I got off at Smolenskaya, the nearest metro to Dan’s flat, but when I got to the outside exit, I realised I had no idea which way to go and I saw that the rain was as hard as ever.  Rather than go out and try to figure out where I was in the torrent and conditions of zero visibility, I decided to ask someone.  Okay, it was obviously not that simple: of course I had to scope out who I should ask and think about how I would ask and then force myself to talk to a stranger in Russian.  I took my guide book out and turned to Map 4 where Dan lived and where I had marked the location of the house with an X.

“Excuse me, please.  I know we are here (pointing to the metro station on the map and saying ‘here’ in Czech rather than in Russian) and I live here (pointing to the X and still speaking pidgin Russian).  To the right or to the left?”

I did not understand everything the young woman said to me in response but I did understand that she wanted me to wait with her.  It turned out that she was waiting for her mother who had gone to purchase a second umbrella.  In the end, the two of them walked me the three blocks home, the daughter attempting to shelter me under her umbrella while we dodged the puddles as best we could.  I tried to tell them that it was okay, that I knew where I was once we got to my street but they refused to leave me until we got to my door.  I thanked them as well as I could for their kindness.

Thursday, 1st July

I got up early to go get my visa registered.  I took the metro to Oktyabrskaya at one end of Leninsky Prospekt, a very long and wide boulevard.  I had walked quite a way down Leninsky Prospekt before I realised that I did not have the right address for the agency.  For some reason I decided that they were probably in number 1 so I crossed the road and walked back to the beginning of Leninsky Prospekt.  They were not there so I gave in and rang them.  Number 29.  Not so bad, I thought, but then I started walking back in the direction from which I had just come and I saw that most of the buildings were about a block long.  Not at all an exaggeration: everything in Moscow is larger than life.  Finally I got to number 29 only to find that it did not have a door.  Really – absolutely no door on or near the street side.  I went into the shop next to number 29 to ask.  There was a man standing right next to the door who immediately asked if he could help me and I suddenly realised I had no idea how to ask for what I needed.  I very cleverly started my question in Russian by saying “I don’t speak Russian.”  Helpful man asked “Sprechen Sie Deutsch?”  I admitted to speaking a little bit so I got directions in German, which worked.  The entrance was around the corner, through a small gate, and into a building which was behind number 29 without actually being number 29.  I paid yet more money (1500 roubles) to the agency and they told me they would have my visa registration complete on Tuesday when I would have to go back for the little card with the little stamp, all so that I would not get into trouble with the police on my way out of the country.  They also told me how to get to a closer metro station.

I hopped on the metro there, having already figured out my route which would take me back to Ploshchad Revolutsii, where I had been the evening before and from where I knew my way to Red Square.  When I reached my transfer station, Tretyakovskaya, I suddenly decided that it was close enough and that I would walk from there instead of transferring lines.  Unfortunately, having not actually read the Cyrillic with proper care, I had confused Tretyakovskaya with Teatralnaya.  I came out of the metro and could not find myself on the map (because I was looking in the wrong place) so I began walking more or less aimlessly.  Eventually I saw Kremlin buildings and walked towards them but I was shocked to see how far away they were and then to discover that I had to cross the river to get to them.  I was absolutely puzzled and did not figure out what I had done wrong until much later.

I spent the rest of the day sight-seeing at a whirlwind pace with my sister and brother-in-law who were in Moscow at the same time.  We started in St Basil’s Cathedral.  It was beautiful inside, not vast like cathedrals we know in Western and Central Europe, but made up of many smaller rooms and almost labyrinthine.  Our next stop was the Moscow Choral Synagogue because we are Jewish and like to visit synagogues.  This synagogue was the only one in Moscow that had continued to operate throughout the Soviet period.  It was cool to see something familiar and comfortable in an otherwise strange city.

From the synagogue we went to the sculpture garden in Iskussty Park which contains a mixture of old statues of Stalin, Lenin, Brezhnev and so on + more modern artwork.  Leaving the garden we found ourselves next to the fantastic 94.5m tall Peter the Great monument by Zarub Tsereteli.  We walked along the embankment and then over to the Tretyakov Gallery.  It is a beautiful building both outside and in, and houses some very important Russian artwork.

From there we took the metro to the Old (Nikulin) Circus.  Sheryl and Sandy had very cleverly arranged with their tour co-ordinator for me to use a ticket that was unwanted by its rightful owner.  The circus was good.  I was a bit uncomfortable with the animal acts but the acrobats, trapeze artists and so on were incredible.  There were two men who were dressed and made up to blend in as part of a marble table, which is how they made their entrance when their part of the stage was raised up at the edge of the ring.  Their display of strength was breath-taking: one of the men would hold himself up with one arm, with his body straight out and parallel to the floor, i.e. at a right angle to his arm, and with the other man on his back.  Really amazing.

