embassy and escorts

in honor of the conference and russian american workshop, there is a reception at the american embassy for workshop attendees. we are taking to this residence building, there is hor d'oeuvres and all sorts of alcohol being carried around. i find some older gentleman passing out a tray of booze and he immediately makes me his priority red wine recipient. steve leaves me adn tells to mingle--crap! but surprisingly i find myself talking to people, until i realize that i'm talking to older scientist gentleman and realize that i look about 18. right...i talk to a few people who;s research i'm actually interested. get cornered by some russian guy who also works with migrants, who brings me 2 (!) glasses of wine, breaks one of them, and insists that i have to go to siberia (why? because that's where migrants are. what kind? chinese...umm...no thanks). suddenly the buses back to teh hotel are leaving. it's only 9 so steve suggests we go out somewhere. sure. it's -2C outside in moscow, but it's not really because it's actually raining. we walk into the main tourist street and dont find anything interesting. suddenly steve remembers that last time he stayed at some hotel, the concierge told him about this bar designed by Phillip Starck, a famous french interior designer. we must go there. ok, but what's the name of it? steve doesn't know. where is it? steve doesn't know...but he think that if we walk into the nearest hotel we can ask tehir concierge. the idea sounds logical enough, but we can't find a hotel, so we walk into a restaurant (the most expensive one in russia) adn ask teh doorman to point us to the nearest hotel. he is eager to help and starts telling me which way to go but keeps saying things like, dont walk, it's raining so take a cab and really this hotel is expensive, tehy charge a lot for a night. ok but we're not staying the night. he understands, but still this is expensive. do you see what's happening here? young me, older looking steve, we're looking for a hotel..... we get nowhere so we get on the subway and steve finds a map from our hotel, so we call the other hotel adn figure out how to get there. it's a walk from the subway and we're slightly lost. did i mention it's raining? since i'm straight from the embassy reception i'm wearing heels and fancy pants adn i'm secretly cursing steve for his flair for adventure. we finally find this bar, i check out the bathroom and looking at the mirror realize that i'm soaking wet and look like a mess. the place is really nice, REALLY nice. the towels in teh bathroom are not paper but real. we order two mojitos which for sure are going to be ridiculously priced and the bartender puts it in front of us, winking at me...that's great. the place inside is actually really cool, gray and candlelit, with black grafittied saying ont eh wall. we have our drinks and leave, deciding to take a cab home. tehre is one outside so i ask teh driver how much he'll charge (because there are no meters in cabs). we get in adn i take 100 rubles out of my wallet (my last money) to give to steve to contribute to the cab ride and i catch the driver looking at me in the rearview mirror. he makes a sad face and says: "you still have to pay out of pocket for rides?" 'yeah?" he shakes his head. we're going to a hotel, clearly, this man, too, assumes i'm an escort. we get out of the car and i tell steve about this interaction. 'everyone in moscow thinks i'm a sex worker!!" 'i dont think you're a sex worker, alex." thanks steve :)

eecaac

that stands for eastern european and central asian AIDS conference. it is sponsored by nih and russian department for consumer goods and safety (our BBB, i think). there were something like 2700 people registered to come adn this is the third time they're holding the conference. it's amazing just how many people are here. they represent all sorts of organizations involved in fighting the epidemic--scientists, ngo's, governmental policy agencies, doctors, PLHIV networks--from youth working with youth to old and established doctors adn politicians. people are here from all over the world, not just the US and russia, not just the eastern european and central asian countries of CIS, but western europe adn africa. the conference opening had so many important speakers addressing the crowd. the ambassador of the US spoke great english adn russian, dr. jay levi, one of the scientists who isolated HIV in 83, the head of UNAIDS of eastern europe, minister of health of Russia. there are concurrent sessions and presentations going on, there is a youth village and a poster presentation room. there are pharmaceutical booths and meeting for UNAIDS and RUssian and AMerican government discussing policy and new agreements. it is overwhelming, i feel like i'm lost misplaced. i'm afraid people will ask me questions and realize that i sort of dont belong.
part of being a stipend recipient requires me to attend a young scientist workshop where american and russian researchers present their project. interesting, but it's all science, adn i am dying having to sit through diagrams of enzyme transcription and polymerase inhibition. everyone, of course, has a powerpoint, and american kids are actually decent in presenting their work--they are good public speakers. russian kids are not. they stumble, they mumble, their talks feel practiced and recited many times before their adult mentors. it's boring :(. but the worst was this one kid who presented a new computer program that allows you to program a plasmid dna so that you can sequence it however you want and incorporate your RNA of interest wherever you'd like. it was terrible, he read off his slides, he misread off his slides. he paused, he paused so more. i wanted to leave, really. it was so bad, the head moderator--former minister of health of the US, established scientist from uflorida, an older disitnguished gentleman in a bow tie--fell asleep, on the podium, in front of everyone. yep.
i've noticed russians have no cell phone etiquette. everyone, of course, owns a cell phone, but people fail to turn them on vibrate. so during so super important UNAIDS address or an interesting epidemiology presentations, cell phones are going off adn you see these russian dudes in suits and overweight ladies in high heels answering them and frantically running out of the room. that's rude. what's ruder is that they let them ring. the phone starts ringing instead of canceling the call right away so that it doesn't make noise, the owner will sit there for 3 minutes trying to figure out if it's his phone, then search through pockets looking for it, then stare at the screen for another 3 minutes figuring out who the caller is...just answer it!! someone is actually speaking right now!!
the hotel is great (have i mentioned that already?) it's not russian, which is what i feared and my sheets are actually clean. the lobby is spacious and full of 24 hours cafes and bars and in order to access the elevator you need your room key. couldn't figure out why, until steve tells me how he was approached by a sex worker in house one night. this red headed lady came up to him adn asked if he wanted to spend some time with her. he declined but told her tehre is someone who wants to interview her (that would be me). it's obvious that she is paying someone at the door to have access to guests adn the next day we were looking for her because i wanted steve to show her to me. at some point a red-headed lady gets into the elevator. i'm excited i'm convinced it's her. it's early morning so it's possible she is leaving the room of someone....that is until she gets off the elevator with me adn addresses some guy in british english asking him about today's presentations--i just confused a british scientist with a sex worker :(

