31 July 2012 - The Reality of Relocation to Moscow (Part 2)

As noted previously, the process of moving to Russia was not exactly a smooth one, though some of the details may be boring, so I've split this into multiple postings.  Here is the second of those postings, focusing on the part of being ripped out of my life in Frankfurt with little or no notice as well as issues of timing.

The original plan was that I should officially be based in Moscow beginning 1 March so I made my moving plans based on that time frame.  This was not easy, since I was already in Moscow, so I couldn't do things you might normally do in a move, like culling through one's belongings so there is less to move.  There also, as far as I can tell, isn't a type of Salvation Army or Goodwill type of organization where you can donate household goods as well as clothing in Germany, which might have been my preferred option.  I had some good things that I didn't want to just throw out if someone could use them, particularly electric items that I wouldn't be able to use in the US.  For example, I gave away my office Nespresso machine to a deserving colleague and my awesome mobile Klimaanlage (mobile air conditioner) to my neighbors.  I didn't have time to deal with selling things on eBay and the shipping elements, so I ended up sending around a listing of items I had (e.g. printer, shredder, lamps, awesome Bosch hand mixer, amazing toaster that I bought from Barney, computer speakers with subwoofer and things like that) to colleagues at quite reduced price and got rid of most of those things that way.  I did end up packing the remaining Nespresso machine and a hair dryer to Russia since it's the same voltage here as in Germany.  Anyway, I scheduled the move for Monday, 27 February, with the idea that I would return Hudson and take care of final apartment details on the 28th, and then fly to Moscow on the 29th. Perfect.

My sea container

Of course, as you know the timing didn't quite work out that way due to the visa issue, but nevertheless the move date had been set for the 27th, so I had to work with that.  The movers were on time and actually loaded everything directly into the shipping container whereas in Chicago they used a moving truck and then loaded things into the container later.  They were very efficient (it's Germany, after all) and fast and perhaps a bit overzealous, packing up some things that were not meant to be packed, which resulted in, for example, me only showing up in Moscow with four pairs of shoes!

Who says moving isn't fun?!

The cats were alternatively freaked out and intrigued by the moving experience.  Banes generally loved the experience because there were a lot of people around to pet him and lots of things to play with -- empty packing tape rolls, plastic banding from the cartons, and boxes to jump into (it's a miracle HE wasn't packed) -- and the movers were very good natured with him.  Oxley, on the other hand, immediately went into hiding once he realized they weren't just there to visit.  All the commotion scared him and I found him huddled in the back of the darkest place he could probably find - inside an armoire.  I hated to break it to him that the armoire would also be packed up.  Eventually, though, he came out and started to supervise the process, by which time Banes was already too exhausted by the overstimulation to do so.

My cell for two nights

With an apartment devoid of any furnishings, I had to move to a hotel.  Because the Lads were still staying there (I had been able to pack a suitcase for them that the mover's didn't pack that contained their sleeping mats and toys), I wanted to stay close by so that I could see them and take care of the final wrap-up of the apartment.  Again, this was originally only going to be for a period of 1-2 days, but it didn't quite work out that way.  I selected a hotel that is just down the street from my place, really, and that my aunt and some other friends had stayed at and that was basic but fine.  Well, they must have been in the luxury rooms as I got what I can only graciously call a cell.  Very narrow room with just a single bed on the wall, tiny bathroom, tiny TV with only basic stations, poor lighting and most assuredly no WiFi.  (Actually,  it kind of reminded me of that place I had to stay in at the airport in Moscow in the dead of winter, except cleaner, warmer and without the door being wide open upon arrival!)  I stayed the first two nights before I had to leave for a business meeting and I didn't move or look back.  I will say, however, that it had a nice breakfast and friendly staff.

Le Meridien became my new home for the week or so after that.  It wasn't entirely convenient because I had to go to my apartment every morning, feed the cats, pick up Hudson and drive to the office, and then reverse the process in the evening.  Made for a long commute.  There is a tram that goes directly from Textorstrasse in front of my apartment (I should note that I was Mayor of that stop on FourSquare until just a few weeks ago) to another stop just about two blocks from the hotel, so that was rather convenient.  As an extra bonus, I could use the iPhone app to buy my tickets that way rather than having to pay at the little tram stop, so quite convenient.

