Spring blogs: 5) Moscow

Anyone who decides to start their first trip to Russia outside of Moscow will be steadily bombarded with others' pre-chewed impressions of the capital. I was one of these people. I spent almost six months in Russia before I even considered a trip to Moscow. My Armenian friend told me that it was just a cash sucker: the place where newcomers could make their money, start to live well and then forget about paying for the development of their relatives back in more provincial locations. An other friend, a psychologist from Yekaterinburg, told me that Moscow was synonymous with 'dirt, traffic jams and pointless striving towards money and power'.

They didn't half mince their words.

But the more I heard about this 'dirt', this 'selfishness', this 'striving', the more I became convinced that these negative elements could not exist in a vacuum. In all places I have travelled, there have always been similar, although sometimes better hidden, quantities of human warmth. Under the factory clouds of Magnitogorsk I was given food, a bed and a philosophy on art. Along the Stalinist prospects of Minsk I found a middle-aged women who opened her home and plied me with sunflower seeds. In Riga I met a shy girl who made me vegetarian sandwiches, defended me from a religious drunkard and explained post-Soviet linguistic conflicts. In Cambridge I saw troubled academics dance in frantic circles with creative madness in their eyes. Even in the oppressive environment that is any man's home time I found unique sparks of humanity every day, even though I chose to leave. 

As a result, I became more and more interested in forming my own limited impression of Moscow, if only for a few days. I wanted to at least add my own subjectivity to the millions of subjectivities that form the capital of this huge land mass. In the end, this subjectivity was much different from what I had expected, but no less beautiful.

I arrived on a train from Kazan in the morning. The night before I had made the acquaintance of three women. They had almost immediately noticed that I was a foreigner: in the open 'platzkart' compartments of the train everyone can see you making your bunk. And if you're a poorly train-travelled foreigner with a natural predisposition towards awkwardness and a complete lack of hand-eye coordination, setting up your bed linen will provide great confusion and hilarity among your fellow travellers. At first they'll give you stares of doom, thinking you're an idiot. Then, once you say that you're a foreigner and ask for assistance, they will laugh kindly and proceed to help. This was the case when I failed to realize that I was in possession of a mattress and just assumed that the rolled up oddity at the end of my bunk was some form of bulky, slightly mutilated pillow. I put my bed sheet directly onto the leather bunk and was ready to climb into my uncomfortable nest before I was informed that no, in fact, I was doing everything terribly wrong. I apologized (even though there was no need for apology), resorted to the 'Oh I'm just so helplessly foreign' trick (rather than admitting I'm just a spatial idiot) and was showered in food, tea and curiosity: did I like Russia, what was I doing here, why do I speak Russian, is Ireland really that green, had I been to Moscow before etc.. The lights went out before midnight and our conversation faded into a muffled choir of 'spokoinoi nochi'. Once again my well-versed accounts of why I had chosen to move to Russia had been given yet another polishing: I've started to have automatic answers to these questions, like a GCSE oral exam, but I do try to be more spontaneous sometimes. It feels only human and honest to make my stories a little bit more personal for each individual. In the morning, I was handed more cucumber sandwiches and wished 'good luck' and 'success' by the cohort of friendly women whose names I never learnt and whom I will never see again.  

It was past rush hour when I arrived at the station. Nonetheless, I was still greeted with crowds of mildly-organized chaos: masses of people in huge coats and warm hats were streaming through metal detectors. Some put their valuables in the little designated boxes, undid their belts and unbuttoned their coats. Others seemed to just barge on through. I followed the rules and wasn't stopped. I picked up my mobile, books and loose coins, placed them roughly into the many huge pockets of my winter coat. and walked slowly away from the crowd into Moscow. I saw my first sky scrapers in the station square, admired them for half a minute, too tired for beauty, and then climbed down the steps to the metro. I travelled to my accommodation -- which bore the very Russian name of 'chillax hostel' -- locked my valuables in the safe and placed my books under the pillow.

