twenty-something years of "what have you been up to?"

Category: moscow life

  • many things unclear, especially the air in moscow

    Redsquare 

    Photo from themoscowtimes.com

    An article in Rianovsky, an English language Russian newspaper, reports that 700 people a day are dying in Moscow and ambulances are working under war-time conditions. Russian hospitals are filled to capacity, with no AC. The head of the Russian weather service, judging by historical records, calls the eight weeks of 100 degree plus days the hottest weather in 1000 years. The heat is triggering peat bogs around the city to spontaneously combust, filling the air with poisonous smoke. Firefighting crews are overwhelmed–52 firefighters have died–and the military has been called in to battle fires near nuclear sites.

    Our friend Aleen, whose next post is China, is the first person ever who can't wait to get to her next post so she can breathe the cool, clean refreshing air of…Beijing.

    The forest fires and sustained high heat are causing carbon monoxide levels in the city to be seven times the safe levels. My last official note from the Embassy informed us that "Authorized Departure" status –State-ese for evacuation–was not being considered, and that if you haven't stopped smoking, now is a good time to quit.

    We are lucky, our renters moved out of our place in Portland, so we happen to have an empty house (wanna buy it?) and if we can figure out how to get a couple beds in and some pots and pans and dishes, and oh yeah, the internet, we'd be fine waiting for the noxious smoke to clear.

    I think as soon as it cools off in Moscow, which has to be around the corner–remember last year in September Stefan needed his coat?–things will improve. I wish they'd call the departure, I'm dreading the damage to my kids' lungs–they didn't ask for travel-bug parents. My heart goes out to friends and family who don't have options, co-workers who have been sticking it out, and the people of Moscow, where Aleen says a 10-minute walk to the grocery store is out of the question.

  • words on a billboard: plausible dachas

    Dacha 8 Dacha 22 Dacha 12 Dacha with roses

    Dacha white with brown Dacha blue door

    Dacha 15

    I have a new job, or at least job venue, I'm heart-broken over good-byes, the new bid list is out, we are leaving in a couple weeks to go home for R&R, we're selling our house, we're constantly trolling real estate sites looking at possible properties and then photoshopping in better furniture. Nina is here helping us have fun, this weekend we went to the long-neglected Tretrykov Gallery and we now have plans for the State History Museum. And I have ideas! A book, newsletter articles, a series of paintings, (Do I paint?), a TV show and a set of note cards. Maybe it's just that it's light until 11 p.m. and we are all, including the birds that sing all night long, manic.

    These oh my god photos reminded me that we HAD to get out to Sergei Posad. Today we wandered around the monastery, and then Peter was so darling, he followed me slowly in the car while I walked around and took these–all in the same neighborhood.

  • the people’s palace

    Metro2 

    IMG_0039 

    Everyone is counting noses at school and work. I wondered why I heard sirens this morning.

    Two or maybe four bombs exploded on the Moscow Metro during the morning commute. Nobody knows how many or by whom, although immediately the Chenchens are blamed, which I deplore.

    The Kublianka metro is on the red line right in the very center of town at the Kremlin, a fifteen minute walk from our place. Hearing Park Kultury made my stomach clutch worse though. It's only two stops away, and was Stefan's stop when he was at the other campus. He rides the metro home from school every day on the red line, which stops at both Kublianka and Park Kultury. We'll have him come home by car until our brains wrap around this, the first bombing in Moscow since 2004.

    Just knowing my eight-year-old is on the red line every single weekday was enough to make me feel ill. My heart goes out to anyone who had a loved one on the metro this morning and had an hour or a even a minute wondering if they were okay; let alone anyone who had a family member injured or killed, I don't even know what to say or think. Cashmar. Nightmare. 

    The metro is so efficient, so good, I don't drive here. It's so impressive nearly every time I go, I take a photo. (Can you find the "Park Kultury" on the sign up there?) The metro is one of the best things about Moscow. Not today though.

    Me and peter on the metro

  • the mountain of old jewelry and icons comes to mohammed

    Images of the Paris flea market can-canned through my brain when I heard there was an antique fair in town. Wow, I thought, that's something I'd really like to do! Peter's not home and I can get lost on the wrong side of the metro station, with Russians not helping me, and 100-letter street names and I'll end up crying and I'll drag in late and kids will be like, "Where's dinner?" 

    Last December is fresh in my mind, yes, but I need to stretch myself!

    Plus,I really want a chandelier. Or old Easter postcards or something. Forget Port Clingoncourt, I miss Goodwill! The directions to the fair are complicated, strange metro stops and Big Gryushyaski Street is not the same as Gryushyaski Street but I really need to get out of my well-worn comfort zone and explore this huge, weird city!

