Moscow Living

Windswept in Moscow

I'm finally settling into some type of routine, gently becoming a Muscovite although there is nothing gentle about becoming a Muscovite in reality. Cities engulf you whole and you've got to be careful that you don't lose your soul. When you watch people in cities, they stare at the floor and have a slightly grey tinge to their complexion - Moscow has critically high pollution levels so I may be getting more than a grey tinge, dirty water, dirty air. Russia in general has no clue when it comes to recycling - the concept seems alien, which for a country this size is slightly worrying and also makes you wonder why the rest of the world is bothering if Russia and the U.S just don't give a damn...mmmmm. There are also trucks that spray the roads with water here to clean them. Everyday in the afternoon you hear the noise of them coming down the road - they spread the width of the road with all the traffic behind them like the safety car at the grand prix and spray stupid amounts of water everywhere. I have been caught out on the pavement a few times and got fairly wet. The best bit is, even if it's pouring with rain, the trucks still come out and spray water on rainy roads to clean the already clean streets.Mental. The city is also cleaned continually - I've never seen anything like it - there are people everywhere, sweeping, emptying bins, cleaning parks. There are men in the park near me that are raking up all the leaves at 6am so that by the time the normal Muscovite heads to work, the parks are clean and tidy without a hint of autumn fluttering in the breeze. For a city where 90% smoke, you never see a fag butt on the floor. What you do see on the floor is SPIT - yes, the Russian men seem to think it is fine to spit up all sorts all over the floor, at any point of the day. You walk down these perfectly clean wide pavements and all you do is weave between the pools of saliva. Maybe that's why they spray the streets with water....

People sweeping the roads in oncoming traffic

Arthur seems to be doing much better, I think most of the difficulty was linked to the fact that he had so many back teeth coming through. He is really enjoying his 6 hours of nursery a week. We now have 3 pictures that he has brought home - we're running out of places to put them as you are not allowed to put anything on the walls here. They do a welcome song at nursery, some Russian ditty and they all dance in a circle with flags and ribbons (maybe i've actually signed him up to a cult) and last week he finally joined in with the dancing and flag waving - he obviously feels part of the group now and is letting the music take him...indeed. We try and get to some baby groups every week and I even hosted one last Wednesday which was good fun and met some interesting folk. I met a German lady who then invited us to Brunch on Sunday which was really fab. It was total chaos as there were so many children but it was a great atmosphere and Arthur loved it. There were some very interesting people there - a lady that works for the New York Times and a guy who writes for the Moscow Times so there was never a dull moment. I love going to places where the atmosphere is so relaxed and people can just sit back and chat with children flying from one room to another. I hope I can reciprocate this in the future.

I laugh at Arthur in his snow suit every time he wears it....his feet look so small and also, we lost the gloves so he is actually wearing the feet part of the suit on his hands so that is why they look humongous! Is it cruel to intentionally dress your child in something so that you can laugh at them?! Heh, he doesn't know that he has shoes on his hands...and if anyone tells him then that makes you cruel for bursting the bubble.

Graeme has also been trying to teach Arthur a little about art...the problem is that Graeme takes it far too seriously and then doesn't understand when Arthur eats the chalk instead of drawing a pretty flower...does anyone remember the competitive dad sketch in the Fast Show? Well, I'm afraid ladies and gentleman that I have a live one here. When Graeme makes a boat with the mega blocs and takes half an hour perfecting it, Arthur comes over and smashes it up - so Graeme now doesn't share mega blocs with Arthur...Graeme makes something and shows him from a distance.....although I must admit to getting rather annoyed at setting his Ikea farm up for 20 minutes with all the animals, fences and tractors in place (trust me, it looked amazing) when mighty thighs comes straight over and sits on it all and then throws all the animals across the room - heh, wait a minute young man...mummy was enjoying her piece of farm art work until you came a long and ruined it, plus, a swan doesn't go 'moooooo' - I had to get one jibe in, he did ruin my fun with the farm.

The over sized apron makes him look like one of the seven dwarfs - he's always had a vague resemblance to dopey - especially with a hat on and his ears poking out.

The bucket has eaten his head....bad bucket.

The Red Dwarf taking in a little culture.......

How do those feet keep up that body?