more of work

so because we're at the conference earlier than the conference starts, we're trying to do some work. we interview 3 more sex workers. two in a bazaar, supplied by friendly neighborhood sex worker extraordinaire (the one who wanted to take me out dancing). we're sitting in a clothes market--this giant 2 story structure full of little booths, or partitioned holes, really, that are selling everything from fur (fake i'm sure) coats to bras to toddler clothing. it's nuts here. upstairs the cafe is busy as well. and the interviews happen amid a loudness that carries, hopefully not into my recorder. after the interviews, we sit down with the original sex worker and steve talks to her some more about organizational structure of sex work in moscow. she takes shots of vodka out of plastic cups as the conversation goes on. in between questions, she turns to me to tell me she likes my eyes. then, she tells she's been hired by women before (this is the part of conversation i'm not translating for steve). then, she tells that if i were to hire her, she'd agree...and tehn wouldn't charge me at all. i am feeling very awkward.
we end up going out to dinner, to an australian restaurant, yes, in the middle of moscow. like every other place in this city, it too serves sushi--the national russian dish. because i sort of dot want to eat 'australian' salad adn cannot find anything that does not contain teh word australian beef in it, i settle for some sushi. bad choice. as steve pointed out once we left the restaurant it has a taste of actual real australian sushi, as if it was shipped from australia, some days ago.

jet lagged-ness

so i haven't posted in a while, partially because i had no time, partially because i had no interneting and it was difficult. so i'm going back in time to make this chronologically correct.
we arrive in moscow and surprisingly, i'm feeling not sleepy at all. we, of course, we get disinfected..err..have our temperature taken before we exit the plane. we decide to take public transport into the city, which ordinarily, i think is a brilliant idea. we get on this light rail train, then the metro. this is where the problem starts. steve has a bad back adn is not allowed to lift things, so i'm carrying his suitcase as well as mine. not a problem if you had like a flight of stairs, but it turns out the moscow subway has many stations, and station transfers all of which lack escalators. steve, also, amazingly managed to pack just as much as i did (didnt' think it was possible). again, shouldn't be a problem, but my stomach, asleep thinking it's night time is not accepting the coffee i poured into it in efforts to keep my head awake. i am suffering from the worst visceral pain ever. doubled over, with both my carry-on bags slipping off my shoulders, i am running up adn down stairs with two heavy suitcases. up and down, up and down. i am ready to curse. the hotel is super nice, by that i mean, it's nice and not russian, (which sort of by default makes it nicer). i have my own room, it's great. we're supposed to be doing interviews, but tajiks dont call us so in order not to fall asleep we wander off into the city. somehow, the plan is to go to the moscow modern art museum. i've been there already, but i dont think steve heard me say it three times. oh well. i like the museum better this time, more new stuff. and being sleepy and sleep deprived puts you in this special sense of being, almost trance-like. art makes more sense, different sense, it appeals to you (me) in a different way. i spend time staring at a wooden statues of a naked lady balancing a bowl of fruit on her head. it is called 'balance' and the body is carved in different layers, emphasizing symmetry between textures of wood. but the statue starts movng, tilting, in my head of course because it is called balance and it cannot move. weird.
i wake up at 3. there is nothing i can do. i am wide-awake. i give in adn after hours of watching tv, i have my cup of coffee at 5. then i go for a walk. in my glasses, which i never do because i hate my glasses and the fact that i can't see in them. but there is soemtihng liberated about being in a foreign city. at 7 am, it is cold and wet adn dark with silver gray clouds. i wonder the streets of moscow, turning around randomly when i choose. steve oversleeps, for the first time in his life, he claims, and doesn't get up until noon. it has been a very long morning.