Friday, 2nd July

I walked about 600 miles on Friday, most of that when I got lost on my way home and ended up almost off the west end of Map 2.

In the morning I walked up Arbat street (pedestrian: very quiet and pleasant in the morning but over-touristed later in the day) and to the Kremlin.  I was there at 9.15 and watched busloads of tourists arriving until 10 when my sister and brother-in-law arrived.  There had been no queue at all at 9.15; but by 10 we were in for a real Russian cultural experience, i.e. queuing for ages.  We entered the Kremlin at 11.30.

I tagged along with my sister and brother-in-law’s group.  The tour was a blur.  The Kremlin is an amazing place but it was very crowded and there were so many guides speaking at the tops of their voices that it was just too much hard work to listen properly and to see everything we were meant to see.  On the other hand, it was awesome just to be there and to see the buildings and where so much history had taken place.  And once again, many things were larger than life – especially the Tsar Cannon and the Tsar Bell (the chipped off bit alone weighs 11 tonnes!).  On Cathedral Square we saw the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church coming out of Assumption Cathedral.
 

We went into Archangel Cathedral to see the iconostasis and tombs, and then into the Armoury.  The Armoury is a grand building which houses a number of museum collections.  Highlights included Fabergé eggs, jewelled thrones and crowns, coronation and wedding dresses and a room full of royal carriages.

Then sister and brother-in-law left and I went home to Dan’s to make some phone calls.  My first call was to the language centre at Moscow State University – they had a teacher for me and I was to start Russian lessons at 11 a.m. on Monday!  I called the American rabbi from the advertisement in The Moscow Times to ask about English language Friday night services but the rabbi was on holiday so there were going to be no services – so much for my plan on how not to spend Friday evening by myself.

I went out again in the evening.  I tried to call Jo, another friend in Moscow who had once worked in Prague, but she did not answer her phone so I picked a place out of my guide book and headed there.  I was looking for a bar where I might be able to meet some ex-pats and get a menu in English and just relax for a couple of hours.  I found the place that had been recommended in the guide book and it was an absolute pit.  I thought that I would just have a beer in there and then go but before I could order, my phone rang and it was Jo. She said she was still at work and would have to stay there for at least another couple of hours, but she directed me to a much nicer place called Scandinavia near Pushkin Square.  I sat at the outside bar, ordered a beer and talked to a Russian man who called himself George until we were seated at our tables.  The service was quirky.  It seemed that one of the hostesses had taken an instant dislike to me but that the second had decided to be contrary and look after me with special care.  It worked out for me in the end: I mention it now because I visited this place again the following week when the service was again worthy of comment.  I did not talk to anyone else that night but I was happy on my own with my Lonely Planet, a couple of cold beers and a very tasty hamburger.

Jo was still at work around 11 so I decided to go home.  I studied my map and decided that there was an easy route I could follow on foot.  I walked down Tverskoy bulvar, a famous street (see e.g.  Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina) with a long narrow park in the middle of it.  At the end of Tverskoy I should have veered left and continued down Nikitsky bulvar but instead, without explanation, I went right into Mala Nikitskaya ulitsa.  I walked and walked and walked.  Nothing looked familiar but I did not want to get my map out while I was on my own at night, and everything was lively so I kept going.  I saw one of the Seven Sisters and wondered if it was the one near my house seen from another angle, but it was not.  I saw the zoo which I did not think was anywhere near my house.  By this time I had walked for so long that I knew I had to be very far from home.  So I went into the next metro station I saw, looked at the map and figured out how to get home.  I was at Ulitsa 1905 Goda and I had to go three stops on the metro on three different lines in order to get home.  It was already after midnight and I had no idea how late the metro would run so I just hoped it would keep running long enough to get me back to the familiar Smolenskaya.  It did.  As I walked down Denezhny Pereulok towards home, I saw that the moon was perfect and full, very low and very large just over the trees.

Saturday, 3rd July

I went to the Pushkin Fine Arts Museum and it was incredible.  It had an eclectic collection: from Egyptian mummies and the Treasures of Troy to medieval art, Michelangelo reproductions (David!) and a Chagall.  I spent most of my time upstairs with the more modern works.  The Monets made me wistful; the Van Goghs took my breath away; the Matisses and Rousseaus made me happy; and the Chagall made me light-hearted.  I looked through the rest of the museum: all very interesting but nothing else stirred my emotions.

I went to the supermarket on my way home.  The supermarket was the first place that I saw that Moscow really is an expensive city for the ordinary people that live there.  The prices were definitely more like London than like Prague.