The hostel was located in central Moscow, but on a quiet, calm street. The buildings around me were relatively tall, but felt empty. The windows had no souls peering out with curiosity and there were next to no cars on the street. I was shocked by the tranquillity of such a central place: wasn't Moscow dirt and crowds? Where on earth was the pointless striving for power and money I had been promised? Where were the greedy bankers rubbing their hands in glee as the poverty stricken workers eat lavash in  a traffic jam? Where were the unwashed crowds of  'uncultured gastarbeiter' (guest workers) Russian people loved to warn me of? Instead of waiting for the hyperbolic realization of others' stereotypes, I remembered one of the beautiful things I love about the huge metropolises that I have come across so far: as expensive and hectic as they can be at times, they give you the possibility to move from different worlds of cultures, lifestyle and wealth just by crossing street boundaries. I was in the centre of the mayhem and the centre was tranquil. Outside I knew that there were various rings of life: areas of chaos, areas of order, areas of ethnic diversity, areas of wealth, areas of poverty: rich men buying their wives necklaces, homeless druggies making crocodile in their squats, parents teaching their two year old children to feed ducks by the pond, grandmothers brewing borsht in their former communal apartments, spectacled students studying till late in the Stalinist towers of Moscow State University, teenagers falling in love on park benches and all the varieties of life that could lie between. The wonderful feeling of diversity and opportunity that strikes any smalltowner on the first day in a large city struck me. 

It took only twenty minutes before one of these opportunities had landed, quite accidentally, into my lap. 

When talking in Russian to the receptionist, the door bell rang. A pink-faced, cute featured, green-eyed slightly stoned young man walked in and started to talk to the receptionist in a very informal manner, swaying relaxed back and forth against the counter. He wanted to know whether the two English girls who were staying at the hostel would like him to show them Moscow.

'What do you mean?'

'The English girls. I want to show them Moscow. Can you tell them I've come to show them come cool places?' (He opened up his laptop and proceeded to show us a pretty interesting website that showcases unusual corners of Moscow.) 

'Do you know these girls?'

'Yes'

'Do you speak English?'

'No. Learnt it in school...but I screwed it up and can't say much.  Well, about from 'hello' and stuff like that' (Nervous self-conscious giggle...)

'You know, those girls don't speak Russian...'

...but I did. 

And so it transpired that for the next five hours I would be the translator for Viktor, an antiques collector. 'urban alpinist' and avid cannabis user from Moscow;  two enthusiastic English party girls from the North and a slightly grumpy, but also surprisingly smiley Australian.  As far as the girls were concerned, Viktor had met them by chance in a McDonalds. Noticing they were drunk, he and his friends had just joined along in the party. The girls had already been shown half of Moscow by really enthusiastic Russians looking to practice their English and so were already used to friendly advances. They gladly invited the guys into their life, especially when they knew they could get a spliff and some relaxed times. Viktor told me he had seen them check-in nearby on facebook and so had decided to go meet them. Not many English girls partying in Moscow, I guess. They had managed to communicate pretty well in the intoxicated atmosphere of party and with one bilingual speaker, but now Viktor would be on his own and he asked me, a smiling and compliant stranger, to help him translate. In return he would show me some odd, abandoned corners of Moscow. 'Screw Red Square,' I thought, 'I might as well go help an antiques collector climb abandoned buildings.'

The abandoned building which we climbed.

'So, what's his job then?' one of the girls asked me as we walked down the street.

I asked Viktor the question and then stumbled over the translation.

'He...umm...manages climbing...well... um...the way he put it is that he manages urban alpinism, which I guess means he helps people to climb buildings.'

'Oh, that's cool!' they enthusiastically cried back.

I had to admit, it was pretty cool and I felt a positive buzz at bringing people together who otherwise would never have found a common tongue.  On the other hand, however, my first real experience of interpreting for several hours at a time was, apart from the aforementioned communicative buzz, strangely exhausting. I sort of ceased to be a person: I very rarely was asked questions about myself. I simply transferred information from one source to another. I learned much about Viktor and the girls' stories, but they would never really know mine. 

Viktor had moved from Irkutsk as a child to live with his grandmother in some sort of stagnating town in central Russia. He had finished school and somewhere between compulsory military service and the rest of his life, he ended up in Moscow: a place that gave him much more freedom to follow his artistic passions, but now, after a few years, it  felt more and more restrictive and was beginning to choke him. After the army he had spent a year 'not doing anything': not working, not studying, just thinking and smoking. Now he was back in work again, but felt ever more trapped by the confines of his city, his language and his country. He needed to 'learn English and get out'. And now, by coincidence of fate or facebook, two pretty representatives of his perceived world of opportunity had just waltzed into his life. 

