Chita, Siberia
Journey Index
Day 2 - NJ-Moscow
Day 2 Photos
Day 3 - Moscow-Chita
Day 3 Photos
Day 5 - Chita-ECLIPSE!
Day 5 Photos
Day 7 - Chita-Moscow
Day 7 Photos
Day 2
March 6, 1997
My eye creeps open and spies a stewardess with a pot of coffee resting on her aluminum serving cart. I make a feeble gesture and she responds with a much needed hot liquid refreshment. I negotiate the cup of coffee to my lips and feel my consciousness unfolding like a reconstituted grape.
According to the video map of our flight, the lights I see below me are those of Dublin, Ireland. It's the wee hours of the morning, but I wonder how many people might just happen to look skyward and see this pressurized box I'm in flying over their Emerald Isle. Time is passing relatively fast now.
In the cargo hold, there are two enormous volumes containing most of the words in the English language. They bear the name of the city I'm now flying over: Oxford. It's too dark to discern anything but lights on the landscape; no chance to see the university spread out below. Too bad. In the distance, the glow of London can be seen and beyond that, more black. I close my eyes and fall asleep as we cross over the Dover cliffs.
When I wake up, the German countryside is sliding below us, at least, I think it is. Clouds stretch endlessly over the alleged terrain. The sun has just risen and there's a pinkish tinge to the cloudtops. It's quite peaceful. Once we lower our altitude, I can see the countryside slipping away underneath us. Looks like Kansas. Lots of farms. Also lots of commuters. The larger highways are packed with vehicles heading into Frankfurt, but it's not appearing to be a traffic jam, just lots and lots of cars, busses and trucks moving along at a good clip toward the center of commerce. It's about seven in the morning when we land in Frankfurt.
I breeze through the customs checkpoint, explaining that this only pit stop on my trip to Moscow. I exchange a few dollars for marks and grab a beer from a vendor. Ah, nothing like a good pilsner at seven o'clock in the morning...what's that line from the Sheryl Crow song? Something about getting a good beer buzz in the morning? Well, she's right.
The wait for the connecting flight is less than an hour and, before long, I'm in line again, going through more customs interrogations and documentation checking. Once that's over with, I'm sitting comfortably in my seat, anticipating our takeoff. If there's one aspect of flying with Lufthansa that I truly enjoy, it's that they are always on time (at least in my experience). No delay occurs and we're soon arrowing upwards into the cloudy skies over Deutschland. That beer I enjoyed earlier does its magic now. I fall quietly asleep.
I wake up somewhere over Belarus. Looking out the window, I see more cloud cover below us. Occasionally, through a break in the clouds, I see the rural and expansive landscape of Belarus dotted with farms and small communities. It looks cold down there. Huge frozen lakes and snow-packed hills stretch endlessly through these windows in the clouds.
The sun illuminates the cloudtops, almost hurting the eyes with its brilliance. As I'm looking out the window, I notice a strange optical effect. There appears to be a circular rainbow on the cloudtops. I snap a couple of photos of it and watch as it moves over the white, puffy landscape below. Somehow, the aircraft is acting like a lens that distorts the sunlight and refracts the pattern onto the clouds on the opposite side of the plane. As I watch this, the clouds began to dissipate and I see that the farms below us have given way to a more suburban landscape. Schools, houses and factories are now visible on the cold terrain, becoming more and more dense as we fly on. The plane begins to bank sharply and the city of Moscow comes into view, the Volga River reflecting the bright sun and cartops shimmering like stars in the cold air. A large spindly tower casts its shadow in the distance. This is the Moscow radio and TV tower. I've read about this. It apparently has a restaurant atop it's long bulk. We're far too distant to make out any detail, but it is an impressive object, jutting into the sky.
It's close to noon in Moscow as we touch down at Sheremetyevo Airport and roll to the gate. The squeaky voice of one of the stewardesses informs us in Russian, German, and English that we've landed in Moscow and, as is the custom everywhere, asks that we remain seated until the plane comes to a complete and full stop. This message is thoroughly disregarded by nearly all the passengers as hordes of them unclick their seat belts and mill about the aisles, removing bags from the overhead compartments and jostling for positions in the overcrowded space between the seats. There is a noticeable swell toward the doors of the plane. When the plane finally does come to the aforementioned complete stop, everyone seems poised, like a herd of cats about to pounce on an unsuspecting mouse it sees. When the cabin doors open, the passengers are ejaculated outward in one mad gush. I've never witnessed such frenzy in a jet liner before. Several of the passengers have shoved their way past slower folks, rocketing themselves toward the doors of the terminal. Unlike the terminals at the Newark or Frankfurt airports, however, these terminals do not accommodate direct jetways to the aircraft; the stairway leads to the concrete tarmac. From the jet, it's about 40 meters to the terminal door. Even with my Arctic coat on, I can feel just how cold it is here.
