In 1954, the Polish literary critic Jan Kott (probably best known in the Anglophone world for his book Shakespeare, Our Contemporary) visited Moscow as part of an official delegation, an experience recounted in his essay “Journey to the East.” He wanted to see the Moscow Metro (Moskovsky Metropoliten), one of the world’s great achievements in public transport, and made his wish known to his handler, Apletin.
"'You will get an answer tomorrow.' I was amazed. To see the metro? What could the problem be? The closest metro station was two blocks from our hotel."
Kott had to wait for a reply longer than he expected, which merely added to his puzzlement. Finally, a positive response came through.
"On the third day we left in a special black Volga. In half an hour the houses vanished, and we found ourselves driving through fields on an empty road. I didn’t understand what was going on. 'They are probably taking us to some secret station outside of Moscow,' I thought."
Kott was driven through the woods, far out of the city. His car stopped in front of "something that looked like an enormous manor house."
"We were greeted by two cassocked Orthodox priests with enormous beards almost to their waists. We were led through corridors and rooms – full of old people who were dressed in what seemed to be dark women’s dresses – into a large room where the Metropolitan and Patriarch of all Russia received us in a gold chain and cross."
Kott recounts that his unrequested meeting with the Metropolitan went nicely, except for a moment of awkwardness when he asked about "churches that have been changed into museums of atheism." Shortly after the meeting, his delegation left for China.
Kott never tells us if he managed to see the Metro, but he does say that "long after our departure, Apletin was still the laughing stock of Moscow for taking the Polish writer who wanted to see the metro to the Metropolitan."*
*What Kott actually said was “ya khochu posmotryet’ na vash metropolit [я хочу посмотреть на ваш метрополит].” This is neither the correct word for Metropolitan (the church office) nor the correct word for subway or Metro. While Comrade Apletin’s confusion is understandable, he should have asked for clarification.
Source: "Journey to the East" by Jan Kott, translated by Lillian Vallee. In the collection Four Decades of Polish Essays, Northwestern University Press, 1990