Stray dogs

There are stray dogs here every where in Moscow. I feel pretty bad for them sometimes as its beginning to get quite cold. Some are fairly clean and I just want to go up to them give them a big hug and pet them to let them know someone cares - much like the first time I went to Guinea. I did think about it though for about 10 seconds and realized that they might bite me and I could end up with rabies in Russia - not something that I think would be a very good idea.

These dogs are crazy though - the move in packs sometimes, and sometimes are alone. Some are always in the same place, same time everyday. Some like to hang out at metro stations, and some apparently even take the metro - not sure where they would be going but they are more alert than the drunk guys. I do wonder how they get through that metro gate though?- maybe they know to jump over at the correct height while passing through?

Anyway, I just thought it was interesting and thought a few people might find it funny, particularly the fact that they take the metro.

Interesting observations

I'm going to keep a list of interesting observations, in no particular order. Just remember what number was there the last time you looked and you can begin reading from that point again. I've stolen this idea from Nasty's blog as it seemed like a pretty good idea. If you want to check his out its at: http://2yearsinkiwiland.blogspot.com/

I mean no harm by any of these remarks. If I offend anyone in anyway I'm sorry, I didn't mean to. I'm just being my honest self. I actually really love this place and all of the people here.

1. The bank line: Russians are not typically good at waiting in line. At the bank there are always people standing around and presumably they ask each other who's next in line when someone new comes in. Usually this moves me back another person.

2. Lines in other places: There's a lot of place holding. At a cafe someone may hold the spot in line for friends, or at the supermarket friends will stand in multiple lines and then all congregate at the person who got to the register first.

3. The supermarket checkout: This is always chaos. You have to bag everything yourself, which typically shouldn't be a problem but it is. For some reason no one starts bagging their stuff until after they pay. I try to bag while my stuff is being scanned and I strategically shop and place my groceries on the belt so that they are pre-grouped for bagging but I can never get to bag until the person before me is done doing so because they take up so much damn space doing whatever they are doing. After that person is done bagging I can begin, but then I have to pay, and they will never just take 1,000 roubles. They always ask if I have a frequent shopping card or want smaller bills and coins. After getting the payment I have to bag as quick as I can before the next person's items start ending up in my pile.

4. Supermarket: When buying fruits/vegetables you have to get the items weighed in the produce section where they put the price on it. This is a great idea because it speeds up the final checkout line. The effect on 3 above is limited though.

5. Walking straight: People generally do not walk straight here. I feel like when I'm walking, especially behind someone carrying bags in each arm, that I'm a NASCAR driver and they are weaving to keep me from passing. The problem is they don't realize they are doing it - completely unbelievable.

6. British English: I realise that at one point we Americans were of the British flavour and we can thank their naval programme for moving people to America - but come on. I wish they would all do me a favour and start utilising the "Z" and drop the "U." (This does bother me, but I felt obligated to point out the short-comings of other cultures as well rather than purely pointing out flaws in Russia.)

7. Metro: The metro is awesome. I don't know how I will ever assimilate back into a society without a metro.

8. Russian Girls: They are hot. In Pittsburgh I would say that less than 10% of females are attractive (sorry to offend the other 90%). In Moscow it's closer to 20%. Within PwC Moscow it may be more than 30%.

9. Russian girls: They are still girls so the saying still applies, "Women - can't live with them, can't shoot them!"

10. Golf is expensive here: There's only one course I know of in the Moscow area, the Moscow Country Club and I understand it's approximately $300-400 per round to play. I won't be golfing while living here.

11. SIM cards: When will the States get with the program? They have them in Western Europe, Russia and even Guinea and China.

12. Business trips: When I go on a "business trip" (as opposed to "out of town") for work I have to take a paper which the client must sign and stamp a few times to prove that I actually went on a "business trip" for work. In addition I have to turn in all boarding passes and airline paper tickets.

13. Expense reports: Similar to 12, there's a lot of paperwork to fill out for an expense report - three forms actually and every receipt must be turned in with it.

14. Gypsy cabs: I can hold my hand out on just about any street and a car will pull up to me. I just have to offer a price and name a metro station that is close to where I want to go and then negotiate a price if my original offer wasn't good enough. I often just hold out 200 roubles to make things easy.