Viktor decided to take us to the top of an abandoned multi-storey building in the centre. He promised us that on top of the building we would be greeted by a beautiful, panoramic view of Moscow. As we approached the site, the Australian was dubious. 

'Is this even legal?' he asked.

'Doesn't really matter if it's legal,' I said giddily, 'it's Russia. There'll be a way to do things.'

The puppies!

A grey concrete block with broken windows and streaks of decay rose high above our heads. We started to walk towards a barrier to enter. A security guard from the next building came out, shouted at us asking what we were doing and after mumbling something about 'wanting to show tourists the building', Viktor walked off into a corner to talk to the guard one-on-one. Two minutes passed, a discussion was held. Maybe there was a bribe. In any case, the guard soon forgot his stricter tone and became a friendly, compliant type. He was very smiley, quite well-rounded, grey-haired and rosy cheeked. He reminded me of that friendly old uncle who makes jovial puns at Christmas and plays the role of the doughnut-eating cop in American films. He showed us a litter of cute Andrex puppies (i.e. little stray baby golden retrievers) who seemed to be living under a huge barrel in the courtyard and then gave us instructions on how to safely get to the top of the building. He knew where all the stairs where. Maybe he had done this before...  Viktor knew the way without any guidance. He liked to smoke and relax on the roof. He came here quite often.  

Inside we were met with huge grey stairs, elaborate graffiti murals, poetry we couldn't understand, fairly dangerous holes in the flooring and loose wiring. This was obviously a hang-out place for some pretty creative people: they had decided to let their graffiti and art decorate an abandoned mess of greyness.

The building interior.

The poem we tried to decipher. Including looking up the word 'eaves' in the dictionary. Apparently modern day man doesn't understand what that is anymore. I wasn't the only one. 

We reached the top of the building and saw a pretty good view. Nothing too special, though. There was still a bit of ice and snow on the roof and it had the potential to be mildly dangerous. Then we wondered were Viktor had gone, turned round and realized that there was another level to the roof: an old wooden step ladder and then a relatively steep ledge would take us to the very top. The girls happily took Viktor's word that 'it isn't really that scary, you just have to do it' and were soon up. I hesitated, formed a one minute conspiracy with the Australian, both agreeing that it wasn't for us, and then eventually caved in and climbed up, guided by Viktor's hand. The Australian guy came up about 5 minutes later after the same assistance from the same hand and lots of repetition from the girls about how it was worth while, and so much better up here, and you wouldn't even feel it, and you just had to do it. He did it. We sat on the very top of an abandoned multi-storey building, took in a considerably more beautiful view and listened to punk on Viktor's laptop, whilst he read us out his newest English vocabulary from a phrase book he had just bought. He was learning a dialogue between Mr Smith and a hotel receptionist. It was a beautiful start to Moscow.

One of the English girls (who looked really like Rita Ora) braved the ladder. The steep ledge above it was much more scary.

Later that day I decided to leave the girls and Viktor; tired from constantly interpreting, and walked Moscow alone. I was so pathetically bad at getting orientated that I walked for 40 minutes and still didn't find Red Square. At one point I even got on a bus that said 'Red Square' on it, but then realized I had absolutely no way of paying for my ticket, so just awkwardly stood beside the driver as he drove to the next stop, where I got off. It saved me 50 metres, I reckoned, and at least now I could follow the bus's path. But, naturally Sod's Law dictated that by following the bus I actually walked away from the square, not towards it.  When I realized my mistake I comforted myself with a ridiculously overpriced coffee and finished the night in some club with people I barely knew doing things that weren't that special. It was worth it for the 5am walk home, though fresh air and for my bragging smile towards the frustrated early birds of Moscow. But I still don't know why I had forced myself, once again, to go against my nature and attend an environment that wasn't appealing to my mood. I hope it's just the standard masochistic party complex a lot of young people seem to have. I'll probably grow out of it. I really hope so.

