Living the High Life in Russia

Moscow, November 2003

Cast
Gennady, Honored Scientist of the Russian Federation and our host in Moscow
Tatiana, Gennady's ex-wife and organizer of our cultural excursions
David, our fearless Alaskan leader
Bob, a fellow Boulderite along for the ride
Narrator, your intrepid guide
Day 1 - Saturday

I boarded my flight to Moscow for what was going to be long week of work with some Russian and American scientiests.  As I settled in, instead of thinking about work, I mused about what kind of souvenirs I might be able to find - Russian hockey jerseys?  Old Soviet paraphernalia?  One of those Russian fur hats?  Just what does one get as a souvenir in Russia?  As I sat there thinking, I became aware of several conversations going on around me.  They all began with something like "Oh, you're going over to Russia to adopt a child too?!"  Within a few rows of me, half a dozen couples were going to Russia to get a kid.  So, it occurred to me that the most popular Russian souvenirs for Americans are babies!

Of course, these couples were quite excited to soon be welcoming new additions to their families.  So excited that conversations went on well across the Atlantic, which rather cut into my planned sleeping time.

In my mind, Moscow was a strange, foreign place, much more so than a typical European city.  To use a metaphore I just thought up, I imagined Moscow to be behind an iron curtain, unknowable to Western eyes.  As I came off the plane to go through customs, there was a TV overhead.  I looked and saw MTV - playing music videos.  Russian MTV actually plays music videos?!  What a strange and wonderous country this is!

One of the reasons Moscow was imagined by me to be so foreign, is the language.  Not only is it a foreign language, but it's a foreign alphabet.  Russia uses the Cyrillic alphabet, which can make words look competely unintelligible.  Unlike other languages that use the Roman alphabet where you can at least sound out words and sometimes even make a guess at the meaning if it's close to English, nothing in Russian looks the least bit familiar.  Until you learn the Cyrillic alphabet.  At first this seemed rather daunting.  However, once I figured a few things out, it was quite easy.

While there are some confusing characters (look the same as Roman characters but have a different sound) and some totally unique characters, several letters correspond directly with the same letters in the Roman alphabet.  Also, Cyrillic is derived from Greek, so several letters are the same or nearly the same as letters in the Greek alphabet.  Since I've had advanced math and science classes that make generous use of Greek letters, it wasn't hard for me to figure those out (finally a use for all those calculus and physics classes!).

As you can see, I was quite excited about figuring this out.  It was like a secret code I had solved.   I passed much of my time walking or riding around Moscow reading signs and transliterating them.  Such transliteration is essential to riding the Metro (the subway) as figuring out stops by just reading cyrillic characters is nearly impossible.  But otherwise, it was mostly for entertainment value.  

Gennady and a driver picked David and I up at the airport and drove us to the hotel.  During the drive from the airport, I discovered the first notable difference from America (besides the MTV format):  traffic laws.  Namely, that in Moscow there don't appear to be any.  People cut in and out of lanes, create their own lanes, jump into traffic, etc.  It was quite harrowing when riding with a professional driver as we did from the airport.  When driving with Gennady later in the week, it was quite terrifying.  Remarkably though, the crazy driving does seem to work.  There is a sort of a organized chaos that might even be more efficient than our quaint American system of "traffic laws".

The first order of business was checking into our hotel rooms.  I'm generally used to getting rather poor hotel rooms, at least in terms of location.  Either the hotel is far away from anything interesting, or if it's near an interesting or scenic locale, my room looks over the parking lot of that interesting or scenic locale.  However, this time I hit the jackpot.  My room overlooked the Kremlin and St. Basil's Cathedral.  If you were to buy one postcard from Moscow, the postcard to get would be the same as my view from my hotel room.

I stayed at the Hotel Rossiya.  Besides being in a nice location, it's also notable for once being the largest hotel in the world; it's still among the largest and may be the most massive looking hotel.  It has over 1000 rooms in a building of only 10 floors.  It takes up a huge city block.  I think you could run a 10K around it's floors and never retrace your steps.