I went home to have lunch, relax and write in my journal.  I left the flat again at 7.30 to go and meet Nadia.  We had arranged to meet by the Pushkin statue so I decided to walk along the route that I should have taken home the night before, although in the opposite direction.  It was very easy in daylight.  Nadia and I found each other and we walked together to Siriol’s flat.  The event was Siriol’s leaving party, very civilised: beer, wine and supper.  Jo finally arrived around 11, and Jo, Nadia and I were the last to leave the party at around 2 o’clock.  Jo decided we should continue our evening; she waved down a car in the street.

Lonely Planet: Almost any car in Moscow could be a taxi if the price is right.  The simple way to get a taxi is to stand on the street and stick your arm out.  Before too long a car will stop and, if the driver fancies going to your destination, you’re on your way.

We walked into American Bar & Grill to the familiar sound of drunk Englishmen singing.  We had a couple of drinks and then decided it was time to go home.  Or the barman had decided it was time for us to go home because Nadia was asleep on her barstool.  We once again waved down a car.  There was a yellow taxi on the street as well but apparently those in the know try to avoid them.

Sunday, 4th July

The highlight of my lazy Sunday was the “Grand Houses Tour” in Lonely Planet:

…just off the well-worn cobblestones lie the quiet lanes of old Arbat where you can still get a feel for 19th-century Moscow, a city inhabited by writers and their heroes, old nobles and the nouveau riche.  The era and its people are long gone, but you can still sense them in the grand houses they left behind.

Monday, 5th July

I went up to the university for 11 o’clock.  I was early and so I took a walk round and got a good look at the outside of the main university building which is the largest of Stalin’s Seven Sisters (Lonely Planet: built by convict labour 1949-1953, 36 floors, 236m high with four huge wings).  I got to the language centre which was in a different building where they asked me to fill in a form and then told me that my lesson would be at 2.  Rather than wait around I took the metro back into town.  I had a look at the outside of the Bolshoi Theatre and the Hotel Metropol, “one of the finest examples of Art Nouveau architecture throughout Moscow”.  I also checked out the lovely Vitali fountain and the statue of Karl Marx next to it.  I walked up to Lubyanka where there used to be a KGB prison and then I took the metro back to the university.

I paid for my lessons (only cash accepted) and met my teacher, Tatiana.  I was thrilled to find out that my lessons would be in the main building which meant that I would get to see the inside of that immense sister.  Tatiana and I walked together to the main building; I had to show my new Moscow State University student card to get in.  We walked all the way through the main part of the building: up some stairs, straight on for a bit, then around the huge banks of lifts which occupy the centre of the building, straight on again, down the stairs on the other side, then out the back and into one of the wings.  Tatiana had been assessing my Russian during our walk and decided that we would start at the very beginning just to make sure there would be no large holes in my knowledge.  In hindsight, I think she just wanted to do things the easy way and avoid the need to design lessons especially for me.  So I learned some Russian for a few hours.  Tatiana is a very nice lady but not a great teacher: we just worked our way through the first four lessons of the book and workbook that she had probably used a million times.

I received a text message from Dan on my way to the metro station: his meeting in London had been later than he had hoped and he had missed the last flight back to Moscow.  Bugger.

I got home, decided to go to the supermarket and spend the night in.  I would cook something hot (it had been a cold and very rainy day), do my homework and go to bed early in anticipation of my 9.00 lesson on Tuesday.  But as I was pondering the cheeses in Sedmoi Kontinent my phone rang.  It was Jo telling me that she was coming toget me so that we could go out to dinner.  We got a ride in an old Zhiguli to an Italian restaurant called Adriatika.  The food was very nice and I think we had just finished our 2nd bottle of wine when Jo’s boyfriend Misha came to join us.  Misha was fabulous and we got on very well: I may have lost count somewhere but I think we had a total of five bottles of wine and then three grappas each.  Finally we were politely asked to leave because it was very late and the restaurant staff wanted to go home.  The three of us were having too good of a time to go home so we walked to a bar (Jo was almost run down crossing a very big street) and had a couple more drinks.  It was a fabulously fun and drunken evening – not quite right for a Monday and I have no idea what time I got home.

Tuesday, 6th July

I woke up and looked at the clock on my phone – it said 9.28 which was very bad because I was supposed to have been in my lesson at 9.00.  I jumped out of bed and called the language centre.  A man answered the phone, did not want to talk to me and told me to call again in 15 minutes.  When I called back he handed the phone to an American girl who said that she was also a student and that no one else was in the office because they had all worked late the night before.  We agreed I should try again in another 15 minutes.  The third time Tatiana answered the phone.  I told her that I had overslept and apologised for missing the lesson.  I asked if we could make it up and she said no.  Well done, I thought – pay €220 for lessons and miss 20% of them.  I also asked if we could perhaps have the remaining lessons in the afternoon so as to avoid another oversleeping incident.

