And So.

Soundtrack – Amadou and Mariam, Dimanche A Bamako

It was the best summer of my life. When I arrived this place was like one huge slum to me. Everything was cobbled together from everything else. These people made no sense, they yelled at me for seemingly no reason, and they stumbled through stifling heat with very little concept of proper hygiene. People slept on the streets, passed out, sprawled halfway across the sidewalk. They walked around completely unaffected by their surroundings in an alarming way. I felt like stopping and taking everyone’s pulse and shaking them to make sure they were awake and I was stopped only by the fear that they would react violently in misunderstanding.

Then there came another side, something most noticeable at the heart of the city, but it quickly spread to the rest. It was the immense beauty of this place. An inexplicable, innate attractiveness. Slowly this finely tuned magnificence became almost over weighted with great desolation and eventually even the dirt seemed alive in contradiction.

It all magnified with every step in this sullen city. One by one, every spot I visited became a new beloved and puzzling speck in the world and soon it was impossible to pick a favorite.
I became obsessed with wrapping my brain around this place, but there is not even a clear line from which to start. First I was so in love, complete infatuation, enamored with every jagged little corner, every bright color, every shade of grey. Every shoddy patch job, every patched together coat, every scrapped together monthly income and impromptu kiosk – this whole place for me was patched together in the most inexplicably perfect tetris, and while there was no way to explain why or how it worked, there was a belief that it would work because, somehow, it always had, even when it hadn’t.

Then I was depressed, deeply depressed and angry with every small thing that seemed the antithesis of what I was used to. I thought this was the worst place on earth and whoever had been sentenced here by some sort of divinity was merely passing time until death let them free. I didn’t understand the language and I didn’t want to hear it anymore. Instead of beautifully masking deep emotion it was only curt and loud and jagged and never, never ceasing.

My emotions became intense and my inspiration swelled. This is the loneliest place I have ever been. I don’t know how it is possible. There are 20 million people here, and I think they all walk around completely lonely and alone. But this place is like the great mantra for life. If you are not content by yourself when you get here, and you have an intention of spending any real time here, you must enjoy your own company by the time you leave or you will certainly perish.

Maybe that is the beauty of it all. It is the way it is, and it’s not that there isn’t a way to change it; it’s just that there is no reason for the change. While none of this place seems really appreciated in the sense of the word as I am used to it, life is taken for what it is, and not what you wish it was, what you fancy it may be, or what you remember it being like many, many years ago. I’ve only been in Moscow, so I can’t say, at all, that this is true of all of Russia. But there is something magically content in the angry discontent and premature deepening of creased faces from constant scowling.

I came here to complete an internship and get enough language practice so I can hopefully pass my language proficiency exams at the end of my last year of graduate school. Well… something like that happened. Through my internship I figured out that what I thought I wanted to do is not necessarily what makes me happy. I spoke mostly English while I was here, and did learn a great deal of Russian, but I will still spend a fair amount of time over the next year studying furiously and worrying feverishly about these exams. Instead of accomplishing what I came here to do, I fell hopelessly in love with this country and this moment in time. I made the best friends I’ve made in my life and they made me value every single solitary little piece of my life for just what it is. And then, just as quickly, I lost the same friends to the transitivity this place inspires. It’s a really hard place to be. But if it were easy I’m sure I wouldn’t want anything to do with it.

I learned that it’s ok not to smile all the time. It’s ok to lounge on the grass, stare at people in the metro, and not wear makeup or even put your napkin in your lap. There is something beautiful about being able to walk around completely invisible to all those around you. I learned that all those things I thought I needed are mostly completely unnecessary. Most of all, I learned that no matter how much you appreciate the moment and the place you are in, you cannot take it with you…

And there are lots of things I don’t understand about this place, and there are lots of things that, really, just don’t make any sense at all. Why do you wash and polish the floors of every building and every metro station constantly when they just get dirty 5 seconds later? Why do you wear 5-inch spike heals to go walk on the crooked and uneven bricks at Red Square? Wouldn’t 2-inch heels suffice? Why do you give cigarettes to a 12 year old just shy of the huge anti-smoking campaign posters? Why do you give money to a drunk and then watch them run across the street and buy more booze, and then immediately give money to the next drunk as well? Why don’t you laugh once in a while?

There are a million corners in this perfectly round world, and after overcoming both elation and crocodile tears; I think this corner could, just maybe, be the one for me.
I’m sure when I return home I will have no idea what to do with myself. I don’t think now, after adjusting to all of this gravity, I will know what to do when shot back into space.



I hope you have enjoyed reading these stories as much as I have enjoyed writing them. While not able to capture even the tip of this experience, chronicling some little spots and doing my best to recreate the emotions I’ve actually felt from one adventure to another has felt like a bit of a start. I started this blog project because I knew there would be many requests to hear stories of my trip, stories of such an interesting place, and I knew I would not be able to recount them accurately again and again for each of my dear friends. 12 weeks, 11 stories. In addition to the 33 pages of unedited blog text I ended up with 52 pages of journalled raw feeling from which to draw many, many more stories. So I say to you goodbye from the first My Russian Adventure only in order to move on to the next…

Accordions and Lymph Nodes

Soundtrack – The White Stripes, on shuffle

So, I’m leaving a friend’s house with another friend, heading back to the University area. It’s 12:45, and we are hoping to sneak onto the last metro train car and make the transfer near Red Square and get all the way back across town before the train car stops and the lights turn off and we are stuck somewhere in the middle of the city. My favorite thing in Moscow – the metro – closes at 1:00.

Ok so we are hurrying. I am carrying my purse, which by the end of the day has accumulated enough stuff really to qualify as a suitcase. The thing always ends up weighing around 40 pounds, I kid you not. My friend is carrying a bag as well, maybe half the weight of my bag, but to more than make up for the difference in weight he is also carrying a 50 pound accordion. (He plays the accordion. He often carts it around with him for the entire day, playing when he is so inspired, busking when he is bored.) Seeing as how his total is about, let’s say 70 pounds, and mine is only about 40, I offer to carry his backpack so I don’t have to watch him struggle down the street anymore. He sets down his accordion in order to resituate, (this is a struggle in and of itself) hands me the backpack which I sling over my shoulder, and then hoists the accordion back up on his shoulder. 50 pounds in one quick and jerky movement – it’s 12:53 and we just have a few minutes to walk. The straps of the instrument make it just to the very edge of his right shoulder at the exact same moment when his eyes widen just slightly and a quick but audible sound escapes his throat, with the impact of a champaign cork popping and almost hitting someone in the eye.

Suddenly an extremely unpleasant pain shoots through his body, originating near, just above, and to the left of, his hip. Accordion still sitting near his shoulder but with most of the weight in his hand, his free hand moves to this spot simultaneously with the shooting pain. At this place with the pain, he feels a slight bump about the size of the space between your finger and thumb when you tell someone ‘ok’ with an accompanying hand gesture. I’m thinking huh, maybe carrying heavy things is not a good idea. I look in his eyes, insist on adding his last 50 pounds to my load and ask if he’d like to stop by the emergency room on the way home. He concedes to relinquishing the accordion weight, but says no to the hospital. About 5 steps later he changes his mind after considering my words and all the other concerns trampling softly through his head.

It’s 12:57 and we dash through the metro (well, as much of a dash you can make while one is limping and holding his side and the other is carrying two bags and an accordion.) We are headed straight to the American Clinic (no emergency warrants stumbling into a Russian hospital.) Jumping on one of the last trains, we make one of the last transfers, and limp out of the now closed metro stop at about 1:13 or so. Oh yeah, by the way, it is raining.

In theory we know where we are going. But I’m looking at the map and looking at the street signs and then looking back at the map, and clearly between walking into the metro stop and reaching our destination, my navigation skills and sense of direction have not improved at all.
The biggest charm of the American Clinic is that supposedly these people speak English, so I call for directions. The woman answers in Russian, but alertly for 1:00 in the morning. Curious. I ask her if she speaks English and after her repeating the directions and address in a mix of Russian and English with a heavy Russian accent about 7 times I still have no idea where we are supposed to go.

She asks the situation, I tell her, she asks me if we want to come in. I say um… yes. She asks the problem again and then puts the doctor on the phone with my friend. This is interesting. I’ve never before received such personal attention and interest from an emergency room attendant. My friend limps into a producti to get out of the rain and away from the noise of the traffic. I wait, I wait, I wait. My friend comes back out and says the doctor said he should come in. I’m back on the phone with the receptionist. She is… making me an appointment… for the emergency room. She tells me it is a 15-minute walk from the metro. I hang up, look at my friend who is now hunched over and leaned against a wall, now holding the hurting spot with both hands and looking like he is trying to push the hurt back somewhere into his body.

