The day we departed from Athens, we picked up our requisite gyros and descended into the marble sheen of the metro. Pairs of tiny Greek children, each no more than twenty pounds, weave through the passengers, one playing an accordion (really quite well) and the other with a hand out. We were departing Europe. Though Russia has one foot firmly planted in both Europe and Asia, geographically it spans the entire Asian continent. It hosts the Asia-Pacific Conferences. Chicken scratch border lines reach like fingers into Kazakhstan, Mongolia and its furthest eastern border is with Korea. Our layover was to be in Riga, Latvia.
Most airports don't open the check-in desks for certain flights until two hour before the flight. Though frustrating, especially given most will suggest you should be at the airport three hours ahead of your boarding time, I understand that it cuts down on labor costs and unnecessary periods of 'doing f*** all'. But when the prompters tell you that you can check in at your gate at a certain time and thusly you arrive at the check in desk at that time along with about fifty other people all under the same impression and proceed to squat on your luggage for about twenty-five minutes past said check in time waiting for any perky ponytail'd check in attendant to grace the desk with their presence, you start to get a little testy. Testy enough that you get a little impatient just recounting the story a month later on your blog. It's a sad state of affairs. Even sadder when said perky ponytail'd desk attendant calls in IT support three -COUNT 'EM, THREE- times to fix some kind of ticket tape malfunction and all the monogrammed luggage travellers start to mutter beneath their breaths about 'how ridiculous' and 'can you imagine'. My luggage may not be monogrammed but I am humble enough to admit that I may have been among those muttering, though mine were along the lines of "this is SO going on the blog."
We finally checked in and headed through security, at which point the security guard who checked my luggage actually neatly repacked my entire bag for me in the manner in which I had packed it despite telling him that he really didn't have to. The Athens Airport is really a mixed bag. We bought a bag of M&M's for four dollars and sat to wait for our gate to open, which we did with about as much optimism as we had previously exuded waiting for our check in desk.
One thing I will mention about discount travel is that you often can get great deals booking with several different discount travel websites to facilitate your own transfers and connections. The only problem you can potentially run into when you do this is that you may have connections that are rather…tight. This was our dilemma flying to Riga. Our flight to catch from Riga to Moscow was about an hour, which at the time of booking seemed like plenty. But when you board ten minutes late and taxi for an additional twenty minutes longer than you expected, that hour gets eaten up fairly quickly. I felt like that person Louis C.K talks about (link) who bitches about all the waiting and fails to understand that they are going to FLY THROUGH THE AIR. Once landed in Riga, we raced off the tarmac and up to the Visa Check Point. They were already paging us from the departure gate. I grinned as wide as I could at the Visa officer -which made me look NOTHING like my Visa photo- to endear her to not ask me any questions. Our names were fuzzy over the PA again. I gestured towards the ceiling, towards the sound. She handed my passport and boarding card and I RAN. I got to the boarding gate announcing at an unnecessary decibel that "MY HUSBAND IS JUST *pant* AT VISA CONTROL." Wide-eyed, they scanned my boarding card and gestured through the door. Back out on the tarmac, the turbines were already spinning. Running up to the plane, I felt like James friggin Bond. My hair blowing all over the place, I glanced back to see Moozh racing out after me. I raised my passport triumphantly, right past the stairs. Backtracking, I alighted the stairs and thrust my boarding card at the enquiring flight attendant. Exhilarating? Perhaps. All I could think was, 'one of these days were are going to run and we are not going to catch it."
Landing in Moscow, blanketed in the dark of night, was like descending upon a childhood dream. The heavy cloud pushed apart like curtains. We could see nothing but lights, the streetlights and billboards running like irregular rivets along the seams of the city. Landing at Sheremetyevo, I knew that the easiest part of the commute to Russia was over. There was still Passport control, there was the commute into the city, and then there was the navigation from the train station to our AirBnb reservation all in a country where I have the vocabulary of a four-year-old. To say I speak the language would be to say I studied the language for a year at University. Which is to say I am pretty much useless for all intensive purposes. I can say "I own an old black car" or "I find the writings of Dostoyevsky interesting" but I cannot readily say, "Help", "I need an ambulance" or "That's a f***ing rip off" all of which I would say are musts for an informed traveler when travelling in a foreign country.
This is where I will reiterate, as I have previously, my strange but unwavering love for Russia. This is where I will also say I think Russia is the most paranoid country in the world. I'm sure there is some sociological explanation for this but no rationale makes it any less totally unnecessary. I said my requisite "Zdrasvutye" (or 'hello') to the Visa Official. It was 1130 at night so she seemed less than concerned about my threat to National Security. Moozh, however, who was thoroughly bearded when he had his Visa photo taken had a bit of a time convincing his Visa officer. But let's be honest, we've all seen Moozh's face. That is a face made for schmoozing.We were held up for reasons I still don't understand at the doors leading to the Train into Moscow. A rather short security who was still adhering to the uniform guidelines behind the Iron Curtain, gestured lazily but with enough force with his billy stick that we took a step back. All I could understand was 'pyat minyoot'. Five minutes. He made us fully aware that he would let at least five and a half go by simply because he was in charge and he was Russian and we weren't. The Russian passengers seemed less willing to accept his authority.