I went back to bed for a few more hours.  That afternoon I went back to my visa agency to pick up the card which was the evidence that my visa had been properly registered.  On my way home from there I got a message from Dan that he had just landed in Moscow.  He called me later from his office: he had made dinner reservations and I was to put a bottle of champagne into the refrigerator.  I put two bottles in, just in case.

As soon as Dan got home he popped open one of the bottles of champagne.  We drank that before walking to Vanil, one of Dan’s favourite restaurants in Moscow.  We had drinks and a lovely dinner (I had an eel and crab sushi roll starter that was absolutely gorgeous) and wine and we shared a pudding.  Dan treated because he was feeling very guilty about missing the first six days of my visit.  I told him I liked the guilt thing and that he should keep it up.  He did.

Wednesday, 7th July

On Wednesday morning I decided to go to Park Pobedy (Victory Park).  I came out of the metro there and walked first to the Triumphal Arch which celebrates Napoleon’s defeat and is situated in the middle of a huge boulevard.  After having a look at it I walked back towards the subway so as to cross the street and get over to Park Pobedy itself.  Just next to the subway I was stopped by a Russian lady who was with her grown-up daughter.  She was clearly asking me to take a photograph of them with the arch in the background.  She had a very simple camera but nevertheless explained to me extensively how to work it and then shouted directions at me about what to get into the picture etc.  This all amused me because I did not actually understand much of what she was saying.  She thanked me very nicely and I continued on my way.  I came up the other stairs on the park side of the boulevard and started walking towards the World War II monument.  It was very far away because there was an absolutely enormous plaza leading up to the monument with big fountains and 5 markers with the years of the war for the Soviets engraved on them.

Lonely Planet: Victory Park [is] a huge memorial complex celebrating the Great Patriotic War.  The park includes endless fountains, a memorial mosque, synagogue and church, and some typically kitsch Tsereteli-designed monuments…  The dominant monument is a 142m obelisk, 10 cm for each day of the war.

But before I had even got to the first fountain, I heard “Devushka, devushka” behind me and I turned around to find the crazy lady with the camera yelling at me.  I wondered for a second if I had broken her camera but no, she only wanted me to take another photograph of her and her daughter, this time with the World War II monument behind them.

I had a look at the obelisk and at the museum, which was huge and white and columned, behind it.  The church was also in that first part of the park: it was white and very high but not otherwise notably big.  I walked around and behind the museum and saw that the park covered a huge area.  I did not see any kind of map or directory so I just started wandering.  I had seen the church and I wanted to find the synagogue and the mosque.  I thought that if I walked straight to the opposite end of the park that I would see everything and then I could just turn left and have a very long walk to the university.  Many people were roller-blading in the park.  I walked straight back as far as I could and then I had to veer off the pavement onto a dirt path.  I finally got to another street where I spotted the mosque.  I turned left and started walking but realised that I did not know if I was on the street that would take me to the university and I did not have time to walk miles out of my way or to become lost.  I decided that I had better go back through the park and get back to the metro so that I would be sure to find my way to school.  On the way I ran into a Tsereteli monument which appeared to be a monument to the Holocaust, although it could have been a monument to victims of totalitarianism in general as well.  I walked on it and around it and looked at it from every angle.  It was on the standard large Tsereteli scale and may have been slightly kitsch but I liked it anyway.

I had just got home from the university when Dan called to ask how soon I could be ready.  He asked me to get the second bottle of champagne out of the refrigerator and gave me directions to the street where his friends lived; he would go from work and meet me on the corner.  He was there waiting when I arrived.  We went into a house less than a block away and took the lift up to Ceci & Ian’s flat.  Their daughter Karen (aged 11) answered the door and Ian welcomed us in.  The flat was very big and very nice.  We went into the kitchen where we sat down, drank Czech beer and talked to Ceci and Ian while they cooked.  Karen very skilfully looked after her little brother Peter (aged 1 ½).  Eventually we sat down in the dining room to a meal of pasta with fresh prawns, drank champagne and white wine, and finished off with puddings and whisky.  It was very nice to be able to relax in someone’s home and it was a delightful evening.

Thursday, 8th July

On Thursday I stayed home in the morning, did lots of homework and then went to my lesson in the afternoon.  Dan meanwhile had arranged for us to meet some other friends of his at Scandinavia, the place I had been the previous Friday evening on my own.  Dan and I agreed to meet there at 9 p.m.

I got to Scandinavia at 9; Dan was not there yet so I rang him at work.  Dan told me to look for a man in a grey pinstripe suit with salt and pepper hair who was American and called Steve.  I walked around the terrace and finally spotted a man who fit the description.  I could see him looking at me looking at him so I approached him and asked him if he was Steve.  He was.  Dan had told me to look for a man perhaps on his own, perhaps with another person but Steve was at a table with six other people, including his lovely and clever Russian wife Natasha, another American lawyer called Mark, and a young Russian man called Ivan.

