This is Truth.: August 2005

Arrival

A Russian woman asked me for directions today.

I guess that means I've finally arrived.

Chip N' Go

Commericals in Russia, as in most places, are lame. The exceptions to the maxim are only those so utterly baffling as to pass as entertaining. The following link will bring you to an exception.

Chip 'n Go: Dont Stop.

[And yes, that is a guy in a heavily armored American Football jersey, with a cape, and a chainsaw, chasing a guy in a potato suit.]

Leningradskoe Schosye

I met my escort/daughter of my employer, Marina, and their driver, Nikolai, outside the terminal, where I found her holding the sign, “Mr. Myles Smith”. I would have felt important, perhaps, if she weren’t wearing pink pants, and if he weren’t wearing a camouflage hunting vest.

I made an immediate mistake by instinctively buckling my seatbelt, which no one does in Russia, and is considered an insult to the driver if you do so as a passenger. Nikolai said something, and Marina observed aloud “you’re buckling your seatbelt…” as I remembered the custom and took it off. She chuckled, saying “its strange that no one wears them here, because there are some very bad drivers in Russia,” as Nikolai cut across four lanes and ducked around a truck in order to skip ahead of two cars at the parking gate. The irony may have been lost on her.

Nikolai spoke no English, but insisted on dictating about ‘our great city’ as we drove in, while Marina translated. He was quite talkative and clearly proud of his city, which was quite impressive upon first glance. The place is gregarious.

Wild, unbridled, seizure-inducing capitalism inundates you as you approach the Hero City. Supermalls appear to be made of silver and glass, rising on either side of the highway, with massive plasma-screen billboards and blaring megaphones make Moscow seem, on first glance, to be an UberAmerica. Ikea, BMW, and Mega dominate the strip as you approach the western meander of the Moscow river. Apartment buildings built to look like one of Stalin’s commiemonstrosities rise from behind the malls, each flat within them priced at over a million US.

This is an utter fabrication. Eta ni pravda. Moscow is adorned with beautiful European architecture, juxtaposed by the block with faceless slabs of Soviet concrete. Communism falls, but the lies continue. I suppose if you were to drive from Brookline to Roxbury, you’d say the same thing.

Anyway, it was an authentic introduction to my new home. This place clearly can not decide what it wants to be – Soviet Russia, Eastern France, Western Siberia, or some proto-Slavic combination. You could see it just by driving in, and it was therefore an appropriate moment. I also couldn’t help but notice the maintenance worker / informal personal driver’s knowledge of the city’s history, culture, and architecture. Its easy to forget he grew up in the indoctrination days, but I suppose you could qualify most American history as indoctrination – we just don’t remember any of it. Maybe if we peppered our history with wild propaganda, it would at least be entertaining enough to inspire our kids to pay attention. [“When accepting the British surrender, Washington slapped the British general for ever questioning the notion of National Independence, then pushed him and called him a ‘little pigeon’ when he did nothing in response. Washington then made out with his royal wench, and ate a six pound steak. God bless America.”]

Sheremetyevo - II

You haven’t really lived until you’ve ridden on a plane where the passengers cheer after you touch down safely.

After touchdown, I quickly realized why this place was dubbed Sheremetyevo-II, when I notice the decrepit, ridiculous looking terminal Sheremetyevo on the other side of the runway. I appears to still be in service, though the planes around it (there are no ‘gates’, only parking spaces) would suggest it only services local flights. The place makes our terminal, Sheremetyevo-II, look ultra modern in that ideal-setting-for-one-of-John-Cusack’s-first-movies kind of way.

The airport was built in the 1980s to welcome foreign dignitaries to all of the wonders of Soviet modern architecture and technology, which is probably why the only escalator was out of order, so the old ladies had to go down stairs with their carry on roller bags, and all of the doors are hand-operated, and there was only one passport check line for the entire airport open – which was fine, because the whole place was as barren as Ann Coultier’s womb (that one’s for you Jon, and for anyone else who knows who she is, and if you don’t, don’t bother finding out, unless you’re the kind of person who think that combining Dick Cheney with Hillary Clinton would be a good idea).

