the electro-train from Domodedovo

Most of the week was spent in the airport, filming a project. It was odd to make my way there by car or taxi with no ticket to double check in my pocket, no searching my memory to make sure I had packed a toothbrush, or remembered gifts.

The hush of the duty free shops was punctuated by announcements I could ignore. The fresh smell of perfume tests. The people running, their bags bobbling around them. The people with hours to kill, reading the fine print on labels. And me, tucked into a corner – clicking hundreds of time-lapse frames, sitting on my feet.

It was raining one of those days, and there was no car to take me back to the city. I was to take the express electro-train instead.

The platform was almost empty, except for a woman in a black and white checked raincoat and her tiny daughter, all in pink. The woman clutched the child close to her, as the rain pounded down around us, and a damp wind flipped her dress around. She looked like a character from a film, with the train cars stretching into the horizon behind her, with the great ragged canopy of steel above us.

The doors opened, and we rushed inside.

The lights were off, and the train would sit here for at least 20 minutes before we left. The woman checked her face in a tiny compact, and searched in her purse for something for the little girl to play with. As they did not have any luggage, I decided they must have come to the airport to see someone off. Returning by train would save them at least 1,200 rubles. Maybe they had arrived in Moscow unexpectedly, to go to a hospital and see a dying loved one, with no time to pack.

The woman stared past me, her dark hair formed into a perfect modern beehive. The swirling checkerboard pattern of the black and white jacket framed her face. The blonde girl laughed and jumped, trying to catch my attention. I looked at her now, wondering if this woman was her mother or maybe a nanny or an aunt.

The rain dribbled down the windows.

The lights came on. A woman rolled a cart with potato chips and juice boxes through the car. She picked up newspapers from empty seats as she made her way. No one bought anything.

The woman held the little girl close to her, rubbing their noses together and laughing. I wanted to take a picture of them, but decided not to.

The train lurched forward.

We saw fields littered with purple and white wildflowers, and eventually the city.

a wedding

I saw a long stretch of male balsam trees. They stood, tall and straight in perfect lines along Leninsky Prospekt. They look nothing like the females I wrote about last week. No low branches for the first 50 or 60 feet of trunk, and spaced elegantly – they look down on Lenin’s hill.

Here, you can see the whole city spread out before you. A likely tourist spot, there are countless tables of Bart Simpson matroshkas, Brittney Spears matroshkas, Beatles matroshkas, and the occasional Russian matroshka.

There is a very small monastery, really just a stone-walled room with a few candles inside it. An old woman with a dark kerchief over her head sweeps a few stray pukh from the door with a bundle of twigs tied together into a makeshift broom.

Lenin’s Hill is where all wedding parties make a stop in their festive tour of the city. Some even have the whole ceremony here. There is a sort of house oompa-band, a truly random collection of musicians. A trombone, a tiny trumpet, an accordion and maybe a big drum are the regulars. The band can expand to twenty or more noise-makers on a sunny day, but today in the rain it’s down to the bare minimum. They wait for wedding parties to stop by, and for 1,000 rubles (or maybe 500) they play like madmen, even taking requests for Elvis covers.

The bride’s face is caked with makeup, her hair done into a giant curly-cued beehive. The groom is in an ill-fitted grey suit, stiff and maybe a bit tired. His young face forced into a permanent smile, he stands where he is told to.

Sweet, chemical Russian champagne pops, and the group bursts into song, dancing an odd combination of the hustle, and a polka. It’s hard to stand still, and there’s nothing better than strangers dancing with you to an odd attempt at an Elvis song. Wedding photographs flash away. Relatives with camcorders trip over the tourists and matroshka tables trying to get the perfect moment.

A magnificent stretch limo is bright pink, displaying a giant pair of gold rings on the roof. “Yes.” It announces. “This is a wedding.”

“Gorka! Gorka!” The band shouts, then joined by the guests and strangers passing by.

The bride and groom kiss, and are showered with handfuls of shiny plastic hearts, stars, and a few rubles.

Just as quickly, the party moves on. The pink limo coughs into action, spurting a foul exhaust cloud. The band nips on flasks of cognac, hunching their shoulders against the damp air. Someone is smoking a menthol cigarette.

An old man searches through the party favors on the ground for stray rubles. He kisses each one he finds, before slipping it into his pocket.

I make my way into the forest below us. Tiny birds are chirping above me, and the wet earth smells sweet.

