Moscow, Ten Years Later

     The first thing I noticed on the trip to the airport into Moscow is the large number of furniture stores on the outskirts.  Ikea is a prominent brand, but there are also stores that advertise themselves as domestic furniture stores.  Appliance stores and
lumber yards/hardware stores are also prominent.  There are a lot of new apartment buildings being built, as well as advertisements for townhouse developments.  There is also a lot of construction of fancy cotteges (suburban houses) outside of town which
I did not see but heard about.  New housing construction helps explain the interest in furniture and appliances, but people seem to be also upgrading their existing apartments.  
     The friend we stayed with has a very basic late Soviet clothes washer made of plastic, but which works, and he said he resisted buying a modern clothes washer.  His neighbors were singing the praises of their new, modern washing machines, and he finally caved.  He loves his new Whirlpool apartment model, and we appreciated being able to do our clothes, too.
They are not even thinking of getting a dryer.  Space is at a premium, and they have a perfectly good balcony for clothes drying purposes.
     The point here is that participation in Moscow's economic boom seems pretty widespread to me.  Not everyone can aspire to build a lovely suburban home and support a car for getting there, but my friends don't want a car (the roads are still bad outside of
town, although improving, and traffic jams are common in town), and they would not want the bother of a summer house.  Relatives of theirs have rented a lovely villa for a few weeks this summer, something that seems more attractive then owning one.  
     What matters is that my friends see real improvement in their day-to-day life.  They can get services, such as the locksmith who came on Sunday evening to fix a broken lock on their door, they have a neighborhood bank which provides real services and during the last financial crisis did not steal their money, and there is an absolute abundance of grocery
stores.  Ten years ago there were big, fancy supermarkets opening which featured mostly imported food, such as the 7th Continent.  A smaller, local, supermarket had opened near my friend's apartment, but it was jammed with people, and the clerks were pretty rude.
     Now there are local supermarkets all over the place and they are not crowded, and people are polite.  The "Self-Congratulator" is the store closest to my friend's apartment and is part of a big chain.  It has taken over more space, and features mostly
Russian-produced goods marketed to Russians in the neighborhood (there is only Russian on most of the packaging).  The prices are said to be much better than the import-oriented stores, and I believe it.  I bought a basketful of goods, including some expensive
items like blueberry smoothies for the kids, and only speant twelve dollars.  On a Russian pension of about $100/month those prices would be considered high, and I don't know what percentage of wage earners would be able to afford those smoothies, but food is much more
available, and has always been expensive in Russia.  
     Someone on a tight budget has more choices for sure.  My friend was buying buckwheat (a Russian staple), and had six grades of buckwheat to choose from, offered at different prices.  In St. Petersburg in the winter of 1981-82, I remember standing in a long line and paying what was considered a lot of money for a kilo of buckwheat.  I was greeted at the
dorm with wide eyes and congratulations that I had found any to buy at all.  Butter was not always available that winter, although usually I managed to buy some at  a certain store on Nevskii Prospect.  If you were primarily living on potatoes and grains, a little butter mattered nutritionally.  This all seems like ancient history, but it matters to people whose
memories go back that far that food is reliably available, and if not significantly cheaper, is not more expensvie either.
     Access to international travel rates as important change.  My friend who lives in California was in Moscow visiting his parents and his old friends who are all programmers.  He said that his programmer friends are pretty happy because they have a pretty decent middle class life.  They can go out drinking on Friday night, and once a year can go abroad for a couple of weeks.  They usually go to Western Europe, which is relatively close and affordable.  He though that his friends were pretty upbeat.  
     Many people believe that the access to foreign travel has contributed to the new politeness in Moscow.  People don't elbow you aside and shout at you any more.  It has occurred to the average person (who may have seen the outside world) that politeness as a
way of life is a good thing.  The recording on the Metro says "Be polite, give up your seat to invalids...."  Signs have always been posted stating that seats are for old people, invalids and people with young children, but the idea that one should give up one's seat POLITELY is new to Moscow.  This is a pretty stunning change.
      The religious revival is quite remarkable.  Lots of local churches have been re-opened, and hold services every day.  Novodevochy, the famous historic nunnery seemed to have people living and working there, a new development.  Certainly other monestaries
have been re-opened.  The Cathedral of Christ the Savior, built to commemorate the victory over Napoleon and dynamited by Stalin in 1931 has been rebuilt.  It is a beautiful building, and serves as the national church of Russia on important holidays.  The chairs where the Tsar and Tsarina were permitted to sit (everyone else stands at an Orthodox service) were
also restored.  Does this mean the current regime is open to a revival of the Monarchy?  Those chairs did not have to be put in there.
     What struck me was what a vibrant, living religion Russian Orthodoxy turns out to be.  The saint whose icon was featured on the day we visited the Cathedral of Christ the Savior was a priest who lived outside of Kiev, and who died in the early 20th century.  He was famous as someone important people (such as Leo Tolstoy) sought him out for spiritual advice.  We also saw an icon of Matryonna, a woman who has been sainted who lived in Moscow and died in 1955.  She was blind from birth and became a nun before the Soviet era.  She could touch people and tell them their story, including their future, and she healed people.  This is not a dead religion praying over a few ancient icons.  People pick a saint who speaks to their life experience, and use that person's icon in worship.  The driver who took us to the airport (actually a very dangeous trip, but we survived) had a little three-part icon in his car : Christ the Savior in the middle, the Madonna on the left (He said it
represented home and family life to him), and St. Nickolai on the right, the one who looks after you in your working life.
     The streets in Moscow are much calmer than they were ten years ago.  I suspected a vicous crackdown on petty theives, drunks and steet people, but people I spoke with only spoke with pride that crime was down.  Always watch your purse, though, was the message,
especially after Irina, who was touring with us had her purse opened by someone at a bus stop.  She noticed, and nothing was taken.  Ten years ago there was serious concern that your purse could be spirited away from your table at a restaurant while you were
distracted and eating.  Now there are so many lovely places where you can have a bite to eat (not cheap, but lovely), and there are not nearly as many people near your table and such a possibility did not seem that real.
     The explosion in restaurants and much more informal cafes is really delightful.  We ate at one on the Moscow river near the Tretiakov Gallery which was done up in the shape of boat.  It seemed designed to interest foreigners, with prices to match.  We were pleasantly surprised to discover Yelki-Palki, a Russian themed buffet place, where you could also
order hot pirozhki (cabbage or mushroom filed pies).  Our Russian friends ate there, although not often.  They still eat at home almost all of the time, with the exception of the occasions (maybe once a year) when they order pizza.  The pizza came in less time
than promised, was delivered by a very polite person, and actually tasted good.  Imagine having pizza delivered in Moscow!  Why should this be a sign of high culture?  Maybe it shouldn't, but having a variety of convenient, interesting options seems civilized to me, and I didn't have to cook that night.