I check my wallet for change and walk towards the street. The usual. A cab stops, I say 100, he laughs. I say 150, (it is around the block for Christ’s sake) he drives off. Next cab. It’s starting to rain harder. I give the same offer, he says 150, I make sure he knows where he is actually going, (this is a common problem with gypsy cabs and always a necessary question) he confirms and we pile in with my slouched over friend, two bags, and an accordion.

Curiously enough, the driver drives in the exact opposite direction of our destination. Even though my sense of direction leaves everything to be desired, even I know this. I check again and he swears he knows where we are going. We proceed to get completely lost. Right, left, right, right (are we going back to the metro now?), quick stop to ask the miltisia for direction, stopping to read every street sign. It’s raining harder now, and we are farther now from our destination than we were 5 minutes ago.

The lower abdominal pain of my friend is growing and his look is somewhere between wondering if we will ever see our loved ones again and being ready to get out and limp around the neighborhood. Magically, or more likely by accident, we drive by the correct address and I yell at him zdyac zdyac! And hand off the money so he will let us out.

I have my own doubts about whether or not this could be the correct address, but it’s better than driving aimlessly in that car. We are standing in front of a building bearing the correct number, but completely closed off with 10 ft high iron fences that are pointed like spears at the top. The building is dark in parts, and lit just enough so the security guards can find their way around in others. However, there is a monstrously large abstract neon rainbow flashing sign covering the top quarter of the 8-story building, swooping like a curtain hung only in decoration in a formal living room. Well, this could be American Clinic, Russian-style. There is clearly no way in and the guard station is completely dark and closed. I call the receptionist again and after making sure I am the same person who called earlier (does this really matter?) she tells me she will ring the guard and tell him to let us in. Yeah, he is asleep. A light comes on and he buzzes us in, not even leaving his sleeping chair and looking royally pissed that we woke him in the first place. I’m wondering how much they pay this man to sleep in a chair and whether this is full time work and how I can get this job.

We are passed the iron fences and it seems the rest should be simple. But this place is like the Sheremetyevo airport – no coherent instruction or signage or anything anywhere to be seen. Just empty looking, dimly lit buildings with multiple confusing entrances.

So we start on the right and check for open doors into the first building, the farthest from the glowing insanity, because I’m still hoping to god the hospital I am about to entrust with my friend’s care does not double as a private nightclub. I’m wondering why this place says they are 24 hours, whether this is the way they consistently conduct business or whether this is an anomaly and how can this possibly be our best option… The door is unlocked, but the lobby is completely deserted. At least we are out of the rain and there are very nice looking couches on which my friend can writhe in pain if this place turns out to be a sham. We look through minimally lit hallways and stare at shut green doors.

This is all so amazingly complicated that it can only be Russian. In the States, if one found themselves in such a situation that hospital would be sued in like 10 seconds flat for not giving equal and open access while someone slowly and quietly withers towards their demise while trying to make it past security. But this is Russia and everything is completely d.i.y.

After about 10 minutes we find it. Opening the door, it looks kind of like a doctors’ office, but with less room to move about due to the boxes and stacks of things combined with the narrowness of the room – it’s like they set up shop temporarily in another hallway. The receptionist looks at us like she doesn’t know why we are there, big surprise. I remind her of our phone conversation, but she doesn’t really respond. I then prompt her for the usual procedural niceties… forms, payment, etc. and she gives us a few papers and tells us the cost of the visit, making sure that we know this is an upfront cost. We start pooling our money, but after putting it on the counter she says no not yet, and tells us to sit and wait for the doctor on chairs that are nowhere to be seen. She gestures towards the other side of the desk just behind a stack of boxes where two chairs are placed side-by-side. We sit in the ‘lobby’ for a few minutes scribbling vague information on pieces of paper, which they clearly will not read, and soon a middle-aged man in white with a stethoscope comes and asks us, wishingly, in Russian, if we speak the language.

My friend, let me tell you a bit more about him. He courageously came to this crumbling, hostile, major metropolitan area in order to learn Russian, yet not understanding a single stroke of the Cyrillic alphabet when his plane touched down one month ago. So at this point in his studies… he can order a beer.

He heads back towards the receptionist area with the doctor with a look of disquietness overpowered by defeat. Opposite the receptionist desk, about 7 ft from the counter, behind yet another green door, there is an examination room. The doctor is speaking in Russian as they head back. I’m staring down at the accordion and thinking if there is anything I can rifle through my bag to find to keep from just looking blankly at nothing and worrying about my friend. There is nothing, but I do it anyway. They close the green door behind them.

About 7 minutes later my friend returns and I hear the doctor saying as they exit that he is going to call the doctor and talk to him about this condition. What!?! Isn’t this guy supposed to be the doctor? Ok so what, the real doctor leaves the fake doctor, perhaps the janitor who was absent from the darkened hallways, a stethoscope and some white clothing and says to call him if anything actually happens? Maybe they just set up a website listing themselves as an ‘American Clinic,’ as a front for god knows what and this explains why they were so shocked and unprepared when we actually wanted to come in? Good god.

We hear him speaking briefly on the phone to some other person who seems unhappily disturbed. The man in the white coat comes back and tells us that the doctor said everything is ok and that maybe we should come back in the morning for some blood work. Wow. What a fantastically helpful diagnosis. He heads back towards the desk and moves between an office and the receptionist and gives her some instructions. I sit in confusion bordering on horror, but my friend insists it is ok and just wants to leave. We pay these people in white and walk back out into the blank hallways.

So I am, as you must be by now, asking what happened in that room. Apparently there was a bit of coughing, some glove snapping, a bit of pushing on the protrusion, and then some half-Russian, half-English advice in which the ‘doctor’ told my friend that it must be a swollen lymph node and not to worry too much because he himself had walked around with a similar condition for 5 years before it just went away on its own. Ahhh the brilliance of this place is astounding.

It’s 2:30 am and it is pouring rain. We are looking back at the 70-ft to the gate, at the dark security stand, and to the huge puddles in the street beyond that. We slump down on those nice couches and take note of the fact that we could, most likely, sleep there in this empty lobby for the night and no one would be the wiser. Eventually I head back to the least helpful ‘doctors’ office on the planet and ask the receptionist to call a cab. Where healing people is not their forte, arranging transportation they can do. She says to wait at the entrance 30 minutes for the cab driver to show up and then pay 400 rubles to get back to the university.

The cab driver shows up and we groan at the idea of running back through the pouring rain on the one day I forgot my umbrella, in order to get out to the car. Sighing deeply, we run over and knock on the security stand door for him to let us back out. Man this guy is a heavy sleeper. In fact, for all we know he died in there, ironically in front of a ‘hospital clinic,’ because he never answered the door. The gates do not open from the inside and as there was seemingly no way in, there does not seem either to be a way out. As do many adventures in Moscow, the experience spirals further into the supremely bizarre. We end up escaping the only way we can see possible – we climb the 10 ft iron fence near the security guard stand, which finally made itself useful by providing a foothold by which we could get enough leverage to hoist ourselves over. (This can’t be good for a lower abdominal protrusion. Sorry, swollen lymph node.)

My friend goes over first, then my bag, then his bag, then the accordion, then me. Pouring rain. Not a peep from the guard or any ‘hospital’ staff. (Of course.) It’s like we are supposed to feel bad for disturbing the whole operation and it is for this disruption that we have actually paid. It is an interesting strategy for keeping healthcare costs at a minimum, and in combination with fierce prayer that you will not get sick, perhaps it actually works. I did emerge from all of this with some advice. Don’t ever, ever, ever get sick in Russia. If you do, take a shot of vodka and get back in bed. If that doesn’t work, take another shot. Either that or prepare for the carefully constructed obstacle course that lies before you if you choose to seek medical attention. This is the strategy of many of the older generation and it is clearly visible to me, in this moment, why that is.

What Moscow Wants

Soundtrack – Iron and Wine, Our Endless Numbered Days

Metro Statistics: First stop – Park Kulturi – completed in 1935, May. 1985, November, 2.5 billion passengers carried annually. 1987, December, 2.6 billion passengers annually. From 1935-1995 more than 86 billion passengers carried. The Moscow metro has been using smart cards since 1998. Calculation for last 13.5 years – 2008=3.3bil/year… so… let’s say 5 years at 3 bil, 4 years at 3.1, 2 years at 3.2, 3 years at 3.3, then 2 bil for last .5 year (little more than half a year at this point.) Ok then, so if you add this all up you get 45.7 bil for the last 13.5 years + 86 bil for the preceding 60 years – 131.7 bil… hmm, well it’s an ok guess anyway.

