Moscow/City

Unlike this guy, I experience preemptive nostalgia. So the last few days, or sometimes weeks or even months, before I leave a place take on that special glow. This is usually wonderful: it makes pleasant things bittersweet (so I really try to enjoy them) and unpleasant things bearable (I have in mind here mainly the cold water affair -- really not so bad after a long day on the metro). Just keep this in mind when you're tempted to roll your eyes at the following.

Yesterday Kostya and I met to exchange gifts, and then we got a bite to eat. I have to admit I was apprehensive. He speaks very little English, I find men on the whole more difficult to understand, and finally, what did we have to talk about? I needn't have worried about the last point -- we covered:

a. Joe Biden in Ukraine and Georgia

b. Chechnya

c. the Gates debacle

d. Russian stereotypes

e. the Cuyahoga River

f. Kazakhstan in comparison with other Central Asian republics

g. tomato-growing and attendant problems, именно raccoons -- "енот," in case you were wondering

h. why Russia and America don't get along

It was a good test of my conversational Russian, and I understood at least the gist of everything above. I also hit a career high for ice cream consumption, which due to aforementioned phenomenon, did in fact taste sweeter than usual. But the best part was that, because of the Blue Beret festivities (who are they? -- be warned, it's more than you ever wanted to know) and subsequent mutual fear for my safety on the metro, he drove me home. There is, in my opinion, very little that compares to being driven through a city at night at high speed (excepting, ahem, my doing the driving). It's a great way to see the city, it's a special treat after the metro, and it's summertime. This was made even more, скажим, interesting than usual by the fact that Kostya kept pointing out his various projects while driving, bringing us alarmingly close to the guardrails on the on-ramp. Someone who can talk on his cell phone, shift gears, and point out nighttime attractions all at the same time is a guy after my own heart. So what did we see?

Moscow City, where he proudly showed me the largest digital clock in the world, lit by his company. Here is a hilarious entry about it.

His other project was construction crane on top of a building; these are semi-permanent fixtures now that the crisis has called a halt to a lot of building projects. It was outlined in neon blue. Tacky? Actually no. It's a crane -- anything's an improvement.

These are all newish buildings towards the center. Out by me it's all strip mall-type neon lights. Look, I know you think it's ugly and modern. And if you're like Andrew Biliter from the link above, you might add cheesy AND dystopian (only here is that combination even possible). But I think it's gorgeous.

But that's not all; the glow extended much, much further. I also:

1.had TWO great interviews, one set up just hours in advance. However, when I arrived at the second one on time -- a minor miracle in its own right given that this organization had two different offices at the SAME address but actually in two different buildings (yeah, that's what I've been trying to tell you) -- I asked for a glass of water, and in the midst of changing the water cooler, my interviewee pushed a plastic piece into the bottle, at which point I watched as all five office employees attempted to retrieve it with any number of implements, including a ruler, tongs, several knives, and fingers. Needless to say, the interview was a raging success.

2. bought all the souvenirs I could carry, including one fantastic purchase that the recipient will probably be less excited about than I am, in which case I'm keeping it. You know something strange is going on when I'm able to tolerate Arbat Street.

3. had another heart-to-heart with another Russian. Как ни странно, the Cuyahoga River did NOT come up. Weird. Also, it's not fair that I've only just discovered poppy-seed blinchiki.

4. found the Baltika rainbow in my supermarket after all,

5. saw the sky glowing across Leningradskoe Shosse,

6. opened the broken door to my apartment building to find the whole staircase smelling of flowers, and

7. discovered a use for the abandoned washer.

Oh Moskva. Never has one woman loved you for so many of the wrong reasons.

One unrelated thing [Q: Unrelated to what, Lizakhon? This whole post is a jumble of things. A: Oh please, this post is about how amazing Moscow is, AGAIN. This paragraph, on the other hand, is about the bad news for Dmitri Anatolyevich]: Danielle and I went to see the Faberge Exhibit at the Pushkin Museum of Art Special Collections Museum [Q: How was it? A: I am strangely seized by the desire to own a cigarette case. That is to say, fabulous] and it was there that I first noticed the striking resemblance Nicholas II has to a certain leader close to our hearts. It's uncanny. Apparently I'm not the only one who has noticed this: Look at this! It's incredible! No wonder Putin is more popular with the Russian public. Don't worry Dimz, you're still #1 with ... me.

Tourists, part ii

For the past few days I've taken my parents sightseeing in Moscow. This included

1. visiting the Imperial Porcelain factory, former purveyors to the tsars. For my mother, no trip is complete without checking out the local pottery/porcelain/china. I don't know much about this (for example, I couldn't explain the difference between three things above), but I know THIS has to be the best stuff she's seen. I mean, look who uses it:

I just really love that they thought it was necessary to include this picture in their store.

2. A trip down Arbat street, a place I've been avoiding all month, and rightly so -- it was full of tourists, Russians dressed in traditional "Russian" garb, and artists selling their abilities with pictures of Dima and Britney Spears.

