Heavy Lifting

Everything is sort of an adventure for me here, and if taken the right way a little bit of a learning opportunity as well. Perhaps being in an alien environment makes me more reflective, since I’m certain I haven’t become more insightful. Regardless, I’ve been having little flashes of cognition that add up to a better understanding of Russia. Sometimes they’re based in conversation or observation. But this weekend I had a physical lesson.

The metro here is relatively accessible. Most of the stations, in the center of town at least, are serviced by banks of escalators. But once inside the actual stations, you often face a few staircases in order to transfer from one line to another. It’s not really something you notice until you try to do it with luggage.

The other day, I was making just such a transfer. Halfway down the staircase from the Kievskaya blue-line station to the circle-line Kievskaya station, I noticed a nice-looking little old lady with a suitcase. People were streaming by her as she struggled with the bag; a rolling upright nylon suitcase with a retractable handle like everyone has nowadays.

As I approached her, I smiled and grabbed hold of the handle. I was quite proud of myself for proactively helping, but even more so for my correct usage of the formal polite-form, or second person plural, of the verb in the imperative. Well, I’m pretty sure I said the appropriate phrase (“Permit me”) and since she didn’t react in horror or shock, let’s just assume that it came out close to the right thing.

Sometimes, in extreme cases, there’s a window of clarity; a brief moment in which all the power of a person’s brain comes to bear on a situation and analyzes and assesses every tiny input in split fractions of a second. I now had the suitcase by the attached handle, not the retractable one for dragging, and I was quite certain that it was the heaviest thing I have ever tried to lift. Something in the luggage clunked gently with the sort of thudding that lead bricks would make. A gentle clunking, since it was apparent that the bag was densely packed with whatever was making it that heavy.

In that brief moment of clarity, I began to assess my odds of making it down the stairs safely. And they didn’t look good.

But it was already too late. The old lady was smiling broadly, a toothy golden smile, and going on about how polite I was and what a gentlemen I was and how rare all of it is in today’s society. Of course, I tried really hard not show how much I was struggling. I tried to chat a little, but the bag was throwing off my balance, and painfully banging against my leg. Unfortunately, I skittered down the crest of the last two steps, landing noisily in the middle of the platform. The only thing that prevented me from falling is that the suitcase landed first and was enough of a counterweight to stop my bodily momentum.

She thanked me again, grabbed the still-extended handle, and disappeared into the crowd. That’s when I realized that she was no ordinary old lady; she was a real Russian babushka.

A babushka (pronounced BAH-boosh-ka) is the stereotypical little old lady in a long coat or housedress with a kerchief around her head. She’s more than happy to give directions or share advice on nearly any topic. She’s pretty friendly and approachable in that way, and very unlikely to be drunk (a real consideration sometimes when looking for help on the street). She might engage you in conversation that may be difficult to end, but it’s not unpleasant.

But don’t let the babushka fool you. After a lifetime in Russia, they are absolutely as tough as nails. They will yell at you loudly for perceived transgressions of order or decorum, order you about like pieces on a chess board, or take on the surliest drunk on the metro. It’s nothing to be elbowed aside easily by one on a tram, and then notice that she has a 50 lb sack of potatoes over her shoulder.  

More than that, the babushka is the real foundation of Russian society. They staff all the public places as “duty officers”, keeping watch on lobbies, escalators in the metro, and apartment buildings. They look after the grandkids while the parents are at work. And, in no small sense, they help maintain public order with their outspoken opinion of what’s right and wrong.

So, given all that, I’m glad that I lent a hand to the babushka. But someone please tell that old lady: next time, she’s own her own.

Two Parks, Two Eras, One Russia

I’ve visited quite a few of the hotspots of Russian and soviet history in my time here. And like most of such tours, it has involved a good number of visits to gravesites; a cosmonaut in Chuvashia, Lenin on Red Square, tsars, princes, writers, and luminaries in both Moscow and St. Petersburg. I’m practically a certified guide for the necropolis at the Novodevichy Convent. But today’s excursion was slightly different; today was the first time I’d been to a cemetery for an ideology.

A huge park stretches along side the Moskva River in the middle of town. One side is the famous Gorky Park (or Park Kulturiy as the Muscovites have always called it) and the other side holds the New Tretyakov Gallery of 20th century art.