in der ukraine

i am roasting pumpkin for the fam, i think they are going to hate it. i managed to slice my finger open because my aunt has no proper (as i understand it) kitchen equipment and her cutting board moves.
i ahve to say that after all my dislike for moscow, and tehre has been some, i now see that moscow is a largermore metropolitan city than kiev. it's like comparing berlin adn leipzig--impossible. kiev has been uneventful. i went ot the forest for a bbq. we made roast meat and soup in the fire. that was fun. i also got to drive a car, all by myself. so i have to say this car is actually older than me. the steering wheel lacks a pump which means that every time you want to turn it you manually have to use your man/woman power to crank the wheel, which took some effort. first i could not reach the pedal, then i could not see the road. but after all things were adjusted, i got to drive myself through the city at night, without any knowled ge of what european traffic signs actually meant. :)
my uncle's wallet got stolen. i was going to walk around the city and he wanted to accompany me so we took the subway for the stroll. being a car owner, he has not ridden the subway in like 10 years, so after getting off and trying to purchase some batteries he realized that his wallet was missing. along wiht his old retired person ID, money, and atm card. crap. so we call his wife, my aunt, try to get her to get a number to the bank to report the stolen card. we call, leave a message (yes tothe bank) asking to call us back. we wait, we start walking...some time later, my uncle reaches into his pocket adn finds his old retired person ID with all atm cards and 40 Hrivnas. the wallet is gone as is money, but i guess the guy must have returned all the things he didn't need (or couldn't use, like atm cards without pins) and even left some money for the train ride back. i'd like to point out that as a foreigner, my wallet is still intact, knock on wood. i gotta go check out the pumpkin.

leaving moscow

So I was sitting in a coffee-house named ‘coffee-house’ having breakfast, which should really be lunch since I’ve been up since 3 am. Yesterday I finished my last interview (yay!) and tohir decided that we needed to celebrate. First, I spent about an hour sitting in his office in the company of tajik men, eating cake. The cake was weird, reminding me of carrot cake with honey between the layers, but generously lathered in strange butter cream, and the men spent the whole time conversing in tajik (or pamiri, I cannot tell) so I was also utterly bored. After that we went to a small restaurant called ‘the bear den’ which I thought was cute, at first, because it was in the basement. Turned out it wasn’t so cute when I discovered animal heads and bear hides, claws intact, on the wall. For some reason we ended up sitting in an isolated ‘private’ table which suddenly felt oddly ‘romantic’. That’s when the drinking began. It turns out 100g of vodka is a lot of vodka. The Russians are known for drinking ‘100 grams’ almost every day as a normal thing, so I, foolishly, was expecting something equaling 2 shots. It took a really long time to figure out what kind of mixing combination I was going to get, since I was not about to start taking shots with an older man in a privacy of a restaurant booth, but then the waitress brought out what looked like a small carafe, half full of vodka. Damnit! I guess, it was still better than that bottle of cognac tohir was trying to order for us to share (I told him I was not an old man to drink cognac, especially, without ice).we talked about tajik politics and extreme islamist movement in that region, and then I weaseled my way home. I think that’s why I woke up at 3 am, completely dehydrated, my belly churning from consumed strange cake.
The cleaning lady burst in through the door at 10:30 (I was leaving at 11:15) apologizing for being late. She started talking immediately nonstop, and when the car called from downstairs (at 10:40), she wouldn’t let me leave for like 15 minutes. Turned out everyone thought I was leaving at 10:15, so the cabby apologized profusely, and then called the company to yell at them for mixing up the times. Needless to say, I arrived at the airport, like my mother, way early. I checked in and then proceeded to the security check. This is where the fun began. There were tajiks, many tajiks, and all late for a flight leaving for samarkand. So they jumped lines, were told to hurry up, and got mixed up with passports (I swear sometimes I think this is the first time they’ve flown anywhere, which is impossible because they have to have gotten here somehow). At the xray machine, I was told that nothing needed to come out of my bag (laptop included), but a family of 3 late for samarkand rushed ahead of me. That’s fine, except that the rolling thing was full so they started shoving their stuff in, pushing everyone’s else’s neat gray box off the wrong end of rolling thing. It took them 5 minutes of getting situated. I walked through some magical glass box that may have scanned me with uranium, may have analyzed my dna in the process, who knows, but the family of three was told to open their bags after the scanner. The mother of the family, elderly lady in a potato sack dress, opened her purse and pulled out a bundle wrapped in cloth. Inside the bundle was silverware—that is spoons, forks, and KNIVES. The security lady took out knives from every single set (there must have been like 5) to the loud complains of mother-lady about ‘these are just knives, what am I going to kill someone?”. This would never have worked in the US.Walking around the duty free shops and searching for edibles, I came across a café that served ‘vegetable tartilas” (that would be tortillas for you all). It’s a good thing few Mexicans make it to Moscow, otherwise, there might be political crisis over tortillas in the making. I have to say, overall, Russians do a very poor job of translating, missing prepositions and sending people to places they shouldn’t go. Because everyone appears to be a loser like me and arrived at the airport 5 hours before their flight, there is nowhere to sit. So I weaseled my way to a far table in a café. There is a man sitting next to me, who uselessly attempted to get me to share his table, even moved his spread of personal belongings. No thanks, besides, this way I have a great view of a couple in a café next to this one, taking turns taking shots from a bottle of whiskey…it is 2 in the afternoon.

