The Sunday Session

In the morning I pour Victoria tea and find the last couple of Tim Tams to put with it.  “Hey thanks for letting me stay here last night.  I wouldn’t have been good company for anyone”, I offer as some kind of backhanded apology.
 “You were better off staying home last night, it rained most of the time and we ended up mostly being cold and wet, huddled under umbrellas”, she says sadly, before brightening up and continuing,
 “Did you find something to eat?” 
I’m sure I look guilty for a moment before answering,
“I found some pasta and used some random vegetables.  I’ll get some more today.”
“Oh from that jar in the front of the fridge?’
“Umm… the pickled stuff..yeah.”
“Oh don’t worry so much about that, it’s been there forever”. 
I smile and thank her again before heading out into the street.  I’ve just realised that I haven’t actually been inside the Kremlin itself yet and want to see the Armoury before I leave Moscow tonight.

I’m glad to visit it, the electronic audio guide I pay for takes me on a neat cruise through the rooms discovering the crazy array of weaponry, clothing, dinnerware and carriages that Russian royalty had enjoyed over time.  I haven’t seen a sleigh-carriage before and there’s a crazy array of them to choose from here.  By the time I finish the Armoury I’m eager to keep moving and return to Victoria’s apartment.  Whilst I’ve enjoyed my time in the city, I’m more than ready to leave Moscow.  The place hasn’t exactly captured my imagination, but Moscow was never the reason I wanted to come to Russia.  Those experiences lie on the other side of the Ural mountain range. 

I explain to Victoria that I will take my suitcase to the Sunday Session party and then go straight from there to the inter-city train station.  She suddenly realises and exclaims,
“So I won’t see you again!”
“Well, not for a while…..but I have something for your collection of stuffed animals and teddy bears.” 
On her windowsill, a coffee table and a desk of drawers in her room are an amazing array of these little keepsakes she has collected on her travels.  I give her a small Koala to add to them, to remind her she has to come and visit me in Australia sometime soon.  I then also produce a section of an enormous scarf my sister-in-law had made for me the previous Christmas.  Karen had spent a lot of time knitting it, capably assisted by my nephew and nieces as required, to remind me of my connections to the rest of my family.  The full scarf is well over five metres long, composed of different coloured sections made from different kinds and styles of yarn.  At one point we had it wrapped around all my family sitting around the loungeroom in Darwin.  Karen wanted me to take it on my travels to be my reminder of all of them.  When it was completely rolled up it formed a disc over twenty centimetres in diameter and over ten centimetres tall.  When I was leaving Australia, I cut off a section a bit over a metre long that was small enough to take with me.  My aim was to get pictures of my hosts and their friends to remember both their connection to me and for me to my family.  Victoria poses for a lovely shot wearing the scarf and her glorious smile.  With that formality finished we hug and I drag my suitcase into the street.

The Sunday Session is an Australian pastime to deal with the problem of wanting to have some beers with your friends, but not wanting to be hungover Monday morning.  So the answer is to start drinking around midday Sunday and finish up by nine to give you plenty of time to recover.  A couchsurfer from Perth, Ben, is living in Moscow and he’s arranged for a Sunday Session to happen at his apartment today.  After trying to find my way alone, I decide fate is pushing me to try a taxi.  Two drivers are sitting inside the second taxi on the rank sharing a cigarette sheltered from the rain.  I smile and say hello, in Russian, and hold out the piece of scrap paper I have written the address on in Russian.  They look at each other, have a brief discussion and decide who will be taking me somewhere.  My driver waves me to sit down and we lurch into the traffic, turning completely in the opposite direction to where I thought we should be going.  I’ve heard taxi rides in Russia can be a fun experience for foreigners, but since my own brief attempt to find my way met with abject failure, I decide to trust him for a while.  With his next turn we enter the street I’m looking for.  During this time I manage to tell him, in Russian, that I’m Australian, I’ve been in Moscow for one week and I like Russia.  He tells me it’s raining and that’s about as far as we get when he points at an apartment building with the number emblazoned on it. 

Ben meets me downstairs where he checks the paper sign he’s posted advising the Couchsurfing party is at this door.
“The babushkas in the building don’t like anything foreign or unusual, so when I‘ve done this before with a note in English, they’ve pulled it down within an hour.”
Ben’s apartment is true to the style I had already discovered, decrepit on the outside giving way to luxury inside the front door.  There must be a lot of work in doing renovations in this country.  I’m somehow relieved to be talking to another Australian, especially one from my adopted city of Perth.  I’m about to suggest I go for a beer mission when he shows me the slab of half-litre cans of Baltika 7 he’s acquired.  He smiles and says,
“No worries, there’s plenty here, if we need more later, we can just get them from the shops downstairs.”

I love his proper Aussie style and crack one open with him.  I’m running Moscow early, being exactly on time at four. 
“The other Sunday Sessions I’ve had here had people arriving from six or seven and staying all night”, he says.
“They don’t really get the idea of the session.”
 “Nope, but I kind of like their style too, they party like Australians.”
“They do know how to keep a session going”, I add with a broad smile, remembering Friday night’s madness.
“So what do you make of Moscow life then?”, I ask.
“I liked Moscow when I first arrived”, he begins thoughtfully,
“but after a few weeks I grew to hate it, everything’s difficult, it’s like the city hates you.  I’ve spoken to a few other people who’ve moved here and told me you go through a time of hating everything about it and then you seem to form a truce.”
“I don’t think I like this city, it’s just another big city to me.  Sure it has things that are different, but it’s still just another big city.”
“Maybe…I dunno…I wonder what I have left to eat?”.  He distracts himself, wandering into the kitchen to check the fridge.
“I have some vegemite with me if we want to make something Australian”, I offer. 
He smiles and says sadly,
“I have no bread”.  So with this patriotic need established, I stride off purposely to find some bread.

After walking for a few minutes I begin to doubt I’m even vaguely in the right place.  Nothing looks like it should and I keep looking back to his apartment block trying to find his window; hoping he’s on the balcony.  While searching for the apartment I realise it’s on the other side of the block.  Now oriented, I walk back and find the shop more easily.  This navigating within the nests of apartment buildings can be tricky.  Inside the shop I meet some of the people from Friday night while I’m acquiring the bread and a one litre can of Baltika 7 so I can get a picture of myself holding it. 

Nastya and Ben

Ben and I immediately set about preparing vegemite sandwiches for everyone, eating a few ourselves before switching into a mass production mode.  All Australians love to share this spread with everyone around the world, mostly for the incredibly distasteful expressions it normally causes.  It is an acquired taste and, for me, is best consumed with bread with butter.  Thus prepared, the two of us hand them out to the six or seven people who have arrived, waiting expectantly for their faces to contort.  They don’t.  They love it.  I’m lost for words.  Ben looks thoughtful for a moment,
“Oh yeah…I gave some to some Russians when I first got here and they liked it too”.  I shrug and keep making more as everyone tries and enjoys it.  This just isn’t meant to happen and I find myself wondering what it is in the Russian palate that makes vegemite such an agreeable option.  Only one person doesn’t like it so much, but doesn’t really mind it either.  I’m almost disappointed to miss out on the normal reaction, but at the same time I’m amazed with the unexpected connection with the Russian people.

