Liza's Russian Mix/Day 40

With audio:

Radio Nowhere, Bruce: I've had an unexpected attraction to radio since I started working on Ekho Moskvy, and this song has particularly weird echoes because of that station's situation (singular status in the world of Russian media, too few listeners, uncertain future). Also it reminds me of the Cuyahoga Valley -- one of the most beautiful and unearthly places to drive on a summer night.

In my apartment, there are TWO non-functional radios and one I can't get reception on. So when I sit down to breakfast I often have no news. In an ideal world, I would eat delicious kasha (what'sthat?) every day with milk and butter while reading three different newspapers. In my little kitchen, I make "bez barki" (instant) oatmeal in assorted flavors and can't find 91.2 fm. It doesn't compare.

Why, yes, that is me sitting in the editor's seat giving directions.

The Fever, Bruce: You're coming on a little strong with two in a row, but I'll allow it. When I get home from my job, I turn on the tv. But I can't keep my mind on the show.

Here's my first problem:

That itty bitty square in the corner is my television set. But the larger problem is that shows are often dubbed in English such that I am physically unable to listen to just one language and as a result end up understanding nothing at all. So I avoid American shows. Luckily, Danielle has found the greatest show called "Brachnoye Shtuvo" which requires little listening comprehension to get. First of all, because indecency laws are different, the show has graphic footage where the only things blurred out are the people's faces. Scandalous! Second, the hosts/investigators take themselves very seriously.

I did a screen shot to show you.

1,2,3,4; Feist: I have a story for you. It's the story of EVERY SINGLE TIME I have tried to go anywhere. First of all, building numbers are never in obvious places, different sides of the street have misaligned numbers (so you can have #20 across from #2), and buildings can span half a block or more and all have the same number. In the latter case, you also need to have an entrance number. But here's the thing -- entrances aren't always marked with their numbers, and sometimes entrances are not on the street but inside a courtyard or around the back of the building.

Once you get to the correct building (dom #) and entrance, there is often a propusk station. This is the place where you must get a pass in order to enter the building itself. To get the pass, someone from the office you're visiting has to request it, which requires your name, passport number, date of birth, citizenship, and so on. It has taken me up to 4 hours and 5 trips back and forth to get this sorted out in the past.

Of course, all of the above assumes you have

a. a clear idea of which metro exit you need to take,

b. the telephone number of the person who will get you a propusk if it's not ready,

c. at least half an hour of extra time and

d. an extraordinary tolerance for bureaucracy and its rituals.

Radiation Vibe, Fountains of Wayne: Yeah, you were right about this one. It's the kind of quintessentially American song that could never translate for Russia. Right? But isn't California Dreamin? And the Bee Gees? Nevertheless I've heard all of those remixed and played with a booming bass. Songs from the 90s are especially popular. And then again, I've heard "You Can't Always Get What You Want," "Creep," and "What's Love Got To Do With It" interpreted by a crooning jazz type and accompanied by piano and saxophone.

Let It Fall Apart, Helio Sequence: I'm on my way home, and even though it's almost 1, the metro is completely full, all the way to vodny stadion.

We pour out of the station, and there's this tiny strip before I get to the residential area that's full of little markets, cafes, and video shops which is always packed; it's like a boardwalk, complete with the smell of warm food, a neon glow, and tension.

First Night, The Hold Steady: BOYS AND GIRLS IN AMERICA. Don't have the problem of pda of boys and girls in Russia, nor the ruinous divorce rates, not to mention uneven life expectancies that leave all the babyshki alone. These women are in charge of the residential areas. They sit on all of the benches unoccupied by abovementioned pda couples and gossip loudly/talk about us when we walk by/accost me in the hallway to complain about the boys outside.

The thing about the uneven demographics is that it results in uneven couples, at least to my mind. A typical Moscow couple is about my age (a quarter of the population is under 35). The woman is pretty and stylish; tall, thin, beautiful hair. She's wearing a chic and perfectly fitting dress with awesome stiletto heels. She's only carrying flowers, because her fantastic bag is being carried by her dude, who's markedly less attractive than her. He's got on either a dark-colored shirt with random, incorrect English writing OR the inoffensive light-colored, short sleeved, buttoned shirt. He's almost always wearing white sandals over dark-colored socks and is carrying his own bag, which may or may not be larger than the purse. He either already has a mullet or is actively trying to achieve one. Also, she probably paid for their date tonight.