Notes from the underground

So unlike the title of a great Dostoevsky work, this will not be about loathing, or even about human character…but maybe.
I wanted to write about my interviews. There have been some great ones that stand out in my mind, there have been the ones when I felt like I was pulling teeth, each word being a struggle. Every woman had a similar story, really, a similar reason for doing what she did: everyone needed a job, couldn’t find one, wouldn’t get hired, and had babies/siblings/parents at home to feed. Some spoke of their work openly, knowing that what they do is not spectacular, but it is a way to make a living, the only way they can. Others, were deeply troubled and shamed for turning to this kind of work. Everyone liked their clients, had their regulars, but there was a great diversity of who was better. some disliked tajiks for the rough ways, others spoke of them as gentle and tender and attentive (I’m sure these are details no one really wants to read about J ) many had men, pimps, that they worked for. Maybe not directly, but somehow they were sharing their profits with some dudes that were finding them clients or acting as their bodyguards. It really bothered me how everyone talked about these guys: there is no other way, it is totally normal that I am paying him half of what I get, and after all he is a nice guy, really nice guy. Why? I don’t know. Some of the stories I heard are completely messed up, of women being raped, kept prisoner, or tricked and coaxed into becoming sex workers. All of these have been tajik men, which makes me sort of dislike them a whole lot.
There is a general sense of dislike of tajiks in Moscow. Here, they are migrant workers, ‘gastarbeiters’ as they use the german word, and people ignore them, make fun of them, and think they are dirty. Kind of like Mexicans in lawn services and in kitchens. What bothers me is that listening to these ladies, seeing creepy tajik men squat on trains (no one squats on trains, that is not considered proper), having them stare at you and try to talk to you in the poorest Russian grammar ever, makes me dislike tajik men as well. not as people, of course, but you slowly start wondering where the line from dislike and creeped out feeling becomes more, becomes ethnic dislike. Maybe I’m just tired of dysfunctional work. Trying to make plans with tajiks is ridiculous and takes 10 min. instead of just telling you what they want and where and when they are going ot meet you, you end up answering all kinds of questions like: “how are things there?” (where is there, I’m not in Chicago, I’m in Moscow) and fishing for clues because ‘we’ve got, you know, there, well, later’ is in no way a descriptive complete sentence. Added is the fact that even after living in Russia for several years, no one seems to grasp the concept of adjective endings appropriate to gender of the noun, or that tenses in verbs are actually useful in making things more understandable, and I get completely and totally frustrated talking to my own team. For no reason, I know. But I lack patience, I think. Now I’m angry again L….i’m going to drink my second cup of coffee and stare out the window, it’s raining cats and dogs in Moscow, literally, since the stray dogs are all wet.

almost there

i have done, gasp, 22 interviews. i have another scheduled for this afternoon. the plan was to do 24 adn we are almost tehre. the whole experience has been hectic. running around from one end of the city to the next. talking to women, meeting them, meeting sketchy men who are their contacts, waiting, waiting, being turned down at the last moment. it hasn't helped that i work almost on call, there is hardly a schedule, i am told to go somewhere on the spot. these are the circumstances of ethnographic work with a marginalized population, i know. tohir and jonbek have been working nonstop to find contacts adn they have been complaining nonstop as well. jonbek kept making 'jokes' about how he no longer sleeps at home and tries to score interviews in the middle of teh night. it was not funny because listening to ladies talk about horny tajik men, i often find myself wondering who their contacts are adn how they know these women and whether they keep their phone numbers for later. taht is certainly their business. i thought he was kidding, about working nights, until he mentioned something about not sleeping at home for the last 3 days. where do you sleep? friends' places that are closer to the office. tohir, who is the shittiest driver known to drivers, worse than my mother, was complaining yesterday about the work while we were driving to an interview. he complained about being turned down adn then, he said that what bothered him the most was the fact that girls would tell him to f..off and he, being a second top person in teh tajik community adn an academic, woudl have never imagined such a thing. that's when i stopped feeling bad for him. he wasn't frustrated because interviews are hard to find adn the project and our works rests on these contacts. he was upset because some whore dared to put him down, cursed him out. i wanted to respond, but struggled to translate 'lesson in humility'. it's ok, they are cursed and put down all teh time, now it's their turn.
today, i met a sex worker, who for the first time in 22 interviews, admitted that she liked her job, joined sex work ebcause she WANTED to. this reminded me so much more of the work i did in germany, when women--sex workers--were not victimized, were not to be felt sorry for. this was legal, it was their profession. the problem is, here, in Moscow, i do feel bad for these women. they are forced into this work because they can find no other job and because their kids are hungry at home. yesteryda, during an interview with the cutest little 23 year old, i asked what was the hardest about starting this work? she paused,..'well, i mean, i was a virgin'. adn i felt like a complete asshole. i wanted to let her go, to tell her taht she doesn't need to talk to me, that it's ok and i will not bother her with my stupid questions. she was not talkative, so after very short responses to all my questions, she left. interview time: 11 minutes. tohir came running wondering what was wrong. nothing, she just wasn't a good story teller...what else is there to say? today, after we talked to hte proud sex worker, tohir paid her for her time (we give them money for the interviews, not a lot) and handed it to her, saying that this is her honest earning. what a jerk, i wanted to scream at him--all of their work is honest earning. they are not stealing, they earn their money, even more than you do, even though you complain about it more. i dont know i think i'm just tired of running around like a crazy person, sitting in trains, asking the same questions. now i have to transcribe them all..and remember to save :)

