I guess I should own up to those scant few who don't already know: I have been going to tango lessons for the past month or so.
It's part of an attempt to make up for me not going to the gym any more, though ironically the practice hall is even closer than the gym to my apartment. The school is called To Tango, and it teaches the Argentine form of Tango. The school even has a website. Here's a picture of instructors Anton and Anna ripped from the site:
Anton is a fantastically cool guy, and he also speaks English, which is useful seeing as I'm the only foreigner in attendance. Unfortunately, Anton has been on tango sabbatical to Buenos Aires for the past few weeks, leaving us to Gennady and Lena. I don't have any pictures of Gena, but he has danced far longer than Anton, so the class is in good hands.
So why bring this up now? Well, the past two lessons have made me realize that I can't possibly dance in a crappy pair of dress shoes for much longer, so I went out and bought a proper pair today. Hopefully these will stop me from ruining my knees.
Shiny.
Tango is... challenging, but it sure as hell is fun and I heartily recommend it to you all. Even though I suck right now, at least I'm picking up various dance vocabulary along the way, such as: осанка (oh-san-ka) which means "posture"; ось (oz) which means "pivot" or "axis"; шаг (shag) which means "step"; and поворачивать (po-vo-rah-chi-vat) which means "to turn" among many others.
So far I'm only doing the basic technique classes (базовая техника, baz-oh-vai-ya tekh-ni-kah) once a week, which last two hours. With time I'll maybe join the other group classes later in the week, and pluck up the courage to take part in a milonga. While it might sound like a dignified event, from what I gather with conversations with classmates, folk just get shitfaced and dance with each other for three or four minutes at a time.
And in that time, you live, you love, you die - or so Gena tells us.
Over the past two weeks I have probably gone to the cinema far more than I should. A new job schedule has (finally) allowed me to return home without feeling brain-dead and able to do something semi-intellectual. Conveniently, a film festival was in town. In fact, there’s a British film festival that just started as well, but I unfortunately missed a screening of Chris Morris’ Four Lions last night (it’s showing again on Sunday, so here’s hoping I can nab a seat).
The theme of the 2-in-1 film festival was fairly general – art movies here, comedies there, foreign flicks thrown in for good measure – and the three films I managed to catch were vastly different [Special thanks to Kseniya and Aleksey, by the way, for abusing their influence with the organizers and giving me free tickets].
Другое Небо/Another Sky (Dmitry Mamuliya, 2010)
Probably best to start with the crap and end on a high note. Другое Небо (Droo-goy-ye Nye-boh) is an enormously depressing piece about chain-smoking estranged husband & father Ali from Central Asia who comes to Moscow in search of his wife. His nine-year-old son tags along. Nothing good happens to any of them, put bluntly.
To those not aware of the problems “guest workers” (or “gastarbeiteri” as the Russians stole it from the Germans) face in Moscow, Another Sky highlights their plight and shows off the supposed monotony of their existence in the capital. Truth be told, it was just plain boring – mostly because shots lingered on the side of the father’s head walking down streets and corridors, and he barely utters a word throughout. The first five times are fine, we get the message: it’s shitty and that’s the life some of them have. Is it necessary that the whole film be an exposition-less snooze-a-thon? Can’t there at least be a semblance of a story?
The director held a Q&A afterwards. He was wearing a scarf indoors. Groan. Though if I understood what was said correctly afterwards, various guest-workers and typical locations were used in the film (rather than being shot in, say, Mosfilm Studios). Too bad the production didn’t bother to delve into the topic further, as I mentioned in previous posts that Slavic (or “White”) Russians don’t exactly have good attitudes towards the Southern Caucasians or their Asian neighbours.
Before Trainspotting, Danny Boyle shot Shallow Grave. I got slight waves of nostalgia, as it was filmed in Edinburgh, plus there was a cèilidh scene (Scottish line dancing, essentially, except fun).
One of the three protagonists, Kerry Fox (who plays a doctor), was in town to present the movie. Ewan McGregor (an obnoxious journo who never shuts up) and Christopher Eccleston (a straight-laced accountant who “always gets the job done”) have since gone on to bigger things.
It’s a well-paced flick, and Eccleston does a wonderful job of making the rest of the cast feel paranoid as he becomes more and more unstable after new flatmate Keith Allen’s unexpected death by overdose in their apartment. Well worth watching.
Гоп-стоп/Hold Up (Pavel Bardin, 2010)
Before Гоп-стоп (Gop-Stop), Pavel Bardin shot the film “Russia 88” (2009), which was a fake documentary about Russian neo-Nazi skinheads. I’ve not seen it myself, but it was both fairly well-received and banned from being screened in Russia.
Hold Up isn’t exactly a good translation of the title. The word “gopnik” in the blog title is Russia’s word for someone of the lower class i.e. ned, spide, steek, towny or scally depending on where you’re from in the UK. Essentially the stereotypical image of individuals dressed in garish tracksuits who hang around in playgrounds drinking Buckfast or White Lightning.
Ironically, while Gop-Stop features aforesaid scummy gopniks as the lead characters, the tone is the polar opposite to Bardin’s previous flick. Even though the film is loaded with obscure cultural references, most of which I could barely understand, I still found it hilarious. Needless to say, the locals who were in attendance howled with laughter.
Gop-Stop is the tale of down-and-out gopnik Vasya, played by Pyotr Fyodorov (who bears an uncanny resemblance to Colin Farrell) and his close friend who embark on an absurd Robin Hood-esque scheme against the oppressive local mayor, who has spent most of his term embezzling the money of the taxpayers. I wonder where they got that idea from?
Sometimes the Russian definition of comedy tends to be a guy on stage holding a clipboard, who announces “Two Russians go to Las Vegas” and then reads out a list of the hijinx they get up to. Gop-Stop completely quashes that image, proving that writers here are equally capable of dumb-but-fun screenplays that need not really on one nationality as its audience to be successful. Russian slapstick is not high art by any means, but it sure as hell was infinitely more entertaining than Another Sky.