Train ride down, navigation in pitch black to go. Our walk from the train station was supposed to be simple. I had numerous maps at the ready and Svetlana had included directions from the train station to her place in the booking details. Neither of them mentioned anything about the expanse of construction that had enveloped our planned route of travel. Hopping over construction pylons and squinting through the meagre night light at the road signs and having to sound them out like a second-grader added time to our arrival as well as the fact that our Airbnb booking was tucked in a cluster of soviet-era high rises. In the daytime, it would have been no sweat. But when you've already been yelling at each other for the ten minutes you've been walking and it's pitch black outside, you have a bit of a harder time keeping your chin up. Svetlana, the sweetest person I think I have ever encountered, greeted us sleepily at the door once we figured everything out. A quick "lights-on-lights-off" tour of the apartment, she handed us our keys and told us she'd give us the full rundown the next morning. The next day, she gave us directions, advice on where to eat and what to see as well as introduced us to her ten-year-old daughter Nika, who was just on her way off to school. Moozh fell in love with Nika. She was witty, polite with big, wet brown eyes like saucers. Her English was nearly as good as ours which she made clear as she marched off to take the metro to fourth grade all on her own.
The Moscow we woke up to was ceaselessly sunny, with the perfect crispness of fall. A forty minute walk took us down the trendy Tverskaya Street, past famous statues of Pushkin and Prince Yuri Dolgorukiy, the founder of Moscow. Moscow is not a place you get things cheap. Svetlana had offered us her coffee and the use of her coffee press but we also wanted coffee we could wander with in the crisp air. We found that at Coffee House, the local coffee chain, you could get a black drip coffee for $7, with the price climbing for more elaborate versions. Starbucks -STARBUCKS!- was the next cheapest option and even Starbucks couldn't do better than that. Culinary highlights in a country not particularly known for its culinary contributions can be uninspring. And Russia is actually known more for negatively affecting the food culture of the regions it is occupying. But diamonds in the rough are out there and sometimes take strange forms. One such highlight, strangely enough, came in the form of Teremok, a blini chain. Their coffee comes out of a packet, the cream in powder form, but the blinis are fresh and made when you order. The fillings are what you would expect. The cherry filling I had was everything you would expect from Kirsch, cloyingly sweet with cherries plumb with juice. In Russia, the three largest chains are McDonald's, KFC and Starbucks. Behind that is Teremok, and it is a point of defiant pride is Russia. Something home grown, something special. The idea that I could order for us in Russian was slightly thrilling, slightly terrifying. In retrospect, I would have made just as much sense if I had just spoken English. There were a lot of "uh..uh..dva -no it needs to be genitive -fuck. I don't remember." After what I felt was enough stammering, I just lifted two fingers and pointed to things on the menu.
BUT I KNEW HOW TO SAY THANK YOU.
BOOM.
Blinis. Cheese and Ham. Kirsch. We scarfed down with as much Western delicacy as we could two blinis and took our coffees to walk.
I didn't grow up in "The Commies are coming-hide under your desk to save you from nuclear attack" social psyche that my parents did. Russia was at first, a magical distraction from life in the form of a snowy musical animated movie about a lost princess and her discovery of her identity through her independence. It was the story of a Tsar and his Tsarina, a genuine love story in the midst of a country going down in flames. It had mystery. It had all the aspects of the debased potential of humans and yet a small glimmer of the beauty and simplicity of goodness. Next it was the study of a country with very little to distract from the depressing history that ruled it from the time serfs popped out of the ground and began to be oppressed and turn potatoes into vodka and beets into Borscht. Lastly, it was the exhilaration that seemed to come with being called a communist in high school, the secrecy of the Iron Curtain and the autonomy of political opinion. There was Dostoyevsky and his Idiot. Anna Karenina, the first conflicted protagonist I enjoyed not liking. There was something magnetic about the harshness of the life, and consequently, how bright the gems shone in the midst of it. There was something about the snow, the the cyclical nature of their history, the expanse of the explosion when everything broke down. Nothing was subtle, nothing was understated. I loved olive drab, I loved twill. I loved their monarchy, I loved their communism. I loved how their history was so large and yet seemed so distant from the history I was learning.
Walking into Red Square my knees went weak. I actually dropped my coffee. In Russian, 'red' is pronounced 'krasnaya' which is the same word for 'beautiful'. "The Reds", the blood red flag of the USSR, it all makes sense doesn't it. Where the correlation began, I'm not sure but I'm sure there is plenty of blood in the history of Russia to make some sense out of it. The State Museum guards the Northern gate in uniform red brick, dull almost like suede. T The Kremlin, more rife with psychological presence than a uniquely physical one, runs along the entire West side, buffeted only by the Moskva River. Partway down the square, a large, stacked red marble Mausoleum contains the embalmed remains of Lenin, who can be viewed at most times during the year. Across the square is GUM (pronounced "goom"), a massive luxury shopping mall. At the far South end of the square, past the temporary grandstands, opposite more construction, sits St. Basil's Cathedral.
l The colours are unlike even what you see in photos and on a clear day it looks more like a toy than a building. The French Diplomat Marquis de Custine described it to have "the scales of a golden fish, the enamelled skin of a serpent, the changeful hues of the lizard, the glossy rose and azure of the pigeon's neck." He wondered how men "could go to worship God in this box of confectionary work". Wandering through the interior, voices with music that made you wonder whether they were in your head, and whether you were dying, began to float through the air. Climbing the narrow red brick stairs, you enter the choral chambers within one of the domes where a men's vocal group performs traditional Eastern Orthodox hymns throughout the day. Otherwordly music, that with the clean light and musty air of the inner domes, made you want to slide down a wall and sit for hours with tears in your eyes. Most everything in Russia feels hard, most likely because life was hard, getting anything done seemed hard. But Red Square is a strangely ornate and colourful deviation from the norm.