    Wait, the fair is only one metro stop away. So much for exploring a new part of town, but that's cool, not as overwhelming. I carefully map out the unfamiliar-named streets in Cyrillic. Maybe I can walk, see something different, explore some new spots.

    According to the website, the antique fair is right off of a park I go to all the time for our farmer's market/grocery store run–I've been there a million times. I never noticed a hall for an antique market; I hope I can find the building.

    I don't know why anyone would take the metro, I walk to the park, it's maybe half a mile away. I don't see an exhibition hall or a sign or anything, which is not surprising. This is Moscow, you have to know someone to find out anything, and guess what? I don't know anyone! I wander through the farmer's market–wouldn't it be stupid if the flea market were here in the park? But no, it's not. I cross the street and wander the blocks around the park. I find a building with a banner, I crunch ice underfoot through an alley, a parking lot looks promising, but nothing. 
     
    In Niger they say WAAW: West Africa Always Wins, and now I haven't found the antiques fair but I have made up a new acronym: RAW.
     
    Well, I figured, since I'm here I might as well get bananas at the grocery store. Over the grocery store entrance is a banner that looks like the banner from the antiques fair web site. 

    The antiques fair is in the mall where I go the grocery store nearly every weekend.

    Flea_market_angel

  • not a dog treat, not chocolates, but widely available in moscow right now

    Qeggs1

    Qeggs2

    Qeggs3
    Qeggs5

    Qeggs_puppy

    Qeggs4

    "Quail eggs contain vitamins and minerals essential for good health," says the box. I adore the presumed knowledge of basic chemistry for the nutrition label.

  • in which we visit Chekhov’s house

    AC_house

    Sick of Chekhov yet? Me neither. Today is his 150th birthday.

    So today I went to his house, which you can probably see from the Embassy if you are in the right office. It's on Kudrinskya; I like saying it.

    I walked in and saw a sign that said, students, 60 rubles, foreigners, 100 rubles. There is probably a "local" price, which you are entitled to, with your embassy badge, but I didn't even try. 100 rubles = $3. To see Chekhov's house? I don't need to negotiate it down to $2.50. Then the lady came out of her little booth, took me by the arm, sweetly, to show me the sign in English that explains that the price posted is to take pictures. And no more than two pictures in each room. Okaaaaay.

    I'd worn fifteen layers of clothing, even though it's warmed up to 7F,  but I checked my coat. I get the feeling the coat check guy is a hoot, but I can't understand him, so I just laugh in a generalized, idiotic way. He offers me overshoes, which I decline, I don't want to be the only freak with overshoes.

    The first room is portraits and someone's parasol, maybe Chekhov's walking cane, I think I recognize it from photos, but who can tell? The lables are all in Russian. It's all cool though–parasols and canes and early playbills– I mean, no one loves ephemera more than I do. And hitting me in the face is the portrait I love, the one his brother painted. You know it by now.

    But there is another room! His sitting room! Where he received patients, and friends. Oh, only people like Tchikovsky, but, whatever! Check out his leather doctor bag and eye glasses. His desk and lamp, and here have a chair. You can sit and hang out for a while, commune with his ghost.

    Off the sitting room, on either side of the Carl Larson-esque stove, are his and his brother's rooms. Why do we have such huge beds now? Here is the bed Anton Chekhov slept in, and it's like a junior twin. I love the 19th century.

    AC_bedroom

    And it's all in dacha style with the tapetry on the wall, next to the bed. His mother made that tapestry. *dies*

    I'm fangirling over Anton Chekhov and his interiors. Fine. Also, there is a rug over the table in the sitting room. *rumages through closet to find rug to put on table*

    There's more, you can go upstairs, run your hand along the worn red velvet-covered handrail his sister loved. Upstairs, a piano his brother played in the mornings while Chekhov wrote downstairs. Chekov's favorite piece was Chopin's prelude #6. "Chopin is everyone's favorite," says Peter.

    His sister's room is upstairs. Her little sewing machine, her gray velvet-covered sofa. Could you die of love?

    AC sisters_couch

    So as I'm wandering around communing with every little thing, I notice I am the only clueless person not ruining the best short-story writer in the history of the universe's floor by not wearing overshoes.

    AC_slippers

    Americans! We are so clueless, and dirty. And I took more than two pictures in some of the rooms too! But I evened it out by not taking ANY pictures in other rooms.

    You can see his playing cards, and his toothbrush, (ew, says Camille) prescriptions he'd written out, photos he'd taken and his dishes, and envelopes he'd made out of newsprint and tied with red string, (I'm so doing this) his waistcoat that closed with cuff-link-like buttons and pajamas embroidered with his initials, and hand-written manuscripts and little notebooks…his life, all right there to see. Everything and almost him.

