Children of the Beast

Even as I hurry to leave and go to the office (on a Sunday!) to print out some materials for my thesis, I cannot but leave a record here, now that it's become clearer to me, of our having seen this powerful play last night about the Holocaust at the Sergei Obraztsov State Academic Puppet Theatre along Sadovaya-Samotyochnaya.

Roi called me more than a week ago to invite me to see the work "Children of the Beast," based on a novel by dissident Israeli writer David Grossman. Well, to be honest I didn't really pay attention to the title or author until after the play itself, when my Inessa and I joined Roi, Rachel, two other diplomats and members of the cast for dinner at Vivace, an Italian restaurant nearby. And this inattention, brought about by a mind-numbingly busy schedule forced on me by the need to gather materials for this thesis left over from my yearlong MA programme in Madrid three years ago, simply blindsided me to the work's power and meaning. Probably just as well, since I came in without any preconceptions of what I was going to see.

When one talks about puppet theatre, one usually associates it with chilren's entertainment - Punch and Judy style. Of course there's the Hun Lakhon Lek of Thailand (seen earlier this week), Bunraku of Japan and even Wayang Kulit of Indonesia that expand the range of the medium and additonally portray classic literature. But this play, "Children of the Beast," goes far beyond folk or morality tales; it is a complex psychological story that deals with love, hatred, suffering and remembering in all its broad and subtle strokes. It is, as they call it, adult entertainment that pokes, provokes and challenges our conceptions of this sacred corner of history we've commonly kept in our minds about the Shoah - the genocide of two-thirds of the European Jewish population during World War II.

What is interesting is that "Kinder der Bestie" (Children of the Beast), presented as part of the ongoing Third Sergei Obraztsov International Puppet Festival, is actually an Israeli-German co-production between Teatron Theatre and figuren theater tübingen (it apparently is written that way, all in small caps), an ensemble formed in 1991 that has toured extensively overseas (the Internet readily suggests Paris, France; Brighton, England; and Seattle, WA). It's unusual for two countries to present a jointly sponsored work in a third country, this time to mark the moment on the 12th May 1965, when statesmen David Ben-Gurion and Konrad Adenauer met to formally open diplomatic relations between their two countries in the backdrop of Cold War realpolitik.

(Earlier in the year in May, I also saw the German and Israeli Embassies cooperate for the performance of the Moscow-based male Jewish choir Hasidic Capella directed by our choir conductor Alexander Tsaliuk.)

Based on Grossman's novel See Under: Love, this adult animated theatre production uses actors, masks and puppet figures to spin a web of memories, stories and facts relating to how the children of Holocaust survivors deal with the effect of that catastrophic evil. It is performed by figuren theater's artistic director Frank Soehnle and Israeli actor/puppeteer Yehuda Almagor.

The following is excerpted from an article by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer based on an interview with the cast on the sidelines of the 18th Seattle International Children's Festival in May 2004.

"It works better, though, if people don't know about the Holocaust theme," says figuren theater co-artistic director Frank Soehnle. "Just when they hear that word, people ..." (Soehnle goes into a very funny slump, shoulders up, head down, long face).

...

"You can express things with puppets that just don't work with live actors," says Soehnle's fellow artistic director, Karin Ersching. "It's not just that puppets can explode or catch on fire and things like that.

"Puppets can't lie. They are exactly what they seem to be. There is no ego."

Ersching and Soehnle are Stuttgart natives. Ersching remembers becoming infatuated with puppets when she was about 4. "I watched a TV show. It's still on, a little like your Muppets. Of course, my parents wanted me to train for a real job. So I became a kindergarten teacher.

"I divided my time. But for the past 10 years I've been a full-time professional with puppet theater. And I'm still alive."

The name of Ersching and Soehnle's company, spelled without capital letters, "helps people to know that this is art, not performances to teach or entertain children," says Soehnle. "We work with literary people. There is a fashion among some serious artists to use only lower-case letters."

Soehnle is the youngest of five siblings. And how did his parents react to the fact that their baby wanted to be a puppeteer? (Soehnle does a very funny little mime show of shock, horror, fainting and cardiovascular resuscitation.) "No, really, just as I was getting out of (high) school, a university-level program in puppetry and performance opened up. So that made the profession seem a little more respectable."

The play starts with the appearance of a skeletal puppet figure from a box of sand - the effect of the seemingly unending flow of sand from every fold and recess of the figure's clothing is haunting and eerie, not only marking the passage of time but setting the mood for the unraveling of a series of stories that do not explain themselves easily. What is clear, however, is that the main character is a nine-year-old boy living in Israel named Momik Neumann, the only child of Holocaust survivors, who tries to make sense of the mutterings of a distant relative whom he calls grandfather and who suddenly appeared in the lives of his family one day many years ago. The story is told firsthand by the adult Momik himself, who attempts to retell his grandfather's story. His grandfather, Anschel Wassermann, in turn gives an account of his bizarre survival in a concentration camp by telling one story a day, a kind of perverse Sheherazade, to an SS interrogator, Herr Neigel. (I can't recall now other literary references to a man who would not die despite repeated attempts to kill him; it'll probably bother me the rest of the day.)

