Rappelling in the rotunda, USSR

When I think of all the scrapes I’ve gotten myself into, it flummoxes me. I think that’s why am a writer. Perhaps the weirdest moment was when I was in the Soviet Union, midwinter, visiting a friend who took me to see a muralist who was restoring a cathedral, dubbed the Museum of Atheism and Religion. The muralist asked if I wanted to see the rotunda mural up close. I said yes, not knowing that we had to climb up outside the copper dome along a catwalk where the railing was literally no longer attached, then go in between the outer copper dome, and enter the inner plaster dome, and traverse to an ancient circus trampoline stretched over the opening of the rotunda—we had to let go of our faith and land on the trampoline so that we could be strapped into a harness. Now understand, I have never been rappelling in my life. This was the Soviet Union where everything was either fly by night, or cobbled together. Or both. No such thing as safety nets. Good news I got to work on the mural a bit, scraping off years of smoke with an exacto knife, but then I had to get down from that lofty height. I was suspended 40 feet above the floor, like a spider. So in Russian, mind you, I didn’t speak Russian, they told me how to rappel. I looked down, not knowing my long hair was going to be problem, and let’s just say a huge hunk got ripped out of the top of my head as I descended spider like to the cold stone floor below. Crapping my pants was the least of my worries.

see 

• Those foolhardy moments in time