This is Truth.

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.”]

posted by Майлз Г. Смит @ 3:05 PM