Season II, Episode 2: The Smell of Gasoline and the Taste of Horse Meat
After emerging from customs without delay, our “fast-track” representative dropped us off by the SVO II Aerotour booth and airport information desk. According to our arrangements with Peace Travel, a driver was supposed to meet us and take us to the apartment I rented from them on New Arbat Street.
Ordinarily, a gentleman named Pasha, who is one of our agency's Moscow consultants, would meet us after we emerged from customs and drive us to our lodgings, or to catch a flight at another airport. However, because our apartment rental included a complimentary ride from SVO II, I instructed our agency that it would not be necessary for Pasha to meet us when we arrived at SVO II. When no driver was at the Aerotour desk to meet us, I started thinking I might regret instructing my agency to have Pasha stand-down.
We asked our “fast-track” representative about where our driver was. She looked back at us with that blank stare those of you who’ve been to Russia have become all too familiar with. Then she made a call on the ubiquitous mobile phone and told us that our driver was delayed in traffic, but would arrive soon. We stood on the lower floor of SVO II waiting.
The MegaFon (МегаФон) network had not yet recognized the SIM card in my mobile phone so I could not yet call Peace Travel myself. I sent a couple of e-mails off of my Blackberry, but it was suffering from a similar network problem; outgoing e-mails were going out, but I was not receiving incoming e-mails.
After waiting about 15 to 20 minutes, Pasha suddenly appeared, accompanied by another gentleman I’d never seen before. I was surprised to see Pasha; I did not expect to see him until the following day when he was to pick us up to go to the airport fro our flight to Orenburg. He explained that the gentleman with him was our driver who would take DW and I to our apartment. I asked Pasha what he was doing at the airport. He said he was picking up another set of PAP's that came in on our flight. After pleasantries, Pasha rapidly returned to the area where passengers emerge from customs to pick-up his other family and left us with his companion.
At this time I could not tell if Pasha’s companion was the driver Peace Travel sent for us or whether he came with Pasha notwithstanding my instructions to my agency that we did not need a ride from SVO II to Moscow center. Pasha might have brought him as a second driver for DW and me because he had room for only one family and more than one was arriving on our flight. I did not have the time to ask Pasha to clarify this before he left. This happens pretty often when traveling in Russia. You never know whether it's the right time to ask a question, or by the time you think of one, it's already too late to ask. It's something I’ve just gotten used to.
And this was a pretty important question too. The driver from Peace Travel was supposed to either know the address, floor, and apartment number of our apartment, or at least deliver us to someone who did. I had visions of us driving into Moscow with Pasha’s secondary driver and our Peace Travel driver cruising the lower floor of SVO II looking for me and DW holding a sign with our surname on it, then arriving in Moscow center with no idea where to go.
DW and I followed the other gentleman to his car. Because he spoke little of no English, I introduced Myself and DW and asked the gentlemen his name. He said “Gennady (Геннади).” We walked outside the airport into a “U” shaped driveway where cars pull-up to pick-up and drop-off passengers. Gennady left us at the curb momentarily while he went to get his car. Within a couple of minutes he returned in a black Volga (Волга), a four-door sedan manufactured in Russia. Gennady loaded the car and DW and I climbed in the back seat.
Riding in Genandy's Volga is an experience no one should miss, that is if you like the smell of gasoline fumes in the passenger compartment and passing bumper-to-bumper traffic on the right had, unpaved, shoulder of the Leningradsky Prospekt (Ленинградский Проспект). Gennady asked if we would mind if he smoked. I wanted to say: “sure, if can manage to ignite the petrol vapors in only the front half of the car.”
It was not long before DW was sick. She is not usually prone to car sickness; however, stop-and-go Moscow traffic combined with (1) being asphyxiated on petrol fumes and second-hand smoke, (2) the excessive volume of rave/techno-pop music on the radio so popular among young Russian male drivers, and (3) the changing of stations an average of once every 3.7 minutes, was enough to induce a serious headache and acute nausea.
Luckily we made it to New Arbat Street before DW had to use the Аэрофлот air-sickness bag I kept in my backpack from our first trip. We pulled off the street, Gennady stopped, we all got out, and Gennady started to unload our bags. Unfortunately for us, Gennady only suspected which building we were going to. He had no idea which floor or which apartment number. He also had no key.