The New Tretyakov is surrounded by this beautiful park, and hosts a wonderful sculpture garden. Paths lead through pine trees and nearby church domes and bell towers poke over bushes and tree tops. The snow hushed things a bit, and brought the hum of two adjacent highways down to just a whisper.

In the back of this park is a separate area that costs 100 rubles to enter. There, many of the dismantled communist statues taken down around Moscow have found a last home. Labeled, strewn across the lawns, they are now historical oddities rather than living touchstones of political power. There are Lenin and Marx statues here in a variety of styles – even a rare statue of young Lenin while he still had hair and was years away from power in the USSR.

Here also is Felix Dzerzhinsky, the hated creator of the KGB, toppled by a jubilant crowd in Moscow as the Soviet Union fell. The plinth of his statue is still attacked with paint and slogans even here in this park.

There’s more obvious editorializing of an official sort over by the Stalin statue. His enormous pink granite likeness is surrounded by rough stone walls held together by iron bars and barbed wire. All around him, smaller sculptures of his victims stand vigil in anguished and tormented poses. It’s an eerie, but appropriate, way to remember a murderous tyrant.

You had it coming, comrade Stalin.

The park is also a good display of the unusual character of the Soviet Union. Heroic carvings of marauding tanks and brave soldiers clutching machine guns are juxtaposed with statues imploring peace; a man breaking a rocket in half, another beating his sword into a plowshare. Another is somewhat more confrontational. An Asian, a Slav, and an African all join hands in both metaphorical and literal steely defiance. “We Demand Peace” is the title.

A few feet away, children ride plastic down a slide and skitter along the ice. It’s an especially charming site among the frowning visages and firmly set jaws of granite soldiers and politicians.

I crossed the street over to Park Kulturiy for a more light-hearted stroll. Admission to the park is 50 rubles, with discounts for the usual benefactors: World War II veterans, students, invalids, etc. But for the first time I also saw a discount posted for emergency workers from the Chernobyl disaster.

Most of the miles of walkways and open spaces of the Park are frozen over and open for skating, which people do in great numbers – and at great speed with varying levels of skill. So I had to cut some of my walk short and head into less populated areas of the park.

It was a welcome relief. Most of the park is wired with loudspeakers that blare all sorts of music. Many leisure activities in Russia, I have learned, involve really loud music. At least the area with children’s rides was playing songs from Disney movies, but the main park was awash in Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You” and The Eagles’ “Hotel California”, blasted from every lamp post.

So I saw it all today. The isolated, unmourned, stone corpses of the Soviet Union and the vibrant youthfulness of today’s Russia – skittering along a path it’s bound to slip and fall on at least a few times.

Full Steam Ahead

The longer I’m here, the more I begin to understand the country and the culture. It comes in small dribs and drabs, but my infrequent epiphanies are quite rewarding – shedding light in otherwise dark areas. This weekend, I think I had another small breakthrough.

An acquaintance of mine invited me join a group of folks heading to the banya, or Russian steam bath. He had rented a private one and a good group was attending, so I gladly accepted.

This particular banya complex is far from the metro, what seemed like long miles down snowy, forlorn “Hammer and Sickle” street. I walked past darkened factories and the odd unfinished residential apartment building. In an attempt to find the address, I entered a small courtyard. All the buildings were unmarked and unlit, but suddenly a door opened and a security guard called to me. “The banya is this way”, he said.

The complex was very nice, and done up in faux country style – interior thatched roof, rustic exposed wooden beams, etc. Our private space was on two levels, and had a pool, a lounge, a dining table set for 10, changing rooms, a billiards table, and of course, a small teak banya.

Banya etiquette is quite strict in Russia. Change, put on sandals, and into the sauna. Single sex steam rooms are naked; in mixed company, like our group, one wears a swimsuit or a long sheet.

Inside the banya, hardcore types wear a felted wool hat to keep the tips of their ears from burning. Also, they take turns beating one another with branches of dried birch leaves in order to bring the blood, and the toxins, closer to the surface. Real Russians will not speak in the banya – they prefer to sit silently and concentrate on their sweating. After a dose of superheated air, you pop out of the banya and into the pool for a shocking refresher. Repeat as necessary.

Unfortunately, I cannot help but play the role of the non-russian in these scenarios. I won’t sit in the unrelenting heat long enough to endanger my unprotected extremities. I have been beaten with birch branches before and know that I hate the sensation enough to refuse to ever do it again. I suddenly feel chatty in a banya for some reason, too, and just can’t obey the no talking rule. I’m also not a real fan of jumping in the pool afterwards, either.