The passengers all gather about the baggage conveyor and wait. Everyone smokes. There's a thin, pallid, gray aspect to the fluorescent-lit air in here that reminds me of some cheesy pool hall in Cleveland, Ohio. Everyone's impatient. They stare at the non-moving conveyor belt and complain to each other in Russian and German. Nobody here speaks English, apparently. With a shudder and grinding screech, the conveyor is mechanically resurrected and begins to slowly move. Like vultures, the other passengers are poised to attack the first piece of baggage meat to show its unfortunate head through the opening. To my surprise, the first two bags to appear are mine!. Well, when in Rome...I shove my way to the front of this teaming horde of crazed travelers and snatch both of my bags as though they weighed nothing. There is noticeable disdain from my fellow lunatics. Someone curses in German. God, I love this airport! Kinda like a mosh pit without music.
Next comes the wait in line for the customs checks. I was told by John that this process could take up to an hour, given the amount of traffic that passes through here and the fact that there are only three customs booths available. He also has warned me that the customs officials can get pretty testy about bringing things into Russia, most notably currency and cigarettes, both of which I have plenty. He and Zoya have both given me lots to be concerned about in preparing me for what I might encounter once I was off the plane and at the mercy of the customs officials. After about five minutes of waiting, a customs officer gestures for me to step up to his station. I say, "Hello. Priviet!" in my best English/Russian. He looks at me, suspiciously, and asks to see my visa. I present it to him. He looks at it, hands it back to me, and motions for me to go through the next gate. I carry my bags through the gate, and there's a dark-haired Russian woman holding a piece of paper with my name written on it. I realize that it's Zoya. Customs? What customs? All of the preparations I'd done, rehearsing my story in Russian, all of it a waste of time. It's been less than 15 minutes since the wheels of the jet hit the runway and here I am being greeted by my escort.
"Welcome to Russia."
We embrace and she inquires about my flight. We're walking through the crowded Sheremetyevo terminal, carrying my luggage and dodging attempts by several men to hire themselves as drivers. I realize that there's a certain look that Zoya gets when she's not to be disturbed; a grim and determined aspect that makes you feel safer playing with a nest of pissed off rattlesnakes. It does the trick here and the crowds part like the Red Sea. Once outside the terminal, we make our way to where the car is parked. There's no long- or short-term parking that I can see and I ask Zoya about this. "No, not here. You must find a place to park by being clever and aggressive. There are certain places that you cannot park, but the rest is first come, first served," she replies.
We meet our driver and deposit the bags in the trunk. Climbing into the car, Zoya and I begin the long process of finding out more about each other. I've only spoken to her a couple of times on the phone, so we've got lots to discover as we head down the highway into Moscow proper. Our driver is carefully threading the needle through the traffic, at least I think he is being careful. There's a slight odor of vodka in the car. Perhaps from a party last night? We appear to remain on the highway and that's what's important here.
"We are going to stop at the flat first," explains Zoya. "That way, you can drop off all of your things and we can tour Moscow a little easier. So, what do you think of our city so far?" Outside the car, large, gray apartment buildings loom. Several buildings still bear the hammer and sickle of the former Union. It is an impressive city. The amount of construction in Moscow is staggering; it seems that there are new buildings or renovations happening on every block and the farther into town we drive, the denser this construction gets. Despite the warnings and horror stories of several travelers, I find Moscow to be relatively clean and certainly majestic.
We pull onto the street where Zoya, John and Katya live. It is tree-lined and apartment-lined. People are bundled up and some are walking their dogs over the snow-crusted sidewalks. Along one side of the street, a large pipe (about a meter in diameter) parallels the road. It bends downward and goes under the driveways, only to reappear on the other side. This is the hot water delivery system for this neighborhood, there aren't any individual hot water heaters in the apartments. I see a few large dents in the insulated pipes and wonder how many times someone has accidentally driven their truck into one of these things and obliterated the hot water supply for the community... Our driver pulls into one of the many apartment building driveways and Zoya tells him, in Russian, to stay here while we schlep the bags upstairs. The entryway is dimly lit by contrast to the bright sunshine outdoors. I can make out hundreds of mailboxes on one wall. We walk up a short flight of stairs to the elevators. There are two here; one holds about eight people, the other is about one-quarter that size. Fortunately, the larger of the two is the first to arrive and Zoya and I clamor inside. The ride is surprisingly smooth (I consider myself a connoisseur of elevators) and we exit just down the hall from Zoya's flat walking toward a large metal door. She knocks, and utters a few words to the person on the other side of the door before it's opened.