Bizarrely, on the night, the film was being screened twice. After we came out of the hall, it turned out the second showing was for cast, crew and guests only. It was slightly bizarre seeing the same people that I had just watched for the past hour and a half standing in front of me. Pyotr Fyodorov remained in character and was dressed up in an ugly tracksuit for the premiere.
Социа́льная Сеть/The Social Network (David Fincher, 2010)
This wasn’t part of the festival, though it has just been released in Russia. It might be a bit of a stretch to define it as “the film of the decade” that some reviewers have already said, but the combination of Fincher’s direction, Aaron Sorkin’s writing, and the score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross made for a fantastic experience.
It should be noted that, while it’s been called “the Facebook movie”, it has very little to do with the website itself. Instead, the story (based on the mouthful of a book “The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook, A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius, and Betrayal”) focuses on the actions of the main players – how the site was spawned from Mark Zuckerberg being dumped and drunkenly taking out his frustrations through his skills as a programmer – and the sacrifices they have made along the way in pursuit of fortune.
Regrettably I had the misfortune of only getting to see the Russian dub, but I still walked out of the cinema satisfied. Reznor’s style shines throughout, especially when the second major scene hits.
And who would have thought Justin Timberlake would nearly steal the show with his sleazy, narcissistic portrayal of Sean Parker, one of the founders of peer-to-peer file sharing service Napster?
The overall moral of the story is, while the facts might likely have been skewed and overdramatized on the way to the projector, we are all human and are equally fragile. It’s not exactly a feel-good movie, but in spite of the success of Zuckerberg et al., they all get their comeuppance one way or another, be it being sued for 500 million dollars, or simply being dumped by your girlfriend for being a jerk.
= = = = = = =
Last night on the way back from work one man was walking around in the chilly autumn air topless very slowly, albeit with his coat hanging down around his elbows. Later, on the way to the local grocery store, there was a man sliding around on his arse for no apparent reason. He didn’t look crippled at all; something had just possessed him to propel himself across the asphalt with his hands. Seat of trousers be damned.
In the twelve or so years I spent studying Russian, as well as going to and from Moscow, there was always one constant: Yury Luzhkov. For the past eighteen years Luzhkov was the mayor of Moscow. But earlier this week, during Dmitry Medvedev's trip to China to rub shoulders with potential Hu Jintao replacements, the head of state held a press conference, during which he told the media that he had just signed a decree removing Luzhkov from office over "loss of confidence". He added that, as head of state, he cannot work with a regional head he does not trust. Michele Berdy has an interesting insight into the affair in her column on translating Russian over at the Moscow Times concerning Medvedev's choice of words.
Luzhkov is not a popular man, especially among the gay community, whom he has repeatedly condemned for their so-called satanic activities and happily dispatched the police to knock the shit out of them every time they tried to hold an "unsanctioned" demonstration anywhere in the city, though specifically on Triumfalnaya Square, where one can find the statue of renowned poet Mayakovsky...
...but it wasn't always this way with Luzhkov. He did do a lot for the capital. After the USSR went belly up in the 90s, Moscow was in chaos, and Luzhkov's indefatigable management skills came to the fore and managed to turn the place from potentially becoming a swamp to one of the most opulent capitals on the planet.
Urban regeneration was his forte, and for the first few years he pulled it off. In the vid up top you'll see the big gold Cathedral of Christ the Saviour (Храм Христа Спасителя Khram Khree-sta Spa-see-tell-ya). The colossal structure was reconstructed under his watch (it got torn down in the 1930s). He had restored the city, and then some.
...But then things started to go wrong (well, not really for Luzhkov). Luzhkov slowly shifted from being a manager to a political figure, not to mention the sums of money that were being accumulated from the massive construction projects.
Of course, people in office in Russia aren't permitted to have any financial interests, but it would have been a terrible shame to let all those business contacts go to waste. That's where Luzkhov's wife came in.
Unlike her spouse, Yelena Baturina has no such problem with trivial issues like political accountability. Although it's never been declared officially, it's fair to assume that her construction firm wouldn't have been behind so many of Moscow's many sky-scraping eyesores had it not been for her proximity to the highest executive power in Moscow.
Speaking of eyesores, Luzhkov is also partly responsible for the most obnoxious statue in Moscow.
This 90-meter-tall behemoth is meant to be in memory of Peter the Great, and was constructed by the equally obnoxious "artist" Zurab Tsereteli, who just happens to be (surprise surprise) a close friend of Luzhkov. I think we're a seeing a pattern emerging.
Regardless of the slightly undemocratic deposition, it was more than ample time for him to be booted out. His stay in the mayor's office was way past any acceptable term, though I suspect Michael Bloomberg may have been taking notes.
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In other news, I've been lax in visiting the gym, mostly due to laziness combined with the fact that I have achieved more or less what I set out to do. Honestly speaking, the place is pretty lame and the membership is running out soon. The fact that there are so many men doing those previously-mentioned thrusting motions in tight shorts (on more than one occasion I've even seen punters do some form of bizarre tapdance as a warm up) in front of me while I'm on the treadmill makes me feel I've wandered onto the set of a really crap gay softcore porno-comedy. The receptionist is cute, though.
I believe there's a nicer (read: more expensive) gym up the road.
[Husband & wife pic by Misha Japaridze/Associated Press, found in this Guardian article, the rest are mine :P]
So, for the first time ever, Irish super rock group U2 and its lead singer’s ego came to Moscow two weeks-ish ago to play at Luzhniki stadium, which is the same venue where the Champions League final took place in 2008.I had no real inclination to see them by myself (cue some locals shocked in disbelief at the fact that I didn’t want to see fellow Irishmen perform), but a last minute invitation swayed me. Plus it was an opportunity to see whether all the mocking of Bono by South Park and Family Guy is really warranted or not.
The only other time I had been at Luzhniki was in the summer of 2007 for the Metallica concert, which was pretty terrible. Not because of Metallica, they’re alright, but because of Luzhniki itself. As a concert venue it’s dreadful, as you can barely hear a damn thing in the stands (which is where I was at the time) because it echoes all over the place. But more importantly, the whole place was riddled with Moscow’s police force (or, rather, the Милициа- Militsia).
