Tretyakovskaya

This is my favourite area of Moscow. Quiet, relaxed. People don’t hurry here but rather stroll. Streets are small, at times narrow even; quite a contrast from the six lane wide boulevards that rush around the Kremlin. The buildings are at their most beautiful too. 2 storey, neo-classical. Old derelict churches up for renovation, gated by beautiful, eaten away, cracked and faded stone walls. Men in business suits finish for lunch and walk leisurely though the streets. I pass a small school where boys play basketball on the tiny court. Novokuznetskaya street is lined with cosy cafes where you can sit and watch people and cars doing their daily business.

It’s a beautiful day. I take my coat off and walk around in rolled up sleeves. Babye Letta. I almost prefer it here in the rain however. Image of running though the tiny streets, dodging the puddles under an umbrella with Olya to the Tretyakovskaya Gallery on Saturday. Or sitting in this very same café watching the rain with Maija two days ago. It’s funny to wish it was raining.

Something that feels so naughty/out of place/exciting about being able to walk in the middle of the street in Moscow.

Reaching the canal. Bridge, fountains. I spot the EU flag. Group of friends play on the bridge. I take photos of the view. Walk along the canal. Peaceful, so few cars. Rainbow in the fountain – main bridge, St Basil’s Cathedral framed between buildings and traffic.

New businesses. Wealth. Narrow streets. Buildings hide you away. I would like to live in one of those flats.

Girls with flowers.

Old men sit together on a bench. Trams. Archways leading to where?

Autumn

Tsaritsina

Great trees. Place for great minds. Majestic. Showing leaves. The colours. Autumn chill. Women in parasols. Sit and watch the seasons go by. Looking to the snow. Lamposts – Narnia. Perhaps a faun will pop out. Grand open space – Entrance. Estate. Fountains music. Ducks – lakes.

Novokuznetskaya. Cafes. Low buildings. Rain. Warmth. Water on street.

Chistye Prudy

I sit down by the water’s edge. People walk behind me, some fast, some slow.

A tram goes past on the other side of the water. The sun warms my face. A café opposite with a barge. People feed the ducks. Teenagers love taking photos of each other. Leaves float in the pond orange and yellow.

A boy dances to two girls sitting on a bench. Someone skateboards by. An old lady walks her little dog.

Other people sit along the waters edge with me, sipping beer.

Workmen keep it ‘chistye’. I prefer it at night though. No one else here. Moonlight not sunlight. More magical. Gipsy ladies with flowery skirts, cloth mules and headscarfs walk between the trees by the pond. Constant sound of heels. Every now and then flat boots scuff the leaves.

Sienna, sap green, lemon frosty in the shade. Spiders web caught in the light.

Sappy glow coming up from the bottom of the pond. Cars creep in the lunch time traffic.

Kolomenskoe

Here is the city. Cold and industrial. Block after block of flats. The river and the trees the only things that make this view beautiful. The gongs – like a miracle echo off the bell tower of St George, the refectory and the falcon tower. Everyone looks up at the sky, to the bell tower, to find the source of the enchanting music but it is born by two pairs of hands on the ground, gowned in green robes. A strange, exotic, almost Eastern but yet still routed in Europe sound. Like a nymph’s lament.

The Ballet

We meet early evening at Tretyakovskaya and walk through the old streets which gradually grow around us into grand Stalinist ones, towards the centre and the Musical Theatre. The evening is drawing in as we reach the bridge and catch a glimpse of St Basils. In Red Square tourists catch the final daylight photos; a member of the militsia lurks behind us. We head down underground into the network of walkways that avoid the uncrossable roads around theatre square. Once back in the open air however, we move away from Teatralnaya up the narrower Bolshaya Dimitrovka.

When I told people I was starting to learn Russian, one of the most common responses was: why? Do you want to be a spy or something. I can’t think of a nation which we stereotype more. What do we think of with the word Russian? Vodka, snow, fur, red square, Putin, mafia, oligarchs, people as cold as the weather, corruption, communism.

I honestly was concerned about making friends because I had heard that people were so unfriendly. I read that Russians believed that people who smiled for no apparent reason were though to be foolish. I felt that this was going to be a rather large problem for me as when I’m new and nervous I always try to endear myself to people by smiling, I can’t help it. The thought of people not responding to that seemed to me rather absurd.