This picture doesn't begin to capture what it's like. I'm not sure what the draw is.

When I went in to look at a store, the salesgirl quoted me a price on something that was over three times what I'd paid in St. Petersburg (with a little bargaining). I turned to leave, and before I could get out the door the price dropped two more times -- but was still higher.

3. St. Basil's.

Isn't it nice?

4. An Uzbek restaurant for dinner, which had

a. servers who weren't familiar with non (bread)

b. enough horse on the menu to freak out my mom

c. enough morozhenoe on the menu to pacify my mom

d. belly dancers.

It might've had cockfights as well, but we didn't stay long enough to see.

5. A tour of the two places in Moscow open at 8 am, Coffee House

and the bakery near Patriarch's Pond. I like it better at 8 pm.

6. Sparrow hills, another place that's way overrated, to get the panoramic of Moscow.

It's not even a great view. You can see a few churches from here but mostly you just see new skyscrapers. Again, I don't know what the big fuss is about.

7. Yet more Kremlin sightseeing. This time I saw in addition to everything else I got to see the Armory museum, which was amazing. They had Ivan the Terrible's throne! Faberge eggs! Boris Godunov's armor! And other things that are exciting only to Russian history geeks.

1,2,3, etc.

1. Remember the jaguar benz? Well apparently that's a real thing here. For example, this young man had a picture of a woman (not his girlfriend) surfing on his car. But the best was in St. Petersburg, where I actually stopped on the sidewalk and gaped at a black Porsche Cayenne with naked female body parts on it. I would have taken a picture, except that it was sort of X-rated. Can you imagine driving around in that car? Can you imagine it, period?

2. In the past few weeks I've been to two events that required a line of policeman to stand between the event and the metro in order to keep crowds in line. Here's the second: a Lokomotiv game. (They tied Tomsk 0-0, which apparently is the same result these teams have had the last four or five times they've faced each other. The first half was great, the second pretty dull. Why? Because Tomsk was counting itself lucky to get a tie, which meant they sat back all second half and defended. I'll try again this weekend.)

3. In Russia, there's a flavor of ice cream called byely, or "white." It is frozen cream with sugar, I think, and it's disgusting. Or as disgusting as frozen cream with sugar can be. White ice cream should be vanilla, or coconut, or even pina colada.

On the other hand, here I was, calling these ice cream flavors by their colors because I didn't know what flavor they were, and it turns out I was absolutely right. Sometimes (consider my predilection for dark literature, need to take off my shoes inside the house, reckless sincerity, adoration of Russian women, ability to shake my head at the hijinks of young people) I think I was meant for Russia.

4. In the U.S., when an area is roped or fenced off, no matter how small that barricade, it's generally respected. But not so here. Let's take a look.

This is part of Alexandrovsky Sad, the garden just outside of the Kremlin. It has a very low (maybe 6-inch high) wrought-iron fence around it to keep people out of the geometrically perfect flower beds. Does it work? Nope! It's all one with the picture-taking culture that requires people not just to look like idiots but to actually climb over guard rails into fountains to take pictures.

5. You asked about food. Here's a salad:

FAQ

What's the white stuff all over it? Sour cream.

Where's the lettuce? There isn't any.

What about that green stuff? Dill. Get used to it.

6. Finally, here's where D.A.M. works every day when he's not on vacation in Africa/getting drunk at the G8 (look, allegedly -- you know I don't buy it):

So today while we were at the Kremlin maybe eight black Benzes pulled up, and we (by we I mean I, as I frantically scrambled for my camera/Russian introductory phrases) thought that D. Prez himself was going to emerge from the cars to briefly interact with the people. But it was not to be. Alas.

Some terrible/strange/wonderful things

Recently spotted:

1. The eight-year-olds in our complex standing at the crossroads of paved paths, eating ice cream, laughing, and ... smoking cigarettes.

2. The jaguar-spotted Benz. Seriously, how popular would these be in the US? I'm all over this business opportunity.














3. If you were to imagine a hulking corporate building of evil, would it look something like...



THIS?


Danielle says yes.









4. The real highlight of our metro station: the giant container of Квас that sits outside day and night AND actually dispenses kvass. (What is that?) I am a little scared to drink out of this, but I desperately want to try it. (Deep breath, mom.)








6. Fake Hermes Birkin bags at approximately every fifth metro station. (What is that?) Please advise: color? price? Possible thesis topic switch?




7. The best, and the one you've been waiting for:

Yup that's me, in the hallway of Ekho. That expression is the closest you'll get to seeing me starstruck (except for the Jeff Tweedy concert circa 2002). For the first ten minutes I was so excited to be there that I couldn't understand what the editor was saying. As opposed to later, when I just couldn't understand what he was saying.









And yup, that's the location of Ekho's office, in the same building as Yedinaya Rossiya.