Leaving Moscow I don’t know when I’ll be able to send this message out. I haven’t been able to connect to the computer back in Bethesda since early Thursday morning. The line quality from the hotel has become so poor that I can hear other conversations in loud Russian coming through the speakers on the computer while the modem struggles to connect. (That happens a lot here when you’re on the phone—sometimes, the other parties can hear you and vice versa—I’ve had some hilarious conversations with total strangers!) It’s now very late Sunday night—well, early Monday morning, really. It’s 3:30, and I haven’t slept in two days. In their infinite wisdom, the managers of the Radisson have decided to make an all-out effort to fix everything in the hotel prior to the start of the International Conference of Mayors of the World’s Largest Cities. This means repairs to pipes, vents, and such ’round the clock. The workmen are yelling back and forth at each other all night, in coarse street Russian peppered with colorful obscenities that are filtering through the vent above my bed. I’ve given up on sleep tonight, as I leave for the airport in an hour, bound for a brief respite in Germany (five hours at my brother’s apartment in Frankfurt) and onward to Tashkent. The weekend here was remarkably calm and relatively uneventful. I didn’t get to sing with the folk group again on Saturday—their choice spot on the Arbat had been taken over by a really great swing band, playing all sorts of big band standards. During a break, one of the men in the ensemble told me that they were all professional musicians in a Moscow orchestra, and that they loved coming out to play something “more relaxed” on the weekends. Though the Russian government wouldn’t want to admit that this is possible, these musicians are paid less than minimum wage for their skills, and the orchestra members have not been paid for two months. I left a good tip in their jar. I visited Izmailovskiy Park on Sunday—it’s an abandoned soccer stadium that was gradually taken over by local artisans as a place to gather on weekends and sell their handicrafts, junk, and antiques. In 1990 or 1991, it was discovered that the nearby park (the largest in Moscow), where the artists originally gathered, was a clandestine dumping ground for nuclear waste. Lovely, eh? (I assume that, eventually, I will develop a third eye from all the irradiated Izmailovo art cluttering my apartment.) I’ve been going to the park since 1989, and I’ve become fairly well acquainted with a handful of artists there. Some of my friends were there this week, but one person whom I especially like, Marina the Egg Lady, was not there. She is a tiny, sweet-faced woman who comes in from the country almost every weekend to sell the painted wooden eggs crafted by her husband, an architect, who has given up his profession to hang out at their dacha and pursue the more lucrative field of knick-knack production. I have several of the eggs designed by Marina’s husband, and I can’t tell you how wonderful, delicate, and exacting the work is. I was disappointed that she was not there—especially as she also wasn’t there when a friend of mine passed through the park a month ago. Marina once told me that an American who liked the eggs a great deal had offered to sponsor her and her husband for a visit to the United States at some point. I hope her absence means that she made it there and is currently selling dozens of eggs to wealthy Midwestern housewives. After visiting the park, I raced to Red Square to beg one of the resident photographers to snap some quick pictures of me in my jacket. I couldn’t bear the thought of tossing on my handmade winter coat even for a few moments, though. A heavy evening rain on Saturday night had left Moscow feeling like the Everglades—you could see the nasty steam rising out of the Metro grates (that’s why I took a car to Izmailovskiy Park and Red Square, as there’s nothing quite like being pressed into a Metro car with forty people who shun deodorant and seem to carry a clinging scent of cabbage and cheap tobacco—and are sweating profusely...) I got my pictures taken, but not by a professional photographer—the ones I approached thought I was trying to steal their business with my cheap Vivitar (!) and kept telling me to go away. I finally begged the services of a small group of British tourists, who snapped my photos in exchange for my slightly twisted narrative tour of Red Square (made quite entertaining by the small group of Communists demonstrating in front of Lenin’s tomb, razzing tourists and poking people in the rump as they entered the tomb of poor old Vladimir Il’yich. I opted out on visiting him one last time, not being particularly eager to get poked in the backside and get sent tumbling down the stairs to end up with my chin lodged against the glass sarcophagus.) Instead, I chose to say goodbye to Red Square for, quite possibly, the last time in a very long time, and returned to my hotel. Near the Radisson, I saw a small kiosk selling cheap icons and crosses, and I decided to check it out. I found it strange that it was open on the Feast of the Holy Trinity (one of the higher holidays celebrated by the Orthodox Church here,) but the gaunt, pale gentleman in the kiosk explained to me that they had to keep all their kiosks open every day from 8 ’til 8 to try to bring in enough money to keep the churches of Moscow operating. I commented to him that I thought the choice of location for the kiosk was odd—next to a train station, crowded with homeless transients from all parts of the crumbled Soviet empire and drunks harassing passersby. (In fact, the kiosk backed out onto a small park that reeked of urine and stale beer—police armed with automatic weapons wandered the park in twos, checking documents and rousting drunks.) The man in the kiosk smiled at me, his thin face unpinching and his eyes crinkling. (It was only then that I realized that he must have been only in his 40’s despite looking much, much older.) Very sweetly he said, “But, sister, *these* are the people who need our church.” I was skeptical as to the truth of that—I’ve not seen much outreach from the Moscow church to these fringe citizens—but he seemed very much at peace with that rationale. I noticed that his kiosk was selling lovely, unusual sterling silver chains. (Once in the past, I bought two sterling rings from an Orthodox priest in a Moscow metro station—they had prayers carved into them, written in the nearly dead religious language of Old Church Slavonic. The priest blessed the rings for me when I bought them—I’m sure that was a pretty odd scene in the middle of the metro station!) I picked out two chains that I found particularly interesting and told him that I would buy them. But, to my surprise, I was short 20,000 rubles (about $4) of the price of the two. I apologized, and told him that I would just take one. The gentleman shook his greying head and smiled again. “No, sister. I believe you have a clean heart. Take the two chains, and, when you next visit Moscow, drop the money in any church collection box. God knows that you are a trustworthy soul.” I was touched, but I felt bad. 20,000 rubles may not sound like very much to you or me, but it is amount that many pensioners get to live on for a whole month—it doesn’t buy 1/4 kilo of meat any more. It barely covers a liter of milk, two loaves of bread, and a bottle of mineral water now. (A Quarter Pounder at Mickey D’s runs 14,000 rubles, just to give you an idea.) I continued to politely refuse, but Russian custom requires you to take something that is being gifted to you after three refusals. Somewhat embarrassed, I took the silver chains and promised to leave the money for the church. I wished him a good holiday and then, drawn to have some kind contact with this man, I reached in and patted his hand. The gentleman just smiled again. Tonight, I called my friend Anna at the embassy—she’s going to leave the money for me on Monday. Well, it’s almost time for my wake-up call. I guess I’ll sign off and hope that I can send this message from Tashkent. Hope all is well with you—wondering what’s going on back home, but the CNN is out, and all I’ve got at 4 a.m. is a fuzzy tv featuring a bad Bosnian soap opera about transvestite hookers... subtitled in French... <<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.