So we are stood in front of a bunch of buildings, some residential, some with offices, some with retail, and some with offices. You see zoning has yet to become part of Russian urban planning. And as you’ve seen in earlier episodes, the exterior the ordinary Russian makes the most abject American public housing project look like the Ritz-Carlton.
Then Gennady announced that he “thinks” we are to go in the building to his right. So we hauled our baggage into what is very unusual for a Russian apartment building - a lobby. There I started trying to ask the babooshka sitting at the “front desk” where we should go. She had no idea. Somewhere in the mix Gennady vanished. Still sick from the ride in from SVO II and tired from little sleep since we left Chicago, DW was nearing the end of her rope. We’d been in Russia less than an hour.
Suddenly two young women appeared. Neither spoke much English. But between broken words and hand gestures, we understood to follow her. One of the young women, DW, and part of our baggage climbed into a small elevator and ascended. I waited in the lobby suddenly wondering what floor they went to and whether I'd ever join them. A few minutes later the elevator door opened. I thought it would be our new hostess and/or DW coming back for me. Instead it was an elderly local gentleman whom I did not recognize and looked at me like I had three eyes. The elevator was clean and the gentleman was far too small to have eaten DW and our new hostess in so short a time, so I continued to wonder about their whereabouts confident they would return shortly.
The next time the elevator door opened it revealed our new hostess who motioned me to board the elevator. I grabbed the rest of our baggage and complied. The elevator hardly whisked us up to the 16th floor. There we got out, took a 90 degree turn to the left, walked through a couple of doors and into a corridor, another 90 left, and a few steps down to the front door to our apartment on the right.
Relived to see DW, I entered the apartment and dropped our bags. Our hostess was in a hurry to leave. She handed me the key, confirmed I knew the front door entrance code for late comings and goings (which BTW was written on the key-chain). Then she was gone like an Ohio State fan out of Ann Arbor.
The apartment was spacious looking to the east over New Arbat Street. It had one bedroom, a queen-size bed, a kitchen with a refidgerator, microwave, and washing machine. The bathroom-had a bathtub with a shower and a shower curtain. I’ve noticed that in Russia, often there is no shower curtain and the shower is a hand-held sprayer, really intended for spraying down after a bath.
DW and I sat down to catch our breath and started to unpack a little. The phone started to ring. It was Andrei calling to apologize about the confusion with the driver and the woman who came with the key. He said the driver was new and did not know where to find the information booth at SVO II. OK, if you can't find the information booth in an airport the size of SVO II (it’s pretty small for an international airport in the capital city of the world’s largest country, I mean it makes a modestly sized regional airport like Memphis look like JFK), how do you find your zipper when it’s time to go to the restroom? I replied that all’s well that ends well and then asked Andrei for some directions to a local grocery store. He suggested the Seven Continents on the corner of Old Arbat and Smolenskaya Boulevard (бл. Смоленская). Directions in hand we prepared to set for Seven Continents.
It was getting near dinner-time and DW and I were getting hungry. Those of you who watched season I may recall that we both acquired a penchant for sausage sandwiches from the street vendor called “Stardogs.” So, off we went; first, in search of a Stardogs, then for Seven Continents.
Unfortunately for us we first went east on New Arbat Street, crossed under it using one of the subterranean crossing tunnels common in Russian cities (I wish someone had thought of these in the States), and then the headed west down the south side of New Arbat Street past all of the casinos until we hit the intersection with Novinsky Boulevard (бл. Новинский). Seeing no Stardogs yet, we crossed Novinsky Boulevard to the west and headed south as it turned into Smolenskaya Square (пл. Смоленская).
As we walked south, still no Stardogs! But DW spotted the signs outside a shop that suggested it was a grocery store. In Russia you often cannot be sure about what you are looking at. There are grocery and convenience stores everywhere, but there are few chains with signage or parking lots to tip you off. No Jewel, Giant, Safeway, Winn Dixie, Walgreen's, CVS, 7/11, or Circle K there. Grocery and convenience stores seem to be everywhere, and nowhere, at the same time. Often you could walk right by a store and never even know it's there.
So it really helps to have good directions. Then things are easier to find. As you walk and become more familiar with the streets, things become more familiar and you become more observant. You start to notice things and places. Before you know it you’ve found the convenience store literally right around the corner or the street vending booth with many of the things you need.