After settling into the hotel I was told that we would take a walking tour of the area.  I was rather tired from the flight (not having slept much due to all the baby discussions), but figured a walk would be nice and, at 1 pm Moscow time, help fight the urge I had to sleep.  Our first stop was in Red Square.  Like many misnamed locales around the world, if you were looking for a red-colored square-shaped area, you'd be disappointed.  Red Square is neither red (it's a dark grey) nor square (it's more of a rhombus).  So it's not really Red Square, it's "Red Square".  I learned that the story behind this is that in Russian, the word for 'red', originally meant 'beautiful', so it's really named "Beautiful Square"; contrary to common perception it does not come from the red of communism.

In America, such a historic site would have a big shopping area right next to it.  "Red Square" was actually closed, so we had to detour next to it through....a shopping mall.  And a quite fashionable one at that (the Russian are learning quickly from we Americans!).  On the other side of "Red Square", we went into another mall and decided to get some lunch.

This past summer my friend Dave and I went to New York City.  Late Saturday night in Times Square (which, by the way, also isn't square-shaped), we wanted to get something quick and cheap to eat, but distinctly New York - like pizza.  After considerable time wandering around Times Square, we finally found what we were looking for - well, not exactly.  It was an "Sbarros" pizza chain.  Here in Moscow, preparing for my first meal, I was expecting a traditional Russian lunch.  So we went to...the "Red Square" Sbarros!

Next, it was on to the Cathedral of Christ the Savior.  One thing about Moscow - for a city that banned religion for 80 years, there sure are a heck of a lot of churches!  The most famous is St. Basil's, right off of Red Square (and right outside my hotel window), with its multi-colored onion-shaped turrets.  The largest however is Christ the Savior.  It's a very impressive structure, with tall turrets, nice stone work, intricate sculptures around the outside, and beautiful paintings and icons inside.  It's the kind of churches you expect to see in old European cities, the kind of churches they just don't build anymore - except in Moscow.

The original church was built in the mid-1800s to celebrate the defeat of Napoleon.  However, under Stalin, many churches were destroyed, among them Christ the Savior.  (Many churches were spared - including St. Basil's after a public uproar - but were converted to museums or other uses).  He had it torn down so they could build a 1000 foot tall skyscraper (it might've been the tallest in the world at the time), topped with a 300 foot statue of Lenin.  However, they never got farther than digging the foundation.  So, what do you do with the big hole in the ground?  You can't blame the communists for not being resourceful - they made the hole into the world's largest swimming pool!  After the fall of communism, with the help of wealthy benefactors, the church was completely rebuilt in 1995-1997 at a cost of over $300 million.  This was one example of many around Moscow where Russian heritage destroyed by communism is now being recaptured.

Next it was onto Tatiana's (Gennady's ex-wife) apartment for dinner.  Tatiana is an executive in an exclusive hair salon, a very profitable business apparently.  Her apartment is in a upscale section of town and very nicely furnished.  She made us a very nice, typical Russian meal.  This consists of several courses, primarily centered around cold fish.  This comes in various forms - white, red (like salmon), and egg (i.e., caviar).  I have to say by the end of the trip, I really became a cold fish when it came to eating cold fish.  And of course, the staple is Russian bread.  This is hearty, dark rye with a slightly sweet taste.  It takes a little getting used to, but was quite good (especially compared to the cold fish!).  It's common to spead the caviar on the bread.  There are several different qualities of caviar actually.  The best is the black beluga caviar with very small eggs.  The cheaper stuff is pinkish and the eggs are much larger.  In any event, spreading it on my spread, it seemed rather like jelly.  Except it's saltier.  And it tastes like fish.  (Aside:  do vegetarian pro-lifers debate with vegatarian pro-choicers about whether it's okay to eat caviar?)

After the meal, we went out on, what was to be called throughout the week, a "cultural excursion".  On this night, it involved a chamber music concert.  A nice duet of piano and cello.  Very soothing, relaxing.  The kind of music that lulls you into a nice relaxed state of mind.  That's if you're reasonably alert to start with.  But not when you've just flown halfway around the world, then walked around town for a couple hours, then filled up on a nice meal.  After 48 hours with only 3 hours sleep, such music can come dangerously close to putting you into a catatonic state.  And of course, we were sitting way up in front.  Instead of concentrating on the music so much, I was focusing all my energy on keeping my eyes open, keeping my head up, keeping myself from falling out of the chair.