But otherwise, I’m an excellent banya guest.

Truth be told, I don’t really like the banya. What I really like is hanging out in between steam doses. Talking, playing billiards, ordering beers over an intercom from our waitress who miraculously appears at the dining table only moments later.

After a couple of weeks of crushingly cold weather, however, I now appreciate the banya more than before. It felt very good to let the heat soak into me and bring so much angst from my frozen core out to the surface, where it could be painlessly perspired away. I felt the subsequent doses of heat recharging my winter battery, hopefully providing me with enough fortitude to weather the rest of the winter.

Or at least until my next steam dose.

But either way, I think I now understand the fanatical devotion to the banya. To balance one extreme condition, the Russians seem to go find the equal and opposite force to countervail it.

Things Begin Warming Up

I hate to keep harping on the weather. Frankly, it has crowded out all other sorts of things that could be written about in this space by keeping me indoors and cowed. Anyway, several observations from the cold – one example of what it drove some people to do, and two examples of extraordinary efforts to warm back up.

Russian superstition hints that the coldest weather of the year always happens during the feast of the epiphany, a few days after Christmas; literature is full of references to the “Epiphany Frosts”. Yet again this year, the cold snap was right on schedule. Many centuries of vicious winter, made all the more vicious by its regularity and predictability, have left an indelible mark on the Russians. Sure, it has made them impervious to temperatures that frighten others. But more to the point, it has made lots of them genuinely insane.

The Epiphany celebrates the baptism of Jesus in the River Jordan. Part of the Russian celebration is to emulate the ancient immersion in that comparatively tropical river by going to the nearest body of water, sawing a hole in the ice, and jumping in. Three times. At midnight.

This was a widespread event this year, and there was plenty of media coverage of sites all over the country. Most places seemed to have 3 people standing around with an official job. There’s always a priest to administer a blessing before going in. Also, there’s a man with a hook to prevent dunkers from inadvertently going under the ice. And most important of all, there’s someone with a glass of vodka afterwards to warm the swimmers back up.

In my case, the order would probably be a bit different. I’d drink the vodka first for courage. Then, I’d have the guy with the hook push me in. Lastly, I’d ask the priest for a prayer of thanksgiving for deliverance from extremely foolish self-inflicted danger.

The midnight swim has become a favorite event for politicians to attend. I saw Vladimir Zhirinovsky on TV. He was wearing a tight speedo that managed to make him as physically repulsive as some his political platforms. But I did have to agree with him when he stated, post plunge, “This is why Americans don’t understand us.”

Vodka, of course, figures prominently into another example of warming up. As all zookeepers know nowadays, vodka has amazing thermal powers. That’s what the Moscow zoo was thinking when it gave its elephants a few buckets of vodka to shake off the chill. Unfortunately, they were – ahem – overmedicated and one tore out the central heating pipes in the elephant house. On second thought, perhaps the vodka worked after all.

The granddaddy of all national warm-up maneuvers, however, was this week’s revelation that a British spy ring had been uncovered. American spies would have seemed a little too ominous and probably would have provoked a more violent reaction, given the “thermal” remedies that a lot of folks were using (q.v. the elephant). But a British spy ring, with its Bond-like overtones, would be enough to get folks riled up without causing a major fracas. It appears the government has kept this one in its back pocket since November and chose to use it, coincidentally, during the most frigid part of the year.

Now that temperatures are back into the still-cold, but sane, 0 degree Fahrenheit range, it may be safe to venture back out into the wild. I hope that the insanity of the cold weather period doesn’t spill over into more temperate times.

Deep Freeze

Cold! If the thermometer had been an inch longer we'd all have frozen to death.
~Mark Twain

This week’s string of record-low temperatures is the longest in some 50 years. I’ve had to redefine my ideas about what actually constitutes cold, and how best to deal with it.

The city is enshrouded in an icy fog that makes it look and feel as though the air itself has frozen. While the standard expression to describe the resulting penetrating cold is “bone chilling”, I think that this week’s high temperatures in the –10 degree Fahrenheit range transform that saying in to “bone cracking”. Everything just seems so brittle when it’s covered in frost.

Passing through the front door is to be met with a blast of air that strikes like a sharp slap. It makes you stand straight upright and nearly stop moving with the first attack on your exposed skin and first painful gasp of air. Its shockingly cold.