We had our first night out in Moscow last Saturday and so we headed over to a Tibetan restaurant across the road. I know you are probably thinking - 'Why didn't they go to a Russian restaurant?' Well we got a few menus up online and to tell you the truth, they freaked me out a little - Beef tongue stew, calves brains, fried rabbits tongues...I mean, seriously, how big is a rabbit tongue? How many rabbit tongues would you have to fry to make that a main meal? Anyway, with my slight phobia of meat I can't recognise, I just couldn't face going to a restaurant with a Cyrillic menu and having to guess what part of the animal I was ingesting so we went with a recommendation and Tibetan is pretty different from the norm so I didn't feel too guilty for avoiding all things Russian. The restaurant turned out to be very good indeed and we had a feast of spicy ribs and vegetables and then I had a garlic chicken curry and Graeme had deep fried spicy lamb. All of it was fantastic so we will definitely be returning there as there were plenty of things on the menu to go back and try. Graeme was drinking lager but I wanted a vodka. The problem is that people drink vodka straight here and I normally drink it with soda water so I had to order a vodka - the waitress asked me if I just wanted 50ml- yes, 50 is fine thanks I don't want a tall glass of the stuff, and then order a bottle of fizzy water. I then had to keep pouring the vodka into my water which I'm sure looked pretty odd. At least I know I have a way round drinking straight vodka! We then went on to an Irish bar that is around the corner from our flat - I know, Irish bar in Moscow - what a surprise...and yes, if I was on holiday some where then it wouldn't be my first choice but we live here and it's cheaper than most of the bars and has an actual bar like feel to it. Plus, whilst we were in there someone ordered a kebab and chips and you should have seen the size of it! Plus, they serve food till really late so you don't need to get your kebab on your way home, you can just order it whilst you are in the bar...well, that's what Graeme is planning anyway!

Moscow seems to come alive at night with lights and it was really exciting seeing it for the first time - 

The Museum by the Kremlin

Entrance to Red Square

Walking into Red Square

GUM department store 

Behind GUM

Blurry Graeme

Vodka fuelled Chloe

I can understand why the Russians drink Vodka, I mean, Graeme was freezing when we were walking around but I, having drunk the national drink all night was on fire...or was that just my conversation......

The Golden Pig

There is an English butcher in Moscow who makes his own sausages and so I ordered a load online - I also noticed that he had back bacon which is something that doesn't exist here - you're lucky to find streaky bacon. So anyway, it was supposed to be delivered today and my nanny was in the house so I thought i'd go shopping for some food when I receive a phone call from a Russian fella speaking a lot of Russian (as they do) and I worked out it was the sausage delivery man. He kept saying where he was on the street and I kept saying in English - ' I'm in the supermarket - ring the doorbell - there is someone in the flat' He replied 'no understand' and kept repeating where he was on the street. So I told him to wait, well I said '5 minutes' in Russian and ran the length of the road (I was at one end, he was at the other and it's a very long road) to try find the sausage man. I get down to the place I thought he said and there was no sausage man to be found - so I ring him and he says, 'Ritz' so I run to the Ritz hotel but cannot find him so I ring again and he says 'Theatre' (well in Russian but they are very similar words) so I then run to the theatre, hanging about with my Ikea trolley on wheels - yes, I have invested in an old woman's shopping trolley - mock me if you will but it is a life saver...and there is the sausage man! Thank bloody god, I thought they were playing a joke on how far they could get me to run up and down a street for Russian candid camera. So, I'm handed a plastic bag of sausages and i'm handing over cash - people are staring as they think some weird clandestine operation is afloat as we are standing far too near the security guards of the Ritz Carlton - 'It's okay people, just sausages and bacon - I'm not buying explosives'. So back I trot to the house with my exciting purchase! When I looked at the receipt I realised how much money i'd spent on pig products....£6 for 6 rashers of bacon.....£1 a rasher?! Are you kidding me? 5 sausages were £5 ....bleedin' 'ell...So I have bought from the golden pig that lives in Moscow - if anyone fancies a career change - you can do a blinder here in pig products for the expat community. I will be holding a ceremony at the weekend when I cook a fried breakfast - we shall have to worship at the plate of the golden pig and eat one mouthful every 10 minutes - there will be no rushing of this breakfast let me tell you!

The fuggles arrive!

As Graeme headed off to the airport to collect the animals, his Russian boss quipped, 'I hope you have lots of money with you for the bribes.' Graeme thought he was joking but I think as he sat in the customs bay of the airport and the hours passed he realised that a bribe probably would have speeded up the whole process. Graeme said that in the 5 hours he was there, he was moved from room to room, building to building, paper work was shuffled and taken to different locations and then he was sent to sit in the car for a few hours listening to Radio Maximum....sounds like a fun evening.

One of the fun rooms Graeme got to sit in

'Simplified customs declarations' Graeme would beg to differ...

