Привет, Moscow calling!
So this is where I’m spending my year abroad, in the capital of the Motherland, and so far it’s been great! Moscow is a city with a character, a culture, a vibrancy that are at times breath-taking and at times nerve-tingling.
Let’s begin with the ‘breath-taking’ part. Moscow has a traffic problem. Before I came to Moscow, I received a message from one of my friends saying ‘Welcome to the city of traffic jams’. As a distinguishing feature of any city, I thought this was a slightly odd choice and somewhat at odds with Oxford’s epithet ‘the city of dreaming spires’. Sadly, there’s no punting here … but there a LOT of traffic jams!
This being the case it’s probably for the best that I don’t own a car. Moscow drivers can only be described as ‘crazy Russians’, capable of carrying out the most daredevil (life-threatening?) manoeuvres preferably performed on the busiest roads. On the plus side, they’re now taking zebra crossings seriously, but instead of the driver stopping for a pedestrian ready to cross, the attitude here is that if you’re not on the crossing, no one’s going to stop for you. Which is problematic if you’re not too comfortable with stepping out into the path of onrushing traffic.
Which brings me quite neatly onto the ‘nerve-tingling’ aspect of life in Moscow. Here order and chaos vie for supremacy and like all big cities Moscow can be a tad intimidating to the newcomer. Most districts are made up of shabby, Stalinist-era apartment blocks ripe for renovation, these in stark contrast to the eerily quiet neighbourhoods where security guards stand menacingly in the doorways of the sleek luxury dwellings of the Russian elite.
This dichotomy of life in Moscow is also apparent in the somewhat schizophrenic, East/West mindset of the city. Whilst you can get just about any Western brand in any one of the numerous shopping complexes, people still have more traditional values. Family is very important, where it’s usual for men and women to adhere to conventional gender roles. Several of my Russian friends of about my age are already married, some even have kids. Crazy.
Despite this schizophrenia, as a place to live, I absolutely love it here. The song ‘Moscow Never Sleeps’ is certainly true. Most shops are open until about 9pm and my local supermarkets are 24 hours. Restaurants stay open until the early hours of the morning. The city is bursting with energy and there’s always something interesting to see or do. There are countless theatres, galleries, concerts, parks that you can visit, and so far I’ve never had a dull moment. Whereas the older generation are a little world-weary (don’t expect a cheery ‘have a nice day’ from the cashier at the supermarket) the younger generation are very friendly, and most would jump at the opportunity to show a foreigner round their native city. They look towards the USA and Britain as cultural role-models in music, film and fashion, which can sometimes be frustrating for someone who doesn’t want to be surrounded with the same things as back home! It’s also now in vogue to send your kids abroad to study, so for a young Oxford lass like myself there’s plenty of work to be found tutoring. One parent remarked that you need to be able to speak English now to succeed in life, which explains this trend.
On the negative side, Moscow does live up to the usual clichés of alcoholism and corruption. At 10am you can see men staggering down the street clutching a bottle of beer, or sprawled across a bench on the metro sleeping off their hangover with everyone else doing their best to avoid them. As for bribery, everyone is aware it goes on, but it’s so ingrained in the system it seems impossible to eradicate. Even for something as trivial as securing a parking space, you need to ‘come to an agreement’ with whomever is in charge. Sometimes, it makes things easier as everyone knows the rules of the game, but most of the time it’s rather tiring. They say that this is a country ‘without limits’, where people can do as they please. The problem is this just causes problems for the poor guys further down the line.
Even the fact that all traffic is stopped when the President and his retinue need to drive through the city shows that life is a struggle here for ordinary people. Having spoken to a few Russians, the dream is to buy a ‘cottage’ in the suburbs, and commute into the capital. This weariness has led to tensions between Moscovites and the immigrants who have come from former Soviet Republics and who are willing to do less-than-appealing jobs for a cheap wage … or turn to crime.
But Russians are also very resilient. I was speaking to an Expat who observed that, if anything ever happened to the electricity or power sources, the Russians would be fine. Most people have a dacha, which they build on their own plots of land, where they can be pretty much self-sufficient, growing their own produce and even keeping livestock. Most Russians have the skills to wire their homes, connect to a water supply, maintain a generator and so on. If anything were to happen, then they would all just go to the dachas, and live off the land.
Like every city, there are positives and negatives. Despite this, I would encourage people to visit Moscow, a place which has been the setting of so many important historical events. It really is quite a unique experience to say the least.
Love, Kit xxx