A pretty young Russian girl steps back from the door as we make our entrance. "This is Katya," says Zoya. I greet her in both English and Russian. She shyly returns the greeting and leaves the room. "She is a little bit shy," Zoya tells me. And probably a little annoyed too, I guess, as I drop all of my baggage in her room. Her turf's being invaded. Zoya makes a call to the office and, after I've freshened up a bit, we're back out the door and heading downstairs to the waiting car. Our driver negotiates effortlessly through the streets until we get to a large highway. What absolute chaos! In the six lanes of the road there are at least eight lanes of traffic, all jockeying for position on the straight-aways or attempting to enter traffic circles at just the right time. We are moving at a snail's pace now. This does, however, give Zoya and I plenty of time to talk and allows her to point out interesting bits of architecture that would otherwise disappear between the buildings, were we zipping along the street.
After about 15 minutes, we pull off the main boulevard and approach the building housing Bloomberg's Moscow facility. It reminds me of a cross between the United Nations building in New York City and some futuristic architectural experiment with a large dome dominating the land in front of it. The building is a large hotel that also houses business offices. We pull up to the entrance where a doorman courteously bows to us. Zoya blows past this fella and heads for the elevator. On the way, however, she points out where the foreign exchange, rest rooms, restaurants, and shops are located. She is efficient and quick. John is very lucky to know this woman. A quick elevator ride takes us to the fourth floor where the Bloomberg office is located. I enter and John gets up from his desk. We have not seen each other in nearly two years. "George!" "John!" We embrace in a big hug. "I can't believe you're here," John says. "Me either," I say. "I can't believe you're here! Well, here's the office!" He gestures across the room. There are four desks here, a large conference table, and a kitchenette. The window sports a lovely view of the red, brick 3M building across the way. "Zoya and I have things to do," John says with a hint of disappointment, "but we should plan for this evening. What do you want to do later?" I tell him that I'm the new guy in town and, as such, don't really know where all the cool spots are. "I'd like to see some of the iconic places, like the Kremlin, Red Square, things like that," I say to John, "but I'm not sure if they're open later or what the logistics of getting there from here are." I'm really content just to be here with the two of them, sitting in the Bloomberg office and talking. However, it's Thursday, a work day, and I'm the one on holiday, not them. I suggest that we play it by ear and see what unfolds later in the day. They agree that it's a good idea, so I tell them that I'm going to walk around the neighborhood and get a taste of Moscow street life. I grab my camera and head downstairs, stopping to exchange a couple hundred dollars for rubles and buy a sandwich at one of the shops that Zoya pointed out earlier, before heading out into the Moscow afternoon.
I proceed to take a quick walking tour of neighborhood. Across the street from the office is an enormous gymnasium, built for the Olympics. Today, its broad staircase is deserted; pieces of wind-blown paper gather at its corners and hard-packed snow covers the stairs. It's a difficult climb to the top, avoiding slipping and breaking my neck, but I make it. The panorama is very grand. The city with its blend of pre- and post-Revolutionary architecture spreads as far as the eye can see, inviting closer inspection. I do not hesitate.
After a couple of hours, I return to the office, feeling a bit chilled and tired after my excursion into the neighborhood. When I enter, I'm greeted by Mike Streeto, a recent transplant from Bloomberg's New York office. I shed my coat and sit down in front of a Bloomberg terminal. After I log in, I send a message back to my coworkers in Princeton who are just arriving at the office. I tell them that I'm in one piece and in good hands here in Moscow. A flurry of messages races across the Atlantic Ocean as I tell people about what I've seen so far. When that dies down, I begin updating some of the work I'd left behind. John comes over to me, frowning. "You're supposed to be on holiday," he admonishes. This is true; some old habits die hard. I wonder if there are any Bloomberg terminals in Siberia...
