Rags to/from Riches

I was reviewing some performance figures at work yesterday. The stock market here has been absolutely on fire non-stop since May, and the company’s funds are outperforming both the market and peer groups. Really phenomenal job they’re doing on both the fixed income and equity side.

Then I took a look at the net asset value, or NAV, charts. It resembled the EKG readout of someone in the throes of a lurching, painful heart attack – sharp drops and peaks all over the chart. What causes fluctuations in this kind of statistic? First, the NAV will fluctuate naturally with, well, the value of the assets. Second, NAV per share can change based on the number of shares of the fund outstanding. Lastly, fluctuations in NAV can be a result of capital gains disbursements.

So, I started looking into what was going on with some of the funds. Had there been large capital gains disbursements? The reaction I got leads me to believe that gains aren’t disbursed here the same way. Also, the peaks and drops were way too frequent and irregularly dispersed. So that’s out. Have there been massive redemptions and offsetting huge sales that have affected the share base? No, not that either.

It’s way more basic. It’s the value of the assets themselves.

Russian law dictates that a fund compute its NAV using an average of the closing market prices over the 10 days prior to the point of measurement. In US accounting terms we’d call it “mark- to- market” valuation.

The wrinkle in the Russian rule is that there must be a data point for each of those 10 days. Now, in a largely illiquid market like this one, it’s pretty common to not have daily quotes on a good number of things in your portfolio. All those stocks with gaps in the 10 day trading history have to be valued not at what they’re worth, but at what you paid for them. In short, and again in US parlance, at historical cost. In a stock market that’s been going gang busters all year (and was the best performing international market last year), it’s pretty easy to be sitting on some sizeable gains in relatively illiquid stocks.

Instead of Kalina at $33, for example, you’re looking at valuing the position at about $2 share. Big difference.

What can you do about this? One trick is to do a little churning in the portfolio in the days before NAV measurement. If it gets late in the day and you notice that something hasn’t traded yet and failure to do so will break a string of market prints up to your 10 day mark, you get on the phone and sell a couple of shares to a buddy across town. Just to get a value on the tape. Of course, you’ll probably have to buy a few shares of something from him. Some firms have more than one equity fund for exactly this kind of reason. Sell shares to yourself so that you can fulfill the requirement of figuring out how much they are worth!

It beats the alternative – not knowing how much money you really have.

Vladimir Vladimirovitch!

Yesterday, Vladimir Putin held a nationwide town hall meeting with Russia. It’s a roughly annual event here, and the public was invited to submit questions via phone, internet, cell phone messaging, or show up and ask via a satellite link in one of many locations across Russia. I watched from noon until 2pm.

Russia’s a vast country. The first question came from Sakhalin Island, near Japan, where the sun was setting. Then a question from a city near the artic circle, where all the viewers were in fur hats and heavy coats. Next, a question from Chechnya where the sun shone strongly and the questioner was standing in front of a brightly flowering bush. Fascinating and well done with very high production value.

At first, it felt a little like one of those lame “funniest home video shows” where they have studio audiences in different cities vote for their favorite clip. But the serious nature of the questions and the demeanor of the participants put that to rest pretty quickly. Occasional insertion of the phone center, however, did make it seem a little more like a PBS fund drive. Albeit one from a major market city.

Putin sat in an elegant, high-tech studio in the Kremlin with 2 journalists who handled the logistics. Only a few people addressed him as “Mr. President”, a very American convention. The rest addressed him politely by his name and patronymic – the traditional formal style of address in Russia. So, “respected” Vladimir Vladimirovitch sat there and answered about 55 questions for 3 hours on any topic that anyone cared to raise.

Most notable to me was that a woman in Chechnya wanted accountability for the large number of people who have simply disappeared there – including her son. That’s a pretty tough question, and the president did a respectable job of trying to dodge it. But he managed to admit that a lot of “kidnappings” (read: murders) in Chechnya are perpetrated by security forces as well as by insurgents. Of course, everyone already knows that. But it still seems like a big deal when a president admits something like that.

There have been a couple of charges of people being roughed up and not permitted to get near the satellite links to ask their questions. It seems an enthusiastic local governor wanted to forestall the possibility of embarrassing questions for the president – or more likely prevent statements about the governor’s quality of administration. I’m a little suspicious about how open and free an exchange it really was, but on the whole, the entire affair was impressive.