Today I saw a man texting on two cell phones at once.

Everyday I ride the Moscow metro, red line, line number one, aptly named – the first line completed in 1935. In 1935, the metro carried 2.5 billion passengers annually. Today the Metro carries a maximum of 9.5 million passengers a day. Between then and now, somewhere around 131.7 billion passengers have ridden the metro, not counting the skinny legged, stubborn, and slightly drunken teenagers who jump the turnstiles everyday while the middle-aged matronly uniformed attendants yell after them, maladoy chelovek! Come back here! All the while never moving one inch off their seats and barely turning their heads from the monitors displaying every possible move from every angle of the metro station. (Oh to see the barrage of hairstyles that have jumped those turnstiles over the years…) Like most public transportation systems, the Moscow metro is a perfect microcosm of the place it transports.

Needless to say, that besides being hot, stuffy, and unnervingly close to the core of the globe, the Moscow Metro is one of my most favorite places on earth.

What has fascinated me from the day I got here is figuring out just what it is, exactly, that Moscow wants. Just why it is going so fast and pushing you always through the doors and cramming 1000 people or more up one escalator at one time, only to ride back down again on a matching escalator at the other end of a long corridor in order to get to the correct part of the station to go through the flurry all over.

Moscow does not want to wait for you while you count out exact change, read directional signs, or cross the street. Moscow walks by 15 of those old babushkas everyday and never once stops to think of what they were like when they were young, back when they had money to live on and hope and if nothing else the charm and beauty of youth. Moscow will let a drunken man, well-dressed even, stumble out into oncoming traffic, cross the street (barely) and then try to hail a cab by pointing to a dog on the sidewalk. In this fair city you can feel the weight of history all around you in the never-ending layers of grime and dirt and you cannot separate the pollution from the politics as it fills your lungs and squeezes you from within.

The City of Self Will. Beautiful women. Maybe the most beautiful women on earth. Flawless appearances. Lips, hair, legs, nails, fashion… even the imperfections are deliberate. It isn’t judging you, although at first it appears to be studying your every move, stance, stare, and seat choice on the metro. This City is not staring at you, it is just staring blankly and thinking only of itself. It does not want to hear your story or learn what you can do for it - it can do for itself. Moscow just wants you to get out of its way. It does not care about what it promised you last night, even if it does remember what it said, that is irrelevant now. The important thing is what it wants at this little teeny tiny eternally important and then immediately forgotten instant in time.

There is not only a huge separation between everyday life and politics, but a huge, vast separation between every single individual life and every other, walking the streets, riding the line, or holing up in the thousands of hive-like apartment complexes and waiting for the endless day to just end already. And it’s like grabbing water – most of the time the strategy to get what you want seems to be about forcing those infamous pegs into their non-fitting holes.

I’m pretty convinced at this point it would take a lifetime of sitting in coffee shops, parks, and on that metro to figure out exactly the answers to my questions. Every time I look at someone with deepening lines on their foreheads and skin rapidly losing elasticity I have to stop and think about what they have seen in their lifetimes. This country, this city, has seen an incredible and deeply influential amount of history, and whether these people recognize the significance and encompassing daily impact of the their past as it radiates up from their grime is a question that sits on the front part of my brain nearly constantly. Does this even cross Moscow’s mind? Or is it numb even to gravity after years and years of drinking and forgetting to cope?

It is my favorite question to ask myself. And yes I understand that asking myself questions about other people is not nearly as effective as asking them these questions.

People rush everywhere all over the world in metro systems just like this one. Cities all over the world are dirty and grimy and have beautiful women living in them. I asked a Russian once if they thought Moscow and Russia were European places or not. This is kind of a big question, a bit of a sensitive question, and certainly a very philosophical question. I was told that it is not European, and it is not definitively anything else, say, anything perhaps more likened to Eastern culture. Not East, not West. It is Russian. I was told that, “Yes, it is dirty and lots of places are dirty, but this is our dirt, it is dirty in our way. The buildings are beautiful in our way.” Likewise the women are beautiful in their way. The men are staggering in their way. The babushkas are selling flowers and fruit and begging in their way. And the metro reflects this accurately as it spins round and round in a particular way. The darkness rolls over this place with just as much particularity as the day, which lights it once again. And it feels like the dynamic of a large family. The people within it may hate each other and find their actions in the context of one another deplorable. They may argue about what they are and what they want and who gets what amongst themselves, but when you talk to someone else, someone on the outside, you defend your family fiercely and completely. Even down to the dirt and grime.

The Night I Met Moskva

Soundtrack – My friend playing the accordion.

The thing is, in Moscow you can drink in public. And on each and every corner near the busiest metro stops there are 1-4 beer/candy/cigarette stands.

One Tuesday night in particular, my friend and I decided to head to the metro stop near the Tretyakov gallery and do some people watching. I had been told by another friend, a local, on another tour of the Red Square area, that there were questionable characters hanging around this metro stop 24 hours a day and that I had to be careful in that area – of course I went there again as soon as possible.

We exited the metro, glanced around for one second, and headed for the stand with the widest selection. Baltika 9 was our first choice. Let me tell you about Baltika 9. It is the darkest of the Baltikas, it costs 30 rubles (about one dollar) for a large can (shameful size for any social beer drinker in the U.S.), it is surprisingly tasty, and it has an eight percent alcohol content. Not bad for a Tuesday. We popped the top and headed for the nearest McDonalds for a wall against which to lean, and watched the endless parade of Moscow’s finest. We were momentarily endlessly amused by the rastas, punks, Goths, business people, hippies, drunks, and the Russian women who looked like prostitutes, (but of course were not), who were mulling around and arguing or looking for drugs or wandering aimlessly while on a first date or trying to figure out which way to go on the metro. Some of these people mulled longer than others and consequently some stuck in our field of vision a bit.

So we were leaning against this McDonalds and speaking English without shame and creating somewhat of a scene as budding English speakers gathered nearby and as nonchalantly as possible tried to overhear our conversation and make sense of our words, when this cute, but very drunk, girl came to ask us for 5 rubles. She had very short blonde hair, traditional skinhead dress, but in that very awkward, teenage, I-don’t-know-what-it-is-I’m-really-doing sort of way, clear blue eyes, slightly crossed from drunkenness, and a white rat with red eyes. Although we gave the typical I don’t understand or speak Russian excuse, she was determined, and somewhat belligerently drunk, and insisted on the 5 rubles. Slightly annoyed and intrigued my friend looked at the rat and dug in his pocket for the money. Glancing down as his line of vision fell with the movement of his hand to his pocket, he noticed that this 16 or 17 or 15 year old girl had outlined on her calf, in light-brown, a huge tattoo of a stylized swastika. It’s a shocking and confusing thing to see on anyone. Before he could even open his mouth to ask about the tattoo he noticed another seemingly anti-Semitic permanent marking on the inside of her wrist. He put the rubles back in his pocket and asked if she was a fascist, first in English and then trying to modify his words to some Russian hybrid she might understand. She was very confused and upset that the rubles had been put away, and called over her friend who spoke some English.

Her friend was not as cross-eyed, but was equally drunk and she demanded to know what was going on. We had seen this girl earlier in the evening more than once and both times I had almost commented on her but then didn’t. She had pale skin, and dark eyes accentuated with darker eye makeup. When she was asking politely for rubles the smile that crossed her face was full of slightly-rotted teeth, small and brownish and more telling of her lifestyle than the rest of her, which was still young and completely superficially yet unharmed.  She had on the usual and even cliché punk gear – plaid pants tucked into black boots decorated with suspenders hanging from the waistband. She had on some kind of unimportant black t-shirt and threw over the top of it all a nice black leather jacket that had been decorated impeccably with metal spikes that were meant to replicate an armor of some sort, but instead just bent to one side when punched because they were attached to soft coat leather as opposed to armor metal. Her nails were longer and there was evidence they had been painted at one time. She had earrings and I’m sure more than one but I can’t right now recall how many, and she had this amazing 8-inch high bi-hawk that showed no signs of falling. Telling of its evolution, her hair was black then fading to bleach-white-blonde then fading to bright orange. (You know, any hairstyle that sticks straight up like that, especially more than 5-inches, also falls flat after sleeping or showers or long days of spare changing. I always have to stop and picture the person with this same hairstyle after it has fallen and how it might look long and normal-ish if they’d not stuck it straight up in the air with egg whites or hairspray or glue or peanut butter or whatever they argue is the best product to use to make their hair stand on end.) In short, we met Moskva.