Within a few feet of my doorstep, I noticed the sharp report of my boots on the pavement. What are normally quiet, soft rubber soles had stiffened in a matter of moments to boots as noisy as hobnails. But that was earlier in the week, because it’s been snowing for the past couple of days. Now, every step brings a noisy squeak from the ice and snow on the sidewalk.

It takes a while to get ready to go outside. Two pairs of thermal socks. Two pairs of thermal underwear.  A heavy, double fur-lined coat. A long scarf wrapped around my head from eyes to throat. And a fur hat (ushanka) with the ear flaps down and tucked into the raised fur collar of my coat. It’s as effective as armor, as heavy, and probably takes almost as long to put on.

Thusly girded, I dashed off to the kiosk on the corner for water. The routine is to pay at the kiosk, and then take the beverages from the adjacent refrigerator case when the clerk unlocks it remotely. Only now the cases had been so long exposed to the insane chill that all the bottles inside them were frozen solid.

I suppose the poor refrigerators weren’t able to deal with the role reversal expected of them. Their normal role is to provide cool refreshing drinks, in a word, to refrigerate. But when the outside world inverted and became a freezer, they didn’t know what to do. Were they now expected to keep things warmer than the ambient temperature? To un-refrigerate? It seems that they gave up in the face of the existential dilemma and let everything freeze and explode.

I bought two frozen-solid cylinders of water anyway. But I still wanted something to drink in the short term. I bought Fanta, which apparently only gets a little bit slushy even in weather that will cause a pepsi bottle to explode. I was happy with that purchase until halfway through the bottle when I wondered what naturally occurring ingredients in the context of a bright orange drink could possibly prevent freezing. I believe that the answer is “none”.

Oh well. As I got home and brushed the ice off my eyelashes, I decided that a little anti-freeze might just do me some good.

Flaps Down!

There are several ways to battle the cold. By far the most preferable is to simply stay inside. But when it gets this cold for this long, the inevitable reality of going outdoors begins to set in. At least, for a visitor like me, you get the novelty of seeing Muscovites in their winter survival gear.

(We all know I'm deluding myself, of course. At minus 30 degrees celsius, it really is necessary to invent a bright side no matter how much of a stretch. Otherwise, your next cab ride might just unexpectedly be to the airport. "I've got a passport," you say to yourself, "and a wallet full of credit cards. This is crazy. I can get out here. I can save myself.")

There are two variants of winter raiment for the female of the species. Some women bundle up in heavy, long furs with imposing matching hats. The others wear down parkas with knit bucket-shaped hats that come down over the ears. The unifying factor is that most women prefer hoods and will wear them up at all times.

On the other hand, there are 4 kinds of hats in Russia for men.

First, and most simple, is the simple black knit ski cap. This is a cheap and functional option, with the ability to pull it down over the ears making it a popular choice. It’s a somewhat ominous fashion accessory when paired with a heavy black leather coat. This is generally worn by young men - the sort of guys who don't wear hats at all when its a bit warmer.

What I’ve always known as the “english driving cap” is very popular. Tweed and heavier fabrics are popular, but wool-lined leather versions are also available. In either case, the local variant comes with ear flaps that swing down from the inside. These caps seem to be worn by men of all ages.

A variety I’ve never seen before is called the “Austrian” cap. It’s a high-crowned, fur-lined cap with external ear flaps. The “Austrian” is very, very popular. In particular, it seems a favorite of middle aged men - the sort of men who don't look like they'd wear something like an english cap. The history is murky, but I suspect its about as "Austrian" as french toast is French.


This is the most traditional and perhaps most popular hat in truly cold weather: the ushanka. The name of this hat has the word for “ear” (usha) right in it. So its heavy duty gear for the whole head. Size and luxuriousness of the fur are indicators of social status. The gaudiest and biggest ushankas ever made are reserved, it seems, for American tourists at the outdoor souvenir market. It’s quite easy to spot them; NorthFace jacket, messenger bag, Merril GoreTex boots, an enormous fur hat, and a ridiculous self-congratulatory grin for “fitting in with the locals”.

Among the Russians etiquette is relatively strict, though. One doesn’t wear the ushanka in mild weather – any where north of the freezing mark, it seems to me. To do so is to invite hostile and perplexed stares from normally inscrutable Russian passersby. And, most importantly, one doesn’t bring down the ear flaps except for during the absolutely most severe weather.

