Moscow Meanderings: We made it :-)

Prepare yourselves folks, this is going to be a long post! Petr and I made it safely to Moscow with no hitches and are already settling in. It's been kind of hectic and we've been without internet for the last couple of days, so I've been complying my first impressions and now I will post them here. I've organized my thoughts into several categories as they came into my mind:

The City:

Coming in from the airport I was surprised at the amount of trees I saw, especially in our decent. They were in full fall color, absolutely beautiful forests of birch with their tall, slender white trunks whizzing past me on the freeway to the center. It was really like something out of Tolstoy or Pasternak. Of course, this boreal beauty was nicely juxtaposed with the 24-story panel housing and large supermarkets and IKEAs that plague the periphery of Moscow. The Socialist block housing doesn’t stop in the outskirts by any means- only these really imposing ones from the 70s and 80s. As you get towards the center the block housing becomes the dull and featureless (though shorter) houses from the 60s and on Tverskaya ulitsia particularly, the grandiose Stalinist-era houses meant as a fitting backdrop to parades commemorating Soviet might. Yesterday (14.10) I went walking around the neighborhood where we live. This place is really not too suitable for a stroll. The city blocks are as large as the enormous buildings that fill them. I had a similar feeling in Vienna, where everything is bursting with Imperial presence and the buildings stretch to meet the size of the emperor’s ego. But this impression is only a matter of size. Vienna is like a uniform wedding-cake, whereas Moscow has been through too much to have matching paint. Every era and style is mashed together. You can find a little Orthodox church with golden domes hidden amongst dull gray housing with relief dedicated to the heroic factory worker. I found Gorky’s house, a jewel of Art Nouveau, hidden in a street of rather uniform concrete buildings. I walked for three hours and didn’t even cover a quarter of the center (the area encompassed by the Garden Ring)! The boulevards are wide as hell and there are so many cars that it is not possible to cross the busy streets except for by underground passages normally found near metro stations. Which leads me to my next point...

Cars:

I think that Muscovites must love their cars as much, or more, than Americans. There are WAY too many of them in this city. The roads are continually clogged with traffic and people drive like Los Angelans on crack. Apparently it is pretty easy to just buy a license here and parents who can afford it regularly buy a car/license package for their teenager’s birthday. This amounts to a lot of drivers out there who aren’t so familiar with traffic rules and it’s pretty obvious judging by the honking and swerving I encountered on my ride around town with another diplomat from the embassy. He took us on what was to be a “quick” look at downtown but I’m convinced it would’ve been faster to walk with all the jams we got caught in! And maybe it’s due to the harsh winter or for extra security amongst crazy drivers, but people here LOVE their SUVs. And nice ones too. I can’t even begin to count the number of Lexus and BMWs I’ve seen, not to mention the Hummers and Range Rovers. Of course, you also see tiny, rust-ridden Ladas in the mix, just to remind you that not everyone here is a millionaire (though there are the highest number per capita in the world). Parking is also a nightmare, and people regularly park just about anywhere with some space, even in front of driveways and on painted lines. They also manage the tricky task of parking with one side up on the curb and the other off. Petr had been thinking about getting a car while we’re here. I’m thinking HELL NO.

People:

I’m going to mention appearances here because I haven’t had much experience yet interacting with Russians.

Let’s start with women: there are some really beautiful women here. It’s a specific look too. Russian women have a very traditional feminine sense of style- its like a flash back to the 1950s. You can tell they put a lot of effort into their appearance and are very made-up. Their hair is just so- very often pinned back, coiffed in some stayed manner, or long and in a pony-tail or braid. I’ve seen a lot of long, long hair with straight bangs too. These Moscow women wear a lot of makeup and are especially fond of lipstick in pinks to match their rosy blush. They want to look made-up. I’ve a lot of blonds here and while some look obviously dyed, it isn’t always apparent. There are none of the wild reds and purple heads I see in Prague, nor the modern angular cuts Czech women are always experimenting with. Rather, some of the styles harken back to the 40s and I even saw one women pull off the Heidi look quite naturally. These women seem to prefer skirts or dresses with nylons to pants and they pair it with RIDICULOUSLY high heels. I’m talking 6” or more. And it’s not as if this is just a look for the office or a night out- I’ve seen women in the grocery store toddling around on their high stilts examining eggplants and testing the firmness of fruit. Despite the previous description, elegant is certainly a good word for many of the ladies I’ve seen so far, and it’s a description highly tied to money. Those who can afford it dress in expensive furs and designer dresses. Some really look as if they’ve escaped from a display case on the Champs-Elysees. The sad thing is the women who aren’t dripping in diamonds who try to imitate the flashy look of their better-off counterparts and end up looking a bit like cheap hookers. Rule of thumb: heavy necklaces and handbags full of hardware only look good if they’re real gold and Versace, not plated steel and PVC. But let’s get on to the men...