The moment you arrive at Sportivnaya Metro Station, you will see them standing around grumpily watching the platform. The moment you leave the station, you are confronted with the first of many rows of them.
This pattern repeats all the way towards the stadium, where you have to pass through at least two security checks before you even get a glimpse of the interior.
Admittedly, trying to keep several thousand people in a small area in some sort of order is a logistical nightmare, and the Militsia did pull it off despite being extremely menacing. To be fair, I’ve seen worse in Glasgow (Up Front Security are a particularly charming bunch). But none of it was particularly relaxing.
Given my previous experience at Luzhniki, I had very low expectations in the run up to being graced by Bono’s presence, and I was genuinely surprised… but not by U2. When the support group came on, I had a very odd sense of déjà vu.
It took a few seconds to register, but it turned out that, of all people, Snow Patrol was the warm-up act. And even without fancy audio visual equipment and costumes (lead singer Gary Lightbody was scruffy as usual) they were far more entertaining than the main act. Mostly because of this moment…
…After their set was done with, at least another hour was spent standing around, taking in the pleasant atmosphere of being intimidated by the local law enforcement while watching roadies do all sorts of things on the stage that was specially made for the 360° tour.
Eventually Bono, The Edge and the two other guys no one else cares about came out to the tune of David Bowie’s “Ground Control to Major Tom”. I’m not sure if it’s their “thing”, like how Metallica always kicks off its gigs with The Good, the Bad and the Ugly’s “The Ecstasy of Gold” by Ennio Morricone. If you’ve not heard the track in question then, well, make up for it now.
I think it’s fair to say that Morricone is more effective in kicking off a rock concert than Bono’s crooning of “Singing in the Rain” as it had actually started raining the moment the lot of them walked on stage, which didn’t stop until we left. And yes, I got soaked.
Despite not owning a single CD, I pretty much recognized every single song played on the night because – unless folk are unaware at the dilemma major artists are facing nowadays – U2 weren’t there to promote anything new. All these guys now have to go on tour to keep going.
It’s not like the old days where you would have to sell a million copies to go to number one. With music downloads and the ubiquity of iTunes, U2 et al. simply can’t sustain themselves on record sales alone. This is why the Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan are constantly on tour, and will do so until Keith Richards can’t drool over the frets anymore.
And who wins here? Well, the Russians do. An ever-increasing number of bands are flocking to Russia. Elton John was here with his Red Piano recently. Madonna was in St. Petersburg. The Prodigy can’t get enough of Moscow’s money. Looking at the billboards outside my balcony right now, I can see that ZZ Top, Placebo and Sheryl Crow are incoming.
Yet I digress. Truthfully, the gig wasn’t the best because, despite playing their timeless hits, the four Irishmen didn’t exactly rock out. It was more about the spectacle of the thing. All the flashing lights, all the camera angles, all the moving bits of the stage etcetera.
But what was both disappointing and baffling was Bono fulfilling the South Park/Family Guy prophecies of acting like the biggest tit on the planet. At one point there was a pre-recording by one of the dudes on the International Space Station reciting what I think was a stanza or two of one piece, which was followed by Bono holding his arm up and head down like the Black Power salute at the 1968 Olympics saying something along the lines of “Frank De Winne up der in the Inter-nash-un-al Spays Stay-shun, folks. Guys, just, y’know, keep ah-skin questions. Just keep findin’ ahnsers…”
…to the bemusement of all Russians in attendance. And then Desmond Tutu appeared on screen with an equally cryptic statement. And then the first four articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights scrolled up.
A bunch of other surreal stuff appeared on the big screen, which was eventually closed off by an appearance of people carrying Amnesty International Chinese lanterns to Dylan’s “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door”, co-sung with the vocalist of Russian band DDT and noted activist Yury Shevchuk.
Afterwards it was a tiresome trek back to the metro station with several hundred other soaking wet people. Upon (eventually) returning home I jumped in the shower before gulping down a large glass of Chilean red.
So last Sunday (15th) was amusing. Actually, the previous Wednesday (11th) was genuinely entertaining, as I attended my friend Dima's wedding, which was an absolutely wonderful day and I'll write about it later. A couple of hundred pics are on flickr from the day.
But something happened on my way to Dima's wedding, which took place at the Дворец Бракосочетания (Dvor-ets Brak-oh-so-shey-tan-i-ya lit. Palace of Marriage) which is more or less the same as ЗАГС (Zags an acronym for what is essentially a Registry Office, but everyone says Zags for short). A few doors up from mine an apartment was on fire and the firemen (пожарники po-zhar-ni-key) were busily blasting it from a cherry picker.
"That's interesting," I thought, as the apartment itself was part of the same building I live in. Most apartment buildings in Moscow have multiple подъезды (pod-yez-dh lit. um... well, езд comes from a verb of motion, but it means entrance). I was in a rush to get to the other side of town where the registry office is at, but after seeing the burly Russians attacking the blaze I became plagued by the idea that I might not have an apartment to come back to after all the wedding fun times. My fears didn't manifest themselves, and my apartment was fine after I came back home at two in the morning.
That was, of course, until Sunday. Coming back at about three in the afternoon - I can't recall what I had been doing before then - I noticed the apartment stairwell stank of what could best be described as burnt plastic. Подъезды smell funny most of the time, usually of stale piss because tramps have a tendency to pass out on the stairs in the winter, but this time round it was especially pungeant.
One astute neighbour also noticed the stench, and was pacing up and down the stairs looking for the source. I became paranoid and started feeling the floors of my apartment wondering if any of the parquet had suddenly become especially hot (not easy to tell when your apartment is hot to begin with given the recent heatwave). And wouldn't you know it? The apartment directly below mine was actually on fire.
By the time I had realized it was probably the right moment to vacate the place, I heard a colossal banging from downstairs. Firemen were already there and were attempting to force their way in with a crowbar, hose at the ready (meaning I couldn't really get past, but I guess I could have jumped off my balcony, which is only about twenty-five feet from the ground). Then I got a phonecall from one of my Russian friends who lives nearby, inquiring, "Umm, Ben, there's smoke coming from one of the windows of your building, are you alright?"