I couldn’t help but reflect on the state of democracy in my own country during the show. It seems our republic has already evolved well past this point of dialog – and I don’t mean that in a good way. There’s absolutely no way the White House mandarins would allow George Bush to take part in anything resembling this kind of forum. Not only might it expose poor communication skills (a major sin post Reagan and Clinton) or provoke a gaffe, but it would provide unpleasant exposure to dissenting opinions – a thing we are learning to live without in the US.

Answering questions from real people has taken on the mantle of a wonderful press opportunity – and as such town halls now are highly scripted events that have all the elements of honesty and integrity completely written out. Only Republicans can get into events with the President now, questions are pre-screened, and there was even an instance of having to sign “loyalty oaths” promising not to do anything that would harm the image of the president.

Worse yet? The Democrats are learning how to do it, too.

During the Soviet Union, you never would have seen a town hall meeting. No way. Now the Russians have high-tech exchanges with their President. Someday, they’ll get to our level in the US, where we’re well on the way to making them just as useless as not having them at all.

Quiet Please

Posters are starting to go up around my neighborhood for the Moscow Sports Festival. I got a good close look at the one hanging on the front door to my building the other day. Item #1 in the list of events celebrating “youth and sports culture”: a chess tournament.

I love the fact that the Russians consider chess a sport. They report the results of matches in the newspaper right next to recent hockey games. In fact, coverage of chess is probably more consistent than the press coverage of a lot of other sports here. The main gist of international hockey and tennis stories is how the Russians are taking over and dominating those sports – no report of a whole NHL game, just highlights of the Russian players scoring. No real coverage of the US Open, just reporting about how well the Russian tennis prodigies are seeded.

But chess – that just strikes me as something different all together. I suppose it belongs to that class of activities where spectators are expected to be silent. Like golf and tennis. As such, one would expect it to attract a – well – better class of fans. Golf, tennis, and chess are unlikely to have rowdy fans with their faces painted in gaudy colors. Organizers probably don’t have to suspend beer sales after halftime, either. Upsets in those sports seem unlikely to be accompanied by riots and looting and news reports tallying the number of cars overturned and set on fire.

But chess is different from Golf and Tennis in that the players are exercising quiet contemplation without any physical exertion at all. It’s arguable whether Maria Sharapova or Tiger Woods can be distracted by background noise. After all, they’ve made the same backswing, stroke and follow through many, many thousands of times in their careers. But shout something like “You da man!” at a chess tourney and they may have to take a few days off to recover their trains of thought.

I’ll keep an eye on the papers, but so far I haven’t seen anything concerning steroids scandals in the chess world. Nor does it seem that chess stars are running afoul of the law in other even more nefarious ways – like NFL or NBA stars. Of course, what would a chess star be liable to do that would garner such attention? I don’t envision a “cocaine and prostitutes” type story – something more like being ejected from the local library for repeated whispering.

Anyway, we could do with a bit more celebration of the intellectual in our society. I’m not advocating the elevation of a slow-paced, boring-to-watch, parlor game to the level of national pastime. After all, we have baseball and that satisfies 2 of the 3 criteria I just laid out. But we might just have a little to learn from the consistent practice of stopping to think about our next move.

Sweating to the Oldies

I’m not sure where I got it. Perhaps in a chilly and damp St. Petersburg earlier in the week, perhaps in the onset of autumn of Moscow – but I got sick this week. By Friday, I was extremely run down, sneezy, achy, and on and on.

That evening, on my way home from work, I stopped by the drugstore to load up on remedies of a slightly more scientific nature than the advice I had been getting – drink hot tea with honey and lemon being the most common. Not that I have anything against taking that type of advice. It’s just that by Friday, it was clear that a warm, tasty beverage was doing little to stop the onslaught of a virus bent on my total destruction. At the drugstore, I threw myself on the mercy of the pharmacist. She seemed really concerned about my health, and gave me a rapid fire tour of all the medicines that they offer in this, and related, realms of healthcare. I’ll admit that I was a bit dizzy and had a hard time concentrating, but this woman seemed to speak the fastest version of Russian I’ve ever heard. She had stopped talking for several moments, and I was still processing the first part of what she had said to me. The blank stare I gave her as my foggy brain struggled to keep up was signal enough – she took two boxes off the shelf, stuffed them in my hands, and then pointed me to the cashier.

Saturday wasn’t too pleasant a day. I slept until about 5 pm, waking only twice to drink the hot concoction that the pharmacist had recommended. It tasted suspiciously like tea with honey and lemon. Close enough, actually, to inspire fears of falling back asleep and waking up in an intensive care ward in the US, having been evacuated after several weeks of fever-induced torpor. Finally, I motivated out of bed and got out of the house. Which, in retrospect, I shouldn’t really have attempted.