After focusing more attention on the signs I figured out it that DW had spotted a grocery store and it was Seven Continents. We found a tunnel, crossed the street back to the east, and went in the store. It's a modest size grocery store. It's like an urban store you'd find in Manhattan or the North side of Chicago. Most Americans in the suburbs would hardly call it a “supermarket”. We browsed and then decided to continue our search for a Stardogs resolved to return later instead of hauling a bag full of groceries with us. Our plan was to continue our search walking east down Old Arbat Street.
This was our first time on Old Arbat Street. It seems to wind for over a mile east to west. The street is closed to cars so it’s a wide pedestrian walkway with shops and restaurants along the sides and vendors, sketch artists, and performers in the middle. We walked a good ways east and still found no Stardogs. By this time we were both famished. So we went into a traditional Russian restaurant across the street from Sbarrro. Sorry but I can't recall the name right now. We sat on the deck outside, drank a couple of Tinkoff (Тинкофф) beers and watched people go by. If you like to people watch, Old Arbat Street is one of the world's best places to do it.
We dined on “pancakes” (really crepes) with sour cream, and something called Cossack Sausage. We were not sure what Cossack Sausage is made from, but it tasted pretty good. When I ask most people what Cossack Sausage I made from they say they don't know. The “best” answer I got was several days later in Orenburg when someone there told me: “I think that's horse meat”.
After dinner it was west back down Old Arbat Street to Seven Continents where we bought water, juice, almonds, dried fruit, and yogurt for breakfast for the next day. Our shopping completed we walked north to the corner of Novinsky Boulevard and New Arbat Street. We crossed to the north side of New Arbat and then walked east back to our apartment building. As we got within less than 100 meters of our building from the west, much to my astonishment, and dismay, what did we come upon? Stardogs! Right under my nose no less!! If we had initially gone west out of our door we would have run right into it. And you could even see it from the window of our apartment. However, it was concealed from observation from above by a tree.
In the next episode, Nungesser and DW spend an afternoon at Pasha's dacha (Дача Паша), visit to the Moscow Country Club, and arrive in Orenburg (Оренбург).
A view of our apartment building(first gray high-rise) looking west down New Arbast Street
Ordinarily, a gentleman named Pasha, who is one of our agency's Moscow consultants, would meet us after we emerged from customs and drive us to our lodgings, or to catch a flight at another airport. However, because our apartment rental included a complimentary ride from SVO II, I instructed our agency that it would not be necessary for Pasha to meet us when we arrived at SVO II. When no driver was at the Aerotour desk to meet us, I started thinking I might regret instructing my agency to have Pasha stand-down.
We asked our “fast-track” representative about where our driver was. She looked back at us with that blank stare those of you who’ve been to Russia have become all too familiar with. Then she made a call on the ubiquitous mobile phone and told us that our driver was delayed in traffic, but would arrive soon. We stood on the lower floor of SVO II waiting.
The MegaFon (МегаФон) network had not yet recognized the SIM card in my mobile phone so I could not yet call Peace Travel myself. I sent a couple of e-mails off of my Blackberry, but it was suffering from a similar network problem; outgoing e-mails were going out, but I was not receiving incoming e-mails.
After waiting about 15 to 20 minutes, Pasha suddenly appeared, accompanied by another gentleman I’d never seen before. I was surprised to see Pasha; I did not expect to see him until the following day when he was to pick us up to go to the airport fro our flight to Orenburg. He explained that the gentleman with him was our driver who would take DW and I to our apartment. I asked Pasha what he was doing at the airport. He said he was picking up another set of PAP's that came in on our flight. After pleasantries, Pasha rapidly returned to the area where passengers emerge from customs to pick-up his other family and left us with his companion.
At this time I could not tell if Pasha’s companion was the driver Peace Travel sent for us or whether he came with Pasha notwithstanding my instructions to my agency that we did not need a ride from SVO II to Moscow center. Pasha might have brought him as a second driver for DW and me because he had room for only one family and more than one was arriving on our flight. I did not have the time to ask Pasha to clarify this before he left. This happens pretty often when traveling in Russia. You never know whether it's the right time to ask a question, or by the time you think of one, it's already too late to ask. It's something I’ve just gotten used to.
And this was a pretty important question too. The driver from Peace Travel was supposed to either know the address, floor, and apartment number of our apartment, or at least deliver us to someone who did. I had visions of us driving into Moscow with Pasha’s secondary driver and our Peace Travel driver cruising the lower floor of SVO II looking for me and DW holding a sign with our surname on it, then arriving in Moscow center with no idea where to go.