This week qualifies as severe, so there's no social faux pas in not putting the flaps down. Quite to the contrary - you'd be crazy not to.

((Celsius *2) - 10%) + 32

Moscow is having a bit of a cold spell. I had advance notice thanks to the folks at the office. The other day they smugly told me what the prognosis was for the temperature in the middle of the week. I furrowed my brow, and stared over their heads in concentration. Then, they repeated themselves in English. “Oh,” I said. “I understand. It just doesn’t make any sense to me.”

They laughed heartily, somehow gleeful in their pride about how impossibly cold it could get in their motherland. The nationalist one-upsmanship got a little out of hand when they began drawing lines in the air and discussing latitude. “The southernmost parts of Russia, after all, are further north than the northernmost parts of the US”. Really? Even if that is true, there are a lot of other factors that go into making a climate. I grew up in the northeast, and I know for a fact that it’s not the same type of weather as Sochi – Russia’s Florida.

But if they were trying to get me to confess that their country is more of a frozen wasteland than mine, all they had to do was wait a couple of days.

Muscovites woke up to readings of minus 23 Celsius (minus 9 Fahrenheit) this morning as a cold front blew in from western Siberia, according to the Russian Meteorological Bureau. Temperatures may reach as low as minus 34 Celsius (minus 29 Fahrenheit) in the coming days, which would be the lowest since 1947. [Bloomberg News]

Tuesday morning, all smiles, they asked how I liked Russian winter. But by lunch time, when the temperature had gone down a few more degrees, there wasn’t such patriotic euphoria about the cold. “This isn’t normal,” they began to say to each other.

Before moving over Moscow, the cold front reduced readings in the western Siberian city of Tomsk to minus 50 Celsius, the coldest for a century. [Bloomberg News]

At that point, the numbers on the thermometer become sort of meaningless. Actually, The Celsius and Fahrenheit scales do converge at -40 degrees. Up until now, I just thought that was a theoretical construct of science that wasn’t going to figure into my life; kind of like Physics class when one measures temperatures from the absolute zero on the Kelvin scale where motion at the molecular level ceases to be possible.

I will certainly cease all motion outside my warm apartment if it gets any colder. Zero degrees Kelvin is about minus 273 degrees Celsius. I used to think that was impossible, too – but this week I’ll keep an eye out for it.

If I Ran the Zoo

I got together with some of my colleagues this weekend. We had one of those conversations that strays into strange territory – so strange that no one can remember how we eventually stumbled onto the weirdest topic of the evening. It had a lot to do with the difference between Moscow girls and their counterparts from the provinces – their differences in attitudes and behaviors.

Hans skipped over our poorly informed and inarticulate generalizations and went straight for an anecdote about sheer insanity. Today, he sent us a follow up email that elaborates more on a seriously crazy story. I’m just going to attach the message in its entirety because a) I’m still stunned and b) I’m not able to do any better than he did.

There are only two Russian words you need to know. Kvartira is apartment, and tvorog is a sort of Russian farmer cheese.

A quick follow up about my colleague, Natasha, from Cheboksari and her pet lion. I got the full details - and they're nearly as shocking as we originally thought. It's a real lion, not a tiger.

They (Natasha, her permanent boyfriend, and the lion) live in a one room kvartira - and the lion basically considers the entire room his den. The cat is one year and 3 months old, at present it weighs in at 120 kilos. Its main (or is it spelled "mane") is just beginning to grow in around its neck - but is not as full and robust as it'll be in another 8 months or so.

As far as what it eats, it's gets a concoction of the following in a bowl: 5 – 7 kilos of extra fatty ground beef, 200 grams tvorog, one egg, and a liter of milk. Every day.

The cute little kitten likes to sleep in the same bed as the couple at night. She prefers sleeping with the cat rather than with her boyfriend because the cat is warmer and doesn't ask "stupid" questions.

Occasionally when the cat is in a good mood, it holds a part time job at the circus down the street... but lately it hasn't been getting along with the ringmaster or its fellow animals... so it hasn't been working much. According to Natasha, he's been moody lately because he is teething. His baby teeth have fallen out and a giant set of (flesh-tearing) fangs are coming in nicely.

I asked Natasha if the lion is noisy, and she said no... that's he's mostly quiet and just grumbles a lot. Although once the neighbor pissed him off and he roared loud enough to set off about a dozen car alarms in the parking lot.