The drunken fascist girl who swore she was not a fascist quickly explained in slurred Russian to our new more tolerant looking friend what was the situation. After a long ‘uhhhh’ followed by a quick pause the girl with the bi-hawk told us in very broken English that this girl with the swastika on her leg was not a fascist or a Nazi or a racist but that those symbols were also linked to the idea of ‘many gods.’ We found it to be a highly unfortunate for her that she was also wearing some semblance of traditional skinhead wear, making her claim seem quite improbable. Our new friend was trying to compare it to different racially and religiously related movements in the states and we finally came to an agreement that what this girl had permanently drawn on her leg as a stupid child had something to do with reclaiming the swastika for its’ original meaning and being against racial prejudice like the American “SHARP” movement. Ok, whatever. The now non-fascist girl was really clearly upset that we thought she was racist and once she found out a couple of key phrases to the effect she yelled them over and over and stomped her foot for emphasis. She yelled that she was not a fascist or a racist or a Nazi or a skinhead, and at some of those words she looked teary with frustration. There were lots of other words exchanged about race and nationalism and at that point in time my friend was convinced enough to give the girl the 5 rubles.

Somewhere between our petting her rat and talking to her about American anti-establishment movements (thank you to high-school freshman rebellion for a proper punk rock education) this girl decided that my friend and I were American punks. She said in the most stereotypical Russian accent you can possibly imagine, and I quote, “You American punks? We real Russian punks. You drink with us!” Well of course we will! How do you pass up an opportunity like this? My friend asked the girl with the bi-hawk her name and while I’m not sure what we expected to hear, we certainly didn’t expect to hear her let out a pretty and non-caustic name like Katya.

So Katya told us to wait there by the McDonalds while she went and got some money to drink. She and her non-skinhead friend immediately dispersed out into the mulling people and while we couldn’t hear what they were saying we could see them holding out their little cupped hands and smiling at strangers.  My friend and I had a brief discussion about what was to take place the rest of the night, I took quick stock of what I had on me, what I had to lose, and then we went and bought another couple of Baltika 9s for ourselves, and one for Katya.

Eventually both of them returned, bringing with them one, or was it two, more of these real Russian punks. One that I remember clearly, but whose name I have forgotten, was a slightly tallish, mild looking guy with a leather jacket similar to Katya’s this time tagged with various sayings and American punk bands’ names, all in English. His English was quite broken as well, and in fact limited mostly to the words displayed on his jacket. He said some things to me in Russian and then said over and over, “Dead Kennedys!” I said back to him, da, da, ya znayoo, and recited some lyrics that made him smile and cry out in delight. So we set off to drink with Katya and her friends, the real Russian punks. Mostly they repeated the phrases they knew to us again and again while we commented to ourselves during the pauses in their questions. As we walked we were continually stopped by people sitting on the curb or atop a low wall, as they yelled out “Moskva!” Although not the name her parents gave her, clearly, this was how she was addressed during the day.

We stopped periodically so Katya, I mean Moskva, could point out some of the sights. We headed past the gallery and up over the bridge with the lock trees, towards the large statue at the other end, where there were many similar looking people gathered and talking or not, standing or not, and staring at the ground looking like they had that same feeling of spinning that occurs when one lies down at night after a long night of drinking. Moskva was showing us her Moscow, her Russia, and I have to tell you, it was the exact same Moscow that every other Russian points out proudly when taking you on a tour through this area. The only difference was probably a slightly higher blood alcohol level and the rampant nationalism in her speech. Moskva told us that she was born and had grown up in Moscow, that she would never move. She explained to us how she never pays for anything, how she only asks people for money and that is how she pays for everything. Not only did this young girl have fairly un-dirtied looking plaid pants and a new-seeming leather jacket, she had a cell phone, which struck us both as really kind of odd. When the drunken non-skinhead, non-fascist blonde girl stopped to forcefully kiss the mild mannered tallish boy, Moskva told us about the squat where they lived and invited my friend to live with them whenever he needed to. I suppose the passionate kissing was a farewell, because immediately after, the girl with suspenders peeled off without saying goodbye.

We made our way to the statue with all of the rest of the young real Russian punks and Moskva started introducing us as her American punk friends – “real American punks.” (The image of American punks suffered badly that night.) Most people looked wholly unimpressed, and perhaps annoyed that she had brought us for introductions at all. We did meet and speak with one or two of the others gathered around the statue, one of which invited my friend to hitchhike with them the following day to the Black Sea. After finishing another Baltika 9, (let me tell you this is not a good idea at all) I really had to use the restroom, and Moskva was proud to show me where the pay toilets were free after a certain hour, while my friend was making his plans to head South with these kids, which of course would never come true.

Once our novelty in this part of the park had worn off, Moskva suggested that we head back over the bridge and back to the metro and maybe find a few more friends along the way. She taught us a few slang words and a few curse words and together we stumbled back to the metro. By the time we got back Katya was ready for another beer and veered off to the right of the station to ask for more change. Her blonde friend was already back sitting with a new group of kids, the same ones that called out to Moskva as she walked by. We stopped and looked around a bit, discussing the time and whether or not we wanted to continue on and meet the next group, but before we could decide, Katya had disappeared deep into conversation with this new gathering of people. We walked near to say dasvidanya and she barely looked our direction. We continued our speculations about what her squat must be like and where it must be located and how did she ever make enough asking for change to buy that leather jacket… and we got on the metro having seen another perspective on the same, touristy spots of Moscow that every Muscovite loves to show.

No, I Don’t Want An Ambulance

Soundtrack – Tori Amos, Strange Little Girls (Yes, really.)

I’m looking at the sign and I’m not clear about where to go. On the phone with my friend I ask: How well do you know this metro? If I tell you the choices of stops can you tell me which line I should take? Oh god I am going to be late again and I will miss everything and I have to hurry and get down this escalator and get on the right train and make the right transfer and I cannot make a mistake or I will be late…

Devushka.

Devushka.

You fell. You had a seizure. Instant and complete fear shooting straight through every vein in my body. How is it even possible to understand these words in Russian? But I can always tell when waking in absolute confusion and disorientation and fright. I always know what has happened and the feeling of the injuries to my tongue as I check to make sure it is all still there always confirm my worst suspicions.

Do you speak Russian? Um, um, tolka chute chute.

Dokumenti! This is another voice. A distinctly militsia voice. How is it possible to tell this as well?

I am a doctor. Do you have your passport? This is in English. Um, um, (think brain, think brain, think.) Yes. Passport, passport, passport. Dig, dig, dig. Here it is.

Shto tvoya imya? Um, imya. What is this. Last name? Um, Sabia.

Sabia, you had a seizure. Where am I? You are in the metro station Evropayskya. You fell. Ok. Long pause, careful examination of my passport. Oh no please let me go. Please let it be enough. Passport handed back. Can you walk? Um, yes. (No.) Three men, maybe a woman as well, help me up. One is wearing a white collared shirt and darker pants. He is not Russian but he speaks in Russian. He speaks very little English. He is the doctor. He says he is a doctor to keep the fear metastasizing in every bone in my body from creeping upwards and completely taking over my brain. To keep me from screaming out in fright. To make me stop struggling violently and yet completely without power. I cannot move. I can barely move. He is very kind and stopped to help even though he did not in any way have to. I want to cry. I cannot cry. Oh my god how do I hold this back. I have to pretend that everything is normal and ok. I cannot let them know that I am hurt at all if I do happen to be hurt. I cannot let them take me with them. Blue uniform, unnecessarily large hat, young, young man. Militsia. Paramedics. They have just arrived. They come towards me with some kind of toolbox and I look down and look all around. What can I do? I am slouched against the dull yellow tiled wall. Someone propped me there. They pull the entirety of my weight up off the filthy metro ground. My hand hurts, my leg hurts, my head hurts. I think I lose consciousness again while being dragged up the steps.

Sabia, Sabia, can you walk? Is there anyone you can call? Was this in Russian or in English? This was in survival language.

Bright, bright sunlight. Are people looking? Are people staring?

Ambulance! No! No! No! No! No! This is me in both English and Russian. My heart is racing. No I am fine, no ambulance. Violent struggling reaction shooting straight through my veins from the violent, scared reaction in my brain. Never go in a Russian ambulance. These are the only words I can remember. Someone told me this once. Never go to a Russian hospital. You will be lost there. No. No. No. No I’m fine, I’m fine. More Russian getting louder and louder and louder. Sabia! Finally, English. Dragged by both arms, pushed from behind, getting closer to the ambulance, primal fear.

Blood pressure!

Blood pressure!

I look into this ambulance and see a woman, the woman. Blonde hair, skirt, sitting stoically and waiting for them to get me inside. Maybe she is not my enemy. There is a chair. If they try to shut the door maybe I can get out? Give up. Surrender. Sit in the chair. Maybe she will not hurt me. What can I do? Blood pressure cuff. Oh, blood pressure. This is an ambulance? Two chairs?