On one level, that culture exists. Vika is always going on about the fake American smile, why do they always smile at people they don’t even know? To her it seems superficial. Like in any big city, people don’t smile in the streets or on public transport. I’m getting used to perfecting the standard glare. However, I still find rush hour on the metro so amusing that I often let it slip to laugh at myself being wedged between twenty other people, arms and baggage sprawled out in either direction, frozen in the position in which I got on the train. Many sales assistants and shop keepers still maintain the soviet attitude of minimal effort in the work place – why trouble yourself with more effort when you’ll be paid the same? I can’t help laughing in those situations either. I can’t take people seriously when they can’t even break a little smile.

However, I’m supposed to be getting over the stereotypes here, and I have to say that on the other side of things, in social situations I have been overwhelmed at how friendly and accommodating people are. I can’t give anything but praise for the people I’ve actually met, they have been absolutely wonderful. They are interested in me and where I’m from, and so patient with my lack of language to communicate. I had a couple of weeks where I couldn’t administer my social life I had so many people wanting to gulat, take a walk with me, in the city. I think we could certainly learn one or two things front the Russians about friendliness.

I want to talk a little about vodka. Unfortunately, it is a stereotype that is true, although it is so true that must of the people I know abstain from drinking all together. It is quite common to get on the metro at about eleven o’clock am and see men slumped in the corners of the carriage, sleeping off their inebriated state. There are always men hanging about the streets and around metro stations with cans of beer. One night we had a neighbour slumped on our doorstep because he couldn’t remember which flat was his. Our neighbour below us often gets drunk and comes banging on our door, she even rings our phone. Tziala told me her husband died from alcoholism. I think the problem is even worse in the countryside. Alcohol is such a problem that I feel afraid to tell my Russian friends here that I enjoy a glass of wine from time to time. I think many people imagined that it would be vodka parties every day in Russia but most people’s attitude to drinking is very different from ours. When I visit friends for dinner, I don’t bring wine, but tea.

Freedom: what does it mean? I’m beginning to realise that different cultures have different ideas of freedom. People, to me, don’t seem as free here, but then I’m looking at it from my perspective of freedom. I think most people here think they’re free. I feel as though here you have no rights and no voice to fight for them with. I know of course I have less rights, I’m a foreigner, but everywhere I go it feels like I’m back at primary school and I can be told off for anything. Being scorned at university is one thing, but to have it in the shops and supermarkets is quite another. And don’t even think about complaining…tried that. I don’t think anyone has ever made a complaint in Russia before, as we were as good as told never to even think about coming to the restaurant again. Whatever happened to the golden rule of the service industry – the customer is always right? That’s just the thing, perhaps people do have the right to a voice here, but it gets used so rarely that the right is no longer significant. I read an interview with a well-known television presenter here and she described the state of semi-censorship here where there is no active censor, only that people just do not think to use questions, therefore they never get asked. It’s true that I don’t think children are educated to question, something which I now think is such an important part of our education. Question everything. Here they can recite poems and national songs, but there are few questions. It’s notable at university; the protest spirit of most British universities just doesn’t exist, people just seem to accept things, or don’t think they can change them. Everyone agrees that the Medvedev – Putin charade is just that, they laugh about it a little and then that’s as far as it goes.

My Language and Society teacher put an interesting perspective on freedom here in our Russia and the World seminar. She said that when Stalin first came to power it was the safest and happiest time Moscow had ever seen, the crime rate was extremely low. When Russia was flung into capitalism in the 90s, there was chaos, the crime rate dramatically shot up. She said that people were crying out for more control like when Stalin was first in power. So the government took control and now Moscow has become a much safer place again. The large militsia presence makes people feel safe. I suppose people can accept rules if they make them feel safe. My teacher is living proof that Stalin is still very popular here, people are fascinated by him. On television he has been nominated for the Greatest Russian ever programme. My teacher says that you can write him off and say that it was all bad, that he did so much for Russia. Blinded by my view of freedom however, I struggle to see through the bad.

This weekend Dimitri Mustafin, the contact who found me a place to live, invited me to visit his dacha for the day. Dachas are the traditionally Russian country house, to which, during the summer months, Russian city dwellers frequently escape the city.