Well, as of now, I think I'm backtracking on my initial impression of Cheboksari girls... wouldn't want to get fed to the lions you know.

Moscow... never a dull moment.

Indeed, Hans, indeed.

Sic Semper Tyrannis

Russia has a rich history and a long memory. And from time to time, it seems willing to do some unnatural things to preserve its past.

Today’s target for me was Lenin’s Tomb, the low red marble mausoleum alongside the Kremlin. It’s encircled with a low rail, well-patrolled by guards, and open to the public a few days a week from 10am to 1pm. I lined up with a few dozen others at one end of the square and waited to be let in. Admittance is free, but strictly controlled – you have to empty your pockets and go through a metal detector. They are quite serious about the rules – no bags, no cameras, and no camera phones. Passing there, you enter the front door of the mausoleum, walk down a flight of steps and enter the crypt.

Lenin is encased in a glass coffin with an ornate metal top, and the elevated path goes around three sides of the sarcophagus. The edges of the coffin are mirrored, so you manage to get a view of the body much as if it were lying in a three-way mirror like the kind found in a clothing store. The rules down here are quite strict, too; stay quiet, keep your hands out of your pockets, and do not stop for a longer look. There are soldiers every few feet, and they are somewhat aggressive when it comes to enforcement. I wasn’t walking fast enough for their liking and I got yelled at to keep moving along.

It isn’t hard not to grind to a halt when you’re staring one of the most significant men of the 20th century in the face, a man whose intellectual and personal charisma forged a new empire out of the ashes of a corrupt and decayed old order. That, and he’s been dead for about 82 years, too. So the awe of a student of history gets mixed in with a healthy dose of morbid curiosity.

The truth is that Vladimir Ilyich doesn’t look so bad considering that he’s been dead a lot longer than he’s been alive. Or, for that matter, even a lot longer than I’ve been alive. There are some “condition” problems with the fingers of the right hand, notably a discolored thumb, and a slightly bluish tinge to his temples. But on the whole, his condition is somewhat enviable even for some living 82 year olds.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union a debate has intermittently flared up about whether Lenin should be removed from the tomb for more conventional burial. For the first time last fall, though, the issue was broached by a high-ranking member of the government. That lends some credence to the belief that Volodya’s days on Red Square may be numbered.

What remains of the communist party raises a hue and cry and holds protests each time the topic is raised. But most of those folks are dying off and soon there won’t be anyone to protest a transfer.

The rest of society seems to be lining up behind the idea. The church considers it unholy to have an unburied person around. Physical incorruptibility is a criterion for sainthood, so having a preserved body from a competing ideology is a bit of an insult, I imagine. Democrats feel offended by the exalted position of a discredited leader of a discredited regime. Others, less ideological, think it perverse to have a preserved corpse at the center of their capital.

Poor Lenin. He never wanted to be preserved or praised. He wanted a simple burial near his family. But politics got in the way; Stalin thought it quite useful to create a cult around his deceased predecessor. Now that he’s increasingly irrelevant, he might just get his way.

But no matter where he ends up, old Vova may end up with the last laugh after all. Just around the corner from his mausoleum, several Lenin look-alikes pose for photos with tourists. For a few rubles, of course.

Expectations are Unexpectedly Better Than Expected

Markets supposedly represent the contemporaneous collective interpretation of multiple players. That seems to make some intuitive sense in small numbers. But imputing that behavior when the market is large and diverse is a bit more of a philosophical leap. Sometimes it even makes it hard to explain something that’s already happened.

2005 was another banner year in the Russian equity market; The RTS and MICEX indices both finished out the year with an 83% gain. December was a great month (+8.5%) despite our belief that a US Christmas rally would be a necessary pre-condition. And yesterday’s open to the trading year saw the RTS Index leap another 5.8% from that healthy end of year print.

But why? We’ve been struggling to understand the source of that strength and why it has spilled over into the beginning of this year. All sorts of data points and impressions are aired during our investment meetings. Our head of fixed income came up with the best characterization so far, and I’ve used it as the title for this post.

I guess in a way, he’s got the right sentiment in the funniest possible words; in the short-term, sharply positive revisions (and lack of negative revisions) to the outlook for 2006 have improved the investment case in the capital markets. Oil seems stubbornly stuck above most long-term average price per barrel estimates, and the nuclear dilemma in Iran may not make it any worse but it certainly won’t make it any better. The Ukrainian natural gas standoff was resolved and will result in even better profits at bellwether Gazprom. Overall, I suppose its safe to say that the macro situation in Russia is benign to positive.