The service was again questionable.  Steve immediately ordered a beer for me (he speaks excellent Russian) and then someone else realised that we should probably order another round. We got one beer fairly quickly but I insisted that Mark have it because he had not had a beer yet either.  Then we waited and waited. Someone asked one waitress about the beers, someone asked another waitress, and the result was still nothing.  It is a funny place because there appear to be far more waitresses than you would expect rushing about the place but you cannot actually get any service.  Finally some beers arrived and then more beers and then a waitress spilled her tray of beers on Natasha and Ivan.  Then more beers were brought and we were just lining them up.  I don’t know what time Dan arrived but he got there eventually, as did several other people.  We had dinner, lots of beers and somehow even a round of aquavit had snuck its way in there.

Friday, 9th July

I took the metro out to BDHX (written VDNKh in Latin letters) – the All-Russia Exhibition Centre which was formerly known as the USSR Economic Achievements Exhibition.  Coming out of the metro and trying to orientate myself, I spotted the 100m titanium obelisk which is the monument to Soviet space flight so I walked over and had a look at that before making my way to BDHX.

Lonely Planet: Originally created in the 1930s, BDHX was expanded in the 1950s and ‘60s to impress upon one and all the success of the Soviet economic system.  Two kilometres long and 1 km wide, it comprises wide pedestrian avenues and grandiose pavilions, glorifying all the aspects of socialist construction from education and health to agriculture, technology and science.  The pavilions represent a huge variety of architectural styles, symbolic of the contributions from diverse ethnic and artistic movements to the common goal.

The main entrance to BDHX is marked by a massive columned gate with the Tractor Driver and Collective Farmer, a classic socialist statue, mounted on top.  Walking through the gate, I was directly in front of the Central Pavilion which has been described as a miniature version of Stalin’s Seven Sisters.  The pavilion used to house an exhibition on the different cultures of Russia but I was disappointed when I walked in to find that it contained nothing but horrible little shops.  This was to be a recurring theme throughout my visit to BDHX.  Never mind, as I was mostly interested in the architecture anyway.

I walked around the grounds of BDHX, but I know I did not even cover half of it.  The highlights of what I saw:

• The Friendship of the People fountain and the Stone Flower fountain – both huge bronze and granite fountains.  The centrepiece of the first fountain is a massive chalice surrounded by 15 very big and very shiny golden girls, one from each of the Soviet republics and each in her national dress.
• The Ukraine pavilion – finished with a colourful mosaic over the archway of the main door + very big sculptures of Ukrainian farmers and workers adorning each side of the door.
• Yuri Gagarin’s Vostok launcher, on display in front of the Cosmos pavilion.
• Gorod Masterov, which was a lovely little crafts ‘village’ that was small and quaint and looked completely out of place amongst the grand pavilions.

Once I had had my fill of the views of Moscow and bought some postcards and a book from two of the many souvenir vendors there, I headed towards the university.  I was impressed by the fact that such a grand and imposing building could look even grander than it had before.  There was a huge fountain in the plaza leading up to the building and there were wide stairs leading up to the front doors and everything looked even bigger on this side.  I was worried I would not know which way to go once I got in but I found my wing all right and was early enough to get a little bit of homework done before Tatiana arrived.

That night Dan had arranged for us to meet Jo and Nadia for dinner at Yapona Mama, a Japanese restaurant near Dan’s office.  Everyone was working late and Dan and I were the first to the restaurant at about 10 p.m.  The standard Moscow surly service.  When Dan and I got there, they did not want to give us a table upstairs and seated us at a table on the ground floor next to the door instead.  Dan could not be bothered trying to argue because he was not sure whether or not his secretary had made a reservation for us, and we would have been an hour late for it anyway.  We ordered a couple of beers and waited for the girls.  Dan said that he was exhausted and that it would have to be an early night and that it would be better to save ourselves for Saturday night.  Nadia and Jo showed up at the same time.  One of the first things Jo said was “I am not liking this table.”  So she went and had words with the waiter in her fabulous Russian and we were immediately taken upstairs and seated next to a window.

Upstairs the girls needed drinks but we were being ignored.  Nadia decided she would raise her hand as if we were in school and keep it up until someone came over to take a drinks order.  It worked.  The waitress never smiled (in spite of Dan’s flirtatious efforts), we had to call her over every time we wanted something and the food came at all different times, but it was very good.

After dinner Nadia invited us back to hers for drinks.  Dan and I happily accepted but Jo said that she had to meet Misha.  So we said our good-byes and the three of us walked to Nadia’s which was nearby.  Nadia also has a lovely ex-pat flat, complete with sauna, by the way.  Dan wanted whisky and Nadia managed to find half a bottle of Johnny Walker so we drank that.  We just talked and talked and talked about everything until the bottle of whisky was gone and Dan and I finally went home at 4 a.m.