The Sunday Session has begun in earnest and over the next few hours grows with more and more Couchsurfers and their friends arriving.  I spread the word about my eclipse chasing madness and discover that one of the girls there, Irina (who made the Irish Cream on Tuesday night), will be a part of a group who will ride horses through part of the Altai Mountains at the time. They will see Totality from a small village in the hills.  I’m impressed with her dedication to the cause and we agree to meet up afterwards to trade photos and stories.

Someone asks me what I think of Moscow and Russia.
“I like the Russian people but I don’t really like this city”, I begin and then pause, thinking how to continue.
“In so many ways it’s just another city.  I think when a city reaches a certain size it becomes its own country”,
“Moscow is not a Russian city”, Sasha the Siberian interjects, “I’m glad you’re going to visit the real Russia beyond the Urals.  Life is different there, people are different.  So many tourists only visit Moscow and St Petersburg and think they’ve visited Russia.”
There are nods and noises of agreement from all the Russians who are listening, even the Muscovites seem to agree.
“It’s not really a Russian city, but it’s still my city”, Irina adds.
 “I think there are plenty of cities that don’t belong to their country anymore”, I begin, thinking out loud,
”I mean, they’re still inside that country, but not any part of it.  London, New York, Sydney, Moscow and others.  It’s like they all belong some another country”.  It’s the first time I’ve really seen it this way and I start to wonder what kind of country it is exactly.

Nastya and Maya

Suddenly an exuberant redhead taps me on the shoulder and looks at me expectantly.  I don’t recognise her or know how to react until she says,
“Hi, I’m Natasha”. 
I surge from my seat to give her the hug Healey had asked me to pass on.  Formalities aside, I duck into the kitchen to the fridge to rescue the packet of Tim-Tams I’ve brought for her.  She is one of the Couchsurfing Ambassadors in Moscow and I especially want to meet her, since she knows a Couchsurfing friend of mine from Perth, Healey.  He’d stayed with her when they were both in Poland a few years earlier, so he had more recently entrusted me with a packet of Tim Tams to deliver to her personally.  She stashes them in her handbag and we shift to the balcony to trade news while she has a cigarette. 

Natasha and Sasha the Siberian

What follows is a long session of laughter, photographs and increasing madness as the beers take hold of the group.  At some point I fetch the small number of tiny clip-on Koalas I had put aside to give out today and make sure everyone that I’ve met more than once receives one.  Ben then puts his huge Australian flag across the door to his loungeroom, which leads inevitably to even more photographs of Natasha wrapping herself in it and posing salaciously.  One of the very cute local girls, Nastya, asks

“Do you have any more Koalas? I missed out before.”
She looks so sweet and forlorn it’s hard to refuse, but I look at my suitcase in despair. 
“I have some more, but it would take time to get them out…. and I need to keep them for the rest of my trip.”
She looks so sad, that I add,
“If I get a kiss, I’m sure I could find the energy.”
She withdraws at first looking shy, then both her and her friend, Maya, who also wants one, decide to provide the necessary encouragement.  Maya is a very beautiful young lady with huge, soft eyes that make me feel like I could drown a sweet death inside them.  Koalas suitably distributed I notice my scarf on top of everything and proceed to spend a long time taking photos of almost everyone wrapped in it. 

Natasha’s friend Anna and I have our picture taken together and Natasha thinks we look like we’re a good couple.  We immediately agree we’ve actually been married for a few years already and have been keeping it a carefully guarded secret.  We then pose for some more pictures to prove the point and I ponder that it has taken me just over a week to find myself a Russian bride.  Around eleven I start to pack everything away and then hear the sound of slapping and giggling coming from the entrance of the apartment.  I venture into the area only to have my arse suddenly slapped by two different women, one of them is Natasha.  Ben has explained to everyone this is an ancient Australian party tradition and I confirm it wholeheartedly by returning the favour.  After a frenzy of arse slapping madness we find eight or more people all standing against the walls between the doorway, the bathroom and the kitchen.  Every time someone ventures into the zone a solid slapping session commences leaving us all howling with laughter.  I realise I have to go and fetch my bags from the loungeroom to get them to the door.  Natasha and her friend, Anna, also have to leave.  So after lengthy goodbyes to everyone, I’m escorted back to the Metro station by my wife and her beautiful friend.

There goes a day...

Sometimes I think I cram two or three days into just one, which is the best excuse I can summon for losing a day every now and then.  After the amazing day and the night's festivities, I awake suddenly only a few hours later being evacuated for the cleaner to arrive. I have another shower to try to become at least semi-conscious and shamble into the street, still riding on the effects of a six in the morning beer. I can’t say I remember much of how I spend the next few hours, but at the end of it I’m lying on a bench outside her apartment building waiting for her to respond to my troubled query on when I could go back to sleep. I think the effects of the beer have well and truly worn off by now and I’m left with only the body sickness that comes with a good hangover. I had acquired some Mors juice and finished a litre of it, which was helping a little. This kind of juice is something Victoria introduced me to, its made from different berries from the forest and is something Russian people still make for themselves. This version is packaged, available all over the country and utterly delicious. When I receive her message, I’m working on finishing the second litre carton. It gives me enough energy to shamble back upstairs and pass out again just after one o’clock.

Victoria wakes me around five to tell me,
“I’m going to a celebration that the American embassy is running and I’m wondering if you would like to come?” I check with my proprioreceptive nervous system on this question and discover that whilst all my limbs and organs still seem to be intact, none of them like the idea of working together to move anywhere. I try to negotiate with the warring parties and can find no resolution to the problem that doesn’t involve sleeping for another twelve hours.
“I don’t think I can move anywhere right now”, I say meekly, hoping she won’t beat me mercilessly.
“Oh I thought so… I just wanted to ask in case you were planning on going. Oh..you know you won’t be able to get outside without the key.”
“Yes, I think I’m not going to be able to go anywhere until tomorrow”.
With that response she checks her bag and pockets for everything before waving goodbye and heading out the door. Being locked inside her apartment seems entirely a better prospect than roaming the city with a torturous hangover. I know she isn’t entirely happy, but I still thank her quietly for letting me lie and suffer by myself.

I wake up again after eight feeling significantly less like my internal organs have been blended into a kind of sick slurry and venture to the kitchen to see if I can find anything to eat. It’s moments like these the guidebooks never seem to cover. I now cannot leave the apartment, since I can’t unlock the deadlock. I don’t have any food here. I can’t drink the tap water and there’s only a litre bottle left that isn’t mine. I hope for forgiveness when I replace everything in the morning and turn to the cupboard to try and find something filling. I can’t understand the Russian written on most of the packets, so figure I’ll have to go with something I’m pretty sure I know. I’m overjoyed to find a packet of instant spaghetti and set about getting a pot full of water boiling on the stove. While the pasta is cooking I see if I can find something to use as a sauce and come up with a few gherkins and something pickled in a jar involving tomatoes and…..other things. In the interests of the exploration of international cuisine I give you “Pickled stuff and gherkin on a bed of spaghetti”; a delightful mixture of Russian and Italian mainstays brought together in a moment of desperation. It isn’t bad actually, so I finish it and check my email on Victoria’s laptop. I return to bed again and sleep provides blessed relief from the torment I do like to inflict on my body.