DW and I followed the other gentleman to his car. Because he spoke little of no English, I introduced Myself and DW and asked the gentlemen his name. He said “Gennady (Геннади).” We walked outside the airport into a “U” shaped driveway where cars pull-up to pick-up and drop-off passengers. Gennady left us at the curb momentarily while he went to get his car. Within a couple of minutes he returned in a black Volga (Волга), a four-door sedan manufactured in Russia. Gennady loaded the car and DW and I climbed in the back seat.
Riding in Genandy's Volga is an experience no one should miss, that is if you like the smell of gasoline fumes in the passenger compartment and passing bumper-to-bumper traffic on the right had, unpaved, shoulder of the Leningradsky Prospekt (Ленинградский Проспект). Gennady asked if we would mind if he smoked. I wanted to say: “sure, if can manage to ignite the petrol vapors in only the front half of the car.”
It was not long before DW was sick. She is not usually prone to car sickness; however, stop-and-go Moscow traffic combined with (1) being asphyxiated on petrol fumes and second-hand smoke, (2) the excessive volume of rave/techno-pop music on the radio so popular among young Russian male drivers, and (3) the changing of stations an average of once every 3.7 minutes, was enough to induce a serious headache and acute nausea.
Luckily we made it to New Arbat Street before DW had to use the Аэрофлот air-sickness bag I kept in my backpack from our first trip. We pulled off the street, Gennady stopped, we all got out, and Gennady started to unload our bags. Unfortunately for us, Gennady only suspected which building we were going to. He had no idea which floor or which apartment number. He also had no key.
So we are stood in front of a bunch of buildings, some residential, some with offices, some with retail, and some with offices. You see zoning has yet to become part of Russian urban planning. And as you’ve seen in earlier episodes, the exterior the ordinary Russian makes the most abject American public housing project look like the Ritz-Carlton.
Then Gennady announced that he “thinks” we are to go in the building to his right. So we hauled our baggage into what is very unusual for a Russian apartment building - a lobby. There I started trying to ask the babooshka sitting at the “front desk” where we should go. She had no idea. Somewhere in the mix Gennady vanished. Still sick from the ride in from SVO II and tired from little sleep since we left Chicago, DW was nearing the end of her rope. We’d been in Russia less than an hour.
Suddenly two young women appeared. Neither spoke much English. But between broken words and hand gestures, we understood to follow her. One of the young women, DW, and part of our baggage climbed into a small elevator and ascended. I waited in the lobby suddenly wondering what floor they went to and whether I'd ever join them. A few minutes later the elevator door opened. I thought it would be our new hostess and/or DW coming back for me. Instead it was an elderly local gentleman whom I did not recognize and looked at me like I had three eyes. The elevator was clean and the gentleman was far too small to have eaten DW and our new hostess in so short a time, so I continued to wonder about their whereabouts confident they would return shortly.
The next time the elevator door opened it revealed our new hostess who motioned me to board the elevator. I grabbed the rest of our baggage and complied. The elevator hardly whisked us up to the 16th floor. There we got out, took a 90 degree turn to the left, walked through a couple of doors and into a corridor, another 90 left, and a few steps down to the front door to our apartment on the right.
Relived to see DW, I entered the apartment and dropped our bags. Our hostess was in a hurry to leave. She handed me the key, confirmed I knew the front door entrance code for late comings and goings (which BTW was written on the key-chain). Then she was gone like an Ohio State fan out of Ann Arbor.
The apartment was spacious looking to the east over New Arbat Street. It had one bedroom, a queen-size bed, a kitchen with a refidgerator, microwave, and washing machine. The bathroom-had a bathtub with a shower and a shower curtain. I’ve noticed that in Russia, often there is no shower curtain and the shower is a hand-held sprayer, really intended for spraying down after a bath.
DW and I sat down to catch our breath and started to unpack a little. The phone started to ring. It was Andrei calling to apologize about the confusion with the driver and the woman who came with the key. He said the driver was new and did not know where to find the information booth at SVO II. OK, if you can't find the information booth in an airport the size of SVO II (it’s pretty small for an international airport in the capital city of the world’s largest country, I mean it makes a modestly sized regional airport like Memphis look like JFK), how do you find your zipper when it’s time to go to the restroom? I replied that all’s well that ends well and then asked Andrei for some directions to a local grocery store. He suggested the Seven Continents on the corner of Old Arbat and Smolenskaya Boulevard (бл. Смоленская). Directions in hand we prepared to set for Seven Continents.