This was the first moment Graeme saw the animals - on a fork lift in a warehouse! Very funny by all accounts!

Anyway, they finally returned at around midnight and what a reunion it was! You do wonder what goes through their minds, 'Oh look, it's those b*stards that keep abandoning us.' or maybe, ' oh yipee, it's our family back together!' or there might just be static...in Alice's case, I think that could be true.

There are some amusing videos of them arriving-

They all looked in good condition and all seemed pretty relaxed. Alfie was the most disturbed and I have found him in some strange hiding holes -

'Please don't make me go on a plane again....'

Stand off at the tunnel....

Alfie is not taking a chance of being left behind again....

Sorry boys, this is the nearest you get to the outside...

The first day of dealing with animals and Arthur was slightly stressful as Graeme tottered off to work I realised that I would have to take Alice for a wee every couple of hours. Alice kept sitting in front of a door in the kitchen which leads to some back stairs thinking that there was a garden beyond...oh dear, sorry Alice just some dusty old servants stairs from many years ago. I must admit though, we've settled into quite a nice routine with her now and she thinks it's brilliant because she is getting a walk every few hours! One of us heads out with Alice at about 7am for a quick morning jaunt whilst the other looks after Arthur. Plus we just met an old guy called Anatoly - he's about 80 bless him and he's an expat dog walker. He turned up tonight at our flat with a leather briefcase full of references and pictures of him with many dogs! He didn't speak much English but we muddled through! He said to Graeme 'She sit, heel and stay' and Graeme said 'oh yes, she is very well behaved...' WHAT! Poor Anatoly is going to get a bit of a shock! Anyway, he's going to take her out every week day from 9am till 10am so let's hope Alice behaves herself. There are lots of packs of wild dogs that hang around different streets and they are seriously scary. I went to get some fruit and veg the other day and decided to cut down this side street - I spotted an old dog at the side of the road and thought, 'oh he looks okay' little did I know that this was obviously the look out for the other dogs - he barked and suddenly I could hear all this howling and could see a pack of dogs running my way! I started to run with the buggy and Alice who at this point had her tail between her legs and was definitely sensing danger - I ran towards the main street and must have looked completely insane as I ran past a restaurant with loads of people eating outside, shouting behind me 'shooo' 'go away' 'oh shit'. Suffice to say, it was a terribly frightening experience so I'm not going to be cutting down any more side streets with Alice. There is a park 5 minutes away which is safe  - like a boulevard with trees and paths and a play park for Arthur and so we head there. There is also a 'xleb' shop (bread) on the way which is particularly exciting - not only do they have bread but cakes and these little pastry parcels filled with spinach, chicken and beef. Very nice indeed. There is also the oldest food shop on the way which is great but it's like the Harrod's food court so not somewhere i'll be doing much shopping but great for things you can't find anywhere else.

Rather grand food court

Not quite your local CO OP

So we are now finally beginning to find our feet. I did have a melancholy day when the animals arrived as I wondered if we had done the right thing bringing them all to the centre of a city but now i'm thinking it will be okay. We'll all have to adjust and find the best routine we can. 

Arthur is adjusting by putting pants on his head - not quite sure what they are supposed to be? A cape?

Pants man to the rescue

Prefers a different colour...

Oh and his love of cleaning has not diminished....

Ikea, moving house, loss of sanity....

Arthur enjoying the mall play area - before I ruined it all....

Heh, now that's what I call a weekend. Probably could be numbered as one of the most stressful of my life but we're through the looking glass now and just about coming out the other side.....just. I'm sitting down at my new kitchen table on WIFI so things are definitely looking up.

