Sinking In

It’s clear that my time in Moscow will be quite different from my previous experiences in Russia. The city is so much more advanced in almost every aspect of life, that it frankly bears little resemblance to what I saw 10 years ago during my first visit – let alone how I lived in Kaliningrad all those eons ago.

We took a trip out to IKEA for any essentials missing from our furnished apartments. My apartment is furnished accurately but sparingly, like any place where no one else has lived before. The kitchen is well fitted out. I decide that I can’t live without a nightstand and clothes hangers.

Ikea in Yugo-Zapad region of Moscow is just like an IKEA anywhere else in the world. Meatballs and the other familiar cheap stuff of global middle class living. All of it labeled with strange, ostensibly Swedish names that make no sense to any consumer anywhere in the world. Probably even in Sweden. I remain convinced that the one-world language will be born in a store like IKEA.

Then we head off to Ashan, a massive French supermarket just next door. Massive doesn’t quite convey the scale. It’s an absolutely cavernous warehouse, with 4 aisles of meat alone. And what seems like tens of thousands of hungry Russians. Things are flying off the shelf so fast that they don’t bother refrigerating the eggs. They just keep driving pallets of eggs up to the ends of the aisles when the last pallet is sold out. Yum – unrefrigerated eggs. The staff is all on rollerblades, and when you get to the check out you can see why. The checkouts quite literally stretch into the distance so far that they dissolve into a hazy blur. The entire front length of the building is lined with them, and all of them are open. And all of them have lines. And it’s Tuesday morning.

Just walking around my neighborhood is also providing the striking impression that things are pretty good here for at least some people. It’s a well located neighborhood in the very center of town, only a 15 minute stroll to the Kremlin. The old mansions in this area now house embassies, and the region is dotted with ancient and neoclassical churches alike. The streets are a jumble of parked cars – expensive BMW’s and Mercedes most popular of all. But a more than fair smattering of Bentley’s, Aston Martins, and Ferrarris. Most cars like that are also closely followed by an SUV full of frowning, ominous men.

The stores in the neighborhood cater to the new earning class. The House of Whiskey. Villeroy and Boch. Italian cafes. A store that sells only expensive espresso machines. Banks with more ominous men lounging outside and smoking cigarettes. A Finnish supermarket with peanut butter, spaghetti sauce, and Old El Paso Mexican food. In short, if you want it, you can get it right here in the heart of Moscow. All you have to do is pay.