Moscow Collage

Even coming from sun country as I do and normally sufeitted with it,
I quickly come to love the sun here. In these first few days it helps enormously -
in lighting up dark passages, giving a rich tone to cityscapes that under grey skies look only
shabby, and, maybe mainly, raising my spirits. It's easy to lapse in melancholia
here, even when things are going all your way (does that ever happen?) or worse
still into fits of irasibility and grouches. So yea for the sun all this
week! Until the weekend, which turns rainy.
The stray dogs share this sun-centrism with me. They lie stretched out
in a quiet courtyard in front of a branch of the Academy of Sciences just
off Leninsky Prospekt. They remind me of seals flopped on a sandy beach
in California, bellies sunward. Maybe they are dreaming of California,
by some other dog name. In a strange way I feel drawn to them (the
dogs, not the bellies), kindred souls who will create no problems for me.
Jaded by eternal street life in this city of 15 million souls always
rushing somewhere if they're not in bed, the dogs radiate the joy of leisure.
One or two use the curb as tough pillows that at least fit their long-necked
anatomy. Slowly one rises and lumbers out toward the street, to pee.
Surely no economist has used the health of stray street dogs as the
barometer to well being in Russia's capital. So let me be the first.
If the dogs are doing so well, human life must also be propering or
at least feeling such abundance as to have resources to feed the dogs.
The bellies are full and the dogs sleep rather than scavenge. It's mid-
morning at this Academy of Sciences and some fellow dog lover has apparently
given them their early chow. Similar canine bands can be found all over town.
Unthreatening but not exactly friendly, looking as if they've seen it all,
all this city of drama and indulgence can provide. They seem secure
and unworried, even by the coming of winter. Then they will take
refuge in the Metro, sometimes hopping a train to a favorite station,
where scaps may be plentiful and the crowds smaller (getting trampled
must be a danger for them in this city, greater than the climate).
I think of Sharik, Mikhail Bulgakov's (anti)hero stray in Heart of a Dog,
and how much better this dogs of Fall 2008 are doing. These would turn up
their noses at mere grease. They surely want sausage, maybe kotleti.
Instant conclusion: life is good, life is sweet in this wizened old city
in this particular Indian Summer (more grafically in Russian, Woman's Summer--
warm, soft, caressing). People are well dressed, almost always, some
extravagantly, wildly fashionable, especially young women, of course,
but some young men in the Eugene Onegin mold. Clothes make the woman and
the man here. Much thought goes into making one's appearance on the street,
and only a small percent settles for looking drab or overly plain.
At Moscow State University, where I drop by in search of a colleage and friend,
some outfits, whether women or men, daunt the fashion world and seem just
stepping out from a slick magazine. Roughly some wardrobes must run to about
$5000 per outfit. Elitism is excuded, life whiffs of French perfume.
They all look bright, happy in themselves, optimistic about their lives.
This too is a growth factor by comparison even with three years ago, if
memory serves.
But to return to that courtyard at the Academy of Sciences where I had
scurried on my first full Monday morning. I was there to get registered,
so the police could know where to find me, if need be. This is not a new
requirement, of course, but it's importance is highly stressed. My hosts
cannot do this, because I cannot legally be registered at their apartment
since it is co-owned by a former husband who would never agree, etc, etc.
My tour agency, which also provided me an invitation (for a few) to come to
the country, for another fee (up, now $50) to register me as living
at their office -- Leninsky Prospekt 28, suite 8. They know the
truth (they ask me where I am actually living, but promise not
to come there unexpectedly, ha!) And they have rented
office space at the Academy of Sciences (yes, a comment on the state of
the vaunted Academy) for their chores of playing intermediary between
foreigners and the dread Passport Office (OVIR). The ladies are friendly,
charming, sensible. Everything will be done and ready by Wednesday.
Bragging a bit my contact says that the company has very close relations
with the Passport Office (other mortals should be so lucky). Then, when
I mention that I'm going on a trip soon - to some of the ancient cities
on the Volga, my lady blanches. Uhhhh--I think you'll need a separate visa
for that, for each city. No, no, a young colleague (youth now has all the
answers, thank God) chimes in. Not if he's here on a Business Visa. (Tourist
is for 30 days only, too few for me.) He's fine, good to go. "Everything
is getting stricter and stricter," I object. They nod. "I don't really
think Russia is interested in tourism," I go on, eager to get in my little
punches, I'm not sure why. "I would have to agree with you,"
my lady agent says. I'm the only patron that morning and I see few, if any
foreign tourists.
And off I go, having completed my bureaucratic duty, free and legal.
I find the metro, take my place in the downward swirl, like a Pluto,
in the underworld, jostle myself a place on the great conveyer belt,
downward into the lower depths on strairs, escalators, then horizontally
to some unlikely destination, hurdling forward to some new station.
Ah, the Metro. That's a topic all its own, for another entry.