ulitsa O.G.I.

Can't quite believe how many new sights/sites I have fitted into this trip. N and I took me to the Ulitsa OGI bar, which I thought had closed down, but it is still there, nicely hidden in a yard. This is sooo famous, designed by one of Russia's most radical art-architects, Alexander Brodsky, and I think one of his best pieces of interior work, being both strong conceptually (as part  of his ongoing commentary on the difficulties of making architecture in the Soviet Union/Russa) and a comfortable, easy to occupy bar.

I managed to take quite poor photographs of this interior -so go to Yuri Palmin Photography for great pictures of both this and other Brodsky projects. 

at the pub

Rounded off that evening in a slightly surreal way by going to watch the European Cup final (Spain 4 Italy 0) in what turned out to be an absolutely authentic English pub, run by a friend of mine and her husband, just near Red Square.  Watched football and drunk English beer. Lovely.

mafia picnic

Not only did we have a marvellous picnic, but I finally learnt how to play mafia games. In it, people in the group are either ordinary citizens or mafia (red or black cards) and then there are other roles to complicate things. The final aim is that either all the good citizens die, or that they manage to kill the mafia (although the game is inherently loaded against this outcome). So you play out a series of days and nights (during which citizens have eyes shut, mafia can see and choose who to murder.) During each 'day' everyone discusses who is the mafia, and makes accusations.

Of course this circles the difficulties at the centre of a corrupt society; if someone talks to much, that can make them seem likely to be mafia, as they are trying to point the blame elsewhere - but of course if you say nothing then you are also likely to be mafia, because you are trying to stay invisible. So the game is actually about hilarious, philosophical, joyfully argumentative talking.

Just a reminder (from my previous post on this subject) that you can read the original Mafia Games rules here and a more detailed explanation and brief history on Wikipedia.

ragout

One of many wonderful 'last meals' before I leave, this one with L and friends, at Ragout. She is the most uber-trendy person I know (she knows all the best London cocktail bars) so as you can guess, the food at this place was gorgeous.

10-of-the-best: no.3 Solyanka

Dragged V to Solyanka (the restaurant, not the road or club) for Sunday lunch today, which in fact is much too uber-trendy for his liking. But I have to have it on my list of best non-mainstream-tourist places to hang out, just because it shows that Muscovites* also have cool, contemporary cafes where you can sit all day with your chums, the newspapers and/or your iPad - and with your kids if you have them; that is, that there is life beyond the superficiality of most tourist-class restaurant bling and chintz.

And if you prefer something more cozy and even less showy, then there is always People Like People/Lyudi Kak Lyudi/люди как люди, just around the corner.


*Actually some Muscovites don't like it, because the original started out in St. Petersburg.

fish-n-chips (almost)

What is it about living abroad that makes me culturally regress around my eating habits? I often crave fish and chips here (not a dish I eat that often in London - although there is a terrific one near where I live). So got very excited when I found a Nordsee on Pokrovka on my lunchtime walk today, one of an international german-originated chain which "ist die größte europäische auf Fisch und Meeresfrüchte spezialisierte Restaurantkette („Quick Service“ und „Casual Dining“) mit eigenen Restaurants" according to their website.


More like IKEA than an english fish-n-chips shop but still who cares? Fish! And Chips!

only a little bit weird

Spent some of the week with friends and colleagues on a visit from London; mainly sharing in late night eating and drinking activities. Which gives me the chance to introduce you to a regular haunt - Gladiator, a Georgian restaurant just around the corner from Kurskaya station. Proper shashlik, served with great bundles of herbs and leaves: all served in pavilions banding a central garden (which is populated with.. well you can see.)

idyllic, with kebabs

Can't decide if this scene is also Parisian. There were a set of working boats, for trawling out leaves and rubbish from the water, and - I guess - mending things from. These three guys were standing next to a low and fiercely smoking charcoal grill, layered with fat meat kebabs. And they also had a standard domestic bathroom sink rigged up next to it, on the pontoon. Have lived here long enough to find that completely normal (or maybe odd).  

soup time

There is some kind of soup kitchen near the station (provided I presume by a charity) which is, as you can see, well-attended. There have been various - mainly desultory - references to problems with poverty, both as part of the national elections and from the new mayor of Moscow as he settles in. In fact, the Moscow News recently reported a city Poverty Plan. To quote the report (by Nathan Toohey), Vladimir Petrosyan, head of Moscow's Social Welfare Department, said: 

that a “social contract” had been agreed with 26 Moscow families, while a further 84 families were prepared to take part in the program. The contract lasts six-month with the authorities obliged to provide work, place any children in day care and even “send grandmothers to a sanatorium, for example.”

So that should sort it. (Although I should add that things only seem a little better in Moscow, Idaho. I kept getting articles on poverty from the Moscow-Pullman Daily News when I was doing that Googling thing.)

tales of the unexpected 5

Quite unnecessary and a bit unnerving. So don't know what he is doing at the entrance to the Dendi cafe which is otherwise another of those nice places to go for weekend breakfast, with  reasonable prices and a typical russian traditional/shabby chic interior.

And, yes, it is Sid James on his apron.

english zavtrak

Had завтрак/zavtrak (breakfast, not to be confused with завтра/zavtra/tomorrow) out at a cafe as usual; this time back at Respublika bookshop/store in Tverskaya because I was hunting for some 'designer' presents.