Sheremetyevo-II was designed for security, there are glass sealed walls herding you all around, not to prevent terrorism, but to prevent the unauthorized from slipping onto a plane and off freedom. This was Moscow’s only airport for international flights, and it would be impossible for most of them to get there anyway, since it is not even on the Moscow map, and is located in the middle of a field far from the city. You can barely see the spires of Stalin’s ‘seven sisters’ as you come into your final descent. Clearly, the place was designed ferry foreigners into Moscow in the most impressive method possible, in order to inspire them to the wonders of socialism as they careen down Leningrandskoy Highway and over the Moscow river toward Red Square.

Such misguided attempts to impress others into your economic system with something as ridiculous as an airport would never happen in a free society, would it? [Fly to Dulles in DC, then answer that question]

One of my two bags came out missing a wheel, which I did not even try to rectify. The baggage dollies had stickers which said “Mockba 2012” in reference to their recently failed attempt to land the summer Olympics. You’d think they could have found new stickers in the last 8 weeks.

I collected my life, stepped out of the baggage claim, and into unreality.

Flight 30

The clouds broke shortly before we crossed the edge of the Baltic and sailed over Estonia. There is a fair amount of farmland, with small plots, chaotic roads, and tiny villages. There are rivers, but often nowhere to cross them. It is a pretty place, about exactly as I pictured it.

Russia is flat. I can see why the Vikings, Ogodei Khan, the Poles, the Lithuanians, Napolean, Bismark, the Poles (again) and Hitler all thought they could run the place over and take the country easily.

The farms are much larger, and are connected by artificially straight roads. For every dozen plots of farmland there is an equally large plot of dense forest. Sometimes the forest will completely enclose a tiny village, uncomprehendingly, which will seem to be completely cut off from the rest of the land. They all have small yards and ancient stone fences. Dirt paths encircle their hinterlands, and a wall of trees solidifies their encirclement. Like islands intentionally floating away from their shores – like pilgrims.

The water is terrifying. Some of the lakes in Western Russia are bluer than heaven, while others, often separated by a mile or two of flat ground, are tinted maroon as if by blood. One of these meandering lakes appeared to be ablaze, steaming, its edges melting into the putrid nothingness of the inner waters.

JFK International, Tarmac

I have a guitar, a laptop, nine books and $1700. I am flying one-way, New York to Moscow. I have no return ticket. So, this better work out, otherwise I’m kind of screwed.

We were delayed 45 minutes on the tarmac while we waited for one family who had transferred and gone to the wrong gate. This would never happen in Russia – their incompetence would be rewarded with a night of sleeping on the floor of the terminal. Unless the Russian were rich, then heaven and earth would be moved to keep the plane at bay.

Screw you, America. I’m going somewhere much worse.

Shto Eta?

This is my attempt to describe Moscow, as I see it. I say see because I can’t speak Russian, so I don’t understand anything I hear, nor can I say anything I’d like. No one speaks English, and though I can read the Cyrillic alphabet, I usually have no idea what it means once my mind slowly transliterates it. I have any family, and I know no friends. I don’t even have Russian blood. Sometimes you have to throw your life away for a little while, in order to find out what its really about. Or maybe you don’t have to, but at least, after this, I’ll know that.

So read if you like, enjoy the pictures, ask questions, etc. This is supposed to be my forum for keeping in touch with everyone, and since its impossible to write 50 emails a week, I give you this. Enjoy.

This is Truth.

Tuesday, August 30, 2005

Arrival

Saturday, August 27, 2005

Chip N' Go

Tuesday, August 23, 2005

Leningradskoe Schosye

Sheremetyevo - II

Flight 30

Monday, August 22, 2005

JFK International, Tarmac

Shto Eta?

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