Encounters in the Park

Moscow, Russia

I was in for an interesting encounter when I went to Orekhovo station to see the nearby reconstructed palace. Built originally by Catherine the Great, later destroyed or abandoned (never really caught that bit) and never finished it was meant to be a second Versailles. Now it is being restored and finished according to its original designs. At the moment it is still pretty much a construction site - one of many here. Some of the buildings around the huge park are being finished. The main work now seems to be the sculpting of the park itself. A mammoth task of putting in plumbing for fountains, building stairs and paths, planting the right vegetation at the right place and the like. Then all the tracks from the heavy vehicles have to be cleaned up. And then the tracks of the cleanup crews. Situated on a hill, within vast forrested grounds I think it will be a grand place once it's done.
Here, on the way from the Metro, I met Ludmilla (or Ludy, she said). A very grandmother-like, kind old lady who I just asked for the way to the palace. She spoke no English but understood what I wanted and, I think, told me that she was also going there. What followed was her giving me a two-and-a-half-hour tour of the grounds, eagerly explaining things in Russian. She seemed to know the history and background very well. When I didn't understand she would repeat things over and over and then look very embarassed when she realised she couldn't get the message across. "Dvarich," she would say, "bolshoy dvarich." That I later understood to mean "big palace". "Dom" I learnt to mean house. And a few other things. There was the main palace, houses for lower aristocrats, an opera house even. Sometimes she'd remember words in German which helped, so we somehow managed to communicate. Now I have an idea what the first ambassador or traveller must have felt like, learning a language from zero with noone to teach you. Unperturbed, she'd go on talking and repeating and trying again and again. Her patience was impressive.
I understood she was upset about the damage the construction was doing to the park. The used to be wild flowers, she showed me, but they were cut to make way for lawn. She clearly preferred it the way it was. But a palace attracts tourists and tourists bring money. So, civilisation eats into the wild and imprints itself. I guess that's the way it goes.
Thanks, Ludmilla, bless you.