The Demon's eyes in the Russian night

The Tretyakov Gallery
 

It’s Friday and today has been an emotionally draining time.  Later in the day I discover the train tickets are still not ready and I ask him to send them to my couchsurfing host’s apartment directly.  I’m glad I’ve already been talking to Alisha for a couple of weeks about my visit, so this is no problem.  It does add to my worries; without those tickets, this is going to be a very strange journey in Russia.  The thing that’s really twisting my mind is a painting I saw in the Tretyakov gallery this morning.  The gallery is awesome and I had already seen a number of the paintings before, but there’s nothing like the real thing.  I can’t find a good picture on the internet of the painting that is haunting me and I suspect no picture can capture it.  You just have to be there.

It’s called ‘The Demon Prostrate’ and is kind of a picture of Satan just after his exile from heaven.  And it kinda isn’t.  The body in the picture is angular and beautiful, with dark skin; but it takes a while to be able to notice that, because the entire picture lives in the eyes.  Betrayal, fury, disappointment, confusion – like a child punished savagely for someone else’s crime.  These eyes beg for sympathy, but warn of a purely malevolent intent.  They draw you closer to empathy, but reject you with spite at the same time.  There is pure animal madness in them as well as the savage pure discipline of a conquering hero.  I’ve never felt anything like the flow of emotions this picture draws from me effortlessly.  You’re left feeling somehow robbed and richer at the same time.

My guide tells me Vrubel produced this piece of mad genius when he was on the verge of the massive nervous breakdown that heralded the end of his career and soon life.  Already driven by his own demon, it seems Vrubel tried to take control back by overthrowing him and instead captures the moments before it claims him entirely.  He repainted the eyes in this picture over forty times.  Even after it had been exhibited to some acclaim, he continued to change them until they reached this final state.  Probably exacerbated by third stage syphilis, this was the beginning of the end of the artist’s mind and provides a dark and complete insight into his internal struggle.  If you’re passing by Moscow, I’d highly recommend a visit.

On the street in Arbat

I still feel like my insides have been rearranged with a cricket bat when I meet Ludmilla at the entrance to the Metro station near the café.  I just want the demon’s eyes out of my head.  The place is certainly very new, modern and belongs more in Europe than Moscow.  Ludmilla’s English is not conversational, but still so much better than my Russian, so we chat in stilted fashion while we peruse the menu.  Alexander arrives just after our drinks and this helps conversation a lot.  He asks me to call him Sasha, so I should take a moment to explain Russian names.  Everybody has at least three or four.  Your first name and family name are pretty set, but there are standard shortenings for first names that everyone uses with friends.  Alexander and Alexandra both get shortened to Sasha, but Vladimir is Volodya, Dimitry is Dima, Nataliya becomes Natasha and Anastasia becomes Nastya.  To further confuse this there is not a huge variety of first names in Russia, so it’s quite normal to have two or three people with the same name at any gathering.  To add to this you also have a patronymic name which is derived from your father’s name.  It has male and female versions so you can always tell someone’s sex from their patronymic name.  Lenin’s father’s name was Ilya, which is why he is Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.  Volodya to his mates.  So in the interests of identifying this confusing array of Russians with the same name, I’ll add my own epithet to their short name.  So anyway, it turns out that Sasha the Siberian had been a top English graduate in his hometown of Novosibirsk, the capital of Siberia.  We all chat much more freely as more people arrive and soon we have a group of eight or so Couchsurfers, including the Dutch guy, Hanspeter, and Tanya, one of the locals from Tuesday night.  Tanya is short for Tatiana by the way.

During dessert Ludmilla and the other locals discuss our itinerary before we gather together and leave.  What follows is an incredible trek across the city to discover places that were full, weren’t open yet or were too expensive for some of the group to want to pay to get in.  We see a lot of the streetlife at night and not so much of the nightclubs.  I’m amused to see large black vans filled with beautiful women parked next to the entrance of a casino.  I ask what they were doing and my hosts diplomatically explain it’s for rich men to have some fun.  We end up getting beers at pavement shops twice during the mission and drink them on the way to the next place.  On the way I find myself explaining the Australian love of shortening words to Sasha the Siberian.
“Anything with three syllables is going to be pinched, even two is a little long.  A heavy Australian accent is made unique by the way words are shortened and slid together into an endless stream of whiny noise.”
“Yes, we like to shorten words too…everybody’s name, places…it’s common to not say the whole thing”, he says.
“True? I suspect all languages do it to some degree, but one of my favourites is un-fucking-believable.”
He laughs at hearing the sausage word created,
“But that’s longer!”
“True, but it’s spelled u-n-f-k-n-b-l-v-b-l”
He bursts out laughing and we toast with the beers we’re carrying as he says the letters over and over again.
“But it’s not the best one, the best Australian saying is ‘No wuckers’.  It was originally ‘No worries’.”
“Yes, I’ve heard that before”, he says, nodding.
“Somewhere it became ‘No fucking worries’, then ‘No wucking furries’…Until someone realised that’s too damn long and made it ‘No wuckers’.” 
He laughs with each variation and his eyes shine with the amusement of learning the final part.
“You don’t get that one so much in cities, I’ve heard it more in the country”, I add.
“So Australian changes around the country?”
“The accent certainly does, words do as well, but you can normally understand it everywhere.”
“Russian doesn’t really change across the country, we speak the same language everywhere.”
“Really? Over such a big country I’d expect so many more variations!”
“Not really, the Trans-Siberian line connects everyone and we all move around doing national service too.  So the culture might be different, but not so much the language”. 
I make a note to see if I can pick different accents as I cross the country.

Beery goodness from St Pete's

Actually the beer stops introduce me to another curious part of the Russian psyche, when in a group; everyone likes to wait for someone else to take responsibility for leading.  It doesn’t seem to be for politeness, more that nobody wants the burden.  We stop to pick up the beers and then ten minutes later we’re still standing around sipping them and finishing second cigarettes. 
“What are we were waiting for?”, I ask.
“Nothing.”
“Well…Davai davai”, I chant, trying to move everyone.  This is followed by more of the same as all the foreigners present agree they also thought we were waiting for something or someone.  The locals agree that indeed we aren’t waiting for anything and we stand sipping beer for a while longer.  I’m not sure who moves first, but a few of us start walking saying,
“Davai davai”. 
They point in the right direction and we surge onwards.  After a little while it occurs to the two of us at the head of the group that we have no idea where we are or where we’re going; but somehow we’re leading everyone.  We pause and wait for a couple of our local group members to stroll by and start following them.  After a short time, they realise we aren’t quite heading in the right direction and cross the road and curve back slightly in the direction we had come.