At that point I noticed that some burly firemen on a crane were peering through my balcony window at me to see if I was alright and rudely hung up on my friend to chat with them.
Given the sturdiness of doors you find in some Russian apartment buildings like the one I'm in (where the ceiling is about three meters high), the crowbar wasn't sufficient, prompting the appearance of an enormous diesel-powered angle grinder to saw through the bolts, which made a hilarious amount of noise.
Obviously, no one was in the apartment at the time. In fact, I can't recall the last time I had seen someone entering or exiting the place in the past year, so I suspect it may have been an electrical fault. I'm vaguely sure I heard mentions of an electric blanket, which might have explained the initial stench.
Anyway, the fire was put out relatively quickly. No towering inferno, I regret to disappoint, just a stairwell full of smoke (ironic, given the fact that the thick amount of smog that had descended on Moscow over the past fortnight had finally lifted). A fireman came in to inspect my place afterward and found no smoke or soot damage, and merely said that I should just leave the window open for a while.
Oddly enough, my friend who called me earlier was still waiting down on the street, which was nice, but, because of his particularly unique character, I was wondering if he was less interested in seeing me safe and well and instead more excited by the prospect of me emerging from the подъезд half on fire. He simply grinned when I later made this observation.
Not wanting to enjoy the stench of burnt plastic, I left the building for a few hours to both get a drink and let the excitement die down.
A few days later, I encountered a couple of my immediate neighbours talking by the lift. Unfortunately for them, who weren't present on the day it happened, it turned out that the fire had kicked off underneath theirs, and that there was some sort of soot damage here and there in the apartment. Although most of the apartments are uniform, a lot of them used to be all one large thing, called a коммуналка (com-oo-nal-ka lit. a short form of communal apartment) in which several families would live. After the Soviet Union died, a lot of these apartments were split up.
The flat below me, however, hadn't been completely rearranged as the ones above, and covered the same area of the two apartments above i.e. mine and my neighbours'.
But anyway, no lives lost and mostly superficial damage. Here's to the next disaster. Perhaps something less dramatic, though, like the power outage in four of St. Petersburg's city districts last night.
Yes it's incredibly lazy to just embed YouTube vids haphazardly, but it saves me time because I'm awfully lethargic. Since the last post I've been in between jobs - which actually means I've been doing two jobs until the latter is done with - so the prospect of coming home to read and write more stuff (that I won't get paid for) has been a little unappealing. That and the year-long honeymoon period of keeping a blog has nearly ended. But fret not, I shall endure!
Coming back to Martha and The Vandellas, it's been hot. No really. It started off as fun, but then came forest and turf fires, thick smog from the infernos completely blanketing parts of the capital, people's dachas (country houses) burning down in the Moscow outskirts, crop failures, and states of emergency being declared in 20+ regions of Russia. The past three weeks of drought have been hellish for a lot of people, but it's finally cooling down.
As a result it has added to the whole being idle thing. I have mostly hidden away indoors because there are only so many sunbeams the Northern Irish tan can take, as well as the fact that I am being less wild with my money - though what I would be spending on eating out is now being spent on keeping my air conditioner working overtime (my bedroom window faces the setting sun). On top of all that, the student loan Sword-of-Damascus over my head has finally made me paranoid enough to start paying it off.
So what is there to say? Well, my friend Mitya (formally Dmitry; Russians have various diminutives, e.g. Benjamin = Ben/Benny/Benster etc.) has finally released his first book, called «Секс в саду камней» (Seks v sah-doo kahm-neigh) which means... umm... "Sex in the Stone Garden". It's an erotic satire consisting of a collection of short stories, of which I've read the first four, which revolves around Japanese culture.
The huge irony is that, while Mitya spent a lot of time in China in his formative years, he has never once set foot in Japan, and instead bases his stories on various stereotypes and his own perverted mind. With each passage, I begin to look at him in a slightly different light, as they get ever more extreme in content, but all the more hilarious.
Pending his approval, I'll eventually put pictures of the book presentation, which took place at the Mayakovsky Museum, on my flickr account. It should be noted that in order for any book to be printed in Russia, the publishers must have a letter from what is ostensibly the propaganda ministry declaring that it does not contain extremist material. I would have been interested to see the expressions on their faces upon seeing the cover of Mitya's opus land on their desk.
Aside from potential book pics, a lot of (mostly untitled) photos have been added to the new Moscow 2010 flickr album They feature sunshine, and there are some ladies contained therein. Enjoy.
Update: Moscow continues to be enveloped in smog. There was brief respite on Friday afternoon, but it came back with a vengeance at the weekend. I took some pics last Wednesday, which more or less show what it's like currently.
This entry has been a long time coming, for a whole bunch of reasons. I have alluded beforehand to the subject of problems that foreigners have working overseas. I kept putting it off because each time I attempted to write on this particular matter, I ended up descending into sweeping generalizations about the locals (which is boring, and it's been done to death by scummy nincompoops in various print media), or go into detailed explanation about how there are moments just before going to sleep or waking up whereupon a moment's reflection on my current situation nearly manifests itself into a "WHAT THE FUCK AM I DOING HERE?" cold sweat scream (which is depressing, and it's been done to death by scummy nincompoops in various print media). And that's not the route I want to go down, naturally. But after visiting both Shanghai in December and Paris in March I feel as though I can come back to this topic, and subsequently tackle those two issues.
What am I trying to get at, you might ask? Well my overarching point is that, regardless of where you are, or wherever you go, you're still going to have problems. So without further ado, the following are the three main differences which stuck out during my little Parisian jaunt that support my observations.
Race
Yes, Eurodisney is just outside Paris – but there’s no point in going. Paris is kinda like London – people of all creeds and colors have descended on the place, and a short trip on its metro (which is rather unnerving as it is not a particularly smooth form of travel) is like seeing every single nationality in the world in one go. And they are all really, really well dressed to boot. Had I not brought the jacket I’m wearing in the photos on flickr, I’d have felt like a right arsehole wandering the streets.
Conversely, Moscow is predominantly white, and their fashion sense leaves much to be desired. Blame communism for that one (the clothes, not that it’s all whitey).
