Chapter 1- the first two weeks

After Ikea

Pre Ikea

There was something familiar to me about being dropped off at an obschejitye in a seatbelt-less Lada. We spent the first day in shock, however, after somehow negotiating bread and water at the grocery store where we made our first enemy and learnt our first lesson about (post)soviet Russia- you don't leave your change as a tip. It will result in the worst of Russian insults- vyi bogatii ludi (rich people)?! The shock came not so much from the nakedness of our room (it was taken as a given that we would share) but the squalor of the toilets and general nostalgia for Stalinist interior design. Ukhovyortka (earwig) became our first ‘word of the day’ (sure way to become fluent within a year…). Fortunately it is a little thing (earwigs, maybe) that Ikea can’t fix and the colourful bed sheets and children’s’ plastic cutlery are a bright addition to the room. Although having heard of the want for a fridge, TV and cooking facilities and clampdown on electricity usage that our comrades in MSU endure, we have learnt to consider ourselves bogatii ludi.

Toilet

 

Kitchen

It is also thanks to a presumed snobbery and wealth that all foreigners are interned on the third floor, away from all Russian students. Suspiciously, though, they are the ones with a washing machine. The third floor has its own treasures though and we’ve made both friends and enemies of some of our co-inhabitants. ‘Showers are not homes’ was a 2nd invaluable nugget of information, gleaned from an angry middle-aged lady who makes me fear using the bathroom (the shouting has become a regular feature…). Generally people are friendly and patient and willing to put up with bad Russian for a couple of minutes though conversations terminated with nado naucheetsya (you need to keep learning). Our first friend was a doctor of philosophy who was content to talk James Joyce, Dostoevsky and the philosophical beginnings of Greece and Rome despite our confused faces. He said we were a good distraction to his books, but he whizzed of Kiev to give more lectures. The security men and babushka seem genuinely concerned for our health and regularly enquire if we are too cold (it is quite cold outside, but inside is toasty!) Another favorite guest was an insubordinate, who ran around in his underwear averse to the scolding of the babushka and the doctor. The resident circus folk are also supposed to be bundles of fun.

It is perhaps a consequence of our unnatural confinement that our permeation into college life has not been quite so successful, but this could also be due to the singularity of Russian students. In lectures students are possibly even more bored than their mentors and although lectures are held in intimate classrooms, sleeping is acceptable, as are public displays of affection, backchat, telephone calls and stroking your pet rat! As far as a dress code goes, the gothic black and trench coat look is always in vogue. Dyed ginger hair is all the rage and there prevails a preppy getup that would have Trinners proud. Thus our ineffective penetration into this hodgepodge is confusing more than anything else, although Antoin (from a successful friendship overture) perhaps by way of explanation queried why my eyes were such big black apples in comparison to everyone else. Maybe this peculiarity explains why there have been so many attempts made by strangers to photograph us (three in total) and why a lady at St Basils felt her memories of Moscow were best captured by two agape foreigners. She conceded in the end to take the photo with one of our cameras instead.

Myself and Julia in front of Basils
 A lady wanted to our photo with her own camera but agreed to take it with mine in the end

Being such obvious foreigners many things remain unintelligible. The price of food is one of these incoherencies. At one of the abundant daily markets we were charged €7 for four biscuits, yet one can eat blini, crab cake and aborigine-carrot roulades for less than €2 from the plush Yeliseevskiy Gastronom on Tverskaya. Gastronom no 1 sells some groceries like bread and sweets for cheaper than the hailed low-cost Pyatyorochka (meanwhile, though, perojki and borsht have become cheap and favourite staples). The food may be one enigma, but I was warned that should surprise you after a year in Moscow. Yesterday is probably the perfect example of this.

For a day that began with a earwig acquainting itself with my hand, yesterday transpired to be very enjoyable. We spent the best part of the (fabulous) day in Novodevichy Convent -an oasis of calm and beauty within the city. We joined a long row of couples to watch the sun set and the bogatii parade their dogs and children. Fleeing from one horrific public toilet (without plumbing) for the more opulent one is Tsum shopping centre, we managed trespass on an exclusive party for the fine young things of Moscow and their sugar daddies. Not settling for a lesser substitute we turned to Barclays bank across the road to encroach on more exclusive revelry (although we were semi-invited this time by my roomies new banker friend). Who says lowly Erasmus students can’t enjoy a bit of caviar, Cabernet and light strings music with rich Russian socialites (my roommate’s friend had to rush off to deal with some oligarch- “a rich, dangerous man”)?! The main attraction was a pioneering tea invention which made use of a sewing machine, a rubber duck and clothes hangers (funny, this did not seem the most surreal part of the evening). Our final engagement was a get-together in our Korean neighbour’s room with incredible food and pigeon Russian from all sides, only to be concluded with renditions of Amhrán na bhFiann, Danny Boy (among their favourite Irish songs) and ‘The Snowman’.

Novodevichy Convent

Couples only please

Rich people parade their sprogs

So while Russian society is still an impenetrable bloc, inroads have been made. There is time still to amend those finer points: foolishly stopping in the underground to take in the splendor, getting caught in metro barriers, getting caught in metro doors, being naively optimistic when dealing with Moscow’s vigorous red tape and accidentally stumbling upon Red Square when looking for a coffee shop (though to be fair this was our first day!) I guess for the time being nado naucheetsya.