More Moscow Manoeuvres

Living and thriving in a big city is an extension of an evolutionary trait : just as we walk and talk without having to think before or as we do so, to get through Moscow or London, the natives of each acquire over time an automatic choreography that swerves or swivvles them just at the right moment to get them through a barrier, across a road, or produces a gesture or a word to allow them to buy a necessity swiftly  and with a minimum of friction.
I am an evolutionary result of London - so I can shoulder through a phalanx of commuters coming out of the barriers at Waterloo with a duck and a dive just like a bat flies through the solid dark of a cave without touching a thing. But the heavy glass and wooden framed doors that must be pushed back to enter and leave the Moscow Metro I have not adapted to - like a drowsy autumn bluebottle, I repeatedly find them bashing me in the face as they swing back forcefully from the person ahead of me. If I don't develop an avoidance mechanism soon, I'm dead, or unconscious, just another bluebottle concussed on  glass pane.
Elena has acquired some evolutionary traits of London, but most of her evolutionary experience was in Archangel,before Perestroika, in the Soviet era, so she has very few of the traits necessary for either city when it come to shopping.
And shopping was exactly what we had to do - the worst kind of shopping: bed linen, duvets, pillows, a wi-fi router, cutlery, a toaster and a kettle, an English teapot, an iron and ironing board. All bulky, fiddly, or unreliable things that just aren't right when you get them home. And all things that everyone else seems to want at exactly the same time that you do.
We were shopping for necessities for our lovely new rented flat.
First stop, a vast aerodrome of a shopping mall to get the toaster, teapot and kitchen things.
Self service and not too bad until we got to the checkout. Elena noticed that we had been double - charged for the kettle. Before one can leave the shop, the security police shake you down, but we had a very helpful man who checked our receipt in response to Elena's query. He endorsed her observation and confronted a terrified young checkout man. There followed a ten minute wait for an officious young woman to check the receipt again, then an even longer wait as she disappeared to obtain the authority to give us a refund. many pieces of paper were signed, and thirty minutes after the helpful security man had intervene on our side, we were free.
In the same vasty palace of consumerism we searched for a double bed size sheet - called Euro-Size. The traditional Russian double bed is smaller than the London or European one, but it is catching on, so they were sold out here and everywhere - we finally found a shop miles away that had a double duvet, sheet and pillows, at an exorbitant price, but it was getting late, and we had no choice.
With such relief that the salesman gave me a lascivious leer as Elena stood by, I agreed instantly to buy the combined set. I wanted to pay him, dear reader. but he would not let me - we had to fill out a form and proceed to a bank cashier 50 yards away. The bank cashier's machine would not accept my cards ( Earlier, to by a wi-fi router, Elena had to show her passport. this is vital when you have it installed too. Uncle Vladimir is watching you.) I found a cash machine, thoughtlessly returned to the shop, and was reminded sternly that I must proceed to the unsmiling cashier at the bank.
Still, we got home, and were happy.
I opened the piece-de-resistance of our expedition, a British made, superior stainless steel teapot from England, made by Taller - Premium Quality Products.
I poured the fine black tea leave made tea into our cups but half of it leaked from below the spout - traditional British workmanship of the 1970's, or Chinese sweatshop workmanship and British branding misrepresentation? Either way, watch out Mr Taller, I will get you for this.
Meanwhile, the Moscow Metro trains run every 90 seconds, everywhere, on every line, without fail, while the Circle Line in London is always broken or lost or there is a non - person lying across it, or it has no signals, and the Victoria line is closed for every weekend - the London Underground has great branding though, and a lovely logo!
The next day Elena bought a Russian teapot.

Architecture has been defined as ‘ frozen music’

On a freezing night, Elena and I were warmed by the vivid truth of this observation from Goethe, who whilst he never visited Moscow, would have not been able to see the Metro in any case, and would therefore have missed some spectacular illustrations of his proposition.

Follow the photographs below as they trace our journey today from a distant metro station to the ancient centre of this vast city into the beautiful Peter and Paul Catholic Church, where we attended a Schubert concert programme of etherial beauty.

Unless otherwise stated all photographs by Elena Bruce

Moscow can completely scramble the senses - it has mine

Marc Chagall , the surrealist, came to Moscow at least once. It shows in his work; bodies fly and flail, embrace and escape, fly and fall.  

Today, everything seems to push and rush - at six thirty am as I leave our enormous block of flats,the cold and dark is pushed aside by the solid phalanx of shuffling coats and hats that move like a nation towards the Metro at Akademika Yangelya.

It is implacable. It is a gigantic snake sliding down the Metro steps, down onto the platforms which are already another solid mass of living tissue.