Around the corner is what used to be called the Lenin State Library of the USSR, which was renamed the Russian State Library after, you know, all that awkward Commie stuff was resolved. What should be a large, resplendent statue of Dostoyevsky sits in the courtyard. What is instead there, is a statue of Dostoyevsky covered in pigeon poop. The offending pigeons are everywhere.
I patted Fyodor's toe. "I'm sorry you are covered in bird shit, Man. You deserve better."
"You also deserve better translations of your work," Moozh quipped from behind.
I glanced up at the statue's face, which is probably a reasonably accurate face for Dostoyevsky. "Yeah, I'm sorry for that too."
The next day we set aside for the Kremlin, which is truly a massive complex of government buildings, armouries, cathedrals and churches. The Tsar Cannon, never shot, was cast as a gift for the presiding Tsar in 1586. The Tsar Bell is still considered to be the largest in the world, even having been cast in the late 1700's. St. Ivan's Bell Tower takes you up into the top of the cathedral to overlook the entirety of the Kremlin. In the distance you can count some of Stalin's Seven Sisters. You can see Gorky Park and are blinded by the gilded domes of The Church of Christ Our Saviour. We walked through cathedrals where Tsars, from Ivan the Terrible to Alexander I are buried. Cathedrals where they were crowned and married. Tsarina Alexandra, the last Tsarina of Russia, had fur trim on her wedding dress, a fact that so strangely stuck with me, exemplified Russia and immediately came to mind when we stepped inside. Much of the Kremlin, because it is still functional for government purposes, is off limits for tourists. You get enough of the fisheye from scrawny Russian soldiers that you get the idea that even looking in the direction of somewhere off limits is no good.
GUM was, according to numerous sources, a must-see, even if you're not a shopper. I am not a shopper but GUM is so massive and glittery you can hardly believe it until you get up close. There was even a small model of a fighter jet inside as part of a perfume promotion. Every brand imaginable is contained within those walls. Luxury markets where you can buy 25g tins of caviar for a billion dollars, expensive scotches, exotic fruit, artisanal coffees and wheels of cheese the size of tractor tires. You can buy a pair of Manolo Blahnik's for $475 upstairs and then wander downstairs and for a dollar get a glass of kvass, a Russian alcoholic drink made from fermented beets or fruit. Moozh was not a fan.
There is a small Ukrainian restaurant, that is on the Awkward Family Photos side of gimmicky. All the waitstaff wear traditional Ukranian garb and there is a 'fire', of the red cellophane and flashlight variety, by the front door to keep you "warm" as you wait for a table. Though we had tried to stay away from chain restaurants and tourist gimmicks since we had been travelling it had been hard to find something uniquely 'regional' in Russia as far as food goes, especially in Moscow. Everything was international. Everything was the new "asian fusion concept" or sit down burger joints. So we grabbed a table at Korchma and had some of the most delicious perogies and cabbage rolls we've ever had along with some tasty rye and black bread and Ukrainian spring water.
Descending into the metro, you feel like you should start seeing magma. Criss crossing metro lines, you descend level upon level of escalators so steep they should have seatbelts.The Moscow Metro stations were by far the most beautiful stations that we had seen. In Germany they were very clean. In France, they were quirky, beautifully tiled but run down. In Rome, they smelled like sulphur and were empty. The Moscow Metro stations are polished marble, with old Soviet brass engravings or large art deco pendant lamps emitting a diffused glow. You get the occasional veneer wood paneling, so prolific during the productive 1970's seemingly everywhere in the Western world.
Way back when I met Moozh, I was expressing a desire to become a vodka connoisseur. A friend that I worked with had told me a story where she and some friends invented Scotch Tobogganing, where before each run you would take a swig and then slide to the bottom of the hill. She said it became infinitely more fun with each run and what would be more fun than vodka tobogganing. I agreed it probably would but it also kind of sounded like a recipe for fun-related death. When Moozh and I were in Victoria, we did our first vodka tasting. It was impromptu and at one of our favourite pubs in town with a friend who worked as a waitress there as our guide and enabler. When we came to Russia, I knew I needed to get some vodka but I wanted it to be something more than Stolichnaya. I really like Stoli but I also keep it in my freezer and drink it with cheap tonic. While I had to make a decision between a few local brands that were supposed to be good, I eventually decided on Zelonaya Marka, or Green Mark. It's mellow as vodkas go, with a slight citrus taste. We cuddled in our warm bed and sipped Green Mark while we watched a movie. It seemed to be a consummate fall Russian experience.
