Moscow Spring (worse than Seoul Spring could ever be)

Moscow Spring is a teenage girl! Three days fairly decent weather, and then many days of snow and freaking cold! Yesterday was beautiful! It was cold, but the sun was shining. Today, grey, snowing, windy, and freezing! I’m not so white any more, but wind burned pink.

So the week in review:
I had to eat in front of the students at the kindergarten. Monkey see, monkey do. The children ate whatever I ate. So when the cook put a large plate of boiled liver, mashed potatoes, and beets in front of me, everyone cringed. We all ate the beets and the mashed potatoes first. There was no way I was touching that liver. That is, until the teacher scolded me because none of the students were eating their liver either. So, down the hatch went the liver. I thought for sure I was going to lose my lunch on the way to the metro. 

I had some time to kill, and an upset stomach, so I stopped at Metro Arbatskaya. I had no idea what was there and just decided to see. I got out of the metro and followed the mass of people down the street, across some ice, and onto an amazingly beautiful Neo-Classical cobbled street. There were tourist shops, coffee shops, restaurants, and a torture museum housed in the mint green, candy pink, and light blue buildings. 

Despite the freezing cold temperatures, artists were on the car-less street selling amazing works of art and book sellers had heaps of used books for sale. I grabbed a coffee and wandered up and down the street enjoying the atmosphere, and truthfully spent way too much time petting and admiring the really old books.

Wednesday, a coworker I never see called me out of the blue and said “You need a visa run and I want to go to Kiev, let’s go!” so we met up and bought our train tickets to Kiev. I am really excited for this trip because this guy lived in Kiev for two years and knows it inside and out. 

After buying tickets, I hurried up to my ten-year old student. I waited until the end of the lesson to give him his birthday present of Pringles and Mars Bars. He was so excited that he ran out to tell his dad. His dad ran in with tears in his eyes, spouting a German/Russian mix and kissed me on the lips. He was so grateful that I had remembered his son’s birthday. 

Thursday I had a nightmare lesson with my kindergarten class. I remembered why I don’t like teaching the little ones. After my client at Gorky 2, the driver took me to the bus stop to catch the marshrutka . Thankfully he stuck around to make sure I got on the bus, because just as we got there, traffic stopped for forty five minutes while we waited for the president to go by. Despite having to wait to put me on the bus, the driver was quite cheerful (showing his silver teeth) and we attempted to chat about various things and rocked out to ABBA. He then put me on the marshrutka and waved to me as the bus went by.


After the drama class on Friday, I met my co-workers at a Chinese restaurant to celebrate my manager’s birthday. We wound up staying quite late and headed back to my manger’s apartment to continue the festivities. After one co-worker started to cry and another co-worker went insane, I made the executive decision it was time to go home. We took a cab back to our apartment. However, the driver got lost and I had to help guide him via metro stops. I am lucky to have a sense of direction in this city. 

Today we got up and headed to the WWII Museum. It was interesting to see yet another perspective. The first thing you see when you walk out of the metro is the Victory Arch to commemorate the defeat of Napoleon. Then you see a large empty square. At the top of the square is the Victory Monument for WWII, the eternal flame (a great place to get wedding photos, apparently), and the museum. 

Once you get into the actual museum there a long hall of weighty tomes. These books contain the names of all the USSR soldiers who died in the four years they were in the war. At the end of the hall is a large statue of a woman holding the body of a dead man. This is lit up by bronze chains with crystal tear drops-each drop represents a life lost. There are millions (estimated totally death from WWII for all of Soviet Union is between 26-27 million).

The dioramas of various battles and sieges were amazing and heart wrenching—especially the siege of Leningrad which lasted 900 days. Of course those years had really long, cold winters (-30 degrees C) and people were reduced to eating frozen dirt to stay alive—among other things.

On the second floor is the Hall of Victory. Here you begin to cheer up a bit, until you go around the bend and see the Holocaust exhibit. My mood did not cheer as I visited the art gallery. Here you see paintings of ghosts and sad corpse-like people from the war era at the opposite wing of the victorious portraits of leaders and generals. But at the end of all of this is a large painting depicting The Idiot bound and chained and Don Quixote being held by a masked crowd and forced to look on as young men burn books in a mass bonfire. Malraux would have been intrigued.

Heat Wave

Bye bye winter...