There is a significant limitation in using the app, though, as I discovered on my next to last day in Frankfurt.  The cats had already been picked up and my task for the morning was to [sniff, sniff] return Hudson to the leasing company.  I checked the tram schedule on the app, bought my ticket and walked to the tram station, where there was a sign saying that there was a strike that day.  No tram.  And apparently no refund of what I'd already paid for the ticket.  Not pleased!!  So apparently both the tram and the subway were closed for the strike and I didn't see available taxis, so I ended up having to walk home, which was about a 40 minute walk, to get Hudson.  Fortunately, there was plenty of time to do so.

I had never returned a lease car before, so I was not familiar with the process.  Those of you who know me and have read the blog know that I have a "thing" for Hudson.  I know that it is weird.  I accept that.  But I love that car!  If there was any thing I could have done to have moved him to the US, I would have done so, but the A5 with diesel engine hasn't been approved in the US and thus can't be imported, among other reasons.

Do you feel the sense of violation?

Anyway, I thought it would be a relatively quick and straightforward process like returning a rental car.  They'd check the mileage (kilometerage?) do a walkaround to see if there was significant damage and things of that nature.  Um, no, it was a detailed inspection.  They poked and prodded him and put him up on the lift with his belly exposed.  I felt as violated as he looked.  And I felt really bad when I realized he had a little dent under his front cowling that I hadn't seen before.  What kind of an inattentive car mom am I if I missed that?!  I'm so sorry, Hudson....

After this traumatic experience, I wanted to just rush away to the tram a couple of blocks away to go back home.  Oh wait, what tram?  Curses.  The drop-off point was in the middle of nowhere with NO taxi stand potential and it was definitely not within walking distance to home.  The guys at the shop called a taxi but I ended up having to wait about 40 minutes before it showed up.  Not a great day.

And long as this blog entry is, it's not the end of this series of postings about the relocation experience.  In the third (and, I believe, final) blog in the series, I'll cover the hassles of returning an apartment to the landlord.  

29 July 2012 - Victory Day

Scene outside my apartment one night

["Hymn to Red October" from The Hunt for Red October soundtrack]

In my time here, I've expanded my admittedly limited knowledge of World War II from the Russian perspective.  Growing up during the Cold War era, I had a tendency to forget that the US and Russia were allies in that war.  And I had no idea of the suffering of the Russian people during that war and the deaths of so many civilians not only through bombing and violence but through starvation.  Just horrible.  I didn't, for example, understand just how long the siege on Leningrad lasted, the conditions it created, or the resiliency of the people within and outside the city.  Just amazing and sobering.

One of my former colleagues here is a big military enthusiast and participates in re-enactments of Russian battles.  I noted that while there are Civil War re-enactment groups in the US, I hadn't considered re-enactments of WW2 battles.  His response?  "Might be a bit difficult and expensive to recreate Normandy."  Fair point!  He gave me and a colleague a great personal tour through the Museum of the Great Patriotic War that was quite enlightening.

So I became a bit more intrigued as May 9 approached.  This is one of the most important of Russian holidays - perhaps THE most important.  It is Victory Day, marking the defeat of Germany in the Great Patriotic War (World War II).  At least in Moscow, it is celebrated with a huge military parade that goes through Red Square and with lots of fireworks in the evening.  The parade is such a big deal that the military begins practicing in early spring on various military fields.  As the day approaches, though, they do some dry runs here in Moscow in the night.  This involves blocking off a lot of streets.

Fortunately, the firm sent around an e-mail notifying us of the upcoming practice sessions.  Had this not been the case, I might have been a bit alarmed one night when I came home from work to find streets blocked of and what otherwise would have seemed like a military occupation of the street outside of my house.  Recall that I live on Tverskaya, a main drag street that ends at Red Square so this main drag becomes the entry for the parade.   Even knowing this, though, it's still a bit unsettling to not be able to sleep very well at night because there are tanks rumbling down the street outside your window.  I mean, this would've been the stuff of nightmares when I was a kid.