My single goal for the weekend was to buy a guitar. I’ll get into reasons for purchasing one in another post, perhaps. But in the fog of my current state, the desire to buy a guitar attained a level of purpose akin to a life and death matter. Something approaching how a wounded soldier is still able to crawl forward and take out the machine gun nest tormenting his comrades. I simply had to have a guitar, and I had to have it right then.

The first store I went to was closed on Saturdays and Sundays. Seems odd for a music store, yes, but it was closed. I headed off to the other music store in my neighborhood. I thought I was feeling a bit better, walking around in the fresh air. I got to the store and started perusing the guitars – mostly by price level since I don’t really know anything about them. By the time the clerk came over to help me (who, of course this being a Russian store, I had to summon) I had started to feel pretty sickly again. Dizzy, mainly. Fatigued. Nose running, and necessary to gasp through my mouth every few breaths.

I tried to get him to describe the attributes of the guitar I was interested in, but he wasn’t biting. All he would say was that it was a “normal” guitar. Now, “normal” in Russian is used sort of the way we would say “fine”, but with even less enthusiasm. I told him that I didn’t know anything about what I was doing, and that this would be my first. As effusive as he would get about this guitar was to say only that it was “completely normal”.

At some point during this teeth-pulling conversation, I started to really get sick. And then perspire. I mean really perspire – all the pent up fever coming loose at once. I was standing there sweating, reeling, dizzy, and trying like hell to decide on a guitar pick from a box of 8 styles the clerk had presented to me. Finally, he broke my impasse by asking “By the way, do you feel alright?”

Oh man, you don’t know the half of it. “No, actually. I don’t feel well at all.”

I bought the guitar and a case, and left. The security clerk seemed glad to see me go – he had been giving me the evil eye almost from the moment I walked in the door. I can only just imagine what he was thinking: Here’s a large, unshaven, glassy-eyed man in my store, sweating profusely, and speaking broken Russian to boot. Clearly, he’s a Chechen suicide bomber all strung out on whatever they take that makes them want to commit suicide. Here with the sole purpose of destroying this shop on my shift.

I dragged myself back home – mercifully only a couple of blocks. I set the guitar in the corner carefully, prepared another hot medicine concoction, and crawled into bed.

Winding Up

I’m very fortunate that everyone wanted to come see me in Moscow. I had a great time showing them around and playing tour guide when we were together. But more than that, it felt wonderful to have loved ones in this alien, albeit fascinating, place where more often than not it is clear to me that I’m really on my own.

Dad tried to read signs the whole time he was here. He got better at decoding Russian as the days went by. But he tended to notice odd things. A walk down the street in St. Petersburg, when I was soaking in the beauty of the city perched on rivers and canals was when he pointed out the rain downspouts on buildings. He’s right – they’re huge; indicating all sorts of things like heavy weather and lots of snow, etc. But I didn’t notice it.

Dad doesn’t usually communicate with his hands very much. But when he was afraid of not being understood, he tended to gesticulate wildly with both hands – each moving independently and menacingly. Russians would look at him for a moment, focus on his hands for several seconds before looking back up his face and then leaning back a little. That was usually my clue to jump in with Russian and explain what he wanted. Even with the concierges and other service people fluent in English.

Mom was impressed with the grandeur and beauty of the country and the cultural legacy. But she didn’t especially like the chaos of Russia. No lines, just crowds of people milling about and cutting each other off all the time. That’s not her style – but definitely the style of 140 million people here.

In all, the trip was like one big Russian language exam for me – directions, setting up travel, ordering meals, changing money, explaining most things. I did okay, but it did get kind of hard – I’d often get an explanation from someone, then turn to Mom or Dad and rephrase it in Russian. I wasn’t much help doing that.

I’m also not very good at negotiating cabs – we got fleeced almost everywhere we went.

But life for me is already returning to its pattern of weird little surprises.

After work, I noticed a young soldier on a path to intercept me, with a buddy of his hanging back. What I thought was going to be trouble turned out to be profoundly sad. He approached sheepishly, barely met eye contact, and very politely asked if I had spare change to help a couple soldiers get something to eat. I asked what he meant and he apologized profusely and started to back off. Being in the army here these days is a severe hardship, and when he explained that they didn’t have enough to eat I cleaned out my wallet. I handed over 90 rubles and ended up apologizing to him because it was so little. The look on his face – I swear he was near tears over the gift of a measly $3.