Perhaps it's just me, because my Inessa pretty much followed the different threads, but I experienced difficulties deciphering the play's oblique references, sudden flashbacks, stream-of-consciousness storytelling, multifaceted characters (different from schizophrenia, mind) and the melding of fantasy and reality.

It turns out later that there are actually three more characters, voiced by Soehnle or acted out by Almagor's mummy-like puppets: Bruno Schulz, a real-life writer, who was murdered by the Nazis; Paula, Wassermann's wife; and Kazik, a progeria-afflicted baby born to Wassermann and Paula who lives his entire life in 24-hours but remains thankfully ignorant about war and its horrors. The child Momik's difficulty in understanding exactly what happened in his parents' almost unmentionable over there is vividly illustrated by his attempt to lure what he calls the Nazi Beast out from the cellar, in order to capture and tame it. To do so, he enlists his grandfather, a "real Jew", as bait. Soehnle almost spits out the word "Jew" to express Momik's frustration in trying to convince the beast, as if it were just some pet cat, to emerge from the darkness. It emphasises the idea of the comprehensive gap between the survivors and their children, of being a Jewish person then and being one now.

In a performance in June this year at the Théâtre International de Langue Française in the Parc de la Villette for la Biennale des Arts et de la Marionnette in Paris, the play is described as "the story of a quest, that of the transmission of a memory that would rather bury itself in oblivion but at the same time is the only means that could help a child grow up." The two theatre groups together explore "new forms, mix original musique, object, acting game and plastic arts. Their skeletal and ghostly characters provide the children of the beast gripping material, which finds the right tone between reality and fiction, neither accusing nor provocative, in this indictment against forgetting. A play that puts in perpective yesterday's memory and today's history while asking what has been asked since the Holocaust: How can we still believe in Humanity? The question concerns us all."

The novel on which it was based, Ayen Erekh: Ahavah (See Under: Love, 1986), Grossman's second, has been compared to William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury, Günter Grass' Die Blechtrommel (The Tin Drum) and Gabriel García Márquez's Cien Años de Soledad (One Hundred Years of Solitude). An entry a fortnight ago in the literary site, Waggish.org, explains the complex narrative technique of the play; it would also be interesting to look at the reviews written by the Times' Michiko Kakutani and Edmund White.

After the play, I met up with Roi and Rachel, who introduced me to two Hungarian diplomats, Tibor Köszegvári and Eszter Pap. I also met Pinkey and Shubran there. (Interestingly as we were walking out we saw the Kristovsky brothers, Sergey and Vladimir, of the über-popular group Umaturman performing at a private party on the ground floor.) Six of us went to Vivace for dinner, and were later joined by Soehnle and three women from the Tübingen and Obraztsov theatres. The restaurant wasn't anything to write home about, apart from the Querciabella chianti; my Inessa in fact found the place rather distasteful (and I strongly concur). It wasn't the physical setup per se, but rather the kind of clientèle it attracts. The kind of place where government bureaucrats on expense accounts go to, in my Inessa's reckoning. In other words, the polar opposite of Pang's notorious description of our restaurant-going gang in Moscow: high budget, low taste. For my Inessa and me: first and last time.

That's that for now. I really have to run off and do research.

Element's top seven

You know what they listed in this week's Element that had me nodding my head like those dopey dogs placed in the back of cars - the seven best Russian products. I guess you can count more than seven, but this is one of those features in Element that I really like and get a crack out of. The seven are:

1. Tinkoff beer - With plenty of brands competing on the Russian beer market this one keeps the title of the country’s only premium option. Not too long ago, finding bottles of Tinkoff was a problem but since the opening of their St. Petersburg plant, you can find Tinkoff in about every supermarket. At the moment seven different brews are available.


2. J7 juice - Back in the early ‘90s, J7 shocked the market as juice in square carton was something exotic for post-perestroika Russia where people were used to three-liter glass bottles. Since that time, Wimm Bill Dann, Russia’s revolutionary product manufacturer, has launched many other brands but J7 still dominates their other offerings.


3. Red October chocolate - Foreign chocolate producers pour millions of dollars every year into ad campaigns but still have not been able to win Russians’ hearts back from Red October chocolates. To try some of finest offerings visit one of the factory stores that Red October has around Moscow. Here they guarantee the freshness and quality of their delicious products.


4. Chistaya Liniya cosmetics - The Russian cosmetics industry is probably one of the most developed in the country, which means that it also must fight off tough competition from western brands. Kalina’s Chistaya Liniya manages to stand out in the crowd. Excellent quality, natural ingredients and low prices contribute to the brand’s continued popularity.


5. Flagman vodka - There are plenty of decent quality home-grown contenders competing for the tipplers of this most famous of Russian drinks. But we would like to highlight Flagman produced by RVVK. In less then 10 years the company has built a strong recognizable brand. Flagman has soft smooth taste and is affordably priced.


6. Vassa clothing - There are plenty of Russian designers flitting around but Yelena Vassa is the only one who has managed to establish steady, high-volume production and who has opened a bunch of stores around country. Simple lines in combination with natural fabrics are key factors to the overwhelming success of Vassa clothing.