As fate in a global business world would have it, I had to head to Stockholm for a conference on the 9th, so I missed the actual parade and the fireworks.  I was extremely disappointed.  I also realized that there was going to be no way that I could get a taxi to the airport from my apartment because the streets would be blocked off.  But no worries, as the Metro would be running, so I'd just have to deal with hauling my luggage to the station, catch the Metro, and then connect to the Aeroexpress train to the airport at another station.  No big deal, right?

When I woke up that morning, the tanks and other military vehicles were already on Tverskaya, apparently getting into position or whatever.  See gratuitous video taken from my living room window to give you a sense of the scene.

But the real surprise awaited me when I tried to exit our building complex.  As I may have noted in previous posts, while my building is on Tverskaya, the doors to enter in a courtyard in the middle of the block.  This courtyard is accessible via two small pedestrian gates and a large archway through which cars enter the courtyard.  On this morning around 6:30 AM, the archway appeared to be blocked, which made sense as you can't have cars going out into the path of tanks.  But I was a bit surprised and then alarmed that the pedestrian gates were locked tight.  Uhhh....  So I went back to the archway to see if there was a place for pedestrians to exit there.  Nope.  Guarded by soldiers with big guns.  Uh....

Recall that I don't speak Russian, so I wasn't quite sure how to handle this.  Fortunately, though, some of my neighbors appeared to be having the same issue.  I watched as a few were initially had a relatively calm conversation with the soldiers, but it seemed to be escalating.  The soldiers would come and talk with the neighbors, then go out towards the street, perhaps to confer with a superior.  Then they'd come back, there'd be more discussions and the process repeated.  I finally asked a neighbor who looked like a young professional if he spoke English.  He did.  I asked whether the soldiers were saying that we were not allowed to leave for a specific period of time (for example, if there was something potentially dangerous outside that would be over soon) or if they were suggesting we couldn't leave until after the parade (probably 6-8 hours later).  He said it was the latter and, looking at my suitcase, asked if I had a flight.  I said I did and was just trying to get to the Metro, which apparently was the destination of him and the other neighbors.

As I was talking with this guy, I could see the soldiers kind of perking up, I assume at the speaking of English, but pretending not to listen or pay attention to what was going on.  We waited there as a group of angry sheep for a while longer as the conversations with the soldiers continued.  I finally said a bit loudly to the neighbor so the soldiers could hear as well, "I see you have an iPhone.  Would you be willing to look up the number of the US Embassy?  I could then call them and let them know that one of their citizens was being held against her will by the Russian military and perhaps they could help."  Whether coincidence or not, we were allowed to leave about a minute or two later.  I pretty much ran to the Metro to get out of there before they changed their mind.

Still wish I could have seen the parade and the fireworks, though.

11 July 2012 - Foraging for Food

My local grocery store

["Hungry like the wolf" by Duran Duran, of course]

Once I moved into my apartment here, and particularly since there were not many of the basics like spices or cooking oil, it was quite urgent to go out and find food.  How difficult could it be, right?

Well, quite difficult, as a matter of fact.  I live on Tverskaya Street, which has a lot of good, high-end shopping, but that doesn't tend to make storefronts reasonably priced for something like a grocery store that requires a lot of space.  I had seen one place about a block away that had plastic sheets in the window with pictures of fresh fruits and vegetables, so I thought that might be a good place to start.

Well, not really.  It was more like a mini-mart.  There were a few limited things and I did find some cooking oil, but I gave up on finding the things I would need for a real meal and bought a frozen pizza that, thank goodness, was German (Dr. Oetker's) and had preparation instructions in German as well as in Russian, thank goodness.  (The fact that my oven didn't really work as one would expect it to is beyond the scope of this story, but suffice it to say it was not a good pizza experience.)

