Москва́ 6-9-8

Where do I even begin? There is so much to cover for this entry. Moscow is fucking insane and amazing and scary and bizarre! I can't believe I almost ended up moving there last year and in the winter no less! I guess the best way I to approach this insanity is chronologically. I didn't really even decide to make this trip for sure until about a week before I left. My friends were literally begging me not to go. I think one of them even referred to it as a "suicide trip." So I wasn't sure if I was going to go or not. One day I was going and the next day I wasn't. I knew I needed at least a week to sort out my visa, so I waited until the absolute last minute to apply for one. I literally picked up my Russian visa the same day that my flight left. I had done all sorts of research online, leading up to my departure with regard to hotels and places to see and go out to at night. I had also been emailing with some other activists from Russia, including the organizer of the gay pride protest, Nikolai Alekseev. My flight from Berlin left at like 1:00 am on Thursday the 29th of May. I arrived to the airport a couple hours before and when I was going through immigration they detained me because apparently I had overstayed my visa by; get this, one hour! I arrived here to Berlin on February 28th on a tourist visa which allows me to stay for three months. Due to the fact that I haven't left Germany at all since I arrived, they had to detain me and I had to sign all these court papers admitting that I had overstayed. The whole ordeal took like an hour and I barely made my flight. I was literally the last person to board, they closed the doors like twenty seconds after I boarded the plane. The flight was about 3 hours long so we arrived to Moscow at like 5:00 am. After going through immigration and customs I caught a minibus to the nearest metro train station and rode into the city center. Moscow's Metro system is the busiest in the world (7 million passengers per day). You never have to wait more than a minute for a train, its just one after the other all day long and its usually always packed especially during the rush hours when they pack em in like sardines. The Metro itself should be one of the wonders of the world in my opinion. It's absolutely stunning, with its hundreds of mosaics, paintings, sculptures, decorative moldings and chandeliers. It dates back to the 1930's and 40's and was completed during the rule of Joseph Stalin. It's an incredible example of socialist artistic realism. Most average soviets didn't have cars at that time so in true socialist style, the government created something truly special for it's people. A literal palatial labyrinth of inspiration for the masses to enjoy on a daily basis. I suppose in a way it was just an attempt to share with the population, the weath and splendor that the russian czars had once enjoyed.

The first thing you notice when you arrive in Russia is that there is a certain sort of stoic demeanor on the faces of the people that is very palpable. Nothing phases these people it seems. I suppose enduring seventy years of communism will have that effect on a population. Although it seems a bit less gray and bleak nowadays when compared to my last visit to Russia eight years ago. The last time I was in Russia I was just nineteen. I spent the summer backpacking in europe alone. It was a very spur of the moment decision to even go to Moscow back then, it wasn't originally on my list of places to go that summer. I remember I was sitting in some trashy gay video bar in Budapest drinking beer and watching music videos when that song "go west" came on, I think it's a pet shop boys song. anyway it really got me thinking about the Soviet Union/Russia and how I had always wanted to go there since I was a kid staring at the maps that covered my bedroom wall. I'd always wanted to see Red Square and the world famous Hermitage museum in Saint Petersburg, So I decided right there at that bar in Budapest that I would make my way to Russia and so thats exactly what I did. I came in overland on a train from Helsinki about two weeks later. I remember being so amazed. It was as if I had stepped into a new world. Everything seemed so new and different to me back then. I adored Saint Petersburg but I remember being incredibly intimidated by Moscow and I was very ready to leave after spending just one week there. This time however I didn't feel intimidated at all, though now in retrospect perhaps I should have. I suppose eight years and sixty some odd countries later causes the intimidation factor to reduce significantly because for the most part I really enjoyed Russia this time, even though the language barrier was still a bit daunting. I love the sound of it though and I think the written cyrillic script is really beautiful. It's funny you know a few weeks ago I saw something online, it was one of those moving images with several frames, it was an image of a dancer doing a pirouette (or a spin or whatever the hell they're called). The image would rotate either clockwise or counter clockwise, depending on whether you were a person who uses their left brain or their right brain. I've copy and pasted the explanation below...