Saturday, 10th July

The plan on Saturday was for me to entertain myself for at least a few hours during the day so that Dan could get some work done.  I left the house at about 12.45 and Dan was still in bed.  I had decided to go to a bookshop on Novy Arbat to see if I could find a book of photographs of Stalinist architecture and also to see what they might have to help me learn more Russian.  I found the bookshop, Dum Knigi, easily; it was very big and on two floors but I managed to read the signs so that I could find what I wanted.  I found the dictionaries first and decided to buy a Czech-Russian dictionary.  Then I found the books for learners of Russian and decided to buy my own copies of the books I had borrowed from Dan for my lessons.  After I paid for those I looked around some more but alas found no photographs of Stalinist architecture.  So I left the book store and walked to the metro which I rode to Izmaylovsky Park.

Lonely Planet: The weekend Vernisazh market at Izmaylovsky Park is a sprawling area packed with art and handmade crafts.  You’ll find Moscow’s biggest original range of matrioshkas, Palekh and Khokhloma ware, and dozens of artists selling their own work.  There are also rugs from the Caucasus and Central Asia, some very attractive pottery, antique samovars, handmade clothes, jewellery, fur hats, chess sets, toys, Soviet posters and much more.

It was the Soviet posters I was after.  Coming out of the metro it was obvious which way to go because there were hordes of people either heading towards or leaving the market.  There was a long path leading up to the Vernisazh market: at the beginning it was lined with people literally just standing there and selling things out of their hands and it gradually became wider and more crowded and lined with kiosks.  I got something that was doughy, stuffed with vegetables and deep-fried for my breakfast and then went into the Vernisazh market itself, entrance fee 10 roubles.  Everything was wooden and folk-looking in the market.  It seemed that most of the vendors spoke at least some English and that it was a comfortable place for tourists.  I walked around looking at different things as I walked further back into the market where I had been told I would find posters.

I bought a couple of replica posters from one man who had gone through a big pile with me and told me in English what each poster was about.  Then I continued on my way.  There is an area up some stairs at the back.  Part of that was lined with vendors sitting on blankets on the ground with their wares lying around them – mostly junk but I am sure there were some very interesting items which someone with more patience than I have would be able to find.  Then I found a huge stall with a much larger selection of posters, some of them replicas, some of them older replicas and some of them originals.  Here a woman went through a big pile of originals and older replicas with me, but her explanations were all in Russian so I got a bigger kick out of it.  I bought two posters from her as well.

I walked round a bit more until I got bored of it and then went home.  It was around 5.30, I think, and I found Dan hard at work in the study with the cricket on the tv in the sitting room.  I sat and looked at my new books and read a bit and watched the cricket while Dan continued working.  It was nearly 8.30 when we finally got ready to go out.

Our big evening was centred around going to a club called First.  First is a very current and trendy club where the doormen practice what the Russians call “face control”.  There was a group of eight of us going and the only way to guarantee that we would get in was to have dinner in the club’s very expensive restaurant beforehand.  Dan and I arrived late to find Nadia there on her own.  Apparently everyone is always late in Moscow.  Eventually the others got there and we must have finally ordered our dinners around 10 or 10.30.  The restaurant was elegant and the service was good but certainly not friendly – friendly is obviously not part of the Moscow service culture.  The food was very good and we had nice wine and then after coffees and paying the bill it was time to go into the club.

My impression:  “face control” is only practiced on the women; there have to be different criteria for men because all of the women were gorgeous and none of the men were attractive at all.  The club was not as large as I had imagined it would be.  There was a big bar in the centre with girls dancing on top of it and there was a small stage just behind the bar where other dancers performed, both women and men.  Nadia and I went to the bar to get a round of beers while Dan and Tim stood there staring at the scenery.  It was a fun time: we drank, danced, talked and enjoyed watching the boys watching the girls.  There was some discussion about going to a club called Ooh la la afterwards but Tim decided he would rather go to a casino and that was the end of that.