Where did these people come from?

Sabia. Call, someone. Phone, phone, phone, phone. My friend, my friend can help me. Embassy.

He will tell them no. Ok. Scroll through phone. Friend. Push send. Friend, I had a seizure, I am at the metro, they want to take me to the hospital and I don’t want to go. Please don’t let them take me. Please come and get me. Please tell them. Please make them think it is ok. Hand phone to doctor. Ohn gavorite pa-Russki? Da. Quick conversation that I don’t understand. Doctor who is on his day off, coming or going from the mall, seemingly by himself but maybe there is his family? Why did he stop? My friend - he is on his way. This is in Russian but I think I understand and I can’t imagine that anything else would happen in this moment. I think he is close by, I think he can come, but I don’t know for sure. They won’t leave me. Can the ambulance leave? Yes, yes! Please leave!

It’s just me and the unbelievably kind doctor who stopped when he did not have to, and the militsia. If the militsia were going to do something beyond yell dokumenti at me they would have done it by now, I think. They look bored. We are all looking around for my friend. Where is he? Can’t he get here faster? How did this happen… there are just a few too many moments in which time my brain can just go and go and go around again.

Oh dear. My language, my brain, my injuries. Are there any? I feel my head. Oh my tongue. It is really bad. They can’t understand me. My voice. Where is my voice? It is there, kind of. This is why they are yelling. To get me to speak louder. To get me to overcome my tongue. Apparently more things are happening but they are in survival adrenaline mode and immediately after I cannot at all remember them. It is quiet now for a long, long time. There is no conversation and I just focus on everything appearing normal. Nothing is wrong. Nothing is wrong. Nothing is wrong I swear.

My friend is here. I can walk, I can leave, I have to pretend, at least, so they let me go. I am fine, this happens all the time, I will not cry, I will not flip out, I take deep breaths and try not to think at all. My friend is here and it is much harder not to cry when a friendly face appears. I am so disoriented and afraid. Is this your friend? Do you recognize him? Da. Militisia disappears. Doctor says ok Sabia, goodbye. We say thank you thank you thank you thank you. There are not enough thank yous for this man. He walks away as though he has just come from the underground hole where the metro stops to let people on and off. He looks around like he is just deciding what entrance to walk through to enter the mall. He acts completely normal and barely says goodbye. This stranger who just saved me, just made me safe. This person I don’t know who I now trust implicitly, he walks away like he doesn’t even know me…

I walk down part of a block and notice more people looking, only those who saw some semblance of something happening and stayed to look on for a minute. They are starting to move away but are still looking. Just look down, just don’t cry. Thank god I am not alone. Even though I am alone. Part of another block, then another black out.

I recognize a store, then black out.

I am in an elevator, then black out.

I am laying in a bed. Black out for hours. My tongue hurts. Lisa is there now and will take care of me. Did I go to her or did she come to me? We aren’t in the same place where I blacked out last. Matt is there. How did they get there? How did I get there? I need something cold. Some ice. Anything. I can’t talk my tongue is so swollen and bloody and numb in my mouth.

This will last for a while.

I am walking into Lisa’s house. I am ok. I don’t need to cry. I have surrendered to another seizure, which will interrupt and seemingly destroy my life for the next two weeks to a month. I will not in any way remember this week. This whole entire week in which I will do many memorable things and walk around in wonder in this beautiful amazing place where I have always wanted to be, where I am so proud to be, and I will not remember one single bit of it.

I have no idea what time it is, but I will sleep now for hours and hours and hours. Seemingly days. My tongue will hurt and be numb for more than a week. I will have to talk out of some strange side of my mouth and try not to talk at all so people do not know the difference. I will not remember anything I learn in that week and everything else I have learned while I’m here will be very hard to match up with the rest of the thoughts in my brain. There will be huge gaps where information and memories were stored away and I will struggle and struggle and be so frustrated to not be able to simply remember any of it. Is it more frustrating to be alone and afraid, or more frustrating to just be frustrated with not being able to retain information, understand, learn, remember.

It doesn’t matter.

I’m sure I had dreams but I don’t know what they were. I’m sure they were violent and matching nearly exactly the kinds of feelings I had that last day in the metro.

And none of this is easy. It should be over, my tongue and bruises and memory should just heal and then I’m healed. I am weak minded to not be able to just let this go and move on. I am making it up. But I shake, almost physically, when entering the metro the next time, and the time after that, and the time after that. Every time I enter the metro now my body prepares to struggle away from their arms. I have to take really deep breaths and think about not crying. Think not about being alone and afraid and almost, almost completely powerless over my surroundings without the advantage of language and being overcome with the frustration of not moving about how I would like. It happened the way it did. Everything is now ok. I cannot think about these things anymore. I have to just think about something else. I think all the time about what that must have looked like, how people must have reacted or not reacted, how lucky I am to not have taken those last three paces onto the escalator, how fortunate to be lost in the metro just before I was to get on the train, to not be on the escalator when I had that seizure…I am remembering it to be more scary than it was. It was nothing. I have to stop thinking about it. I have to move on. I have to stop talking about it. It has to be like it didn’t happen. I have to stop remembering it. Stop.

Why Stay In When You Could Go Out?

Soundtrack – Stereo Maracana, Combatente

By now, my fair reader, you must be wondering about the famous, riotous Moscow nightlife – especially knowing me.  I have yet to post anything about that because, while it is famously interesting and fantastic, it is not the most striking thing Moscow has to offer. That said…

In Moscow you can find anything you’d like. You can eat sushi every night of the week, be it in a high-class restaurant or a coffee house. You can find 3 and 4 tiered dance clubs playing house, trance, pop, rock, hip-hop – every kind of music. My favorite part is that in nearly all of these you can find a man in a colorful hat who will bring you a hookah in every imaginable flavor, (kalyan po-russki) which you can sit and smoke while watching the endless parade of nonsense swirling at a dizzying pace around you.

You are more likely to find yourself in an exclusive spot, sitting at a reserved table with excellent service if you travel with a local – somewhere with huge, comfy, high backed couches, unnaturally tall tables, mirrored walls, low ceilings, perfect lighting enhancing the already cleverly designed look of it all, sweet music that is seemingly composed only to be played in this space, and beautiful waitresses who will bring you brilliant drinks until well past the sun has come up. (If, however, you are looking for a vodka or whisky with soda water, or some other simple drink, forget it. Soda water, and simplicity for that matter, does not exist in Russia.)

You can accidentally find your own rarity, usually after giving up on your initial evening plans either because you are lost, or tired of traveling. At this point you could even find yourself in a large warehouse with hundreds of people dancing to the beat of a famous dj (who, admittedly, you have never heard of.) One time, this warehouse also housed a bowling alley and billiards hall, and was encircled with full bars and attentive bartenders (this truly was a find!)

There are more chill places in Moscow, of course. Perhaps an unassuming coffee shop and bookstore that on the spur of the moment converts to a music venue and features an awkward, yet true, Russian reggae band in bright tie-dyed smocks with a variety of percussive instruments and a smooth and melodic Russian voice. It is possible to wind your way through a typical looking, empty nightclub/bar in the early evening and find yourself in a magical rooftop café, painted all white, and with lofted platforms, hammocks, deliberately placed sheer white panels hanging from floor to ceiling yet concealing nothing, small café tables and a variety of mattresses, pillows, and low tables on which to recline and chat and sip wine and eat cheese. These sorts of places you can only find by accident, usually when walking the exact wrong way from your search of some other destination.

There are also loud and smoky bars and clubs with music in varying shades of the obnoxious, familiar, distorted, and adored. Just as in the States it will take you 5-15 minutes to get a drink, including the time spent shouting your order at the bartender. The only difference here – the necessity of approaching the bar armed with a back-up drink order for when the bartender does not understand either your Russian or how to make the item you are ordering. (Nine times out of ten you end up with a beer for just this reason.) The guys that pick you up in these bars are markedly different. They don’t want your phone number or the chance to take you home that night, they want your email written carefully in their iphone so they can email with you and practice their English via the world wide web– very unnerving.

You find these places everywhere you least expect them. Up winding staircases, in basements at the bottom of dilapidated brick steps, sharing the building with a grocery store, or even, sometimes, past the three guards who will check, not your ID, but your attire before letting you enter. Upon entry, they, (the clubs) without fail, explode and then completely disorient you with a tangle of tables and benches encased with blacked-out windows to keep you from running for the metro when the sun comes up unnaturally early. They will consume you for as long or as little as you’d like, and usually only become tedious when the smoke or music is too much to handle.