Our last day in Moscow was a day of quirk. The first stop was an immense church right on the Moskva River, the Church of Christ Our Savior, formerly A Swimming Pool. The story of the church is interesting. It was an important church during the autocracy but then when the Communists took power, they demolished the church and turned it into a swimming pool. Once the communist regime fell, they rebuilt the church to exactly what it had looked like before. No photos were allowed on the inside, Moozh wasn't allowed in with shorts on and my purse was turned inside out by the security guard. Inside was swathes of ethereal pinks and greens, large gold leaf filigree gates, hand painted frescoes of ikons the size of a parking lot. I realized once it was too late to fix it, that I was sandwiched in the line not of the tourists but of the congregation, moving as a herd towards the large ikon at the front of the church. I remember someone, somewhere telling me that the Eastern Orthodox genuflect the opposite direction of Catholics. So was it right first? Or left? Spectacles, testicles, watch, wallet…where did I learn that? Why couldn't I remember? I conspicuously studied the way the women in front of me did but consciously decided to not lay a giant bouquet of sunflower in front of the ikon or lay prostrate and kiss the floor in front of the priest. I hurried out of the cue and past other tourists who were standing respectfully on the other side of the velvet rope. A couple of soldiers, and I mean soldiers -full-camo-get-up-and-semi-automatic-rifle-soldiers- eyed me as I skittered away to the front doors. Something told me that I was going to get stopped. Or shot. This is what Russia does to you.
From the cathedral we headed to Gorky Park. Russians have an inordinate affliction for parks. Any Russian person I have ever met has vouched for that fact. In any country you go to, if you sit in their parks, you will find Russians. (I tried this experiment and I did, in fact, find Russians.) Russians also have an inordinate affliction for homegrown authors. I lost count of the amount of Pushkin statues I came across. Gorky Park is named after Maxim Gorky, a Russian author and political activist who ran in the circle of Anton Chekhov and Leo Tolstoy. Gorky Park is a 300 acre park that sprawls along the south side of the Moskva River. Musically synchronized fountains, large beanbag chairs, paddle boats, a wind tunnel. Bean bags the size of moving trucks. To call Gorky Park simply a part seems a bit simplistic. It used to have an amusement park replete with a roller coaster, a mock-up of the Space Shuttle Program and a ride in the form of Mt. Rushmore. In 2011, the rides were dismantled and the park turned into an eco-destination. They have free wifi, local farmers markets and are in the process of installing a 'cafe program'.
From there we wandered upriver slightly to Fallen Monument Park. When the communist regime fell in the early 90's, after the citizens had triumphantly pulled down the statues emblematic of the 'old ways', the statues were collected and kept in an abandoned park for posterity. It was a smart move and to wander through now offers a glimpse into the visual landscape of the communist world. The garden has a strange feeling, like walking through a ghost town or a an empty shopping mall. It feels like you are seeing a toy turned off. Busts and statues of Lenin are everywhere. Something about him is quietly beloved even after everything. From what I can gather, it's like Lenin was the mind behind the revolution, the mind behind grabbing a different future for yourself. The rest of the leaders, Stalin, Brezhnev, Kruschev, were where the plan, the ideal kind of came off the rails. There are very few statues of any of the other leaders. One of Brezhnev with his bushy eyebrows; an iconic statue of Stalin, standing tall, with his nose broken off. But old bureaucratic statues are only the beginning. Many conceptual statues, some a proud declaration of the communist ideals and the Soviet identity, some a protest against the hollowness and brutality. One, simply named "Gulag" is a maze of faces behind a prison gate. One of Einstein and Bors, caricature-like and almost Hirschfield-ian, smoking their pipes is tucked away in a garden near a shack that now sells hand carvings out of old logs. Such has been the re-gentrification of Russia, the transformation of something too integral to the social fabric to simply do away with, but too entrenched in the 'old ways' to be of any real use. Turn it into an art project. At least, then people can enjoy it in a tongue-in-cheek way.
We found some ways to kill time. Hopping on and off at metro stations to snap photos. Me trying out something simple -something I learned in Russian class- like buying things from the grocery store turned out to be mildly embarrassing and thoroughly humbling. Who knew buying a box of Q-tips and two peaches could be so hard to facilitate and I'm sorry -do I-what? Oh a bag. No, no thank you. Life is difficult.
Popping up at the Manezhnaya Metro, we wandered back into Red Square just as the sun was setting. It became larger than life, just as the Eiffel Tower, though nothing in Red Square had struggled to command attention at any point before. GUM transformed into a beam of light. Cafes set out wrought iron tables and chairs. A jazz vocalist scatted through a microphone over the quieting square. All that sits south of St. Basil's disappeared with the sunset, the cathedral remaining to sit like a sprouted plant.
Find a cozy fall (or winter) day. Russians have lots of those. Find some vodka. Find a warm blanket. Practice addition. Enjoy
Things I learned in Moscow:
There is nothing wrong with vodka and a movie.
The boom and bust cycle is infinite. When some places are busting, others are simultaneously booming.
A blini and a coffee for breakfast is a simple pleasure. One that I think only the 1% ever enjoyed.
Quote for Moscow:
Moozh: Nika, the hot water isn't working.
Nika: Oh no hot water. It is Russia. That is life.
Bohemian Recommends
AirBnB Private Room - Killer accommodations with amazing people.
Red Square - Revolution runs in your veins in this place.