Inside the carriage, which grates and grunts as it pulls away and then screams as it plunges down into Moscow central. We can’t hear each other and we are too tightly packed to read a book.

At Borovitskaya station, a vast interchange for the Metro in central Moscow, we are released and I make my way with the rest of humanity, for it seems as if they are all here today, up the steep escalators and out onto the Mississippi wide streets around the Lenin Library, along which races traffic racing to escape the furies of hell.

We are in that part of Moscow which aims to embody the power and the glory of the state - and it’s enough to shake the conviction of an anarchist and turn him into a police superintendant.

Yes, I too am convinced that only ‘silnaya ruka’ ( strong hand) can rule Russia - but wait, not so fast, there is a strange fantasia ahead of us as we leave my office in this stony desert of human feeling.

 We emerge from another extended Metro nightmare out into a fairyland of edible Hansle and Gretle buildings at Teatralny Proezd - suddenly,everything is ablaze and flashing, lights dance and people bob along the streets like corks on a breeze blown lake.

At Varvarka Street, we are back in European scale, the streets are narrow, the buildings built for human beings but painted for children in pinks and blues and whites.

As we glide past the 16th Century English Courtyard - a wooden roofed and charming house granted to English traders by Ivan the Terrible - we turn and find ourselves in a forest of spires and domes and crosses to humble an atheist.

Across our path gambols a troop and column of black and white uniformed guards, all children who are laughing and smiling, a gentle rebuke to the armies of the world in their camouflage and tanks.

   We turn again and a white cathedral with golden domes and crosses flies across the sky.

     It is the flying Cathedral of St Vladimir. 

     I kid you not.

     But it’s been a long day.

The bare chested pugilist - a landlord in Moscow

                                We hoped and believed that this would be our metro. 

We expected things to be different here. And we were familiar with some of the horror stories from the chaotic gangster capitalism of the perestroika period. But today we had a somewhat alarming experience which shows Moscow to be still on the borderlands of civil society, thirty years after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

To set the scene : in Moscow there are few estate agents that a Londoner would recognise, at least if they are hoping to rent a flat. The agent is not trusted to hold the key, so it is impossible to view a property until the owner is at the property accompanied by the agent. This slows everything down, of course. And reflects the  breakdown of trust in Moscow ( it is different in the frozen north of Archangel, by the way, which has a civilised property market ) as does the insistence on large sums in cash for deposits and landlord commissions, which must be paid by the tennant not the landlord.

Now London has a cash economy too, and plenty of ‘ rogue traders’ but I feel certain that it does not approach the levels here. My confidence comes from the sheer numbers of Muscovites who shake their heads in dismay at its prevalence in Moscow. They make no attempt at patriotic rebuttal.

The scene set, let me proceed: - 

Elena and I had found an agent who had advertised a property on line. The agent told us that we could view it when he could arrange for the owner to be at the property. We met the agent and a man whom Raymond Chandler would have described as a Goon - burly, thick set, a gangster swagger as he walked, auditioning for a part in a Tarantino movie, an executive operative in the security industry, with front line experience, including a long spell involuntarily behind the lines.

This walking wall was not,in fact, the ownwer. He was there to check us out for gullibility and respectability - we could be intimidated by bluster.

Whilst we looked around the flat, the Goon was on his mobile to his boss - he is Anglacheena ( English ) about fifty, she is Rooska, about forty. So far so good, he was ten years too low!

We liked the flat as well.

We agreed to take it. we were told the owner would meet us at the flat the following day to exchange contracts. We would need a large sum of money in cash: one months rent in advance ( equal to £800 ) plus the same amount as a commission to the agent plus a damages deposit to the same amount. all in cash!

Nothing else, even direct bank transfer, was acceptable.

Next day, after some considerable inconvenience, we arrive at the flat with cash and meet the Goon and the agent.

We arrive at the door of the flat, which is in a large block of flats.

The Goon knocks at the door.

No answer.

He tries to use the key.

It doesn’t work.

He tells us the owner is inside, and tries to raise him on his mobile.

No answer.

More knocking - no answer.

The agent is beginning to show signs of embarrassment.

Ten minutes pass with futile attempts to use the key and knock on the door.

The door opens.

There stands a bare chested, pugnacious impersonation of a pit-bull terrier.

Clad only in track suit bottoms, his nose red with the results of ardent spirits.

We walk in. He, the semi - naked dangerous dog, barks at us to remove our shoes.

Elena protests that she might not want to, and he barks with canine anger that it is his flat and he wants it clean.

I don’t speak Russian, but say to Elena that we will remove our shoes if he puts on his shirt.

