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Alex Mumzhui with his Brompton on Silk Route to China.

Silk Road

Alex Mumzhiu
2006-03-20 17:44:21

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Moscow

Oh Moscow, Moscow, at the train station it is still the same incredible mixture of homeless people, extravagantly dressed women, smell of urine, babushkas with cloth bags and bunch of exhausted travelers sleeping on the floor. I came in Moscow on bike for the first time. I did not feel the real scale of Moscow before. Now I get it. It is not as big as I thought. From all the cities only Tokyo is large even for the bicyclist. It was nice to see the Moscow again, but I did not feel anything close to that excitement close to tears (like my neighbor poet Osip Mandelshtamm wrote) which I felt in St. Petersburg. A tour through the Moscow for me was mostly visiting the places mentioned by the poets Okydjava and Visotsky such as Petrovka 38, Bolshoi Karetnii, Arbat moi Arbat. I stay in the last remnant of the Soviet past the Hotel Leningradskaia. In the past I never expect to stay here it was mostly for the Soviet elite. Now, half empty the hotel takes Russians for $25 and foreigners for $100. Hotel is still belong to the working class. In this case to these representatives of working class who work in the hotel. A security guard (vishibala) harasses guests for the passes, repair workers take an elevator before the guests. The restaurant is always empty. When I came in the morning for the breakfast I was met by very importantly looking metr-d-hotel (manager) who offered me a menu with extensive choice of drinks and firmennix blud (specials) with astronomical price tags. Coffee for example was $3. In normal Russian zakysochnaia (small restaurant) you can have full meal with the beer for this money. This hotel is in the Guinness book for the longest bronze chandelier (lustra). Interior are full of stucco and bronze. It was built in pompesnii (bad taste) Soviet style of 50-ties. I guess Guinness puts it in their book as a standard of pompesnosti. Moscow is the battlefield between still existing Soviet stablishments ...