Street life

The next and thereafter following mornings I began with the homely ritual of my favorite childhood breakfast: Russian cottage cheese with milk and a bit of sugar, and tea with black bread and “smetana,” the Russian version of sour cream. The cheese’s sweet grainy texture melted on the tongue, awakening my palate to crisp Bishkek mornings when mother used to make it for breakfast. Teeth sank into the black “Borodinsky” bread, which, legend says, was baked for Russian soldiers by a general’s patriotic wife prior to the epic battle that also became Napoleon’s costly turning point in the Russian campaign. The bread was soft and moist, with a clean taste of coriander that pleasantly soured from liquid “smetana”. My lazy sachet-dipping was surely an affront to Russia’s brewed tea tradition, and the glazed blue teapot stood idle on top of the fridge covered by the cushy hoop-skirt of a blue-eyed tea doll. Her long black lashes pulled down one eyelid, reminding me of our rosy-cheeked tea doll secretly named Marina. The doll wistfully looked down on me with her open eye, bemoaning her forced repose. Russian-labeled black Ahmad tea turned out foamy and strong, incomparable to the English-labeled flat Lipton we had in the office. My stomach’s first crave assuaged, I pulled on my backpack, and much like in old school days, but this time weighed down by a laptop instead of textbooks, set off for the office.

As experienced by many a traveler, the very first exhilarating dive into a culture arrives with that simple action of stepping onto the street. For in every foreign place this is the very first encounter, one could say the very first breath, of the new and exotic culture. The streets of every new city, be it Bombay, Moscow or New York, offer unique peculiar experiences in their whirlpool of ordinary life, forming a colorful parade of culture, habits and attitudes. It was always sad to visit countries where one had to drive through streets filled with more cars than people, longing for that initial pleasure of mingling with the crowd and experiencing first-hand its jostle, tumble and pull. Judging by the manic whizzing of cars outside, Samara’s streets sounded safer than its roads, and I stepped out of my apartment, open to the unknown and unexpected. The very first thing that struck my eye was that people didn’t look at each other. The ground was a focal point for many, while others found invisible points of focus straight ahead. Any meandering glances were shooed off by the making of stone-cold faces. In fact, the only wondering glances were the inquiring, calculating stares of street hoodlums, to which of course I was immediately subjected being new on the block. “Why are you here? Where did you come from? I haven’t seen you in this neighborhood before,” hissed their pointed stares. Although uninvited, these glances were the most obvious. Not only did they follow me with their eyes, but sometimes the hoodlums were be so brazen as to turn their head, turn around completely, or worse, walk ahead, then turn back. Here, I tried to fit into the crowd by wearing a frown, and attentively watched single or groups of young men nearby. I quickly designed different walking tactics. If they were ahead of me and turned around, I purposefully fell back and strolled. If they were approaching from the back, I slowed down and waited for them to pass, and if they were sitting on the street curb I ceased all curious observations and arranged my face into the glass-eyed frown of a stone-woman. All these stratagems weren’t of much help in the end however, as I quickly forgot them and looked at the people around me anyway.

Who were these hoodlums that had immediately attracted my cautious attention? A couple of sly observations led to conclude that they must have been unemployed Russian youths: failing boys or young men who seemed as though they didn’t have much to do. Their hair was cut in a military buzz, but it didn’t make them look clean. They could usually be picked out of the crowd by their dirty synthetic pants, t-shirts and worn-out rubber flip flops in which they shuffled about the streets, shooting well-aimed streams of spit left and right. They often lurked in the streets, following passers-by with long sideways glances or sat in the apartment backyards, playing card games. In Kyrgyzstan they were called “myrks”, pronounced with the harsh Russian “y,” a racist connotation against the Kyrgyz. Phonetically, the word was quite deserving of its meaning, originating in the back of one’s throat as if to imitate the hoodlums’ repulsive spitting.

