last weeks in moscow: good eats

i tried to make the most of my last couple of weeks in moscow.  i am going to miss this city, despite what i thought at the beginning.  i am just getting to know it, and now i have to leave it.  the city kind of gets under your skin.  it is intimidating, and big.  roads are big.  buildings are big.  yet there is a kind of order, and a grittiness that makes you feel alive.  there is something brewing there...good or bad, corrupt or pure, something is always brewing in that city.  there are so many nooks and crannies to discover...something new to see and discover around every bend.  and i was just getting to the point where i was comfortable going around the next corner to see what i could see.  not sure when i'll be back, if ever, but it will always hold a special place in my heart.

so, to celebrate my time in this crazy city, i ate.  a lot.  and at a lot of different places.  we went out to trendy restaurants (22.13 in the kuznetsky most area), old-school soviet throwback beer halls (glavpivtorg, also in the kuznetsy most area), trendy and old-school posh tourist places (cafe pushkin, started in 1999, but makes you feel like 1909), and a russian comfort food cooking class.  it was amazing.  i loved it all.  and here's what i have to share:

cooking class!  we did an evening cooking class where we prepared 4 home-style russian dishes.  Russian salad (called Olivier salad here) with small pieces of diced ham, potatoes, carrots, pickles, egg and mixed with a healthy dose of mayonnaise, sour cream, and a dollop of mustard.  then Shi, a traditional broth soup with pickled cabbage, potatoes, carrots, onion and dill.  breaded chicken cutlets with a side of buckwheat and mushrooms.  and for dessert, a kind of pudding/custard with raisins.  it was all mighty tasty, i've got to say, and everything (except the broth soup) had sour cream and/or mayonnaise.  gotta love the russians.

this is the Olivier salad.  this was my favorite dish.

oh yeah, well, this is in a cute boutique, hidden around one of the corners i mentioned earlier.  they sold vintage items, including USA license plates, including this one from my home state of IOWA!!!  the saleslady thought it was amazing when i told her i was from there!  it was selling for $45.  i didn't buy it.

this is the creme brûlée dessert being prepared at our table at cafe pushkin. best desserts in the city, that i've tasted.  amazing.

this is the plaza outside the cafe pushkin.  all decorated for winter.  so pretty.  the russians do love their lights.

this is the flight of homemade vodkas at glavpivtorg.  horseradish, pepper, berry, cedar, and lemon.  cedar tasted like a closet.   horseradish about burned my sinus off.  lemon was amazing.  i had 2 more of the lemon shots.  (oh, and i shared the flight with my friend anita...i didn't do 7 shots on my own fyi...)

this is the 1960's era soviet mass band.  lots of russians danced along with them.  and they handed out songbooks so we could all sing along.  in russian.  we didn't do very well.  but it was really fun.

these are all the waiters singing and clapping along.

dancing!

so i managed to work in some fun activities between working, and packing up the apartment to move south to krasnodar, where i am now.  this is where i will be for the next month while we rehearse all of our dancers.  krasnodar is a nice town.  the most wealthy of the south, and i was told today it was labeled by forbes magazine as the best city in southern russia (if not the whole of russia) in which to do business.  i'll let you know what i think after being here for a month.

i still haven't processed that i have left moscow.  it has become home to me after 10 months, and it was hard to leave.  it's almost like the fun is over, and now the real work begins.  i don't think i'll have a day off until march 18, the day after the paralympic closing ceremony.  wish me luck.  

a trip to the banya...(or, sweating my a$$ off and being beaten by branches in the name of "good health")

ok.  so remember when i wrote that russians were tough?  yeah, well, they just upped the anty.  i finally went to a russian banya.  which is a combo steam room/sauna/torture chamber.  but it does make you feel AMAZING.  so i'm going back again in a few days.  anyway, here's what happens...