Do you know, I actually headed to Ikea feeling quite optimistic about how organised we were. I sent Graeme and Arthur off to the play park in the mall and I headed into Ikea with my list. The first area I hit was the sofa bit and so spent time taking photos of colours and then going to find cushions that matched. I then went up to a lady and pointed at a sofa I wanted in the catalogue and said 'GDE?' which is 'Where?' and her response was - we might have some in two weeks. Brilliant, first thing on the list - Missing in action. So I then started to fill my stupid little trolley up - why are they so god damned small? What is the point of putting a small bag on a wheely thing that I managed to fill up in about twenty minutes - 3 cushions and it was full..grrrr. So, I moved through to the kitchen area and then thought-  oh I'll look at my pictures on my iphone to see if it all matches....okay, iphone not in pocket, iphone not in bag...where the hell is the iphone???!!! At this point, the well laid plans started to unravel around me literally.... I started to sweat and talk to myself and at one point was kneeling on the floor in the middle of an aisle chucking things out of my Ikea bag, then repacking it, retracing my steps then kneeling on the floor again and throwing everything out of the bag again.....'NO NO NO NO' was repeated under my breath 200 times like a mantra - it was not a pretty sight. Then  I had another panic as Graeme didn't know where I was and our Russian flat agent was coming to meet us and was going to phone to let us know where to meet her...OH GOD. I parked my trolley up and dashed to information to then have a very stilted conversation with me using the good old international hand signs for MOBILE (hand to ear) and then GONE (hands up with quizzical look on face). To cut a long story short he needed a number to call in case they found the phone....GOD, I DON'T KNOW, ALL THE NUMBERS ARE IN THE FRICKIN' PHONE! So at this point I thought - go find Graeme - he knows what his number is and so I ran away from the info guy shouting and saying very slowly (as this always helps people to understand your language....) 'I'M GOING TO FIND MY HUSBAND!'. So off I ran in a blind panic - I might remind you here that the mall is as big as many footie pitches so by the time I found him I looked liked someone had thrown a bucket of water on me and I had started to cry - yes people, running made me cry through pure exhaustion and a feeling of utter self pity. Graeme of course was not best pleased as I had left my last iphone on the top of a car....okay okay, I'm a liability, I also had to drag Graeme and Arthur into Ikea to get them to help me look for the phone...I started to cry again as Graeme said I could never have another iphone....and then after the 10th time of looking and throwing stuff wildly out of the Ikea bag, Graeme got a call from our flat agent saying that she had just spoken to a Russian guy on my iphone and that it was an Ikea employee and she had told him to hold onto the phone until she got there - HALLELUJAH! So, iphone issue resolved but we were now about an hour behind on our shopping...so yet again, what I thought was going to be an easier Ikea experience had already turned into a nightmare. Then we started to pile all the stuff into trolleys - I had Arthur and Graeme was pushing two trolleys, the agent Nadia arrived and helped talk to the sales people about colours and delivery items and so things started to look up. I parked myself by the tills and Graeme and Nadia went off to get all the items from the storage bit. So then it's time to pay - we have 7 trolleys of stuff - this obviously took a while to go through - Graeme puts the card in - Declined...OH my God, make this end...Graeme phones the bank in U.K on the mobile (only £200 a minute) and they say the fraud squad have blocked it as there was unusual activity in Moscow on the card - er yes people, we told you we were moving to Moscow -anyway, they say that they will unblock it but it will take 15 minutes. So we all stand there like idiots, with the queue behind us getting bigger for 15 bloody minutes and trust me, that time goes slow when people are all staring at you wondering if you are thieves...so then to make matters worse we have to do the transaction in two parts because Ikea Moscow have a limit to what you can put through the till in one go - so after the 15 minutes Graeme puts the card in and it goes through. Graeme then puts his card in again to make the second payment - DECLINED. - I'm sweating again, Arthur is crying and the queue behind us are angry. So Graeme calls the bank again - Response from bank - 'yes sir, the fraud squad have blocked the card because there is unusual activity on it in Moscow'  At this point Graeme screamed down the phone - 'That's because I live in F*cking Moscow you idiots and I just spoke to the fraud squad 2 minutes ago' 'Okay sir, it will be unblocked in 15 minutes' . Well, let's just say people, it was probably one of the most uncomfortable 15 minutes I have had for a long time, our simple and organised trip to Ikea was going down the drain. 15 minutes later we tried the card again - Graeme even had the bank on the phone when he was doing it and it declined again - Oh for the love of god, please let the earth swallow me up whole...Graeme went a shade of puce I don't think i've ever seen whilst calling the bank man many terrible things - in the end we waited another 15 minutes and tried my card and it went through. All in all, not a very pleasant experience. We had also ordered a taxi to take us home that had now been waiting for an hour and a half outside. Whilst we'd been by the till, I had bought Ikea biscuits, dime bars and fizzy apple drinks to keep everyone going - i'd fed Arthur so many Ikea biscuits to keep him occupied that he probably put on 5 stone. Poor little soul, he did very well - much better than his parents anyway. So then Graeme left in the taxi and Nadia and I had to go and sort out delivery and the wee man to put it all up. Of course, there was a massive queue so I then spent another hour waiting there with poor Nadia (we had told her that we needed her for an hour max) and then we finally got to the new apartment to find Graeme on the street outside with all the Ikea stuff saying 'Do you know the codes for the front doors? I can't get in'. After a few phone calls we got all the stuff up into the apartment and left for the last night in the hotel. We realised on our way out of the flat that we had to pay the landlord the next day, a months rent, a months rent as deposit and pay the agent a months rent - this obviously adds up to a lot of money and it was Saturday the next day - let's just say we spent the next hour going to banks, trying to get money out -the card declining sometimes, sometimes working, Graeme on the phone to the fraud squad - going puce again. By the time we got back to the hotel it was about 8pm - poor Arthur was about to sack us as parents and I realised that I had to pack all our stuff up as a taxi was coming to get us at 10am the next day to take us to our new flat!

