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.