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.