In addition, there’s an undercurrent of accepted racism in Russia, but delving into that topic would mean revisiting how scummy the police are here and their habit of beating to death anyone with remotely non-European features. That’s not to say Paris doesn’t have its own problems with race.
Flats
Hearing about the flat-finding process in Paris genuinely shocked me. Central (“traditional”) Paris, which is made up of twenty arrondissements (districts), is demarcated by the Peripherique ring road. Here’s a map:
From what I learned, trying to build/bulldoze any property in central Paris is a big no no, as it is either protected as a World Heritage site (granted, the buildings are pretty, feel free to look at the stupid number of photos I took on flickr) or the level of French bureaucracy makes the whole thing not worth a developer’s while.
What does this mean, then? It means that the housing market is heavily steeped in the landlord’s favor. Why? Because, in reality, there is only a certain amount of places available within the Peripherique. It’s not like Moscow, where Mayor Luzhkov will happily allow his fugly wife to knock over several acres of people’s homes to make way for obscene skyscrapers and further dilute the market.
As such, people seeking flats to rent anywhere in twenty of Paris’ central districts – forget about buying a property – have to accept the appalling fact that they will not only have to pay an exorbitant sum of money per month (if they even get a place), but will also need to fork out some serious cash up front as a deposit.
When my friend told me this (I may have the exact specifics wrong, as we were probably drinking red wine at the time, but the figure is not an exaggeration) to get a two-room flat along with another fellow, he had to pay a year’s rent in advance as a deposit up front. How much is that, you ask? At least TEN THOUSAND EURO.
Never in my life have I heard anything as bad as that. I lived in Glasgow for four years, been screwed around by dodgy Bangladeshi landlords, letting agencies, energy companies, and even the goddamn city council on more than one occasion – but they were mere trifles compared to my friend’s experience.
Still… those boulangeries…
On my side, I’ve had few problems finding a flat in Moscow, and I don’t really have any horror stories to tell of. There are a bunch of expat-friendly websites (expat.ru, redtape.ru, flatmates.ru) that can facilitate the flat/roommate-finding process. Agents are generally efficient and abundant as well, though some landlords will happily try to fuck over clueless Westerners.
Dogs
Within the first few minutes of walking around Paris, it became absolutely clear that the French did not have a revolution just so they could clean up dog shit. There is a frightening amount of the stuff. Not so much in the fancier parts of central Paris like the Marais or Montmarte. Yet up until that point, I couldn't recall the last time I'd stepped in crap on a city street. It's not happened to me in Moscow, that’s for sure, likely due to the fact that the migrant street cleaners do an insanely good job at keeping the place tidy. Having said that, I will likely step in some after I’m finished with this post.
But Moscow has its own dog issues - strays. And I don't mean the saccharine "Aww look at the fuzzy wuzzy's widdle face." I'm talking about actual packs of dogs that occupy courtyards and parks around apartment blocks. Dogs that put families off from taking their children anywhere near the playgrounds. Dogs that roam the streets and will actually attack passersby. Dogs that aren’t pets, they’re vermin.
Sure, bleeding heart liberals kick up a fuss about the city administration rounding them up and exterminating them (I believe there was a big surge prior to last year’s Eurovision Song Contest, which Moscow hosted) as a temporary solution but, pray tell, what’s the alternative? Implementing that unrealistic neutering program that was much talked about?
Thankfully, a phenomenon already exists that partially deals with the flea-ridden mongrels – the weather. Come winter, temperatures drop so low that the majority of mutts simply get killed off, only to start breeding like rabbits and quickly tear up the city again come springtime.
In case it’s not clear from reading the last two paragraphs – my stance on Moscow’s stray dogs is pretty firm. I’d rather have a dead undomesticated animal on my conscience than being witness to a friend or coworker being attacked in front of me. I’ve been fortunate enough that such a thing hasn’t happened, but coworkers have shared too many stories to simply brush it off as an unlikely occurrence…
…Anyway, what I mean by all this is that Moscow has problems, but so does Paris. As an expat working abroad, you might think that you can run amok with a bottle of stout in defiance of the locals. For a brief amount of time, at least in Moscow, it’s possible to do so. But it comes to a point where you realize that the place is not perfect, and suddenly the idea of working in Paris becomes appealing.
However, having spent so much time in Paris – which was a bit of a mistake on my part, but I was damned if I was going to fart around Moscow for two weeks – and seeing what my friends’ lives are like there, they’re not much different to my own. They too sometimes get fed up with their surroundings.
I have managed to accept the fact that the brief sensations of loneliness and the doubts about my current way of life are not exclusive either to me, or to my location – be it Moscow, Paris, Shanghai, Glasgow or Belfast. It’s a given that has to be tolerated. Those that can’t and move on to the next place invariably end up going through the motions again once the novelty has worn off.
As such, I feel I can officially lay this topic to rest and move on to writing about something more meaningful – like Moscow’s numerous stripclubs.
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In other news, there was a gay pride march (sort of – it was more like small groups of people streaking, but fully clothed and holding placards in various places for a few minutes at a time) on the day of the Eurovision Song Contest, but Peter Tatchell didn’t get punched this time by a Moscow riot cop, so no one cared too much.
I also had a wisdom tooth removed, which made me a bit cranky. My hot water went off the day after it got extracted. Double trouble.
Having witnessed two non-Russians celebrate their birthdays here in the space of the past month, I thought it would be astute to mention the… peculiarity that Russians perpetuate concerning such an event.
Put gently, the practice is just a matter of good manners on your part. Put plainly, it’s downright mean on the part of everyone else. The chief warning is this: don’t go to a bar or restaurant on your birthday in Russia.
Why, you might ask, would one not want to celebrate their birthday at an eatery? Good food, wine, and company are perfect for such an occasion – so where’s the issue here? The problem is that, once it’s time for all to stumble onwards, you have to pay.
This shock to a Westerner’s system is compounded by the fact that, when Russians actually go out for birthdays, they hunt in packs. The most recent party I was at had least twenty people in attendance. Even though the birthday boy in question was fully versed in Russian culture, he was still not best pleased when the bill came his way.
