MosCowboys...my recent adventure to the west

West of Izhevsk is a little place called Moscow...

So these images of the American West continue to be pervasive! The title here came from a placemat in a restaurant that we went to for a meeting lunch....This is a casino on the "new" Arbut in the central city of Moscow. It's a huge street that ends in Red Square.

Moscow, like most world cities, is very different than the rest of the country. As everyone knows, Moscow is now officially the most expensive city in the world--or at least the central city is. I'm confident though that with 12 million people, everyone is paying more for housing, etc...

I was in Moscow for meetings, but those really only lasted one day. In the evening we enjoyed a reception, and on the way I saw the Yuri Gagarin stature--no picture yet as we couldn't bring cell phones or cameras earlier in the day and I never got a chance to go back to the hotel to get mine so missed the shot! The very kind Becca from the Fulbright office took pity on me, and got the shot, and will e-mail. I haven't received it yet. But the statue is so very cool--Art Deco meets Communist Worker...fantastic!

The "Old" Arbut has now been closed to traffic, and is generally filled with tourists, street musicians and artists, souvenir shops (some very expensive of course), as well as Starbuck's, McDonald's, etc... While I was there during the week, and not during peak tourist season, some of the flavor still remained. There was a guy who was doing street entertainment with a trained raven, and this excellent accordian player, who was taking a little break and looking through his music deciding what to play....

For me, like everyone else in the world, seeing the Kremlin and Red Square was an amazing experience. I always forget how many cathedrals are in the Kremlin walls, there are five large and medium, and I think another small one in a building not open to the public. They are mostly restored on the outside, although the interiors are still in various stages of refinishing. There are priests in attendance as well. Most of the Chinese tourists were lined up to have their pictures taken standing next to the black robed priests--a couple of women started it and the rest came running over for a picture, it was quite funny actually and the priests took it in stride.


My batteries started to run out on the camera, so as I continued into Red Square I made some expedient choices on photography, rather than going for great shots. I got some pretty good ones, however....Here's looking at Red Square from the museum entrance--St. Basils' back on the left, the Kremlin clock tower back on the right...You can get a sense of the depth and energy of the place, I hope...




However, some photographic choices were less flattering to their subjects.






For example this self-portrait by St. Basil's--I just didn't want to NOT have any shot, you know?
I do have some better shots of St. Basil's on its own, so no worries....












I was running late, and hadn't yet stopped back in to ГУМ (GOOM in pronunciation), the famous Russian store. In the Soviet era, it was notorious for being very large and very empty. My colleague Carolyn had visited Moscow in 1971, and had gone to ГУМ, and seen the long lines of women in gray waiting to get bread. Now, of course, the "government universal store", which is what the letters stand for, is a massive, generally expensive, amazing space with high, high dollar items on the first and second floors anyway. There were all the usual suspects for stores: Feragamo, Levi's, Cartier, Versace, kabillion more designers than I've ever heard of so can't name (sorry Jane!)....This store we saw on Sunday night as we walked through, and I took a picture because, as child of the American 1960s, I kind of enjoyed a sense of irony in its name given its location. It was entirely gone on Wednesday, however....


The most beautiful thing about the ГУМ, however, is its amazing architecture. As someone who loved Benjamin's discussion of the Arcades of Europe, it's hard not to see it as the grand remnant of one of the first palaces of consumptive culture. From its early industrial era inception, to its various adaptations through the Soviet era and now into the very epitome of the modern capitalist mall, the building has quite a history.

And, by the way, you can find camera batteries up on the third floor at the west end of the south wing in the video store, if you go past all the movies, up to the counter and lean around the right hand side past the I-pods and the video game controllers so you can see them hanging on the wall behind the light....



A final note: To get back and forth to Moscow is a 17 hour train ride each way. I'm settled here in Izhevsk, but I have to say, when I get on the train the sheer audacity of what I'm doing can seem a little overwhelming. I mean, I'm traveling in a country with 11 time zones, and I speak little to none of the language. I only hope that other travelers in the world with little language skills are treated as kindly as I have been. For example, on the train out to Moscow, a kind businessman named Andrey and his colleague were surprised and delighted to have an American in their cabinet. Andrey struck up what conversation he could with the English he knew, as I was of so little help with any Russian. We didn't quite communicate clearly on some lyrics to the 70s song "Venus" (you know, "I'm your Venus, I'm your fi-yyyer, At your desire"). The troubling passage was "She's got it, yeah baby she's got it" which Andrey had seen translated as "She's garret, yeah baby, she's garret" and really wanted me to let him know what garret meant. My explanations were that he hadn't seen a proper translation and that well, it could be a part of a house....These were not convincing to Andrey, and given my lack of other language skills I can see why. The next morning (pre-coffee!), he asked if he could take my picture to show his son. Despite my concerns of frightening children on an international scale (I recall baby Emma's reaction one Christmas break), I acquiesed. I then gave him my card to show his son as well. Yesterday, I received an e-mail with my picture and one of Andrey, his wife and child. What nice people. Please be nice to the nonEnglish speaking travelers that you meet, as I know you all are--such kindness has been a life saver to me....