Print Maya Berzina National Wherever I visited in just over two years (1918-1920), but every time I returned to Moscow, always by train, almost always late in the evening, and Moscow was greeted by a sea of lights (it’s unlikely that they were very rich in those years, but that's how I saw it). In March 1918, dad met us at the station, and in a cab, shaking along the cobblestone street, we went straight to the National Hotel (aka the First House of the Soviets), and there to room 218.