World of Arts

Yesterday, we went to a theatre to see a movie. On DVD. Of our choice. It was way cool.

You see, a few months ago, I was reading one of the many english language newspapers in Moscow (let’s see, that would be the Moscow Times, Moscow Tribune, Moscow News, eXile. Have I missed any?) and saw a one column article discussing cinema in Moscow. Seven theatres were listed, the first one was the World of Arts (Мир иÑ?куÑ?Ñ?тва).

What is cool about this place is that it’s a small personal cinema. There’s a big screen in a room set up with about eight rows of chairs. Ten chairs per row, I’d guess. The chairs are nicely spaced and there is still 10 paces of space between the front row and the screen. They have a library of DVDs to choose from or you can bring one of your own DVDs.

They have a regular schedule of movies which they show every day, every week. Sunday mornings they show some children’s animated movies for free. But, there are several evening time slots during the week which one can reserve. 90 minutes costs 1600 roubles, additional half hours cost 500 roubles more. You can bring up to 20 people for that price; more people and there’s a surcharge.

One downside to the place is that they don’t allow food or drink. Luckily, there are several cafés, bars, restaurants nearby which one can visit before or after the show.

We had a long list of movies we considered showing. First, we thought we’d watch something with a Moscow or Russian theme. But, we wanted a feel-good or comedy movie. So, I thought of White Nights and Moscow on the Hudson. Couldn’t find them in Moscow. Not in time, at least. Then, Fisher King, Fish Called Wanda, Rocky Horror Picture Show, As Good As It Gets and others made the list only to be impossible to find or just not appropriate for such an event. Then, I thought about getting a recent movie which hopefully most had not yet seen, such as Syriana, Good Night and Good Luck, and Walk the Line. Well, even though the DVD case said it was in both russian and english, I had the guy check. It wasn’t in english.

So, right before I went to Gorbushka to try my luck there, I saw two movies in my local store. An Unfinished Life and Elvis Has Left the Building. I knew that AUL was supposed to be good, but I hadn’t heard about the other. All I knew is that Chris/Aidan from Northern Exposure/Sex and the City was the lead actor and Kim Basinger was the lead actress. It was a comedy, whereas the other wasn’t. So we picked it up (in Soyuz, by the way). We watched it to make sure we weren’t unleashing an atrocity on our friends.

It was great. Really odd, but laugh-out-loud funny more than once. And quite random. But, funny.

If you haven’t seen Elvis Has Left the Building, try it. It’s a riot.

Happy Soldier’s Day

Today is 23 February. In Russia, this is the former Soviet Red Army day, but now it’s just Soldier’s Day. It’s basically a counterpart to the widely celebrated and recognized International Women’s Day on 8 March, which just means it’s another opportunity for men to drink too much.

If you know any Russian men, be sure to wish them well today.

Amazing Bakery Found

Americans are not, on the whole, into bread. That is, bread at home is used for sandwiches, not much else. Yes, there are rolls, biscuits, buns, and the like, but usually for a fancy meal, like for a holiday. And, bread served at restaurants is often good, so much so that one’s dinner is spoiled. But, mostly, Wonder Bread and Home Pride sustain most ‘regular’ Americans. I know that when I live in the US, I’m a regular Home Pride consumer.

But, in Europe, it’s different. It’s a staple of almost every meal. I love the dark German bread. I remember breakfast with Nutella on it or a snack with some ham, cheese, and mustard. Hmmmmm, yummy. In France, the baguette ruled supreme, but of course it was just a vehicle for other delectables for the myriad of cheeses, meats, patés, etc. In Ukraine, they have some bread which is very similar to the German bread, which I fell in love with again.

And now I’m in Moscow. Pardon the constant comparison, but in Ukraine there was a bread kiosk on almost every corner, all of them good, some of the great, a few of them excellent. Here, the bread selection is disheartening to say the least, not to mention it’s just hard to find a bakery with fresh bread. The bread here is edible, but it’s nothing to write home about. I guess when the USSR collapsed, Russians lost their bread connection with the Ukraine.

But, over the weekend, we found a great bread place. It’s called Volkonski, located on Bolshoi Sadovaya 46/2 near M. Mayakovskaya. Phone number is (+7.495) 299.36.20.

This place is great. It’s both a bakery and a cafe. They have several sorts of bread, including one which is reminiscent of German dark bread. They have patisseries, croissants, cookies, cakes, pies, and so on. We bought some bread, an assortment of cookies, and had some hot chocolate and coffee with croissants and everything was great.

Furthermore, they also have breakfast starting at 8:00am every day of the week. This in contrast to the several places I’ve seen which serve breakfast starting at 10:00 or 11:00. This makes no sense at all for weekdays.

We have already eaten all our bread, so we have to get more. Treat yourself and visit this place for yourself!

If you know of other places in Moscow to find good bread, please leave a comment here. I’d really like to know.

Push starting a car – use second gear

For whatever reason, I’ve had my share of experience with a car not starting in the winter. Sometimes because I left the lights on (why don’t all cars switch off the lights when the key is out? Is that so hard? Sheesh!), sometimes because it’s too cold. But, because of this, I have had experience with using jumper cables or roll starting a car. But, yesterday, I learned something new.

Two weeks ago, after the record lows in Moscow, we couldn’t start the car and got a service to help us. Three days later, I couldn’t start the car again, but it wasn’t so pressing, so I didn’t do anything about it. But, when it became important, we tried calling a service, but they were too expensive, so I decided to try pushing it and popping the clutch.

We got the guys who work for the building, asked if they would help, they agreed providing we’d pay them 100 roubles per person, and we got to it.