subway, version 2.0

so more on the subway. i ride the subway a lot and have a lot of time to observe adn note.
moscow subway has a ton of lines, i mean, lines for trains, like the blue line, the red line..you get it, right? they have proper names, whihc i think are technically supposed to reflect the end stations, or places where these lines go to and from. i have not found any such correlation, and the names themselves are super-long, hyphenated, and very confusing. the lines are also color-coded, which is easier. but because there are so many lines, the colors get tricky. there are 2 yellows, 2 greens, 3 blues, and 3 reds, among other colors. i have no idea how men navigate the subway. with their limited color perception, i feel like it's really easy to confuse scarlet red with magenta with pink. or light and dark yellow, or sea foam blue with just blue (not to be confused with light blue). yesterday, we were switching lines, and i knew we were looking for blue, regular blue, but then i saw what in aritificial light and mass-produced paint looked like blue. jonbek yelled, saying this was the wrong line. i looked up to ascertain taht what i saw was indeed sea foam blue, and i that's when i was hit. from the right. some guy literally ran into me in a stream of people walking perpendicular to my stream of people. my right shoulder faired ok, but the right knee got kneed right above LCL, it hurt. he was just as shocked as i was, running into me because he stopped apologizing profusely.
people read on the train, which seems like an ok things to do if you have a long way to go and are sitting down. it becomes a problem when you're standing in a crowd of people, or even worse walking, or rather being carried in a sea of people. i swear, sometimes the crowds aer so large and dense, i feel like i could lift my feet and just travel with the flow. it's annoying when everyone is trying to merge into the stupid escalator, people pushing and shoving, and you see some chick just reading a book. as if putting it down for a second to walk like a normal human will ruin the zen moment. reading is so popular people carry these tablets, which i'm sure have books downloaded onto them. and like moses with ten commandments coming down from the mountain, these people try to brave the sea of people, who, unlike the red sea, fail to spread.
in addition to station announcements, russian subways have standard announecements. at every stop they remind you to be mutually-respectful (as if just respectful is not enough) and give up your seat for the elders, passengers with children, handicapped, and pregnant ladies. they also remind you, all the time, to please, not leave your things on teh train. one would think that russians are frivolously forgetful adn just leave their belonging on the train, always. maybe this is meant for the guys, to hold on to their purses.
every station, i swear, has kiosks that sell thongs and pantyhose (because god knows, everyone in this country wears pnatyhose, probably, including men). i think i'd like to buy myself a thong from one of thesekiosks as a souvenir. the important things will be, a)find the right size, b)not catch gonorrhea from the sketchy subway underwear.

field notes, not notes from the field

saturday, i'm sitting in the office. i brought my laptop as i was promised internet..and to work on transcribing. i have no internet, so i'm blogging instead of working.
i have been making mental notes of things that seem interesting to me. so...
everyone in moscow seems to smoke tiny skinny virginia slims-like cigarettes--vagina cigarettes. they are popular in ukraine, but in ukraine only women, and skinny young girls smoke them, here, men too indugle in the dainty look and, undenyably, feel of tiny nicotine-y vagina cigs. men also carry bags, but not like sports bags. there are two kinds really: tehre is the laptop bag, which i am 100% does not, ever, contain any laptops. jonbek carries one and his contains cell phone, passport, interview papers, and money. but it looks cool and can be swung over the shoulder for that extra special professional hands-free look. the other kind is the man-purse. no joke, it's miniature, has two handles, and reminds me of my fake prada purse i bought for 10 Euros from an AFrican guy at the vatican (the cops were coming so he bargained me down). i have been meaning to take a pciture of this, but i am afraid of being beaten on teh subway. i wonder what these uni-sex purses contain: wallet? lipstick? tampons? none of those seem like the right answer, and yet, every man is standing on the subway, holding on to the rail with one hand and clutching his own personal purse with the other.
tehre are flower shops on every corner. small kiosks that sell not some meadow vegetations, but beautiful rich roses and exotic orchids. one would think that russians just buy flowers, all day every day. yesterday, while waiting for the interview on the edge of the city by a forest (a real forest) i saw a rat. i have to say, chicago rats can eat moscow rats for breakfast, tail adn all. i've also figured out why i cannot understand jonbek's english: he sounds like borat. i think what he is really trying to do is pull off an english accent or to sound proper, but in reality he ends up sounding a little bit like the comrade from the glorious nation of kazakhstan..i liiike!
i have a new best friend. she is azeri, she is 39 and she is a sex worker. she is about 5 feet tall, she drinks..a lot, and as i found out yesterday, she has an international criminal record. i took her interview adn for the past three days she has been supplying me with 'friends' to interview. during the interview i had yesterday, with a girl who was described as a minor (she ended up being 23, but for a good 15 min i felt like a creepy jerk), she bought me a beer and chips that did not contain bacon. she also promised to take me out dancing. i've already been to the disco with tajik prostitutes, disco with moscow sex workers should be interestiung too.