    Chekhov collage circle

    Click and the collage will get bigger. Click on Moscow Photo a Day to find out more about Chekhov and his crazy-amazing life.

  • design ideas from 1737

    Overseas State Department people frequently complain about our living spaces. I mean, this 1980's apartment oak trim and gas-station-bathroom-style kitchen counters scream: I'd be a perfect set for a John Houston movie! And I get how hard it must be to please so many people, so I understand the standard Drexell furniture, but don't even bring up the light fixtures. I want to write to Oprah and ask that amazing decorator "What kind of miracles can you work with govenment issue?"

    My asthebeetgoeson blogger friend Amanda recently posted some pictures of the interior of St. Basil's Cathedral, with the note, "This is in case I ever want to paint my dining room." And my brian went booooiiiinnnnggg.

    Why paint when I can just photoshop?

    The exterior of St Basil's is such an icon,it's easy to forget it has an interior, which is just as OMG as the exterior. St. Basil's was built in the 1500s, but these interiors were done in the 1700s. I guess OMG is the whole point.

    450px-Saint_Basil_inside_hdr_mantiuk

    Dining room

    Dining room before.

    Dining room with st basils

    And, voila. Amanda is really onto something. I have to do this. Where do you buy paint in this country? (Click for bigger pictures if you want.)

    Stef's room
    Camille and Stefan recently swapped rooms. I don't think painting Stefan's room like the interior of a church would really go with piles of toys and kapla airports. But maybe our room?

    Skaters

    From our room you can see the Russian white house and watch the ice skaters across the street. You can also hear the music played at the rink until about ten o clock every night.

    Abc pillow
    My new Russian alphabet pillow Peter got me at Ismilova. T is for telephone, L is for fox, K is for whale, C is for elephant.

    Bedroom
    How can this be improved besides removing that horrible phone and shopping somewhere besides Ikea?

    Bedroom st basils
    It's clear, our bedroom needs to be painted like the interior of a world heritage site. I never knew.

    St basils light

    I need this light fixture too.

  • stefanbea

    Stefanbea

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    Bea

    DSC_0916
    Since coming back from going snowboarding once, Stefan and his friends spend hours grooming their new ski resort, where of course you ski on your shoes. "Homemade Ski Hill" features a number of runs, rated green through black diamond, and have names like Hopper, Bear Slope, and Bea's Favorite.

  • united: the only way to not fly

    Can I get frequent flier miles for trips to the airport?
    Due to heavy snow the one hour drive to the airport took three hours this morning. One car came around a corner and did a full sideways skid. No one was actually physically injured; it's my mantra for the day.

    We were the first in line at the ticket counter, where we were told that United had booked our flights on Air France, but not provided ticket numbers. The Air France reservation desk clerk told me I needed to talk with United. "Isn't that easier for you to do?" I asked her. How can I call United from Moscow? I tried the only United desk in Moscow, the one at the other airport and the person there told me they don't speak English, in Russian, and hung up on me.

    I called Peter's front desk person, who was awesome, and got us scheduled on the next Air France flight. Which was cancelled. She dogged United for plan, what is this by now? Plan D, E or um, F? They put us on a flight from Moscow to Beijing, then Beijing to San Francisco. We went to get our boarding passes and the person there told me the flight was full. "I have to write this down," I said, and on my print-out of the other flights we've waited hours for in the airport and not gotten on, I pencilled: flight full.

    They've scheduled us on the same flight for tomorrow. Camille and I agree that it's too much and we don't even want to go anymore. Stefan wants to try one more time.

    I'd given the last of my cash to the guy who helped us with our bags, so I was ruble-less and needed to get back into town. And from this airport–Moscow's biggest, finest international airport–you can't pay for a taxi with a credit card. A friend drove an hour and a half in the dark, in the snow to rescue us. Add Dr. Larry Padget to the long line of rescue workers helping us this trip.

    When we lived in Niger, people would complain about the weather back home, I'd email them a photo of the Embassy thermometer showing 130F degrees. This winter when people say, "It's so cold here!" I've have played my, "It's -17F in Moscow!" card. Tomorrow I'm doing the art work for my worst travel story card, it's going to be in Chinese, it's going to have multiple baggage stickers from going through the xray so many times, and I'll show the total amount of money I've spent to not get out town, how on our second try in three days we spent ten hours fifteen minutes in transit, and ended up back to our apartment in Moscow. I'm so tired and we haven't even left yet. 

    As a group of people in warm-up suits got off one plane today, they were greeted by a crowd with flowers, banners, waving flags and a full-on marching band. That's what we deserve if we ever land in SF. If I don't physically injure anyone.

  • spaso house christmas party 09

    Xmas_ca_friendsXmas_amb_tableXmas_ambXmas_amb_singersAmb_xmasXmas_amb_camilleXmas_amb_stef