It is interesting. I find the people watching to be much like that in the U.S., but with much shorter skirts, longer eyelashes, and higher heels. Any and all avoided public displays of affection in the States have been saved up and shipped abroad in order that they take place in Moscow. Incidentally, the men say the women are all prostitutes, and the women say the men are all underhanded scum, but they fight for each other’s attention all the same.

And the moral of the story of Moscow nightlife – wherever you go, you will not end up where you planned. When you get there you won’t know where you are, when you exit you won’t know what time it is or the direction of your house, if you have intended to go home. At some point you are guaranteed to find yourself at the mercy of the night. The best strategy at that point – cross your fingers, shrug your shoulders, and give in. I have yet to have a bad night in Moscow. And I imagine that if I felt one creeping up I would just switch it out for something more suitable to my tastes. It isn’t just what you make it, it is anything you want it to be.

Checkmate

Soundtrack, RATATAT, Ratatat

So it’s Friday night and I decide to leave school early so I can run a few errands and make it home in time to get some laundry done, eat some dinner, and take a nap before heading out. When I walked in the door with some groceries my host asked me (as she has become accustomed to doing) if I was going out to a bar with friends tonight. (This is always my stock answer, having a limited vocabulary, and she began to make fun of me for this about a week ago.) I said – to her surprise – that I didn’t know and I would be home at least for a while. I was in the bathroom mid first-Russian-hand-washing-of-the-clothes experience and trying to figure out how to get the last of the soap out of my jeans and there was a knock on the door. I was a bit surprised, and opened the door cautiously to find a tallish man, about my age, with dark hair pulled back in a ponytail and the beginnings of a moustache. He had absolutely no qualms about beckoning me from the bathroom with a knock followed by a sullen expression. I had never seen or heard of him before, and he introduced himself as Valode. He then said something to me in Russian that I could only gather was some kind of invitation. I heard from the kitchen, Maria calling me and inviting me in.

In the kitchen on the table there was this beautiful cake, three cups of tea and three plates. Valode was inviting me to join them for his birthday.

We sat and ate this very strange, but very good, cake that was layered with a peanut flavored frosting and this really yummy styrofoam-like pastry. And we talked about… dun dun duh dah! Politics!! This was a new kind of political conversation though. Valode said he had met many American men, but never an American girl, and he wanted to know my opinion of everything. I was asked how I felt about Obama (good or bad) and then both of them listed everything they thought was wrong with American politics. 1) Americans are not smart about the decisions they make and we have no sense of having real history, (my host being a history professor, this is something I have heard more than once.) 2) Americans have global control. 3) We don’t have any real strategy when it comes to international relations. Then I was asked what I thought was the fourth thing wrong with American politics… um… hmm… I love being put on the spot when people know that you are studying international relations. Especially when they know that you are in graduate school to study it. Not only do they want to know your opinion, but they have stacked every single question to set you up for failure. It’s a game really. “Well, this person is supposed to know everything about everything in the history of international relations (not true) so I’m going to stump them and then they can see I know more than they do.” Try playing this game in Russian… it’s even better. I mumbled something about our last president as my easy-out fourth choice (you can’t imagine how hard it is to explain these things with the vocabulary of a fourth grader). I then turned the tables and finally asked my host what she thought of Obama and Bush and American politics. She started talking about democracy and how once there was democracy and now there is not. How now people really have no choice, even though they think they do have a choice and that their votes don’t really count. Besides all of that, she said, the real power does not lie with the president, it is with all of the people working behind him. At this point I was actually a little confused as to whose politics she was discussing, and I was surprised to hear this was the way she felt about the United States.

The night goes on.

So back to Americans not having a sense of strategy globally. Valode says this is because we do not study chess when we are children. This is number 4, that Americans do not know how to play chess. He asked me if I know how to play chess. I do understand the basics of the game, but not wanting to invite another challenge to my intelligence and the intelligence of all Americans, I say no. And then it is settled. We are going to play chess and he is going to teach me. So on an unassuming Friday night, I learned the “classic” strategy of chess… in Russian! There was very little help from a dictionary. We played out all kinds of strategies and spoke literally maybe five English words all night. Two of these were something that he learned somewhere else – “cool move.” Every time I would make a good move he would say, “cool move,” slowly and in a very heavy Russian accent. And every time I was getting myself into trouble he would say ehhhh… I did have some help from my host, but in the end, much to Valode’s dismay, I won. (A secret victory for America.)

Valode then asked if I would like to watch a film with them (I think). He had been asking me all night who was my favorite actor, what was my favorite movie, etc. etc. For some reason in translation it was determined that my favorite movie was Capote (not exactly true) and they decided to download the film from the internet. I keep forgetting that you can do literally anything you want in Russia. I mean, generally with all offenses, in theory you could get caught, but then it is just really a matter of bribing the official to get out of it. My host, a very respectable woman, was telling me about these programs she has installed on her computer that allow her to download films for free. In fact, this is what she had been doing all night when I thought she was just obsessively checking email. She was explaining the technical process of downloading the films (in Russian – I have to keep reminding you of this) and asking me if I understood what she was saying. I told her I really couldn’t be sure that I was understanding, but in fact I was.
Something that is really pretty illegal in the States, something you can actually get in trouble for (everyone knows someone who knows someone who has been caught) is very streamlined and common here. I should have guessed that from the hundreds of bootlegged film vendors that set up shop on the sidewalks every day, but hey, I’m slow.

Soon Valode left (with a gentlemanly kiss on the hand and some more Russian that I just for some reason could not for the life of me understand) and my host and I began this longish conversation (at one in the morning) about international film and literature and what it was like when the Soviet Union fell and the world opened up to all kinds of cultural experiences that had been banned for decades, and were now suddenly bursting out of everywhere. She explained that this is why free media on the internet is so popular and important here because a free exchange of media and ideas was so forbidden for so long. What an interesting juxtaposition to go from a world that was completely closed, where the United States looked like a bastion of free culture, to one where thoughts and ideas are exchanged so freely and on principal really, making the United States look like such a strictly censored regime by comparison. I have always had a very authoritarian impression of Russia… and, well… you know what they say about books and their covers.

Metro and Militsia. - My first day of school.

Soundtrack – Au Revoir Simone, The Bird of Music

The thing is, no matter where you are going, at what time of day, with or without the most seemingly thorough directions, you will get lost in Moscow. I just plan in extra ‘getting lost’ time now every time I travel. But the first day of school, my second day in the city, was one of my more hectic and anxious experiences, completely lacking any sense of direction and totally at the mercy of this frantic organ that is the transportation system of Moscow.

I live only one metro stop from the university, where I am taking Russian classes for the summer. I’m about a ten-minute walk from my metro stop. After getting off the metro at the university I have only to cross the street and walk about the equivalent of 3-4 blocks through campus to get to class. Just to be sure, the girl who also helped me register my visa and get my student ID, walked me through the entire travel scenario just one day before. I walk out of the house thinking, sweet… Moscow. I’m checking out the sun and the great variety of people walking to work, walking home from a night out, trying to sell you bread and scarves and flowers and cab rides, handing you flyers about a sushi restaurant or a new clothing shop or a strip club, trying to sell you religious books, and begging for money while crossing themselves repeatedly or propping up missing limbs to evoke pity. Everyone around me is trying to elicit some emotional response as I take it all in and fall into stride with my soundtrack.

I navigate all of the signs to get into the metro and down the stairs and headed in the right direction and I see that there is a train already waiting there at the platform. I pick up my pace to make it onto the train before the doors close. Did I say close? I mean slam shut almost in hopes to catch some bit of clothing that the train can then steal from you. There are, incidentally, many things in Moscow, mostly related to the metro, that can close sharply on you and with a lot of force, leaving initiation marks and bruises.

I almost made it. There is a warning before the doors slam shut, but I was not at all accustomed to listening for it and even so did not have a prayer of understanding the announcement. I slipped in, the doors shut, and I turned to make sure nothing was stuck, already knowing that my purse was caught. Just as I turned a nice gentleman grabbed my bag to help me pull it out. (Turns out people are very accustomed to helping others pull various things out of these ridiculously unforgiving doors.) I was, of course, quite flustered and said to him (in English) thank you. Just as I was beginning the accompanying thank you glance, the train lurched forward and I was thrown back, literally on top of this guy. I had reached out for the handle near the door and missed it by a matter of centimeters. He was standing against the backdoor of the train car, and so luckily did not fall, but I was completely off balance and made full body contact before he could help me to my feet. I was then, of course, frantically grabbing for the handle near the door so I could stand myself up again and at the same time muttering thank you and excuse me and I’m so sorry, which made the perfect segue into staring in the complete opposite direction with a bright red and sweaty face, pretending that nothing had happened and thanking god I only had to go one metro stop.

