Shchuka's Glorious Opening

With some friends over and in need of a place to have a quick lunch with a pair of small children, we decided to run out to the Food Court at the “Shchuka” Shopping-Entertainment Complex. But today was too important for our brand new monument to gentrification than for merely feeding and selling things to riffraff like us. Indeed, we had our camera with us, but I don’t think that images could really do justice to the scene. The main entrance was blocked off, beneath a huge gate that said “Kind Welcome!” There was a stage set up nearby blaring techno-pop – specifically that “Relax” song by Mika, which seems so popular among Europeans this summer. Mall employees were tricked out in various pirate costumes – even though pikes are river fish, the Shchuka complex has chosen to adopt a nautical theme for its branding effort. And everywhere you looked were the sure signs that some civic event is afoot in Russia: there was approximately one police officer for every three or so people milling around. And each of them was wearing their dress jackets, not just the puffy blouses they prefer on usual patrol. One of the officers helpfully told us that the complex was closed except for those with a pass. Ah. Indeed, today was the Grand Opening. At another entrance a line of dignitaries and a marching band were waiting (a marching band). Apparently, the big cheese himself, Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, was due to arrive at any moment to cut a ribbon or whatever. Despite being turned away from today’s festivities, Shchuka has actually been open for about a week now and we’ve been through a few times. In short, it is a mall, like almost any other in the West. The differences are in the details: the air conditioning was broken, and nearly all the shops sell nothing but expensive Eurotrash junk – you know, $300 Italian shoes that look like they were made for overgrown elves, flimsy blouses with random English, French, or Italian words on them. For my family’s purposes, the place is completely useless. Except it has a pretty decent Food Court. It is, of course, expensive, but it has a Sbarro’s and a Teremok and a, heh, “Pasta la Vista.” The people who shop at the Shchuka – and everytime I’ve been through it has been close to mobbed – generally look like what might be the emerging middle class. You see fewer people wearing clothes that would make westerners laugh, and the young people seem to have taken to Mallrat-ism quite naturally. You even see kids skateboarding in the parking lot. The real highlight is on the ground floor, an edifice that almost completely captures the redundancy, exclusion, and waste of modern Russian life. The new Alye Parusa (“Red Sail”) supermarket is down there, just about 200 yards across the tram tracks from the old Alye Parusa, which looks like it is going to stay open. The new one, as we would say in America, has its own zip code. For the most part, it sells much the same stuff as across the way, except much much more of it. And all the frozen goods, and there are a lot, are stored in giant, open, freezers that line the store and make it feel almost air conditioned. Clearly, this is a country confident that it has enough natural gas and nuclear generated electricity to last generations. One of the four walls is the checkout, and there are more counter attendants in their silly nautical themed outfits than the store could possibly need to pay. It highlights the weirdness of having to buy things around here. Most groceries and supermarkets are sad little affairs. Impossibly cramped and hot, full of dry goods and whatever was dumped off the wholesaler's truck that week, and a handful of very underpaid and very mean cashiers who growl at you if you hand them a bill that will make them count out too much change. At the other end of the spectrum, you have this gleaming temple of consumption, abundance, and showy excess. There is very little in between. I used to go out of my way to go to the Old Alye Parusa, which is almost western in its pricing, just because it was as close as I could remember to being an American supermarket – and it is the only place around here to find Worcestershire Sauce and capers and other western niceties I took for granted. The new place makes me feel lost, forlorn, and poor. I feel like in my few weeks here, we already zipped straight through the neighborhood’s middle class moment.