Americana in Moscow

The past week has been full of its ups and downs, as usual. The hot water shortage was luckily a temporary thing, conveniently right at the moment we all needed to take a shower before class. The weather has yet to fully decide on summer, leaving us with rain and chilly mornings. The sun did come out for our Friday excursion, just in time. We started out at the MosFilm studios, where we saw a variety of antique cars used in many Soviet and Russian films. Somehow this is set up at the beginning, and seemed like it was supposed to be a real highlight. There were also scenes and costumes, and then soundstages and external scenery designed to be the Moscow of the late 19th century. (Highlight for the Slavic linguist: all the signs were written in pre-alphabet-reform Russian! The yats! The yers!)

After a satisfying lunch at the cafe on the grounds of the studio (the cafe is named Venice for no apparent reason; it was basically Russian cafeteria food, which is actually preferrable to bad Italian), we headed off for a boat tour of the Moscow River. The city is actually named after this river, that flows through the center, right next to the Kremlin. The appearance of the sun made the timing perfect, and we spent our 90 minutes taking in the sights and enjoying cold beers. Sadly, my camera battery died halfway through, so I missed the best shots of the Kremlin and St. Basil's.

We also enjoyed a lovely dinner at the local Caucasian restaurant. Georgian food is a big thing over here, and rightfully so. It's delicious! They say that when God was creating the world, he took a meal break over Georgia. Some of the scraps from his table fell, and thus they have the food of the heavens. Highlights include the wonderful khachipuri, a fluffy flat bread covered with a certain kind of cheese, soft and salty. I guess you could compare it to a cheese pizza without sauce, but that only gives you a visual. Anyways, our resident director suggested (urged, rather) that we try "Taste of the East", near our metro stop. The place is so authentic that the waiter had a thick accent (so thick I could detect it in Russian; there was no way he knew English). Unfortunately it was also "loud DJ" night. Still, good food.

I'm usually abroad for the 4th of July, so I like to treat myself to a Big Mac and enjoy a really, really bad American movie. I was all geared up for "Transformers", but the movies are all dubbed into Russian here, which really takes the point out of my private celebration. So instead, I planned on attending the American Chamber of Commerce party out at the Kuskovo estate on the outskirts of Moscow (If you look at the pictures, imagine it all draped in Coca Cola sponsorship). It claims to be the largest Independence Day celebration outside of the United States, and they feature live Russian bands, including one I'd actually heard of! I talked a couple other people into going, and we made our way. The event was truly massive: several moonbounces, Russians dressed as Native Americans, a fake bucking bronco, lots of outdoor restaurants, and Miller Genuine Draft. The first band was a really lousy cover band, so we took our time exploring the stalls. We had a cold beer, and I even got some popcorn. The B-2 came on, and they genuinely rocked. I think most of the crowd came just to see them play. After the concert, we got dinner (the worst hamburger of my life), and started a mini-disco, which attracted a lot of attention. Americans do not dance like Russians. The evening ended with fireworks, naturally. Much better than a classmate's first 4th of July in Russia: his teachers decided it was appropriate to invite the Russian equivalent of Santa Claus.

I won't go into details now, since it's late and this post is far too long already, but Barack Obama has been in Moscow for two days (along with his lovely family). I stumbled upon this site, and thought I'd share a foreign perspective...
Also of interest: this and this (it's in Russian, but maybe the lousy google translator will make some sense of it...)