 Attended Maslenitsa yesterday. It was a beautiful 2 degrees C, so I brought out my spring coat. The warm temperature and the slight bit of rain we had melted half of the snow bank instantly.  Puddle jumping was no longer an option, you just had to take a breath and jump in. By the time I reached the metro, my feet were soaked. Luckily they had a chance to warm and dry before jumping yet again, into the stream that once was the sidewalk. It was hard to enjoy the festival at Gorky Park with soaking wet shoes and dropping temperatures.

However, it was fun to carry orange balloons around pointing to all the people wearing fox heads. Also, many Russians do celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, but it appears to be some sort of green themed Ren Fair. So many kilts and medieval gowns, plus elven ears and capes. Lots of tiny, tiny, tiny green top hats.

I ate some blini and drank some traditional honey beer, tasted a little like mead. We then wandered around the various games, stilts walkers, donkeys and ponies. We watched as a traditional Russian music group played Rammstein, but the only words they knew was “Du Hast.” So I really do not know what exactly I have.  But you can get a feel for what it sounded like here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECfmyddwto8

We wandered above the most best ice rink I have ever seen. Too bad it was closed. They had turned the park pathways into an ice rink, so certain coffee shops and restaurants could only be accessed from the ice rink. You could just skate down the avenue. I wanted to go skating.

I eventually got too frozen to enjoy festivities anymore, so we waded our way past a giant Lenin statue to a Mexican restaurant. The food was pretty expensive. Chicken posole was $15 for a bowl of chicken and cabbage in tomato broth. But I was cold and hungry, so I ordered vegetarian nachos (cheapest, most Carmen-friendly thing on the menu), but they were out of vegetarian nachos. So I ordered and split beef nachos with Oliver. I really do not understand what they were out of. There were chips, cheese, beef, onions, corn, tomatoes, lettuce, beans, and jalapenos (yes, I know I am going to die after eating it).  So why they couldn’t make a veggy nacho? I have no idea. I then washed it down with a $10 beer that tasted like celery. I will stick to making my own Mexican food at home, thank you (however I only seem to make Indian or bibimbap these days).

Moscow Spring

I then went home. My feet had just begun to dry out when I exited the metro to find all the paths to my apartment flooded with ankle-deep ice water. I had no choice but to wade my way home. I was really happy to ring my socks out and warm my feet in a hot water bath.

Today it is snowing, again. I am running low on food, but do not want to go to the store. Wonder how long I can make two pieces of cheese, two eggs, a banana, and two boxes of chocolates last? 

Happy Maslenitsa!

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia

Well, Spring is still trying to fight her way through the snow. It seems that Winter isn’t quite ready to back down.  We had maybe three cold, but wonderfully sunny days and now, four days of thick, wet snow.  My snow boots have been walked in so much that the seams are wearing down—now my feet get damp. Thank goodness, they are able to mostly dry out while I’m teaching. Nannies are once again helping me take off my layers and put on my layers—making sure my scarf is tied just right and my hood is on. I really do appreciate it, especially when they greet me at the door with a cup of tea and some biscuits.

Thursday was a particularly snowy day. I was feeling ill and had to get up early to teach at a kindergarten. I stumbled through the snow to the metro. A bear was coming up the metro stairs—scared the bejesus out of me—not to mention, I was really confused as to why a bear was walking up stairs on two legs. Turns out it was just a very tall, large woman in a fur coat with a fur hood—damn those long-haired fur hoods! They are better than the double tailed coon-skin caps that some men like to wear here.

I was really disappointed when I found out I had to teach kindergarten, but I will admit, it is kind of fun. This kindergarten is not like the others I have seen in Moscow. This one is less institutional. I love walking through the mural forest halls to the clearing (intersection of two halls) where the dwarves’ house is and up the stairs to the fairy tale tree with the mermaid tree topper. Also, these kindergartens have awesome play houses—like the kind you see in Russian illustrations. Any way, we had lots of fun singing and dancing and learning about animals and I got a group hug afterwards.

After the school fed me some delicious blini (crepes), I put on my layers and dodged children on skis. The snow was coming down harder. I made it back to the metro, past the woman beggar who had been sitting out in the snow for these two hours and past the beautiful soaking, wet Burnese Mountain Dog who had smartly gone into the metro to get out of the snow. This got me thinking about the fact that humans will allow a dog to block half of the metro entrance but are annoyed when a fellow human takes up half that space. And I am just as bad, because while I felt sorry for the woman, I actually stopped and wanted to help the dog.