Ok. I’m getting off the train. I’m flustered (especially because this was his stop as well) but somehow I wander out of the metro station on the correct side of the street and going in the correct direction. Things look familiar. I think I spot the street I have to cross. I’m recounting the directions given to me a day earlier and breathing deeply and starting to hook back into my soundtrack.

The thing about campus is that all the buildings look the same. Condemned-looking and with old Soviet emblems and signs that I thought would be telling markings when I saw them for the first time. I did, however, find the building. I pulled out my student ID in anticipation for the document check, and I even remembered which door I was to enter. Then I got into the entryway and saw panel after panel of slightly tinted windows banded with wood across the middle in the fashion of a handle. I remembered the first door was all the way to the right, and the second door was all the way to the left, with about 40 feet in between them. For some reason here all the doors are single entry, meaning that all traffic, in and out, must flow through a door that is one person wide. Under the watchful eye of the security guard I had a 50/50 chance that I would pick the correct panel and avoid the more extensive questioning and document check. There was no one coming or going for me to just follow in so I picked a panel and pushed on it. Then I pulled on it. I thought oh shit, I came to the wrong door, wait, maybe I came to the wrong building! And the security guard pointed to an adjacent panel and motioned for me to come through.

Of course my documents were checked. I was told my first day on the campus to never get stopped by these guys – or anyone in uniform for that matter. They will maybe hassle you or at worst question you and hold your ID. (These student ID things are like gold by the way.) The guy asked me some basic questions, which I (remarkably) could understand and respond to. Then he asked me what department I was studying in, and I said Russian Studies, which was where I was headed. I even explained to him that this was my first day. He told me that on my ID it said that I was with the Foreign Languages department and that was in another building, therefore meaning I had no right to be in this building.

At this point he is holding my student ID and speaking with increasing pace and volume and I, already flustered by barely making it there in the first place, start to stammer and speak with a horrible American accent and look around at other students, the majority of whom pass me by with little more than a glance. Finally a nice Russian guy, who spoke enough English to ask me what was wrong, stopped to watch the questioning and then interject on my behalf. Apparently he just raised his tone to meet the guard’s and told him it was none of his business and that I was a student and allowed to go into any of the buildings. I didn’t understand any of what was going on at this point. I had once again been thrust, full contact, upon the mercy of a random stranger who I could barely thank properly. The Russian guy explained to me what the guy was saying and showed me to my class, and added a little commentary about what people in uniform do and do not have the right to do.

The moral of the story. Don’t hop onto trains hoping to slip in before the doors close. It turns out these trains run literally every two minutes, sometimes sooner, and even when in a hurry there is no reason to rush train entry. And never, never get stopped to have your documents checked. These people truly do not speak any English whatsoever, and when flustered, I really think a native English speaker’s default is probably English. Any hint of an accent is a sign of weakness and they move in for the kill. This is not an exaggeration. I’ve since found that the best policy whenever you see someone in uniform is to look mean and walk fast. Flash documents and look offended if their glance lingers too long. Mmmm…

Politics in Moscow

Soundtrack – Владимир Высоцкий

Here are the questions that Russians will ask you. (Immediately upon meeting you and in this order.) 1) Where are you from? (meaning you and your extended family) 2) What are you doing here? 3) Do you like Moscow? 4) Are you a democrat or a republican AND Do you like Obama? Russians for some reason are remarkably fascinated with American politics, more so even than their own. Even now, even after the election and inauguration are over, people want to know where you stand. If you say you are a republican they ask you if you like George Bush. If you say you are a democrat they look at you suspiciously and say – ‘are you a liberal?’ in a slow, drawn-out sort of way, emphatically pronouncing each syllable of ‘liberal’ and even adding an additional syllable – just to be Russian. Explaining to them that you are neither or that you prefer a third party or no party is like telling them you would like a decaffeinated drink – it makes no sense to them whatsoever. All of this, incidentally, winds up in a conversation about race and racism in America.

One day I was studying in my room with the door shut and I didn’t hear that a guest had arrived. I came out to go make some tea in the kitchen and Maria, my host, was sitting at the kitchen table with her friend, Natalia. When I walked in I explained that I didn’t want to interrupt, I just wanted to make some tea real quick and get back to studying. Natalia insisted (!) that I try some of this Georgian cheese that her mother-in-law had made, and before I could even think about turning it down she handed me a thick slice on some brown bread. Natalia was a very tall, blonde woman with shorter hair and lots of makeup. She was quite fashionable in a way that is only believably fashionable in Moscow, with lots of gold jewelry and long painted nails. She had a loud and commanding voice that made me think, more than once, what an experience it must be to be married to such a woman. She insisted that I sit.

While I was eating she started in with this line of typical Russian questioning. She did throw in a slightly out of the ordinary question about my family and where they live, my answers to which brought her attention to the fact that my parents live in Texas. Natalia was trying to ask me something about Texas that I couldn’t quite understand and then she said quite loudly, in order to clarify, – Marlboros! (bringing two fingers to her lips to indicate smoking a cigarette) Cowboys! (pretending to ride a horse and lasso something) Hats! (saying this in russian but gesturing to indicate the space a cowboy hat might take up on her head) George Bush! (emphatically thrusting forward both hands) She used this as her segue into Obama.

You may or may not know this, but there are certain words here, pertaining to race, which are unspokenly, absolutely forbidden to use in the States, but in Russia are not only perfectly acceptable, but they are literally the only Russian words used when talking about such topics. All Russians want to know how we (Americans) feel about having a black man as a president. Truly that is the crux of all their questioning. And they don’t know the words ‘African-American.’ And “black” in reference to people means something entirely different here. “Black” in Russia means any foreigner, any non-Russian. And it doesn’t matter if your family has lived here for 6 generations, if you’re your family is not “Russian” since the beginning of time, you are part of this underclass that everyone accepts as just a normal part of life. And so Armenians, Kazaks, Uzbeks, (insert any ethnonational identity), are “black people.” This presents a huge problem in the Russian mind and so they use that word we just don’t even say, when talking about our President. I’m taken aback every time I hear it and I have to explain over and over why they just shouldn’t use that word, especially when speaking about American politics and history.

Race is a huge issue here. Everyone wants to know immediately where your family is from, and then they want to talk about your heritage and its place in their heartfelt myth of Russian supremacy.

And they want to know what it is like to have a ----r as a president. It is so completely wrong all over again, every time I hear it, I can’t even tell you. Forget the fact that Obama is truly a remarkable and dynamic leader who has changed the lives of millions of Americans and given new hope to the vast majority of an entire generation… let’s reduce it to a high-contrast discussion of race.

Maria’s friend continued on, asking me about where different colors of people live in my country, and isn’t racism a problem only in the South? Maria, thankfully, has been to the states and is quite a bit more understanding of our politics, and was able to help me explain to Natalia a bit more about the reality of race in the United States.

This woman, Natalia, then asked me what I wanted to do with my degree, would I work in politics or in a foreign embassy? I said no, neither of those was very appealing. Apparently those were the only two careers she could come up with because next she said, not completely without earnest, was I a spy??

Nearing this point in the conversation the kitchen had become entirely too smoky and the cheese and bread (and bewildering conversation) had nearly run out. She and Maria headed out into the entryway so Natalia could do what she had come to do – cut Maria’s hair.

There are Different Names for the Same Things – My first 24 hours. (Looking back)

Soundtrack – Radiohead, In Rainbows

The ride from the airport was so perfectly Russian I could hardly believe it. The driver was smoking nearly the whole time, the van was like an 80-something model with a gear shifter like a semi-truck and I’m pretty sure one or more of those gears were missing. There were random things glued to the dashboard and other random things (like religious icons and Disney characters) hanging from other places. And even though he was like 65, he played Russian pop/dance music. He had on a tank top (t-shirt with the sleeves ripped off) and a gold chain… if I didn’t know that he was hired specifically to pick me up there is no way in the world I ever would have got into a car with him.

My very first impression of Moscow was that I couldn’t believe how dirty and industrial and maybe even third world it felt. I mean this is an international, cosmopolitan city. It may not be renowned for its cleanliness, but it is strikingly filthy in many parts. The roads are absolutely awful. People have to slow down on the freeway to avoid losing parts of their car in huge holes or cracks. There are no lines on many of the roads… it was one of those points in life where you just have to take a big breath and say to yourself – ‘Alright! Let’s do this thing!’ Knowing full well that you have no earthly clue what ‘this thing’ is.

