Washington DC

Washington is the capital of the United States. The city is named after the first president, George Washington. In short, it’s the local Leningrad.

The Constitution forbids the U.S. capital from being part of any state, so Washington is located in a special region of the country called the District of Columbia. This piece of land was set aside specifically for the capital before construction of the city began.

In the center of Washington stands the Capitol — a famous building with a large white dome that is a symbol of democracy. It can be seen from many points in the city.

Near the Capitol, things aren’t all that democratic. Fences stand ready all around, having become especially popular after the storming in January 2021.

The Capitol dome has always seemed a bit strange to me. In the shade it’s especially noticeable that it has a yellowish tint that the base walls don’t have.

In the sun the dome just shines like it’s been polished. Even marble doesn’t shine like that.

The investigation showed that the dome is not made of stone at all, but of cast iron, just crudely painted with white paint. Thanks for the attempt, but it falls far short of the Roman Empire.

A big advantage of the Capitol is that you can actually go inside. In the main part everything is pretty standard for a museum: old paintings, statues of presidents, and crowds of schoolkids on field trips.

The inner side of the dome is decorated in the manner of a cathedral, but less grandly. The ornament converges toward the center, where the painting is located.

This painting is of great interest. It depicts biblical scenes in which the angels have been replaced by Roman gods. Neptune and Mercury are shown as they are, while the goddess of liberty is given a sword and a shield bearing the American flag.

In the center of the painting, surrounded by goddesses in the form of angels, the ascended George Washington is depicted rising to the heavens. The entire painting is called “The Apotheosis of Washington.”

If I were asked to express the entire essence of the USA in two words, I would simply name this painting. Formally, America is a secular country in which the state is separated from religion. In reality, the Founding Fathers, and George Washington personally, are equated with saints in the mass American consciousness.

In principle, the Capitol would have made a decent mausoleum, if only the USSR had pitched the idea a bit earlier.

Another hall, judging by its decorations, was reminiscent of the Roman Pantheon. Burgundy drapery, marble columns (probably cast iron too), very little light — in pure form, Rome! Only instead of statues of gods stand some senators from different states.

But at the Capitol you can attend a session of Congress. To do this, one has to go through a manual security check, after which he’s allowed up to the balcony. They take your phone and camera, so you won’t be able to film anything.

There are a couple of somewhat more respectable places around the Capitol. For example, the Supreme Court building is a pretty decent little house in the neoclassical style.

Or the Library of Congress — a gorgeous building in the Parisian Neo-Baroque style.

Behind the Capitol begins the American Field of Mars. This is where presidential inaugurations and the largest rallies take place.

In free time the field is absolutely empty and pointless. In summer it’s impossible to be there because of the heat.

The main advantage of Washington DC is its huge number of museums. Many of them are free and are part of the Smithsonian Institution.

Along the stretch of just the National Mall alone, they managed to fit more than a dozen places: the Museum of Natural History, two art galleries, the Museum of the American Indian, the Air and Space Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Asian Art, the Museum of African Art, the Industrial Museum, the Museum of African American History, the Museum of General History, and the botanical garden.

The Smithsonian Institution is the largest scientific network in the United States, overseeing dozens of museums, laboratories, institutes, archives, and research centers. The administration is housed in this Gothic-style castle, located on the same grounds.

At the other end of the clearing stands an obelisk, also named after George Washington.

Around the obelisk stand 50 American flags — one for each state.

Behind it hides an excellent view of the entire field, the Capitol, and the obelisk itself, which looks rather monstrous against that backdrop.

Finally, at the very, very end of this straight line, if one walks the same distance again beyond the obelisk, one discovers an almost real mausoleum.

This time not to Washington, but to Lincoln — the second most important president of America, who commanded the Northern army during the Civil War and abolished black slavery. Lincoln sits on a throne, resting his arms on armrests in the form of fasces.

Basically, that’s all about the city. Scattered around the grounds are another dozen or so small monuments, memorials to various wars, and other little sacred spots.

The White House is located a bit off to the side of the field. All the most interesting things are at the back, but you can’t get to it: there’s a multi-layered fence with security.

You can see what is happening in the windows only through a very powerful lens.

From the front side you can get much closer to the White House, but you can’t see anything through the windows, and the same layers of fences still surround it.

Even the manhole was fenced off. No less surrealism than in China or Russia.

One can, in principle, protest here, but I can’t shake the feeling that the cops dispersed everyone long ago and left a single protester behind just to keep up the appearance of freedom.

But things are even stricter around the Pentagon. It’s located across the river. Technically, that’s no longer Washington but the state of Virginia, yet it feels like part of the city.

Here’s where real paranoia reigns! Around the entire Pentagon, taking photos is strictly forbidden. Huge “No Photo” signs, half the size of a wall, are hanging right at the metro exit.

At the same time, it’s completely unclear what exactly there is to photograph here. Do CIA agents stick secret documents on the windows? Besides, the building itself only looks impressive from the air, while from the ground it resembles Brezhnev’s houses of culture.

Of course, the bans were introduced after the September 11 attack. Not every reader knows that in addition to the two planes that destroyed the towers in New York, there was a third plane that crashed into the Pentagon and broke through its wall.

The impact was so powerful that the aircraft’s body shattered into pieces. The thin aluminum fuselage melted in the fire, and the plane’s interior burned so quickly that it didn’t even appear in the photographs.

Because of this, a conspiracy theory emerged that there had been no plane at all. The photography ban around the Pentagon fueled the theory, so in order to at least somewhat reduce the level of conspiracy, the authorities allowed photography in exactly one area — opposite the wall the plane had crashed into — and opened a memorial to the victims near it.

The funniest thing is that most conspiracy theorists don’t even know there were three planes, not two. And absolutely no one is aware that in reality there were four planes. The fourth plane was flying to San Francisco and crashed in a field in Pennsylvania when the passengers tried to wrest control of the yoke from the terrorists.

Want to have some fun? Tell a conspirator about the fourth plane and enjoy the foam at their mouth.

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As for Washington DC itself, it is just as dreary as all its administrative buildings. The city looks fairly clean and European, but alas, apart from the museums there is absolutely nothing to do there.

The Capitol dome casually looms on the horizon of every major Washington avenue.

The architecture presses down with its severity and is not in the least like New York with its goofy skyscraper ornamentation.

In the shop windows and on the glass, political slogans keep flashing by — now a Ukrainian flag, then Black Lives Matter.

The capital is also known of having the only clean subway in all of America.

Alas, all this adds little life to the city. There is no life there, only bureaucracy.