Day 2 - Sunday

The next day, Sunday, Bob was arriving in the evening.  David, Gennady, and I went on another excursion during the day.  First we passed the new Peter the Great statue along the Moscow River.  Peter was the first great Russian Tsar (hence, the 'Great' nickname) and freed the Russian people from the Mongols.  Imagine the Statue of Liberty.  Except it's a guy.  And he's holding a sword instead of a torch.  And he's standing on a ship.  But otherwise, exactly the same as the Statue of Liberty.   (By the way it's not just Peter who has a descriptive modifier.  Many of the Russian Tsars have adjectives attached:  Ivan the Great, Catherine the Great, Ivan the Terrible.  And they are all superlatives.  What, no Tsar Biff the Mediocre?).

Then we went to Moscow Lomonosov University.  For the most part, the university consists of one building.   So, you're thinking this is a rather small school.  Wrong.  It has 20,000 students, all of whom live and go to class in this one building.   It's a massive building.  It is one of seven large "skyscrapers" that Stalin built.  These are not "skyscrapers" in the American sense, they're not nearly as tall - only 30-40 stories, but they are massive, sprawling buildings.  It was quickly apparent that size definitely mattered to the communists.  After leaving the university, we drove past several new and very  apartment hi-rises and condo complexes that were being built.  It looked much like you see in the suburbs of large American cities - not at all like what I would've envisioned in Russia.

Next, we went to Victory Park, which commemorates World War II (or as the Russians call it, 'The Great Patriotic War').  This a big complex, consisting of nice parkland, churches of several religions (Islamic mosques, Jewish synagogues, Eastern Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant churches).  There are also several sculptures including a huge obelisk behind a statue of a Russian slaying and slicing up a Nazi eagle.  Which seemed a little odd to me.  American memorials tend to be solemn, memorializing and remembering the sacrifice of the fallen.  However, this sculpture seemed to be a bit taunting, rubbing it in to the Nazis - "in your face Hitler!"  (not that they didn't deserve it); it was a memorial that Deion Sanders would've designed.  The centerpiece of the park is a war museum and archive.  The museum was quite impressive, with dioramas of important battle scenes in addition to the standard memorabilia.  There was also poignant sections signifying the sacrifice of the Russian people.

As an American, I've tended to have a bit of a myopic view of WWII, seeing the war in terms of America riding in on a white horse and saving Europe from the scourge of Nazism.  While this may be true to some extent, this museum lends some perspective by highlighting the Russian contributions to the war.  About 400,000 Americans were killed in the war; over 20,000,000 Russians died.  While the Allies swept in from the West, it was the Russian stand against the Nazis in the East, at tremendous cost, that diverted precious Nazi resources from the defense of the West, and was likely crucial to the Allied victory.  Since Russia (aka the Soviet Union) was America's sworn enemy for 50 years, this crucial contribution has often been overlooked in America.  Of course, the Soviet regime leaders were no saints - several million Russians (and other peoples of the Soviet Union) were killed by Stalin himself before and after the war; and then there was the little issue of thousands of nuclear warheads pointed at us.

The Russians have an odd but effective defense strategy - retreat slowly while destroying resources and wait for the harsh winter.  This is obviously a costly strategy, but it worked, not only against the Nazis but also against Napoleon in the 19th century (only 1 in 20 of Napoleon's army that invaded Russia made it out of the country alive).  Of course, we Americans figured out a way to overcome such a defense strategy - why waste time trekking over the Russian steppes when you can nuke them out of existence from 30,000 feet in the air.  Maybe that's why the Soviets were so edgy in the latter half of the 20th century?

After the war tour, it was back to Tatiana's, where we enjoyed another fine meal and another concert.  During my first two days, I had seen some beautiful architecture, expensive new apartments and condominiums, nice parks, museums and concert halls.  This was not what I expected.  Wasn't Russia a relatively poor country?  There were none of the old, dilapidated, run down buildings I would've expected.  Could capitalism have turned things around so quickly?  Or maybe Communism wasn't so bad - maybe we were being fed propaganda about the superiority of a capitalist democracy?!  And then....

Day 3 - Monday

And then, we went to work Monday morning at the Russian Academy of Sciences.  'Shocking' is the only word that I can think of to describe this building.  Dark, dank, dirty, disgusting.  Electronics from the 1950s, half the lights were out, there was no heat (space heaters were used for individual offices), the floor was grimy and falling apart.  The bathrooms, well, I don't even want to go there.  Though I can't say I have personal experience, I can't imagine crack houses in inner city Detroit could be much worse.  Nonetheless, we were to be spending all week in this place working hard, so despite the conditions, we got right down to it.  Well, right after Gennady showed us his photo with Russian President Putin congratulating him on being designated an "Honored Scientist of the Russian Federation".  Oh, and also after some tea and discussions on the week's upcoming cultural excursions.