I had heard that there was a gourmet market in a kind of department store called TSUM (I may be spelling it incorrectly, but you get the idea).  There was, but it was very tiny and ridiculously overpriced.  An expat colleague at the office mentioned that he had paid about $8 for three strips of bacon.  Good bacon, to be sure, but not quite that good.  Not being a bacon eater, I'm not sure how overpriced that is, but it seemed crazy.  That said, if I haven't mentioned it before, everything's crazy expensive here, so why should food be any different?

I finally asked my administrative assistant if she could do a search on the internet or something to see if there was a grocery store somewhere in my neighborhood.  She found one that was apparently in the basement of an underground (so I guess the lowest of all basement floors?) mall next to Red Square.  Okay....  It took me two visits of wandering around the malls to find the place, primarily as there were no directory signs that I could find that would help me figure this out.  The place ended up being nearly outside of the building and in a kind of dark and shady area, but in I went.  It approximated a more normal kind of grocery shopping experience, but again, on a very small scale.  I was able to buy some milk, pasta, spices, etc.

This was where I encountered the fruit and vegetable stand procedures.  Unlike in the US where you just put whatever you want into a bag and may need to somehow weigh and tag things, in Russia there is someone in the produce area assigned to do this for you.  I didn't realize this.  There was some immediate, um, "feedback," when I started picking up fruit.  Finally figured it out.  There are some things that are already pre-packaged into saran-wrapped styrofoam trays if you're in a hurry, but hard to gauge the quality of the items in the packaging.

What was odd at this particular produce area is that I couldn't find any onions.  None.  Hmmm....  This required me attempting to communicate with the produce lady, who already seemed disinclined to help me since I clearly didn't know the applicable produce rules.  But I tried all sorts of things, including acting like I was crying, to try to get through that I needed onions.  Nope.  No deal.  I ended up having to go to TSUM and paying something ridiculous like $5 for two small onions.  Seriously?

About a week after this, the same colleague who had purchased the overpriced bacon mentioned that there was an old school grocery store a few blocks up the street.  Hmmm....  So I checked it out.  That would be the place pictured in the photo above.  It is just gorgeous.  Crazy high ceilings, stained glasswork (like Tiffany rather than like a church) towards the top, gigantic chandeliers, a large oval area in the center for meats and cheeses (like produce, there isn't self-selection here - all custom-cut for your needs) and an odd little nook where they have alcohol and souvenirs, which I guess somehow are supposed to go together?  It's still a bit overpriced compared to the place without onions, but it's better than TSUM, has a pretty good selection, and it's only about a seven minute walk from home.

One side of the vodka aisle

There is, however, one really large supermarket.  American-style, I might say.  It's called Karusel (or something like that) and is connected to a rather nice mall called Metropolis.  It has a lot of personal care products that I recognize (although no Elmex toothpaste, I'm sad to say) as well as home cleaning products that I also recognized.  I was reminded that I was still in Moscow, though, when I came across a long aisle that was nothing but vodka on both sides (well, and one small section for energy drinks).  I guess this is perhaps like the equivalent of the Diet Coke aisle of the same length that we'd have in any US supermarket....  

9 July 2012 - At "Home"

Oxley and the beautiful floor

["Home" by Michael Buble - yes, again]

So I had seen selective photos of my new residence on the internet before I selected it (sight otherwise unseen), but photos and reality are, as always, not necessarily the same.  You can be assured that the doors that I featured in the prior post were not included in the photos - don't want to scare off people thinking they need that much padded cell security and all....

The apartment is a one-bedroom apartment and relatively spacious by European standards.  My favorite feature is the beautiful floors as shown in the photo (with modeling by Oxley).  Quite nice.  When I first moved in, there was a long (and quite hideous) runner in the foyer and hallway made out of some synthetic plastic-like fiber.  Not so nice.  But there was a nice, thick rug in the living room and another one in the bedroom.  Added quite a nice, warm touch to the place.

