pumpkinstrokemarrow

Having got over that confusion, found my way to the right page in Wikipedia where I learned that there was indeed a famous citadel in NN, built in an Italianate style under the supervision of one Peter the Italian. Not quite built by the Venetians but tendencies in the right direction. Search for Peter the Italian and find that there are rather a lot of them, with the most famous being an associate of, partner of or model for Andy Warhol. Clearly, not the right chap at all. But after that I drew a blank, at least in the English speaking part of the internet. No further information on NN citadel or its builders.

It is if course possible that it is not known who built the citadel, beyond the fact that someone called Peter the Italian was mixed up in it. A fact which exists because the citadel clearly was built, but a fact which we are never going to be able to exhibit. A philosopher would, no doubt, be able to expound at length on the nature of the existence of this particular fact. But it seems unlikely that this particular fact is, in fact, a fact of that sort. The inhabitants of NN were big time merchants and presumably literate. Presumably they liked to celebrate their industry on parchment, parchment which may well have come down to us. Enshrined under glass in the National Library of Russia, an institution which has presumably had to be rebadged since the demise of the Soviet Union for which it was established.

I then peer at my trusty atlas, a product of the Polish Army Topographical Service (why not cartographical?) and which, as a product of the Soviet era comes very well equipped with maps of both Poland and the Soviet Union. They even have the cheek to put Poland at the front of the atlas, rather than the UK. Don't they know that atlases are presented in longitude order, starting with the Greenwich Meridian? Anyway, now being something of an expert on NN, I am not confused by the fact that when this atlas was being prepared the place was called Gorky. So I rapidly determine that it is indeed on the confluence of the Oka and the Volga, as pointed out in the book about Florensky. And that the Volga is clearly a very big river, entirely suitable for carrying lots of trade in the days before roads were very roadworthy. The only catch is that the Volga appears to come out in the Caspian, despite attempting to come out behind the Crimea in the Black Sea, which means that the Venetian galleys knocking around at the time of the construction of the citadel would not have been able to row there. Which had it been otherwise would have made the presence of Venetians there entirely plausible. One big trading outfit working with another. And the Venetians were good at galleys, a mode of transport well suited to large rivers. Did they establish a galley building factory on the shores of the Caspian? Did they carry their galleys over land, rather as the Vikings carried their long ships? After all, Fitzcarraldo managed a rather more serious feat of this nature in the Amazon.

The question is, where do I go from here? Foyles perhaps? They may well have some fat tome about NN and I should be able to browse enough on the spot for present purposes, without needing to buy the thing. I would not feel bad about doing that as I do, as it were, pay my taxes there. Then if I fail, is there some Russian version of the Institut français (see http://www.institut-francais.org.uk/) with a helpfully staffed library, well equipped with well-educated (that is to say English speaking) young female staff to deal with queries of this sort? I cannot imagine that the embassy or consulate would be much help. In fact, I might be escorted off the premises, quick time.