We tried 2-3 times, but it didn’t work. Some guy who was watching us came over and asked what gear I had it in. I told him it was in first gear, as that is what I had always done. He said it would be better to use 2nd or 3rd because it was slippery. Internally, I thought he was nuts, but figured, what the hell? So, for good measure, I tried 3rd gear with no success. The leader of the guys actually pushing asked what gear I had tried and when I told him, he suggested that I try second gear. Since he was still willing to push a fifth time, I said OK.

It worked, of course, else I wouldn’t be writing.

I think it worked because it was the 5th time we tried, but it doesn’t matter why. The most important thing is that it worked.
So, if you ever need to push start your car when it’s cold and icy and slippery, make sure you try several times.

And give second gear a shot.

Bolshoi Gorod (Big City)

There is a free newspaper here called Bolshoi Gorod. Since I can’t sit down to eat alone without something to read, I picked it up and set about practicing my russian. I got to a page with the headline “Statistics”. They were quite interesting. So, here they are.

Most Popular Names for children born in 2005 in Moscow

Girls

1. Anastasia (3576)
2. Maria (2982)
3. Anna (2288)
4. Darya (2194)
5. Victoria (1948)

Boys

1. Alexander (2780)
2. Maxim (2154)
3. Nikita (2108)
4. Ivan (2054)
5. Dmitry (1774)

Oldest Moscow Metro Stations

1. 15.05.1935 Sokolniki – Park Kultury, Okhotniy Rad – Smolenskaya
2. 20.03.1937 Smolenskaya – Kievskaya
3. 13.03.1938 Kominterna Street (Alexandrovski Garden) – Kurskaya
4. 11.09.1938 Sverdlova Square (Teatralnaya) – Sokol
5. 01.01.1943 Sverdlova Square (Teatralnaya) – Avtozavodskaya

Price Breakdown for a bottle of Vodka

• 3.67 roubles for the vodka
• 3.33 roubles for the bottle
• 1.17 roubles for the sticker
• 1.61 roubles for the bottle cap
• 0.22 roubles for packing into a box
• 0.78 roubles for the trademark
• 0.98 roubles for production losses
• 2.56 roubles for market losses
• 20.96 roubles for profit (surprise, surprise! -ed.)
• 29.20 roubles for excise tax
• 11.60 roubles for sales tax

Total price: 76.05 roubles

Dates

Which anniversary date in 2006 means the most to you?

1. 63% 65th anniversary of the start of the Great Patriotic War (WW II)
2. 50% 45th anniversary of Gagarin’s first space flight
3. 47% 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster
4. 30% 15th anniversary since the collapse of the USSR
5. 18% 5th anniversary of September 11
6. 14% 85th anniversary of the academic Sakharov’s birthday

The State Central Museum of Contemporary History of Russia

This week, I finally made it to the Museum of Contemporary History of Russia. I was impressed. I spent two hours there, but only had a chance to see about half of the museum. I exited from the room which covers 1940-1945. So, I have to return to see Stalin and World War II, Khrushev and the Cold War, the Space Race, Brehzhev and Afghanistan, two boycotted Olympics and finally Gorbachev. Should be excting!
But, first, my comments on the museum and the period from 1900 to 1940.

The museum is on Tverskaya, one of the big and well-known streets of Moscow. I walked there from home, stopping at Pizza Hut along the way. (It’s cheap and fast.) While I was there, a guy – looked american – came in, sat along the wall and orderded. I heard him say “Gimme a BIG Pepsi” using hand motions to emphasize big. I wanted to go over there, strike up a conversation, see what brought him to Moscow, what he had seen, what he still wanted to see, etc., but I thought it would be weird. As I left, I saw him preparing to take a picture of his pepsi and table decorations. Hey, if you read this, send me a copy of the picture!

Anyway, I had my own plans. Luckily, the weather was not as cold as it was last week. Soon enough, I was at the museum. I paid the “foreigner” fee of 150 roubles vs. 60 roubles for russian adults, checked my coat and bag (required) and walked up the stairs to the entrance.

Marble Mural on staircase to entrance

There is a stand with mimeographed pages in english telling you a bit about the museum. They have pages for each room, but only in Rusisan. The english language museum maps which are available next to the coat check briefly describe each room.
The first room is called the Introductory Room. It’s an organized mess in there. Immediately to my right were artifacts and paintings of Czar Nicholas. Immediately to the left, there was a small Soviet Union flag with a letter from the US Embassy attesting that this flag had flown with Apollo 15 and was in possession of one astronaut at all times. It may have even been on the moon. The rest of the room had artifacts from all former Soviet Republics, including a hat from Kyzyl, which I learned of from “Tuva or Bust!”. Oh, and lots of pictures with President Vladimir Putin and some vestigal ones with Boris Yeltsin. There were some nice pieces in this room, but it didn’t really make a lot of sense as it was the first room.

The next seventeen rooms chronicled Russia and the Soviet Union from mid-19th century up to the beginning of World War II. Everything was displayed nicely, but there was no “color” for any items. Instead, just a perfunctory description of what you were looking at, like “oil on canvas”, “cigarette case”, “photo of Arbat street”, and whose work it was, and the year. When I would see a picture with Lenin and Trotsky and others, I would think “What’s the occasion? Why are they gathering for a photo here and now?” My questions would go unanswered.
Maybe this is why they offer guided tours, to provide the color, but you should still be able to learn something just by wandering through. Better of course would be some electronic device with brief spoken text for certain noteworthy items.

After two hours, it was time to go home. I was really impressed with what they had, how it was displayed. There are some really beautiful things and some really interesting things, too. Very happy I went. Can’t wait to finish the second half, 1940 until 1989.