By the second stop I’d figured out this would probably happen again and keep up the pressure to keep moving.  The only other explanation of these pauses is that it is technically illegal to be walking down the street drinking beer, but everyone does it.  So if we finish beers near the shops, we’re less likely to be hassled.
“When was the last time any of you have been bothered about this law?”, I ask. 
They look thoughtful and generally agree it’s been a long time.  All it really takes is someone prepared to say, ‘Davai davai’ and everyone will follow pretty directly – just as Ayuna had done yesterday.  Finally, we resolve to head to a place called ‘Soup’ to actually sit down for a while.  The walk across the city has stretched into a three hour tour and we all just want to sit down anywhere.  Well….anywhere with a beer.

We’re led to a table and I’m forced to order a beer and two shots of vodka.  Sasha the Siberian smiles and does the same.  Some of the others order soup, apparently it really is well known for the soups they make here.  This is apparently a common format for Russian clubs; you enter in a group, are seated and enjoy table service.  You could head for a dancefloor, if it has one, but this one has more of a café style atmosphere.  I enjoy sitting down more than anything and learn some new Russian toasts.  Most of the Moscow locals were horrified at the thought of saying ‘Ha zdorovie’, a traditional Slavic toast meaning ‘to your health’.  It’s probably the first toast any foreigner learns and I discovered I had to find some new ones to be really Russian.  To make it more difficult, when I ask for another one that was the equivalent of ‘cheers’, their faces cloud over and then they say, ‘there’s too many’.  I laugh and demand they pick one.  Sasha the Siberian tells me the Russian word that effectively means ‘to our future’ and we drink our first shot together.  A while later he tells me another one of his favourites, which means ‘Let’s do it’, so we can finish the second one.

Thus armed against the cool night air and regenerating our tired legs we make for Krisis Zhanre.  Apparently the live music only gets started there about midnight and when we enter the first band is only a couple of songs into their set.  The clubs name in Russian glows on the wall and the place is packed and vibrant.  Sasha the Siberian and I stash our coats in the coatroom I find hidden at the back of the dancefloor and he volunteers to find some beers while I wait with the rest of the group.  We finish them quickly and all of us launch ourselves onto the dancefloor with mad abandon.  The band finishes, we don’t, but the DJ keeps us going as they setup for the next band.

This new drug called 'B' will explode your mind

Dancing, beers, vodka and shouted happiness prevail for a few hours.  At one point all the Couchsurfers join together in a circle with arms around each other and keep dancing together.  This only lasts a minute thanks to some filthy looks from bouncers, we have to break it up.  I’m baffled as to what was so bad.  Konstantin, one of the locals, leads me to a back area for a cigarette.  We travel past the end of the bar, finding ourselves in a group of tables and then open French windows that lead to a small outdoor location designed for smoking.  The back ‘wall’ of this area is a canvas tent that conceals a building site.  Konstantin produces a cigarette which I then drop on the floor almost instantly.  As I bend over to retrieve it, he looks appalled at the idea and stomps on it whilst producing another.  I can’t picture anyone in Australia doing that; a single cigarette is worth up to seventy five cents.  However, in Russia a whole packet costs the same; which would help to explain why almost everyone smokes, everywhere.  Konstantin leans forward after lighting up and explains the bouncer’s reaction to our mini-mosh.  Apparently the worst thing you can do is to be moving together in a big group like that, it’s banned in every pub, club and venue.  Moshing is strictly forbidden thanks to the bad reputation it has for causing unforeseen injuries as the mass hysteria takes over and everyone in the room is heaving together as one.  People have been suffocated, trampled and generally damaged.  Which is probably why I love the mosh so much, I’ve already been in many good ones and loved every minute of it.  The surge of energy I get from moving both together with the crowd and by myself within it is spectacular and invigorating.  

Somehow we get talking to a pair of Mexicans who are visiting Moscow and I discover this club is a huge hangout for ex-pats in general.  I’m more than happy to throw myself into the night and see where we all land. For most of the next few hours I find myself drinking beers and returning to the smoking area to enjoy random conversations with Mexicans, Americans, Germans, Serbians and a host of Muscovites.  I meet an extraordinarily drunk local who gives me his card so we can go out drinking again tomorrow night.  He’s out with his girlfriend and an old mate who’s in town for the weekend.  All three of them are at the level of drunkenness that would get them removed from an Australian pub with vigour, but none of them seem to have a problem finding another round.  I pass Tania on the dancefloor and she leans in close to be heard,
“Are you coming back with us all to my place after this?”
“Definitely! When are we going?”
She shrugs and says,
“Soon maybe.”

One of the rarer effects of drinking too much Russian Vodka

It’s while talking to an American journalist about where the country is going under Putin that I realise I have no real idea where I am in the city.  We walked here after the monster trek, leaving me with no orientation for a Metro station and I’m not entirely confident about organising a Russian people’s taxi with my poor language skills.  The idea of being alone and lost in the middle of Moscow makes me feel suddenly vulnerable, so I move to return to the group.  To my horror they have disappeared.  I look in every corner of the club and can’t find anyone.  I retrieve my jacket and begin to work through my options on finding my way home.  It’s just after six in the morning and I’m floating on a sea of beer inspired warm comfort.  I think if I can get directions to the Metro I can navigate myself home safely without a problem.  So when I walk into four members of the group standing together outside, I give a little cheer.  They look up at me and smile.
“I thought you’d gone home already!”, I accuse them.
“You’re still going!”, the chorus of voices chime.
“I couldn’t go, I have no idea where I am right now.”
They laugh and Hanspeter says,
“Moscow!”
“Really? I thought I was in Africa somewhere!  How the hell did I get here?!?!.....What happened to Tania? One minute she’s saying we’re all going there and now she’s disappeared with her friend.”
“Oh they left half an hour ago, I think they were looking for you, but you’d disappeared.”
“I was out the back in the smoking tent talking to drunk Russians”

 

And that's what Moscow really looks like

 

They laugh as we meander to the Metro station.  As we separate at the circle line station I wonder when exactly the best time to send a message to Victoria is.  I opt for an SMS five minutes before I arrive back and follow with a phonecall when I get there.  She buzzes me in the building and ushers me inside the apartment with a tired smile.
“Good night?”
“Was extensive and great fun; good people, good music, good conversations, what more is there to cram into an evening?” 
She smiles evilly and adds,
“Oh maybe one or two things, but you can’t have everything.” 
I laugh on my way to the shower.  By the time I return she’s already sound asleep again, so I stretch out onto my mattress setup on the floor and blissfully follow the trend for unconsciousness.

Novedevichy with a side of Beach Volleyball

I decide that the Novodevichy convent and cemetery will be my primary destination for the day and bounce into the street to find my way there.  I stop at a small pavement shop to get something for breakfast and discover they can’t change a thousand rouble note, so I can’t buy anything.  I don’t know what to do exactly, so I wander back into the street, still hungry and looking for a bigger shop.  I end up being refused at two more pavement shops and start to wonder if it’s because I’m a foreigner or if they really don’t keep change.  I now wish I hadn’t already spent the last of my small change; fifty and hundred rouble notes.  I soon walk past a supermarket and this time manage to acquire a packet of chips and a curious flavoured liquid yoghurt drink.  There is always a broad range of milk based food and drink in any shop in Russia.  This varies through milk, butter and cheese from different animals to yoghurts with consistency from almost cheese-like to pretty much milk.  This drink is a chocolate flavoured milk-like yoghurt and goes well with the sour cream and chive chips.  It doesn’t, however, encourage me to have more later; the yoghurt is just too bitter for my taste.  I’m used to drinking Iced Coffee from a carton almost every day while I’m in Australia; a habit gained during my misspent youth.  It has too much coffee and too much sugar, but in perfect balance.  It sets your heart beating and your eyes spinning; I know anything that feels that crazy good has to be bad for me and I love it.

