We are truly into fall now, with golden leaves and changing light. When we arrived back from the US it was quite cold, around 8-12C. The heating in Moscow is communal; so you cannot turn on your own radiators! The whole city’s heating is switched on October 1, and off on April 1, unless the temperature is below 8C for three days in a row. We do have some under-floor heating in the hallway and kitchen, so that does take the chill off. Now, a week later, it is a glorious sunny day and, as the heating was turned on last week, I had to open all the windows to stay cool! Oh, for a thermostat! We have most of the radiators turned off, even in the depths of winter, as it is too hot with them all on. Our pre-Revolutionary flat has walls that are about a meter thick, double-glazing, and flats above and below us, so we are well insulated.
This week our schedule has been different and because we were at the office yesterday, we could visit the Friday street market there, hurray! Such a treat…we bought wild mushrooms, (ceps Boletus, and King Boletus that grow under pine trees) Jerusalem artichokes, figs, fresh herbs, lovely fresh, hard, crisp apples, pomegranates….yummy! We were only limited by what we could carry home on the metro as we both had a bag/briefcase already. The market is set up along a lane, with bright yellow awnings over the line of stalls, there are many fruit and veggie ones, some smaller booths run by women, with flowers from their gardens, honey, pickles, mushrooms and other veggies they have picked themselves, people selling clothes, eggs, a small mobile tank where you can fill your own bottles with milk, live fish for eating, meat and dried fish and meat, cheeses. Interestingly the longest line was for the prepared foods. Here in Moscow people always serve prepared salads, often bought, of grated beetroot, carrots, cabbage, etc. pickles and salted fish…..It seems that no one makes their own, but always buys it prepared, hence the popularity of that stall.
There was a great scene (unfortunately I did not have my camera) of the market in the foreground, with lots of different kinds of people shopping, behind it was the huge Soviet building that has a MacDonalds on the side, so I could see the large sign – МакДоналдс, and above that an enormous Soviet mosaic fresco of soldiers on the side of the building. It seemed to encapsulate so many of the different elements of Moscow today – the Soviet history, the generic western import, and the continuum of the street market like a thread running through it all.
When we got out at our station to walk home through the park we were blocked by a metal fence, and the police. It seemed that there was a demonstration planned – a common occurrence – but this time they were stopping anyone even going into the park, so we had to walk home along the road after all.
Friday nights are busy on the metro with people going home from work, going out, people with suitcases and backpacks heading to the train stations to get away for the weekend, then the accompanying buskers, and the occasional old lady kneeling on the steps to the metro, often with some small icon in front of them – begging. It is sad that they have been reduced to this. In Soviet times the elderly were all well cared for, and now it seems they are one of the casualties of the new Russian capitalist society.