If you see the image turning clockwise, then you use more of the right side of the brain and vice versa.

Most of us would see the dancer turning anti-clockwise though you can try to focus and change the direction; see if you can do it.

What side of your brain do you use?

LEFT BRAIN FUNCTIONS
uses logic
detail oriented
facts rule
words and language
present and past
math and science
can comprehend
knowing
acknowledges
order/pattern perception
knows object name
reality based
forms strategies
practical
safe

RIGHT BRAIN FUNCTIONS
uses feeling
"big picture" oriented
imagination rules
symbols and images
present and future
philosophy & religion
can "get it" (i.e. meaning)
believes
appreciates
spatial perception
knows object function
fantasy based
presents possibilities
impetuous
risk taking

When I look at this image it turns clockwise, which means that I use the right side of my brain and therefore have an easier time learning and understanding symbols and images as opposed to words and language. To me this serves as a perfect explanation as to why I have such difficulty learning new languages, where as other people I know have the ability to pick up on them so quickly. However both times that I was in Russia I taught myself to read the cyrillic alphabet within a week. Knowing the meaning of the words I was reading is a different story, but it made things like reading the map and being able to pronounce the words I was reading correctly quite easy for me. It's not just symbols either, I can remember the face of someone I met ten years ago but ask me to remember the name of someone I spent an hour with at the bar the night before and I'm often times at a loss (though I can probably lay some of the blame for that on weed) Anyway I suppose thats why I am drawn to visual arts like film, photography and fashion.

Speaking of which the fashion in Moscow is kind of amazing. There are two types of people (usually woman); The rich oligarchs who wear labels like Dior and Dolce & Gabbana and look amazing in clothes that the rest of the population couldn't dream of being able to afford and then there are the regular poor folks who wear sort of generic nineteen forties and fifties looking clothes and they look equally amazing and I don't think they even realize it. I swear like ninety percent of woman in Russia wear high heels everyday, even the young girls. We are talking serious stilettos! I don't know how they do it, it must be so painful. Russia strikes me as the type of country where women are very objectified. All one has to do is look at some of the ad campaigns around the city to draw that conclusion. That and I'm sorry but any time you go somewhere and see twelve year old girls traipsing around the city in hooker heels, you know that's the type of mentality your dealing with. They say it's a mans world but Russia takes that notion to the extreme. One night while I was walking home from a restaurant past an archway I heard a couple arguing. As I peered into the driveway a saw a big muscular man backhand his wife/girlfriend hard across her face, sending her flying to the ground. I paused for a moment shocked before screaming at him in english to leave her the fuck alone. They both started yelling at me angrily in Russian (probably telling me to mind my own fucking business) who knows, maybe he was her pimp. I felt so bad for the woman, but what could I do? Getting involved would have been useless. She obviously didn't want my help and the cops in Russia don't give a shit (more on that later). Anyway, getting back to my first day in Moscow... I soon found out that all of the information I had obtained online was very out of date. The hotel I had planned to stay at was charging like 70 euros a night instead of the 20$ listed online, and my plan b hotel across the street from Kievskaya Station had been demolished and there is a big megaplex there now. Other than that one new megaplex, I really didn't notice many big new buildings. Moscow looked and felt pretty much the same as the last time I was there. The only really big changes I noticed were that a lot more people spoke english, there were alot more expensive german cars rollin down the streets oh and the prices. The prices were much much higher; like three times higher. Moscow is mad expensive for real and with little substance to back up the exorbitant prices, (thank you oligarchs for raping the country of it's resources and then sending all the cash to swiss banks!) After searching all morning for a cheap hotel, I finally decided to stay at a hostel. I ended up finding a bed at the Trans-Siberian Hostel near to the Kurkskaya Metro. I slept on a bunk bed with eight roommates. It was ruff.