The day filled all of my romantic dreams taken from Russian literature of lethargic hours in the country, spent doing nothing more than eating and sitting discussing politics or the arts. The dacha was located in an area called Bovkovo (I’m not sure if I’ve got the name quite right). It’s barely outside of Moscow at all; in fact it only took us thirty minutes to drive there from the centre. The area is a rather famous dacha area however, as during Soviet times it was where all the writers and journalists were given their state dachas as an incentive to keep writing in line with the government’s wishes. Dimitri’s dacha is small, wooden and higgledy-piggledy, with an overgrowing garden that yield’s fruits and vegetables. He bought it I think during the last financial crisis, as a means to provide for his family if the need was necessitated. It perfectly fulfils my dacha picture and we pick plums whilst Kostya, our companion, cooks chicken on a homemade barbecue. After hours spent preparing the food, we finally get the enjoyment of eating it and over tea discuss the area, England and communism.

“Are we more free now? I don’t think so,” says Dimitri. He tells us that things were quite good for him during soviet times as he was the top student at his university and won the Lenin grant.

The only thing that spoils my dream, are the looming brick monstrosities encircling Dimitri’s land. Unfortunately, given its fame the area has become rather fashionable.

“Mafia,” Dimitri says. I laugh, so they really do exist.

They’re shooting up everywhere these mansions, boxed in by giant bean-stalk high walls and wiring. Video surveillance cameras eye you with suspicion. They’re not dachas, there’s nothing about them that fits the word dacha. Both Kostya and Dimitri admit that looting from dachas is a problem over the winter period when thieves make the most of hundreds and hundreds of empty houses up for grabs. “They take everything, even plates and cutlery.” Kostya admits that they have to hire a guard during the winter. My perfect dacha image is slowly dissolving.

As Dimitri walks Kostya and me to the train station, we are harassed by large dogs from behind the gates of every ‘dacha’. I try to block it out and live the dream of literary Russia.

Peace seems such a simple concept…everyone wants it…but why is it so hard to achieve.

What really happened in South Ossetia? Everyone seems to have a different story to tell. How do we judge what is the truth?

Vika is from Sochi. Tziala is from Georgia. They both tell me they are not interested in politics. I came here thinking it was the most important thing in the world, now I’m starting to see more and more how silly it is. A petty, child’s game their playing…yet it’s breaking lives.

In the UK they blamed Russia. In Russia they blame Georgia and the US. Over tea Vika tells me how crazy the president of Georgia is, how he craves conflict. “He wants a war,” she tells me, “He knows Georgia is too small on its own, but if it can motivate the US and Europe to back it then it suddenly becomes very powerful.” She tells me that her mother in Sochi had warships tainting her view as she went for her daily soak in the Black Sea yesterday. “Georgia says that Sochi is part of Gerogia…they are crazy.” She says that the US is pushing its nose into something it doesn’t understand. She can’t work out why the Western press turned on Russia. Thinking of my parents’ generation and the Cold War, I tell her: “people don’t forget history.”

“People do forget history,” she replies, “They forget that Russia fought against fascism. Poland thanked Russia for saving them from fascism and now it’s as though they wish they’d never been saved.”

The leading title in one of Russia’s popular current affairs magazines goes as follows: The West is mistaken. The article states that the west catastrophically doesn’t understand the situation both within Russia and in her surroundings. It plays the sympathy card. Russia was naïve post Cold War; it took the promises of the West which the West has broken. Gorbachev took down the Berlin wall under the premise that expansion of NATO wouldn’t happen. It says that the West is hypocritical. Perhaps it’s true. I did find it strange how quickly our press jumped at the opportunity to turn Russia into the enemy. It demonstrates that we still haven’t got over the Cold War and the image of Russia always as the enemy, the spy, the corrupt, is somewhat imbedded in our culture and makes for too priceless a headline. However, neither do I agree that Russia is the innocent victim, come on, that’s ridiculous. Russia is clearly still ambitious and such articles only strengthen the people’s hope in a greater, stronger Russia.

Despite how different they claim they are, it seems suddenly very clear to me that the US’ and Russia’s politics are rather similar: self-centred. It makes me feel disillusioned with everything that I think Europe stands for, with the systems of global governance which we so desperately need to fight all the world’s greatest issues: terrorism, food crisis, climate change, global health. But I feel like because of the egos of some stuffy men in clean cut suits it’s all about to fall apart around us.