When I got back to my apartment I was stopped in the lobby by the superintendent’s son. This little piker is about 3 years old and no higher than my knee. He blocked the doorway as well as such a little person could. When I asked if I could pass, he firmly answered “No.”
“So what are you, the new security guard?” I asked.
“I’m the duty officer,” he said.
“Can I go past you?”
“No.”
“Hey Papa,” I implored his father. “Can you help me out?”
Dad looked up from his paper, shrugged, and without a word went back to reading.
The tiny guard let me by to the elevator, but continued to grill me.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“I’m going to the 5th floor.”
“What’s on the 5th floor? Are you going home?”
“Yes. I live there.”
“Well, OK then,” he consented.

Order off the Russian Menu

We were all pretty wiped out after this much travel, so we hired a car from the hotel to take us to the Catherine Palace in Pushkin, just outside the city. For all the over-the-top lavishness of the Russian royalty, this palace is their crowning achievement. Its richness is beyond words. Its vast and every inch is decorated in the most extravagant manner.

At the coat check I bumped into a blind man who asked for my help in getting his coat – he couldn’t read the number on the coat check disk to determine if he was in the right line. I confirmed he was in the right place. What is a blind man doing somewhere like this? Why? I guess it has a lot to do with the Russian tour guides. Their descriptions, even as they stand in the middle of the room they are describing, are vivid and detailed enough to bring the room to life. In Catherine’s bedroom, for example, the narrative includes her favorite posture and window to look out of as she had her 4 to 5 cups of strong black coffee, and which pillow her dog liked to sit on. Indeed, it seems even a blind person could appreciate a tour of such a visual feast.

We headed back from there, and caught a tour of the canals. Well, it took a little more doing than that. I negotiated a price for a whole boat (3500 rubles) from some guys fixing an engine on a tour boat. Then I negotiated a route. Then, I convinced 7 more Spanish tourists who were passing by to join us to get the cost per person down to a more palatable sum. It worked, and we all boarded. The boatmen were especially surly, and the first mate spent the entire 90 minute cruise glowering at each of us in turn. It seemed as if he really wanted to be working on that engine back at the dock. Anyway, it was a great cruise on a beautiful day – a real showcase for St Petersburg to unfold all its glory in front of us on the canals.

This might be the most beautiful place I’ve ever been. I love it.

We headed along the canal to a restaurant for dinner. Mom tried to order a manhattan. Well, I tried to order it for her. It was on the menu. When I explained what she wanted to the waiter, he looked at me blankly and said he didn’t know what that was.
I showed it to him on the menu.
“Honestly, that’s the first time I’ve ever heard of that,” he said.
Awkward pause stretches on for a few seconds.
“Well,” I countered, “is it possible to order it?”
“Let me check”, he said as he walked off to the bar.
A moment later he came back and announced that a manhattan is a whiskey drink made with red vermouth. An accurate description and word for word what was written on the menu.
“Is it possible to order it?” I asked again.
Another trip to the bar before an answer - “Yes. How many?”
“Just one” I said. He seemed a little crestfallen.

Anyway, dinner was quite good and the service was very attentive.

Later we went back to the train station for the trip to Moscow. In Moscow, I got them a cab for the airport. Neither of them really slept on the overnight train, and then had to travel all the way back home with a long layover in NYC. I don’t expect I’ll hear from them for quite a few days while they recuperate.

History at Every Turn

In Russia, people suffer from the stillness of time.
~Tatyana Tolstaya

Another walk back down to the Winter Palace this morning. This time, though, to the boat dock on the river where we caught the hydrofoil to Peterhof.

I’m not going to get into the details of the palace – suffice it to say that its an absolutely stunning spot crowned with a beautiful palace and gardens that any autocrat would be happy to have as a main residence. In Russia, of course, it was only one of dozens of residences of the tsars.

The hydrofoil ride was really cool. No one got sick on it like the last hydrofoil I was on from Cozumel to mainland Mexico.

Back in Peter, we left the boat dock and headed to the Cathedral of the Savior on the Spilled Blood, the church that marks the spot where Alexander II was assassinated in 1881. It was closed the last time I was in the city (1995), so it was a highlight for me. Well, I’ve never seen such beautiful mosaics. Or, for that matter, so many. Lavishly decorated and absolutely glowing even in the dim light of a cloudy northern afternoon. Stunning.