7. Kristallin mineral water - Evian and Vittel have a serious competitor though with a very modest PR budget. The fact that the market is not yet taken by this drinking water can only be explained by its general lack of advertising. Great taste comes at a ridiculously low price. Carbonated water is also available.

What would my own Top Seven list be?

Crazy penguin picnic

I can see clearly now the rain has gone
I can see all obstacles in my way
Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind
It's going to be a bright, bright sunshiny day

I think I can make it now the pain has gone
And all of the bad feelings have disappeared
Here is the rainbow I've been praying for
It's gonna be a bright, bright sunshiny day

One of Faizal's favourites, this song was originally sung by American crooner Johnny Nash in 1972 but popularised by Jamaican reggae artist Jimmy Cliff in the film Cool Runnings in 1993. We played it on the road to Yaroslavl in our now classic road trip to Vologda. Although it's snazzy, it wasn't all that memorable at the time; in fact, the cheesy but catchy love song Ty dolzhna ryadom byt (It's Not That Simple) by Dima "Oh ain't I so cool" Bilan improbably put it in the shade to become the Song of the Trip. (This popular ballad actually placed second in the national competition to choose Russia's official entry to the Eurovision Song Contest in May 2005 in Kiev.) Today served as a new occasion to play the Nash-Cliff reggae hit, a day which started out all leaky and windy but ended with bales of laughter anyway.

Well to tell the story properly one has to go back to yesterday, at least for my Inessa and me.

It seems all reports about summer's demise were greatly exaggerated. Yesterday was -as the song goes- a very bright, bright sunshiny day, the sort you could wear a tee-shirt for. Dearie came to the flat at around 14.30 and caught me, as usual, not prepared to leave. I got myself finally ready an hour later, to go to an invitational event launch in the outskirts of Moscow recommended by my mavourneen.

Since it was pretty much my first time to drive to that part of town, it took some going to finally find our way to the place, which is located 25 km outside Moscow on MKAD ring road. (We made two wrong turns to Rublyova and to the town of Gorki-10 itself and had to go back en route. I also had to change money at the shopping arcade of the posh Zhukovka village for petrol.) We arrived at 16.30, thinking that perhaps the main event or whatever it was we were supposed to be there for was over. Well at least I thought so. My Inessa has a bit more sang froid than I do and was not at all flustered in the least bit. In fact when she tried to ask for the media coordinator who was to give her accreditation to the event in a 500-sqm chock-full of people running about it turned out the first person she asked was the very official she was looking for.

The event is called Project Artfield (Artpolye in Russian), which is organised by eponymous gallery owner Aidan Salakhova at a grazing field owned by First Stud Farm just off Gorki-10 on Rublyovo-Uspenskoye Shosse. Apart from Aidan Gallery, Stella Art, Regina, XL and VP Studio -all of which had stands at Art Moskva in May- also participated in this successor event to ArtKlyazma. Running through to 10 October (double ten, a lucky day for the Chinese!), Artfield features a couple of dozen of so-called "landscape sculptures" by 26 artists of different generations using different materials. Adhering to Salakhova's mantra that "the genre of monumental propaganda can be topical, even in post-Soviet times" most of the sculptures were outsize, such as two razor blades propped against each other, a knife sticking out and handcuffs, all made by Nice-based artist Philippe Perrin. Ducky and I found two works using huge letters very witty: one reads "ОЙ" on one side and "NO" on the other. Another sign, composed of 17 two-meter-tall pink letters in Cyrillic, reads "Schastye ne za gorami" (Happiness is not far away) by Boris Matrosov. The work that symbolises the exhibition is a life-size copy of the first Sputnik man-made satellite by Rostan Tavasiyev. Instead of Laika (first dog in space), there's a huge Duracell bunny inside. The other artists are Semen Agroskin, Marina Belova, Leonid Borisov, Bruni Lavrenty, Elena Yelagina, Konstantin Zvezdochetov, Yelena Kitaeva, Maxim Ksuta, Oleg Kulik, Konstantin Latyshev, Igor Makarevich, Diana Machulina, Nicola Ovchinnikov, Alexander Petrelli, Alexei Politov, Alexander Savko, Rostan Tavasiev, Alexei Upman, Tatiana Khengster, Sergei Shekhovtsov and Ewerdt Hilgemann.

At almost every public event my Inessa and I go to, guaranteed there's a spectacle of people (often members of the media) who embarass themselves by gouging on free food. It happened at that event at Shore House as well as the Sultanna Frantsuzova fashion show. Here at least it wasn't as embarrassing. People still grabbed food with very little restraint or decorum, as if they hadn't eaten in two days. (Ah well I guess I was a saté guerilla at Blue Elephant last night, as well.) My macushla and I had to share a plate between the two of us. On the way to look for a tree stump to sit on I handed a fork for this girl whom I saw sitting squat on the ground trying to eat salad with two knives.