Men: I’m sensing a bit of gender inequality here (stifling a laugh at the obviousness of that statement). While the women look like runway models and have likely taken several hours of every morning to appear so, the men do not keep to such high standards. Ok, to be fair, men generally do not have to maintain their appearance as highly as women, regardless of the country. And it seems that Russian men share a similar love of expensive things- but a pricey suit is all about understatement, so apart from the rather inventive shoe designs and leather coats, it’s harder to tell who’s in the money and who’s imitating. The main thing is that many of these men are...um... corpulent. You can’t help but stare when a gorgeous women is on the arm of a toad, but it’s a common thing here. The model and the mafioso. This just further entrenches my opinion that in these Slavic countries, the women get all of the beauty and the men are left scrapping the bottom of the gene pool (I am excepting a few men here, especially my Petr, of whose appearance I am rather partial). Of course, any cretin’s attractiveness improves highly when he’s hanging out of a Maserati- and so I see that many Russian men are making good with this strategy. If you can’t afford an expensive car, get a uniform! Russians love their official uniforms, apparent from the variety and ostentatiousness of the various uniforms for police and the army. Any man looks a bit more powerful and appealing in a coat with shiny buttons and badges. And don’t forget the big hat! Just like in the days of the Red Army and the Soviet Union, the hats are so large. Anyways, it won’t work for everyone- yesterday I saw an Army man who was almost as wide as he was tall. I don’t think even the Maserati could help him. Then again, he could have a buxom blond at home in 6” heels.

TV:

We have a TV now and we get a hand full of channels which include several Czech channels, at least one Slovak channel, BBC news, CNN, and several Russian stations. I’ve been watching the Russian TV because I think it can be a good window into the Russian world, despite the fact that I can’t understand any of it (as if that’s anything new). The most striking thing to me so far is that the commercials for yogurt and cleaning products, whatever, show women in a very similar manner to commercials from the 1950s. They are always in the kitchen in the role of wife and mother, always supporting their children and husband. I even see scenes where the husband is sitting at the head of the table with children on either side and the woman is serving them. I think I’ve traveled back in time! The funny thing is that Russians consider themselves to experienced feminism during communist times when women were officially touted as equal to men (and therefore equally able to work in the factories). Well, it looks like the outcome of socialist feminism turned out a might different than the American feminist movement! This aspect of Russian culture needs more study on my part. I hope the coming years will add more complexity and depth to my understanding (rather, utter confusion) in this matter. That can be said for many things, but these are only first impressions, after all.

I’ve also noticed that the Russians have many shows similar to those in the States. They have some version of the Doctors, for example.

Then there are shows that have no equivalent, like one where a professor of philosophy gives lectures during prime time TV to an audience of rather bored, but highly attractive young girls, using i-pads and cool graphics. WHAA??

Food:

I have only eaten out once (this is our 3rd full day here) but it was EXPENSIVE. I think our group of 3 dropped over 1500 roubles on a rather modest dinner in a pub. Tea was 90r. and every dish was at least 200r. Jesus, I knew that Moscow would be expensive, but it still hurts when one is accustomed to spending no more that 400 Kc in Prague on dinner for two. The grocery store was no better. I think we spent over 2000r. on just a few things to get us through the next couple of days. As for the selection of foods, I only noticed a few interesting things: Ice cream comes in the freezer section wrapped like a really big block of butter. You can also get loose frozen seafood out of the freezer box with a scoop. In the snack section there is the usual selection of potato chips and pretzels, and then salted dried fish in bags like jerky. Yum. We couldn’t find margarine at all- only butter here! In CZ, the bread is unwrapped in the store, so you grab a small baggy and once you cut it, you use the bagging to store the bread in and keep it from drying out. Here, the bread is shrink-wrapped, so you open it, throw away the now useless wrapper, and must hope you’ve got a bag to store the bread in. On the other hand, the loaves are quite small so maybe you are only really meant to use it for one or two meals and then buy another. The Russian black bread is a delicious dark bread which I think has molasses and a hearty wheat flavor. However, they like to hide raisins in it so you’re never really sure which kind you are getting. It’s a delightful gamble. Needless to say, the vodka aisle is enormous.

Weather:

Moscow is cold. Duh. But the first morning here it was already snowing. Welcome to Russia! Luckily, it hasn’t stuck yet. Yesterday was about 6 degrees and after my long walk I had trouble with fine motor skills and opening the door to our flat. Today started out raining heavily but it’s let up and promises a balmy 3 degree high. The weaather is extremely bipolar too. It was sunny and “warm” but then in about 5 minutes the sky clouded over and it started a great mixture of rain and sleet. Now it’s sunny again. I must comfort myself with the knowledge that it will only get worse from here :-)

Our flat:

Is really big. It has a giant hallway leading to a spacious living room, separate kitchen, a bedroom that is almost as big as our first flat, a third room for guests, a small study room, a storage room and a bathroom with separate toilet. The ceilings are palatially high. It’s awesome but we joke about the trek from the kitchen to the bedroom. The only down side is the bath. It’s a tub without a curtain. I mean that it is not possible to have a curtain because the tub is only along two walls so the rod would have nowhere to go. This is actually a really common type of tub in eastern/central Europe but I am a retarded American and I don’t know how to bathe myself in it without getting water all over the floor. I have to wash my hair separately, leaning over the tub. Guess I’ve got four years to become adept at it. The door is also disturbingly narrow and we hope our washer will fit through, because it’s the only place with a hook-up. We’ll see on Monday I guess. I’m excited to unpack our stuff and start cozying up the place. Home sweet home!