The Kremlin - History in payers of religion, politics and secrecy.
Gorky Park - One of the most beautiful parks we have ever seen, with massive bean bag chairs to relax in.
Fallen Monument Park - An unusual and surprising highlight.
Teremok - Cheap coffee, nice pancakes. Cheap place for a quick snack.
Most airports don't open the check-in desks for certain flights until two hour before the flight. Though frustrating, especially given most will suggest you should be at the airport three hours ahead of your boarding time, I understand that it cuts down on labor costs and unnecessary periods of 'doing f*** all'. But when the prompters tell you that you can check in at your gate at a certain time and thusly you arrive at the check in desk at that time along with about fifty other people all under the same impression and proceed to squat on your luggage for about twenty-five minutes past said check in time waiting for any perky ponytail'd check in attendant to grace the desk with their presence, you start to get a little testy. Testy enough that you get a little impatient just recounting the story a month later on your blog. It's a sad state of affairs. Even sadder when said perky ponytail'd desk attendant calls in IT support three -COUNT 'EM, THREE- times to fix some kind of ticket tape malfunction and all the monogrammed luggage travellers start to mutter beneath their breaths about 'how ridiculous' and 'can you imagine'. My luggage may not be monogrammed but I am humble enough to admit that I may have been among those muttering, though mine were along the lines of "this is SO going on the blog."
We finally checked in and headed through security, at which point the security guard who checked my luggage actually neatly repacked my entire bag for me in the manner in which I had packed it despite telling him that he really didn't have to. The Athens Airport is really a mixed bag. We bought a bag of M&M's for four dollars and sat to wait for our gate to open, which we did with about as much optimism as we had previously exuded waiting for our check in desk.
One thing I will mention about discount travel is that you often can get great deals booking with several different discount travel websites to facilitate your own transfers and connections. The only problem you can potentially run into when you do this is that you may have connections that are rather…tight. This was our dilemma flying to Riga. Our flight to catch from Riga to Moscow was about an hour, which at the time of booking seemed like plenty. But when you board ten minutes late and taxi for an additional twenty minutes longer than you expected, that hour gets eaten up fairly quickly. I felt like that person Louis C.K talks about (link) who bitches about all the waiting and fails to understand that they are going to FLY THROUGH THE AIR. Once landed in Riga, we raced off the tarmac and up to the Visa Check Point. They were already paging us from the departure gate. I grinned as wide as I could at the Visa officer -which made me look NOTHING like my Visa photo- to endear her to not ask me any questions. Our names were fuzzy over the PA again. I gestured towards the ceiling, towards the sound. She handed my passport and boarding card and I RAN. I got to the boarding gate announcing at an unnecessary decibel that "MY HUSBAND IS JUST *pant* AT VISA CONTROL." Wide-eyed, they scanned my boarding card and gestured through the door. Back out on the tarmac, the turbines were already spinning. Running up to the plane, I felt like James friggin Bond. My hair blowing all over the place, I glanced back to see Moozh racing out after me. I raised my passport triumphantly, right past the stairs. Backtracking, I alighted the stairs and thrust my boarding card at the enquiring flight attendant. Exhilarating? Perhaps. All I could think was, 'one of these days were are going to run and we are not going to catch it."
Landing in Moscow, blanketed in the dark of night, was like descending upon a childhood dream. The heavy cloud pushed apart like curtains. We could see nothing but lights, the streetlights and billboards running like irregular rivets along the seams of the city. Landing at Sheremetyevo, I knew that the easiest part of the commute to Russia was over. There was still Passport control, there was the commute into the city, and then there was the navigation from the train station to our AirBnb reservation all in a country where I have the vocabulary of a four-year-old. To say I speak the language would be to say I studied the language for a year at University. Which is to say I am pretty much useless for all intensive purposes. I can say "I own an old black car" or "I find the writings of Dostoyevsky interesting" but I cannot readily say, "Help", "I need an ambulance" or "That's a f***ing rip off" all of which I would say are musts for an informed traveler when travelling in a foreign country.
This is where I will reiterate, as I have previously, my strange but unwavering love for Russia. This is where I will also say I think Russia is the most paranoid country in the world. I'm sure there is some sociological explanation for this but no rationale makes it any less totally unnecessary. I said my requisite "Zdrasvutye" (or 'hello') to the Visa Official. It was 1130 at night so she seemed less than concerned about my threat to National Security. Moozh, however, who was thoroughly bearded when he had his Visa photo taken had a bit of a time convincing his Visa officer. But let's be honest, we've all seen Moozh's face. That is a face made for schmoozing.We were held up for reasons I still don't understand at the doors leading to the Train into Moscow. A rather short security who was still adhering to the uniform guidelines behind the Iron Curtain, gestured lazily but with enough force with his billy stick that we took a step back. All I could understand was 'pyat minyoot'. Five minutes. He made us fully aware that he would let at least five and a half go by simply because he was in charge and he was Russian and we weren't. The Russian passengers seemed less willing to accept his authority.
