Winter in Moscow

Russia. Where to begin.

When I told a good friend and three-time American expat in Russia that the country "is crazy and makes no sense," she replied, "EXACTLY. It makes absolutely no sense and is wonderful for it." Based on my eight-day trip to Moscow and its surroundings, Russia is a place where:

• A band in tee shirts plays a Russian-language version of Johnny B. Goode on top of a hill in ten degree weather
• Glavpivtorg, an elegant bar that recreates the experience of a Stalinist-era apparatchik, features a live band playing a loud cover of Sex Bomb in a thick Russian accent.
• "Face control," wherein scary looking bouncers turn you away from clubs if you aren't rich, beautiful, or interesting enough. Or, like us, you speak English and visibly have a good time while waiting in line and get in nearly everywhere.
• As an American we met up with noted, "Americans are fickle." Russians, on the other hand, stick with things once they decide they like them. Like mullets, or the Macarena.

As the examples above illustrate, I had a blast in Russia because - in particular - my friends and I connected with Russians and Russian culture, rather than simply walking through churches and museums. In general, Russians can be cold in public and never seem to smile. If they let you get to know them, however, they can be very warm and generous. Our best experience of this was a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend, who drove us to Suzdal, a medieval town three hours outside of Moscow. It was beautiful and well-preserved.

Suzdal

Suzdal was actually one of the final things we did. Before that, we ran around Moscow. It's a beautiful city, perhaps even more so in winter (when we went). The Kremlin is difficult to capture in a photograph, but conveys a sense of power better than any other city center I've visited:

Red Square at night

Also cool is the city's heritage of Soviet-era art and architecture, which combines with older and newer styles in a conglomeration that gives Moscow what I think is a pretty unique look:

There's a darker side, as well, though. Moscow is full of conspicuous consumption and is about as expensive as New York or DC - despite the fact that Russia has a per capita GDP roughly one-fourth the United States. The city is thriving on oil and gas revenues while the country falls apart. Also disturbing is the government's crackdown on civil society. This graffiti appeared on a building near our hostel:

Disturbing

In Cyrillic, it reads FOREIGN AGENT - HEART USA. According to the Moscow Times, "unidentified hooligans" scrawled this on the side of the Moscow offices of a major human rights organization which had been raided by police for failing to register itself as a "foreign agent." A state-controlled TV station just happened to be present during the raid, so the action got wide coverage in Russia.

Despite the problems, I found Moscow a wild, wonderful, and slightly chaotic place. After eight days, I've barely scratched the surface, and I can't wait to return.