Weekend in Moscow

The last two days have been ridiculous. Yesterday, the first thing we did was meet at Novii Cheremushkii towers to buy phones that work in Russia. It was a longer train ride than usual, saw some cool stations, and got to the Cheremushii station. Found the group, went inside, and saw pure capitalism at play. The bottom floor is filled with electronics stores, but they were all kiosks. It was a mall made up entirely of the small kiosks that are usually in the middle of the mall and are entirely annoying. But these kiosks sold HD TVs. In the end I bought a cheap cell phone, it was about 1500 rubles (45 dollars), and while I was obviously a foreigner I wasn’t a stupid foreigner, in my opinion.
After getting phones, we went to a mall across the street, which had a grocery store in the basement, because some people wanted to buy food for lunch. After that, we made our way to the center of the city. We took the Metro to Revolution Square, which is filled with people selling big fur hats, old Soviet propaganda, and several very funny shirts. We walked past the vendors to the Alexander Gardens, which are outside the walls of the Kremlin. We saw the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, who died in the October Revolution, and we also saw the changing of the guard. We walked down to the corner of the Kremlin and turned around to go to Red Square. It's also very funny to see people dressed as Lenin, Stalin, and Napoleon walking around taking pictures with everyone. Red Square is the most magnificent place on the planet, hands down. St. Basil’s Cathedral is unbelievable; it’s huge and beautiful.

The Kremlin gates are impressive, and Lenin’s Mausoleum is also pretty sweet. We went into GUM, the old Soviet department store that is now the classiest mall I’ve ever seen. The annoying kiosks were for Chanel. Yeah.

I left the group early because I wanted to get back to take a nap before staying out all night, and went to get back on the Metro. Unfortunately, I got on the Metro at the same time that everyone going to the Moscow-Azerbaijan football game did. I thought I was going to die. In my train car, there was no room to move and everyone was wearing red and blue, shouting “Moskva! Moskva!” I was unable to get off at my station and I had to wait for 2 more stops until everyone got off. Then I switched trains and went back.
That night, I met up with Christian at his friend’s house near the Arbat. His friend lives about 3 houses down from Gogol’s old house. I bought my first alcoholic beverage that night, a bottle of wine to bring as a gift. I get to the house, meet Christian’s friends, all of whom are awesome, and hung out there until about midnight. The purpose of the gathering was to view pictures taken during a trip to America that Christian made with his housemates. After that pictures, we watched the Netherlands-Scotland football game. Christians good friends are all Dutch so they have Dutch satellite TV. There were 3 other American girls there, 2 of them were Fulbrights. Two went to Occidental, one to Swarthmore. It’s weird being 19, because the next youngest person in the group was 24.
At one we went clubbing, or at least tried to. We got turned away from Forbes Club, the newest in Moscow, and also from Sorry Babushka. Thanks to the impressive language skills of my new Fulbright friend, we made it to a bar where we talked and drank until a little after 5. I got home a little before 6, woke up at 10, which was 11 because of daylight savings, and realized that I was late to meet with Laura before our group excursion.
After running the Metro, we went back to Revolution Square station and met the whole group, including Anna Mikhailovna! We went to Red Square again, and then took a bus around the city. Red Square had a group of communists congregating in front of the Lenin Mausoleum, which was pretty cool.

Moscow is amazing. I’ve seen most major monuments, but there’s something historical on every street corner of this city. For example, the building in which Schmirnoff Vodka started.

Most of the buildings are just fucking impressive.
From a bridge in front of this cathedral, I was able to get an amazing few of the Kremlin.

Tonight I went to a coffee place called Shokalodnitsa, which is basically a sit-down Starbucks on steroids. It’s a chain in Moscow, but it’s got a great atmosphere, and good coffee, tea, and other beverages. Interacting with Russians in a commercial setting is very weird, I know the language but not the etiquette. I definitely seem like a foreigner when I try to speak Russian, but I’ve been able to communicate quite easily and haven’t had too much difficulty anywhere. I enjoy speaking Russian with my host mom; she’s very good at communicating and making her sentences easier to understand. She also knows a little English, which helps a lot. It’s also interesting to hear the different types of mistakes she makes when speaking: it shows the stranger structures in English grammar and also gives me a good example of how I sound to a Russian. I went to a grocery store tonight, which was pretty unsuccessful. My cashier was a fat bitch and the store had very cheap, small plastic bags. One of mine broke and smashed my jar of peanut butter, which was actually very expensive. Cutting back costs by using shitty plastic bags, thank you Perekryostok.
I love a lot about Moscow and the people here. I definitely want to become an expat in Moscow for a few years before I start grad school; I think living in Moscow would be absolutely incredible. Most of the other expats I’ve met have been really smart and relaxed, and I’ve already had many deep conversations with people I’ve just met. It takes a certain kind of personality to want to live in Russia, and I think people with that same quirk tend to get along quite well. I know that at Carleton if I meet a room of people I’ve never met before, I probably wouldn’t talk to hardly any of them, but I became well acquainted with several new people while hanging out with the expats.
So I’m beginning to feel pretty settled down in the city I’m not really going through culture shock too bad, which is surprising me because I’ve never left the US. But studying Russian so intensely for the last 2 years has prepared me well to survive, and I know the history behind every monument we see. I’m nervous about class on Tuesday, but tomorrow I have another day to adventure around Moscow! I’m planning on buying my Mom a card from the Hallmark store in the mall near my house. She always shops at Hallmark in Wichita so I think a Russian hallmark card would amuse her.
Speaking of where I live, I might be in the best location of anyone on the trip. I live a half hour walk from the Arbat, a few blocks from Moscow city, and very close to several war commemoration museums. My street is called Kutuzovskii Prospekt after the Russian general who forced Napoleon and the French back to Paris. It’s named after Kutuzovskii because this is the street he marched back to the Kremlin on after victory. Brezhnev lived a few houses down from me, and Putin lives pretty close to me too. So yeah, I’m very happy with the way this trip has turned out so far and I’m very excited for the next few months in this crazy city!