On the way back we had to fill up on petrol at Lukoil near MKAD before going on our way. We took the road going to Krylatskoe and found ourselves back on the familiar Narodnogo Opolcheniya. Famished yet deciding we wanted something more different than Planeta Sushi or Il Patio we tried Fifth Avenue, a mall some five minutes on foot from Inessa's station along Ulitsa Marshala Biryuzova. Up on the third floor they had a branch of the popular beer restaurant on Taganka, Kolbasoff. We decided to eat instead at El Inka, a Spanish and Peruvian restaurant. In all it was, as Dearie described it, a perfect day.

Whatever ideas we had to continue the Saturday's enjoyment into Sunday were tweaked by the weather, which refused to go along with our script. Faizal told me Sasha was inviting us to have a picnic again just outside Moscow. The main event was tea with a family heirloom, Sasha's babushka's 120-year-old samovar. So we woke up to a very rainy day. Although I signed up for the impromptu outing I had yet to convince my muirnín that it was worth the trip. By midday the whole event was still a big question mark, although the rains had already slowed a bit. When Sasha finally confirmed after his English language lesson with Olya, it was way past 14.00. Ultimately Inessa decided to join us with the condition that she could only stay for two hours. That would've meant taking Balios with us. Faizal, however, insisted that we go in one car, adding that we would all go home together. (For some reason I got it into my head that we were going to join Sasha's family in some forest somewhere.)

After picking up Dearie at the McDo at Novoslobodskaya, we headed in the direction of Yakhroma on Dmitrovskoye Shosse. Just past MKAD we turned right toward Klyazma-2. In contrast with my forest-idea, we set up the samovar on a bench in Troitskoye, a rest area on the banks of the Klyazma Reservoir. There's actually a gravelly beach, but it's the lawn that fills up with river- and sunbathers. Desperately wishing for the remains of summer, we set up the samovar, bublik -a kind of Russian bagel-, honey, fruit preserves, dried mangoes and Cuvée Karsov red wine. Using lit briquettes Sasha was quickly able to get a fire going in the brass container. Despite the warmth of the samovar, the river breeze swept us up in its freezing embrace. With nothing but a flimsy cardigan I started to freeze; Sasha went over to the hotel next door and borrowed a dark-coloured windbreaker for me. That, however, was not enough; to warm up we had to jump up and down and shuffle from side to side. That prompted Sasha to call our gathering the "Crazy Penguin Picnic" - shades of the madness of Vologda! All we had to do now was do an endless song-cycle (sounds like Richard Wagner). It was actually loads of fun, drinking tea and wine while trying to keep warm! So despite the dampness we were able to have a fun picnic with his 1885 Tula samovar outdoors, thanks to Sasha's determination and resourcefulness.

Days of Thailand in Moscow

With work spilling over from Thursday into yesterday Friday was one of those impossibly busy days. It started with an extended meeting at one of the ministries. For lunch speed took precedence over taste or even welfare so I just went with a colleague to McDonald's for a McFresh and a coffee at McCafé.

In the afternoon there were a thousand and one things I had to finish in order to make a clean break with some things that needed to be passed off to our staff this week. In fact I was still orienting two of my colleagues at 5 past when I should already have been picking up my muirnín at Park Kultury.

After sending off my cleaner for the day and freshening up a bit at the flat, Inessa and I hurried off to Novaya Opera at the Hermitage Gardens for the gala opening of the Thai Cultural Festival in Moscow. Arriving 15 minutes late we thought we'd have to wait for the next interval to be able to take our seats. In fact an usherette told us as much when I got in at the door. When we entered the main doors of the hall, however, we saw that things had yet to settle down. Dima of the third form Filipino group at Moscow State University said hello to us first, followed by Sasha of Yukos and the whole Indonesian Embassy. On the other side I also said hello to Katya, Yulia and Zhenya of the Singaporean Embassy, the only other ones who responded to my SOS SMS the other day. On the same row and the back row there were a couple of people from the Foreign Ministry seated as well. My ducky saw a few people she knew from the press conference earlier the day.

The program started with a full court instrumental ensemble playing the overture to a masked khon performance by the National Theatre of Thailand, in which episodes from the ancient Sanskrit epic Ramayana are enacted to music in highly stylished form. Called Ramakian, this Thai version tells of the war between Rama, the rightful King of Ayutthaya, and Totsakan, the evil king of Lanka island who has spirited Rama's wife, Sita, to Lanka. Rama is aided by his royal brother, Laksmana, and several monkey chieftains with their simian armies. Totsakan is supported by various demons, who are also his relatives. Then there was a demonstration of Thai martial arts, followed by the distinctive dances of four different regions in Thailand. All in all it was a very impressive show. Thais certainly know how to put things together.

Following the program Waraporn and Piyapan invited us to go to the reception being held at the new Blue Elephant restaurant.

Eureka!

Let me celebrate a couple of rediscoveries today both related to my Inessa: Alyonka, my favorite chocolate-vanilla spread (comparable to Nutella in quality but considerably less pricey) only available at the supermarket in Shchukino; and Jem, a British singer whose voice has bewitched me since I heard her songs in Inessa's computer in June.

