A New Place To Hang My Shapka

Outside the airport, Chris was waiting with Misha, the company driver, sound recordist and Man Friday. Since it was the end of August, the weather was still warm and sunny, Moscow was in the midst of an Indian Summer. Chris advised to make the most of it as now would be falling by the end of next month, and we would soon have to drag out the winter woollies and thermals.

Misha haggled with the porter, who was charging like a wounded bull. We threw my bags into the company Jeep and took off. The so-called traffic system here is absolute chaos! Apart from the disorientation of driving on the opposite side of the road to Australia and the UK, there is maniac drivers weaving in and out of lanes and jumping red lights. Road safety here is a joke, made worse by poorly maintained roads; cars constantly weave and swerve to avoid disappearing down huge pot-holes.

In a death-defying race into the city, we raced along Leningradsky Prospect, the nine lane arterial road connecting the city to the airport, dodging ancient, rusting, coughing Ladas, Volgas and Zhigulis, as shiny new black Mercedes, Volvos and BMWs zig-zagged past us, everyone oblivious to the lane markers. And the pollution was choking. Not only from cars but also huge, rumbling Kamaz trucks that spewed thick black smoke from exhaust pipes that point to the left rather than the rear.

I quickly realised that a car journey in Russia incorporates at least one near-death experience. Russians have somehow got the idea that there are only two driving speeds: flat-out or parked, and that with sufficient speed and recklessness, motoring can be as thrilling and suicidal as swimming with sharks or playing hop-scotch in a mine field. During the weeks to come, I would also observe that when the traffic jams up, the most impatient people simply drive around it and along the footpaths, scattering pedestrians!

Everyone out of the way – coming through! A common sight in Moscow:

high speed police escorts for diplomats, politicians and VIPs .

Row upon row of depressing, rundown, grey concreted Khrushyovki apartment blocks blurred past, all 20 stories high and shell-shocked, miles and miles of them, surrounded by concrete walls and trash-littered undergrowth. And this scene repeats itself endlessly across the vastness of the country’s eleven time zones.But there was new life emerging from the ruins, a frenzy of construction; the highway was lined with stores selling building materials, cranes towering over construction sites, as well as new Western shopping centres, roadside kiosks and European styled cafes.

Typical Russian suburban scene with Soviet style flats.

The chimneys in the distance belong to a central heating plant .

My two bedroomed company apartment was located on the 16th floor of a 24 storey block in Ostankino, a suburb that had once been a village, and is now home to Moscow’s TV stations. There’s a little guards office inside each entrance, and these dejourneys check out everyone who enters – they’re ex-military or police in their 60s, but seem pleasant enough. The flat has big rooms by Russian standards, and is fully kitted out with all the mod cons, the so-called ‘Western remont’ or renovation; plenty of cupboard space in the kitchen, washing machine, new ironing board & towels, new set of good quality saucepans, dishwasher, microwave, in the lounge: answer machine, satellite & cable TV, VHS recorder, CD player-radio-cassette deck. The master bedroom has a comfy double bed with new linen and plenty of wardrobe space. Quite a step up from the London shoebox I was living in before.

But the best aspect is the view through the lounge and guest bedroom windows; a view dominated by Moscow’s spectacular Ostankino TV Tower with revolving restaurant – at 540 metres, it’s a seriously tall tower that’s lit up at night during special holidays by huge searchlight beams like some gigantic space rocket on the launch pad! It really was a spectacular sight, and right outside my window too!

I told Chris right there and then that I was going to aim my stills camera at it during the next electrical storm as it must be a magnet for lightning strikes.

Direct hit! One of several shots I took of the Ostankino TV tower being hit by lightning.

We jumped into the company car and drove the short distance down Akademika Korolova to a restaurant nestled in the park right at the foot of the TV tower called Twin Pigs (or as the Russkies pronounce it, Tveen Peegs) which I guess is a pun on David Lynch’s bizarre TV series Twin Peaks. I think only the Russians get the joke.

Even now it still has the big (faded) inflatable pig sitting outside the entrance, which to me was always reminiscent of Pink Floyd concerts and album covers.

As the name implies, this eatery specialises in barbecued pork, plus other meats and Russian dishes. The English translation of the menu is a constant source of amusement. A few beers later and I was starting to feel quite at home. We destroyed two bottles of wine, and later, back in the office, we downed several more beers for the road until Chris couldn’t keep his eyes open any longer. We were both talking shit by then anyway.

When I returned to my apartment, I went on a roach-killing spree. Although the place had recently been cleaned, painted and sprayed, the little buggers were still crawling out of the woodwork to die at night. I guess you could say the place was bugged.

Which brings me to my next point; knowing my somewhat warped sense of humour, Chris warned me that I should be careful, that the Russkies could monitor anything that goes through a phone line, and since I was about to get my first e-mail address, he did not want me to risk arousing any suspicions with the authorities or to have to answer any tricky questions regarding the activities of his employees. Or put another way, he didn’t want to find out if we really were bugged or not. He also reminded me that the Russian authorities had no sense of humour at all. Our visas, work permits and press accreditation were issued by the much feared, all-powerful Foreign Ministry, and that if any of us ‘aliens’ stepped out of line, our ‘documenti’ could be cancelled and we’d be expelled at the drop of a shapka. And since our apartment block was part of a complex of four, originally purpose-built to house foreigners, it was distinctly possible that electronic listening devices were built right into the superstructure, like the infamous American Embassy incident.

Our walls might literally have ears. What a sobering thought.

I remember that first night, as I stared out from my balcony over the six lanes of Akademika Korolova to the colossus of the TV Tower, out across the flickering sea of lights that was Moscow, sleeping like some giant beast coiled around me. I felt a vast, crushing sense of impending doom pushing down on me that was hard to pinpoint. My life was now a blank slate, waiting to be filled with the sights, sounds and smells of new experiences, Russian experiences. I had been reborn and I could hardly wait. What adventures lay waiting for me out there in this vast country? What was in store for me?

I’d find out soon enough…