i went to Sanduny Baths, the most famous, and one of the oldest banya's in moscow.  it is divided between men's and women's buildings.  http://www.sanduny.ru/en/  They offer a multitude of services, and have a salon/spa attached.  and you can rent bathrobes, slippers, etc.  you don't wear any clothing, save a sweaty sheet in the banya room,  so the bathrobe is much needed.
no one speaks english there, so i translated all of the goods and services i wanted (bathrobe, slippers, towel, sheet, salt scrub, "healthy wash", etc).  it came in quite handy.  so you purchase your ticket to the banya, and it is kind of confusing, as you have a choice between VIP or regular room.  it is $45 for 3 hours in the regular room, so we just went ahead and did that one.  (next time i'm doing the VIP...but we'll get to that later).  and then you are ushered into what looks like the locker room of a women's basketball team.  lockers, padded benches, each with a numbered spot, and lots of women wrapped in towels as if just out of the shower after the big game.  but, uh, these women are not as, well, in shape as a women's bball team.  you get all shapes and sizes in the banya.  old, young, large, small.  so after you get over that shock, you get seated, and there is a whirlwind of activity as you order your goods and services.  lots of gesturing, lots of me pointing and repeating myself, lots of me asking "say it again please?'.  but we all get our goods, and get partnered with a "professional bather" who will show us the ropes.  we strip down, and wrap ourselves in the sheets and ready ourselves for our first immersion into the banta (steam room/sauna/torture chamber).  so we go in.  and it is hot.  like, seriously, mind-numbingly hot.  and there is an upper deck, with stairs leading up to it.  the steps are lined with ladies, slowly getting their bodies adjusted to the heat, and moving up the stairs one by one.  so jess and i sit down quite low down on the steps.  everything i've read says to take it slow.  am fine with that, as can barely breathe on step two!  so we chat quietly while the sweat drips off our faces and we pretend that we aren't naked sitting with 45 other naked women.  i'm telling you, the banya leaves nothing to the imagination.  no wonder we have sex in the dark, seriously.  there was NOTHING attractive about 45 women sweating on each other.  literally, the sweat was dripping off of us and onto each other cuz we were packed in so tightly.  and then one of the women would stand up and beat herself with a bundle of birch branches, thus splashing her sweat all over the room.  every so often, they clear out the banya for ventilation.  when you are allowed back in, another "professional" is in there tossing water infused with eucalyptus into the oven of hot stones to create steam, and then she whirls around a towel to spread the heat and steam.  so we are told to go into the banya for 5 minutes at a time.  each time is followed by a plunge in an ICY ICY ICY cold bath.  we shriek and shout and the russian ladies laugh at us.  oh, and the barrels of icy water are just outside the banya, in what literally looks like a gym shower room.  with shower heads on the walls, and troughs where you can rinse, and the torture barrels.  and then after plunging, you wrap yourself in the sweaty sheet, go back to your spot in the locker room, and have a spot of tea while you relax and get ready for the next round!

one thing we noticed is that most all of the women in the banya wear these cute little felt hats.  they all look like little elves, squatting or sitting huddled together in the heat wearing the hats.  so we had to buy them!!!  here it is:

the neat thing is, you can dunk it in cold water so that it helps keep your head cool while you are sweating in the heat.  anyway, we felt much better when wearing them.  we totally fit in now!  

ok, so one of the services we purchased, was a "beating" with birth branches (Venik).  after a couple of rounds in the banya, the professional came and escorted me into the banya, second floor (yikes!), and lay me down on a bench, face down.  completely nude, except i had to wear the hat.  ha ha!  and then she slapped me up and down with the birch branches.  slapped them, dragged them, mushed them into my skin.  then she told me to flip over.  so i did.  and she indicated that i cover up, um, "the girls" with my hands.  for protection i guess?  and then she slapped my front side.  and just when i thought i couldn't breathe anymore, she sat me up and led me outside, bits of leaf stuck to me all over the place.  she sat me down in a plastic chair next to a tub.  then she and another professional took turns tossing buckets of water on me.   the buckets were filled with either icy cold, or luke warm water, and i didn't know what was coming.  so...more shrieking and laughing!  it was hilarious.  everyone was laughing.  and later, we caught the professionals re=enacting my behavior for the rest of the staff...they were flailing their arms and shrieking in high pitched voices.  it's fine. i'm fine with having made a fool of myself at the russian banya.  cuz as we were leaving, the professionals came up to us and said "devushki, bila ochien harasho.  ochien harasho.  spasiba bolshoi."  (which basically means, ladies, you did a great job,  really good.  thank you very much.).  proud!

one super cute thing was that a few of the ladies brought their little girls...ranging in age from 4 to maybe 10.  they were in little animal robes, with little pandas or ducks for the hoods.  and they wore crocs.  they were only allowed on the first step in the banya, and only for 1 minute, then their moms shooed them out.  and they played in the shower room, running all around, splashing water on each other.  very cute.

so after all of that, we were pretty mellowed out, but with great mental clarity.  i had been a bit sick, but that cleared out my sinuses and chest better than any mucinex could!  i can see why this is such a regular part of russian life.  it's amazing.  once you get over the sweaty bits.  