The City of Peter

Old St Petersburg remains a beautiful stage set … but to the Russians it is not what Rome is to the Italians or Paris to the French. The decisions are made in the Kremlin. The city of Peter remains a museum, open from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM.

~Joseph Wechsberg

We decided to do the Hermitage today, that gargantuan museum that spans the Winter Palace and 2 adjacent buildings. I had not forgotten the opulence of the setting, dripping in gold, rooms plastered with gems. But it was still amazing to me to see it again with my own eyes. No description can do it justice. Mom and Dad were simply dumbfounded.

Just a little anecdote of what its like. We entered a room that was a riot of parquet floor, gilded walls, carved and painted ceilings, delicately chaised doors that were polished to a mirror-like finish. Lest you not notice the art (after all this is a gallery), there are two da Vinci’s in the room. Two. Things here are measured in large amounts. 2 rooms of Picassos. 2 rooms of Van Gogh. A room full of Cezanne. 2 rooms of Rembrandts. 2 rooms of Gauguins. The list goes on and on.

We spent about 6 hours there, and saw a good deal of the display. Note that – after six hours we did not manage to see the whole building.

Well, that pretty much did it for that day – as you can imagine.

Sankt Peterburg

A cathedral transcends the noblest single work of art. It is a pinnacle of faith and act of centuries. It is an offering of human hands as close to Abraham as it is to Bach.

~British Travel Association, 1959

Arrived at the Station and met by a cabbie who wanted 40 euros to go to the hotel. When I asked him if he had gone insane in Russian, he acceded to my counter offer of 400 rubles (still very generous).

The hotel was well located on Isaacs Square, and after breakfast, while the rooms were being prepared, we headed off to explore St. Isaacs Cathedral. The opulence of that building is hard to overstate. Its absolutely overwhelming in scale, materials, vision, everything. We spent a good long time exploring it – most of it slack-jawed – before we headed out to the park across the street. We walked to the “Bronze Horseman” monument to Peter the Great, and then took in some of the river bank along down to the Palace Square.

The night train, despite sleeping, is a bit more tiring than I had imagined. After lunch, we sort of collapsed into our rooms for a brief rest that stretched into the early evening. An easy dinner nearby, and off to bed.

North!

Trains are for meditation, for playing out long thought-processes, over and over; we trust them, perhaps because they have no choice but to go where they are going.

~Alistair Reid

I met mom and dad at the hotel and managed their transfer of luggage to my place. Then I headed back to work as they repacked their bags and generally prepared for the evening train to St. Petersburg.

At around 11pm, our cab came and we trundled off to the Leningrad Station. It’s a rather gritty station, especially at night, and we waited on the platform under the watchful eye of what seemed like hundreds of policemen and troops. Still, I like Russian train stations – the bustle, the commotion, the hordes of people sitting quietly next to huge nylon bags full of god knows what. Its like an American airport – but a lot more interesting and, well, lifelike. Without khaki and blazer wearing businessmen shuttling between anonymous cities, talking about golf, and glued to their blackberries. Russian train stations are populated by unshaven cabbies in leather coats asking for fares, whole families on the move.

But what I especially like is the soundtrack. When a train pulls out, the station blares heroic Soviet-style anthems over the sound system – as if a simple departure is a triumph of science and technology over chaos. And when the train pulls in, a loud folk song about Moscow greets the disembarking passengers. In the US all we get now is a warning that your bag will be blown up and then eaten by dogs if you so much as set the thing down when you buy a cup of coffee.

Anyway, the “Krasnaya Strela” (Red Arrow) pulled in and we hopped on. I bought tickets for a whole coupe –a cabin with 4 sleeping berths – for the 3 of us. We settled in, and then realized it was midnight when the train pulled out. Time to sleep.

Red Square, Cathedral, and The Tretyakov

Met at the hotel again, and went for a walk on Red Square – a photo excursion since our previous visit was at night. We had a good time meandering about, and I yattered on and on about all the historical import of people and places connected with Red Square.

Mom and Dad headed off separately for a more relaxing afternoon. I took Chaz and Claire over to the Christ the Savior Cathedral for a visit; quite a symbol of the rebirth of faith, or Russia, or nationalism, or whatever attribute you care to ascribe to a building reconstructed 60 years after the Soviets blew it up.

Then, I took them on the metro to the Tretyakov Gallery. I was confident that they’d navigate the transfers necessary to get there, but figured I’d escort them all the same to make it a little faster.