Of course, the day featured a number of other mention-worthy happenings, such as the bank's delay in locating my misplaced cash card; the sumptuous and mildly decadent dish of pork in vinegared pig's blood paired with pork rind-and-tofu curd prepared by my boss' household staff for the usual stragglers at work; and dinner with Faizal and Dearie at Kult, another lounge lizard lair of the O.G.I. variety buried in the recesses of Yauzskaya Ulitsa (better known as the location of the hyper-snob clubs Leto/Zima/Osen). Each of those will likely occupy their own niches in my memory banks.

But in this instance, the last and more modest events are the ones that distinguish this day from others. I've always wanted to get myself another container of Alyonka, which I first bought at Zebra, Inessa's supermarket along Narodnogo Opolcheniya, a couple of months back. Originally sold as a chocolate bar, Alyonka is one of the best brands of Krasny Oktyabr (Red October), a Russian confectioner founded by two Germans, Teodore Ferdinand von Einem and Julius Heuss in 1867, first at Sofiyskaya Naberezhnaya (Sophia Embankment) and later at its current site on Bersenevskaya Naberezhnaya (Bersenev Embankment). They also make another favourite: Slivochnaya Pomadka s Tsukatom (Cream fondant with candied fruit).

The image of the little girl on the chocolate bar first sold in 1966 invokes such nostalgia among Russians it's almost palpable. For example I found the following blog entry by Lolita, a Russian teen now living in Los Angeles, expressing such emotion in finding one of these yellow-red chocolate bars in a small shop in a southern Califorian suburb:

Yesterday I went into a Russian shop in the suburbs. It was sort of a hit-and-run affair; I sort of just grabbed a few things which struck my fancy, which is a mystery even to me. The tally was a sweet, crumbly Armenian bread, "French" cookies, a two-liter of kvas, and an assortment of exquisitely packaged candies. A great rush of light entered my breast when I saw the "Alyonka" brand at the counter but, after all, I had already gotten what I had come for, whatever that was. Later on we passed a Russian deli downtown and I got a mushroom and cheese croissant. I was feeling cocky so I thanked the proprietor in Russian; it is the only time I have ever flirted with a Russian man.

It is so evocative as a pop symbol, despite its socialist origins that it even became the subject of a legal dispute. In December 2000, Krasny Oktyabr was sued for 4 million rubles ($143,087) by Yelena Gerinas, a woman who claims that the company improperly used her likeness on its Alyonka chocolate bars. Gerinas claims in her lawsuit, the first of its kind in Russia, that the brand-boosting image on Alyonka bars was copied from a photograph taken by her father, the well-known photographer Alexander Gerinas who once worked for Krasny Oktyabr. She says Krasny Oktyabr used the photograph in designing the Alyonka label. Little is known of the case's outcome.

Anyway, I like Alyonka as much for the taste as for the faux Russian folk art packaging. There's no going back to peanut butter after this.

As for Jem, it's a different kind of enchantment altogether. A bit like the grip that took hold of me when hearing De-Phazz for the first time: firm and ticklish. My ducky mentioned her name almost absent-mindedly tonight at Kult when talking about their MP3-filled computer. Wasn't really too sure if we were talking about the same artist, but when I checked online tonight, this website turned up. All her songs are put up in her site. It won't allow me to download songs but I can play a continuous loop until I've gotten all the tunes committed practically to memory!

Jem, whose real name is Jemma Griffiths, is actually from Cardiff, Wales, known for Tom Jones and Charlotte Church. She had been singing and writing songs since the age of 13. After reading law at Sussex University in Brighton, England, she moved out of her comfort zone into London to work for other artists and allow her creativity to flourish. There she had a chance to work with Madonna, Fatboy Slim and Björk's songwriter. When one of her demo-tape songs received wide play following its first exposure at a national radio programme in the US, she was signed up by the record label of the Dave Matthews Band. Although the 30-year-old songstress sounds like and has most often been compared to Dido, I like her better. Her PR sheet is spot-on about her music: "...a combination of bright melodies, soul searching lyrics and diverse rhythms that grab you from the first listen. Her seemingly innocent lyrics contain those closely observed details that are as much about optimism as they are about discovery."

Just A Ride

Life, it's ever so strange
It's so full of change
Think that you've worked it out
then BANG
Right out of the blue
Something happens to you
To throw you off course
and then you

Breakdown
Yeah you breakdown
Well don't you breakdown
Listen to me
Because

It's just a ride, it's just a ride
no need to run, no need to hide
It'll take you round and round
Sometimes you're up
sometimes you're down
It's just a ride, it's just a ride
don't be scared
don't hide your eyes
It may feel so real inside
but don't forget it's just a ride

Jem released her debut album Finally Woken in March 2004. Other artists she's been compared to are Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Club 8, Anjali, Beth Orton, Massive Attack, Everything But the Girl and Saint Etienne, which performed in April or May this year in Moscow.

Minuta molchaniya

After last night's festivities I came to the office with a spring in my step with thoughts of last night. When I turned to The Moscow Times, however, I got reminded of the another important commemoration, the tragedy of Beslan. I guess that was the reason the traditional fireworks were canceled by the city in last night's festivities.