A few minutes after five o'clock and we're out the door and heading down the street that borders the gymnasium. We are speaking in rapid fire sentences, planning what to do next. John explains the history of this huge facility and says that it has enormous swimming pools inside. On this day, with the temperature hovering near zero, the thought of swimming seems aversive. I am curious about this enormous building, though, and scamper up a small flight of snowless steps to peer inside the window. Zoya and John join me. Inside, we can see a large group of young synchronized swimmers, girls just approaching their teens and able to move their bodies in a fashion that would cripple me for life. Several of the girls are also performing high dives and the three of us marvel at their ability. "My daughter tried to do that when we were in Turkey," Zoya says. "It was so funny." We watch for a few more minutes before heading up the street to what John guarantees will be something wonderful for me to see.
As John enters a nondescript building he asks me, "Have you seen the Metro?" I answer that I haven't and he smiles broadly; I think he is enjoying this. "I know that you're going to like this!" The Metro is Moscow's underground subway system. Zoya points out a map of the Metro stations and shows me where we are. All around us, people are moving. A sea of people making their way home after a day of work in the city. As I look around, I spot a familiar logo on an advertisement...the long arm of McDonalds has stretched into the Russian empire. I have to laugh.
We put plastic tokens into a slot on a turnstile and pass through, stepping on to an escalator. I look toward our destination. By far and away, this is the LONGEST escalator I have ever seen. Apparently, this registers on my face and Zoya says, "How is it? Impressive?" As we begin the long ride to the bottom of the escalator, John says, "This was built in the 1930s and it's only coincidental that they're so deep; they never thought that they could use them for bomb shelters but because they're so deep, and the Germans came so close, they did. The Metro is at least a couple of hundred feet deep." The escalator ride lasts nearly two minutes. Once we reach the bottom, I can see why John thought this place would appeal to me. The station is more like a domed cathedral with marble from floor to ceiling, inlaid with semi-precious stones and minerals. At the far end, nearly 100 meters distant, an enormous mural dominates the wall. In gold letters at the top, it says, "Mir," Russian for peace. The mural is ornate, with gold, copper, and brass intermingled with the tiles. I turn to John and remark, "They don't have this in Princeton." "No, they don't," he laughs. We leave the main hall and walk to the platform of the downtown-bound trains. John points to a digital clock above the tunnel. "This shows you how long it's been since the back of the last train went through the tunnel," he explains. The clock reads 0:47. 13 seconds later, a train roars up to the platform and we board it. The doors close and as the train quickly builds speed John explains to me that the Metro trains appear at the stations once per minute. Once per minute! He also explains that the trains rarely break down. Outside, the walls of the subway are passing at a blinding speed. I estimate that we're traveling at close to 40 miles per hour. "More like 50," John corrects me. 50! I am certainly impressed by this system. I have never experienced a mass transit system like this in all my travels. Trains zipping through town and available for boarding every minute and built back in the 1930s! Where did the rest of the world's major metropolises go wrong? The train pulls into the next station. "Let's get off here, John calls out over the roar of the train as it stops. We disembark and find ourselves at another station with an entirely different motif. "Look at the ceiling," says Zoya. "These are murals about the soviet and the workers in Belarus. The murals, created before World War II, are ornate and beautifully crafted scenes depicting workers in factories and fields, patriots of the soviet being decorated by their leaders, and other celebrations of Belarus. The final vignette depicts the emblem of the Belarus Soviet Socialist Republic. "After the breakup," says John, "all of these soviets acquired very large egos, like Belarus; a little dirtbag of a province that thinks it's a country." John's not-so-candid appraisal of the current CIS climate is not lost on me. We spend a few more minutes gandering at the artwork and then board another train.
We emerge onto a busy street. It's dark outside and the winter air bites at my ears. I follow my hosts through the traffic-infested streets, looking for the office where I'll purchase my airline tickets to Chita. We're apparently on the correct street, but none of us can find the correct address. We enter a building only to find that we're in the wrong place. Not many of the buildings here in Moscow have their addresses clearly visible. I get the feeling that there's a concerted effort to purposely obfuscate one's location here. Our efforts eventually pay off and we enter a nondescript building and walk up two dark flights of stairs to an unmarked, equally nondescript door in a dimly lit hallway. Inside, a bright office buzzes with activity in stark contrast to the environment on the other side of the door. It's a few minutes before we are attended to and soon Zoya steps forward, beginning the negotiations for my ticket. I hand over my passport and American Express card and receive them back with my round trip ticket in about 10 minutes. Fairly painless. We leave the office and head to the Metro station, retracing our former path. Dropping tokens into the turnstiles, we board the lengthy escalator, then the train.
At the next station, John indicates that we've come to our destination. We hop on another equally long escalator and ride upward into the frigid Moscow night.