banks

there has been chaos at work, poor communcations, angry emails, tattle-telling, which i am guilty of, has created a slew of emails raining on my mailbox.
i went to cash my traveler's check. mother's idea, i have not had more difficulty wiht the stupid thing in any other country. apparently, there is only one bank in all of moscow--sberbank--that does this. i have found this out the hard way, stopping by 4 banks to be turned away and sent somewhere else. i waited in line outside a door that conceals a window--#8--where the girl takes care of money operations. she, first, spent 5 minutes staring at it and comparing it to the one they issue. since mine was issues by my bank--chase--it has a cahse logo on it, whcih apparently confuses people, making them think the check is fraud. then, she took my passport adn for hte next 20 minutes entered information. my passport number, my address, my registration number, my height and my shoe size are now permamently circulating somewhere in russia, in triplicate. because this was taking long, an angry old man kept opening the door and asking what was taking so long? that's exactly what i wanted to know, and i told him he'd better settle this with the bank girl adn not me. he seemed unsatisfied. finally, i paid my bank fee in rubles (coming up 5 cents short, which i tried to pawn on the girl) adn got my crisp american dollars.
on the way to the bank i found a starbucks. i know this sounds incredibly american of me, but i want to go in, just for a field trip. i like walking into starbucks's's in other countries to compare. like in europe, the sizes are 4 ounces smaller, so that your tall is only 8 ounces, not 12. names are also differnet adn it's always funny to try to figure out what the hell they think a macchiato is. i ahve also discovered that the elevator in my building is shoddy. you get in on the first floor, push the floor button, and the doors close. only sometimes, nothing happens, adn after a second of complete panic, they reopen. the floor button remains lit so you have to press it again (and sometimes again) adn hope to get the damn thing finally moves. the entire elevator is really a box, about 3 by 3 feet and four adults that really really like each other can potentially fit into it. luggage and small children? forget it.
i am waiting for an alleged team meating. i am also, supposedly, having 3 interviews today, i'm not sure when, i'm not sure how,i'm not sure when i need to get up and go. these details i found out just now, from an email sent to someone else from someone else. and then people complain that i complain of poor communicaiton :(

doener and tochkas

adrianna left, it's just me :(
i found doner yesterday--the most popular German turkish fast food. it is all over Europe, most popular in germany, of course, and yesterday i found it in Russia. i found it at a train station where we went after a failed interview to observe sex workers in action. the interview we were supposed to have agreed to speak to us but chickened out at the last minute. apparently, i scare sex workers and somehow i have gotten a reputation of being a big bad american reporter with a hidden cameras and sound equipment who asks super personal questions (i do do the latter). so we went to one of moscow's train stations (there are 7 i think) to observe the sex worker tochka (literally, means spot), where they congreagate and get hired. we got out of hte subway adn took a wrong turn, so jonbek had to stop adn find a friendly neighborhood tajik sweeping the street and ask him in the mothertongue where to find prostitutes. i can only imagine what this must look like from a side: a strangely dressed girl hanging out wiht a dude who is asking for directions to the whores. we found them sitting on a stoop outside the train station. the pimpress, universally known as mama rosa, was sitting down surrounded by 4-5 younger women all just hanging out. literally, about 10 feet away from them were a group of cops, who are paid to serve as the cover for the operation. about 50 feet away, in the parking lot there are big burly security guards who are overseeing the operation. i have been told stories about poor tajik men coming to these locations to hire a girl, pay for her adn walk away with the woman of their choice, only to be stopped by the cops. at best, the girl and money will be taken away. at worst, they get beaten or jailed by the cops for soliciting. tehre were stories about men hiring girls and taking them to their apartments, only to be instantly raided by following cops, and accused of rape.
we lasted for about 10 min adn seeing enough we left. jonbek insisted we have dinner at this uzbek restaurant. surrounded by fake decorations of blue mosques of buhara, i felt like i was back in tajikistan, especially since the asian menu contained meat, served with meat, on top of meat. i had a skimpy salad, ridiculously overprized, with a glass of house wine. i had no idea that uzbeks make wine but this concoction was not soo bad. there was even a belly dancer, 2, who kept switching outfits and would randomly appear, about once in half hour. i was impressed, jonbek called them fat and claimed he has seen a lot of women in the last few days, looking for all the sex workers. poor guy.

