So in yesterday’s post I told you about lots of things but I didn’t finish. Allow me, dear friends, to continue. I then had to meet with Katya, my second CouchSurfing host. After a pluvious afternoon visiting the museums and strolling around the Russian capital under the gray sky, I met with her in a metro station. Moscow metro is a required step to understand the city. If you think the traffic is crazy on the surface, you haven’t seen the underground. Or, I should say the farunderground, because it’s really far underground. Like, well I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Paris, it’s a bit like the Abbesses station. Except it’s like that in all the stations. Really deep. A bit like if it had been built by a political regime at war and fearing air raids and an atomic attack.
Oh wait, it’s the case.

There’s three more things to know about the moscovite metro. It’s decorated, in a very communistic style (it could have been guessed), it’s very frequented (lots and lots of people bump into you when you stop to look for the “Bykhod v ulitze” sign to know which is the right street), and at the deep end of the mechanic stairs there’s a babushka with an uniform, and you don’t know wether she sleeps or not, and her job is to yell at you if you don’t behave on the escalator. There’s nothing worst than public shame to dissuade people from acting wrongly, I suppose.

So, yeah, Katya, my second CS host, with whom it was so great that she proposed me to keep her keys. Well, no, the story’s a bit more complicated. There were some keys I had to try to drop in her mailbox, see, her appartment keys, except that her mailbox was strangely so she had to come on the train station before I left so I could give back her keys but it was just after work so she wasn’t sure she could come in time so I would have to keep her keys maybe. People in Moscow are great, I told you before.

By the way, did I tell you how I could get a SIM card to call people in Russia? No? Because it happened on the day after I arrived. I was looking for a way to contact Ali, but there was some problem with my french phone so I was at a park that had been named Tschastyie Prudy for a bad reason, (it wasn’t really clean when it was named “the clean pond”, because the butchers of the city threw thir garbage in it. And a prince cleaned it and the irony was lost), then I saw someone reading a french book. So I go talk to him and he’s named Alexandre, from Franche Comté (a province in the east of France) and he’s a french teacher in Moscow. He explains me the mysteries of russian telephone (the mystery is : it’s very easy and cheap to get a SIM card). And I gave him some tips about digital cameras. And then we got to a small japanese tea house, to see his friend Masha, who he learned french to. And she speaks a really good french, whatever she says.

Then Alexandre went to buy his camera, leaving me with Masha. A friend of her came by and we went to the shop to buy a SIM card (and it was as advertised : very easy and cheap). Then, it didn’t work on my french phone, so Masha proposed to lend me her old phone. She only knew me for about an hour. If that’s what all moscovites are like, moscovites are great people.

After this conclusion, I can come back to my main narrative. I was telling you about Katya. Russian people are great. So much that I wondered why I planned to stay only ten days in Russia (with 5 of these days sharing a compartiment with a polish Santa Claus, but shhh, that’s a spoiler from one of my next posts)

So yeah, I see you coming with your remarks, like, you know, “Joachim you’re not here to speak about the girls that are nice we want you to talk about us parisian/italian girls, we’re nicer”. Or, like “Joachim, please send me some nice russian/korean/latin girl!”. Yeah, you can read both these remarks on my first post on Day 0. Yes, there are other cute girls on the other side of the world, and No I won’t send you any. Postage would be too expensive!

So we went to see exhibitions with Katya, one about strangers in Moscow, and their experiences… lots of different looks about one crazy city, with nice enough pictures… and the comments of a moscovite friend are great to understand more about the city! And then we went to see the Maiakovsky museum, one of Katya’s favorite museums. V.V. Maiakovsky was a writer, artist and poet from the 20’s, he was for the revolution, and commited suicide in the 30’s because of that. The museum is an art installation about the life of an artist. It’s an awesome place… and I took some pictures of it.

And in the end how did it work out for the keys? I went to Iaroslavskaia train station and dropped my bags in the train. I waited a bit and then… Ali! And Masha! (his friend from the first night, remember?), not knowing my train wagon they were searching for me and we could say good-bye and everything and then he told me he could take the keys and give them back to Katya, but… two minutes before the train departure… Katya came just in time, and I gave her keys back. We all said goodbye to each other, and then I embarked on the train. To travel in the steppes and the mountains, from one continent to another… the transsiberian.