After kindergarten I headed out to Gorki-2, a wealthy suburb of Moscow. Just as I got off the bus, traffic halted. The president was heading somewhere and traffic was stopped. After that, the traffic was so jammed that it crawled. I was waiting outside for 45 minutes in the snow, waiting for the driver to be able to come pick me up. We then took some country roads, but unfortunately, so did everyone else, and we were waiting for another 45 minutes. When I arrived to the client’s home the nanny brought me directly into the kitchen for some soup and tea. Both the Pomeranian and the Maine Coon Cat (google it) scolded me for not telling them hello first. I need to get a picture of them together—the cat is twice the size of the Pom.

Last night headed out for a few games of pool. Nice to get out to a bar for a change and even more luxurious to take a cab home! Now I am waiting for people to wake up so we can go to a park, freeze our butts off, and eat blini for the big crepe and butter festival called Maslenitsa! I will freeze for blini. Of course, I could just make it, but I’m working very hard to break this strange view of women my male coworkers seem to have.

This brings me to last week and International Women’s Day. It is a huge deal in Russia. For three days men and women were walking around with huge plants and flower arrangements and giant boxes of chocolates. I was one of those women! My students gave me chocolates, flowers, chocolates, champagne, chocolates, cake, chocolates, mascara, and did I mention, chocolate. Anyway, long story short, I found out how some of coworkers feel about women (these men are all raised in Canada and America). It wasn’t very nice what they had to say, so I won’t repeat it. But they were completely shocked when I said I don’t like masses of children who aren’t potty trained—apparently, as a woman I am genetically programed to desire and love cleaning up after masses of poopy children. Also, as a woman I am genetically programmed to want to get married and spawn masses of poopy children. And apparently, as a woman, I am genetically programmed to desire each one of my co-workers as a potential mate. Basically they told me I fail as a woman--all I can say is if that is what being a woman is, THANK GOD I fail!

Oh, on my wanderings I discovered a really run-down, but cool building (really only cool because I haven't seen many like it in Moscow). I didn't have my camera, so I didn't take a picture, but I typed in the address and apparently, it is by a kind of famous Russian architect/engineer (designed mainly prisons and hospitals). 

Mock Spring

Those of you who are from winter country can understand the frustrations of mock spring. Mock spring is that evil time in winter where the sun shines all day, the days begin to warm, the snow begins to melt, the birds magically appear, and the trees start budding. Everyone is happy and brings out their spring coats and shoes. And four days later, there is a fresh blanket of snow, the wind is biting, the sun disappears, and you are freezing. This is what I am experiencing in Moscow.  We had nearly a week of nice, warm, sunny weather and then, bam, blizzards and black ice again. Depression ensues.

I lived that sunny week to the fullest. Any free time I sat, bundled up on a park bench (thirty degrees never felt so warm). I had been reading Oliver Twist and had to fight many personal battles to pull myself away from sun and book to teach. I also visited a few parks, wandering around in aspen groves dodging one horse open sleighs. A few of us even wandered through a street market, reminding me of living in Asia. Only the Russians will literally chase you through the market trying to get you to buy something.

My teaching schedule has changed, yet again. I no longer have the clients across the city at nine in the morning. They didn’t like me because I didn’t speak enough Russian. I danced for joy. Instead I got two more clients closer to home. The only downside of this is that I am walking under overpasses and bridges at nine o’clock at night with very little lighting—and in this weather, not many sane people are out that late under bridges.

I finally, finally, finally, got up the energy to go out on the town on a Friday night. But of course, no one else had the energy. So after wandering under bridges like a troll, I traveled an hour back across the city to a co-worker’s house. By the time I arrived my co-workers were all pretty far gone. It was attempting to blizzard and they had given me the wrong directions to the apartment (in their defense, I also came out at the wrong part of the metro). Luckily, my roommate found me. He had been on his way to the metro to pick me up and had gotten lost too. Somehow we found our way back to the apartment, but not before getting in a random snowball fight with our crazy Ukrainian co-worker. There were civilian casualties and we had to outrun an angry man… I blame the intoxicated members of our group, because I have an amazing arm and would never through a wild ball (ahem cough cough).

Last night my roommate and I headed towards the center again, for a sushi night, slash Carmen-thinks- she-needs-MORE-jewelry shopping. Of course I brought impractical jewelry instead one of those necklaces with a blue eye to ward off the evil eyes that old ladies keep sending me when I am so engrossed in my book that I don’t notice them wanting my seat on the metro.