At first I go downwards, into the spacious, but dark, damp entrance hall. Across at the other side there is a twin of the staircase I just came down. I take it. In the gloom I keep close to the wall feeling the decoratively modulated surface under my hands and a squashy mix of masonry, dirt and what proves to be the remains of a red material that used to cover the underside of the open-plan stairs underfoot. I suddenly become aware I’m no longer contained in a passageway but am ascending into the equivalent of a cathedral of a departed culture. Some of the roof panels have fallen to earth and lie underfoot now, exposing the skeletal substructure. Some remain half attached, swaying and clanking in the wind. The exterior shell of the roof is also pierced in places, allowing a little light in from the grey and rapidly darkening sky. At the apex of the dome the emblematic hammer and sickle in red and gold appears to have been spared, a passing whim of history. I am overwhelmed by the size and get something of the feeling of what it might have been like to enter a pharaonic grave, even if grave robbers had removed everything but the wall paintings. However this monument, this amphitheatre I’m walking around, was opened, closed and discarded in the space of a single decade. All around there are mosaics relating to national and international communism. Some of the faces are defaced almost completely and live on only as ghostly outlines. Others are merely crumbling. Along the walls there are mosaic stones in copper or gold-backed glass. After two failures at trying to photograph the hammer and sickle, I stand immediately under it, extend my arms upwards and press the button. The resulting flash actually succeeds in illuminating the emblem a little.

All at once I become aware of time again, my watch says we have only twenty minutes until the bar comes down across the road, assuming it is still manned. Outside again, the wind is still blowing and the rain beats down even more. I run down the six-foot wide steps. We make it back to the barrier before the announced closing time. The pictures I show the others make for a unanimous decision to return when the weather is better and we have more time.