We have been blessed to meet an interesting parade of people
through our small B&B. Earlier in the year we had a friend of a friend
stay, a retired professor from the USA who had been married for a time to a
Russian from Siberia. Her stories were fascinating, and after she went home she
sent us an account of her time living in fairly primitive accommodation in
Siberia in the depths of winter, along with a Soviet-era picture booklet on
Leningrad – which has now reverted to its original name, St Petersburg.
As I looked through the pictures, I realized the glaring
omission: not one photo of the stunning Cathedral of the Saviour on Spilled
Blood. Instead, the booklet boasted pictures of Communist era high-rise cement
flats, stark and featureless.
It occurs to me that our perception of beauty depends in
part on our ideology, on our view of the world, perhaps. To the graphic
designer working on the tourist booklet on Leningrad, the accomplishments of
the Communist period could be seen in the modern high-rise flats. Because
religion was demoted and believers punished, the glorious onion dome
architecture of the Cathedral was dismissed, perhaps deemed archaic and ugly.
When we visited St Petersburg a couple of years ago, I found
myself constantly wanting to go back and see the Cathedral from the perspective
of the canal, or coming to it from a different angle. Its beauty reminded me of
the faith of the builders and those who commissioned them. Its beauty reminded
me of the love of our Creator, who humbled himself to be born in the body of a
man, so that we can live with him forever. Those Soviet-era flats only remind
me of the hubris of political systems – not just Soviet ones.
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