The really big deal from the perspective of the local markets, though, is that more foreign investors are beginning to notice what’s going on. In the first week of January alone, best estimates are that more than $1 billion have been committed to emerging market funds. And Russia, with its barn-burning 2005 performance, is a major part of the allocation.

As a result of this new found attention, fixed-income spreads (versus the US treasury) have tightened, Russian equities are now at a slight premium to emerging market peers, and overnight rates (a widely watched measure of liquidity) have fallen to between 1% and 2%.

So what does this mean for 2006? I suppose it means most of the “convergence” theme has played out and that the really easy money has already been made. Now, local companies will have to start posting some decent profit numbers to justify the new valuations. In a way, the New Year has brought with it a whole new market with a whole new set of challenges.

Ready to Cast the First Stone

Another weekend in Moscow, another opportunity to visit some monasteries. What in July had seemed to be an inexhaustible supply of ready-made historical/cultural/architectural/ tourist experiences is beginning to dwindle after 6 months of pilgrimages. Frankly, the prospect of visiting yet another church in the freezing weather wasn’t all that attractive to me. But with a new camera, new thermal underwear, and an open mind, it can be a rewarding experience still.

On my way out, I saw my doorman for the first time since I left in late December. Nikolai Alexandrovitch had shaved off his moustache during that time. I commented on it, and he noted that he shaves it off every New Year’s Day only to let it grow back in during the course of the ensuing year. That sounded like an appropriately passive New Year’s Resolution for my taste; Kind of like resolving to get slightly older day by day, or to breathe only as much as is absolutely necessary.

My early start on the day allowed me to stop at a local coffee shop for a leisurely drink. I had some difficulty ordering what I wanted from the waitress – most of the conversation went well enough, but the actual product specification phase was somewhat disastrous. As I waited for my order to arrive, I had the time to speculate on why that happened. I think its because I was ordering hot chocolate at 9am on a Sunday, and local cultural norms may dictate that that beverage isn’t appropriate for breakfast.

Well, society usually builds fail-safes into its governing code of rules. If its an undesirable outcome, then the possibility of it happening should be restricted to appropriate times. For example, stores can’t sell beer before noon on Sunday and McDonalds won’t make you a Big Mac before 11am. (Don’t ask how I know those). Anyway, they happily provided me with the cocoa, which is much more like a melted chocolate bar in a coffee cup. I had to eat the last bit with a spoon after it cooled down. In retrospect, its no wonder they were surprised when I ordered it.

I got all hopped up from the sugar and caffeine and raced out to the Novospassky Monastery. Its beautiful, and charming and ancient and all that. For me, though, 16th century churches are beginning to blur together. This one was notable mainly because it had 2 Christmas trees on either side of the front door with blinking lights that played carols in that annoying digital beeping noise. I got a pretty full dose while waiting for the cathedral to open up after a break for cleaning.

Nearby is the Krutitskoye Podvorye, a cathedral with an attached residence for the local bishop. Its made entirely of brick produced on site, and an impressive pile from any viewpoint. I followed signs for a little museum and ended up going down steep staircases and through low doorways to the basement of the old palace.

The museum turned out to be about Russian pilgrims to the holy land and, judging from the surprised and excited reaction from the guide when I walked in, not a very high traffic site. He was a charming older man with a bristly white beard, and walked me through the small exhibit, turning the lights on in each display case we came to. He crossed himself hastily each time he mentioned a saint’s name – a rather frequent circumstance when discussing pilgrimages.

We came to one glass case and he flipped on the light. The guide produced a key from his pocket but paused before he opened the glass door. “Have you been christened?” he asked. I answered that I had, and he proceeded. Eventually, he let me handle an antique prayer rope – a sort of rosary – that had been prayed on some countless thousands of times by a community of monks. He claimed that the act of handling it and crossing myself would be enough to remove my sins.

“All my sins?” I asked.
He looked at me a little cockeyed.
“Maybe,” he hedged.

Christmas Comes But Twice a Year

Merry (Russian) Christmas, celebrated today.


Yuri Dolgoruki - Founder of Moscow - decked out for the holidays.  

Red Square - hymns from the Kazan Cathedral were wafting onto the square for a nearly other-worldly experience.  