Oh sure, your guests will bring presents, cards and likely a cake also, but they will drink you out of house and home. So much for being pampered by your nearest and dearest on the one day of the year when it’s all about you.
So where does it come from? Upon consultation with a native, allegedly, after receiving such gifts and enjoying fun times, one should проставиться (pro-stav-it-sya). There’s no real direct translation, though it essentially means one should equal things out. Another example would be that if you have a housewarming or are cooking for people in Russia – you’ll have to clean the dishes (I actually think this one is meaner) while everyone else sits on their behinds drinking the booze you bought for them.
It’s a sort of superstition that is almost reminiscent of the Aztecs, though not so much of the human-sacrifice-so-the-sun-will-rise-again. Put another way, if there’s enjoyment happening, those mysterious Slavic gods of social conscience must be appeased immediately, lest your moments of fleeting pleasure somehow bite you in the ass further down the line.
In other words, if you come to Russia, go to other people’s birthday parties – not your own.
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In other news, well, there is not much excitement. I’m attempting to snap photos here and there and still going to the gym, though not lifting weights and instead running like a pillock on the machines. Russians tend to have a different gym regime to what I’ve seen in the UK, so thankfully the machines are hardly occupied. This is because Russians are big on weights, but are more calisthenics-ish outside of that, in that they will do exaggerated, odd-angled squats, sit ups, abdominal stretches and so forth (rather than cardio, maybe it’s a not-wanting-to-sweat thing). And then they’ll just grab a bar and hang off it for about ten seconds before repeating.
Victory Day (ДеньПобеды, Dyen Po-byed-ee) is coming soon, which should be more fun than last year, as it’s the 65th anniversary of the end of World War II. On that note, I read a magnificent variation on the typical error Russians suffer from when translating into English. Instead of writing the typical “The World War II” (i.e. Russians have a problem with definite articles – the same goes for “The Wall Street” or “The Red Square”), one Russian presented me with the beautiful “World War the Second”.
I was also endlessly amused by Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull volcano-glacier thing terrorizing Europe, even more so by the fact that I didn’t hear one news anchor attempt to say its name in full (it’s pronounced “EYE-a-fyat-la-jo-kutl”).
Finally, my hair dryer dramatically gave up the ghost, ending its own life with a crunching noise, but it matters not: it’s warm outside, and that’s where I’m going next…
A new entry has been a long time coming. This is mostly due to the fact that I was on holiday for the first two weeks in March, and then straight back on shift for another week. The events on the Metro on Monday, March 29th, have also delayed writing as well. On the upside, prior to my holiday in Paris, I acquired a digital camera and have uploaded several hundred photos of the French and Russian capitals, which you can find at my flickr account.
I'm not entirely sure it's my place to discuss the Moscow Metro attacks. Looking up the entry about it on Wikipedia will give you more information than I can. Yet what I can do, perhaps, is give you a basic version of the events for those who don't have the patience, or the background knowledge. I should warn you that I will hyperlink a bunch of phrases, something I normally hate doing (seeing as nearly every other damned blog post on the Internet consists entirely of links to other sites). Try to think of them as further reading. I'll attempt to keep things simple.
On Monday, March 29th, the first explosion struck the red line Metro station Lubyanka just before 08:00, which was smack bang during rush hour ("час-пик" chass-peek or "peak hour" literally). Lubyanka is of importance, not so much in terms of the transport network as it only meets the purple line, but what's above it. Here's a pic of the Moscow Metro's layout in English. Click to expand.
On Lubyanka Square is the headquarters of the former KGB (Комитет Государственной Безопасность - KomitetGos-u-darst-vennoi Bez-o-pass-nost lit. Committee for State Security), now the FSB (Федеральная Служба Безопасности - Federalnaya Sloozh-bah Bez-o-pass-nost-ee lit. Federal Service of Security). In other words, it's the equivalent of London's MI5. As you can see from the map, it's just a little bit north from the Kremlin itself, making it a prime target for anyone wanting to attack the Russian government.
Approximately 40 minutes later, the second bomb went off at Park Kultury Metro station, located further down the line from Lubyanka and joins with the ring line station, which is extremely busy at the best of times. Both bombs occurred while the trains were on the platforms. Had they gone off while the train was in motion doesn't bear thinking about. The trains themselves can hit a top speed of about 70 km/h between stations, certainly at that time of day. The bombs themselves weren't that powerful, but they did contain shrapnel and metal rods, and were detonated via the use of cellphones.
As it turns out, Park Kultury was allegedly not the intended target, even though it is a busy thoroughfare at that time. Instead, Oktyabrskaya (one station anti-clockwise from Park Kultury on the circular line) was meant to be hit next. As for what's at Oktyabyrskaya... well, nothing exceptional comes to mind, other than the fact that it's a ring line station like Park Kultury.
The chief reason why the bomber was not successful in reaching Oktyabyrskaya is that perhaps she had been delayed. I know from an acquaintance - who was on the train ahead of the one that was carrying the second bomber at Park Kultury and heard the explosion behind her - that the red line was being closed off and people were being taken off the trains "for technical reasons" and "told to seek other routes", so the second suicide bomber there would have had to get off at the station regardless of whether or not she was heading to Oktyabyrskaya. It was also at such a time that news about Lubyanka was just beginning to spread. Consequently, access to the ring line at Park Kultury was also shut down for approximately an hour.
In addition, the bombers themselves were two young women - one in her teens - reported to be the widows of two Chechen militants (it's not uncommon for these men often have multiple wives). They have been named, and were allegedly accompanied by two men to the station they both got on at, which is Yugo-Zapadnaya - the first station on the red line from the south west. The apartment they were residing in and where the bombs were assembled has also been discovered. The manhunt for the two accomplices is underway.