Wait for Love, Josh Ritter: I've got nothing to say here, unless by "Love," he intends "Freedom of Speech and True Democracy," in which case I completely reject Josh Ritter's exhortation.

During my tour of Ekho Moskvy, one of the reporters visiting from the regions got into an argument with the editor speaking with us; she said that even independent media was run by those with money and that reporters in all practical terms have to adjust what they're saying accordingly. She got a tongue lashing from the editor, who I believe told her that she should quit her job because she's the problem with press in this country. I completely agreed; reporters who self-censor make the job that much more difficult for ones who stand up to various sources of censorship. Don't worry, my self-righteousness met shortly with reality: when I worked for just five unpaid days at an English language paper, I experienced an overwhelming pressure to self-censor. Can you guess which part I wanted to take out?

In the blogosphere, Stephen Walt faulted Obama for not achieving any breakthroughs, calling the summit another example of Obama's "triumph of style and attitude." Michael Idov warned that Obama's courting of the liberal press and civil society is potentially harmful, while his attempt to divide Putin and Medvedev may be working: "Talk of it is guaranteed to flatter Medvedev and piss off Putin, thus making the split a tiny bit less unfeasible."

From the archives:

Slow Show, The National: If I get started here, you're in for a lecture on the National, the way I loved them before any of you johnny-come-latelies, and so on and so forth. Let's talk about novodel instead. That's the Russian word for buildings that were redone recently in such a manner as to look old (AHEM).

This includes the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, which has a fascinating history. It was built in the late 1800s to commemorate the defeat of Napoleon much earlier in the century. But then in 1931 it was destroyed to make room for the planned Palace of the Soviets, which was intended to be THE TALLEST BUILDING IN THE WORLD. Like many other Soviet plans, it was a giant failure. In this instance, there wasn't enough money for the project. So instead, it became THE BIGGEST SWIMMING POOL IN THE WORLD, which apparently was quite a successful replacement. In the 1990s, though, a replica of the original cathedral was built.

It's pretty nice for novodel; it's pretty uncool to admit this.

Ooh, Moscow Times just covered something similar.

Where you End, Moby: I've said it once before, and I think it on a daily basis: I like my personal space. But apparently so do Russians, who insist on invading it on any pretext. In St. Petersburg, our hotel's guidebook noted that often foreigners think that Russians have so sense of physical self-awareness, which I thought was an excellent summary of their physical interactions in public. They seem not to have any concept of where their own bodies end and yours begins. Instead, they bump into you, stop randomly in the street and force you to bump into them, poke you with their bony little elbows, stand too close, sit on top of you in the metro, try to hit you with their cars, approach you on the street for any number of reasons, etc. My personal favorite is that people walking behind you never actually pass but instead continue to follow at an uncomfortably close distance. How can one group of people be simultaneously so suspicious of strangers/outright xenophobic and so willing to get so close to each other?

Always on my Mind, Pet Shop Boys: This is what I envision the Russian remix would sound like. You know what's always on my mind?

Wait. Seriously -- you don't know by now? Think hard...

Aha, there you go.

Here's my official Russian ice cream ranking:

1. vanilla (first and best)

2. pistachio (bright green, delicious)

3. chocolate (also wonderful)

4. almond

5. red (aka klubinka or raspberry -- not bad)

6. papaya (mostly for its bright orange color)

7. coconut (what's the point if you can't taste it)

And the losers: caramel, white, mango, and black plum (absolutely repulsive).

I'm not going to make Elvis' mistake: when I get back to the US, I want to be so sick of Russian ice cream that I'll never want to look at it again. Until my next trip. Mission very nearly accomplished.

Every Moment, Rogue Wave: Speaking of the weather, I've heard from certain authoritative sources that Petersburg and Moscow have very unpredictable weather patterns. That doesn't begin to describe things. This morning the sky was overcast and there was even some rain as I walked out of the metro. But by the time I got to the Kremlin, it was picture-perfect:

I thought other places had unpredictable weather, but here it's the worst. It's gotten to the point where Danielle and I look at weather.com and do exactly the opposite of what it says.

