Moscow appears as more than a distant capital: because Joseph Stalin lives there, it becomes the imagined heart of the country and a city invested with the hopes of working people around the world. The narrator conveys its grandeur through the soldiers’ stories, in which political devotion and elaborate images of the city reinforce one another.

The City in the Soldiers’ Imagination

Soldiers sing about Moscow, while writers make it the subject of books, poets praise it in verse, and films and fascinating tales add to its allure. Through this chorus of cultural praise, the city becomes a shared destination of the imagination, longed for by working masses far beyond its streets. Its importance rests not only on its place as the country’s center but also on the promise the soldiers attach to it.

The Imagined Underground

The stories place another city beneath Moscow’s streets: long, gleaming trains rush through deep tunnels and stop noiselessly at stations decorated with marble and mosaics. The narrator dwells on this subterranean splendour, presenting the railway as part of the city’s almost legendary appeal. Moscow is thus pictured both as a political heart above ground and as a hidden, polished world below it.