Winter Vacation

A very quiet week in the capital because of the holidays. I didn’t realize it, but after the New Year everyone clears out of town until Orthodox Christmas on Monday. This means that unexpected things are closed for the week, and the brand-new high-rise condo projects around the city are dark as all their residents are off skiing in the Alps.

On Thursday, we went into the center of town to visit the Moscow Museum of Modern Art, and it was like a different, calmer city. We had a dinner at the “Yapona Mama” on Tsvetnoy Bulvar, a popular chain of sushi joints that was eerily and blissfully quiet. The sushi, by the way, was not great, but since I haven’t had it in about a full year so it was fantastic to me.

On Friday, we decided to spend the day at the Auchan gypermarket, which is just across the MKAD near us. Brother-in-law Pavel drove us over, and we spent hours in the temple of modern middle class consumption in Moscow. It is sort of like a Costcoes back home, but even more overwhelming. The prices were not fantastic, but the variety was great. I can confirm that it appears to be the only place in Russia to find reasonable quality wines at reasonable prices. Other things are the same: like any Russian grocery store, the highest turnover was in the cultured milk products aisle – the kefir, smetana, tvorog and all that. We’d gone there back in 2005 to stock up before our wedding celebration here, and it seemed the place had changed. Specifically, it was much more crowded. Can’t tell if the BMW and Lexus driving middle class is really growing after all, or if people were just desperate for some entertainment over the long vacation. Interestingly, it was just as full of people pushing and shoving and crowding like an old-fashioned outdoor market full of traders.

Through it all, it has been incredibly cold. It has hovered around 15 degrees Celsius even during the day (that about 5 degrees Fahrenheit). That’s cold enough that we haven’t been able to take Mila out for her walks, which is a shame because that is the best way to get her to sleep. We spend our days in the house, avoiding going out, enjoying Moscow’s magnificent combined-cycle heating system.

But it has been beautiful out. November and December were always overcast and dreary. Now the sun has come out – it’s only up for a few hours but that’s fine, the days are getting longer after all – and the sky is bright blue. It is amazing how low the sun stays above the horizon, even in the middle of the day, and the sunsets are quite nice to enjoy from the comfort of your window.