On the opposite end of the suspicious hoodlum spectrum, were of course, the beautiful Russian women, ethereal possessors of hourglass figures on never-ending legs, tightly bound in sparkling armor of clingy outfits and make-up. When I first came to Moscow in early 2000s I felt like a shrub in a birch forest, looking up leggy statues of alabaster skin, aquiline features and naturally blond long hair. Moscow had certainly put my operating principle that others’ beauty makes one more beautiful to test, and Samara had also clouded my consciousness at times. Although gorgeous bodies with pimply, mediocre faces were a common sight, I often discovered unusual Caucasian features mixed with Central Asia and Tatar manifest in combinations of slanted blue eyes and raven hair on milky white skin, wide Asian cheekbones and aquiline noses, or full pouting lips and black Georgian eyes set in a frame of wild curls.

The women around me were always at their weapons – manicured, in heels, never without makeup, and regardless of her beauty, every Russian woman that was not yet a pensioner was an exhibitionist, donning the tightest, shiniest and most revealing outfits. Gold and silver studs, brooches, lingerie linings and stitches were a common sparkly sight on clothes. Jeans, decorated with lurid brand logos and floral patterns, clung as tightly to thighs as a second skin. Four inch stilettos were the minimum, and gold or silver evening sandals just as good for the day, their wearers expertly teetering through dust, puddles and mud like scantily clad Cinderellas. Head to toe animal prints were another popular indulgence: Lubov donned a fake D&G snow mountain cat outfit at least once a week, while beautiful cheetahs and tigers hungrily prowled the streets. However, the loudest trend of all, which didn’t in the least bit phase the local women, although it could have been construed as highly inappropriate by some in the West, was see through clothing with minimal undergarment coverage. In the office and on the street, sheer bras under see-through crochet and chiffon blouses generously offered up cleavage, nipples and sometimes love-handles. As this colorful parade whirled past me, leaving behind whiffs of perfume, lipstick and rouge, it seemed that every Russian woman was off to a fabulous party. My lack of make-up, hoodies and the school-girl back-pack had confused many women my age, who called me “devochka” (girl) when lost and looking for directions from their stiletto heights.

On weekends Samara’s local crowds slightly differed in composition, as week-day hoodlums were replaced by drunken working men. Popular drinking activities began as early as Friday afternoons, when I would see groups of men leisurely standing around with bottles of beer, and blew out to epopee proportions throughout the course of the weekend. The standard Russian beer bottle began at half a liter and in various increments progressed to an emptied out three by Saturday morning. Men in crumpled work clothes from the day before stumbled through the streets on Saturday afternoons, swinging empty three liter bottles in their hands. Perhaps the thought of a waiting family had suddenly dawned upon them with the new day, for they vengefully torpedoed their torsos, furiously attempting a straight line, but veered left and right, and nearly nose-dove into the ground whenever a pot-hole, step or dent materialized on their tortuous path. Before they were stricken by such purposeful thoughts however, these men swaggered about the streets, bothering women and sometimes other men with generously frightful drinking invitations. Thus, keeping sizeable distance from the unpredictable street drunkards became another street challenge on my week-end exploits.

Alcoholism also seemed to be a trend in my apartment building where I often heard older women scolding their sons about vodka habits. A silver-haired granny living upstairs quote often shook her bony finger at the unruly son on the landing, “Enough money and time to stuff your face with vodka, but not enough to repair the leaking sink, eh!” During my first week-end in town the upstairs neighbors hosted a Russian drinking party. Traditional drinking music blasted jolly accordion and balalaika rhythms while carousing merry-makers shook the floor with stomping and filled the air with piercing shrieks “Aiiiii! Aiiiii! Ia!” The party began late Saturday morning and ended mid-afternoon, when most celebrants fell into a siesta. An unfortunate party-girl locked herself out of the building and spent the rest of the afternoon banging on the door, wailing loudly in a hoarse voice, “Kind people! Let me in! Let me in please!” Her party contingent was non-responsive, while the rest of outraged neighbors had nothing but spite for her earlier merriment. She eventually gave up and fell into deep slumber at the front door. I wasn’t sure if I should have let her in either.