I swore I'd never stay at a hostel again after my experiences in San Francisco earlier this year, but this time I really had no choice. It was the only affordable option available to me. I slept all afternoon my first day in Moscow and then went out. It gets doesn't get dark until quite late at this time of year in Moscow. I went to this park ten minutes walking from my hostel called Nitai Gorod and just hung out there drinking a few beers and people watching. Nitai Gorod is apparently sort of a meeting place for Moscow gays, but It didn't really seem like it that much to me. After it got dark, I headed over a gay club called Three Monkey's. I had been there before in 2000 but it was in a different location at that time. The new venue is much bigger and nicer. I met an American guy from Texas and his Russian boyfriend. We spent the evening at a corner table deeply engrossed in conversation. We talked mostly about politics, and travel. They were really funny and invited me to come and visit them in Houston. I walked back to my hostel when it started to get light at around 4:30. The next afternoon was spent wandering around Moscow taking pictures, I took so many photos of the most random things that I thought were cool looking. I'm obsessed with cyrillic, This may sound crazy but to me there is something sort of liberating about not being able to understand any aspect of a language at all. After all my senses were already being bombarded by everything else. That evening while I was walking down the street on my way out to a club, The police stopped me, for a routine document check. When I told them my passport was at my hostel they insisted that I come with them to the police station. I said no. There were three of them. The young one was the only one who spoke any english. I demanded to know what my crime was and made a huge fuss about how they were wasting their time. I made clear to them that I was not a criminal and that they should really be directing their attention to the murderers and rapists that plague the city. I lied telling them that I was a reporter for a magazine in America and that I would immediately like to contact the American Consulate so as to report this horrible injustice (as if the american consulate would even care! they'd be like tough luck kid! I think we can all remember how the U.S. refused to even fly their own citizens home. you know? The one who lost EVERYTHING in the south asian tsunami back in 2004) I tried to make myself sound all important and shit (hahaha such lies) But more than anything I acted completely fearless almost to the point of arrogance, as if their authority didn't frighten me one bit. I think they are used to people respecting their authority and kissing their ass. If I have learned anything over the years it is that people in positions of power regardless the level, prey primarily on the fear of their subjects (almost as if they think that if a person shows fear then they must be guilty of something) I think they're trained to induce fear. After all what is power without fear? I told them that they were welcome to follow me to my hostel so that I could prove everything to them. I then I looked them straight in the eyes and asked for all of their badge numbers. They agreed to follow me to my hostel which I said was just three blocks away (more lies) I'm sure they thought it was a nice hotel haha rather than some grubby dorm. (I think they were waiting for a bribe from a western tourist that would most certainly never come) anyway after about 5 or 6 blocks they gave up on me thankfully and let me go. It was sort of funny because after walking with them for a few minutes, leading the way to my hostel, all of a sudden I turned around and they were gone. haha, saving face is so important to these fascist goons.

