Eye On Moscow

It is time to get this blog back on track.  After all, this blog was not created for intellectual study of cultural understanding.  This blog is simply "Eye On Moscow".

So, this is what this "Eye On Moscow" saw this week.  I have painstakingly uploaded these untouched snapshots that I painstakingly took with my cell phone camera this week.

But first, a word about riding trains in Russia:

In Russia, it is culturally acceptable to ride on trains.  Write that down. 

I recently had to catch a train from Perm to Moscow and ended up on the Peking-Moscow train.  I shared the train compartment with a man who was from Northwest Siberia.

He asked me if I would like to eat.  I explained to him that I was not hungry.  I was from home.  He explained that the sausage would go bad if I did not eat it immediately.  Sensing the need to assist in this sausage rescue, I obliged.

This man, whom we shall call Nikolai, for that is his name, and I, began to discuss the weather.  It is an anomaly, that weather.  That is what the meteorologists call it- every time.  I think it is no longer anonymous an anomaly if it happens all the time. 

I firmly stated that spring should not start on March 1st.  I have never seen springlike weather in Russia on March 1st.  I have also never been to Sochi.

"Remember this," Nikolai proclaimed: "March 15th".  "On March 15th, every year", my train companion confidently continued, "spring arrives- even in Northern Siberia". 

Buoyed by the chipper prognosis of my soothsaying train companion I whistled to my imaginary dog Fedya and with an extra skip in my step, this morning, March 15th, stepped outside, expecting blooming buds and gay birdsong.

This is what my Eye On Moscow saw on March 15th, "Nikolai, the Siberian's, First Day Of Spring":












 We're just going to have to send old Nikolai to the TNT channel's "Battle of the Psychics".  If you know what I'm saying.

I'm beginning to think that summer is an anomaly.

Here are some other things this Eye On Moscow captured this week:





This horse meat was found to contain traces of pork. 

If you can come up with a better caption than that, you win.

I was in the subway in the late evening when white smoke billowed from the Sistine Chapel.  Fortunately, I was able to capture the exuberation from celebrating fellow passengers.


 

And finally, here is a thoughtful snapshot I took of my family in the Monday Morning Moscow Matinee.  Yes, playing hooky is also thrifty.  Don't tell my boss or our children's schoolteacher.

6 movie tickets: 11 dollars.  Having the theater pretty much to ourselves in Europe's largest city:  Priceless.