The Seed, The Roots: Um, let's address the sound. It makes me feel super American, which comes in handy when I'm standing in a big crowd shuffling towards the bottom of the 100-yard escalator and I'm running late for an appointment or just generally pissed off at the fact that Russians can't do this any more efficiently. (Getting on an escalator involves congregating at its bottom, getting to the front of the crowd, then stepping on exactly two steps below the person in front of you, on the right side of your step. This rigidity of rules involving spacing is a. surprising and b. the reason there's always such a big crowd to get on the escalator.) Usually when this happens to me at rush hour, I decide that I'm going to walk up the elevator and everyone better get OUT OF MY WAY, which is a good idea for about the first twenty yards. Then suddenly I realize that I've run twice in the last six weeks and I'm desperately out of shape. I have two choices: a. admit defeat, step over to the right, and act like a normal Russian, or b. forge ahead, weirding everyone out as I do so. It's usually worth the five minutes of panting.

Somehow, Someday, Ryan Adams: So about four years ago I was all signed up for a year abroad in Moscow and decided at the last minute (aka at the DC airport) not to go for a very good personal reason. Since then I've been intending to get here, and the longer I waited the more awesome the proportions the city took on in my head.

And the longer I'm here now the more I wonder about that trip. The conclusion I've come to is that it would have been an unequivocal disaster. I had had one year of language, and my spoken Russian was not even good enough to order food at a cafe. Spending ten months in Moscow at that point would almost definitely have curtailed my Russian studies right then and there. So chalk that up to the reasons it was a good decision (along with Naz, obviously).

And even though I've spent four years building up Moscow in my head, it more than lives up to that. In fact, we could return to track 2.

Just one more glimpse of the god of my idolatry:

Enough of this lovefest.

Chocolate, Snow Patrol: Ugh. I hate Snow Patrol. Can we pretend this isn't here?

FINE. Pull it together yourself:

Aqua soccer, featuring 4 v 4 in six inches of water.

Competitive arm wrestling, with referees:

Check out that intensity. Also, I believe the loser over there has a shirt that says "Another beer." Sounds about right.

My nearest playground, home of the disappearing portrait of Lenin.

And my dom:

Daydreamin, Lupe Fiasco: Someone totally beat me to the punch. Outside of Moscow a smaller version of Peterhof is going up.

Valerie, Mark Ronson/Amy Winehouse:

a. Sometimes I go out by myself and look across the water.

b. And see this:

Muscovites dancing, without audible music, and doing whatever dance they feel like -- waltz, salsa -- who cares? It's Friday night on the river!

Not to dwell on it, but Ira Glass was SO wrong not to ask me for guidance in this city.

Homecoming, Kanye West: I know you're trying to make me homesick for Chicago, but it's not going to work. Let's compare:

	Chicago	Moscow
Public transportation	Overcrowded, overbudget, limited coverage, BUT accessible	Not overcrowded (but apparently only because of layoffs), not in constant need of multimillion dollar repairs, comprehensive but wheelchair inaccessible
Public spaces	Millennium park+ Grant park+ free beaches = you get a choice of distant and dirty or distant and clean	Lots of smaller local parks and big ones in the center; I'll take the various prudyover Foster Beach any day
Price of living	High	High
Shows	Excellent, but expensive; great smaller theaters	Although the chance I'd ever see a WNUR band is slim, all the shows I've been to have been cheap and really pretty good
Body of water	Lake Michigan and its fake beaches	Moskva
Climate	Ugh	Even worse
Population	Much beloved	Mutual indifference
Government	Daly dynasty	Luzhov [an unexpected tie!]
Sightseeing	Pretty good, and tourists are treated with Midwestern friendliness	Spectacular, but the opposite treatment can be expected
Beer	Hopleaf, Goose Island	Stardog/Every supermarket, Russian & Czech beers
Theme song	All of Kanye’s Chicago songs	“Ya idy”

Verdict: Moscow gets the win, but I'm coming home again anyway.

Let’s Kill Saturday Night, Robbie Fulks:

This town's gonna go down kicking and shouting: transcriptions over chai, Loko vs. Dinamo, Baltiki, Chisty Prudy, fireworks.

Waiting for a Star to Fall, Boy Meets Girl: I get a good chuckle out of this every time it comes on. I hope you do too. Possibly the cheesiest song of 1988-89, facing some stiff competition from Eric Carmen's "Make Me Lose Control" and anything by the Fine Young Cannibals.

Dear Readers: I intended this to be a sort of compilation of daily experiences/highlights, but somehow it turned into my love letter to Moscow, which is understandable given that I only have about ten days left. But talk to me again once I've eaten a Swenson's burger, drunk water from the tap, slept in a bed, and not had to read about the resident government opening mail/reading emails/influencing media/killing human rights activists; and see how I feel then.