What an oddly correct way to spend Father’s Day, I think.

the irony of seeds

I find no need to overstate the fact that Spring can be a painful time. We are all aware of the flowers popping up, the smell of warm rain while we fall asleep, the sound of drunken students downstairs laughing and drinking late into the night. If we are tired, or waking up late and missing out on each bright green shoot pressing through the earth, we feel guilty, even jealous. In a land where snow covers the ground from October to the end of April it is no surprise that Spring brings a fierce sort of enjoyment to Moscow. Is it ironic that the days grow long enough for us to enjoy an eight-hour afternoon? It’s like a sort of challenge to live with wild, reckless abandon before October returns, all too fast.

The sun comes up at about four and sets after ten now. There are clouds of white, puffy seeds floating in giant clouds over the street – Пукх (pukh). They swirl into giant drifts along the curb, and the children say it is snowing.

Some of them float into my mouth, and I swallow them, coughing and wiping more from my nose. These seeds are from poplar trees – cheap shade planted by Stalin, as a sort of program to green up Moscow so many years ago. Most see them as a nuisance that takes about three weeks to play out. In truth, it feels like mysterious beings ripped apart some giant down pillows a mile above the city, far above the clouds.

If you are stuck in traffic, or sitting in a café you cannot avoid watching these white tufts moving in slow-motion as the world churns away. The seeds are females, looking for compatible mates. The men are very hard to find. And yes, the streets are clogged with красивые девушки (beautiful girls) hobbling around in spike heels and minidresses. Perfumed and done up, with careful strands of hair falling across their faces they stand on corners and eye the crowds. They sit at outdoor café tables, with their girlfriends sipping cappuchinos and mohitos, all looking for the same thing. The men – well, they're nowhere to be found. Suddenly they are all old, huddled together with briefcases propped on their legs, sipping tea.

As these first luscious days play out, the pukh gather in spider web patterns in the grass, and in filthy piles along the sidewalk. The girls have blisters from their new heels. Fixing their lipstick, powdering shiny spots from their foreheads, they march on into the eternal afternoon. The sun grows stronger, unstoppable – as balconies bloom with marigolds and strawberry plants. Summer will be here soon, and we will wander deep into the woods, and build fires to roast meat and drink vodka.

Russians have lived with a daily dose of irony for as long as anyone can remember. This is why most situations - even the most devastating, are solved by telling a joke. A finely tuned (and dark) sense of humor is required to cope with the slippery dealings that define modern Russia. One day a man is an oligarch, the next he is driving a beat to hell Peugot with an empty briefcase, still trying to plan meetings, still networking.

If you ask him "What happened?" He may shrug his shoulders and say "It was a tough winter." and leave it at that. He may have a bar of chocolate in that briefcase, come to think of it.

позже (later)

This morning on the metro, a girl followed me into the train car and sat opposite me. She buried her head in her hands, her hat pulled down over her eyes, her white cane splayed across her knees. The other passengers stared at her, and each other. I wondered if she cried because she was living a blind life, or if something had happened. Maybe her mother had just died, I thought. She grew quiet and I saw her eyes rolling back in her round face.

Her clothes were clean. She had not fallen or hurt herself.

The only kind thing I could have possibly said to her was “za dacha” which means good luck, so I stayed quiet.

Instead, I imagined the air between us had turned to water. Beautiful water that allowed every kind thought I had to translate to her. Water that erased the tears on her cheeks.

The last stop came, Alexandrovsky Sad. I allowed her to get up first, knocking her cane around and trying to find the right door to exit.

I spoke to her quietly “Na Prava.” (the right) and she clicked against the platform trying to judge the size of the gap between the train. I reached out and held her hand against mine, holding lightly. I helped her off and then to the left. I asked her what line she needed to change to, and she said number two. Forgetting the small bit I knew about the Moscow metro I brought her forward, down the platform.

“Kak linea?” (what line)” I asked her again, and she said “Biblioteka Iminei Lenina.” (Lenin’s library).

Laughing out loud, I startled her. I was going to the same.

We reached the stairs and she held me, not using the cane. I understood she had not been blind for very long.

“What stop on the line?” I asked her.

“Kropotkinskaya.” She replied, biting her lower lip.

I was going to the same, on my way to work. The train was just leaving as we arrived at the red platform. People were watching us – her teared-up expression, clinging to me the foreigner speaking a broken crazy Russian.

Her name was Olga. I told her that the Moscow metro was a messy headache for me (bardok kashma) and she smiled a little.

The next train came and I told her Kropotkinskaya was just one stop away. She stood and held the rail for a moment, then found a seat as passengers jumped out of her way to give her one. An old woman pressed the center of Olga’s back and she sat down.

We reached the next station, and I leaned over, making sure she understood we were there.

“Pa poja.” (later) She said, assured.

I jumped out as the doors were closing, wondering why she did not get off with me. Then, I thought it might be nice to know you are on the right train and just ride it for a while.