We removed our shoes but he remained exposed.

More barking - we must agree to one year. we must not register with anyone that we are living at this address

The Goon is lifting an ancient television set into place and removing a bigger, but equally ancient one.

Elena asks why the television is so old.

He barks back in dog that it is a flat screen!

Elena asks why there are no pots, pans, plates etc in a furnished flat.

He barks back in dog a question - can’t you buy some?

Finally, Elenas asks for proof that the pit - bull actually owns the flat ( a normal check )

 The pit - bull turns into a wild boar, a pugiistic pig, spitting, blustering, stamping his trotters.

You western, he grunts, my under 16 year old daughter owns this flat, I can’t get a document. or I can tomorrow.

A non - sequitor follows this grunt - the flat is insured!

If anything goes wrong, you can fix it.

Enough.

You have the picture.

Good luck, we said, and left to look another day for another flat.

A tale of two cities – London and Moscow

We’ve been here two days now, and we’ve met high and low and some of the sandwiched in the middle, so I hope we can be forgiven some first impressions?

Do Muscovites love Moscow?

Do Londoners love London?

I think Londoners are in love with London.

I think Muscovites feel as if they are living with an irascible bear. From a distance it is alluring, enticing, soft and cuddly. But get up too close and it will swipe a paw and knock off your head.

They feel a certain pride in their guts and nerve – not many people are steely enough to live in a bear pit. They see us Londoners as soft and spoilt, are skin cuts easily and we bruise at the slightest bump – we are not hard and we probably can’t take care of ourselves in a fight.

Here, in Moscow, I heard the word «crisis» a lot.

Now we have the same crisis in London, the great crisis of capitalism and finance and the resulting unemployment, but you don’t hear the word used – recession is about as hard as it gets.

Crisis is a tough, hard, uncompromising word.

I think it’s the right word.

Maybe that’s an important difference.

Here, they tell it like it is and they don’t mind if it hurts.

If you chop down a forest, goes the Russian proverb, chips will fly.

Here, you have to say what you think and everyone knows the words that hurt and those that heal.

We blend them to a puree so that they can’t be separated.

London is a pretty and gracious city – in parts.

Moscow is imposing, monumental and its manners are brusque.

The blood runs cold for much of the time but when it heats up, it gets very hot, a dispute is a fight, and a party is a shouting and jumping occasion for banging the table and shouting to be heard.

Like most things in life, from religion to sex, it’s a matter of taste.

Since we love both places, we can only conclude that we are a couple of broad minded lost souls!

Unless otherwise stated all photographs by Elena Bruce

Little Venice walk - last week in October

Last week in October. London. Little Venice. Drizzle. Quiet. Peaceful. I even want to believe in God, I want to thank him for placing me here, for making this place my home. I can walk here every day. And I do walk here every day. I took these photos today, because today is probably one of the last mild days of this golden autumn. Tomorrow or the day after a cold wind will blow away all the leaves and bring on winter.

I wish I could to write about it like Thomas Hardy.

Last Week in October / Thomas Hardy

 
Last Week in October

The trees are undressing, and fling in many places —
On the gray road, the roof, the window-sill —

Their radiant robes and ribbons and yellow laces;
A leaf each second so is flung at will,
Here, there, another and another, still and still.

A spider's web has caught one while downcoming,
That stays there dangling when the rest pass on;
Like a suspended criminal hangs he, mumming
In golden garb, while one yet green, high yon,
Trembles, as fearing such a fate for himself anon.

---
Thomas Hardy
from Winter Words, 1928

Unless otherwise stated all photographs by Elena Bruce

Jesus gets connected by a church in Histon, Cambridge

My Mum, Elena and I were waiting for the very infrequent bus into Cambridge when Elena spotted this alarming poster.

I knew that in the Bible Belt of the USA you could call -up Jesus on an 0800 toll free number ( he speaks pretty good English considering it’s a second language for him. I am indebted to The Texas Lounge Lizards for this information and its phrasing which you will find in their brilliant composition entitled Jesus loves me – but he can’t stand you! )

But a permanently on, wi-fi, interactive connection to Jesus is surely a terrifying prospect?

Do these religious enthusiasts know what they are doing?

How does Jesus feel about it?

Did anybody ask him?

Give the guy a break I say.

Remember, ‘Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow, yet they toil not, neither do they sow….’

Jesus believed in free time. Let’s give him some and switch off.

Remember too, as the Lounge Lizards’ so perceptively sing –

Jesus loves all his children its true – but that don’t mean he won’t incinerate a few!

I have no idea where I’m gonna go when I die – but I’d like a bit of peace and quiet.

Please.