The Cathedral of the Virgin of Smolensk in the Novodevichy convent truly is gloriously beautiful; the iconostasis is the best I see in Russia.  Five tiers high and richly ornamented, it dominates the room entirely.  I have to tear myself away from the incredibly detailed visual smorgasbord to appreciate all the other amazing frescoes on the central pillars, walls and ceilings.  One dour looking nun watches over the visitors idling through the building that has already stood for almost five hundred years.  I walk around the convent grounds and decide to sit on a bench under tree for a while, absorbing and luxuriating in the calmness of the gardens.  The strange and twisted history of this place (as a prison, refuge and storehouse) doesn’t seem to sit heavy upon it today. I sit and soak in the warmth and idyllic calm of the convent atmosphere.

Some time later I stroll next door to the cemetery.  I decide I don’t really want to pay for a tour this time and just wander in to drift around the place.  There are plenty of large, spreading trees providing shade to the cool cemetery grounds.  I tag along with an English speaking tour group for a few stops before tiring of it and decide that since I can read the gravestones, I can figure out who’s in them and the more decorative ones are probably more famous people.  I turn from Gogol’s grave to discover Anton Chekhov’s almost opposite and figure I’m half right, Chekhov’s grave is decidedly unornamented; but is unusual in that it’s a simple Gothic arch shape with his name printed on it.  The cemetery is the resting place of many figures from the worlds of Russian politics, arts and the military.  Stalin’s right hand man, Vyacheslav Molotov, lies here.  It is after him that the Finnish people named the Molotov cocktail.  This was the humble petrol bomb they used to great effect against Russian tanks during the Winter war of 1939/40.  Since then the Molotov cocktail has been used by many countries and has become a universal symbol of both a people’s resistance to armed forces and a university student’s idea of a fun night in Paris. 


However, it’s Boris Yeltsin’s grave I’m interested in visiting.  I did have an idea of taking some vodka with me to either leave there or pour at its base, but wasn’t sure how it’s be viewed.  The grave is a sculpture of a Russian flag waving in the wind, his name on the piece is faint at first, but certainly visible.  I did always like his style in the early years when he faced down the military coup in 1991 by standing on a tank and making speeches before staging a one man breaking of the siege.  That he then oversaw the final demise of the Soviet Union was just as amazing, becoming the first president of the Russian Federation.  Somebody had to be there to make the changes happen, but his decision on an economic pathway certainly seemed to destroy Russian finances for many years.  I also loved the video of him trying to conduct a band at some official occasion whilst being monstrously drunk.  The real conductor was standing behind him and conducted only while Yeltsin had his back turned and his arms waving in a crazed frenzy trying to conduct.  Every time Yeltsin turned to check on him, the poor conductor froze and acted like he was doing nothing.  Such a lovely moment, it must be something Australian to love seeing political leaders heavily refreshed in public and enjoying themselves.

Boris' final resting place

After some more time enjoying the variety and styles of the graves here I decide I’m hungry and have to go and check out the crazy Georgian restaurant, Genatsvale, on Old Arbat St.  Entering it seems like a strange ritual as you leave Moscow and enter some small, ancient town in the middle of Georgia.  The uneven cobble stones outside lead you through an enormous broken clay pot to heavy wooden doors. I open them and step inside to find a waitress who shows me to a table.  Even inside, the restaurant has different levels; like the uneven streets of the old town.  On the left is a waterwheel turning lazily in a small stream with tables above, below and around it.  Fish swim in the carefully lit stream and there are different sections around the huge room; raised verandahs and an open cobbled square in front of the bar.  She gives me a menu, with English translations thankfully, and I set about ordering up a storm.  Lavash bread, Bozbashi soup and a kind of open kebab with grilled meat and vegetables served on a wooden board.  My first taste of Georgian food starts a lasting love affair, it is easily the best food I have from any of the old Soviet republics.  Spicy, but simple, filled with flavour and always made me want more.  The Bozbashi soup is mutton meatballs in a spicy, red, cloudy broth of paprika, onion, tomato and dill.  It becomes a staple of mine across Russia.  Everyone prepares it slightly differently, but the core was the same and delicious with lavash bread.  This is baked in discs about twenty centimetres in diameter and rises in the centre to about two centimetres.  It is always sliced up, is quite soft and absorbs juice from your plate or soup perfectly.  The main course had deliciously grilled lamb and the salad, tomato and cucumber that came with it balanced it perfectly.  It also came with freshly made Adzhika sauce.  This ‘sharp’ chilli sauce is another instant favourite and I find a bottle of it later to have ready at hand for the rest of the trip.

After a fantastic lunch like that, I can do nothing but waddle the fifty metres down the road and slide into my favourite internet café again.  I’m particularly happy to find another Couchsurfing meetup began about fifteen minutes ago.  Ayuna, a Moscow local who was at the last meetup, has arranged a meeting right next to the beach volleyball competition that’s going on at the moment.  I bless her genius and wonder how such an incredibly Australian style of sport had caught on here.  I decide to leave and join the group to see what it’s like. 