Fellow Travelers

The Delta direct flight from New York to Moscow is a microcosm of Russian- American relations. Like all flights, it’s possible to get a good look at your fellow passengers and speculate a bit about their circumstances or reasons for travel. New Russians with fancy luggage filled with recent purchases, older Russians visiting family with tattered bags. But more significantly, the flight is just long and boring enough to make a chatty neighbor spill his guts.

The plane usually has at least a couple of groups traveling on it. And more often than not, they’re Christian missionaries. Missionaries are recognizable mainly by their matching oversized polo shirts embroidered with the name of their church and some corny hopeful saying about light or truth or seeds or sometimes all three. Missionaries, in my experience anyway, seem to have a look about them; something approximating peace and fear in equal measures. It can come across as creepy or calming.

I’ve learned to speak differently to these folks. At first, when I would say that I am in Russia on a Fellowship, they would perk up and ask what Church I was affiliated with. It wasn’t a definition of the word that I was familiar with – but to many people “fellowship” has an exclusively Christian organizational connotation. Now I just say that I work in Moscow.

There’s always an upper-middle aged guy on the plane with sort of a stunned look on his face. And he always ends up sharing with seat mates how he found a wonderful woman on the internet that he’s on his way to meet.

I sat next to Roy on the way back to Moscow and heard all about it. As I helped him fill out his “migration card” – which the Russian government in its wisdom decided to issue solely in Russian unlike previous multilingual versions – he gushed forth geyser-like with details of his trip. I have to say that they were pretty sketchy. He had already started taking her advice on financial matters for the trip to Russia.

When we got to the part of the form for writing down the details of the “inviting body” – I skipped over making a pun on that, though it was killing me to let such comedic fruit just rot on the tree – he admitted that he didn’t know his friend’s last name, let alone her address or phone number. I directed him to his visa and hotel information for the appropriate information.

There are always more than a few guys like Roy on that plane. Both in July on my first trip to Russia and on the way back to a couple of weeks ago, I’ve been able to compare similar stories with my traveling companions that we’ve heard from our respective seat mates.

Sometimes they’re success stories. Like the fellow who was going back to visit his new extended family in Russia after some dozen years of happy marriage. But in general, suffice it to say that you’d prefer to hear your seatmate’s story on the first leg of the trip – when’s he’s guaranteed to be hopeful and excited and a little apprehensive. Not the return trip, when there’s a chance that you’ll be listening to a disappointed, venting, jilted suitor.

Roy didn’t seem to have any sort of heavy coat with him on the plane, which was a bit of poor planning given the single-digit temperature in Moscow. He assured me that, as a native of Ohio, he wouldn’t have a problem with the wintry weather. I asked where he lived in Ohio. “Oh,” he said matter-of-factly, “I don’t live there anymore. I’ve lived in Southern California for the past 30 years.”

I love the optimism. He’s traveling to Russia to meet a woman with no address and only a first name. And he’s quite sure that childhood memories alone will sustain him physically regardless of how unprepared he is to weather such numbing cold. If you gave 100 guys like Roy a budget and some time, they might just change the world. Or die of hunger.

I last saw Roy at passport control in the airport in Moscow. He had stumbled his way into the “Russian Citizens Only” line, and it was too late and too far for me to help him out.

I wondered what became of him as I waited for my luggage.  

Christmas Plenty

The Holidays were a whirlwind tour of personal hotspots in the United States. In 13 days I went from Moscow to NYC to Syracuse to NYC to San Jose to Los Angeles to San Jose to San Francisco to San Jose to NYC to Moscow.

I slept in 5 different beds.

I estimate that the main transit parts of the trip covered more than 15,600 miles as the crow – or Boeing 767 – flies. The total cost of this entire peregrination was at least $2000, sort of a bargain when taking the vast distances into account. By far the most expensive, and frequently traversed, mile was the stretch from JFK to Manhattan. I wasn’t in New York for more than 12 hours in any of the three layovers, but it was enough time to afford me an opportunity to eat sushi, a cheeseburger deluxe, and a turkey club sandwich.

For a less rain-man like analysis of my trip, I should consider the qualitative aspects of the journey. Although the travel got a little wearying – at one point I woke up on a plane and wasn’t really sure where I was going - I had the opportunity to see all my family and a good number of my closest friends. I enjoyed every minute of it. Thanks to everyone who made this holiday season such a memorable experience for me.