MOROCCO IS ACCELERATING! feature - Alstom

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travel
With its defeat in the Crimean War of 1856,
Russia lost its strategic access to the Black
Sea. Tsar Alexander II then looked for
a Mediterranean port. He delegated several
members of his family to convince the King
of Piedmont and Sardinia, Victor-Emmanuel
– who also possessed the County of Nice –
to allow him to establish a naval, military
and commercial base. This allowed him
to position his fl eet in the Bay of Villefranche-
sur-Mer. The fashion was launched.
From 1864 onwards, the Tsar and the entire
Russian nobility travelled to Nice by railway,
transforming the town into a winter garden.
There they built extraordinary buildings and
magnifi cent residences, endowing Nice
with an exceptional architectural heritage.
Universal writers such as Chekhov
and Tourgueniev joined this elegant society.
After 1917, many White Russians
fl eeing Bolchevism found refuge there as
it was often the only town they knew outside
their native country. Nearly a century later,
the Russian public rail operator RZD
has decided to revive this mythical service
(ref. column page 67) by creating
a remarkable two-day journey through
the past.
Before departure
Moscow and the heart of the empire.
The capital with ‘a thousand and three church
towers and seven stations’ which so inspired
Blaise Cendrars. The autumn is present
here today in shades of black and white.
It’s as if the colours have been inspired
by the low sky. An atmosphere
of mystery, which accentuates the majesty
of the Kremlin’s high towers and blurs
the perspectives of the long avenues.
At the end of one of these, in a lashing
of cold rain, the Belorussky station appears,
the second largest of Moscow’s stations.
A neoclassical building – later crossed with
a touch of Soviet realism – the Belorussky
was inaugurated in September 1870.
Initially called ‘Smolensk’, it only received
its fi nal name in 1936. Nevertheless, for many
people today, it is simply the ‘station of
victory’. The point of departure for soldiers
leaving for the front in June 1941,
it welcomed the returning victors in 1945.