The Beach Volleyball Outdoor Stadium

There is indeed a temporary stadium setup at the foot of the hill of Victory Park that I stumble into almost immediately after walking out of the Metro station.  It also seems there really is a beach volleyball competition going on inside it.  As I drift around the edges of it finding the meeting spot, I love the sheer randomness of finding such an event in Moscow while I happen to be passing through.  More importantly, I would never have known it was on without the Couchsurfing connection.  Ayuna finds me quickly and says they had decided not to pay any money and sit on top of the hill instead.  I figure I might choose to go in later and follow her to meet the group.  This time we have four nationalities represented and we sit on newspaper on the grassy hill watching the sun get lower in the sky.  We talk about what has brought us together in Moscow this fine day.  I suddenly think to ask about the problem with changing the thousand rouble note that morning.  Ayuna bursts out laughing and explains,
“Oh that’s everywhere; the small shops often can’t do it at all, which is bad because the Bankomats like to give out the big notes.  Some of them only give out thousand rouble notes that you can’t use anywhere.”
“I try to get smaller amounts out, but the machines don’t always let you”, adds another local girl.
“Sometimes you can get it in hundred rouble notes, but I’m not sure which one that was.”
As she finishes, she drifts off into silent thought for a while, before seeming to decide she really doesn’t know.
“So, what’s the best way to change a big note?” I ask in blank curiosity.
“Ummm…supermarkets normally can, Metro ticket windows…the bigger the shop, the more likely they can do it”, Ayuna explains.
“But you can’t change money, you have to buy something, nobody will just change money for you”, advises her friend. 
I nod slowly, trying to remember to always carry smaller change in the future.  Ayuna takes the moment to launch a barrage of questions,
“So what are you doing in Russia? Where are you going and how long are you here?”
  I tell them of my planned Trans-Siberian adventure and then my eclipse chasing history.
“That’s what has really brought me here.  To Russia.”
I stare into the distance for a moment, enjoying the city view.
“You’ve come all the way to Russia to look at the sun?”, Ayuna asks with a bewildered expression.
“Well, really it’s not to look at the sun, so much as much as the moon sitting perfectly in front of it.  The black sun.  Have you seen one?”
The group looks puzzled in thought for a minute, before one of the German girls remembers,
“I saw one about 2000 I think, we had to use special glasses and a pinhole camera so we didn’t look at the sun directly.”
“But did the sun turn black? Could you look straight at it without the glasses and see the corona around the edge for a few minutes?”
“I…don’t know…I think so….”
“I think if you had seen it you would know….maybe it was only partial where you were, the Totality follows a narrow path only one hundred kilometres wide.”
This explanation has become almost a mantra to me,
“It is not eclipses that I chase; it is Total Solar Eclipses.  It's not the same, when I say the word 'Eclipse', I mean Totality.  The partials and hybrids are something else, something lesser”, I pause, trying to find the right words.
“It’s like trying to describe a six foot high ice-cream, multi-flavoured, decorated wedding cake to someone who has only ever seen a mars bar.”
The idea makes them laugh and then consider.
“The black sun lives for a few short minutes and your brain is pushed out of its comfort zone.  The sun never looks like this, for your entire life it has always done the same thing every day.  Sunrises and sunsets change, the length of the day changes and even the colour of the sun can change.  But it doesn’t turn black in the middle of the day”.  I’m lost in my passion again. 
“Totality taunts you with the failure of your expectation of consistency.  Nothing is permanent, everything changes.  Even the sun is an exception to its own rules”. 
I stop talking and let the view absorb me for a while as the girls chat.

Ayuna suddenly says its time to go and the group follows wordlessly down the hill.

The peak in Victory Park

Russian Party Action with the local Couchsurfers

Russian Beery Goodness.

I’m early for tonight’s couchsurfing meetup, so I distract myself within the inevitable cluster of pavement shops around the station exit.  I find one that not only has beer on tap, but they will sell it to me in large plastic bottles or even a half litre cup.  I’m forced to buy a cup of невское (Nevskoy), a beer from St Petersburg to see if it’s any good.  It is, especially on a sunny day.  I then spend the next fifteen minutes trying to identify people who look like a group of Couchsurfers.  This is a constant problem and a funny idea; there is no standard Couchsurfer.  We come from all walks of life, ages and attitudes; but all share the love of travel and the experiences that come with it.  I can’t see any likely looking group and send messages to the meeting organiser, Max, and Nikolai (who helped me with my train ticket), to see if they can help me.  I receive calls from both of them and shortly discover that neither of them can understand me very well over the phone so we can’t figure out what is going on.  I find myself crossing between the two Metro exits for the station wondering if I’m going to be able to find anyone.  It’s with immense relief that I finally recognise Max from his picture on the website and I call out his name to check.  He turns towards me and smiles, starting my first amazing night with the Russians.


In the meetup group there’s a French girl, a Swiss guy, two Kazakhstani girls and the other eight or so people are Russian and mostly from Moscow.  Now that we’re all together, we collect supplies (beer and picnic food) and then walk through a massive park that starts next to the train station to find our spot.  It turns out to be by a man made lake with an island in the middle filled with bird life.  This makes watching the sunset even more beautiful.  The circus tent setup on the other edge of the lake pumping out crazy hits of the seventies certainly adds a certain je ne sais quoi.  The Kazakhstani girls are pretty well Moscow locals now and they’re more interested in whether I have any Australian money with me than anything else.  I still have the fifteen dollars that I left the country with and happily give out the five and ten dollar notes.  They, like everyone else, are amazed that it’s made of plastic and looks like monopoly money.  For a moment they think I’m playing some kind of joke.  I also give them some coins, which are also passed around everyone to have a look at our Australian money and the crazy animals we have on it.

The Russians however, cause me consternation by knowing only one other thing about Australia.  It’s somewhere near this amazing paradise, a utopia they call New Zealand.
“Have there been some Kiwis…err…people from New Zealand visiting here this week or something?” I ask in bewilderment.
“No, no….we just always knew about New Zealand”, ventures Olya.
“So what exactly do you think is so perfect about New Zealand?”
“It’s warm all the time, it doesn’t rain or snow too much, the weather is so good…everyone owns a tractor and has their own farm…it’s really safe…and there’s plenty of jobs for everyone”
So this is Russian utopia.
“You’ve described Australia better than New Zealand, except the tractor part, that’s not even true in New Zealand.”
“Oh no, I’ve been talking to a guy from New Zealand on email and he told me everything”, she says defiantly.
I smile and appreciate the Kiwi’s effort.
“He just loves his country and wants you to visit.  So do I for that matter, but after you go there, you should visit Australia and discover the true paradise”, I say.
“New Zealand is not known for good weather or being warm, more for fantastically beautiful and mountainous countryside…oh and adventure sports.  You’re saying ‘New Zealand’ and describing Australia.”
“Maybe, I don’t really know, but you’re Australian, of course you like your country more, you’re just saying that.”
“New Zealand is largely further south than Australia and suffers from Antarctic weather much more.  A poorer economy means that half the people from New Zealand now live in Australia.”

She’s unconvinced, as are they all.  This belief in the New Zealand utopia seems to be held deeply and completely.  My views are absolutely baffling to most of them, so I invite them to go look it all up on the internet and see for themselves.  After all, it is a beautiful country to visit.  The hours evaporate with laughter as we all drink more beer and share stories.  The sun finally sets some time around eleven.  This is the cue for about half the people to start moving to catch their trains home, the last Metro is at one, so you have to start moving if you need to cross the city.

The plan had always been to move to Max’s apartment after the park, but I didn’t quite realise that would be around midnight, but go along with it anyway.  The group of us wander around a small supermarket in pairs and groups acquiring more beer and snacks.  We land back in Max’s apartment and the festivities continue.  Nikolai is telling me about his job doing scientific demonstrations for children.  We end up discussing the fun I’ve had making hydrogen from household ingredients and then exploding it in various ways.  I promise to email him the recipe.  This leads me to realise it’s now after one and I have no idea how I will get home.  Nikolai says I can just couchsurf his place that night when we decide to leave.  I send a message to Victoria who responds straight away saying it’s fine and to have a great time.

Olya and Max in a shirt made for two

I’m feeling very warm and happy, filled with nice beer and surrounded by good people.  I’m most amazed how natural it feels to be in this apartment surrounded by Russians and feeling completely at home.  After growing up with so many impressions of what the country and people must be like, it comes as a small revelation that they’re just like me; only speaking another language.  I think the singing begins when Max puts on a bunch of Queen songs and starts joining in.  Nikolai sings during a few songs and I lend my voice too.  This results in me singing a few more songs by myself and having Max ask me to quiet down; my voice is very loud when I get carried away.  Well, I did study it at University and have been known to break out into opera at inappropriate moments.
“Do one more proper opera song”, Tania, one of the locals, implores me.
“Well, I have one that’s both short, beautiful and not so loud”.
So it is that I sing Lasciatemi Morire in Russia for the first time.  It means “You leave me to die”.  This is the song I will sing during the Totality.  My own offering made at the end of my pilgrimage to see the dark sun.