Train ride down, navigation in pitch black to go. Our walk from the train station was supposed to be simple. I had numerous maps at the ready and Svetlana had included directions from the train station to her place in the booking details. Neither of them mentioned anything about the expanse of construction that had enveloped our planned route of travel. Hopping over construction pylons and squinting through the meagre night light at the road signs and having to sound them out like a second-grader added time to our arrival as well as the fact that our Airbnb booking was tucked in a cluster of soviet-era high rises. In the daytime, it would have been no sweat. But when you've already been yelling at each other for the ten minutes you've been walking and it's pitch black outside, you have a bit of a harder time keeping your chin up. Svetlana, the sweetest person I think I have ever encountered, greeted us sleepily at the door once we figured everything out. A quick "lights-on-lights-off" tour of the apartment, she handed us our keys and told us she'd give us the full rundown the next morning. The next day, she gave us directions, advice on where to eat and what to see as well as introduced us to her ten-year-old daughter Nika, who was just on her way off to school. Moozh fell in love with Nika. She was witty, polite with big, wet brown eyes like saucers. Her English was nearly as good as ours which she made clear as she marched off to take the metro to fourth grade all on her own.
The Moscow we woke up to was ceaselessly sunny, with the perfect crispness of fall. A forty minute walk took us down the trendy Tverskaya Street, past famous statues of Pushkin and Prince Yuri Dolgorukiy, the founder of Moscow. Moscow is not a place you get things cheap. Svetlana had offered us her coffee and the use of her coffee press but we also wanted coffee we could wander with in the crisp air. We found that at Coffee House, the local coffee chain, you could get a black drip coffee for $7, with the price climbing for more elaborate versions. Starbucks -STARBUCKS!- was the next cheapest option and even Starbucks couldn't do better than that. Culinary highlights in a country not particularly known for its culinary contributions can be uninspring. And Russia is actually known more for negatively affecting the food culture of the regions it is occupying. But diamonds in the rough are out there and sometimes take strange forms. One such highlight, strangely enough, came in the form of Teremok, a blini chain. Their coffee comes out of a packet, the cream in powder form, but the blinis are fresh and made when you order. The fillings are what you would expect. The cherry filling I had was everything you would expect from Kirsch, cloyingly sweet with cherries plumb with juice. In Russia, the three largest chains are McDonald's, KFC and Starbucks. Behind that is Teremok, and it is a point of defiant pride is Russia. Something home grown, something special. The idea that I could order for us in Russian was slightly thrilling, slightly terrifying. In retrospect, I would have made just as much sense if I had just spoken English. There were a lot of "uh..uh..dva -no it needs to be genitive -fuck. I don't remember." After what I felt was enough stammering, I just lifted two fingers and pointed to things on the menu.
BUT I KNEW HOW TO SAY THANK YOU.
BOOM.
Blinis. Cheese and Ham. Kirsch. We scarfed down with as much Western delicacy as we could two blinis and took our coffees to walk.
I didn't grow up in "The Commies are coming-hide under your desk to save you from nuclear attack" social psyche that my parents did. Russia was at first, a magical distraction from life in the form of a snowy musical animated movie about a lost princess and her discovery of her identity through her independence. It was the story of a Tsar and his Tsarina, a genuine love story in the midst of a country going down in flames. It had mystery. It had all the aspects of the debased potential of humans and yet a small glimmer of the beauty and simplicity of goodness. Next it was the study of a country with very little to distract from the depressing history that ruled it from the time serfs popped out of the ground and began to be oppressed and turn potatoes into vodka and beets into Borscht. Lastly, it was the exhilaration that seemed to come with being called a communist in high school, the secrecy of the Iron Curtain and the autonomy of political opinion. There was Dostoyevsky and his Idiot. Anna Karenina, the first conflicted protagonist I enjoyed not liking. There was something magnetic about the harshness of the life, and consequently, how bright the gems shone in the midst of it. There was something about the snow, the the cyclical nature of their history, the expanse of the explosion when everything broke down. Nothing was subtle, nothing was understated. I loved olive drab, I loved twill. I loved their monarchy, I loved their communism. I loved how their history was so large and yet seemed so distant from the history I was learning.
Walking into Red Square my knees went weak. I actually dropped my coffee. In Russian, 'red' is pronounced 'krasnaya' which is the same word for 'beautiful'. "The Reds", the blood red flag of the USSR, it all makes sense doesn't it. Where the correlation began, I'm not sure but I'm sure there is plenty of blood in the history of Russia to make some sense out of it. The State Museum guards the Northern gate in uniform red brick, dull almost like suede. T The Kremlin, more rife with psychological presence than a uniquely physical one, runs along the entire West side, buffeted only by the Moskva River. Partway down the square, a large, stacked red marble Mausoleum contains the embalmed remains of Lenin, who can be viewed at most times during the year. Across the square is GUM (pronounced "goom"), a massive luxury shopping mall. At the far South end of the square, past the temporary grandstands, opposite more construction, sits St. Basil's Cathedral.
l The colours are unlike even what you see in photos and on a clear day it looks more like a toy than a building. The French Diplomat Marquis de Custine described it to have "the scales of a golden fish, the enamelled skin of a serpent, the changeful hues of the lizard, the glossy rose and azure of the pigeon's neck." He wondered how men "could go to worship God in this box of confectionary work". Wandering through the interior, voices with music that made you wonder whether they were in your head, and whether you were dying, began to float through the air. Climbing the narrow red brick stairs, you enter the choral chambers within one of the domes where a men's vocal group performs traditional Eastern Orthodox hymns throughout the day. Otherwordly music, that with the clean light and musty air of the inner domes, made you want to slide down a wall and sit for hours with tears in your eyes. Most everything in Russia feels hard, most likely because life was hard, getting anything done seemed hard. But Red Square is a strangely ornate and colourful deviation from the norm.