On top of killing 40 and injuring 100 people and causing transport havoc - which greedy taxi drivers capitalized on at Metro station Komsomolskaya, also on the red line, by hiking up their fares to ludicrous sums (something in the region of 3000 roubles, or $100, to get to the centre of the city) - the mobile phone networks ground to a halt in the middle of the day as a result of the sheer number of phonecalls made and text messages sent. The authorities also asked the networks to do so in an attempt to block any further detonations. The phone network Megafon reimbursed its customers for any text messages sent from the time of 08:00 to 16:00, while mine (Beeline) sent me information messages about alternative bus routes or something along those lines (I couldn't tell, as the rest of the text was missing).
As for responsibility, it lies with so-called Chechen warlord/Islamist rebel leader/freedom fighter Doku Umarov, who is more or less deemed Russia's equivalent of Osama Bin Laden. Previous acts attributed to this man (or his group, of which he is its self-styled Emir) include the recent derailment of the Nevsky Express in November 2009, which claimed 27 people, as well as numerous homocides and kidnappings - all in the name of seeking the creation of the so-called "Caucasus Emirate".
Thankfully, all of my friends and acquaintances were unharmed, though there were a number of near-misses and those who slept in or were late for work.
As a result of Monday's events, I ended being contacted by BBC Radio Ulster to talk about it. Skip ahead to approximately 1:14:30. I was a bit nervous talking on national radio, so please excuse the inaccuracies that I have hopefully remedied with this post.
Finally, Russia Today went into overdrive on Monday with its coverage, some of which you can watch here. Their footage was at one point being streamed by both the BBC and CNN on the day.
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In other news, the snow is gone and it's warming up. Despite me looking forward to a winter wonderland of lots of snow remiscent of 2005/2006, which I got, it was too long and too dark. So much so that it was starting to take its toll emotionally. What'll likely happen now is a boiling hot summer, just like in 2006, which should be a joy when I'm at work.
I've also joined a gym literally around the corner from my apartment. Nothing exceptional, but it's open late, meaning I can go for a run after work, which is a relief after being on a 12-hour shift.
Last but not least, I acquired a faux leather office chair from Ikea for my flat. Its design is nothing exceptional, but it took a ludicrously long time to assemble because of its leatherette-ness. It was a balancing act trying to position a cumbersome soft thing next to another combersome soft thing, then trying to screw the two together. Three limb minimum. In hindsight I'd have rather changed the tires on a Hummer. Here's the completed article.
Someone should invent some sort of clamp specifically for Ikea furniture.
In trying to drum up something to write about, as I haven't typed anything in a while, I initially thought about writing on the mental and physical effects living abroad can cause. Then, ironically, it turned out to be too depressing and dull to write about, so I've settled to instead talking about a completely unique and life-threatening form of Russian transport - the gypsy cab.
I'm not too sure where the practice originates from. Maybe it stems from the economic hoo-haa of Communist times, combined with the whole 'equality' ideology as well. The basic process is this, and you don't need your phone to call up some pithy taxi company:
1) Go to the side of the road, preferably the busiest;
2) Stick out your hand (this is known as поймать машину poi-i-mat ma-shi-nu lit. catch a car);
3) Watch in amusement as several automobiles, usually the shitty ones, swerve across a few lanes to make it to the kerb;
[What a Moscow taxi maybe should look like, but yours certainly won't.]
4) At this point, carefully open the front passenger door of the first car, lest you break it. Confront the driver brusquely, state where you're going and how much you are going to pay. If he agrees: jump in beside him, as opposed to the back seat and off you go. If not, slam the door in his face and walk to the next one. Eventually, by the third or fourth, you'll get where you want for what you want. Always negotiate a price before getting in, and, although this should go without saying, never get into a car with two people in it.
Now for the ride itself. Quality of conversation - if you choose to have one - can range from simple chit-chat (traffic, weather) to historical debates (life in the Soviet Union) to them spouting racist outbursts. It also depends on whether or not the man (I've hitched a ride on two separate occasions with women, one of which was very manly and didn't charge me a dime, as it was a short journey to the end of a one-way street anyway, the other was a German real estate agent) is drinking stary melnik beer, smoking belamor cigarettes, eating sunflower seeds, or fooling around with his portable DVD player.
None of this is an exaggeration, I've been in a gypsy cab where at least one of these things has occurred. In some occurrences they've been nigh on terrifying. This New Year's drive home at 4am from my friend's flat I will neverforget, for instance. I was with a lady friend, and I got the feeling the driver was trying to be the cock of the walk . It had also snowed heavily, so the roads weren't exactly ideal, but the metro was closed for another couple of hours, so death cab it was.
I've never been driven home so fast through so much snow with no real concern on the driver's part. He was doing the usual chit chat, and was on his mobile phone a lot, only pausing in conversation to whip the wheel around corners. Four hundred roubles for the pleasure (about eight quid).
Thankfully, having had a chance encounter with an English person at the airport a while back and sharing a taxi home, I now know that there are many reputable companies. For the expats, here's one called XXL, and you can call them at +74959958294, but you should really only consider them for long distance journeys to the airports. Domodedovo, for instance, is about 50 kilometers away.
Another instance was meeting a Dublin couple on the street a year ago. They had backpacks on, due to take the Transiberian express in a couple of days, and were looking decidedly lost, so my friend and I helped them find the nearby hostel, then went and grabbed a drink in the center to celebrate, only for us to realize later that it was a national holiday and the metro closed early. So we caught a ludicrously small, pathetic looking, clapped-out gypsy cab to squeeze into. My friend and I are desensitized to such things, but upon seeing the faces of the Dubliners halfway through the journey, I realized that the two of them probably won't forget the encounter for some time.
It's snowing a hell of a lot right now. Heaviest in 40 years. Take that, Luzhkov!
The second last evening I spent in Shanghai was probably the most active of the lot. Considering the fact that I was such a terrible tourist the whole time I was there (remember, not a single photo, though I did attempt to take a pic of a sign in the subway which said something along the lines of "Jumping into the tunnel is dangerous" with my phone, but the light was too poor), it was high time I made the most of it.
Ironically, I had traveled several thousand kilometers only to end up hanging out with a bunch of Russians. Because I was there on the week prior to Christmas, the Russian expat community was having a sort of party (known in Russian as кооператив, I think. cooperative, lit.), before they went their own ways to celebrate New Year with their respective families. It was held in a faux-German bierhaus, English speaking staff as required. The whole event was practically the least Chinese thing you could do in the city.