Met at the hotel late, and ended up having dinner there. I bid farewell to Chaz and Claire, who left the next morning.

A little note on how we tricked Chaz into going to Russia. Months ago, I knew Chaz wouldn’t be too keen on a massive trip to Moscow (and knew that Claire would definitely be up for it). So when I saw them in California I gave them a wonderful illustrated guidebook. Claire followed with a DVD series of Russian history. That clinched it. Next thing you know, they’re going around St. Petersburg on their own like a couple of pro’s. I’m very proud of them – and exceedingly happy that they came all this way.

Instructions: Shop.Drop

I take the family shopping round

The markets of the world.

~Sears Roebuck Catalog 1934

Today, I met the gang at the hotel and escorted them to the Arbat, Moscow’s main pedestrian shopping street. The weather wasn’t great exactly, but held off from serious rain while we were there.

One would have expected the shopping mania to have subsided after the Izmailovsky excursion, but Mom and Claire hit the first kiosk they saw and started rifling for more souvenirs to finish up their lists of things for people back home. Mom got what she wanted and we wandered off. I returned 30 minutes later and found Chaz and Claire still in the thick of purchasing. Well, I guess that’s what you’re supposed to do on a pedestrian shopping street.

We went a bit further along Arbat, and returned to my place for a rest. Later, we headed to a great restaurant in the neighborhood and dined like royalty on blini and caviar. Really opulent, really delicious – that’s probably the most I’ve eaten in a single sitting in Russia.

Russkaya Poslovitsa

Mom, Dad, Chaz and Claire all did the Kremlin today while I went to school and worked. By all accounts, they had an amazing – and exhausting – tour.

We went for dinner (minus a sick Claire) to GlavPivTorg, a high-end beer hall just out the back door of the former KGB headquarters. I had been there for lunch and liked it. Dinner, though, drastically exceeded my expectations in terms of quality, presentation, and taste. Truly wonderful food, and excellent service.

Chaz and I had a couple of shots of vodka before dinner. Then I ordered us a couple of beers – using a great Russian proverb. Something to the effect that vodka without beer is “money in the wind” – or a total waste. The waitress got a huge kick out of that, and kept asking us if we wanted more shots during the course of dinner. We politely declined.

The Quick and the Dead

wondering, too,

When churches fall completely out of use

What we shall turn them into, if we shall keep

A few cathedrals chronically on show,

Phillip Larkin

Got up today and headed out to the Novodevichy Convent with Mom, Dad, Chaz and Claire. Again, the monastery is deeply intertwined with Russian and Moscow history, and a special spot regardless of its importance. It’s a short subway ride from the center, and I think the metro in Moscow is a must see element of city life.

It rained pretty steadily while we were there, but we stumbled upon a male choral group in the small museum and waited out the rain while they regaled us with spiritual and secular songs. A particular highlight was the Volga Boatmen song – something I frankly never expected to hear in Russia. I always thought of it as kind of like going to the States and expecting to hear Yankee Doodle. Anyway, the singing seemed to me to be as close to the pure beauty of the human spirit as you can get.

Next, we toured the cemetery adjoining the monastery – a storied burial ground in both Russian and Soviet times. I did my tour guide bit with all the mastery of Russian and Soviet history that I could muster. Of course, I’ve been there a couple of times now so I’m getting pretty good at it.

The weather had started to clear up, so we decided to head back to the metro and off to Izmailovsky – the huge open air market. We got there under a threatening sky, but managed to time our visit just right. Mom, Dad, and I headed off separately and arranged to meet Claire and Chaz back at the entrance in about 1 hour. Well, we covered a fair bit of ground. Not only did Mom buy some souvenirs, but we got a pretty good taste of what the market is all about and what they sell in different areas. Close to the entrance we ran into Chaz and Claire, deep in negotiations to buy an array of Matroshka dolls.

I went into a jewelry store and bought a watch I’ve been researching for a while. It’s a Shturmanskiye – a chronograph with a skeleton back and stainless bracelet. It’s the same model that Yuri Gagarin wore into space. In fact, his name is one the dial. Haggled a little, bought it, and headed back out. Everyone initially thought I got tricked into buying what was supposedly Gagarin's actual watch. That's when I told them about the 3 Lenin skulls I purchased - one from his childhood, one from his adult years, and his final one that should be in the Kremlin.