The bed is, unfortunately, not at all comfortable.  It is a platform type of bed, no box springs, and I still wake up most mornings with a sore back/body.  There is a flat sheet on the mattress rather than a fitted sheet, so most mornings I also wake up to the sight of the striped mattress peeking through at the edges where the sheet has pulled away.  There is one not-down-filled duvet available.  It is an oblong shape, so it can either fit across the bed, but not high enough to cover your feet and your shoulders (and I'm short!), or you can place it the other way, but then it wouldn't be wide enough to cover the entire width of the bed.  Not so nice, though I guess it's a good thing I don't have to share the bed with anyone!  Pillows are flat and uncomfortable, naturally.  Topping all of this is a groovy washed out looking crushed satin bedspread. Fabulous.

There is, surprisingly, a relatively large armoire/closet cabinet in the bedroom.  There's also an old-school TV that I haven't been able to figure out how to turn on either directly or through the remote.  And a desk that is small enough to be nearly suitable for a child with a rickety chair that would seem able to bear only the weight of said child.

Note positioning of shower head

The bathroom is a bit fascinating.  When I arrived, I was impressed by the thick comfy rugs on the floor as well as by the fact that the bathtub also included water jets for the Jacuzzi effect.  However, it is situated rather oddly, as I have tried to show in the photo.  It takes up about 75% of the end of the room, which required the use of a shower rod that goes from one end of the room to the other, but then leaves the back of the shower open without a shower curtain.  This wouldn't be an issue if the shower head were located at the front of the tub as one would expect.  Instead, the shower head is perched about 1/3 of the way down the tub and is on the back wall.   So you can either stand directly in front of the shower, giving you all of one foot or so of space and the shower curtain touching you on the back side (I HATE that!) or stand in the tiny 1/3 corner (also with shower curtain likely touching you) or stand in the 2/3 section with water spraying out the open end of the tub.  Classy.

One of the surprising things I discovered on my first morning is that, while this is a serviced apartment and can be rented by the day or by the month, there was only a bar of soap.  No shower gel, no shampoo, nothing.  I hadn't thought to bring anything from Frankfurt as I had assumed that the basis would be here.  So this required several forays out into shops in the area, in a not-so-clean/tidy state, to try and find some shower gel and shampoo (finally found something at Yves Rocher, where I had a chance of reading the French labels as there was no way I could figure out the Russian labels!).

The bathroom also hosts the washing machine.  As many who have lived in Europe will recognize, it also has a drying feature, though it really just kind of leaves clothes in a steaming pile rather than truly drying them.  So I've learned to use the drying rack I found in a closet and build in time for drying into my laundry routine.  But I have no idea what I would've done if there wasn't a washer in the unit, so I am pleased to have it.

The kitchen is relatively pleasant.  It is full of fine German appliances (Bosch and Miele) which immediately made me feel better.  Obviously, the addition of the Nespresso machine that I moved with me from Germany added immediate comfort and charm to the room.  Several deficiencies remain, however.  Recall that I would be living here for months on end and I do need to eat and I also like to cook.  A brief sampling of the issues:

• Knives that are more dull than I can begin to tell you.  I couldn't cut bread, let alone dice vegetables like tomatoes.  I couldn't figure out where to buy a knife sharpener for several weeks, which was problematic.  Smashed tomatoes, anyone?  (Hand shredding of tomatoes doesn't work well, either.)  I eventually found an affordable sharpener that gets you up to the level of sawing at vegetables.  Delightful.
• No spices or cooking oil.  I need to do a separate entry on foraging for food, but suffice to say that it is difficult to read spices in Russian and they generally don't have pictures on the packaging, so not as comparatively easy as many other food items.
• No measuring cups or spoons.
• No wooden spoon.
• No vegetable peeler.
• Just forget about there being a pizza cutter.

The other thing that I realized within a short time after arriving (again, this was in the middle of winter when it was ridiculously cold outside, even to a proud and properly winterized Midwestern farm grill) was that it was really hot in the apartment.  There was no central thermostat and there were no adjustable valves on the radiators that would allow me to staunch the flow of the wasted heat.  The only thing I could figure out to regulate the heat was to open the winters, which of course could only last for a few minutes before it was like being in the arctic.  And don't think I didn't ponder seeing whether the air conditioning units outside would function in the cold weather, being the creature-comfort-seeking American that I am.  It turns out that the window method is the method used.  The heat, going back to the good ol' days of the Soviet Union, are on for the entire building/area for a specified period of months.  No variation.  You will have much heat and you will enjoy it.  I guess better than the alternative of having no heat but it made for many nights of tossing and turning trying to figure out how to get a relatively stable temperature that was suitable to allow one to sleep for multiple hours.