Last pic with Ali and Masha!

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Moscow is a strange city. I would say I’d need more time to get to know it well, and I can’t retell 5 days of crazy wanderings with great people in this city in a blog post. That’s why I made two. One for now, the other for later… just because I don’t want to spoil your weekend.

Moscow. I have to say I studied russian for 5 years in high school, so I can read cyrillic alphabet, ask for bread at a bakery, ask for the right way (even if I still mix up between right and left) and tell that my sister drank too much gasoline. I mean, come on it’s the basics. And then you have to know that 700rubles are roughly equal to 15€, about 100 francs. I’m just saying that for people who still count in francs. I gave up that habit, and only count in ancien francs now (all’s about street cred).

The architecture in Moscow is strange. Well, strange for a french guy from Bordeaux or paris who’s not used to seeing trees in his city. And green. And orthodox bulb churches, and and colored buildings, and bridges or universities with a hammer&sickle. In fact, not everybody rolls in a Lada. Communism isn’t as visible as one might think… but capitalism is visible. I was shocked at all the brand names up on the roofs (Samsung, big insurances…), enormous advertisings covering buildings (generally to hide construction works) and big international brands like Starbucks, Société Générale or Mc Donald’s.I wasn’t really expecting that, and I guess I have to live with my time and everything. Or maybe Paris is spared from all the advertising things after all (ok ok, not talking about the parisian métro)…

What shocked me too was peoples haircuts. I mean, the 80’s are dead, and the would-be comeback of that decade spared us from such monstrosities as the mullet. Except that in Moscow, my friends, the mullet is really big. Hence, the shock.

But then, it’s only hair… but the people… well, I guess you could find them cold, but they hide well the fact that they are basically great people. Ok know only people from where I come from, like Bordeaux or Paris… but then, Moscovites were so great when I was there. Like, my first CouchSurfing host on this trip, Ali, who was great, really great. Ali isn’t a very slavic name. His family’s from Azerbaidjan. He’s a teacher at a medical faculty and he’s working at a hospital too. And he plays the trumpet in an orchestra. And he had time to host me, show me around, presented me to his friends with whom we spoke about russian cinema and litterature or things like that as we were drinking Vodka too, then we went to the the Masterskaya Kafe with other friends of him… it’s like a secret hangout for theater actors and artists, near the Dietsky Mir (like a big kids store actually closed) and the Lubianka (like a big secret KGB prison painted in salmon pink or orange).

Masterskaïa Kafe, Moskva

So, yeah, we went to a park with Ali and another of his numerous friends and then to the sparrow hills, the place where you can snow surf when there’s snow in winter. Every city should have a snowboard slope and snow in winter. And there’s also the Moscow University on this hills. Dominating the city. Huge.

Stalin build it (with the help of german prisoners after WWII)

And then? Last week-end was Dien Goroda, the city’s birthday… so we went to the salyut, the fireworks over the Kremlin. The fireworks were apazdaly (late) and nie mnoga (not a lot), but it’s because of the crisis, they told me. Too bad.

Then we went to another “secret” hangout, except that it’s not that of a secret anymore. It’s a nice place with like a mezzanine bed over regular bar tables. Strange but nice… And with some russian beer and russian people, it was instantly khorocho (very nice).

So Ali hosted me for two days, at his parents. I became a fan of his mama’s cuisine, especially since we had caviar at breakfast… We had a great time, and I guess I couldn’t have found a better way to start the day… and my trip!

Ok, enough for today. I’m going to go visit Ulaan-Baatar this afternoon…

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After half a day in the plane, two hours in a taxi and a lot of time wasted, I’m finally at the hostel. I’m too tired to do anything else than just read my mails, send some other mails, answer to my facebook message, be submerged by the tweets and everything else. But yeah, Moscow rocks. Being on a trip rocks.

Saying goodbye to dear friends, on the other hand…

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