I remember that those days in early September last year. There was a certain nervousness in the air as the insecurity and fear pervasive in the days following the underground bombing in February 2004 came back to the city in the wake of two mid-air explosions committed by suspected women suicide bombers and an explosion of a bomb at a bus stop in the city outskirts. On 1 September, traditionally the first day of school all throughout the former Soviet Union, teachers held the first class of the year for pupils of Beslan School No 1, most of whom were accompanied by their parents or close relatives and friends. All of a sudden masked armed men seized the school, held more than 1,000 people captive and very quickly set up booby traps to deter any attempts at rescue. After a tense standoff special security forces rushed the gymnasium where all the hostages were being held. A firefight ensued which precipated the deaths of 331 people, 186 of whom were children. Even in a country used to tragedy (such as the Nord-Ost hostage-taking, the Kursk sinking) the death of innocents was almost too much to bear.

From late last week a number of commemorations took place, such as the meeting of Beslan mothers at the Kremlin with President Putin on Friday and a rally organised by the Kremlin-backed Nashy youth movement (only time will tell if they're merely maleable Boy Scout types, a kind of violent Red Guard that Mao Zedong unleashed during the Chinese Cultural Revolution or the supreme leader's youthful alterego like theHitler-Jugend) on Saturday afternoon at Vasilievsky Spusk (St Basil's Slope) for the victims. My Ossetian friend Alesiya from Vladikavkaz, some 65 km away from Beslan, attended the brief "meeting" in Moscow. Russian business daily Kommersant had this following English report:

Unable to Mourn
The mournful meeting of silence was held in Moscow Vasilievsky Spusk Saturday, September 3, 2005, in memory of those slain in Beslan bloodshed a year ago. The meeting staged by Nashy movement was attended by 30,000. Everyone stood still, but for Nashy, naturally.

The beginning was slated for 4:00 p.m. The police arranged a security cordon by 2:30 p.m. with the metal detectors installed from outside of Vasilievsky Spusk. The reporters could enter the square from the Kremlin quay under special lists or incognito, with the crowd from Varvarka. Nashy activists in black T-shirts and jackets reading “No words. The meeting of silence in memory of Beslan victims” were bumped into right after the metal detectors. They were holding boxes with candles. Each incomer received two candles with words “Light of Christ enlighten all.” The people crowded near a black stage where the bell was installed.

There were a lot of young people in Vasilievsky Spusk on that day. Some of them came independently and were particularly eyed by Nashy, who were always eager to put down the names and phone numbers, perhaps, in a move to recruit new members.

At 4:30 p.m., one of Nashys walked onto the stage. “We are the one country. The one people. September 3. Beslan. 331 people slain. Of them, 186 were children. It only remains to bewail and live. 331 clangs of the bell in memory of those perished in Beslan. No words. Please keep silence," a Nashy activist said.

The silence was broken in two minutes. Of 331, only the fifty clangs were heard when the voice from the radio sets held by Nashy members commanded to direct people to place candles at the 300th clang of the bell.

It usually takes a quarter of an hour so than the bell could make 331 clangs. Hardly two minutes had passed when pushed by the bosses through radio sets, Nashy activists got down to business, trying to sort out the crowd by sectors, explaining where to put a candle (glass aquariums with sand) once the clangs were over. The women stopped crying.

In Vasilievsky Spusk, only a few followed orders. The better part of the crowd ignored sand aquariums, having preferred to stick candles between cobble-stones of the pavement. When leaving, the people were presenting cigarettes to the police that formed the cordon.

S dnyom goroda, Moskva!

Happy Birthday, Moscow! Today the Russian capital fêted its 858th anniversary with scores of events held throughout the city. Although annual celebrations take place on the first Sunday of September, this is likely a tradition without much basis in history. It's difficult to pin down now but the first significant commemoration probably took place only in 1947, the year of the city's 800th anniversary.

Moscow, the biggest city in Europe with around 12 million registered residents accounting for one-tenth of Russia's total economic activity, was first mentioned in the Ipatyev Chronicle, one of the oldest Russian annals (another source mentions the Lavrenty Chronicle), in 1147 as an obscure town in a small province populated by mostly Finno-Ugric people, the Merya. Building on his father's success in uniting the northern and southern territories Yury Dolgoruky -Prince of Vladimir, Grand Prince of Kiev and sixth son of Vladimir Monomakh- declared Suzdal his northern capital in 1125 and made himself the prince of the region. Between the Volga and Oka rivers, on the banks of the Moskva River, Dolgoruky established a protective outpost for the Rostov-Suzdal principality. Making a number of attempts to control Kiev and put down the challenge of the prince of Chernigov in the south, Yury Dolgoruky (or Long Arms) was said to have frequently campaigned beyond his territorial reaches. A not particularly flattering rumour goes that the prince was returning from a successful battle and decided to celebrate at riverside, where the modern Kremlin and Red Square are currently located. Yury enjoyed many a merry feast so he decided to tarry a few days, during which he killed the local boyar or landlord (named either Stefan Ivanovich or Kuchko Stefanovich) for an insult he received, wed his wife, and then gave the landlord's daughter to his son in marriage. It's all likely untrue, however.