I felt so vindicated after that little brush with authority and used the resulting confidence to press my way up into some lame hipster club without paying, (cuz im soooo important ya'll!!) Actions and body language transcend language, they speak far louder than words. At the club that night I met this really sweet gay boy named Alex and some older dude he was with whose name I can't damn remember. I do remember that Alex's last name was Alekseev, the same last name as Nicholai, the activist/pride organizer who I had been emailing with for the past month. I had not heard from him in almost a week and was a bit worried because I still had not determined the exact time and location of the protest which was scheduled for the next day. When I asked Alex if he new Nicholai he said he had heard of him and that most Russian gays don't like him because he is always stirring up controversy. That's exactly the sentiment I received from most gays who I told about the purpose of my trip. They all say things like, we are happy here in Russia why are you trying to stir up public anger and make things more dangerous for us. They are scared about a backlash against the gays in Moscow who are now at best merely tolerated. I can't blame them though because they have never known the true meaning of freedom of speech and expression. I'm sure it wasn't easy for the people who started the stonewall riots either. I made sure to make my opinion known as well. We cannot settle for second best when it comes to human rights. If we do we simply render ourselves indefinite second class citizens and that is absolutely unacceptable. I told him that brave Russians like Nicholai, though perhaps reviled by some now, will be revered and respected years from now for being pioneers for human rights in Russia and for putting their own lives and freedom on the line for a just cause. Alex then told me that he had heard from someone that Nicholai and a few other Russian activists had been jailed last week by the authorities. I took this as a perfectly plausible explanation for why I had not heard from Nicholai in the over a week. The following morning was the day of the protest. I rose early (10am) haha thats early for me! I took the metro over to Tverskaya in central Moscow to city hall (the offices of Moscow's ignorant homophobic mayor Yuri Luzhkov) I arrived there at around 11:30 and waited almost two hours, the last I had heard from the organizers was that the protest would begin there at mid-day. Well despite a somewhat elevated police presence, I was the only one who was there. I was sure now that the the Russian activists indeed must have been arrested. Disapointed and feeling a bit like the whole trip will now have been a big waste of my time and money. I sat down and tried to weigh out the pros and cons. I had a big problem, I had already been in Moscow for three days and had spent half the money I brought with me. I knew that I would not be able to afford to stay in the city for the entire two weeks I had originally planned. So I walked over to the Aeroflot offices and paid the 50 euros to change my date of departure. Even though I would have loved to stay for two weeks, one week in Moscow would have to suffice. After changing my ticket, I hung out in Red Square for a bit I bought a really cool Soviet military cap. It looks sorta like what a pilot might wear but now people are telling me it's the hat that the Soviet military tank drivers wore, either way it's my new favourite hat! Later on after an afternoon nap, I went out to a crazy lesbian bar in Tverskaya called 12 Volt. I was having a veery hardcoeur legendary kiki with all the ferocious ladies of Moscow and lemme letcha know it was a very boozy dance extravaganza. At one point some drunken butch gender bender attempted to pick me up over her shoulder and spin around with me. The dumb ass drunk bitch collapsed under my weight and knocked over some other girl. The other girl got up and went on a spazz attack, but she targeted me instead of the idiot girl whose fault it was. typical. It was kinda tense up in the club for a while but everything was cool once I apologized for us both. Later that night, I ended up meeting some crazy militant dyke in army fatigues named Masha. We left the club together and bought more beer. We then wandered the streets of central Moscow and ended up staging a protest of our own in Red Square drunkenly chanting exactly what, I can't even recall. We met Two sweet Russian boys who invited us to join them for drinks (@9am mind you!). We went to another bar and these boys were so cool, I spent the next hour listening to them talk about Egypt. It was so fascinating and now I've decided that I must go to Egypt. These boys were the perfect example of how kind and generous Russians can be. Though I have to say they were less than impressed with my coarse lesbian companion. But my homegirl knew where my loyalties lied. We said our goodbyes to the boys and Masha and I headed for the Metro where we brought the party into the train car. Such the odd couple. We were carrying on and swinging around the train car like crazed monkey's. My biggest accomplishment of the night was making a few of those stoic Muscovite commuters on the train actually crack a smile!