"You hungry?" John looks at me quizzically. "Sure am," I say, "All of this walking and riding the Metro is taking its toll. What'd you have in mind?" He motions to a kiosk near a square that sports a large statue of some important figure in Soviet history. Beneath the looming statue are about 100 teenagers. They appear to just be hanging out, looking for something to do. They mill about the base of the statue; some of them are dancing to the strains of a Russian pop tune. Others are talking and gesturing broadly. "I think there is going to be trouble," Zoya says. John disagrees. "They're just hanging out. They're bored," he says. Zoya does not look convinced and occasionally peeks over shoulder as we saunter past the kids and over to the nondescript kiosk. I peer inside. This place looks no different from any street vendor's venue I've seen in New York City, except for two things. One, everything's written in Russian (duh!) and two, you can buy vodka and/or beer here. I ask John about the legality of drinking in public and he tells me that it's perfectly legal to walk around town with an open container and enjoy a little buzz as you saunter down the street. He also makes some not-so-vague references to the problem of rampant alcoholism in Russia, particularly in Moscow. While we're talking about this issue, some particularly tasty looking bratwurst is beginning to hypnotize me from its warm bed inside the kiosk. It wants me to bite it. It wants to live in my stomach. It tells me so. Hunger has made me delusional. Well, more delusional than normal, at least.
Beer, brats, and wild in the streets. Man, I'm really beginning to click with this place.
"Come on," says John, after swallowing the last of his beer. He and Zoya walk quickly down a cobblestone street bordered by large, stylish buildings. After a block or so, we stop. John turns to me. "OK," he says, conspiratorially, "I want you to close your eyes. I'll guide you down the street, don't worry. And, when I say so, open them. Believe me, this is the best way to see what you're about to see." I have no idea what he's talking about; I have no idea where the hell I am in Moscow. This sounds intriguing and exciting, so I go along with his plan. All around me, I hear voices of other pedestrians, all speaking Russian, sauntering through the cold air. I can smell Moscow now; diesel and fried food. The cobblestones are uneven, but I trust John to lead me around any particularly nasty spots. After a couple of minutes, we stop and John turns me to the left and stands behind me.
"Now, open your eyes."
A wave of surreal displacement engulfs me. I cannot register that I am actually standing where I am and seeing what my eyes are revealing. Unreal City, as T.S. Eliot wrote in The Wasteland. I am surrounded on all sides by Red Square. The walls of the Kremlin loom to my right with Lenin's tomb crouching at its center. And straight ahead, awash in light, St. Basil's cathedral glows like a spectral 3D sculpture in a mad monk's dream. Red Square. The very heart of Moscow. Of Russia. All my life I have seen photographs of this place, have seen May Day parades televised from this spot, but standing here on a freezing night and stepping onto the historic turf overwhelms my emotions. I feel tears welling up and I am speechless. I can't believe that I'm standing in the realm of czars and dictators: Lenin, Stalin, Catherine the Great, Ivan the Terrible, Gorbachev, Kruschev, Nicolas, the names are rapidly firing in my head. John steps in front of me, no doubt very pleased with his presentation skills. He sees the tears on my face. "Really kicks your ass, doesn't it?"
Masterfully understated, John.
Red Square is enormous; this aspect can never be captured on film. It takes a couple of minutes to reach the center and stand in front of Lenin's tomb, closed these days for his annual "remummification" by Russian scientists. Flowers are strewn on its stairs. Bright floodlamps wash the Square in eerie bluish light. Plaques on the walls of the Kremlin bear names of national heroes and influential figures in Russian history. "In this wall is buried Yuri Gargarin, do you know Gargarin?" We all turn to the voice behind us. An elderly man stands with his hands clasped behind him, wearing a long gray coat and fur hat. He does not introduce himself. Rather, he begins a long narrative on the arcane elements of Soviet history as regards Red Square. This fellow is a pensioner, we soon find out. He taught history and foreign languages, English, German, and French but now has no job. In a very forthright manner, he tells us that, if we enjoy his talk, then we may wish to present him with a monetary form of thanks. If not, then he will slip back into the night and search for others who might wish to hear his stories for rubles. I see that my hosts are embarrassed by this; that they feel I might take offense at this man's attempts to get money from their American guest. I am, however, charmed by this guy. He says he wants to be able to purchase a book of poems by T.S. Eliot. To quote T.S., again, he's "so elegant, so intelligent." And this he is. His English is perfect. He also demonstrates his ability to converse in German. I kinda like this guy. And, anyone who wants to rush out and buy a book of Eliot's poetry is OK by me. I privately tell this to Zoya and John and, although they're a little suspicious, they go along with my wish to hear this fellow. As we walk through the Square, the pensioner tells us about great heroes and scandalous despots and then launches into some jokes.