15. Travel time: It takes 30 minutes to get anywhere in this city. Minimum.

16. Flying: People clap when the plane lands. Bizarre.

17. Language: I'm not going to be a hypocrite - I need to learn Russian just as much as any immigrant to the USA needs to learn English.

18. Beer: Beer is often cheaper than water. The beer is good.

19. Drainage: With all of the brilliant engineers educated in Russia it blows my mind that not one person considered installing some type of drainage system within the city to reduce the amount of puddles when it rains. It rains a lot here. I can only imagine these puddles when it actually gets cold in Moscow and they begin to freeze.

The Metro

The metro is the best way to get around town as Moscow has one of the best systems in the world. There are 12 metro lines and 177 stops throughout the city. Most of the stops in town are very far below the ground - taking the escalator down takes a couple minutes and they seem to be deeper than 60 meters in many location - there are a few places where the trains go above ground but I stick to the center of the city mostly so it's not too bad. Many of the stops are decorated with murals, statues, stained glass, marble - it's really nice. The trains come often too - between 1-2 minutes most of the time and there are times where it take a bit longer but I never feel like I'm waiting long.

There one metro line that goes in a circle around the downtown area and connect the other metro lines to each other, and there are additional intersections of the lines within this circle ring. In the morning I usually take the circle line and transfer to another line to get to work. I find that if I go in the back car that it is the least crowded because there is usually a drunk or two passed out, sometimes vomit in the area, which makes people pick other cars. Often they'll be sleeping on one of the benches with people keeping a safe distance but no one seems to mind really. In the US the police would throw you in the drunk tank, but this is Russia and it's actually encouraged to drink beer on the metro or walking around town. Just a fascinating place.

I find it annoying most days when I take the metro that people do not make room outside of the doors for people to get off the train first. So there's people going multiple ways, and often its so crowded that it is difficult to get off the train. Also, for some reason, about 2-3 days per week someone will ask me a question even though I'm listening to my iPod - I can usually answer this question 1 out of 3 tries - as long as they are only asking about the stop or which direction they need to go for a different line.

In the evening its so crowded that getting through the area where I have to scan my metro card that I'm usually sandwiched in between a couple hundred people who are all pushing forward, even if there is no where to go. I literally don't even need to lift my feet - I just slide forward with the push. If you do not scan your card when going through the gate little arms come out very quickly and will crack you right across the knees. I am always careful to make sure that I scan my card and it's accepted before I try to pass through because this city is not very accessible for handicapped individuals.

I've put in some pictures and descriptions below.

The metro map - it's not scale of how far things are from each other. In relation to the map I live at about 11 o'clock, between the green, brown, and grey - specifically between the Belorusskaya, Mayakovskaya, and Novoslobodskaya stops.

This is similar to conditions I've experienced in the evenings - it's brutal sometimes. Even on a Saturday afternoon it's crowded.

The escalators are so long. As rude as the people are here, they typically stand to the right so that people can walk on the left side of the escalator if they choose.

This is the inside of a metro station, typical traffic flow.

The Komsomolskaya metro stop is one of the most picturesque in Moscow - I'm not sure how someone was able to take this picture without a crowd but I liked it.
The Mayakovskaya metro stop which is less than a 10 minute walk from me - it's pretty nice too.

Home Gym

The gyms in Moscow are pretty expensive (some a couple hundred per month) and there aren't too many of them. It also takes about 30 minutes to get anywhere in Moscow because I have to first walk to the Metro, take it a few stops, and then walk from the Metro. I thought it would be best to have my own little gym at my apartment so I bought PowerBlock dumbbells in Pittsburgh which go from 5-90 lbs., a bench, a mat to protect the floors, and a pull-up bar - this stuff all came over in my shipment near the beginning of the month. I've included some pictures of my stuff below, and some action shots because I am a meat head at times and I thought that some of you may appreciate them (likely just Mikey-Mac), but this is my blog and I can put what I want on it.

New TV!

I bought a nice flat screen that I can hook my computer up to as a second monitor in order to watch Pittsburgh sports through my Slingbox. Isn't technology a wonderful thing?I can use the computer and watch TV at the same time with the dual monitor set up, it's really slick. The sound even comes from the TV and not the computer. I'll have to get a better TV stand, but buying the 32" TV in Russia was splurge enough for this month.