In the evening, we (you may start to sense a pattern here) went to another concert - because Bob, who had arrived late the night before hadn't yet been to a Russian concert.  But for me it was the third classical music concert in three nights.  This may have been the most concentrated dose of culture I've ever received (unless you count that Simpsons marathon I watched when I had the flu a few years ago).   This was yet another chamber music concert (piano, violin, cello).  I was getting over my jetlag, but music was just as mellow and the seats were much more comfortable, so I found it just as hard to stay awake.

Day 4 - Tuesday

The next day it was back to work.  A long hard day's work.  Well, from 10 am until 2 pm (minus an hour for lunch), when we headed to the Kremlin for our tour.  To the American imagination, the Kremlin is the headquarters of the communist, anti-American malfeasance.  However, the Kremlin is the original fortified city of Moscow and has since been expanded many times with new buildings added.  For many years, it served as the home of the Tsars (until Peter the Great moved the capital to St. Petersburg in 1703).  Much of the Kremlin consists of beautifully ornate churches.  There are a half dozen or so of them.  Why did they need so many churches?  Well, you need a church for the Tsar to be baptised in.  Then you need one to be married in, then one to be crowned in, and finally one to be buried in.  And of course, you can't use the same church twice - how would that look?!  The Tsars could, in theory, live their entire lives performing all the requisite ceremonial duties, without ever leaving the Kremlin.

It's actually quite amazing that the churches survived Communism, but you can see why - they are amazing pieces of architecture on the outside and inside they are quite stunning.  In contrast to the starkness of Western churches (often with little decoration beyond the architecture itself and the stained-glass windows), these churches are painted throughout - the walls, the ceilings, the pillars, the altar.  While the Kremlin churches weren't destroyed, they were converted under Communism to museums and other uses.  This may seem sacreligious, but Napoleon did even worse:  when he briefly occupied the Kremlin, he used one of the churches as a stable!

The Kremlin not only houses churches though.  It also contains several official government buildings, including the Great Palace.  This was the building Tsars lived in until the move to St. Petersburg.   Nowadays, the palace is considered an "official residence of the President".  This doesn't mean the President actually lives there, but rather it's a place where he hosts official functions, such as receptions for foreign leaders, state dinners, etc.  It's basically equivalent to the White House without the West Wing and the living quarters.

Now the palace, like many areas of the Kremlin, is not open to the public.  There are no tours and it's harder to get into than Studio 54 in 1978.  Unless you happen to have a connection, such as knowing an "Honored Scientist of the Russian Federation".  And, how about that - we did!  So, Bob, David and I, along with Gennady, Tatiana, and four of Gennady's post docs got a very exclusive tour.  I said above that it's equivalent of the White House.  That's not accurate.  Compared to the palace, the White House is a rundown shack.  The palace is opulent - sparkling marble floors, vaulted ceilings, diamond chandeliers, exquisite paintings.  Definitely the highlight of the week.   

Now Gennady, and especially Tatiana, had been most gracious hosts - escorting us around, taking us to concerts (which they paid for), etc.  Bob, David and I had discussed getting them a nice gift or something to show our appreciation.  As we were leaving the Kremlin, David suggested that the three of us were going to take the group out for dinner.  This sounded great to me.  While I had enjoyed Russia so far, the only meal in a Russian restaurant so far, was Sbarros.  So, I was looking forward to a memorable Russian meal.  Gennady and Tatiana graciously accepted our offer.  And I think the post docs were quite happy as well.  Being a post doc does not pay well (even less than in the U.S.!), so as with American post docs, free food is something never to be turned down.