We decided that Nadia should come home with us; Dan had put a bottle of champagne in to chill that we had not managed to get to before dinner.  Dan waved down a car.  We got in and Dan was chatting away with the driver who turned out to be Georgian.  He was very friendly and Dan seemed to be enjoying the chat very much because when we arrived back at the flat Dan invited the driver up to have champagne with us.  I do not remember if we ever learned his name so I shall call him “the Georgian”.  We could not all fit into the lift in Dan’s building.  Nadia and I took the lift while Dan and the Georgian walked up four flights of stairs.  We got in and put the Georgian on the couch.  Dan opened the bottle of champagne for me and Nadia but the Georgian declined because he was driving.  Dan drank whisky.  We had not been sitting there for long when the Georgian apologised for removing his gun from its holster and placing it on the table.  It had been digging into his hip, he explained.  I remember being surprised but not really worried that we had a strange Georgian man with a gun in the flat.  We carried on drinking and chatting.  The Georgian asked if he could smoke.  I imagined that Dan was about to say ‘no’ so I suggested that he make an exception on this occasion.  So now we had a smoking Georgian on the couch, a gun on the dining table, an open bottle of champagne that was not being drunk and Nadia asleep on the armchair in the corner.  The Georgian just stayed and stayed and stayed and Dan was very reluctant to ask him to leave so he asked me to do something about it.  I simply announced that I was very tired and that I would have to go to bed soon, I pointed out that Nadia was already sleeping, I told Dan that he should go to bed too and I asked the Georgian if he was not tired as well.  It seemed to take a long time from that point to when the Georgian finally left.  He wanted to take Nadia with him, said he would be happy to drive her home, but Dan and I felt a lot more comfortable keeping Nadia with us.  The Georgian finally left, gun in holster under jacket.  Dan and I put Nadia to bed in my room and then we went to sleep too.

Sunday, 11th July

When I woke up I went into Dan’s room to discuss the plans for my last day in Moscow.  We had wanted to do two things that day but only had time for one.  The options were lunch in a Georgian restaurant or a boat ride on the Moscow River.  We chose the boat ride.

Lonely Planet: For new perspectives on Moscow neighbourhoods, fine views of the Kremlin, or just good old-fashioned transportation, a boat ride on the Moscow River is one of the city’s highlights.

We started at Novospassky Bridge landing where we could get seats upstairs in the open air.  There were six intermediate stops on the route and the boat got very crowded.  Dan pointed out when we got off the boat at Kievsky Vokzal that the queue to get on was stupidly long and that we had been very clever to start at the other end.  The boat ride was an awesome way to see Moscow.  I saw many of the sites I had seen and the places I had been before but from a different angle and without leaving my seat.  And I saw things I had not seen before as well, like Novodevichy Convent.  It was also very nice to be out in the fresh air with the breeze created by the movement of the boat; only the long stops were difficult for us in our fragile post-Saturday night condition.

After the boat trip, we had to go straight to another leaving party.  It was at the home of one of Dan’s Russian colleagues.  The party was centred in the sitting room where there were two couches in an L shape, a large square coffee table, and cushions arranged around the other two sides of the table.  The table was piled with food: plates of cold meats and cheeses, vegetable and seafood salads, heaps of raspberries and strawberries (“These are Russian strawberries – they are much sweeter than the imported ones”), cherries, crudités and bottles of wine.

Dan told the group the story of the Georgian chastnik.  The reactions were along the lines of: “Are you crazy?”, “What were you thinking?”, “Dan, that was so stupid, don’t ever do that again!”  Dan admitted to having been very shocked when he saw the gun, and worried for me and Nadia, and he promised he would not invite any more chastniki into his flat.

At some point Dan had asked our hostess to order a taxi to take me to the airport.  When the taxi arrived I said my good-byes and Dan came outside with me.  He talked to the taxi driver to confirm where I was going: Sheremetevo airport, and how much it would cost: 750 roubles.  I decided to lay my head back, close my eyes if I could, and not worry about missing the scenery on the way back to the airport.  I looked around every now and again, saw a sign that said Sheremetevo, and felt fairly confident that the taxi driver would get me to the airport.

When I could see we were nearly there I started to pay more attention.  We turned into the airport and I saw a sign that said Sheremetevo Terminal 1.  There are in fact two airports with the same name (apparently they share runways).  I had just assumed, and I still believe, that someone had told the driver that I needed Sheremetevo 2.  And even if no one had, there would have been no reason for him to assume Sheremetevo 1.  In fact, I believe that Sheremetevo 2 would have been the more likely assumption.  I said to the driver in Russian, “I need Sheremetevo 2.”  He started arguing with me, saying that he had not been told 2 and that 2 was 10 kilometres back the way we had come, and whatever else he said.  I said again in Russian, “I am sorry but I need Sheremetevo 2.”  He argued with me some more so I said, still in Russian, “I do not understand.”  I added in English “I don’t care.  I’m not getting out of the car.  I need Sheremetevo 2.”  So he drove me to Sheremetevo 2.  I had decided that I would give him something extra for his trouble, even if it was his mistake, for goodwill.  My intention was to give him 800 roubles but I only had a single 1000 rouble note.  I handed it to him but before I could tell him to keep 800, he told me he was going to keep the whole thing.  I sighed in exasperation, realised that I just wanted to get out of the car and into the airport so I told him to just give me 100 back.  He did.  Then he very politely got out of the car and lifted my suitcase out of the trunk.