I drink a lot of tea here. I’m English, but I hardly ever drink tea back home. Perhaps it’s because the tap water isn’t drinkable here, or that it’s always so cold but it’s becoming something of a life line. It is cold. It’s only September and I am sitting at my desk in three layers, a fleece and a blanket and I am still shivering. I’ve just put the kettle on again. Russians drink their tea black and sugary or green and exotic. Vika, my flatmate, and I sit and talk away long evenings over many cups, huddled around our little kitchen table. We have to wait till October for heating, so the gas stove is almost always lit and provides the only warm place in the flat. Tziala, our landlady whose home we share, tells us not to worry as gas is cheap in Moscow. She goes round opening windows, claiming we need air, despite the drafty windows and the spacious, high-ceilinged rooms. I go round closing them in an attempt to conserve all the heat we possibly can. Only children’s homes and hospitals have heating now; homes have to wait another month. It strikes me as strange that some figure in an office has control over the heating for the entire city. I’m used to having heating like my drinking water, on tap.

Our flat has three bedrooms, a kitchen, a toilet and a bathroom. The hall is narrow and cosy, but the rooms are spacious, the walls covered with wall hangings, religious posters and cabinets of nick-nacks and bibles. A large rug covers the greater part of my wooden floor and tall, overgrown green plants line the window sill and spill over onto the floor. There is a large box full of Tziala’s CDs which she delves into on almost every trip out to take two or three, goodness knows to who. Tziala almost never stops singing and will often stand in the centre of my room and perform portions of songs with large arm movements. If she is not singing she is almost certainly talking or shouting to one of us from another room. As she talks far too quickly for me to understand I sometimes wonder whether she’d still be talking even if I wasn’t there. Her heart is big however, and despite being surprisingly pedantic she puts a lot of time into sharing with me and helping and I rather enjoy her eccentricity.

Vika is the calming force within the house. Tall and elegant, with self-poise and confidence like all Russian women, her room is covered in postcards and souvenirs from America and one or two clippings from some modelling work. She comes home late in the evening from work at the International Advertising Institute, but has time to sit and talk to me over different flavours or tea. We’ve had tea from China, from Argentina and of course, England. We talk in English and Russian, helping each other along with our language learning.

We live in an old-fashioned way. The water is heated by an open gas boiler which has to be lit every morning and the temperature of the shower is controlled by the boiler rather than the tap because the cold water tap doesn’t work. We have no washing machine and have to hand wash clothes in small bowls in the bath. The telephone in my room is one of those dated dial ones like my grandmother used to have and lets out an ear-piercing, tinny ring. The building is old and I am told will be knocked down in two years.

Breeze circles and meanders between the trees. Warm patches of sunlight are projected onto the leaf covered earth. The scene looks autumnal but it’s as hot as any English summer.

Somewhere on the breeze there is music; string music. It skips and pirouettes in and out of the trees, along the paths, swinging around sun beams picked out by the dust of an open fire. There is music and there is laughing. People now, stroll with the breeze. Prams are pushed round corners and little girls skip in front of their mothers, trailing balloons in the air behind them. Militsia amble with their jackets off, swinging their hats by their sides. Footsteps crush the leaves behind. The news on the breeze entices people towards the gathering. The ground now is patterned with chalk etchings. Boys flit about on all modes of toy-town transport. Pretty little girls with blonde pig-tails pose for their mothers’ cameras. Large furry animals greet young passers-by. Girls and boys race each other up a climbing net scaling high between the trees. A toddler sized bouncy castle shudders to the beat of a drum. Brightly coloured bunting and tall rectangular flags line the paths. Soldiers are parading. Baroque strings and the gleeful yelps of little people are the ambience. Trees, lakes and small glimpses of old, high rise flats are the backdrop. The sound of traffic cannot be escaped but the city buzz feels far away now. That being said, it is central Moscow where this scene takes place.

Today is Moscow’s birthday and the city has stopped to celebrate.

Sweeping round the grand and famous buildings of Kitai-Gorod, up through Red Square, down Teatralnaya, past the Bolshoi, up to Lubyanka and the cavernous streets are no longer filled with gas-guzzling vehicles but jubilant crowds of pedestrians. In every square there is a stage and at every stage a different theme. Performers from all over the world play, but it is the home-grown pop stars that have girls in hysterics. Stalls selling ice-creams and Russian flags line the way and balloons soar above the crowds. The city centre finally exhales but the militsia here are on guard. Each festival area is cordoned off by gates and metal detectors, and armed personnel guard every entrance. It seems political climes are always lurking.