Why are Gennady's students paid so poorly?  When communism fell, it was decided that Russia would become a capitalist country virtually overnight.  This caused considerable chaos.  For some time, the mafia was basically in charge because they controlled the black market - the only real market.  In the end, things settled out.  But people who were able to buy formerly state-run businesses cheaply, i.e. those who were lucky or had connections, made out very well.  Those who didn't have connections, didn't make out so well.  Unfortunately, those who remained working for the government, such as scientists, came out particularly poorly and that has continued into the present day.  Private sector employees typically make 30 times government employees.  I was told that these post docs of Gennady's, despite their obvious talent, dedication and hard work, would be lucky to make $800 in a year.  (The public vs. private discrepancy is also evidenced by the contrast of the new developments with the Academy building where we were working).

So, off we went, the nine of us, to a restaurant.  Of course David, Bob and I didn't know the city.  Therefore, we let Tatiana pick out the restaurant.  This may have been a mistake.  See, Tatiana, as I indicated above, is one of the ones that made out well since the fall of communism.  She has come to enjoy the finer things in life - including fine dining.  She chose a chic French/Vietnamese restaurant - so much for a memorable Russian meal, I thought.  Initially, it looked quite expensive, but though there were some pricy meals, most were in the $15-$20 range.  Now, David, Bob and I were essentially going to be paying for three meals each (splitting the bill for nine three ways), which was to make for a fairly expensive meal, but spending ~$100 (as I estimated) was a good deal considering how well we had been hosted.

Then David suggested an appetizer.  Of course, David didn't speak Russian, so he deferred to Tatiana.  I don't speak Russian either so I don't know what Tatiana said to the waiter, but what came out was:  two orders each of 1) slices of prime rib, 2) shrimp salad, 3) foie gras (goose liver pate), 4) salmon, 5) beluga caviar.  Now, everyone was having a good time and not thinking about the cost, at least most of us weren't.  The students were in a bit of shock - just their meals alone, were a significant chunk of their monthly salary!  I think they felt rather guilty, but David assured them it was okay and we were happy to take them out to a nice meal.  Then the bill came.  "800" David said across the table.  800 rubles?!  That can't be right, that's only about $30, do you mean 8000 rubles?  "No, no.  800 -  dollars."  800 DOLLARS?!?!  We had just spent one of the post doc's annual salary on one meal!  So I got my wish - this was indeed a memorable Russian meal!

Day 5 - Wednesday

After waking up in the middle of the night, I started thinking about the extravagant meal we had enjoyed, especially in comparison to the post docs' meager income.  I wondered if maybe we could remove such gross income disparity.  I started to formulate a better system.  We could pay each person according to their abilities and provide for each person according to their needs - a communal system where everyone could be equal and share in everything!  Of course, though all people would be equal, some of us would be more equal than the rest.

The next morning I had some time to myself, so I decided to say hello to Lenin.  Lenin of course died in 1925, so he couldn't say hello back, but you can still go see him.  Lenin wished to have his body cremated after his death and his ashes scattered on his mother's grave.  But of course, once you're dead you don't have much say in the matter anymore.  Stalin recognized that Lenin was a secular icon of communism that the Russian people could worship. So Stalin decreed that Lenin's body would be preserved for eternity.  Now, unfortunately there were not any ancient Egyptians around, so no one knew how to go about preserving a dead body for eternity.  Stalin set a team of scientists to figure it out.  Of course, this was a high pressure assignment because as they were trying to find a method to preserve Lenin, he was quickly decaying; and failure would not be well received by Stalin.  I'm sure the scientists were well aware of the many "failures" living in Siberian gulags.  Fortunately for the scientists, they did succeed and Lenin was put on display in the middle of Red Square.  When communism fell, it seemed rather pointless to keep Lenin, so Yeltsin suggested following Lenin's original wishes and cremating him.  However, the public raised a ruckus at this suggestion.  Some protested out of lingering loyalty, some out of nostalgia, but most were worried about the tourist dollars that could be lost.

So, I went to see Lenin.  It's actually free and after dinner the previous night, it was rather nice to do something cheap.  It was a bit of a letdown though.  You stand in line for a while and then go in and quickly walk by the body.  The upkeep of the body, as I understand it, basically involves waxing Lenin down every 6 months or so (hey, how do I get that job - I want to be a "Lenin waxer"!).  The result is something that looks exactly like what you'd expect in Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum.  But I can say I saw Lenin.  And I stood in a Russian line.  This seems rather mundane, but it's not.  What is the shape of a Russian line?  A wedge!  I discovered that Russians tend to ignore queues and just shove in from all sides.  We encountered this numerous times and even cut in line (led by Tatiana) a few times ourselves.