Around the corner is what used to be called the Lenin State Library of the USSR, which was renamed the Russian State Library after, you know, all that awkward Commie stuff was resolved. What should be a large, resplendent statue of Dostoyevsky sits in the courtyard. What is instead there, is a statue of Dostoyevsky covered in pigeon poop. The offending pigeons are everywhere.
I patted Fyodor's toe. "I'm sorry you are covered in bird shit, Man. You deserve better."
"You also deserve better translations of your work," Moozh quipped from behind.
I glanced up at the statue's face, which is probably a reasonably accurate face for Dostoyevsky. "Yeah, I'm sorry for that too."
The next day we set aside for the Kremlin, which is truly a massive complex of government buildings, armouries, cathedrals and churches. The Tsar Cannon, never shot, was cast as a gift for the presiding Tsar in 1586. The Tsar Bell is still considered to be the largest in the world, even having been cast in the late 1700's. St. Ivan's Bell Tower takes you up into the top of the cathedral to overlook the entirety of the Kremlin. In the distance you can count some of Stalin's Seven Sisters. You can see Gorky Park and are blinded by the gilded domes of The Church of Christ Our Saviour. We walked through cathedrals where Tsars, from Ivan the Terrible to Alexander I are buried. Cathedrals where they were crowned and married. Tsarina Alexandra, the last Tsarina of Russia, had fur trim on her wedding dress, a fact that so strangely stuck with me, exemplified Russia and immediately came to mind when we stepped inside. Much of the Kremlin, because it is still functional for government purposes, is off limits for tourists. You get enough of the fisheye from scrawny Russian soldiers that you get the idea that even looking in the direction of somewhere off limits is no good.
GUM was, according to numerous sources, a must-see, even if you're not a shopper. I am not a shopper but GUM is so massive and glittery you can hardly believe it until you get up close. There was even a small model of a fighter jet inside as part of a perfume promotion. Every brand imaginable is contained within those walls. Luxury markets where you can buy 25g tins of caviar for a billion dollars, expensive scotches, exotic fruit, artisanal coffees and wheels of cheese the size of tractor tires. You can buy a pair of Manolo Blahnik's for $475 upstairs and then wander downstairs and for a dollar get a glass of kvass, a Russian alcoholic drink made from fermented beets or fruit. Moozh was not a fan.
There is a small Ukrainian restaurant, that is on the Awkward Family Photos side of gimmicky. All the waitstaff wear traditional Ukranian garb and there is a 'fire', of the red cellophane and flashlight variety, by the front door to keep you "warm" as you wait for a table. Though we had tried to stay away from chain restaurants and tourist gimmicks since we had been travelling it had been hard to find something uniquely 'regional' in Russia as far as food goes, especially in Moscow. Everything was international. Everything was the new "asian fusion concept" or sit down burger joints. So we grabbed a table at Korchma and had some of the most delicious perogies and cabbage rolls we've ever had along with some tasty rye and black bread and Ukrainian spring water.
Descending into the metro, you feel like you should start seeing magma. Criss crossing metro lines, you descend level upon level of escalators so steep they should have seatbelts.The Moscow Metro stations were by far the most beautiful stations that we had seen. In Germany they were very clean. In France, they were quirky, beautifully tiled but run down. In Rome, they smelled like sulphur and were empty. The Moscow Metro stations are polished marble, with old Soviet brass engravings or large art deco pendant lamps emitting a diffused glow. You get the occasional veneer wood paneling, so prolific during the productive 1970's seemingly everywhere in the Western world.
Way back when I met Moozh, I was expressing a desire to become a vodka connoisseur. A friend that I worked with had told me a story where she and some friends invented Scotch Tobogganing, where before each run you would take a swig and then slide to the bottom of the hill. She said it became infinitely more fun with each run and what would be more fun than vodka tobogganing. I agreed it probably would but it also kind of sounded like a recipe for fun-related death. When Moozh and I were in Victoria, we did our first vodka tasting. It was impromptu and at one of our favourite pubs in town with a friend who worked as a waitress there as our guide and enabler. When we came to Russia, I knew I needed to get some vodka but I wanted it to be something more than Stolichnaya. I really like Stoli but I also keep it in my freezer and drink it with cheap tonic. While I had to make a decision between a few local brands that were supposed to be good, I eventually decided on Zelonaya Marka, or Green Mark. It's mellow as vodkas go, with a slight citrus taste. We cuddled in our warm bed and sipped Green Mark while we watched a movie. It seemed to be a consummate fall Russian experience.