It was getting near dinner-time and DW and I were getting hungry. Those of you who watched season I may recall that we both acquired a penchant for sausage sandwiches from the street vendor called “Stardogs.” So, off we went; first, in search of a Stardogs, then for Seven Continents.
Unfortunately for us we first went east on New Arbat Street, crossed under it using one of the subterranean crossing tunnels common in Russian cities (I wish someone had thought of these in the States), and then the headed west down the south side of New Arbat Street past all of the casinos until we hit the intersection with Novinsky Boulevard (бл. Новинский). Seeing no Stardogs yet, we crossed Novinsky Boulevard to the west and headed south as it turned into Smolenskaya Square (пл. Смоленская).
As we walked south, still no Stardogs! But DW spotted the signs outside a shop that suggested it was a grocery store. In Russia you often cannot be sure about what you are looking at. There are grocery and convenience stores everywhere, but there are few chains with signage or parking lots to tip you off. No Jewel, Giant, Safeway, Winn Dixie, Walgreen's, CVS, 7/11, or Circle K there. Grocery and convenience stores seem to be everywhere, and nowhere, at the same time. Often you could walk right by a store and never even know it's there.
So it really helps to have good directions. Then things are easier to find. As you walk and become more familiar with the streets, things become more familiar and you become more observant. You start to notice things and places. Before you know it you’ve found the convenience store literally right around the corner or the street vending booth with many of the things you need.
After focusing more attention on the signs I figured out it that DW had spotted a grocery store and it was Seven Continents. We found a tunnel, crossed the street back to the east, and went in the store. It's a modest size grocery store. It's like an urban store you'd find in Manhattan or the North side of Chicago. Most Americans in the suburbs would hardly call it a “supermarket”. We browsed and then decided to continue our search for a Stardogs resolved to return later instead of hauling a bag full of groceries with us. Our plan was to continue our search walking east down Old Arbat Street.
This was our first time on Old Arbat Street. It seems to wind for over a mile east to west. The street is closed to cars so it’s a wide pedestrian walkway with shops and restaurants along the sides and vendors, sketch artists, and performers in the middle. We walked a good ways east and still found no Stardogs. By this time we were both famished. So we went into a traditional Russian restaurant across the street from Sbarrro. Sorry but I can't recall the name right now. We sat on the deck outside, drank a couple of Tinkoff (Тинкофф) beers and watched people go by. If you like to people watch, Old Arbat Street is one of the world's best places to do it.
We dined on “pancakes” (really crepes) with sour cream, and something called Cossack Sausage. We were not sure what Cossack Sausage is made from, but it tasted pretty good. When I ask most people what Cossack Sausage I made from they say they don't know. The “best” answer I got was several days later in Orenburg when someone there told me: “I think that's horse meat”.
After dinner it was west back down Old Arbat Street to Seven Continents where we bought water, juice, almonds, dried fruit, and yogurt for breakfast for the next day. Our shopping completed we walked north to the corner of Novinsky Boulevard and New Arbat Street. We crossed to the north side of New Arbat and then walked east back to our apartment building. As we got within less than 100 meters of our building from the west, much to my astonishment, and dismay, what did we come upon? Stardogs! Right under my nose no less!! If we had initially gone west out of our door we would have run right into it. And you could even see it from the window of our apartment. However, it was concealed from observation from above by a tree.
In the next episode, Nungesser and DW spend an afternoon at Pasha's dacha (Дача Паша), visit to the Moscow Country Club, and arrive in Orenburg (Оренбург).
A view of our apartment building(first gray high-rise) looking west down New Arbast Street
Looking west out of our apartment window down New Arbat Street
Looking east out the window of ourt apartment down New Arbat Street - a close-up of the enterance to the Casino Angara [Казино Ангара]
The apartment building accross New Arbat Street from us to the south
The view out of our apartment to the northwest. Note one of teh "Seven Sisters," on of the seven skyscrapers built during the time of Stalin, in the distance
A close up of one of the "Seven Sisters" to the northwest of our apartment
The kitchen in our apartment
The microwave area in our apartment
The washing machine area in our apartment
The sink and part of the shower/bath in our apartment
The toilet and part of the shower/bath in our apartment
Aerial reconisance photo of a well camouflaged Stardogs stand on New Arbat Street. It's white just beneath the foliage and you can see the Pepsi cooler-cabinet just to the left of it
posted by Nungesser at
8:14 AM
<< Home