I walked into the airport building.  Sheremetevo 2 has to be the least user-friendly airport I have ever been in.  It has more to offer in terms of amenities than, say, Rinas, which is the airport of Tirana, Albania, but it is much harder to figure out where you need to go or to get any information from anyone.  The first thing I had to do was to put my suitcase and my hand luggage through an x-ray machine.  I looked around and spotted the information board that gives you the number of your check-in area.  There was an arrow that said that areas 1-4 were to the left.  I walked as far as I could go in that direction until I came to a customs area.  I could see the check-in area just beyond but there were signs that said in both Russian and English “entry prohibited”.  There were people waiting with luggage on trolleys so I came to the conclusion that they were waiting to be told they could go in but nothing was happening.  I walked to the end of the customs area to see if there was a way round but that only led me to a dead-end.  I came back to where I had started and suddenly realised that these people were not waiting to go in, that they had just arrived in Moscow and were probably waiting for other people to come out.  I bravely walked into the green ‘nothing to declare’ customs area and walked past the customs man without any reaction from him at all.  I then had to put my suitcase and hand luggage through another x-ray machine and walk through a metal detector.  Luckily no alarms went off.

My check-in area was number 2.  There were four desks in the area, one of which already had a long queue leading to it, and two of which were manned but had no passengers.  I approached a desk and asked the woman if I could check in.  She looked up at me and said, “Shanghai?”  I said, “Nyet, Praga.”  She said, “Shanghai!”  I retreated.  I decided that I was probably supposed to wait in the queue.  I heard nothing around me except Russian and Chinese.  I had been standing in the unmoving queue for about 5 minutes when I heard American English and saw 3 men approaching the queue.  They were asking each other where they thought they might need to go.  I asked them where they were going and they said they were going to Prague.  I warned them about the Shanghai woman.  They told me that they had a problem as one of them had lost his ticket.  One of them decided to try the man at the other queueless desk.  He came back and said that the man had not even looked up from whatever he was doing when he tried to get his attention.  I asked them if they spoke any Russian at all.  They said no, they did not, so I offered to give it a go.  I approached the Shanghai woman again and did my Russian thing:

“We have a problem.  My friend had a ticket but he does not have a ticket anymore.”  (I did not know how to say ‘lost’.)  She looked at me with a frown.  So I repeated myself and threw in some extra gestures.  She said she did not understand my problem.  I asked her in Russian if anyone spoke English.  She said only “Da”.  I waited for her to call the English speaker but when she took no further action I realised that she was referring to herself.  I said, now in English, “You?”  She said, also now in English, “A little.”  So I explained the problem to her in English.  She asked if the ticket had been issued by Aeroflot or ?SA (Czech Airlines).  I checked with the boys and when I reported back to her that it had been a ?SA ticket she told me that she could not help us, that we needed to speak to someone from ?SA, and that we could either go upstairs to the office on the 6th floor or we could wait for a representative there.  I told the boys what she had said and they said they would rather wait there so I went back to her to ask about getting a representative.  She said they would be there 2 hours before flight time.  I looked at the clock and saw that we had 10 minutes to wait.

A few minutes later we saw a man with a ?SA identification tag coming towards the check-in area.  I approached him and told him in Russian that we had a problem.  He told me to wait a minute and then he started reading a magazine.  After a few more minutes a woman came and she and the man who had been sitting next to Shanghai woman all along started checking people in for the Prague flight.  I approached the new woman and asked her in Russian if she spoke Czech or English.  She spoke neither and called over the first ?SA man to whom I had tried to speak earlier.  I asked him in Russian if he spoke Czech or English.  He chose Czech although it quickly became obvious that he also spoke English.  I explained the problem to him.  He said there was nothing he could do, that there was no way he could get Chris (the one who had lost his ticket) on the flight.  I told him that that was not acceptable, that Chris’ reservation would be in the computer and he had to be able to issue a replacement ticket.  He said he would need confirmation from the travel agency in California that the ticket had actually been issued.  This went back and forth for a while and was absolutely absurd.  In the end he took Chris’ passport with him up to the office on the 6th floor and issued him a new ticket.  Meanwhile Chris had to go get money out of a bank machine because the man said that as it was Sunday he did not have the necessary equipment set up to accept a credit card.  So Chris paid 8,400 roubles (about $300) for a ticket he had already bought and we all checked in and went to wait in the queue at passport control.

Once through passport control the four of us went to the bar and had a couple of drinks before boarding the plane.  As we boarded the plane and the Czech crew smiled and said “Dobrý ve?er” (good evening), I realised that I had never been so happy to see Czech people in my life, and that I had never realised how smiley and wonderfully nice they are.  Obviously this was just in contrast to the Russians I had most recently encountered but I was relieved to be going home to Prague.

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