I went to the Roerich museum in Moscow
Inside a big yellow cupcake mansion across from Gorky Park
I walked around in there for hours
I had always loved the landscapes he painted
so bright and uplifting and simple
He painted Altai and Tibet and Arizona
On a grand caravan trek across Central Asia
He was an explorer and a painter who brought his family along on his journeys
He was also a mystic and the head of a humanist spiritual movement for World Peace
The part of the museum dedicated to world peace and spaceship humanity
Was so sad
Because it contained the hopes of that broken dream
The countries he and his family trekked through
were in a fix in the 1920s and 30s
Deciding to stand for independence or have limited autonomy as Soviet satellites
Stalin was the head of nationalities before he became general secretary
He was a swarthy man from the periphery who spoke Russian with a thick accent
But made himself the most indispensable bureacrat in the metropole
Like a Puerto Rican becoming Secretary of State
He had thought about and lived this question more than anyone
Walking around Gorky Park I wondered what the Chekhists and Comintern people
Thought of the Roerich family
They had a lot of agents mucking around in China and Mongolia and Tibet
Trying to tamp down on the independence movements
Which whatever their true aims were perceived as icebreakers for the imperialists and white guard
Gorky park was filled with hipsters and families with strollers
And among all the old Soviet statue heads
An agitated looking Russian woman came up to me and asked where’s Stalin?
I said huh?
She said where’s Stalin, in English
I said I hadn’t seen him but I was looking for him too
In New York years later, I was walking uptown and the sun was shining but feeling a little blue
I went up to the Roerich museum
It was in an old mansion by the Hudson River
I recognized the flag with the three dots wafting outside the building
Flag of his world peace and love movement
You have to get buzzed in but its free to visit
Maybe it was being in a creaky 19th century wooden house
But the pure landscape paintings there are even more stunning and beautiful
Just mountains and light
Or shards of ice with ice wind blowing through
Churning and elemental
I skipped all the ones about religion and prophets and the Middle Ages because they looked like fantasy nerd fan art
There was one of Madame Roerich I had never seen before
She looked like a very interesting and warm person
A Russian woman on the top floor was filming a documentary and asked if I wanted to be in it
I said no
I have a lopsided face and don't like being on camera
Stalin had a withered arm
And a bad limp
And a face cratered by childhood smallpox
But didn’t mind being on filmreels
And loved when handsome actors played him in the movies
But he wrote himself out of the history books
I've read biographies by Stephen Kotkin and Robert Tucker and Trotsky
They called him the Russian sphinx, his true character still remains elusive
Me and the filmmaker talked for a while
She said Roerichs trips were sponsored by the United States and England
I had always thought he had the backing of the Soviets somehow
Why would they let him and his group go otherwise?
They could just be imperialist spies
Disguising themselves as mystics and artists and travellers
She said no
He was hated deeply hated and blacklisted until 1990
Her Russian assistant listening chimed in no
“Khruschev had a good relationship with his son so he came off the blacklist and was permitted during the thaw. But Brehznev put him back on.”
“Yeah, Brehznev put him back on the list,” she nodded
I walked around looking at the beautiful paintings another half hour
The sun was setting when I let myself out the big wooden door
I had no one to meet and nowhere to be
I didn’t feel good but at least when I closed my eyes I saw those beautiful colorful landscapes,
and I thought about his two year journeys across the steppes
Who they must have met what they ate
the loneliness the strange food the smell of all those fires
and all the Central Asian herdspeople in the midst being Sovietized