Chaz and Claire were still in negotiations when I came out of the watch store, but now for a veritable army of Matroshkas. That's when I realized that they hadn’t actually gotten any farther into the market than where they were standing at that moment. Only several yards in, they had started buying things with such a frenzy that the merchants were coming from all over to see them – carrying furs, hats, dolls, jewelry, etc. And they purchased all that they wanted just by occasionally turning around and picking something out from a waiting vendor.

Back on the metro and back to the hotel loaded down with all our purchases. That was one busy day – a single family’s efforts to pump up the Russian GDP.

Sacred and Secular in Moscow

We went to the Trinity St.Sergius Monastery just outside Moscow in a rented minivan with a driver. The monastery is an amazing collection of churches inside a fortress, one of the most ancient and holiest places in the Russian Church. It’s a beautiful, and historically significant, spot.

We wandered the grounds and explored the myriad churches big and small, old and new. We didn’t have a tour guide, so when I tried to buy tickets for the Treasury I was flatly refused entry. Well, I appealed to the compassion of the ticket agent – a rather dicey proposal sometimes – and was allowed to speak to the manager. I convinced her that we were “quiet, peaceful people” and that she should sell us tickets for a Russian tour that I could translate for my non-russian speaking family. She finally gave in to my pleading and let us in. The treasury is the repository of all the precious things that have been given to the monastery over the centuries, and as such an awesome collection of ecclesiastical opulence. The tour was a typical guided Russian tour – exceedingly deep in detail about nearly every aspect of the items. After one particularly lengthy interlude near the end I wearily translated the long discourse as “this is important church stuff” and left it at that. Dad didn’t buy my summary. Truth is, when the discussion begins to get into things like materials and methods my Russian skills are quickly left behind.

Chaz and Claire met an old woman who gave them some sort of prayer card. They returned the favor with a card they had brought from home. The old lady was quite pleased with the gift (and with a few rubles that went with it) and went on and on. Then she asked my name. I told her, and she said she’d pray for me. Nice deal. I didn’t give her anything or do anything but translate and I’m the one she’s going to say prayers for.

On the way out of the monastery, I gave a few rubles to a monk holding a donation box. We exchanged pleasantries and he asked my name. Turns out, his name is Victor Adamovich – Adam was his dad’s name. He asked me if I was Serbian, but when I told him I was from NYC he told me about his 3 months in Brooklyn. We compared notes like all displaced New Yorkers do when they cross paths in some far-flung place. And for New Yorkers, far-flung has an entirely different scale. Anyway, he also visited relatives in Minneapolis, but frankly found the city too boring for his taste. Now, personally, I kind of like Minneapolis; But when a monk thinks a place is boring, well, that’s quite an indictment.

Back in Moscow, we headed for a nice restaurant near the hotel. There was a large birthday party going on next to us, and we slowly got incorporated into the festivities. The dancing started, and the merrymakers invited us to join them with the exhortation that “it’s free.” So, up we got and danced. Mom and Dad are pretty good dancers, and impressed the whole place with their moves. I got dragged up too, and did a pretty good impression of someone who had already had just a little bit too much to drink. I wanted to fit in, after all.

Dinner was over, and during a popular song the birthday group hit the dance floor en masse, this time calling everyone into the mix with the phrase “even the foreigners!” Well, that was a couple of toasts later – and I ended up dancing with the birthday girl who went on and on about friends and how you can rely on them, etc. I got a couple of wet, sloppy kisses from various women before we extricated ourselves and wished them all the very best.

I had fun, but it was an especially great experience for the family. They got to see a little bit of the overwhelming Russian spirit of hospitality.

Arrivals

I met Mom and Dad at the airport today. Their flight was late, so I watched all the interesting things going on at the airport; Taxi drivers milling about and occasionally getting chased off by the cops. That got boring, so I went to a café for lunch. Pretty good food, surprisingly, but take it all in context – a stray dog wandered in and sat under the table next to me, staring at me lazily until he dozed off to sleep.

Mom and Dad arrive – and we head into town in a cab. Dad, of course, tried to read every sign he saw despite no Russian education. A lot of the trip was translating by letter - the H is an N, the C is an S, the lower case b is a – well, that doesn’t really make a sound and I won’t be able to explain that in a cab on the MKAD.

We met up with Charles and Claire at the hotel, and after a quick bite headed to Red Square for a nighttime excursion. Red Square is one of the most beautiful places, and at night it takes on a completely unearthly glow. Breathtaking.

Changing the Guard

We have a new language instructor. She’s very professional and nice and a stickler for grammar. But its apparent she’s not going to be much of a character. Not like our previous instructor.