Our last day in Moscow was a day of quirk. The first stop was an immense church right on the Moskva River, the Church of Christ Our Savior, formerly A Swimming Pool. The story of the church is interesting. It was an important church during the autocracy but then when the Communists took power, they demolished the church and turned it into a swimming pool. Once the communist regime fell, they rebuilt the church to exactly what it had looked like before. No photos were allowed on the inside, Moozh wasn't allowed in with shorts on and my purse was turned inside out by the security guard. Inside was swathes of ethereal pinks and greens, large gold leaf filigree gates, hand painted frescoes of ikons the size of a parking lot. I realized once it was too late to fix it, that I was sandwiched in the line not of the tourists but of the congregation, moving as a herd towards the large ikon at the front of the church. I remember someone, somewhere telling me that the Eastern Orthodox genuflect the opposite direction of Catholics. So was it right first? Or left? Spectacles, testicles, watch, wallet…where did I learn that? Why couldn't I remember? I conspicuously studied the way the women in front of me did but consciously decided to not lay a giant bouquet of sunflower in front of the ikon or lay prostrate and kiss the floor in front of the priest. I hurried out of the cue and past other tourists who were standing respectfully on the other side of the velvet rope. A couple of soldiers, and I mean soldiers -full-camo-get-up-and-semi-automatic-rifle-soldiers- eyed me as I skittered away to the front doors. Something told me that I was going to get stopped. Or shot. This is what Russia does to you.
From the cathedral we headed to Gorky Park. Russians have an inordinate affliction for parks. Any Russian person I have ever met has vouched for that fact. In any country you go to, if you sit in their parks, you will find Russians. (I tried this experiment and I did, in fact, find Russians.) Russians also have an inordinate affliction for homegrown authors. I lost count of the amount of Pushkin statues I came across. Gorky Park is named after Maxim Gorky, a Russian author and political activist who ran in the circle of Anton Chekhov and Leo Tolstoy. Gorky Park is a 300 acre park that sprawls along the south side of the Moskva River. Musically synchronized fountains, large beanbag chairs, paddle boats, a wind tunnel. Bean bags the size of moving trucks. To call Gorky Park simply a part seems a bit simplistic. It used to have an amusement park replete with a roller coaster, a mock-up of the Space Shuttle Program and a ride in the form of Mt. Rushmore. In 2011, the rides were dismantled and the park turned into an eco-destination. They have free wifi, local farmers markets and are in the process of installing a 'cafe program'.
From there we wandered upriver slightly to Fallen Monument Park. When the communist regime fell in the early 90's, after the citizens had triumphantly pulled down the statues emblematic of the 'old ways', the statues were collected and kept in an abandoned park for posterity. It was a smart move and to wander through now offers a glimpse into the visual landscape of the communist world. The garden has a strange feeling, like walking through a ghost town or a an empty shopping mall. It feels like you are seeing a toy turned off. Busts and statues of Lenin are everywhere. Something about him is quietly beloved even after everything. From what I can gather, it's like Lenin was the mind behind the revolution, the mind behind grabbing a different future for yourself. The rest of the leaders, Stalin, Brezhnev, Kruschev, were where the plan, the ideal kind of came off the rails. There are very few statues of any of the other leaders. One of Brezhnev with his bushy eyebrows; an iconic statue of Stalin, standing tall, with his nose broken off. But old bureaucratic statues are only the beginning. Many conceptual statues, some a proud declaration of the communist ideals and the Soviet identity, some a protest against the hollowness and brutality. One, simply named "Gulag" is a maze of faces behind a prison gate. One of Einstein and Bors, caricature-like and almost Hirschfield-ian, smoking their pipes is tucked away in a garden near a shack that now sells hand carvings out of old logs. Such has been the re-gentrification of Russia, the transformation of something too integral to the social fabric to simply do away with, but too entrenched in the 'old ways' to be of any real use. Turn it into an art project. At least, then people can enjoy it in a tongue-in-cheek way.
We found some ways to kill time. Hopping on and off at metro stations to snap photos. Me trying out something simple -something I learned in Russian class- like buying things from the grocery store turned out to be mildly embarrassing and thoroughly humbling. Who knew buying a box of Q-tips and two peaches could be so hard to facilitate and I'm sorry -do I-what? Oh a bag. No, no thank you. Life is difficult.
Popping up at the Manezhnaya Metro, we wandered back into Red Square just as the sun was setting. It became larger than life, just as the Eiffel Tower, though nothing in Red Square had struggled to command attention at any point before. GUM transformed into a beam of light. Cafes set out wrought iron tables and chairs. A jazz vocalist scatted through a microphone over the quieting square. All that sits south of St. Basil's disappeared with the sunset, the cathedral remaining to sit like a sprouted plant.
Find a cozy fall (or winter) day. Russians have lots of those. Find some vodka. Find a warm blanket. Practice addition. Enjoy
Things I learned in Moscow:
There is nothing wrong with vodka and a movie.
The boom and bust cycle is infinite. When some places are busting, others are simultaneously booming.
A blini and a coffee for breakfast is a simple pleasure. One that I think only the 1% ever enjoyed.
Quote for Moscow:
Moozh: Nika, the hot water isn't working.
Nika: Oh no hot water. It is Russia. That is life.
Bohemian Recommends
AirBnB Private Room - Killer accommodations with amazing people.
Red Square - Revolution runs in your veins in this place.
The Kremlin - History in payers of religion, politics and secrecy.
Gorky Park - One of the most beautiful parks we have ever seen, with massive bean bag chairs to relax in.
Fallen Monument Park - An unusual and surprising highlight.
Teremok - Cheap coffee, nice pancakes. Cheap place for a quick snack.