deep snow.

In his Encyclopedia of the Dead, Danilo Kis paints a character who moves to Moscow, becomes rapidly familiar with the city to the point where he knows every street, every shortcut, every square. My father never got acquainted with Moscow, or any other Soviet city, but probably he had wished to. His work, his family, his obligations prevented him from becoming that Bohemian man of which he dreamt.

Though my father never attended higher education he was highly versed in topics such as politics, metaphysics, theology, economics. He was interested in Nietzsche. On a visit to a bookstore, I suggested Kierkegaard. He bought one of his books (I don't remember which) along with half a dozen other obscure tomes.

His reading would reflect in his conversation. When others engaged in menial conversation, he would cite Biblical passages (he was no religious man, though). On other occasions he would evoke the life of notable people like Harland Sander. When he wasn't quoting philosophers, he told anecdotes from his own life. He spoke with a voice of experience.

Back to Moscow, our bus stopped at a huge downtown building. One thing that mostly impressed us, when walking this gray Moscow (it was summer!) was the lack of publicity, or advertising. The streets were packed with people, mostly ignoring each other, carrying on with their walking, with their affairs, but there were no billboards, no commercial announces hanging from the facades of buildings. We went inside this building (two or three stories high) which the tourist guide proudly described as a shopping mall.

It was the legendary GUM.

Older brother, little brother, father, mother and I walked around the hallways of this marvel of socialism. (Years later I went inside the St. Hubert galleries in central Brussels; the place instantly brought me back to the Soviet GUM).

There was this time, the eighties, when ideology had a topographical and a material reference. All a man had to do was to look up North. There were institutions, spires, high flying ondulating flags, symbols. At the time, men like my father may have looked up to Brezhnev as a visionary. We didn't imagine what the future had in stock. A subject for another post.