Home is where the produkti is

I write this entry in a far more regulated state of mind than in the first. Jet lag is indeed a bitch, and it’s taken me a half a week to develop a sleep schedule that doesn’t involve me collapsing under my blood stained sheets immediately upon returning to my room.
The weather is colder than in the past couple of days, but still manageable. What I didn’t expect was the near-eternal lack of sunlight here in Russia; we had a special treat of a sunny day yesterday, but apparently, I can’t hope for too much of that in January. Oddly enough, the sun made the drab skyline of my neighborhood look almost beautiful.
MosGU is situated in a neighborhood called Vykhino, on the far south-east corner of the city. As I mentioned in my previous entry, my handlers have told me that it’s not the safest or best of areas, but from an outsider’s perspective, I can’t really tell the difference—the concrete slab apartments look exactly like the ones in other parts of the city I passed on the way here. Moreover, the people on the street tend to dress very well. In fact, the people here (especially the women) tend to dress exceptionally well everywhere they go. As my RA put it, “For Russian women, every day is a fashion show.”
Although, to take this tangent further, I may be getting a false impression of the expensiveness of peoples’ clothes due to the prevalence of fur in Russia. It occurs to me that in the US, decades of anti-fur activism have made real fur hats and coats taboo and exotic; in Russia, practicality clearly trumps such concerns. While standing in a metro in the nice part of town, I saw a rich woman wearing what appeared to be a tiger-fur coat, or at least a very convincing forgery.
But I digress…Vykhino! A neighborhood of broken dreams and new opportunities, transplanted Western trinkets and defiant Russian landmarks. I’ve only explored a bit of the commercial area, but here’s a very brief overview of the neighborhood services:
Right across the street from my gate, next to the bus and matshruka stops, is an old Soviet-style grocery store. They’re called produkti, and in case you’re wondering about the difference between a Soviet-style grocery store and a grocery store that happened to be in an old Soviet building, you can’t actually pick up food and pay for it. Instead, you look behind the counter for what you want, give your order to a clerk (usually an angry babushka, in my experience), get a ticket from the clerk, go to the cashier and pay, get a receipt, then go back to the counter and pick up your food. The process may be archaic, but this particular produkti picked up on at least one trick of Capitalism: being right next to the campus, the store takes advantage of the ubiquitous laziness of college students to jack up their prices.
But not to worry, because a 5-10 minute walk brings you to a Western-style supermarket called Rus Market. This place operates like any store in the US, save for a couple of minor quirks. For example, women with large bags must check them with a guard to prevent mass theft, and you have to tell the cashier how many bags you want and pay for them.
A further walk down the road reveals a small shopping mall. Here, one can find luxuries such as electronics and hair care products, as well as plenty of kitschy stuff. One small store on the second floor almost exclusively sells hookahs and samurai swords.
Of course, only suckers and foreigners do their shopping at these indulgent Western stores; the real action is at the market by the metro station. I haven’t actually been in it yet, but this is apparently where you can get anything from clothes to fruit to cell phones at low and negotiable prices. Buyers beware, though: your savings may be offset by the professional pickpockets roaming the oppressively crowded compound.
Animals are also a permanent feature of Vykhino. While we gathered for our first tour of the block, the RA ducked from a fat pigeon that took flight behind him. He explained that “you may not think that the birds are stupid enough to fly into you, but they are,” and cited personal experience to substantiate his claim. After being shoved on and off of metro platforms by belligerent babushkas with no regard except an angry word or two, I wondered if the pigeons were simply ingrained with the Muscovite character. Stray dogs also wander the sidewalks, but in contradiction to the horror stories I’ve heard about them, the ones here are quite docile. Today, a lab mutt followed us for a few hundred yards, circling us whenever a group of people approached from the opposite direction like a mercenary bodyguard. There are also plenty of domesticated dogs, including one bull mastiff I saw dressed in full Russian style in a doggie track suit.
After a few days here, I feel like Vykhino is a pretty good representation of 21st century Moscow. Russians have argued for centuries between Slavophilia, Russian Exceptionalism and Westernization, and this neighborhood represents the modern consensus: namely, the lack of one. The country seems to be having a hard time expressing its national character while embracing the conveniences of the West. Instead of offering a hybrid of these forces, this neighborhood presents a hodgepodge of contradictory statements and images. As if to confirm this, the most Westernized part of Moscow I’ve seen so far was Red Square, the eternal symbol of Russia, but that’s for another entry.