I slept most of the day Sunday, afterall I didn't get home until damn near noon thanks to all that early morning street boozing! After dinner (breakfast:) on Sunday night I went out to a Propaganda. Propaganda is a club that I had been hearing about for years. It's sort of famous the world over. So they host a gay night every week on Sunday night. When I arrived around 11pm it seemed more like a nice restaurant than a club. I sat and had a Mojito at the bar. then wandered around the club a bit. Finally I found a seat and sat there waiting until they cleared the dancefloor of all the tables and chairs. As I was sitting there, I heard a table of about five people speaking english in the next booth over from me. It was obvious they thought that I was Russian and were talking about me haha, it wasn;t anything rude really but still I waited and listened to what they were saying for a few minutes, before Introducing myself in my slangy american tongue. After the initial embarrassing shock dissipated from their faces they asked me what I was doing in Moscow. I told them I had come for a human rights protest that had never come to fruition. They then explained to me that they were a crew of documentary filmmakers from Vancouver, Canada who were there for the same purpose. I told them that I tried to go to the protest the day before but nobody was there. They then informed me that in the days leading up to the event, the date and time had changed like five times in order to evade the police. They said that they had just come from the protest earlier that afternoon. I was devastated. To think I was here in Moscow and missed the protest. It was so frustrating. They said it was a very small event that took place at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory (so appropriate considering the genius, nineteenth-century, russian composer/national hero was in fact homosexual.) There was also a sort of decoy event staged at the same time at city hall to draw all the right wing skinheads and orthodox religious fanatics away from the actual event. They said the date and time were revealed only hours before. I was sort of impressed at how "in the know" these Canadian queers were. I told them that I had been emailing with Nicholai Alekseev but hadn't heard from him in over a week. They told me that he was keeping a really low profile with a few other prominent Russian activists and since just after the event earlier that day they have all been holed up in a suburban Moscow apartment with the police surrounding the building. They said that the police had shut off all the phones and electricity to the apartment and that they were all sort of barricaded in there. Ken Coolen the director of Vancouver pride went on to tell me that the police were trying to pin the activists on false drug charges in order to silence them all with ten year sentences in a Siberian Gulag. I suddenly felt so much more respect for Nicholai. The man is literally putting his life on the line for human rights and equality. Ken told me I should check out the website for their documentary which is all about the politics of gay pride around the world. The title of their documentary is "Beyond Gay - The Politics of Pride" website is www.biggaymovie.com check it out. Such amazing brave people. Such important work. We sat and chatted and had a few drinks, I was really glad to have met them. Once the club really started getting going they left and I took to the dance floor. The music at Propaganda is world class. It sort of reminded me of Twilo in New York, so you can imagine how excited I was when I told someone that and they informed me that the DJ actually used to spin at Twilo quite often. This was of course before the Giuliani/Bloomberg fascists took over and all but ruined New York. I went up to the DJ booth and asked the DJ if he new Jora from Twilo. He said yes and that he was living there in Moscow and was actually at Propaganda last week. I couldn't believe it. How full circle would it have been to have run into the infamous RMSD in Moscow? My friend Adam in New York would be living for this shit. Anyway I had such a blast that night cutting it up with all the queens of Moscow. When I left the club I was in such a good mood. It was like the highlight of the trip. I was elated. As I made my way walking back to the hostel, I stopped for a moment and just enjoyed that peaceful time of the morning when its light out but still too early to see many people out on the street.

