This is Truth.

Garibaldi Ulitsa Nomerya 10, Dom 6 , Iogbezi 3, Kopiye 9, Kvarpera 563

#10 Garibaldi Street, Building #6, Entrance #3, Floor #9, Apartment #563



Really, it was fun walking around for the first couple days with a little note card featuring 5 lines of information that you must have to find your apartment.

10-6 Garibaldi Ulitsa is so depressingly, crushingly, bludgeoningly, heartshatteringly Soviet that it couldn't possibly be more perfect for me. I can't imagine that there are slums in America this putrid, at least on first glance. Youre greeted by the reek of human piss from the moment you open the steel security door, if its closed, which it usually isnt. There is a mechanical lock which is turned off by pressing 3, 9, 0 simultaneously on a keypad. There are about 7 entrances, all on one side of the building, and you have to use the correct door because there is no hallway between them. I don't know if this limits deaths by fire by preventing them from spreading down entire hallways or increases them by severely reducing the number of exits. You open the rusty door and pass through the rusty entryway to a dark foyer which smells of garbage and human waste. The mailboxes look like they don' t open, if your mail was actually delivered, and I havent seen anyone using them. In fact, I havent seen anyone in the building at all. You hear people occasionally, but I havent met anyone, including the neighbors with whom we share an entryway.



Two elevators are available, which I have dubbed "Shaky" and "Squeaky" for the ways in which they make you soil yourself on ascent. One of the elevators doesn't stop at our floor (the button is broken), so you have to go up to the 10th and then go down one flight. Thus, I prefer to walk the 9 flights.



This morning the stairwell smelled like burning plastic, and after descending 4 floors I noted some guys renovating an apartment, and after passing them was greeted again by that refreshing rustic outhouse smell. Which is ridiculous when you consider that there is a garbage shute which runs along the stairwell, with openings between floors where you throw your household trash - you would think the hallways would feature more of a rotting kitchen goods odor. The shute only has room for a small plastic bag, since people take out the garbage twice a day to dissuade cockroaches. I haven't seen one yet but I'm not holding my breath. At the door you enter a small entry room where one may leave their shoes and coat (Russkies never wear either inside). After that, you use a skeleton key to enter the apartment, which is an oasis so ridiculous that kind of feel like Alice stepping out of Kansas.



The windows are all on massive wooden frames and have manual hand locks to keep the cold out. Comforting. The view from the north side of the flat gives you a pretty good look at the spire for Moscow State University, which is much further away than the map might have you believe (think Allston to Prudential or Old Port to Maine Med).

In fact, everything is much further away than you might believe. As the map depicts it, I live ONE block away from school. Panferov Ulitsa and Garibaldi Ulitsa are consecutive streets off of Leninsky Prospeckt, however, it takes about 20 minutes to walk there. Don't ask me how this is possible. I havent really figured it out myself.

posted by Майлз Г. Смит @ 1:09 AM