A man at the club found me mildly attractive and gave me his phone number. He was a Socialist Revolutionary who strongly disliked the current system and government, but more strongly hated the West. When he talked about the government of Putin, I sensed a huge amount of dissatisfaction, concrete examples including low pensions and lack of opportunities. When he talked about the 'patronizing Western imperialists', however, I saw a much more intense rage. I was a little bit scared he would hate me, just because I came from those parts. I often feel afraid when certain Russians strongly criticize the West, with unbridled anger in their eyes, not because I don't agree with some of what they're saying (yes, I'm also anti-war, yes, I'm also anti uncontrolled capitalism and yes, I'm against a lot of patronizing 'let's help out your poor little people' western style politics.), but because I fear that soon the lines between politics and people may completely disappear. Russians and Westerners need more contact with one another, to remind each other that each side is human, that each side has the same amount of good and bad people, and that the issues are political. Otherwise I fear that the dehumanization of the enemy will create misery and unpleasantness. I know a few Westerners who think Russians are barbarians, and quite a few Russians who think Europeans are part of a huge gay conspiracy to spread immigration (as if that's a virus) and to undermine Christianity and conservatism. Quite frankly, both sides petrify me, and so when people virulently attack either Russia or the West, I often become nervous, fearing that soon they won't just be attacking the politics, but actually the citizens on the other side.

 My conversation partner had a developed sense of nostalgia for the Soviet Union, which seemed a contradiction in terms. I told him that if he was a real revolutionary, he would have recognized that the last 50-60 years of the Soviet Union were just a barbarism and manipulation of the initial goals of communism and of the people who actually dreamed of a fair revolution  He agreed to some extent, but still said that at least his parents had felt safe and secure. He underplayed  Soviet political persecutions, reminding me that 'all states everywhere persecute and imprison their opponents'. We changed topic and he told me about his origins.  He came from Vladivostok and had arrived in Moscow to study and work.  In 2 years he hadn't been able to afford the train journey home to see his family. On the way here, he had fallen in lust or love with a 'straight boy on the train to Moscow. During the 6 day train ride they had developed a strong bond. They spoke a great deal and found out a lot about each other. He had decided that he would try his best to make the boy love him, and, in fact they did end up in bed together a few months later. But their relationship never passed that line. His story faded off.

We bade farewell. I thought I might invite him to dinner some night if I got bored. He had very clear, pleasant Russian articulation. 

The next days consisted of nothing more than me exploring the city by my own and with an English friend. I grew to love it and to love the freedom of just walking with no need for a goal. At this point my narrative of Moscow becomes a lot  less linear and fades into certain memories that I can't order particularly well and so will treat individually (as I often do in my blogs).

I remember...

1) Having a discussion in Spanish in my hostel kitchen with an illegal Cuban immigrant called Luis and a Colombian woman, who was having a mid-life crisis. Frustratingly, I could understand everything they said but found it very difficult to reply, not having practised Spanish for two years. I was forced to be a passive listener.

The Colombian woman's story was simpler. She had studied well and received one of the best educations in her country. She had a good, stable job in Bogota. She was a lawyer or something financial, I can't remember which. But she couldn't find meaning in her life at the moment. Her boyfriend made her feel stuck: beautiful, kind, warm and, as she repeatedly reminded us, making emphatic facial expressions as if she was orgasming right then and there 'so, so, so good in bed'. But still she wasn't happy. And so she had taken a one week holiday to Moscow without him to relax and 'figure things out'.

Luis' story was more complicated. He was working in Moscow as a salsa teacher, although ideally he would have preferred to act and sing instead. 'I'm a three-part act,' he told us in a warmly camp voice. He gave off an energy that somehow infected me with bizarre giggles. He was a good man. Maybe not on the same wave length as me.  Maybe on a far off Cuban salsa wavelength. But it was a well-meaning, positive, radiant wave-length all the same. He was making good money in Moscow and living in the hostel, because it was very practical: cheap, in the centre of town and he already had made friends with some other people who permanently lived there, including Spanish speakers. The only problem was that he was 'an illegal'. 

He began to tell us some shocking stories about his past.  He had left Cuba with an allowance to go to Russia for a month and decided to stay longer, putting himself in risk. He assured us that even in Russia (a place he didn't seem very fond of and whose citizens he depicted as quite cold and brutal),  life was better. Like a lot of emigrants, he wanted to provide for his parents and create a better future.

'Lots of Cubans do this. I know so many of them in  Moscow. Russia is the only country that lets us in. We're supposed to come only for a month. We buy return tickets, but we all stay for longer. We live as illegals. We don't have any rights, but even that is better than Cuba, than feeling you have no opportunities for the rest of your life....'