"A watchman in a concentration camp asks a convict, 'What is your crime?' 'I am a plumber. I was sent to the Communist Party District Committee to repair the central heating there. I looked at it and said, "You must change the whole System here."'" There is a brief pause. Then we all laugh. Sensing he's on a roll, our pensioner continues.
"Another version of the same. As such, I heard it as a joke from the former East Germany...
'What's your crime?'
'I reported to my job five minutes late: sabotage.'
'And you?'
'I reported to my job five minutes early: espionage.'
'And you?'
'I came on time.'
'So why are you here?'
'They allege I have bought a precise watch produced in a Western country.'"
I am highly amused by this man. He's proud, articulate and one of millions of victims of reduced and dwindling pensions. A victim of Communism. A victim of Capitalism. Aside from having his own standup comedy show, this man should be used as a valuable resource by his society. It's obvious to me that the man is a natural teacher, filled with knowledge, wit, and a great sense of delivery. So it is with teachers worldwide; underpaid, underappreciated, underutilized.
We tour the Square some more, but soon it's time to leave this magical place. I reach into my pocket and slip the pensioner a wad of rubles that I've placed there for him. Without looking at the money, he places it in his coat pocket, and gives me his thanks. I give him my verbal thanks as well. He walks away, into the cold night under the red star-tipped towers of the Kremlin. As we leave the Square, John asks out of curiosity, just how much I gave the old fellow. "300,000 rubles," I tell him. John looks at me in absolute disbelief. "Do you realize that you gave him a couple of month's worth of his pension?!?" "Yes," I said, "I think he deserves every ruble of it. Tonight was his lucky night. Maybe he can go out and buy the books he was yearning for earlier." "You're a generous, romantic man, George," John smiles and shakes his head. "You should think about moving here. Seriously." I put the thought on the shelf as I turn and take a parting look at the history-filled plaza.
All of us head to a nearby kiosk to buy some goodies for the night. After a brief polling of our desires, we end up buying cigarettes, beer, and champagne. John walks out into the busy street, extending his arm. Immediately, a couple of cars pull over to the side of the road. John leans in the window, talks for a minute with the driver, and then steps back, shaking his head from side to side. He approaches the next car and, after a few seconds, gestures toward us. As I'm heading to the car, Zoya explains that this is the best and most affordable way to get around town. There's an abundance of traffic in Moscow and many of the drivers are more than willing to go a little bit out of their way for some extra rubles. In a very short space of time, we are back at John and Zoya's flat.
Katya opens the door to the flat and we enter, shedding our coats, hats, and boots. "This is a slipper culture," John says, as he removes his shoes. "Unlike in the States, most Russians remove their footwear once they get indoors and put on slippers." He looks at my size-13 feet, and pauses. "I think we can find something for you to wear." He doesn't sound so sure. "Or," I offer, "I could simply walk around in my socks." "Or," he agrees, "you could walk around in your socks." He does, miraculously, produce a pair of comfortable slippers that actually fit. We are all amazed. Katya retires to the living room where she'll be sleeping tonight, as I've been given her room to sleep in. John, Zoya, and I retire to the kitchen and decide what to eat. "Hey," John exclaims, "I know this really terrific pizza place. Shall we order something?" We discuss it for a few minutes and agree that it's the easiest way to get food to our mouths tonight; we are all pretty bushed after our long walk through Moscow. Pizza delivery at 11 at night is remarkably fast. I am dubious when John says the pizza will be here in half an hour, but he is right on the money. We bring the doughy platter into the kitchen and continue talking, drinking the champagne and beer we'd purchased earlier, and smoking far too many cigarettes.
While we're talking, Zoya begins making arrangements for a driver to take me to Domodedovo Airport in the morning. She continually refers to the driver that brought us from the airport this morning as " the drunk guy." She's of the opinion that our driver was not in a sober state of mind when he was at the wheel. Instead of calling him, she contacts another fellow, Victor, who is a beekeeper and lives out in the Moscow suburbs. Although he's a bit more expensive than "the drunk guy," she likes his attitude on the phone and decides that he's our man.
Late to bed, earlier to rise, appears to be the axiom we're going to live by tonight. It feels like the gears are just starting to warm up as midnight approaches...