     There are cracks in this fairly rosy picture.  It may have seemed lovely in Moscow partly because it was summer and the trees were green, and the sun was shining.  The city is less crowded in the summer because people go on vacation or try to spend time at their country places, if they have one.  But...our friend said that the library at her university was not getting funding for buying much by way of new books, so she relies on books she can buy herself and get from abroad for her research.  Another friend (G.), who teaches ancient and medieval history at an ordinary neighborhood school, said that really bright students were rare, as were students who took a genuine interest in his subject.  He thinks there is a change for the worse in this area.  People are running around a lot to earn enough money and not paying as much attention to their kids.  He said that another factor is that in recent years academic achievement has not had much to do with material success, so that
kids see no reason to work hard in school.  He told a funny story: A kid was not doing his work, so G. called his mother (and the kid) in to tell her that her son was not doing his homework.  The mother proceded to tell G. (in front of the kid) that the kid's father was a successful manager, and had told his son that he barely passed G's history class.  He says, "What could I possibly say to that?"  He has a fair number of Azeri students who are Muslims.  He says that they are disciplining their children more.  He called in the Father of one Azeri boy who was not doing his homework.  The Father was a locally successful shopkeeper, who upon hearing that his son was not doing his work, started to beat
his son right then and there.  G. didn't think the son needed a beating, and said so, but what a different response!
     Moscow has built actual malls, with food courts (can you tell that this matters to me?), high fashion stores, and public restrooms that are easier to find than in an American mall.  I noticed a dry cleaners at the one mall we went into, an important service for
getting sheets and large items done if you don't have your own washing machine.

One thing to note is that you really have two Russias - Moscow, with a few of the large provincial cities, and the rest of the country, which is slowly drifting back into the 19th century. Moscow captures something like half or more of all the export wealth of the country, and has indeed become (mostly) a very lively European capital city, with amazing wealth but also a big middle class. But the picture elsewhere is much starker.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

As for the Church itself, I didn't go in. I found it was externall garish, overdone, and didn't go at all with the surrounding area, or for that matter, the bulk of Moscow.