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......