Nikolai Twinkletoes at work.

They love it and want more, but I promised to stop so, I grab another beer before heading to the balcony to talk to the smokers for a while.  Irina then brews up some homemade Irish cream for everyone, which disappears quickly.  Even Hanspeter, the Dutch guy, makes a break from his vodka consumption for it.  This is also a strange moment of realisation for me, the only person drinking vodka isn’t Russian.
“So why aren’t we all drinking vodka?”  I ask generally.
“Plenty of Russians don’t really drink it away from special occasions”, Nikolai advises me.  One of the locals decides she wants to dance and the dance floor is created in an instant.  The guys who know how to, take turns dancing different styles with her and a couple of the other girls.  So for the rest of the night we groove around the salsa, waltz and swing dancers keeping the party moving in the middle of the small loungeroom.  I find myself spending time on the balcony smoking the odd cigarette with the people there and staring out into the city.  The night view is beautiful. It’s of all the nearby apartment blocks giving way to the general city and is of a kind I can’t say I’ve seen before.  We trade stories of travel and dreams until the sky lightens with the first touch of dawn’s light.

Suddenly it’s five o’clock Wednesday morning and Nikolai and I aim to waft into the street to find a taxi of some sort.  Well, we do eventually make it out after many fond goodbyes, final dances and final drinks.  It’s around ten degrees at this time of night, after being in the low twenties during the day.  Finding a taxi is a curious process which involves flagging down some random man who’s driving past and asking him to drive us to Nikolai’s house.  Apparently this is quite normal here.  For three hundred roubles (AUD$15) we get home safely in the hands of a complete stranger.  Which leads me to mention the glory of the Russian people’s taxi service.

Every car in Russia is a potential taxi.  This is one of my favourite elements of Russian culture.  On the one hand I need a ride and will pay for the service, on the other I will trust in a complete stranger to safely deliver me home in the middle of the night, or anytime really.  I now have more faith in the Russian people’s taxi service than any business with the same role.  The longest we ever wait for a car in any city is five minutes.  That’s for a long trip with two dropoff points and we only have to ask three drivers before we find one who’s willing to do it.  I have never found a business capable of delivering nearly this level of convenience.  You also get to chat with an average person living their daily life, not someone who has been on duty for ten hours already and will be doing this six days a week.

Nikolai shows me a bed and one quick shower later finds me drifting off into a happy reverie.

First Couchsurfing in Russia

I’ve been walking for just ten minutes dragging my suitcase through the streets of Moscow and already I’m lost. I printed out the directions Victoria gave me to find her apartment building, but correlating the map and the reality before me seems impossible.


I think I’m on Victoria’s street, I’ve tried to follow her directions about archways and building numbers and after another ten minutes of walking around the area not being sure what building I’m in front of, I have to call her. Russian apartment buildings have a strange logic of their own, which is worse since I’m not used to navigating within any kind of large apartment building development. Like most Australians, I’ve always lived in houses or small blocks of flats. These arrangements of huge rectangular monoliths, dropped on the landscape like Tetris bricks, baffle me. I can’t say there was ever a clear development strategy for their placement and since Tetris was written by a Russian, perhaps it was originally designed to assist with this process. In any case, it takes another few minutes on the phone to establish that I am close to her apartment block, but on the wrong side of it and at the next building. This being rectified, I see her waving at me from her balcony a minute later.

Russian apartments are deceptive creatures. I think the maintenance schedule on them finished at some point twenty or thirty years ago, so it’s normal for them to look incredibly run down. The elevators are genuine seventies (or maybe earlier) technology, with hard buttons that stay in and pop out when you reach the floor. I often find myself saying a quiet prayer whilst moving in them and sometimes take the stairs down for…ummm…the exercise. Victoria is standing in her doorway with her huge smile warming the whole building. She closes the vast and heavy outer door behind me and turns the deadlock closed. This is always where the outside of the buildings, right up to the apartment doorway, give way to a routinely lovely interior. It’s quite normal for every outer door to be different or customised in some way; it’s the first taste you have of the personalities living within. Victoria shares the two bedroom apartment with another woman and ushers me first into her bedroom to leave my suitcase and then to the kitchen for some tea. The Russians have a permanent affair with this drink; it’s everywhere. She tells me she has a student coming soon and it’s quite normal for them to be in and out all day. Sometimes she meets them somewhere else too, so I will have to check with her to find when I can get back into the apartment later.
“I’m just planning to be out wandering in the city again today. Is there anything else you think I should check out?”
“The Novedevichy Convent has the most beautiful cathedral, you have to see it! The graveyard next door is interesting too, but the convent is wonderful.”
The way she looks when she speaks about the convent tells me I absolutely have to visit. The graveyard next to the Convent is the resting place of more famous Russians than you could poke a tree at whilst suffering some kind of spasmodic fit and I already plan to visit Boris Yeltsin’s grave there.
“Oh and I should warn you about Russian beers too”, she continues.
I look up with absolute interest, exploring the beers here is definitely on my agenda.
“You can get the European ones you already know, but they’re all made inside Russia and they’re all terrible. The only good ones are the real Russian beers like Baltika and Nevskoy.”
I nod sagely and try to commit everything to memory. Well the bit about staying off European beers anyway, this aligns perfect with my evil plans for Russian beery mayhem.

As Victoria starts to become absorbed in her laptop and work, I move back to her bedroom to sort out my suitcase and sleeping gear. She has laid out a thin foam mattress with blankets and a sheet. I’ve also brought a compact air mattress, not the self-inflating foam type; a real one with long tubes that fill with air to lift you about three centimetres off the floor. It rolls down to the same size as the compact, ultra-thin sleeping bag I brought to match it, so I put all that together to form a very comfortable corner of her room. As I prepare my small backpack for a day of wandering, I remember she has a plate of chocolate biscuits on her kitchen table. In the interests of spreading a little Australian culture I happen to have packets of Tim Tams with me to share the joy of a Tim Tam Slam with my hosts. This is when you bite off diagonally opposite corners and use the resulting creation as a straw in a cup of hot coffee. The result is the coffee melts the inside of the biscuit, giving you a few seconds from the moment you feel the coffee reach your lips, to when you must place the whole biscuit in your mouth and luxuriate in a foodgasm. The chocolate shell of the biscuit only lasts a short time after the rest has dissolved, so if you’re too slow it will cover your hands in sticky, chocolatey napalm. The molten coffee, chocolate, sugar and wafers create an altogether addictive experience. So I explain all this to Victoria as I hand her a packet to try it with. I also find myself picking up a glass to fill with water from the tap before stopping myself again.
“Can you drink this water?” I ask, pointing to the tap.
“No. Not at all. You must boil that first, you can’t drink the water in any Russian city.” Thus informed, I put down the glass and resolve to buy more bottled water when I’m out during the day.
“There’s a bottle in the fridge if you want some now”, Victoria adds.
“Thanks! Are you coming along to the Couchsurfing meetup tonight?” I ask hopefully while drinking a glass.
“I won’t be able to make it, but you should definitely go and meet more of the local guys”
“When should I be back here?”
“It doesn’t matter, really. You can be out until all hours, just give me a quick ring and I’ll let you back in the apartment when you want”. I feel a little surprised and happy, she had written this on her profile on the website, but it’s always good to hear it. I’m especially glad she’s happy with the kind of random wanderings I specialise in.
“Wow! Thanks for that, but I should be back before midnight I think. When does the Metro close?”
“Midnight’s fine, I’m normally awake past then anyway. Last trains are around one in the morning.”
“Thanks again, I’m so happy you’re relaxed about it.”
“Don’t worry, I know what it’s like to travel, you never quite know what’s going to happen and I like to party all night sometimes too! …but on Saturday morning the cleaner comes and you’ll have to be out of here for a few hours starting at ten.”
“No worries, I’ll catch you tonight!”
“I hope you enjoy Moscow!”