After a couple more hours of work, we headed back to the Kremlin.  One of the main Kremlin sights is called the "Palace Museum", or as it might more appropriately be called:  "The Museum of Reasons for the Revolution".  It is a collection of the Tsars' jewels, gold, robes, carriages, and other treasures collected over the years.  The signature items are several Faberge eggs, bejeweled eggs with more ornate jewels inside, designed for the Tsars as birthday gifts.  You may remember them from the James Bond movie "Octopussy".  All these opulent riches were accumulated while the peasants struggled for survival in the fields.  If the peasants had been able to visit this museum, I can guarantee the revolution would've occurred many years before it actually did in 1917.  

Day 6 - Thursday

As you can tell, our work schedule had been cut into somewhat by all our excursions.  So, Thursday was get back to work day!  Or not.  Earlier in the week David had idly mentioned an interest in going to the Pushkin Museum, which is Moscow's big art museum.  I don't think David cared a whole lot one way or the other as he had already been there on previous visits, but Gennady insisted that Thursday morning we must go to the museum.  So off we went.  We got there before it opened and were first in line.  Well, first in line until a couple groups of school kids showed up and the Russian line, or wedge, formed up.  After racing the kids into the museum to buy tickets, we spent a couple hours to wander the museum.  Along with some nice impressionist paintings, the Pushkin is most well known for its large collection of sculptures, particularly Greek and Roman.  However, many of these sculptures are actually reproductions, not the originals, which was a bit disappointing.  To my surpise though, they have copies of the Elgin marbles.  These are the sculptures that were taken from the Acropolis by Lord Elgin for the British.  The Greeks would naturally like them back, but the Brits have said no so far.  Most of the Elgin marbles are in the British Museum, but some are in the Louvre and in Copenhagen's museum.  I have been to all three museums, so I've seen my share of Elgin marbles.  Needless to say it wasn't really necessary to see the Elgins again, especially mere reproductions, but it was oddly quite enjoyable - like reconnecting with an old friend.  It's getting to be a tradition that every time I go to Europe I see some Elgin marbles.

We did do some work the rest of the day, but we had big plans for the evening - the Bolshoi Ballet.  This is one of the world's most famous ballets.  Now I am not a ballet aficionado or even an amateur follower.  In fact, this was my first ballet since like 4th grade when I went to The Nutcracker.  So, really, the ballet is a bit lost on me.  Not that I can't see the obvious skill, athleticism, and artistry that goes into ballet, it's just that I don't know enough about it to truly appreciate it.  Nonetheless, I was quite looking forward to attending one of the signature cultural events in Moscow - you don't pass up such chances.  It's like having an opportunity to attend a game at Wrigley Field and not going because you're not a baseball fan.  You don't go for the baseball, you go to participate in one of America's great cultural experiences.  (I won't comment on the relative merits of Russian vs. American cultural experiences signified by these two events).

Not only did we have tickets to the Bolshoi, we had great seats - 3rd row.  You know how ballet dancers wear very tight costumes?  Well, let's just say that from the 3rd row, these costumes leave very little to the imagination.  The story was from a medievil tale about a beautiful European couple who are in love.  He must go off to fight the evil Muslims in the Crusades.  While he is away, one of the evil Muslim guys comes and tries to steal the girl.  But then the guy comes back and kills the nasty Muslim and the lovely fair-skinned couple are reunited and everyone is happy (except for the Muslim who apparently committed the crime of falling in love with the wrong person).  You can see that the story is not at all dated or politically incorrect!

However, by and large, the story was just an excuse for them to dance.  By the third act, they dropped all pretense of a story and just danced.  For some odd reason it reminded me a lot of a Quentin Tarantino movie, especially "Kill Bill".  The story in the ballet was just an excuse to have people dance around.  In "Kill Bill", the story is just an excuse to have well-choreographed, ballet-like, sword fights.  "Kill Bill" is a bit more bloody though.

