Fun and Games in the Raspberry Patch

On Friday, the company had a group outing for all the staff at a local “attraction hall”. Moscow entertainment space sometimes suffers the same gigantism that afflicts many other aspects of life here. These halls are usually in some converted factory building, and contain several floors of bowling alleys, video game arcades, restaurants, bars, laser tag rooms, karaoke lounges, and billiards halls. Some even have casinos.

Our destination was just outside the center of town, in a ramshackle building and up a decrepit staircase to the entrance. After walking through a metal detector, one of the guards pointed at my bag and asked if I had a knife. He seemed satisfied with my denial and didn’t bother to look in it when I opened the bag. Perhaps I didn’t fit the profile of a knife-carrier – or maybe it was just gun night.

As is often the case in Moscow, the interior was far nicer than the exterior of the building. The massive entertainment complex buzzed, thumped and pulsed with people, music, and activity. We had the private lanes on the lower floor, where I found the rest of my colleagues tucking into a huge buffet. Then, the bowling started.

Bowling in Moscow is a rather pricey affair and is considered new entertainment for gangsters, the emerging middle class, and the elite. All the equipment is the top-of-the-line including fully automated scoring. Still, I began to wonder what sort of neighborhood we were in; our table had a laminated sheet on it listing all the possible fines for noncompliant behavior. For example, $10 for wearing street shoes, $20 for flash photography, and $2460 for breaking the computer monitors.

Bowling, as usual, was a lot of fun. My colleagues were all very enthusiastic and all very bad. But then, that contributes greatly to the enjoyment. Most of the company later went to play laser tag, but I had eaten far too much shashlyk (shish-kebab) to run around playing cops and robbers. I remained on the lanes with some of the girls from the office, and we started up another game.

Unexpectedly finding yourself in a pleasant situation is called “falling into a raspberry patch” in Russian. But that sensation began to dissipate as the game got started. It soon became clear that these beautiful women, despite their very tight jeans, were much better bowlers than I was. Although they rolled the ball slowly, it stayed solidly in the middle of the lane every time.

I’m not a particularly competitive guy. Still, I redoubled my efforts and learned that my competitive spirit is much more related to not feeling like an idiot.

But feeling like an idiot is exactly what I did on Saturday when I went back to the banya for a good heat soak. We played billiards between stints in the sauna, and I re-discovered all the joys and frustrations of playing Russian-style billiards.

Russian billiards is played on a large table, with all white balls and one red cue ball. The red cue ball is used only on the break, and for any shot afterward the player may cue off any ball on the table, and sink any shot. The winner is determined by how many balls a player sinks.

Not having a set cue ball is a bit disorienting at first. It effectively de-anchors your thinking and vision from the traditional method of looking for a shot. But by far the most difficult aspect of this game is that the balls barely fit in the pockets on the table. It’s a tight squeeze, and really hard to sink even a perfectly lined-up shot.

At this level of difficulty, the casual game becomes an endurance test of patience and commitment. Its one of those games that makes you notice that everyone else seems to be having more fun than you.

It’s challenging to play and interesting to try and get the hang of it. I actually managed to win a game, too. I’d have tried my hand again, but my competitive spirit was satisfied with having saved just enough face.