The Day I Met Moscow

So Moscow and I have officially met and begun a relaionship. The The first meeting was such a good blind date, I spent the night...

I landed in Moscow with, amazingly enough, no problems at all. Knowing myself (accident-prone, forgetful, and regularly in my own world) I thoroughly expected to lose my luggage, my documents, my mind, or any combination of the above. But no.
My new boss Tony picked me up at the airport and took me straight to the office. This meant that I immediately got to do some sightseeing, because our building is situated less than five minutes on foot behind this:





This is St Basil’s Cathedral, which I can best describe as Moscow’s Eiffel tower. Unbelieveable in person, truly.


And this:

I dunno what this is yet. But it's pretty. And I get to see it everyday.

In general, the architecture is stunning: impressively massive and colourful. And while the city is dense with buildings, it’s still relatively green in places; the growth of trees surrounding my own building falls somewhere between birch grove and birch forest. But while it’s not exactly the stuff of fairy tales, there is still something surreal about this painted, shadowy urban landscape. The lovechild of an Easter egg and Gotham City--that is Moscow.

I avoided buying much other than cheese, bread (which makes any and all bread back home seem like packing foam), yogurt and fruit. While that sounds wonderfully wholesome and rustic, I assure you that it has less to do with diet, and more to do with the fact that I have zero concept of what things actually cost. I am still in the stage of asking “How much? (skolke stoit?)”, realising “Oh hey-that’s in my wallet!”, and then buying the item. From what I understand, 1000 roubles is approximately 40$, but after 45 hours of travel I did not bother to apply math to any purchases I made on my first evening.
One conversion I did understand: beer. To give you some perspective on what this looks like, I have included a photo. On the left is a one litre can of beer (5.5%, about two dollars). On the right is a litre and a half bottle of beer (7%, about 3 dollars). In the centre is an ordinary sized coffee mug:

And while we’re on the topic of consumption, I just want to give a shout out to the chicken soup I had when I first got here: Way to taste exactly like my grandmother’s home cooking, delicious soup. (In fact, in the small cafés, everything tastes like your baba’s meals.)

A couple notable cultural quirks I’ve noticed so far:

1) PARKING

Back home, you never see people double parked. Double arking is nothing here. This guy had no fewer than four cars blocking his exit:

This is not traffic. This is curbside. And there are a couple more cars behind that I couldn’t quite get into the shot.
“So how would you get out,” I asked Tony, “if that were your car?”
“Oh. You just beepbeepbeep until someone sticks their head out and comes down. I mean, you hope it doesn’t happen, but it does.”
And then there is the prevailing theory that if your car fits somewhere, it must be a parking spot:

So this wasn’t exaggeration. There was a cop car parked just down the block half hanging off the curb. I haven't yet determined whether there are any laws regulating this, yet. But if there are, no one gives a damn...

2)MONEY ON THE TABLE

Tony gave me a quick thousand roubles for groceries when I got here. Standing directly in front of me, he instead put the money on the kitchen table. YOU DO NOT GIVE MONEY HAND-TO-HAND IN RUSSIA. Even in the stores, there’s a little plate between the purchaser and the cashier onto which you place you cash, and onto which she places your change (yes, she---I’ll let you know the minute I see a man working a cash register in Moscow). So completely ingrained into daily commerce are these little plates, that they actually bear advertising and sponsorship for companies. Imagine a little shallow dish with the word “Pepsi” on it on every cash desk in the country and you get the idea.

3) MEN CARRY THE BAGS

I guess it’s one of those bonuses that sweetens the so-called-sexist pot. But as I left the store with Tony, he immediately snatched up my bags, despite my insistence that it was unnecessary. Come to think of it, he wouldn’t let me handle even my laptop bag at the airport.
“I feel bad,” I tell him. “You‘ve been lugging my life around all day.”
He pauses. “You see that’s the thing about Western women,” he says. “I’ve been away so long, I’ve forgotten. You’re expected to carry your own things. Here? Never. You’d be a really pathetic guy if you let any woman carry anything. You’d be an asshole. A Russian woman, she’d have walked right out of the store and just left her bags on the counter, expecting the man to take them. You should get used to it.”
I see. In North America, a man carrying all of a woman’s bags is seen as whipped. But in Russia, a man who lets a woman carry any bags (even a light grocery bag) a wimp. Interesting how the exact same gesture can bear nearly opposite meaning from culture to culture.
I think back to the Brits on the London bus watching me literally stumble over my own suitcases. I am going to try to get used to this difference. My aching muscles tell me I’ve earned it.

4)WHAT IS A WASHROOM?
Okay, this is really a foreigner’s English topic, but Tony, who is British, nearly pisses himself every time I ask for a washroom.
“Why do you North Americans want a washroom, or a bathroom?” he asks, “Are you going to wash off? Will that make you feel better?” In England, and in Russian it's a toilet; the euphemism of “washroom” sends him into giggles at the puritanical awkwardness of North Americans. (There is something to this, here. I have yet to see a washroom that houses both a toilet and a bath together. There is a room for the toilet, and a room for the sink/tub. In my apartment, these are two completely distinct rooms.)
Still, I can’t fathom bringing myself to ask for the “toilet,” in English, no matter how long I stay here or how normal it is. And I am a woman who uses “fuck” more than liberally and who wrote an entire post abut condoms and free clinics. I rather get ribbed for the rest of the year then let everyone know that I’m headed for the “toilet”…

Some other quick observations?

CARS-- oh Lord, if you like cars, this is a good city for them. Bentleys, Maseratis, Mercedes, BMWs… We passed hotel with no fewer than five Audi’s waiting for the valet.
“Cars are the ultimate status symbol, here,” says Tony. “You’ll see expensive cars everywhere. There is a lot of money in moscow. SO much money, here.” Yeah, I picked up on this fact when we passed a Lamborghini dealership abut three blocks from the office.

DOGS-- I looked out my window to see an impressive number of owners walking dogs. And off the leash, yet! Nope, no, wait--those people don’t own those dogs No one does. Yep, there are a ton of stray dogs around that seem to approach people and even be pretty friendly. From my window I see three or four wolf-types sauntering around, playing with the dogs that do belong to people (which are still not on a leash, anyway). I even saw them in the metro (not on the train--just underground.)

PAPERWORK-- You’ve probably heard that without your papers in Russia, you don’t really exist. And this adherence to paperwork is not limited to expats and the foreign-born. Everyone in Russia has a passport that they must use to get in and out of every government, or even office, building. If you have no reason to be in the building, you will not get into the building.
In fact, you even need special papers just to reside in Moscow, even if born here. You cannot be born in, say, nearby Tula and just find an apartment in Moscow for yourself--you must be authorised to do so. For this reason, while the official population of Moscow stands between 12 and 15 million, the actual number of Muscovites is probably much closer to 18 to 20 million. If I lose my passport, the red tape is staggeringly prohibitive. Luckily (?) with deep pockets, nothing in Moscow is truly prohibitive. A fact that is both disturbing and comforting in its own way.

Posts are going to be a little behind real events here, because I'm pressed for time and internet access where I am--I'll give you guys what I can when I can. There is so freaking much to show you.

So my love affair with Moscow is off to a wonderful start. I hope it doesn't let itself go once we've settled down. ..