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News Gram™ January 2007

January 2007 ~ Volume 13, No. 6

During the winter, Muscovites distrust warm spells. A warm spell is any three days over minus five degrees Celsius, 20 degrees Fahrenheit. This winter, residents of the Russian capital are not happy with the unseasonably warm temperatures. A few weeks ago, when a warm spell finally yielded to below zero temperatures, smiles returned to the faces of Armenian cab drivers, the doormen of the National Hotel and cranky babushkas whose colorful scarves were once more dotted with crisp snowflakes that sparkled in the midday light.

Hovering over Red Square, Tverskaya Ulitsa, the Moscow River and the multiplying apartment houses is a persistent blanket of clouds that turns everything below into a series of gray shapes. The subtle blue, green and salmon-colored, Stalin-era buildings yield to the pervasive discoloring of the abbreviated December light. In this city, daylight appears sometime around 8:30 in the morning and seems eager to depart by mid-afternoon. It doesn’t matter, though. In spite of all the attempts of nature to eviscerate the city’s spirit, the people who endure the Russian winter seem to thrive on its extremes.

Like children with new toys, Moscow’s inhabitants seem rarely to take a break from their rushing around town. There is a frenzy about them that laid back Californians would never understand. Nowhere is this quality more apparent than in the metro system, of which the Russians are duly proud, though not always pleased. The trains that traverse the city are designed to move about 6 million people a day. These days, though, they transport upwards of 10 million. “Excuse me” and other such a niceties are rarities. Gentle shoves suffice for politeness. If the metro seems crowded, it still moves swiftly around the city with delicious efficiency. Not so the surface traffic. For a city that 5 years ago rarely witnessed a private car skirting along the broad boulevards, it is a perverse miracle that these days, traffic is perhaps the worst of any major city in the Western world. Sheremetyevo Airport, a mere 11 miles from the center of town, requires a grueling hour and a half to get to or from in holiday season. During rush hour, you might as well throw your watch out the window. Time takes on a new meaning in Moscow traffic.

It’s the nighttime that shows up the city, though. For a people that, not very long ago, regarded bright lights were a bourgeois affectation, a despised sign of Western decadence, Moscow has embraced neon as if it were the gas of the Gods. Restaurants – many of which are open 24 hours – abound, and advertise their wares with huge signs that light up the brittle cold air with brassy illumination and blinking promises of gustatory delight. Around such establishments, customers will park their cars beneath the signs, on sidewalks, in driveways, at front doors. Moscow, by any measure, lacks the order of Berlin, Paris, London, even New York. Yet, somehow it works, which may tell us something about Russians.

Perhaps, what tells us something more about them is the central role vodka plays in the lives of every Russian – at least Russian men.

These refined spirits, Muscovites, and their compatriots beyond the city limits will tell you, are a universal solvent that removes barriers between people, have magical effects that provide the fortitude to negotiate the Russian winter. To be sure, they are aware of its shortcomings – the toll it takes on the body, its destructive role when driving and its contribution to violent behavior – but to think they would relinquish it, would, among the vast majority of Russians, be akin to delusional thinking. It infiltrates business meetings, religious occasions and every celebration of Russian life. Many Russians carry a bottle with them on the train, in case they encounter a friendly stranger. To refuse to drink with a Russian on such an occasion is a flat out insult. What Muscovites are not is a variation on some Western theme. Moscow is not “Paris East” or New York Russian style. It is a wild, crazy and diverse aggregation of people trying to make lives for themselves under less than ideal circumstances. Russia breeds the best violinists in the world, has profound environmental problems and, more than anything else, nearly infinite resignation. They have grown accustomed to brutish leaders. They have lived through the Gulag, and they have survived two world wars on their soil. Whether Moscow  and its sister cities throughout European and Asian Russia emerge into a real democracy – at this point, a distant goal – is an undecided question. More than their well being rests on the answer. It may be that the outcome of the present century turns on it as well.

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