a post for no reason

i dont' really have any great new news to report, or deep thoughts and insightful insights. but i am stuck in teh office, waiting for sex workers. technically, i'm not stuck, but in teh 3 hours we have before we depart again, across town, it is really not worth going anywhere. yesterday, we ended up with a day off. jonbek was supposed to call us around 6 so until then we went to a museum. Pushkin museum in moscow boasts 19-20th century european art collections. i was so jealous. there original matisse, monet, degas, gaugin, with interspersed rodin sculptures in every room. i was sad such a collection gets to stay in stupid moscow. i lied to the cashier lady, well, didn't lie, but concealed my foreign-ness: they charge double price for non-russian federation citizens, so i speak russian to them and hand them however money they are charging russians. usually it works, unless adrianna then ruins it all by showing them her very american UIC student id. she gets a student price, double the russian student price. it worked yesterday and we wondered through the halls marveling at impressionists and fauvists. then we walked through i swear half the city, visited the white house and then traveled for a very long time to find a subway. came home exhausted. and i passed out at like 9:30.
jonbek just offered me a pastry, it has a hot dog in it. moscow is full of pastries adn it is impossible to walk anywhere because the smell of fresh baked dough is killer. i am fighting the urge, it is hard not to just eat pastries, all the time. the men here are interesting, tajik men i mean. jonbek stares with typically tajik unibrow stare and makes jokes, which are not funny adn at times somewhat inappropriate. not likely sexually inappropriate, but it is not necessary to joke about running away from pimps when we are going to see pimps. his english is incomprehensible, at least to me. he never asnwers questions of where and when we are going unless i press him, again adn again. the taxi driver that was working with us, does not drive a car. this we learned as we had to hitch hike our way through the city. it turns out his license was revoked, 'for bad driving?', i asked. 'no i am a good driver!" "was your license revoked? cause maybe not so much". i think he likes me because he was sort of trying to court me, trying to ask questions and carry on a conversation. it was very awkward adn i felt bad for his failed attempts. at teh market, he offered to buy me a watermelon. 'but then i'll ahve to carry it home' 'no we'll help you' 'my mom told me not to eat watermelons' (this is actually true, my mom randomly out of the blue told me to stay away from watermelons because they are poisonous, citing some news of poison outbreaks in moscow)..so he bought us bread instead. warm tajik flatbread that adrianna and i ate in the car, while driving home and while the taxi driver (through conversation turned out he is an engineer) was attempting to invite me for coffee. he called the next day asking to 'walk around somewhere', i ignored his later call. oops. tohir, whom i've met in chicago before, drives like my mother, slamming on the break so hard i have bruises from the seat belt. he makes inappropriate comments too, but in front of sex workers, about sexual epxerimentaion, which vaguely make me think he is talking to me.. weird. in general, these interactions make me think these people operate as if they were back home: disorganized, unplanned, poor communication, always late. you can take a boy out of tajikistan, but you cannot take tajikistan out of a boy.

work, not sex work

i am exhausted, not sure why. i sleep enough. there is definitely no 4:30 am wake up. for some reason it is difficult to get anyone into the office before 10. we dont have a key and must rely on jonbek and farzona to let us in, and they like arrivng at 11. so i get up at 7:30 and jack around the house, watch russian morning shows, drink my instant coffee, transcribe things. i dont know if it's the mattress and the springs, or constant walking, or lack of solid food, but its the middle of teh day and i want to take a nap. i fall asleep on teh train. never thought it was possible to fall asleep while standing, but it is. the train is nice for naps, if it wasnt for all teh people around and my constant fear of leaning agianst not so sanitary things. it lulls and rocks and makes a loud noise that drowns everything. adn the heat adn stuffiness puts you to sleep immediately.
work is going ok. we never have a plan. we arrive in the office, check emails, write things. and then jonbek will peek in and ask how much longer, "why? do we have an interview?" 'yes they're waiting for us." "why didn't you say that?" there is no plan, we are contacted whenever. whenever someone gets a hold of someone, whenever someone calls back. i feel like a callgirl myself, waiting for clients to call me so i can set off across town for a meeting somewhere in teh forest. we're supposed ot be doing 2 interviews a day, sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn't. usually it is late, we set off to find some lady at 6pm, navigating moscow metro rush hour traffic. last night we came home at 10:30. i have forgotten what it's like to have dinner at dinner time. yes, i realize my dinner time is very different from most, but even non-grandma normal people dinners are non-existent.
the ladies are different. they are of all different nationalities: tajiks, ukrainians, azeri, uzbek. tajiks are secretive and talking to them is like pulling teeth. they have language difficulties. i've noticed in general tajiks, even those that speak russian well, forgot to conjugate verbs, or change tenses, or change endings on their adjectives based on gender. so sometimes i'll be caught in the middle of a story and i am completely confused as to when the story took place, whether someone came or went, and who he or she is/was/is going to be. sometimes there are multiple he-s, and later it turns out that the person in the story was actually a she. and she hasnt gone anywhere yet, and all that has happened, didn't really happen but will maybe occur if the circumstance are right. but that's all semantics.
i ahve had 3 fabulous interviews with frinedly open and talkative women who discussed their work adn their clients in details i am not exactly comfortable transcribing. do i transcribe word for word and is profanity part of research? they're great! yesterday's lady, i kind of want to be her friend. although i'm worried she'll get me too drunk. they are open and unashamed about what they do, although still their families and neighbors dont' know what tehy do.
i discovered teh duel (or the island, dont remember the name) on russian mtv. it is dubbed. i am now afraid i will get sucked in adn won't be able to leave the apartment. i found teh first episode this morning. dan got drunk, gay ryan made out with a bunch of girls, and kellyanne yarfed next to her bed. i was wondering, watching this, what do russians think of americans? based on mtv and music videos, it can't be good. i also did my laundry! there is no laundry rack and as europeans lack dryers, my clothes are hanging on hangers in various closets, with socks and underwear scattered on furniture around the apartment. i hope the cleaning lady does not come until tomorrow, otherwise, she too will have an odd conception of americans and their laundry drying antics.

