5:30 pm--
I’m running through the station courtyard to catch the train to downtown. The middle-aged women from early this morning, along with their heaps of blouses and sweaters, are gone now. In their place stand magazine and newspaper racks boasting throwaway-publications on every imaginable topic.
As I pass through the entrance to the metro, I notice a woman who by my estimates must be a hundred years old. She is squeaky clean, bundled in quilted layers for the winter, despite the fact that it is an unseasonable fifteen degrees outside.
Reaching into a pocket filled with kopeks, I blindly drop some into her plastic cup. With the outdated currency system, this handful of coins is nearly worthless in all value except sentimental. What she could ever buy with them? They can provide little more than sympathy. Our worthless circles of metal do nothing but say “I understand. Poor you. Life is hard. I sympathise.” But in a country where life does seem harder, and compassion just a little rarer, these condolences are valuable. This is Russia: doleful and lamenting and tired of hardship. As necessary to getting though the rough days as food or water, these sentiments are something of a currency...
She straightens her scarf and rocks slightly. I’m through the turnstile before we even have a chance to look at one another.
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