After watching Victoria’s lips during the conversation I begin my fascination with how russians speak. They have the most amazingly agile lips. This provides a curious juxtaposition of happy activity within a usually stern, dour face.
She breaks the standard russian look with her smile and waves me goodbye with her free hand, the other still holding the cup of tea. With her words and smile in my head I wander into the warm streets. I’m feeling the sun on my back again and wondering if anyone will believe it’s hot enough for me to be working up a sweat just walking through the Russian capital.

The Moskva River

I wake up with the domes of St Basil’s Cathedral on my mind and decide I’d better go back and see the inside.  Outside the day is warm and sunny, so I decide that the best way to get there is on a boat.  I start walking to the nearby river where my guide says I can catch one, but I’m not ready for the impact the russian foreign ministry building has on me.  It is one of seven Stalinist gothic wedding cake buildings here in sunny Moscow.  They are apparently known as the seven sisters and must have been built during one of Stalin’s lowest moments of self esteem, since they are intense, massive, imposing and entirely unforgettable.  They are all similar, but this one did something to me every time I came close to it.  I have a vague memory it was used as the building front in the film 'Brazil', the really imposing horror story public service building.  Seriously, it looks like it should be hanging around in a dark alley sporting a golden tooth and twirling a club.  A feeling of menace exudes from it, the building sinks your spirits just walking past it.  It’s like hope went there to be tortured to death by fear and paranoia.  Even the ex-KGB headquarters doesn’t have this kind of feeling about it.  Which isn’t to say that the ex-HQ on Lubyanka square doesn’t have its own horror.  It has a terrible calm about it, like a black hole you disappear into without a trace and no scream could ever emerge.  It’s just that the foreign ministry building would knock at your door in the middle of the night and shoot you in the stomach for fun.

The ferry jetty is easy to find and for a fee I can spend an hour and a half on a cruiser drifting along the Moskva River through the middle of Moscow.  What I don’t appreciate at first is that I can also buy a beer onboard and just kick back to let the city drift past me.  After all the walking in my first two days, this is perfection.  I’m amused to find they don’t actually stock any Russian beers on the boat, so I end up enjoying some fine products of the Czech Republic instead.  As I relax on the upper deck I watch industrial buildings give way to beautiful parkland and one beer give way to the next.  I pass Gorky Park without a care in the world, or any real desire to actually visit it; I am happy to enjoy a relaxing afternoon letting Moscow flow gently by.  Sparrow Hills arrives all too quickly and I decide to leave the ferry and climb the hill.  Victoria had mentioned how beautiful the the view is on a sunny day.  I pass by the ski ramp that’s setup next to the jetty.  Apparently in winter this is a huge attraction, but in summer it looks as out of place as fur hats on an Australian beach.  On the way up the hill I walk through the very beautiful ecological gardens.  The pathways lead you through verdant forest replete with lush undergrowth and flower patches.  The bright, warm sunlight trickles through the forest canopy to cover the ground with gently moving speckled patches of golden warmth.  I feel like I’m in some kind of European fairy tale and would not have been surprised to see a little girl wearing a red hood skipping down the pathway with a basket of goodies for her grandmother.  I wonder what kind of wolves would await her in a Russian forest and start picturing the foreign ministry building wearing a fur coat.

I see the gothic wedding cake building of the Moscow State University building perched atop the hill in all its monolithic glory.  I begin to wonder if some modern architect would design a building that looked like this, but with huge statues of a man in a tuxedo and a woman in her wedding gown on top of it and a giant slice cut out of it.  Now that’d be real art-chitecture.  Naturally there’s a nest of pavement shops around the Sparrow Hills lookout and there’s even a bride and groom having their pictures taken with the view of Moscow in the background.  It really is a spectacular view of the city itself, with the river in the foreground, the stadium across the water and the rest of the city stretching into the distance.  I quietly thank Victoria for inspiring me to be up here on such a great day. 

I eventually descend the hill again and get back on the ferry, which I have to pay for again.  Apparently you can ride it all the way to the end of it’s path or get off at one of the many stops along the way, but the ticket works only once.  I enjoy floating past the scenery and notice a tall building that looks like a flying saucer has landed on its roof.  We pass by it and I take photos of it with the building in front of it that has a giant treble clef mounted on its domed roof.  This must just be the area for cool roof ornaments; every building should have one.  I then spend the rest of the ferry trip taking more pictures of Moscow in this wonderful afternoon light.  There’s enough cloud cover to stop it from being overwhelming, but it has such a crisp, clear quality that everything seems somehow more sharply real.  The golden spires of the Christ the Redeemer cathedral positively glow golden and white in a city of brown and smudged.  I can’t say I’m in any way prepared for the most shockingly overdone statue of Peter the Great I think could ever have been conceived.  I suppose Moscow just wants a piece of the Peter story and history as well, but….I mean....having a rostral column with the boat prows sticking out of it would have been enough...they have two of them in St Petersburg being lighthouses....but then they stick an enormous boat on top of it...with an even more enormous statue of Pete himself the size of the frickin mast...and there's a city at his feet...on the boat.....okay, they're trying to summarize the magnificent career of this crazy epileptic that shaped modern Russia more than any other individual...but the effect of it is almost comical ...So anyway, after I take a few hundred pictures of it, we move on down the river and finally float past the Kremlin.  I see a glimpse of St Basil's from the river side before jumping off the boat to find my way inside..

The cathedral is a glorious building with many beautiful frescoes and the central room is especially hard to leave.  A male voice choir is in attendance and they are singing seriously beautiful Russian hymns.  Hearing their voices in this room gives me a musicgasm as I become absorbed into the resonant richness that at once calms and lifts you on its gentle persistence.  Each time they finish a song nobody moves or makes a noise until one of the singers breaks the spell first The music leaves me feeling serene and blissful; calm as a hindu cow.  I make a visit to the souvenir shops carefully placed at every possible corner inside the building and completely fail to find some souvenirs of the single towers turned into ice-creams, back scratchers, massagers and ummm….delicate massagers.  As I wander back into Red Square I feel that the view of the onion domes from the outside is truly matched by the art and music on the inside; it really is damn good even though everybody says it is.