After I had moved in, there were a few minor changes.  First, after the second day of servicing of the apartment, the rugs in the foyer, living room and bathroom were suddenly gone.  I found them rolled up in various closets and corners.  Hmmm....  Did the Lads do something while I was gone?  Not clear.  But the rug under the bed remained until sometime in May when, suddenly, it, too, was rolled up.  Very odd.

Additionally, while I never really use the phone, a couple of months into the experience, it was suddenly replaced with a newer looking phone.  Okay.  There was one point in time, though, when I had need of this phone (namely, that I had become separated from my BlackBerry for reasons we needn't go into here) as I needed to dial into a conference call.  No problem - there was a local dial-in number.  Except I couldn't dial in on this new phone because it is a PULSE DIALING PHONE!  Not joking.  I could dial the number, but then couldn't enter the pass code.  Seriously?!  Do they even make these anymore?  I kept looking around the base of the phone and the handset looking for a small switch that would move it from pulse to touch tone dialing, but no luck.  So instead I had to use Skype on my iPhone (there is WiFi in the apartment, I should note, but it doesn't really work in the kitchen) to dial into this call.  Not pleased....

Oh.  And the apartment came with one pair of slippers and a shoe care kit.  But, several months later, the slippers have yet to be replaced.  Lucky for me, I tend to visit hotels and have brought back some backups.

8 July 2012 - Approaching "Home"

["Home" by Michael Buble]

There did eventually come a time when, much to my chagrin, I had to move out of the Swissotel and start living on my own without all the careful tending and nurturing of their wonderful Executive Lounge staff.  The firm had arranged for a furnished, serviced apartment for the remainder of my stay here.   They provided links to three places on the Internet from which I could choose.  Two of them had dingy kitchens with a tiny eat-in mini-table whereas the third had something that looked like a real kitchen and a table that might seat four.  The third one also was a tad shorter in terms of commute to the office.  None were available for viewing as people were inhabiting them at the time, so I selected the third place, sight unseen.

The day that I truly moved to Moscow started off not very well.  I was flying on Aeroflot, not Lufthansa, so that will give you a taste of my feelings and discomfort.  And Aeroflot is out of Terminal 2, which I think I had only experienced once in my entire time living in Germany.  It's where, well, the "lesser" airlines travel.  You know, like Delta.  :-)

Anyway, I discovered that it is relatively quick to get through passport control etc. and I was ensconced in the rather odd lounge that was accessible with my Priority Plus card - a lounge that appeared to be primarily for Korean Air (but honestly I would have expected something more posh from them) and anyone else who had the misfortunate of flying out of Terminal 2.  (Which is to say, there wasn't even cheap sparkling wine available and pre-packaged types of food - though admittedly this was before I had experienced the truly ghetto lounge experience of the Amber Lounge at Sheremetyevo Airport (SVO for those trying to avoid that airport.))   Oddly, though, while you clear passport control, you don't clear security until you're at a set of gates.  But as I walked to the lounge, the lines seemed pretty short, so no big deal.

Around 10 minutes prior to boarding, I made my way back to the security line for my gate area.  The line, while not long, took FOREVER.  First, they were letting people go ahead of us who were late for a British Airways flight.  Then, in the midst of that, they closed one of the security lanes because it was apparently break time.  Nice....  More people into our line.  I was actually cutting it quite short on time when I finally made it through and headed to the gate.  The monitor in the lounge had said that I'd be flight out of gate 21 and there weren't overhead monitors directly overhead when departing security, so I was peering into the gate 21 area, but not seeing many people.  As I turned to walk out, I was stopped by a security team which said they needed to block off my gate area for security purposes and that I would not be allowed to leave.  "Um, but my flight isn't leaving out of this gate it seems and I need to find it."  Sorry.