I was smiling the entire ride. True, I was pretty sleep deprived, and it isn’t very Russian to smile so I definitely fought it, but despite the ominous drive to town, I just couldn’t help but smile and say to myself, wow – Moscow!

We got to my host family’s house off of Prospekt Vernadskovo…

I am told it is a very prestigious part of town. Maybe it is the run down neighborhood just on the outskirts of a very prestigious part of town… the immediate area surrounding the house is all trees – thick like a forest with an uneven alternating dirt and concrete path, and is strikingly beautiful and peaceful juxtaposed with the 8 lanes of traffic bordering the green oasis. And there are walkways and some alley-like streets and parking lots that double as sidewalks that wind between the buildings. These are real, honest-to-god Soviet era buildings. In the states they would absolutely be condemned. It’s tough to say if they were ever modern and new, or if they were intentionally constructed in this way. The outside is a mismatched conglomeration of building materials, and the balconies are easily identifiable by the corrugated steel siding. Inside the lobby the mismatched floor tiles shift and clink under your feet, the plaster is peeling off the walls (not in a chic way), and the elevator gives you reason to shift your eyes skyward in gratitude every time you make it safely to your floor. Interestingly, the mailboxes have keys, but you can see right into them and know what it is your neighbors received that day. The elevator call button is placed immediately next to an identical button connected to a speaker/microphone where you call for help. (Don’t ever mix those two up.) And there is a very old, larger-sized woman with white, white hair, few teeth, and a brightly colored house apron, who stares you down whenever you enter or exit the building. She has decorated the lobby with a kitchen table covered in a piece of plastic, a few mismatched chairs, a couch, and a wall of houseplants. She also dragged her television into the lobby, the viewing of which she only takes a break from to track your brisk movement as you walk past her and mumble hello. It is quite cozy.

Our apartment is at the very end of the hall. The hallway walls are hospital-scrubs-green and those same clinky tiles from the lobby don the floor. The apartment doors are all covered in quilted fake brown leather with decorative gold buttons that were at one time probably evenly spaced in a diamond shaped pattern. There are various items outside people’s doorways, mostly really dirty doormats or towels doubling as doormats, but also an occasional small wooden structure of some sort. The lighting is a bright, though intermittent, fluorescent, casting an eerie, unnatural glow to the whole thing.

I am living with a professor of political science and history. She has somewhat recently published a book about politics in Moscow. Her twenty-year-old daughter lives here with her and attends university on full scholarship. The apartment is three rooms – a living room and two bedrooms. There is also one of those corrugated steel balconies, which actually makes the space much bigger seeming. The flooring throughout most of the house is a trashed wooden parquet that is pulling up from the ground in spots. The walls are lined with stained plywood cabinets and pealing wallpaper. All of it has been covered up with lots of pictures of my host when she was young or pictures of her daughter or her friend’s children. There are pictures of places visited, outdated maps of various countries, random scribbles and childhood graffiti, and other things that make my host family smile. There are piles of newspapers and books everywhere. The walls of the toilet are constructed with the same plywood walls as the cabinets, but have been painted white and are scrawled with things like “Ne Kuryu” (No smoking) and “Garfield” and “Don’t Worry, Be Hippy.” Technically the toilet works, but there is no lid on the tank and you have to both pull and then push this pin inside the tank to get it to flush. The adjacent bathroom is tiled – bright blue with a matching sink and tub. It also doubles as a laundry room (yes I cannot wait to hand wash all my clothing) and to make it just a bit more heroic to use, the sink does not work.

I could go on and on and on… the point is that in this modern, international, cosmopolitan city, everywhere you look you can still see Soviet influence, just like what you imagined it to be when you were a kid. The authority is still heavily felt, and in some places much heavier than others. Where I am living my bed is on the floor and it isn’t actually a bed. It is a fold-open couch kind of thing so there is a big slope towards the middle with a crack at the bottom. There are no shades on the windows so when it is bright as day at 4am I’m struggling to keep blankets over my head. There is a fridge but no freezer. There is hot water (!!!) but no one knows for how long. There are two pots in the kitchen, one with a handle. There is a huge basket of like 85 dirty potatoes next to the dorm-sized fridge. There is an old fashioned hand-crank sewing machine. The furniture is decades old and will probably never be replaced…

…but there is something really beautiful about it. As soon as I started unpacking and looking around the room, the first thing I thought was – we (in the States) have way too much money. I mean seriously this place is absolutely falling apart, but has everything that you need. My room has this amazing view of treetops (and a huge glowing Gasprom sign – lest I forget I am in Russia.) I wake up in the morning and have this really awesome Turkish coffee and Greek yogurt. I study lying on this mattress and looking out the big windows at the sky with a perfect temperature breeze blowing through my room. (And constant, noisy traffic whizzing by.) Living in this dilapidated building does leave something to be desired. But there is also something very subtly fulfilling about this place. At times I feel like I can almost understand why Russians get defensive of and semi-nostalgic for a Soviet past. I miss frozen food and real news and reliable internet and a bed and enough hangers for my clothes and all of those things. I think there definitely two Moscow’s. And being here in this city of two worlds is giving me a chance to learn a bit more about another way of getting along just fine. There is the very-fast-paced-everyone-running-around-in-high-heels-and-glamour-amidst-trash-and-grime, City, and then there is the City where people live where they have always lived, the way they have always lived, the way they always will live, for decades. Although something more exists right next door to them, they watch whatever passes them by, they have however many teeth they have, and they live, somewhat unquestioningly, in a world in which there seems little room to challenge. They believe whatever they have been told about themselves in both Moscow’s. Fast paced and glamorous with Prada and Lamborghinis and hedonistic debauchery, or communal and collectivist and grey, with random bits of red and yellow and weathered pictures of happy memories, the entirety of it illuminated with the purple-blue glow of a far-off oil company’s success – there is truly a status-quo feeling of ‘it just is what it is and that is all it will ever be.’

The Flight - Why not begin at the beginning?

When you fly in the United States, there are strict rules about what you can and cannot do on a flight. And if you cross onto the wrong side they let you know. And people listen. “Do not form a line by the bathroom.” “Take your seats.” Fasten your seatbelt.” “Your carryon is too large, you will have to check it at the gate.”

When a domestic airline flies to Russia the flight attendants are just trying to avoid major conflict and make it through the flight. The woman boarding the flight in front of me had, I think, five carryons including one stuffed shopping bag topped off with a globe. That’s right, a spherical representation of the planet. An odd sized carryon to say the least. (And I’m still confused as to why someone traveling from NYC back to Moscow would think this is a must-have. But whatever.) While I waited patiently for her to get out of the aisle she pushed and prodded all five packages, and a globe, into various overhead bins. No one seemed to find this frustrating; some nice young gentleman just helped her shove it into one of the overhead bins. The stewardess then brought to her seat her four cartons of duty-free Marlboros. She was a snorer for the rest of the flight, except for when she woke up to purchase more goods during the duty-free in-flight shopping portion of the flight.

So you are stuck in a plane, in a small, uncomfortable seat, for 10 hours. I couldn’t think of a better time to just get completely hammered. At least this was the theory of the man sitting next to me. There were a few of them on the flight: his friend in front of me, and two of his friends behind me. He was a jolly fellow to begin with, spoke no English but smiled politely and spoke cordially with the man sitting on the other side. When the flight attendants began the in-flight beverage service he ordered tomato juice, which always makes me think – ‘well what a good, health conscious individual!’ No. They had apparently purchased a large bottle of vodka in the duty free shop before boarding the plane. They all ordered tomato juice and water, quickly drinking the water in order to split the juice between two cups, then passing the cups to the man next to me who would take out this bottle of vodka, stashed under his coat, and fill the rest of the glass and pass it back. Eventually they also broke out the Heineken to supplement their operation because, after all, vodka without beer is like throwing money to the wind.

The announcements on this flight had a distinctively different tone than those on domestic U.S. flights. They went something like this, “Um, please take your seats. Please. In the United States it is illegal to stand and talk in the aisle ways and we would request, if possible, that you observe this rule on this flight as well, please.” This announcement was of course in both English and Russian and was usually followed by some pleading of the flight attendant with the particular chatty kathy who was only trying to pick up a girl or relive the best moments of the trip with a dear friend. All announcements were, of course, ignored.

Sleeping was a joke because the geniuses at Delta put touch screen tvs on the back of the headrests of all the seats. Russians have a really hard time with touch screens. The idea of “touch” is totally lost on them. It is more like poke-with-force screens. Incidentally the technology does not respond to this kind of usage. Usually being smacked repeatedly in the back of the head lulls me right to sleep. I’m not sure what happened here.

Eventually I gave up and joined the Russians for a drink and took the opportunity to practice my Russian. When in Rome…