and the BEST part...ok, so we shared our bench with a local.  and we greeted each other, but didn't say much after that.  until we were leaving.  she busted out with english, and asked us if we were regulars.  HA HA HA HA!  she thought that we were because I WAS SPEAKING RUSSIAN.  woo hoo!!  all of my gesticulating and pointing and baby-russian-speak impressed her and she thought we were regulars!!  amazing.  i gotta say, this experience was not only good for my health, it was good for my language skills.  i was pretty proud that i was able to translate for all my friends, place our orders, understand the instructions, and even negotiate some mistakes on our bill.  again, proud!

so if you come to russia, you MUST do a banya.  it's an amazing experience.  one i won't soon forget.

a very soviet day

sorry for the absence!  i went to paris a couple weekends ago (wheeeee!) so i didn't do a blog post for that weekend.  it was a friend's 40th, so she invited a group of her friends from all parts of her life to meet in paris.  none of us really knew each other, which made it more fun.  we all got along really well and basically shopped and ate our way through le marais.  it was fantastic.  i let myself do some fun shopping, and buy some proper clothes - like, well-made clothes, not just t-shirts from H&M!!  mom would be so proud.  :)

this past weekend i had a very soviet day.  i'm counting down the days now until i move out of moscow.  and as much as i'm excited to get to sochi and into rehearsals, i'm sad to leave moscow!  there's SO much to see and do here.  i feel like i've barely scratched the surface!  so i've made my "to do before leaving moscow" list and have started to tick things off.  so, back to the soviet day.  on sunday morning, i met my friend and colleague julie-ann at red square.  we wanted to see lenin.  i figured i've seen mao, so i might as well see the other embalmed leader in the world.  it was mighty creepy, actually, and kind of made me sick to my stomach.  i remember reading about the fact that you could see lenin in an article in the des moines register when i was an early teenager, and thinking "wow.  that is really amazing that the russians thought to do that!" and i've kind of been fascinated by it ever since.  so i went!  it's a surreal experience.  first of all, you have to stand in line way outside of red square, you would NEVER know where to go (julie-ann had seen him before, so she knew what to do).  and then you check your bags, you're not allowed to bring anything in.  i stuffed my wallet and my passport in my pockets and handed over my bag.  then you go through a metal detector.  then you are directed into basically a big, dark monument, hardly any lighting anywhere.  and stoic russian soldiers are there at every turn to guide you.  they either do nothing, or if you look lost, solemnly and sternly point in the direction you need to go.  you wind your way down and into a room that has a glass sarcophagus, and there he is.  lying inside the glass box.  what is really strange, is that his arms are on lying on top of his chest, one hand clenched, the other open, as if he just fell asleep reading a novel before bed.  he looks wax, but somehow, you know it's probably real.  you can't linger, you have to keep moving around the case, so you get a 360 degree view.  and then you are ushered out into the daylight blinking and squinting and feeling slightly ill.  i was recently thinking to myself how lucky i am to have never seen a dead body.  and then i had to correct myself that i've seen 2 now.  2 more than i ever wish to see.

so after lenin, we went to brunch (that sounds wierd and horrible, i know!!!) at a russian friend's very soviet apartment.  small, and cramped, with faded flowery wallpaper and some cheapy chandelier in every room to try to make the shabiness seem elegant.  it's really no different than a cheap, rundown apartment in the east village, or boston's north end.  except for the chandeliers, and the doors to every room.  there are so many doors in that apartment!  i think so that you heat only the room you are in.  anyway, so that was lovely, and a good taste of how young russians live in the center of moscow.  and a taste for how soviet families lived in the 70's in the center of moscow.  here are some photos.  (we are trying to be a traditional soviet family and not smile.  however, the russians couldn't hold it in.)

and then julie-ann and i continued our soviet walk thru history by going to see the sculpture of the peasant and the worker.  (rabochi y kokhoznitsa in russian).  it was made in 1937 by vera mukhina for the world's fair in paris.  then it was moved to moscow.  it's incredible.  HUGE steel sculpture of a man with a hammer (worker) and woman with a sickle (peasant).  just put that whole icon (the hammer and sickle) into context for me.  here are some photos:

so it was a pretty amazing day for me.  i wanted to try to get to the museum of contemporary history, but that was just too much for one day.  that will have to wait for next weekend...and i can check out all the soviet propaganda and more history from the 20th century.

i'll leave you with photos of the amazing moscow skies.  these were taken in the past few weeks.  you can see that just a few weeks ago, the sun was rising with me.  now, i unfortunately get up before it does!

the two above photos are sunrise from my kitchen window.

the two above photos are sunset, from my office window, on the seven sister building that is closest to my office.

the above photos are sunset from my bedroom window.

stunning skies here!!  will definitely miss this place.