What is important is that on 4 April 1147, the chronicle mentions that he held a sumptuous banquet in honour of the Prince of Novgorod-Seversky Svyatoslav Olgovich somewhere on the same spot on the banks of the Moscow River, as a way of cementing an alliance in a time of great conflict. In 1156, the prince built a wooden wall and a moat around the city, forming the foundations of the first kreml (fortress, the antecedent of the Kremlin). The defenses were hardly successful, as in 1177 the city was razed to the ground and its population was killed. Still its favorable location as an intersection of important trade routes to the Baltic in the north, the Black Sea in the south, and later to Europe in the west encouraged growth, gradually leading to its designation as capital of the appanage principality of Muscovy in the 13th century. (A more detailed account of Moscow's founding can be found here.) Centuries later it has become Russia's premier political and economic city, the once and perhaps future capital of a world superpower.

Although I wasn't exactly clueless about the celebrations the day nonetheless started very slow for me indoors. In fact I kept to my pyjamas pretty much until the afternoon, when my muirnín passed by with some food from last night's birthday party. After a bit of inexplicable last-minute online window-shopping we set off for the city centre, with the "Hokku About Baikal" exhibition by Mizukoshi Takeshi, a Japanese nature photographer, at the Moscow Museum of Modern Art on Petrovka as the first stop.

Parking midway down to Tsvetnoi Bulvar along Strasnoi Bulvar we got to the museum gates to be told that it was closed. So we just decided to walk up and down Tverskaya, which is New York's Fifth Avenue, Madrid's Gran Vía and Tokyo's Chûo Dôri combined. It was nice to see the whole city turn out; most of the main streets were closed, from Belarussky Vokzal (Belarus Station) through the Boulevard Ring, including side streets Malaya and Bolshaya Dimitrovka, all the way down to Okhotny Ryad (Hunter Row) near the Red Square, blocked off by military and fire trucks.

My Inessa was saying that such a luxury happens only on three occasions in Moscow: 9 May, the anniversary of the victory in the Great Patriotic War (known also as V-E Day elsewhere); City Day, the first Sunday of September; and New Year's Eve. There were smiles and laughter, a lot of eating, singing and dancing. Mobile phone companies offered free calls. Concerts were held in stages set up at Pushkin, Theatre and Tverskaya Squares. Alyona, Inessa's friend, remarked to her that celebrations were becoming more and more patriotic every year, which is not necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes, though, it comes off as too contrived, Dearie said. True, true. But there are also some good features, such as more and more songs from the 1970s and 1980s recalling the "good old days" are being played.

Another positive thing we noticed was how policemen, mostly young recruits who wanted to avoid the army draft, were very friendly and helpful. This somewhat eased the fact that everyone had to go through metal detectors for every section of the street where stages were set up. "That's odd, how they seem to be getting friendlier every year," Inessa said.

Walking around did stoke our appetites, but we held on until we could get to the Teremok at the mouth of Kamergersky Pereulok (Kamerger Lane) for some bliny (pancakes). (In fact the mere mention of the word bliny had me salivating like Pavlov's dogs, enough to make me forget all about the frankfurters I had been hankering for since last week.) Queuing up and eating while standing reminded me of my first year here, where a ham-and-cheese blin at the Teremok near Language Link in Novoslobodskaya occasionally served as dinner. It was only 35 rubles then; it's 65 rubles now. "Oh but it's bigger and there are more fillings," Dearie said. I ordered the Greek blin, with some brynza -a Romanian sheep milk cheese cured in brine-, bacon and dill stuffed in. For dessert, I had an apple-caramel flavored one speckled with almonds. Inessa drank sbiten, a hot beverage made from honey, spices and herbs, while I had kvass, a fermented malt and rye drink commonly available in summer. It was, all in all, satisfyingly Russian.

Hearing drumbeats playing down the street, we sullied off to watch some buskers, including a trio of bongo drummers and a classically trained band which combined violin, trumpet with synth and drums to play an eclectic repertoire that included Vivaldi, Metallica and a popular Russian ditty to wide applause. Going against the tide of people we sat for a while at the grandstand set up in front of City Hall, where the statue of founder Prince Yury (erected in 1954 by sculptors S. Orlov, A. Antropov, N. Shtamm and architect V. Andreev) is located to watch a couple of groups sing, including former members of Fabrika Zvyozd (Star Factory, a program on Channel One equating roughly to Britain's Fame Academy and Spain's Operación Triunfo). We got our cue to leave when Unesyonnye Vetrom (Gone with the Wind), this oldish girl-group, sang their insipid signature hit, Kakao (refrain: Какао - какао, ко-ко-ко-ко, eight times), and Moei dushe pokoya net, the main theme song of the popular 1977 Soviet film Sluzhebnyj Roman (Office Romance). As in every celebration, we wanted to leave after seeing the fireworks, which we were told would take originate somewhere from Vasilievsky Spusk (St Basil's Slope). (Last year, I went to Park Kultury with Vika to see the laser show and fireworks.) Unable to go beyond Okhotny Ryad because of police fences, we tried to go around Theatre Square directed here and there by the militsiya (police) who seemed to be tested to the limit of their endurance - to no avail. We finally settled to wait for the valedictory salyut, supposedly at 10 pm, at the crossroad of Mokhovaya and Tverskaya. In the end, though, there was neither a pop nor a sparkle and we had to go home a bit tired, a tad disappointed, but all in all happy to have been out.

