Because of the May 9th 'victory day' parade, all of Red Square and the Kremlin was closed off from my arrival in Moscow to well after my departure on Monday. So running amok through the square wasn't possible, neither was saying 'hi' to Lenin's corpse, or visiting St Basil the Blassed (as it said on my postcard. Did they mean Basil the Blessed? Or Blasted? Either fits...) and there were also so many police hanging about that I felt it quite important to not spend too much time there, particularly as I didn't register my visa. This was a bit naughty, but unless there's someone with you who can ask and answer questions it's practically impossible to negotiate this mish mash of beaureacracy on your own. Even armed with a Russian - English dictionary and a list of swear words written on the back of your hand. So the time was spent productively in other places. One day was whiled away in the internet cafe getting a caffeine high, while others were spent out in the suburbs. I visited a friend, Ilya, who runs some dodgy scrap metal business in Izmailovsky district and we went to see the flat he has bought (and that his wife knows nothing about), visiting the wooden kremlin, watching its army of Chinese market sellers, and stopping for something to eat at the 'we don't have it' cafe. We asked for just about everything and the devushka said after each request, 'oh, we haven't any'.
In the end we asked for tea.
'Ok', she said.
'Black tea'.
'Yes'.
'Two black teas then'.
'We don't have any'.
Sigh.
The other waitress came over eventually and said it was the first girl's first day. I wondered how many more days she'd last when she threw the menu at the table and walked off to bite her nails in a corner.
Other outings in Moscow included a day at the Tretyakov gallery to see the 19th century landscape paintings that I missed when they were in London. The paintings were fantastic and it was amazing to see how much life and beauty was put into what is just a very simple landscape. By simple I mean it's flat and boring, with just a river or a village or a, well there's nothing else. I travelled over 600 miles on the train after Moscow and you couldn't tell any difference in the countryside, just the same old houses and rivers, twenty hours from Moscow. I also went out to Victory Park to see more large statues and listen to oompah music on the day when the heaven's opened and it absolutelt persisted it down. So much for the Russians 'shooting the clouds' to ensure it didn't rain on the Monday (It didn't rain, but it wasn't sunny either, heh heh). Victory Park is in memory of those soldiers who died during the Second World War and a huge - is there any other kind of Soviet monument? - museum and obelisk dominated the skyline, while a small orthodox church shone white; its onion domes sparkling gold against the dark afternoon sky. You could see all the way across Moscow. Well, you could once you'd passed through the airport-style security at the entrance to the park. I've never been frisked to go into a park before, nor have I had my umbrella scrutinised by a policeman. Maybe he thought it was a satellite dish? I was very twitchy there, having no registration, and the place was swarming with cops. There weren't many ordinary people kicking about, although one guy was wandering round with one hand holding on to the toddler at his side, the other keeping his machine rifle from falling off his shoulder. I suppose the lack of a good turnout was due to the fact that it had pissed down torrentially for the past hour and a half.
On the Saturday we took a bus to Sergiev Posad, which I remember from my last trip here, although it was called Zagorsk then. It's a monastery complex about an hour by bus from Moscow (or an hour and a half this day due to all the plebs squeezed into creaking, rusting, blue-smoke-bleching Ladas trying to get to the countryside) and is a beautiful oasis in a desert of decaying concrete buildings. We managed to blag the bell ringers that we were bona fide churchgoers and in their moment of confusion legged it up to the top of the 88 metre (I think that's about 300 feet in old money) bell tower. Great views from the top and an even greater bollocking from the guy at the bottom when we descended, who told us we should have been to get a blessing from the priest first before we went up. I thought a visit to a safety harness, hard hat and knee-pad shop would have been a better idea, but it's those little differences that make people interesting. It was a bit rickety at the top but I was more worried that they'd ring the huge bell while I was up there, as the little ones rang and that was loud enough. While the churches and seminary were nice to look at, they were for the most part closed. So we walked around the town's one street in the blustery cold. The visit was marred slightly by the drunken fight that took place while we were picnicking by the pond. A group of six or so blokes were arguing and then two of them started to push a couple of others around and it turned into drunken fumbly fighting that died down after ten minutes with, unfortunately, no-one ending up in the pond. It took a different turn not much later when the same two from the earlier group attacked a couple of older men on the main street. It seemed to be unprovoked, with the only reason being the older two looking like they may have been from another part of the former Soviet Union, the so-called 'black' Russians. No-one called the police or intervened and it didn't look like anyone was hurt badly, but quite a shock to see, especially in the shadow of the walls of one of the holiest of Russian shrines.
The final shock came on the way to the Metro station as I was leaving. We had watched the May 9 parade on tv and had left to go to Kazan station so I could get my train to Samara. On the way, on a quiet residential road, a grey car was stopped. Its passenger door open, its windscreen cracked in two places. There was no-one in the car. In front, lieing on her back was an old woman, one arm by her side, one across her chest, obviously dead. Her clothes looked like she'd been dressed for an outing, her face was pale and beginning to turn blue. A black and white cat lay on her thighs, cleaning its paws and waiting.
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