Pictures of Moscow It’s nearly one in the morning. I should be asleep by now, but my next door neighbor has purchased himself about 120 lbs of shrieking, giggling fun, and it looks unlikely like much sleep is to be had for some time. To soothe my ears, I’ve got the headphones on, listening to some vintage Thomas Dolby on the CD-ROM. God bless the person who invented this technology (and the same goes for the music, too!) Today (well, yesterday, now) was Russian Independence Day. I can’t quite figure that one out, as the coup in 1991 that brought them their freedom was in August. I asked several citizens on the street today for an explanation, but no one had one for me. Most shops were closed, and the streets were teeming with revelers, strolling, showing off bright, flashy clothes, or big, flashy dogs (on rhinestone leashes), or lovely, flashy ladies holding onto big, beefy arms (still too much blue eye shadow going on in this country.) I chose to take a long walk along the Arbat, an old shopping street, where, in the old days, you could find all sorts of art and handicrafts for sale on hastily erected folding tables. Friends tell me you could also find heroin, cocaine, pot, you name it, if you saw the right vendor. Not a big surprise. Now, most of the vendors are gone, but the street musicians and the quick portrait artists remain. The music is really pretty good—better than the lip-synched dreck you see on Russian TV. There are the rockers, the folk people, and the jazz ensembles. Today, there was a great little funky folk ensemble of three very handsome young Russian men—two on small balalaikas and one on a swingin’ huge bass balalaika. I was enjoying the hell out of the music when one of the guys must have heard me humming along—he asked if I knew the song and whether I could sing. I got sucked in. Couldn’t help it. I ended up singing along with these guys, belting out Russian folk songs, for a good half hour. This isn’t the first time I’ve done this. God, I just love it. This was the first time, though, that the group offered me a cut of their tips! I politely declined, but they invited me back on Saturday to sing again, if I want to... Still thinking it over. I stink at singing pop music (ask anyone who’s heard me sing along with my car radio), but I guess I do okay with the off-beat stuff. There is an alley off the Arbat now known as Viktor Tsoi Alley. Viktor was the lead singer of the very hip, very dark Soviet rock group “Kino.” I couldn’t do justice to describe their music, but I really enjoyed it. Viktor was killed by a drunk driver on a dark road somewhere in the Baltics in the early ’90s. Young Russia wept buckets. Now, there is a wall, covered with messages to Viktor in the next world, and an alcove where candles always burn. Usually, there are black-clad teens hunkered down there, playing guitar, surreptitiously passing around some sort of smoking weed. Today, as I passed by, there was a single soul there—a blazingly red-headed boy, no more than 10 or 11, playing a mournful trumpet that dwarfed his tiny, scrawny body. I stopped to listen, and I was transfixed by the talent and the sadness of this little guy. He was quite good, and the melody he’d chosen to play was so atmospheric of a Russia long, long gone. I don’t know how long I stayed there and listened, but, as I turned to go, I found myself face-to-face with a woman who must have been my mother’s age—about 75, but much more weathered by a viciously hard life. She had her hand out, begging. I heard her quietly say she needed new shoes. I looked down and saw that her shoes were in tatters and her feet were bleeding. I gave her the equivalent of $10 and left before my heart broke. Whenever I see these elderly women, who seem to be everywhere in this country, I get simultaneously horribly sad and very angry. I wonder where their families are to care for these women who struggled to survive a Nazi onslaught, years of Stalinist repression, and the uncertainty of the Cold War, only to end up on the street, while my mother lives in relative comfort in her own home back in the United States. Where is the pride, where is the care for these grandmothers? I turned back to my hotel. Despite the heat of the day, I felt cold and in need of tea. When I arrived here, I found the lobby of the hotel full of mafiosi, their cell phone-toting and ear-wired bodyguards (in expensive sunglasses, despite the darkness of the lobby), and their lovely girlfriend/ornaments. As I walked toward the lobby bar, one of the mafiosi, a trim, handsome, but hard-looking man in shades of black (with more gold chains than necessary) slapped his girlfriend, who could not have been more than 17 years old. He struck her with such force that her head snapped back into the plexiglass window of the bar. I stopped dead in my tracks. The girl shook her head and regained her balance, offering apologies to her date even as she touched her hand to her reddening face. He swung back again at her, yelling. None of the hotel security men approached him, even as he decked her again, knocking her completely to the ground. When the hotel staff looked in his direction, the bodyguards shot back imperious stares, keeping their hotel counterparts at a distance. With a laugh, the mafioso arranged his clothes and walked away, leaving the girl in a heap on the floor. The entourage followed him. I went to the girl and helped her from the floor. There was blood on her mouth, and her right eye was already swelling up. I offered to get her some ice, but she was dazed and did not respond. I offered to call a doctor, but she shook her head ‘no.’ I told her she could come up and wash up in my room—that we could at least put a cold cloth on her face. She started weeping, and then she told me not to worry. She brushed her hair from her damp face, dabbed at the blood on her lips, muttered “Forgive me,” and ran toward the exit where her boyfriend waited, tapping his watch and shaking his head. That’s when I gave up for the evening. Sometimes this country just is beyond me. Perhaps I lack sufficient sophistication to understand it all. Maybe I’m too American. I don’t know. I just hope tomorrow is better for all these people. I’m going to sleep now, neighborly antics be damned. Tomorrow I head for Red Square to convince a photographer to help me with my little advertising campaign... Cheers to you all—I’ll try to write one more entry before I fly out to Uzbekistan. <<Previous chapter | Next chapter>> main | lamps | clothing | Uzbek fans | about | sizing links | feedback/ordering info | travel stories Copyright © 1998 Compass Rose Studios Site design and HTML by Qdesign of Bethesda, Maryland. If you experience any problems with this site, please let us know.