During the first intermission, we went out into the lobby where refreshments were available.  Apparently, it is a tradition to drink champagne during the intermission.  So, of course, we followed suit.  And since Tatiana had been so nice to us all week and had bought the tickets to the ballet, David, Bob and I of course insisted on buying champagne for her and Gennady.  Now, for some reason, we again let Tatiana pick out the champagne.  She chose the $30/glass variety.  Of course, the intermissions are fairly short and we had spent some time mingling and waiting in line before finally getting our champagne.  Immediately afterward, they starting ringing the bell indicating that the second act was going to start momentarily.  So, to get back in time, we chugged our $30 glasses of champagne.  Not being a connoisseur of champagne, I couldn't say that it tasted any better than a $10 bottle of champagne, although slamming a glass is perhaps not the best way to test one's palate.

Day 7 - Friday

This was my last full day in Moscow and of course we would be working very hard to finish things up, right?  Well, uh, no.  See it was a holiday.  Originally, it was Revolution Day, the day the Tsar was overthrown by the Bolsheviks back in 1917.  During communist times, this was a day when they would parade the troops, tanks, and ICBMs through Red Square to show the Soviet might.  Now that communism has fallen, the day has been redubbed "Day of Reconciliation and Accord", which is a bit more of a mouthful.  Some folks however long for the old days and still try to celebrate Revolution Day.  They'd like to march through Red Square, but the government closes the square down on the holiday to prevent this.  So they march outside the square, which is just outside my hotel window, where I could enjoy the spectacle - such as it was.  It was  rather paltry crowd, an indication that despite some issues, I don't think the old hard-line communists are coming back to power anytime soon.

Anyway, it's still a fairly solemn national holiday, much like our Memorial Day or Labor Day.  And of course David, Bob, and I, as Americans know how to properly observe such a solemn and dignified holiday - you go shopping!  We went to an outdoor handmade arts and crafts markets, the kind of place where they spot Americans (or as they call us "suckers") coming from a mile away.  It's a place where, unless you're a complete idiot, you never pay the initially quoted price.  If you like haggling you can get some great deals.  However, after a couple hours, it felt like I had bought half a dozen used cars.  Nonetheless I did get some nice traditional Russian gifts, including a couple matrioshkas.  Matrioshkas are those egg-shaped painted wooden dolls that you open to reveal a smaller doll, which opens to reveal a smaller doll, and so on, and so on.  The traditional dolls have pictures of Russian girls.  However, they've broadened the range of subjects to include Simpsons characters, Colorado Avalanche hockey players (and other American athletes), Harry Potter, and modern political figures and/or terrorists such as George W. Bush, Osama bin Laden, and Saddam Hussein.  The one I bought was a Russian leaders matrioshka, which had 10 eggs containing leaders from Putin back through Peter the Great.

Day 8 - Saturday

This was the day I was to leave Moscow.  While I had had a great trip, I was definitely a bit worn out from all the hard work we had done and ready to head home.  I got to the airport and got on the plane and was settling in for a nice relaxing trip home.  It was then that a thought occurred to me.  On my trip to Moscow, as Imentioned, there were several couples heading over to adopt babies.  It suddenly struck me that it would be logical that there might be a gaggle of adopted babies on the return flight.  I must admit this wasn't some brilliant deduction on my part.  It came to me amid screaming babies all around me.  While waiting for the plane to leave the gate, amid the screaming I started hearing a repeated clicking noise.  This was a typical airplane noise, but one that you didn't expect to hear over and over again.  A couple minutes later, the pilot told us there was a problem.  After an hour or so more on the plane, we headed back to the gate and got off the plane.  After another couple of hourse, we learned that, well, we weren't going anywhere on this day.  So, Delta shipped us off to the airport hotel for the night.  Of course, those families with infants were given priority to get hotel vouchers, shuttles to the hotel, and at the hotel check-in, while saps like me without a baby, had to wait in long lines.

Day 9 - Sunday

I knew it would be a mess in the morning because, in addition to simply checking in, everyone needed to rebook their connecting flights in the states.  Since I knew this would be a long process, I arrived early and was first in line.  Well, first in line until those with babies were allowed to jump to the front of the line.  After several minutes of waiting for the baby-toting families, I got checked in and my connecting flights rebooked.  At this point I started thinking, "Geez, these people with babies have got it made!  Such an easy life - they jump to the front of the line everywhere, while I, prepared though I am, am relegated to waiting behind them.  If only I had a baby with me on this nine hour flight and my two connecting flights over 24 hours, this trip would be so much easier!"  Nonetheless, despite not having the convenience of a baby accompanying me, I made it back to Boulder without further incident and my week of living the high life in Moscow was over.
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