The next morning we're all packed and on time in the hotel when we get a call from poor Nadia to tell us that the Ikea delivery has already turned up at the new flat. Calm turns into panic once again but we finally get to the flat and the bonus was the Ikea delivery men helped us unpack the taxi and took all our suitcases up the lobby steps...yes! We then realised we had no where for Arthur to sleep...cot is in the container...so I left Graeme with the delivery men and went hunting for a travel cot which I found and then thought, 'oh it's not that heavy i'll just get the metro back' -regardless to say my shoulder still aches and my arm has stretched a few inches. Arthur wouldn't sleep all day as he was in a new flat with people walking in and out and I think it all just finally hit him. He also has two molars coming through - what kind of bloody timing is that?! So we finally settled down for our first night in our flat - on a mattress, surrounded by boxes and feeling slightly worse for wear!

Outside our front door - the Kremlin just at the end of the street!

Our new front entrance - very grand!

I took a few photos around the flat to show you some of the chaos!

Arthur likes the piano.....

Our sitting room

Thank god we paid to have an Ikea guy come to the flat on Sunday to put all this up - do you know, he was here building furniture for 9 hours....man, that's my kind of hell. Arthur thought he was great and watched him put the furniture together all day.

Our new kitchen table and yes, the room is pink....

Our stylish sleeping arrangements until the bed arrives...

Another problem with Ikea - the bloody empty boxes...

As I'm typing, Graeme is taking all these boxes down to the rubbish bins which are quite a distance - not much fun.

The internet is not quite working properly and so it goes on and off which is why this blog has been left unattended for so long - but I will try to make up for it with extra pictures and videos!

View from sitting room window and also from Arthur's room

We are having curtains fitted tomorrow and as you can see from the picture above it's like the Blackpool illuminations in here at night and poor Arthur has a room that faces this! I must say though, he has slept fine although you hear all the police sirens going past all evening and you think - oh no, this time he'll wake but bless, he sleeps on!

View from balcony

Sitting room with an actual sofa in it...

Water delivery!

I managed to set up a monthly order of water as it just saves so much time and effort. Plus, you literally have to use it for everything - you have to boil veg in bottled water, put it in your kettle - lead piping plus some weird and wonderful bacteria say that you don't ever take the risk of drinking the water - even the hardened Ruskies stay away from it.

Arthur - as you can see has ended up with the largest room - and yes, that is a mini Ikea kitchen you can see - we didn't get him a first birthday present and so we thought this was a good present as it teaches him how to cook dinner for mummy and daddy as soon as possible - and of course, how to do the washing up....we also got him a mini broom - do you see where i'm headed with my toy purchases...domestic god he will be! He's such a tidy freak that people have even commented on his need to put toys back into toy boxes....he had his first day at Russian nursery yesterday and because it was his first time there, I stayed and watched - at one point he kept going past me with other children's toys and putting them back into the boxes! Tidy, Tidy people, Arthur's here! The first class they had an opera singer - heh, the nurseries are much more cultured here people... the lady was playing the piano and because we have a piano in the flat Arthur went straight up and started banging the end of the piano - clink clonk lalalala clink clonk! Oh what fun! At one point one of the teachers was doing a puppet show in the corner - all the little girls were sitting quietly entranced whilst in the next room all the boys had a truck each and were ignoring the puppet show and 'broom brooming' around the room...ahhh the difference between the genders eh?!

Anyway, I must be off to sleep and get ready for the curtain man tomorrow - yihaa, darkness will descend upon poor Arthur's room and finally he will get some peaceful sleep...and I forgot to tell you about my visit to get our monthly food shop - let's just say it was like real life dodgems and i'm never doing it at a weekend again...I left with about two bags of stuff mainly filled with my own tears - dramatic but true...but have braved the local kiosks for PRODUCTI - another new word - I grant you, it's not that difficult a word to remember given the similarity to my own fair language but heh - it's another word - give me a break - and the kiosks are pretty damned good and a nice lady helped me with my Russian - oh she helped me learn that a bell pepper is PAPRIKA...which could be a little confusing... maybe I was just confused and it doesn't mean that at all...