If you aren't aware of what Slingbox is I zoomed in on the TV so you can see what it looks like. I have the same Comcast remote from home that I use on the monitor. There's hardware attached to a cable box at my parent's house in Pittsburgh, and it broadcasts through an internet connection there that I can log into remotely from anywhere in the world with an internet connection and the Slingbox software on the computer, blackberry, or cellphone. Without this I never would have been able to leave Pittsburgh. I can be a yinzer anywhere now.

Ufa

The same week I was in Kazan I travelled to Ufa to visit another team of mine out in the field. My time here was much more exciting as the client was really friendly and the team was from Moscow so I got to spend more time with others. Ufa is a city of about 1 million people as well and there's some traffic here. Ufa is the capital of the Republic of Bashkortostan and the people here speak Bashkir in addition to Russian. Some Russians are much like Americans as far as language goes - they say, "Why would I learn Bashkir if they all speak Russian?" The irony of the hypocrisy is not lost on me that we Americans only learn English - sure, we should speak something else, but other cultures think the same way.

The first night in Ufa I met the team for dinner in the hotel and learned that horse meat is one of the national dishes in this region. I've never had horse so I thought I'd give it a try - it was quite good. I don't think I'll get it often, but if I'm in this neck of the woods again why not?

During the morning I had a meeting with the client and at the close of the meeting they offered to show me and a director from the Kazan office that came to Ufa with me the city. I wasn't sure what the protocol was, but the director said sure, and that we'd like to see the city during the day as it would probably be nicer to see then. The client arranged for us to take a two hour tour, and two people from the economics department joined us along with the translator we brought and a tour guide. A girl from the economics department spoke good English too and was really nice in sharing more info about Ufa. I had to go back to the office to take a phone call but after the call I had to go join the tourism crew for dinner.... at a seafood restaurant! I don't really eat seafood - I still to the basics of California rolls and maybe a few other things where I'll try it, but never order it for myself. I didn't have the option as it was already ordered - grilled shrimp and scallop appetizers and a salmon fillet for the main course. Both were delicious, and although I was hesitant at first, I had no choice since I was with the client and I had to eat whatever was in front of me.

Also interesting during this trip was that at the client site they had a private dining room for the executives of the company and a cafeteria downstairs. Everyday at two the client had food prepared for the team to eat in the private dining room - it was really nice. I didn't have to eat anything too crazy there fortunately.

I've included pictures and descriptions of some of my tourism below.

This monument above was to celebrate 450 years of existence for the city of Ufa. Unfortunately it was only ready for the 456th year anniversary as they had to level a church which was in the place for the monument (1950's communism/government imposed atheism), and then the monument wouldn't stand up properly, so they had to prepare the land around it and level a mound as well.

This guy on the horse saved the Bashkir people from some type of oppression, I'm sure I could Google it but I was just too lazy. On another note, look how handsome I am in a suit! - I get to wear one to work Monday-Thursday between September and the end of May and any time I'm at a client site.

Also, during my tour I learned that the university in Ufa is the only one in all of Russia which has a major in "bee-keeping." They love their honey here.

Kazan

I got to work in Kazan, the capital of the Republic of Tartarstan for a few days. It's a beautiful city of about 1 million people but the traffic of 10 million people. (Moscow is a city of 10+ million and the traffic of 100 million people, just they way Russia is.) The people here speak Russian ant Tartar and this republic is a part of Russia. I found it interesting that this is an Islamic area but I didn't see anyone dressed at Islamic people traditionally do - maybe like Guinea there are "modern Muslims" here. I didn't too too much here as I met a team of people from PwC who lived and work in Kazan so they all had stuff to do at night. One night I met an expat there for dinner and walked around a bit, but no big dinners or sight seeing.


A picture of the Kazan Kremlin and the river:

A mosque within the walls of the Kazan Kremlin:
The "Stary Arbat" of Kazan. In Moscow there's a street called Stary Arbat which is a walking street, a famous place to visit. I'm not sure which was first, the one in Kazan or the one in Moscow.