A final word: on the way up the street, police parted the crowds to allow a whole fleet of water trucks in formation to hose down the whole length of Tverskaya. The whole procession almost looked like a very graceful corps de ballet, led by a siren-wailing police car and followed, with lights and pressure hoses blaring, by five trucks. Too bad we didn't have a camera to capture the sight.

Short but not quite sweet

Me extraña un poco estar en casa antes de la medianoche. Acabo de volver hace unos minutos y he conectado enseguida porque aún no me apetece dormir. Marina se ha ido a festear el cumpleaños de su amiga Natasha en los alrededores de Moscú.

Como se hace el costumbre el sabado he empezado el día un poquito tarde. Bueno, me he levantado a las ocho pasado y, sin comer nada, puesto a hojear Wikipedia o otras paginas de enciclopedia. Seguía así hasta que viniera mi amor sobre las cuatro - y ¡ni siquiera me había dado cuenta! Huelga decir que llevía todo el día sin probar ni bocado. Pués hemos decidido primero cambiar dinero y despues comer algo en la vecindad. Teníamos como opciones Sindbad (libano) o Korchma (ucraniano). Dado que llevabamos mucho tiempo sin probar la cocina eslava nos hemos ido a Korchma.

¡Ay que rico! No tenía ninguna expectativa al venir pero encontramos los platos adecuadamente preparados como varios tipos de champiñon (particularmente el bolete/porcini blanco), pyrizhky (empanadas), kasha hrechana zi shkvarkamy (gachas de cereales hecho de trigo negro con salo o manteca de cerdo frito), kvasheni ohirky (pepinillos en vinagre), holubtsi (arrollado de repollo) y kovbasa (salchichon). Me han surprendido muchisímo la calidad y el sabor rico de la cusina ucraniana. Como la cusina rusa y ucraniana parece una a otra, no me llamaba mucho la atención la ucraniana. He comido una vez con Anne, una colega canadiense, y Lenin, antigo compañero de clase, en Shinok, un restaurante bastante caro frente al Hotel internacional, y fue bueno pero después se me olvidó casí por completo. Con eso ha cambiado mi punto de vista.

Luego hemos ido a la tienda Krasny Kub en Zvyozd, un centro comercial en Taganka, para comprar un regalito para Natasha, que hoy cumple sus 28 años. Hemos terminado hacia las nueve ya y tenía que llevar mi Inessa a Maryino donde tenían una fiesta. Creo que ya había estado antes en este distrito, muy alejado del centro; una vez asistimos un servicio funerario para la recién difunta mujer de Eduard en marzo o abril. Allá no se ven más que los complejos de apartamientos altos. Son como colonias de concreto, un bloque después de otro. O mejor dicho, ¿bosques y bosques? porque así tienen pinta desde lejos.

Ultimamente veo a Marina cada vez menos. No tengo opción pero tengo que acostumbrarme porque será aún menos trás el comienzo del nuevo año universitario este jueves pasado. Ayer trabajamos los dos hasta muy tarde y por consequencia tuvimos no más que dos horas estar juntos. Luego fuimos a Planeta Sushi (si, otra vez ya sé) para cenar y ya. I vsyo, como aquí suelen decir.

Le ralentissement du temps

Je reviens à mon appart un peu plus tôt que toujours parce que mon ange a dû parler avec son amie maintenant en stage aux États Unis. Ce ne m'arrive pas à peine mais il faut en profiter; donc je vais raconter ce qui s'est passé ces deux jours.

Hier soir il fallait que j'accompagnasse mon petit chou au dîner avec sa collègue Irina et son petit ami français, Dino.

Fine dell'estate

Summer is over and winter is not far behind. The cold has imposed its presence even more brusquely in the last two days. One Friday, I scarce remember if it was this last one or the one before that (even small talk about the weather should be blogged, perhaps?), mercury readings took a perceptible dive - especially early in the morning and late in the evening. From mid-August, the days have grown shorter - the first unmistakeable sign of the coming end of a glorious season. The streets are no longer empty and traffic is snarled again, with everyone back from vacation. On Tuesday night, it rained heavily; the downpour continued sporadically yesterday although the sky seems quiescent, if brooding, this morning. Definitely the holidays are over. Today is the first day of la rentrée, the return to school.

Surprisingly, the thought that winter is coming weighs on me. I'm not really one to be affected by climate, least of all the cold that I favor over the heat. I've always loved autumn. Winter, with its sunlessness and snowdrifts, has not really troubled me; in fact I've thrived in the more severe Russian version of the season since my arrival, learning cross-country skiing in my first winter here and snowboarding in the second. Plus, wintry nights have always fascinated me, and snow has been nothing short of miraculous on every occasion I've encountered it.

Monday: Viewing of The Spy Who Shagged Me
Tuesday: Olya Oleshchenko arrives in Moscow on a business trip; her friend's name is Inessa. Rhythm and Blues Café with Vika and Ai, downpour
Wednesday: Singapore po-russki, Ichiban boshi