The set up involved buying a 300 RMB - or yuan, I would have preferred to have said yuan, but they all say RMB there (short for Renmenbi) - ticket at the door, which paid for the buffet, a few drink tokens, and lottery ticket. 300 RMB, by the way, is roughly 30 euro. The event was sponsored by various Russian companies, which was... well, also bizarre. Again, I came all the way from Moscow just to see people giving out Спортсмастер (Sportsmaster - think along the lines of JD Sports) clothing.
The food was great, especially considering I was famished at the time, and the beer was okay. After having drinking it over the previous couple of days, I had learnt that, yes, Tsingtao beer is the local piss.
[Incidentally, it's always friggin' hilarious in the UK with certain bars selling foreign, supposedly elite beers. Glasgow's Bierhalle Republic and a couple of other places on Ashton Lane in the West End sell Russian Baltika beer for ludicrous sums, whereas it's about a sixth of the price buying it from the street booths in Moscow. I mean, it's not terrible, but it's not as if the hops are handpicked by ivory-skinned virgins. The same goes for Tsingtao. Speaking of Glasgow, although Irn Bru is the number one soft drink in Scotland, there are more Irn Bru drinkers in Russia. Barr shrewdly carved themselves out a niche about a decade ago.]
So, a room full of Russian, drinks a-plenty, there's a lottery with a top prize of two Aeroflot tickets to Moscow - surely good times ahead. Yeah, well, were it not for the Master of Ceremonies, who was a small, thin dorky-looking fellow in glasses dressed up as Santa (or rather Дед Мороз Ded Moroz lit. Father Frost), the night would have been awesome. Instead, he had likely drawn the short straw and everyone else who set it up decided to entrust him with the microphone. What followed was a case of verbal diarrhea coupled with rabbit-in-the-headlights stammering. I had no problem with him chatting away, Russians like to make speeches at celebrations where drinking is involved (it's mandatory), but the speakers were turned up so goddamn loud that I couldn't really chat up any of the lovely Russian ladies my host had introduced me to.
The MC did shut up for about five minutes at one point - and I mean at just one point - but he broke things up between reading out lottery numbers by holding games with everyone. Typically, the audience was shy, apart from one Russian guy who got progessively more drunk off his ass as the evening went on (by leaving time I noticed he was slumped over his chair) and another guy in a nicely tailored Chinese suit. Props to them, because they kept things going, and at one point they made me choke on my drink during one ridiculous game.
It's kind of hard to describe, but basically the game was between two Russian teams, each with a mic. The challenge was to sing a particular well-known Russian song, except leaving out most of the consonants. The effect this generated was one of the straight-up funniest things I've seen in a while, as good as Klaus the Forklift Driver. For the two gentlemen, they didn't just sing it, they almost rocked out to it. I have no clue what the song was, some sort of dorky jingle, to which these two men bellowed (gripping the mic stand as if it were a mighty stead with their war faces on):
- AH-AH-AH! - OOH-AH-AH! - OOH-OOH-AH-HA! - OOH-HA OOH-HA-HA! - AH-OOH AH-OOH! - OOH-OOHCHA-CHA-CHA! You can't really make this stuff up, and it's another reason why I lament not having a decent camera on my person. The two gentlemen were awarded with a bottle of cognac for their efforts, which they of course shared with the losing team, keeping in the spirit of things.
Sadly, lame-ass Santa hit the stage again, though not before having a large glass of cognac thrust down his throat by the two afore mentioned gentlemen. The lottery continued, and none of our numbers had been called either. Things were looking in our favour, seeing as there weren't many guests in attendance either.
Initial prizes were pretty good things like a bunch of iPod nanos (wouldn't have minded one of those), the sports clothing stuff, umm... I don't recall exactly what else, but they weren't naff like something you'd get at a community function at a church hall on a Saturday afternoon. And you'd think that something as big as two plane tickets as the top prize would mean that second and third would be pretty awesome.
No.
I got second prize. Second prize was a fucking year-long magazine subscription to the expat rag by the organizers. Third prize was a proper iPod, or something fancy. If anything it was a slightly shameless bit of self-promotion on second-prize-giver's part, because when I went up onto the stage, Geek Moroz was replaced by the supposed editor in chief, who then spent the next five minutes waxxing lyrical about the publication while I stood there like a plonker. Glancing over at the people I was with confirmed this - their faces said "You look like a plonker".
The prize was also totally pointless, as I was leaving in about two days. Given that this guy had been talking on and on about the magazine, the rest of the audience had stopped listening, so by the time he handed the mic over to me to say a few words it was apparent that nobody would be interested in learning that an Irishman who can speak Russian was at their Shanghai party. But taking a note from the two men of the night, I shouted Всем Наступающим Новым Годом! (vsyem nas-too-pai-yoo-shim no-vym go-dom - lit. To all a happy oncoming New Year) which got a couple of yays from the crowd. That said, my host currently enjoys this subscription, I believe, though she's not made any mention of it to me since then. There were a couple of copies lying around at the venue, though leafing through them was nothing to write home about.
Santa departed, a local band began singing the latest hits of the west and a few old-timers (I've not heard Love Shack by the B-52s in a LOOOOOOOOONG time) and we grooved away til closing time with some locals. I distinctly remember a fat Chinese guy in glasses, shirt and tie, doing a rather toned down interpretation of the Running Man.
We then went on to a pretentious skyscraper nightclub called Mint to see a remarkably effective form of crowd control on the part of the bouncers through the use of green laser pens, drink ludicrously-overpriced bottles of water that may have just been filled from the tap, and watch many ladies (some of whom were at the Russian party) dance suggestively on a couple of podiums.
Anton is a fantastically cool guy, and he also speaks English, which is useful seeing as I'm the only foreigner in attendance. Unfortunately, Anton has been on tango sabbatical to Buenos Aires for the past few weeks, leaving us to Gennady and Lena. I don't have any pictures of Gena, but he has danced far longer than Anton, so the class is in good hands.
Shiny.
