Wednesday, the first day of our holiday break, and Lindsay's friend was flying in from Boston to visit. As it happened, he had chosen to arrive at Domodedovo, the most distant airport, all the way across the city from Zelenograd. Poor man, how could he possibly have known that getting to Domodedovo, and then back again, would take us 9 hours? Moscow is one the biggest cities in the world. Moscow is epic.
The snow was drifting down as we set off from Zelenograd at 11 AM, hopping onto a coach bus (marshruta) bound for the nearest Metro station, about an hour away. The roads were barely plowed, but Russian drivers are intrepid in any weather. A little fishtailing didn't cramp our driver's style at all. Lane dividers, psshhhtt. However, we were soon forced to a crawl, and then a standstill, as the highway wound around the mega-mall complex in Khimki, miles of furniture, electronics, Porsche dealerships, supermarkets, and most importantly, a massive Ikea store.
Lindsay chafed, imagining her friend leaving the airport to wander bemusedly through southern Moscow, but I was distracted watching all the people caught in traffic around us: a bespectacled man in a German truck, a driver smoking a cigarette in a sinister black car with smoked windows, girls with bleached hair and matching hooker boots, trudging through the slush, mallbound. Men sold jugs of antifreeze on the side of the road.
An hour and half behind schedule, we finally reached the Metro station and jumped on a southbound subway train. The car was crowded, but not oppressively so – until a babushka got aboard and took a shine to my corner. It was a primo spot, braced against the opposite doors, good handholds, all that, and by God she wanted it. So she stood in front of me, and every time the car lurched, she took it as an opportunity to adjust herself further into my space, treading on my feet twice. At last somebody else got off and I was able to move into a different spot. The babushka stepped triumphantly into the corner, like a rightful queen ascending the throne after years in exile.
On and on we went, crossing under Moscow.
Somewhere along the way, we had established that neither of us really knew where we were going. Inspection of the Metro wall map pointed to two options: Domodedovskaya Metro station, and a special train line running from Paveletski Rail station. Encouragingly, the latter led directly to the little airport symbol, so we opted for it, falling out of the subway into a stampede of people, all dragging children, suitcases, cryptic parcels piled on carts, etc, etc. Then we paid 250 rubles each (~ $8 USD) for tickets on the express airport train, exactly 10x more than your average autobus ticket. I was expecting a standard electric train, wooden benches, metal floors, but the Aerport Express turned out to be a luxury vehicle, with cushy seats and closed captioning TVs. Bossy loudspeaker voices reminded us, in both Russian and English, to mind our belongings and give up our seats to pregnant women. We weren’t even underway before a woman was rolling down the aisle with a shopping cart, selling bottled tea and the latest Dan Brown novel in translation. It felt like the beginning of a real journey. I was happy in my seat and fully ready to just set out and cross the whole country. On reflection, it seemed a little lame that we were just going to pick up the friend and then trek back to Zelenograd.
45 minutes later, following an all-too brief trip through factory yards and snowy birch forests, we cast up at Domodedovo. Everything was under construction and International Arrivals lay on the other side of a labyrinth of snow fencing. Finally, however, we made into the terminal where we hiked, and hiked, until at last we ran into Lindsay's friend hiking the other direction. He was hugely relieved to see her. When she hadn't been there to meet him, he had handed the airport workers a little card she had emailed him earlier. It said: I am lost. I cannot speak Russian. I cannot find my friends. Please help me. First the workers had laughed their heads off, then they took pity on him and escorted him around the terminal, searching.
On the way back we skipped the expensive train in favor of a marshruta to Domodedovskaya metro stop. This was a mistake. The traffic was even worse. For two hours we crawled along the highway towards Moscow. I read the billboards: Fly to Bangkok from 15000 rubles. Fly to Tashkent. Fly to London. Fly away, fly away. The sun went down and the snow fell harder.
At last we came to Domodevoskaya. But here we met another problem: none of us had had a bite to eat all day, and all of us needed the facilities. Across the street, a sign beckoned us: a crossed fork and spoon, lit up in neon ten feet tall. Bingo.
The facilities were outside, a row of porta-johns on the snowy sidewalk. Now, lots of countries make you pay for your convenience, but Russians have it down to an art form: every row of toilets has its own babushka, who stakes out the last booth as her own: she has an electric light, blankets, a teakettle, cleaning supplies. You go to this woman, hand her 15 rubles, and avail yourself of one of the other booths. It's a little bit awkward and pretty damn cold, but they're always clean. In many ways it's a very practical system.
The diner was a barebones waystation, staffed by a lanky hawkfaced man and a Kazakh girl in a purple dress, who kept fixing her hair in the mirror. When he spotted us, the man bounded over.
When Lindsay started to order, he interrupted her, laughing, waving his long arms around.
"Speak English!" he said in English. "Or maybe French?" he added in Russian.
"Speak English?" Lindsay said. "Really?"
"No of course not," he said. "Does it look like I do?"
Thoroughly confused, she finished the order in Russian, three cheese sandwiches, three Finnish beers. The man took note and bounded off again. We took off our hats and gloves, tried to get warm.
The sandwiches were bad, but I really liked that place, I don't know why.
Then we rode all the way back under Moscow, reached our metro stop, dragged the friend and his luggage through heavy traffic, and leapt aboard the marshruta to Zelenograd. Standing room only this time.
Naturally, we got caught in traffic.
(note: just for the record, I didn't take this picture. It was on someone else's blog: http://havemorecake.blogspot.com/2008_06_01_archive.html and I borrowed it purely for illustrative purposes)
