I’m in Moscow – first time in over 14 years! Wow, the city is amazing. Soooo different from what I remember. I thought Kyiv had changed in the 13 years since my first and second visits there, but it doesn’t compare to the change in Moscow.
I went to Red Square last night – so beautiful. I had forgotten how powerful and dramatic it is. I also walked along Old and New Arbat streets. Didn’t recognize either in the least. There is a huge book store on New Arbat that I _think_ I recognized, but it sure didn’t look like the grey drab place I frequented in 1992. If it’s the same store, I thought there was a huge post office across the street, but that is now a giant shopping mall. I’ll have to ask someone if there used to a PO around there, maybe I just didn’t get to quite the right spot.
In 1992, we couldn’t make direct-dial international phone calls from anywhere in St. Petersburg (where I was studying). Instead, we had to go to the post office and order a phone call, then sit down and wait until your number was called over the PA system. Only the announcements sounded just like the Peanuts teacher, only incomprehensible Russian garble instead of incomprehensible English garble. I missed more than one call opportunity because I couldn’t understand when my turn was called. And it wasn’t just my bad Russian – I often asked a local to help me and more often than not, they also couldn’t understand a thing from that PA system. I did meet some nice people that way though, waiting for my phone calls.
Anyway, in 1992 the only city from which direct-dial international calls could be made was Moscow, and when I would be in town I would often go to that giant post office that was somewhere near a giant Dom Knigi (House of Books), wait for an open phone booth, and happily dial away. I remember the first time I called from that post office. For some reason, it wasn’t an automatic two-way connection. I could hear my parents but no matter what I tried to do, I couldn’t figure out how to make them hear me. They guessed it was me calling from Russia and they talked for a few minutes to me; it was so nice to hear their voices but soooo frustrating to not be able to speak to them. It was only later that I somehow figured out that I had to push a button when my parents answered the phone so that they could hear me. It was absolutely incomprehensible to me why someone would make a call and then have to push a button so the other party could hear them – why would you make a phone call and not want them to hear you? I think maybe the prices were different or something if it was a “one-way” call, I don’t remember. Just another one of those little things that is huge when you are clueless.
I’ve got two packed days of meetings, but hope to squeeze in some social calls, too. I learned not too long ago that the daughter of my dear friend Alyona (from Moldova) is living in Moscow, with her Russian husband! I hope to see her tonight and get caught up on a lot of news that I seem to have missed.
I wish my wonderful husband was here with me. I love to travel with him, love to listen to his history lessons. As excited as I am to be back in Russia, I’m also looking forward to going home to Kyiv, to my Igor and our new apartment. Speaking of which, we finally finished the move last weekend. Good grief – all I could think was that I came to this country three years ago with two suitcases, and now we had SEVEN carloads of stuff to move. Even scarier is that we seem to have filled up an apartment more than double the size of the one we just moved out of. How the hell did all of that fit in our two-room apartment?!
The cat handled the move relatively well. She hid most of Saturday, and then Sunday followed me around all day, meowing in a way that made me think she was crying “I want to go home!” Sunday night she seemed more settled in, doing her evening exercises of sprints around the apartment. She also seems to enjoy the vast array of hiding places; Igor couldn’t find her at all this afternoon, and she appeared only when he opened the refrigerator door. What’s really funny is that he said she turned right in the hallway as if to go into the old kitchen, instead of turning left into the new one. I guess animals also develop their own habitual patterns!
Off to meetings.
Anka in Kyiv 