In Moscow every few blocks it seems (at least in the area where I was staying) there are little empty lots which sort of double as green space with trees and dirt and what not, they are not really what I would consider parks (no benches, grass or playgrounds.) There was one of these bleak little "green areas" on the corner lot right across from my hostel with a little path that you can cut through. While I was walking through it that beautiful sunny morning, I noticed something peculiar. I saw what looked like a homeless person sprawled out on her back in the middle of the pathway. It was odd because she seemed to be laying in a dark muddy puddle. As I got closer I soon realized that that muddy dark puddle was not in fact mud but had a dark reddish hue. It was a pool of blood. I ran up to her to see if she needed help. It was then that I realized that this woman was in fact dead stabbed several times with her throat slit and lifeless eyes peering out into nothingness. Just then I heard men yelling. It was the police about 50 meters away parked on the street,(perhaps waiting for the morgue to arrive.) They were motioning and yelling at me in Russian to move away from the body and to keep moving. I had stumbled across the scene of a brutal murder! I turned pale with shock and disgust. As I crossed the street to my hostel doorway, I took a minute to sit on the curb in a feeble attempt to gather my uncontainable thoughts. I have seen some fucked up shit in my life, (the twin towers collapsing in new york, ten year old girls being pimped out on the streets of phnom penh, a beggar in mumbai molesting his own infant son in public on the street, a man in missouri shooting the family dog in the head in as his two young sons screamed in terror.) But I have never ever in my life seen a dead body let alone slashed up and covered in blood and so close up. It was shocking and disturbing beyond what words can even describe. The image of her helpless, lifeless body lying in a pool of dark red blood is ingrained in my memory forever. The experience of literally staring death in the face made me really thankful to be me, to be alive. When you see a lifeless, colorless body like that It just seems so final. Your not the same. As I entered the hushed hostel early that morning and as I lay awake in my bunk my thoughts screaming inside my skull. It was like all of a sudden, I perceived everything. There was a high pitched tone ringing in my ears as if I were tuned into some strange and foreign frequency which was at odds with the rest of my surroundings. awareness? adrenaline overdose?? Whatever it was there was no way I was falling asleep in that condition. So I got dressed again and went down to the corner store and bought some more beers. After I walked back up the street to the scene of the gruesome crime. Both the police and the body were gone, but the pools of dark blood, someones bloody shirt and some bloody latex gloves remained. Call me morbid but I took pictures of the scene. Then I went down and sat on the steps of the orthodox church across the street (yeah this shit went down directly in front of a church) I sat there with my beer watching as the black crows squaked and congregated around this gruesome scene of death as if they were waiting for more. Just then a woman approached me looking very distraught. I offered her a beer and motioned for her to sit down. She offered me a cigarette and pulled out a small bottle of vodka, we shared swigs as she explained to me in her broken english me that she too could not sleep after discovering her neighbors body there in the park. She said that they were both from the Caucasus region and that she feared for her life in Moscow now more and more because there have been so many of these xenophobic/racist attacks this year and they have been on the rise. She said that while she didn't witness the actual murder she is almost sure it was perpetrated by one of the cities countless neo-nazi fascist, skinhead gangs. I tried to comfort her as she wept for her neighbors two young children, who will now grow up in a cruel and ruthless city without their mother. We sat there for an hour often times in complete silence and disbelief as we finished off the vodka and beer. Finally I gave her a big hug, wished her luck and said goodbye. I needed to be alone. I had just spent the last hour embracing a forty five year old woman who was a complete stranger to me. I felt so much sympathy for her because she is stuck in Russia and I'm not. She kept saying "it could have been me, it could have been me." So sad... Sufficiently boozed up on vodka I was finally able to pass out and get some sleep. The next day I was a wreck though, and everyone in the hostel noticed it. They were so shocked when I told them what I had seen, the one girl roommate from Helsinki made me promise to go and see a trauma counselor as soon as I got back to Berlin, I sort of joked with her saying that I've been needing one of those for the last five or six years. After all that insanity went down I was suddenly quite glad to be leaving Russia the following day. I spent my last day in Moscow sort of wandering around the city in a zombie like state. I have been having trouble falling asleep since all this happened.

On one these walks I met a really sweet and friendly Uzbek boy whose name I couldn't understand even though he told me like three times. But one thing that I can't forget is his sweet smile and kind eyes. We decided to go to Red Square and take some pictures of all the sites at night. While we were walking he pulled a pair of new socks out of his bag and gave them to me as a gift (so random but so endearing) not a minute later we were approached by three uniformed officers who demanded to see his documents, they didn't even say a word to me (probably due to my light complexion) Russia is sooo racist. When he didn't show them what they wanted they hauled him away into the back of their caged truck, he looked back at me and waved wearing a frightened sullen expression. One more day, I thought to my self. Now I was really ready to go home. I spent that night on youtube watching videos about the rise of racism and xenophobia in Russia and after learning some statistics was now almost positive that the murder scene that I saw the day before was committed by one of these far right wing gangs, many of which are secretly sanctioned by the Kremlin and powerful political parties within the Russian Duma. They need to create an enemy/scapegoat. Just as America has created Al Qaeda and the war on terror, the Russian government/media has demonized Chechens, Armenians, Georgians and other darker complected Caucasus and Central Asian peoples, actually anybody who is not of white, Russian European background has reason to fear living in Moscow. As I sat staring out the window while the plane took off bound for Berlin, I thought about how lucky I am to live in Berlin, a city where I can do and say what I want without living in constant fear of being harassed by the police. Even though we still have a long way to go in the west in reaching our ultimate goals of free love, free expression and human rights and equality for everyone, traveling to Russia and experiencing first hand the dire situation there really put things into perspective for me and ultimately I'm glad that I went there because I learned so much. I came across an interesting & relevant quote from a famous Russian writer. "Russia is not part of humanity, but exists only to teach it a lesson."