He told me of two of his transsexual Cuban friends who lived in a flat in Moscow and always entered and exited in disguise at odd hours in case the neighbours started asking two many questions.

He told me of a group of men who had temporarily kidnapped him, asked for a bribe and taken him to Ukraine, before he could escape.

He told me of rich Muscovites, who took him into their lavish world and showed him luxury.

The details of his stories have faded and I fear recounting them for lack of detail; but all I do remember a complete disbelief. A complete saddened disbelief that this person, who had suffered so much, who had the most elaborate, bizarre, surreal stories of misery that you normally encounter only in film...that this person was so positive and ready to share.

'It's what we Cubans are like,' he said with a warm, but nervous laugh, 'no matter what happens to us. No matter how much pain or suffering or horrible, indescribable things, we are always laughing and smiling, looking for parties and friends. We are very strong. Muy fuertes.' 

Unable to fathom words to reply (both through shock and linguistic restrictions), I tried to convey warmth through my eyes. Our conversation partner, the Colombian, was probably much better at this than me. Like many Latinos I know, she had the ability to naturally empathize with the speaker, to mirror his emotions  in her face and to convey huge sympathy and love to a man she barely knew. They seemed like brother and sister. Maybe it was the common language and shared cultural elements. Maybe it was because they were touching vulnerable topics. Maybe it was just my illusion.

'It's a shame. A disgrace that we Colombians turn back Cubans when they come to us. They're suffering,. and we speak the same language, are like brothers and turn them back. It's horrible' 

They were beautiful moments. 

2) I remember...

a large group of Spanish speakers discussing gay rights in Russia suddenly becoming very silent when they realized that I was staring intently at them with great interest. Too embarrassed to reveal I could understand everything they said, but couldn't form the words to make any meaningful comments, I just kept up the facade of a very nosey Russian and watched as they hushed their conversation and said 'he might understand some words. It's dangerous to talk about this in front of Russians.'

If only they had known...

3) I remember...

meeting a man for breakfast and being awe-struck by his ability to pay for a life of luxury. He was the first rich man I met on my travels, and he didn't even think he was rich. I guess our standards differed. For me, being able to buy coffee at 220 rubles a piece alongside breakfast in an expensive restaurant; to make the taxi wait 20 minutes every morning whilst he slowly got ready and to live in a pretty good apartment in central Moscow is a fairly good token of wealth. He seemed oblivious. We continued to drink our expensive coffees on his bill and waste taxi drivers' time at his expense.

He was a good man. We spooned in the end. No sex, just spooning. I can't remember which spoon I was though. I do remember feeling very warm and fuzzy at the first real, genuine, sincere human warmth, skin against skin, I had felt in a long time. 

What a lovely stereotypical Russian couple walking
through Moscow:
a man in a fur hat and a beautiful woman in heels

4) I remember...
wanting to invite the socialist revolutionary for dinner before I left, but confusing his number with Viktor's. We had a long phone conversation without me even realizing that I had got the wrong voice. I was very shocked when Viktor showed up, asking why I had been so keen to see him. We ended up having a very platonic dinner together as he asked me about what the best way was to learn English and whether he would be able to leave Russia. He was so thankful for letting him communicate with the girls that he gave me a collection of about 5 political journals from the period before and just after fall of the Soviet Union. Glasnost and Perestroika were real, vivid terms. I took them proudly. A very good reward.

5) I remember...

almost falling over about 4 times on the way to the airport. I had lots of bags and was hurrying along the newly formed ice. I was like the crazy grandmother who buys 16 plastic bags full of cat food for her home and then teeters along, perilously, over road surface. It was a strange moment in my life.

And so I formed my subjectivity of Moscow. A few memories, a few beautiful moments, a lot of time alone and vague impressions of the street contours and scale of the city. 

It remained a subjectivity. Something thoroughly incomplete. Something that gave no answers and didn't even seem to welcome questions. It just was.

But at least it placed one persistent urge in my belly: a desire to return, again and again and again. To collect these subjectivities, to place them in little rows of misunderstandings and meanings and half-truths and perceptions. I won't ever understand Moscow, but I'm not even going to try. I'll just keep spinning webs of memories and odd little moments of time. I will collect them for as long as I can, returning as many times as I can. A seed has been planted.

The view from the first part of the abandoned building. Doesn't really show the best of Moscow, does it?