I was NOT pleased.  Nor was I at a place where I could figure out which gate my flight was actually leaving from and how far away it might be, but it clearly wouldn't be from gate 21.  As we were sitting there and departure time was getting closer, I had to admit I was getting a bit frantic.  I called my assistant, Sanja, to see if she could check and see if there was information online about the departure gate.  Nope.  And it occurred to me that, since the flight had been booked by our Russian firm, that I had NO IDEA who I should call to rebook if I missed the flight and how this would all work out, particularly since this was a holiday in Russia.  As I was starting to freak out (a bit more) about not being able to leave on my final departure date (ironic, no?), I saw out on the tarmac an aircraft with the Aeroflot colors and people boarding it.  Ruh roh!  And behold there was more freaking out.

Then security came around and asked us to all please move behind the wall on the other side "for our own safety."  I'm thinking, "What, you actually found a bomb and it might go off?!"  But of course you can't voice such concerns in an airport these days.  But we dutifully went around the corner and into theoretical safety.  About 10 minutes later they FINALLY let us go.  I rushed out and it turns out that the gate for Aeroflot was next door, separated only by an impermeable glass wall.  Doh!  So I ran in, thinking it was already gone.  "Frau Priser?"  Yep.  Miraculously, there was another bus, which left with two of us on it who had been stuck in the secured area.  Suffice it to say, though, this was not what I had in mind for a nice, leisurely, controlled move to Russia.  Then again, "nice, leisurely and controlled" are not words that I suppose one frequently associates with Russia - okay, perhaps "controlled" in a different manner, but you know what I mean....

The rest of the trip was quite uneventful.  All of my six bags arrived, I was able to fit them on one luggage cart and (shocking to me) the piled-high cart did not cause the customs guys to pull me over as I had assumed was a no-brainer with that much stuff.  So I cruised through, the driver was waiting, all my bags fit into his small-seeming car and we were off.

The driver had the address and seemed to know where we were going.  Since I hadn't seen the place other than in pictures, I had no idea of what it looked like on the outside, only that it was about two blocks from Red Square.   We pulled up into some kind of courtyard and the driver spoke with some kind of security person who finally let us into a sort of courtyard which, well - how do I put this nicely - seemed very ghetto as we searched for the entrance/door to my apartment. See photo at left.

Home?  Seriously?

I kept thinking, "This is a corporate apartment.  Surely this isn't right...."  But the driver insisted it was.  The person from the corporate apartment company was supposed to meet us at the building, but there was no one in sight, which made me keep believing that something was horribly wrong and we were not in the right place.  I begged the driver to please stay with me, rather than leaving me and my six suitcases in the middle of this ghetto.  He did, thank goodness.  And the woman from the corporate apartment company showed up.  And opened the door pictured to the right.  And yes, that IS real simulated woodgrain vinyl.  

I didn't cry at this point in time.  That urge hit me as we entered the building and I was assaulted by the scent of what I can charitably describe as that of the subway.  You know what I mean....  Quite unpleasant.    Repeat, "This is a corporate apartment.  Surely this isn't right...."

What I learned later is that when the soviet times ended, people ended up owning their own apartments, but no one owned the common areas.  So no one cared. This tradition appears to continue.  I really don't understand it.  I mean, when your guests come, do you want them to smell subway in your building?  Seriously?  Do you want them to see the grimy stairs, the afghan that serves as a rug at the bottom of the entry well, the graffiti in the elevator that is only large enough for may be two people (assuming you are not freaked out enough by it to decline to enter, that is)?

So we schlepped my bags into the rickety elevator and onto my floor.  And any way you go, you will have to transport yourself and your stuff either up or down one flight of stairs to get from the elevator to the entrance of your fine dwelling.  The door to my unit turned out to be, well, padded with vinyl.  Brown vinyl on the outside, off-white (or dirty white?) on the interior.  With two sets of locks, a strange knob in the middle of the door.  It was unclear whether I was being committed with the padded aspect and the very, um, secure feel of it all.  But nevertheless, there I was.  In my new "home" at last.....