Tatiana Gregorievna was our teacher from the beginning of July to the end of August. She’s an older woman – let’s say in her late 50’s – and served as not only our language professor, but also as an advisor during our first two months in Russia. She has lived in the US before, and seemed acutely aware of the type of culture shock that we were in for. We all owe her a large debt of gratitude for the patience and help. But like any story from Russia, if you scratch a little harder you get some pretty unexpected things.

Her healthcare advice may well work wonders on Russian germs, but I’ll have to get pretty sick indeed before I try any of it. She always extolled the medicinal value of honey. I’ll admit that Russian honey is awesome – I just doubt the miraculous curative powers she ascribed to it. But other remedies were even a little scarier. If you get sick, mix vodka and vinegar together, then rub it on your feet and lower legs and go to sleep. You’ll feel better in the morning.

She constantly worried about what we were eating. She admonished us not to eat anything on the street – and was generally suspicious of restaurants. But I ended up asking for clarification 3 times when she cautioned us about the spiciness of mayonnaise. Yup. I heard that right. She thought too much mayonnaise would ruin our tastebuds.

A discussion on WWII in class led to some rather awkward moments. It ended up ranging from the (continued) occupation of Kaliningrad to the delay in opening the second front, the Russian term for the allied invasion of Europe. The war material that the US sent to the polar port of Murmansk was, she noted archly, defective and of such low quality as to be absolutely useless to the war effort. Wow. Now that’s some heavy soviet propaganda.

Discussions on oligarchs were equally discomfiting. When I mentioned that one oligarch was especially smart – living in England, buying a soccer club, and negotiating to sell his oil company back to the state from a safe distance – she said something to the effect that you should expect as much from a jew. Huh? Yes, she said, I don’t know about in America, but our Russian jews are particularly cunning. Whoa. And, she continued, with so obviously jewish a name as Abramovich he must be especially sly. The PC movement has yet to reach here, apparently.

Anyway, my Russian got a lot better on her watch and she helped me adjust to life in a totally new and foreign environment. We threw a little party on her last day and nearly brought her to tears with our effusive toasts. Like I said, we are grateful to her.

It’s just that I’ll be a little circumspect in which parts of her advice and opinions to put much stock.

Telephone! Internet?

I got home from work on Monday and noticed a small pile of newspapers on the corner of my bed visible from the hall. Hadn’t I left those on the corner of the couch, where I was reading them the night before? Indeed, I got the sinking sensation that someone had moved them. And someone had.

I walked into the living room and noticed the couch pulled away from the wall. On the floor next to it was a cordless phone hooked to a jack. After scanning the room to make sure no one was still there, I picked up the handset and heard a dial tone. I was so excited that I got out my international card and immediately called mom and dad.

Mom’s first question about the phone was, of course, what’s your number? Well, I hadn’t really gotten that far. But I soon discovered that I had no idea what the number is – and still don’t. Whoever broke into my apartment to hook up the phone neglected to leave any such information behind.

But whoever it was did feel compelled to make a comment about my housekeeping. I keep the dish soap under the kitchen sink until I need it. The sink was full of used glasses – I don’t bother cleaning each glass immediately after using it – and anyway it’s a small sink so 6 glasses looks like a lot more than it really is. When I walked into the kitchen I noticed the dish soap perched, precariously and improbably, on the narrow strip of counter in front of the sink.

The next time someone breaks in – maybe to hook up the internet - I hope they have the decency to just steal something and leave the editorializing to someone else.

Things I Wish I Had Had the Courage to Photograph This Week

A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you the less you know.

~Diane Arbus

A priest in a long black cassock, pillbox cap, a pectoral cross on a long chain around his neck - talking on his cellphone in the basement of a store selling icons and church items. “Misha, it’s Sasha. They only have the big one. Do we have room for it?”

Four cops in uniform drinking beer, leaning against the wall of a fire station, and ogling all the girls walking by.

An Interior Ministry Trooper standing guard while a VIP made a transaction at the bank next door to my apartment. A cigarette in one hand, a cell phone in the other, and a machine gun hanging from a strap over his shoulder.

The two machine-gun armed Interior Ministry Troops at my office who escorted me out of the building and toward a huge Mercedes. Little did I know that I was steps ahead of their intended protectee, a gentleman with whom I had just shared the elevator.

A van full of soldiers across the street from school. The driver was asleep with his head on the wheel like a crash victim. In back, 6 soldiers sat around a table with chairs and played cards. At 8 am.