Wednesday, August 14, 2002
Hello from Moscow!
Sorry about the delay in writing, but finding an Internet café in this city is quite difficult. I had no trouble finding the telegram office, but Internet is another story. Of course, once I finally found an Internet place, it turns out to be the biggest and most modern Internet café that I’ve ever seen. There must be 300 computers here with high speed access and flat-screen displays and it is in a gaudy futuristic basement in a modern shopping mall right next to the Kremlin. Lenin would be spinning in his grave if he’d see such an example of a capitalist venture (that is if he had a grave and weren’t embalmed & on public display in his mausoleum on Red Square a few hundred metres away from where I am typing this!)
Actually, he’d also be spinning if he saw the flashing neon signs and the numerous luxury cars on the streets in central Moscow.
This is a city of contrasts. Noone is starving and frankly, when you walk the streets in the centre of the city, you could be in any other European city. However, off the beaten track, it’s not as nice, but not that bad either.
The buildings in the centre are mostly well-maintained. They were mainly built in the 19th century and have the sorts of carvings etc. that you see throughout Europe. The Kremlin, at the very centre, is of course extremely well-maintained. The boulevards are extremely wide (often 8 lanes - and that’s just in one direction). In the outskirts, you find more of the stereotypical drab buildings and dreary look that we think of when we think of Russia. People in the suburbs live in 12-15 storey apartment buildings that look like public housing projects. The trees and lawns are in need of landscaping.
Basically, take Paris, add a coat of dust, get rid of nearly all the tourists and make 99.9 % of the people and 99.9 % of the signs Russian and you’ve got Moscow!
I am staying in a «hostel» in a suburb (20 minutes to the Kremlin by metro). It is actually a former Communist-era hotel, which means that the rooms are basic, the carpets are worn out and there’s lots of wood-panelling on the walls. That being said, it’s much better than a typical youth hostel, since I have a clean, private room & bathroom, plus a colour TV that gets 4 channels (3 Russian, including one with Russian rock videos, plus the BBC).
Breakfast is included: This morning they served me something resembling a hot dog along with a piece of bread with a week’s supply of butter on top of it . . . which brings me to the Russian diet. They seem to eat meat 3 meals a day. There must be some serious heart disease problems around here . . .
Whenever I travel, I like to check out the cars that people drive. Surprisingly, there is a huge number of late model Mercedes, BMW’s, Audi, Volvo, VW etc. In the main part of Moscow, these may represent almost half the cars on the roads! It’s the other half of the cars that are most interesting. These are Lada’s and the like. For example, I was picked up at the airport in a Volga «limousine.» (Think of a large rusty Lada held together by scotch tape with no seatbelts and the same engine as a lawn mower). My unilingual Russian driver had to restart it a few times whenever it stalled, including while exiting the highway. He signalled «don’t worry» as he pulled on the throttle to get more gas into the engine,
The highway was reminiscent of the 401, with 6 lanes in each direction. The only difference is that in Toronto you don’t pass a large nuclear power plant on your way into the city from the airport!
Moscow is an extremely large city (over 10 million population). Everything is spread out and even to check out a couple of sights that are next to one another, you may have to walk for 20 minutes. I have generally travelled the very long distances by metro, plus I’ve done a ton of walking.
The metro is amazing. Trains come every 1 to 4 minutes. The stations are like art museums, with elaborate paintings and carvings on the ceilings and walls. There is no graffiti whatsoever (probably thanks to the numerous «Babushka»- guards who are watching at all times). Ten rides cost US$1.10 (That’s total, not per ride!) The older stations are very deep underground, since they were built to double as bomb shelters.
It is perfectly normal to see clean-cut people drinking beer in the metro and on the streets. Different places, different attitudes and norms, I guess.
The only problem in the metro (and everywhere else, for that matter) is that all the signs are in Cyrillic writing. Fortunately, I taught myself to read Russian (although not really to understand it all that much) before I left on my trip. I spend all day reading signs and trying to figure out what they mean….it’s like an all-day puzzle game! More important, I have yet to get lost in the metro!
Moscow is very safe; no different than any other city in Europe, and in fact probably safer as a result of the many guards and police that are everywhere – then again, maybe it’s the Russian guards that I should fear ?!!
The Muscovites don’t bother tourists. It’s a big city and everyone goes about their own business. In fact, they regard you with suspicion if you dare to ask them a question, and that includes people in the service industry who deal with tourists! I assume that paranoid attitude has its roots in the past where informants were everywhere.
People are very pushy. Nobody waits in line. It’s just a hoard of people clamouring for the attention of the person behind the counter. This attitude probably stems from the days of shortages. There are no longer any shortages. If you’ve got the cash, you can now buy the latest of everything here.
The other reason they don’t bother with tourists is that 99.999% of the people here only speak Russian. They do not seem to be overly interested by the outside world and that may explain why I had so much trouble finding an Internet café. If you don’t know other languages and don’t need to communicate with foreigners, why use an Internet café?
I suspect that St Petersburg, being nearer to western Europe, will be different.
The Muscovites dress more formally than we do. Men almost always wear long pants and a shirt with a collar, even in warm weather. It is rare to see baseball caps. The women dress extremely well (and that includes those in the less wealthy suburbs). There are «Babushkas», as well, but not that many.
I’ll update you more on the sights that I’ve seen in a future e-mail.
Take care.
--Larry
