Burning Moscow

47 Strange Dreams

The sky is gloomy, thick clouds are pressing in the low altitude, and snowflakes are falling down one after another.

I stood alone in front of Lenin’s tomb in Red Square, staring at the dome of the pale yellow government building that towered above the Kremlin’s crenellation. I felt very strange, why can’t you see other people in the daytime, and there are no guards standing guard in front of the tomb, so I am the first person standing alone on the square?

The surroundings are extremely quiet, so quiet that I can only hear my own breathing. I began to panic, there was nothing to rely on, my two feet were walking forward involuntarily. I walked along the Vasily **** next to St. Basil’s Church to the Moskva River. After crossing the big stone bridge, he walked west along the river bank.

The street is quiet, no cars or pedestrians can be seen, except for my footsteps and breathing, I still can’t hear anything. I became more and more scared in my heart. What happened? Did I cross into Moscow in 2012, an empty city that was no longer inhabited?

Snow stopped at some unknown time. After passing through a few familiar streets and then a few European-style buildings, he came to a huge puddle.

There was a middle-sized, slender female soldier standing there, her back facing me. Looking at the back of this blond female soldier in summer uniform and boat cap, I suddenly felt an inexplicable intimacy, and my body moved towards her involuntarily.

“Hello!” She said without looking back, she said “Hello” instead of “Hello”, and continued like an old friend who has known me for many years: “You are finally here!”

“Who are you?” I asked in a puzzled manner: “Why do you say’you finally came’?”

“Do you know?” She did not answer my question, but said to herself: “My husband Oshanin was baptized here when he was a child.”

Oxianing? ! The name sounds so familiar, I seem to have heard of it somewhere. Isn’t baptism usually in the river or in the church? How can you run into such a big puddle?

“Who are you?” I asked again.

“Don’t you know who I am?!” She asked me back.

“I don’t know,” I answered honestly, “But I think your figure is very familiar, and there is a kind of intimacy.”

“Really? Then you take a good look at who I am?” She said, turning around.

What caught my eyes was a melancholic and handsome face, which looked very familiar, but it was a pity that I couldn’t remember where I had seen this face before.

“Do you think I’m familiar?” With a smile on her face, she probably saw me still blank, and kindly reminded me: “Think about it. Every morning, when you look in the mirror, look in the mirror. Is this the face that you see in it?”

“Ah!” Although I heard her say that, I still haven’t recovered: I look in the mirror every day, how can I see your face.

Looking at me or staring at her silly, she smiled and looked at me with a smile and said, “I am Lida Musdakova Oshanina.”

Her words were like a bomb exploding next to me. I couldn’t help taking two steps backwards, staring at her in horror, and asking in an incredible tone: “You are Li Da Musdakova Oshanina! Who am I then?” Then I rushed to the puddle and looked down. Two identical beautiful faces appeared on the water. The difference was that the real Lida was still wearing a summer military uniform, while I was wearing a thick military coat.

“Who are you?” Lida asked me gently beside me.

Yeah, who am I? This question, I have been asking myself for several months, I was originally a man, but inexplicably traveled to another time and space, and became a woman.

“Who are you?” Lida asked me again.

“I come from the future. Once I went to swim by the Moskva River. I had an accident and fainted. When I woke up, I found myself somehow become you.” I answered her honestly, not knowing her name. Unconsciously, “you” has been replaced by “you”.

“Oh!” She asked thoughtfully: “You shouldn’t be Russian, because I heard many times you are talking to yourself in a voice that I don’t understand.”

“Yes, I am not Russian.” I expressed my identity to her very readily: “I am a businessman, a Chinese businessman doing business in Moscow, and my name is Tang.”

“Understood.” She nodded, and then asked me: “Also, I often hear you hum a very nice song. Moscow and Leningrad appear in the lyrics. I want to know what it means. Can you tell? ”

“Yes, which song is it, can you sing a few words to me?”

She hummed two of them softly: “Let the red burn Moscow, memory smear Leningrad.” Her pronunciation is round and round. If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I would definitely think it was a Chinese singing this song. song.

After listening to the lyrics that I had translated for her in Russian, she asked gently: “Do you think Moscow, burning with war, can stop the crazy attack of the German devils?”

“No problem, it must be blocked.” I replied without hesitation: “Except for the prisoners of the German army, other Germans have no chance to enter Moscow.”

“I’m relieved when you say that.” I felt that she was obviously relieved after hearing what I said.

“That’s right.” I was very interested in the puddle in front of me, so I asked her curiously: “What is going on in this puddle? Why did your husband Oshanin be baptized here when he was a child?”

“Don’t you know?” She asked me in amazement: “This is the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. In 1931, the government demolished the church in order to build the Soviet Palace here.”

“Oh, it turned out to be like this.” Hearing what she said, I remembered that this is indeed the location of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior of the future generations. No wonder the buildings I saw on the road are so familiar. In 31 years, Stalin ordered the cathedral to be blown up, and plans to build the Soviet Palace here, and plans to place a dozen-meter-high bronze statue of Stalin on it. Unexpectedly, when the foundation was excavated, there was a collapse accident, several construction workers died, and the project was once forced to be interrupted due to the incident. It took several years to lay the foundation with great difficulty, but I did not expect that it was submerged by water overnight and turned into a big puddle. This place was conveniently abandoned. In the 1950s, Khrushchev once converted it into a Lenin indoor heated swimming pool. He did not expect to drown people soon after it opened, and was forced to close it. It was not until the early 1990s that Yeltsin spent a lot of money to rebuild the cathedral after he came to power, and it was completed in September 1995, on the eve of the 850th anniversary of the founding of Moscow.

“What are you thinking?” Lida asked suddenly, interrupting my thoughts.

“Ah! I didn’t think about anything.” I hurriedly replied, and then asked her: “By the way, do you know the whereabouts of your husband?”

She shook her head and said, “I don’t know. I only know that he is missing. I don’t know if he was sacrificed, captured, or left to other places.”

“Don’t be sad, Lida.” I comforted her: “When I have the opportunity to go back to Leningrad in the future, I will definitely help you find out his whereabouts Don’t worry, this is my opinion. Your promise.”

“Thank you, my friend.” She looked at me gratefully and said, “Actually, I still have one important thing to ask you. I wonder if you will help me with this?”

“Let’s talk about it, Lida. As long as things are within my abilities, I will promise you.” I thought to myself, she didn’t want me to return my body to her, right? But what she said next gave me a sigh of relief. “My mother and son Alik live in the small city Pochinok near the 171 railway station. When you have a chance to go back to Leningrad, please visit them for me, okay?”

“No problem, Lida.” I readily agreed to her request: “When I return to Leningrad, I will take your mother and son by your side and take care of them in your place.”

“Thank you, my friend.” With a happy expression on her face, she smiled at me and said: “I should go now, good luck!” After speaking, she disappeared out of thin air in front of me. No trace, as if it had never appeared before.

“Lida! Lida!!! ” I yelled at the empty surroundings.

“Comrade Commander! Comrade Commander!” I felt that someone was shaking me gently, and kept shouting in my ear. I opened my eyes and saw that it was the driver who brought me to the headquarters of the group army. Seeing that I opened my eyes, he pointed to the front and said: “Comrade Commander! The 16th Regimental Command is here. In the woods by the road ahead.”

I nodded at him gratefully, opened the car door beside me, jumped out of the car quickly, and quickly walked to the headquarters in the woods on the roadside.