Stranger in Mockba

01/09/09

It’s four in the morning and I am sitting in C. ПЕЕТЕРСБУРГ (St. Petersburg) in a train station coffee shop sipping KAФФE AMEPIKKAHO. Tired from rocking through the darkness on an old Russian train, I am happy to find a strong brew. It's hours until the subway opens, so perfect time to reflect a bit on the time that I spent in Moscow.

Wandering the streets in that great city, it was hard to picture how life was there a mere 20 years ago. Nowadays, everything seems clean and modern against a backdrop of beautiful classical buildings. People wander the streets sipping beers at all times of day, and the Soviet era housing blocks are conveniently out of sight, beginning at the edges of the city centre, but then radiating out for an incredible distance. Perhaps the best reminder of the not so distant Soviet past is the massive police presence everywhere.

The streets are full of cops. So are the subways and the squares. Some of them have ordinary uniforms, while others are in combat fatigues. I even saw a few lady cops wearing high heels. Most of them have little to no interest in hassling tourists, though there are exceptions to this. I was stopped on one occasion for jaywalking, though there were no cars (except the cop car) and there were a bunch of Russians doing the same thing. I think that the police were inspired to spring into action on account of my Egyptian friend Amr, clearly not a Russian.

We had already made it to the far sidewalk by the time the cop got out of his car and started yelling. I told Amr to ignore him, but he didn’t listen. Reluctantly, I went over to see what all the shouting was about. The cop started lecturing us in Russky and that was fine because I wasn’t in the mood to listen to any sort of comprehensible reprimand. He was clearly pointing out that jaywalking was a serious offence and he demanded our passports. We turned them over and followed him back to the car, at which point he opened the back door and began gesturing for us to get in.

As far as I was concerned, that was the exact point where the entire interaction deteriorated into a farce. I have no problem getting a fine for jaywalking, but getting arrested is somewhat disproportional to the ‘offence.’ Who the hell did this guy think he was. Maybe somebody forgot to tell these goons that the Cheka is a thing of the past. I refused to get into the car, in spite of his incessant prompting. I just kept repeating “nyet avtomobil” over and over while making a steering wheel/driving action with my hands. Eventually he gave up and sat in the front inspecting our passports.

Meanwhile, the Egyptian had taken the liberty of telephoning his English speaking Russian friend and was explaining the situation and asking her to speak to them. When you are dealing with crooked cops fishing for cash on account of some minor infraction, a language barrier can be your best friend. Hence I began urging him to hang up the phone. “Hang Up, Hang Up, Hang Up, DO IT NOW.” I failed to see how providing the cops with a means to communicate the severity of our offences would in any way assist us, other than providing an accurate determination of the amount of the “fine.” Seeing as the documents were in order, and I was refusing to accompany them to bribe headquarters, and there was no way to communicate anything to us, the cop lost interest and returned the passports. Just another walk down the path of power tripping state sanctioned officers shaking down tourists. The fact that they were unsuccessful also suggests to me that they are major losers.

After the incident, we headed for the subway, which is one of the best and most unique that I have ever seen. Moscow’s Metro system is similar to Pyonyang’s in that it is buried hundreds of metres under the earth and accessed via interminable escalators that descend through whitewashed tunnels. There are few ads and the stations are decorated in a classical style with old Soviet mosaics, inscriptions, portraits of Lenin, columns, statues, archways, and scenic bridges over the tracks. Aesthetics take high priority and seem to leave a deficiency in the number of signs and maps. I found that there was seldom a sign in view when I pulled into a station, and rarely was there even a sticker in the subway car to show the route map. Most journeys required a significant amount of planning and a functional knowledge of the Cyrillic alphabet. Nonetheless, the Metro was one of the highlights of Moscow. It is like a vast spider web of track and tunnels with huge numbers of people flowing through in every direction. It is a place to see all types of Muscovites.

I can’t believe how some of the young Moscow women dress. Never before have I seen such scantily clad bodies in public. There seems to be no inhibition to strolling around, doing your shopping, in an outfit that would turn heads at a nightclub. Three inch stilettos seem to be mandatory, and I even saw a female cop wearing high heels with her uniform (great for chasing the baddies).

Men are not exempt from questionable fashion choices either. It seems that the mullet is really en vogue among Moscow youth, though this is generally a short and tame incarnation of the classic hairstyle, and comes nowhere near an approximation of “the Kentucky Waterfall.” Nonetheless there are mullteted men and mulleted children at every turn. In fact I am looking at a mullet right now as I write this (with two more in the immediate vicinity).

Put all of this together and it leads to some serious attraction between the Russians, manifest in the frequency with which I observed public displays of affection. It was a rare subway car that did not have at least one young couple lip locked and smooching in a corner somewhere. Public parks were much the same. Most people seemed relatively uninterested if not completely oblivious to the displays which created a remarkable contrast to attitudes prevailing in the countries I have visited to date.

Muscovites are not the only feature of the city that will characterize my prevailing impression of the place. There were also fantastic museums (especially if you can read Cyrillic, or better yet Russian), and iconic buildings that are some of the most identifiable places on earth. There are galleries with works by Russian masters, and places of great historical significance.

The buildings that make the biggest impression however are the cathedrals. They are all over the place, many having survived the seventy year experiment in an atheist communist society, while others perished and were reconstructed. The most colossal reconstruction was that of the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour which Stalin had razed to the ground in order to construct a swimming pool. The Cathedrals are great to visit, most being colourful, painted wall to wall and floor to ceiling with the orthodox pantheon (well, what I mean is Jesus, Mary, Angels, and Saints). Throughout the day, the bells of the cathedrals can be heard chiming in many quarters of the city.

Alas the time had come to say goodbye to this grand city, and to move on to the northernmost point of my journey. It’s just past five now and soon it will be light out. That is my cue to hit the metro and scour the streets for a place to stay. I am travelling without a guidebook which is great adventure but also promotes uncertainty and disorganization. The lack of reliable information is also the principal factor that led me to wind up at such a dive in Moscow. It had a prime location, but I think my mattress was stuffed with barbed wire. Hopefully I can do better here.