Couldn't resist ordering the English breakfast which - as you can see - was eggs, bacon, steak and (kidney) beans. It also came with beer as standard (which, despite being English, I turned down.). 

In the дом of the new leaf

Back in Moscow, and now this flat also smelling of apples - both the heaps that L gave me from her dacha (that time of year when everyone is desperately passing their spare fruit on) - and the single, beautifully formed version that came from the very small apple tree on the balcony of my London flat. So, spot the difference.

feeling english (sort of)

Damp with both drizzling and torrential rain most of the weekend which, together with the Last Night of the Proms and the first autumn Radio 4 episode of the News Quiz (series 75), seemed to bring out my englishness; evidenced by an unexpectedly strong urge for boiled eggs, soldiers with marmite and a proper cup of tea.

At the same time, I made compote and took a first stab at pickling my own cucumbers. So clearly developing a hybrid personal culture based, in embarrassing fashion, on simplistic and stereotypical food habits. And all the while feeling a bit hemmed in by ex-pat life (what do you do when your connection other other people is only because you speak the same language?)

strawberries and bullets

V took me to visit his dacha nearby, and again I was honoured to be embraced into the huge welcome, warmth and sociality of his family and friends, as we did what is clearly the usual dacha thing of sitting around the kitchen table for hours, talking, eating and drinking. Lovely.

This particular dacha plot is quite overgrown, in amongst beautiful tall conifers. V's childhood memories are of having strawberry rows to cultivate, and finding - only a small level below the surface - endless bullet casings and even a hand grenade and other fragments of that terrifying and central world war two battle. Ideal treasure for a small boy.

up and onward

Back in my London flat, with the gorgeous smell of dacha-grown apples and the lingering sour taste left by our recent sporadic, meaningless riots.

And the end of another year in Moscow - with the beginning of the next only a few weeks away. A friend asked me how I coped with the winter snows and then laughed at the involuntary grin on my face. So, must mean I am looking forward to it.

on compote

One of the regular visitors to the dacha was a biologist, who brought me many samples of herbs and plants and described their medicinal qualities. She also made several variations on Russian compote - a catch-all phrase without any English equivalent as it seems to cover everything from various forms of fruit pureed desserts, to a drink I often have of tepid, boiled up fruit in a (relatively) liquid form, to the  fruit- tasting wetness of boiling water poured onto a melange of fruit, leaves and whatever. The latter perfect for both freshness and immediacy.

why the dacha is a thing of beauty

Finally got to go for the weekend to my landlady and landlord's dacha, about an hour and a half's train ride away from the city.

And what a blissful honour. The building and its fruit trees, cucumbers, marrows, berries and herbs were very much what I had expected, together with the freshness of the air, the purity and cold of the well-water and the strength of smells (dill, coriander, apples). And I expected the constant round of fire-building, cooking, mending, digging, pruning, salting and compote-making. But I found myself also witnessing a personal and social life with direct continuities back to Soviet times as A and N, together with several old friends from their student days at Moscow State University, reminisced and joked and drunk and ate together; around a large table, under a open, outdoor roof, in the midst of apple and plum trees.

I knew that dachas had originally been given as rewards for loyalty by Peter the Great, a tradition repeated by Stalin. But I didn't realise that in the 60s and 70s workers organisations were given plots of land to share out (together with some restrictions on plot size and building height, so as to not echo the previously elitist context) which means that a surprisingly large minority of Muscovites still have access to a dacha. A and N have developed theirs since the 1970s, but the type of life dachas enable remains central; that is, social, convivial and sharing as much as connecting back to the country, to land and to growing your own produce.  I can't say if these spaces 'made up for' the constraints of communal housing and in public life, but but they certainly open up my images of, and assumptions about, everyday life and pleasures in the old Soviet Union.

Cant believe it! So excited - I thought I found an organic fresh foods delivery service last year, but it turned out to be in Moscow, Idaho. Then just found one here. I was following up a reference to an american guy called Jay Close who is making his own cheese on a farm not far from Moscow and that led to Lavka Fresh Food from Local Farmers (image from their website). Haven't tried it yet as I am back in London next week... but then...

a fancy food shop

Every time I go to the famous wonderfully over-the-top neo-baroque-style food shop called Eliseevskiy on Tverskaya I attempt to take a decent photograph of its lurid and artificial glamour - along with the other tourists snapping away  - but the results are always unimpressive. (This is, by the way, where I found the pink and green easter display, shown below.)

I go a lot because ... and this will only be relevant to a tiny proportion of the population ... it is the only place in Moscow I have found that does gluten-free foods; well actually just g-f plain biscuits, but better than nothing.

easter coming

I keep forgetting about easter. My london friends are already plotting their easter breaks, whilst here we wait until the May holidays (from May 1st = Labour Day to May 9th =Victory Day) for time off.

Of course, this is not because people are not religious; to the extent that many restaurants and cafes provide lenten (orthodox fasting) alternatives at this time of year. It is just that easter sunday will come and go without much impact on the working week. Meanwhile,  the same kind of stuff you get everywhere- eggs, chocolate, bunnies - are in the shops.