sketchy

So this is the blog that will definitely need to be kept away from my mother, at least until I come back. We made some contact to talk to sex workers. We take the train to the end of the line and then take the city bus to the outskirts of town, where, along the highway, there is a construction yard and a market. We walk through mud towards the inside of the market. This is where tajik men live and work. Every morning they line up to wait for construction hirers to show up and take them for odd jobs for the day. Behind the rows of lumber, brick, and odd auto parts, they have some ‘dorm’ where they all live. Also here are the shanty-huts of cafés. This is essentially a construction yard and shanty town in one. We go through it to the end and stop by a field, where a strange tajik man comes out to tell jonbek that women are shy and are waiting for us in a hut in the middle of the field. This does not sound like a good idea so jonbek goes with the man to check out this hut (literally). We are left standing in the middle of the field alone. Now, it should be added that it’s raining and the sun is sitting right above the treetops of a forest ready to set. This is a bad idea. We are attracting attention, and every tajik passer-by looks at us as if we were penguins in the middle of a desert. Suddenly, my phone rings, it’s my mom. ‘how is it going? Where are you?” ‘in a field?” ‘what do you mean you’re in a field?’ ‘mom, can you just call me back?” jonbek reappears and says that he didn’t even make it to a hut, so we’re leaving. We walk back through shanty-town under eyes of confused tajik men and get into a car. (this whole car ride back, really, deserves its own separate blog, that cabi made me so happy)

Next day, after spending 2 hours drinking coffee and talking to this fabulous Ukrainian prostitute, we are to meet jonbek at a subway station because he had made another contact. Suddenly, we are going back to the same place, but this time we are assured that the ladies will come out to the subway station and meet us in a café. We wait, we wait more. Something isn’t functioning, so we go back to the shanty town to meet them in a shanty-town café. We wait some more. It’s Friday night, men are off work and are congregating all around the shanty town getting ready for the night, either resting or partying. We are attracting attention. I suddenly feel like I’m back in Tajikistan. It smells like roasting meat, there are men running around in sandals in the mud, tajik music is blasting from every corner. Everyone stares. We stick out, we’re women in the middle of this men world, we’re blatantly white. This is bad. We wait some more and I convince jonbek this is a bad deal and we should leave. Suddenly, a car pulls up. Apparently there are 4 women inside willing to talk. We are going to find a café somewhere. So we immediately find someone who knows someone and get him to drive us, following the car with women and the sketchy guy who is making the deal. The car drives out of shanty town into the, essentially, an interstate highway. We have just passed the sign leaving Moscow. We turn into a village (named Borodino, which actually is the site of the 1812 battle with Napoleon army at which, although technically victorious, the French advance was haulted turning the tide of the war). We drive along paths through people’s backyards to a house. We are told this is the café. I don’t see a café. It’s really a house but there are tables inside and women are making food to order. I do 3 interviews. The women are actually very nice. After, we would like to leave, but the car that brought the women here needs to take them back. So we wait for it to return for us. I’m wondering if it will. We’re freezing: it has gotten colder in Moscow and this house is really a hut, with open windows and doors. It’s cold, it’s about 9pm at this point. Finally the car arrives to drive us home. We walk out into the pitch darkness and I hope to god there is no one in the car as we get into it. Safely home. Village, field, sketchy dudes, I have done 4 interviews in 1 day. No more fields.

subway and pantyhose

We’ve been traversing the city through subway, following jonbek and his silent hand signals ironically reminding me of prostitutes following their pimp. The subway snakes all around the city in multiple directions with lines named with these crazy long names that I refuse to remember and follow the map only based on colors. The problem is they’ve got so many lines the colors blend: like is that really brown or light brown?, and is that pink, magenta or red, cause all those exist as separate entities. I heard the Moscow subway is busier than new york and London ones combined. It seems at all times of the day, in rush hour and at 10am to be true. At 10 am you’d think people would be at work, sitting in their offices. No, they’re in the subway, in my way, elbowing and pushing forward. The stations are beautiful, brightly lit, but you don’t have time to enjoy it. You have to navigate the crowd, which resembles salmon swimming upriver to mate. The steady flow of people carries you with it. Russians have no concept of personal space so you’re literally being carried along, touched and pushed, occasionally catching a whiff of someone’s bad cologne or bo. The subway is about 10 degrees hotter than the outside, descending, you’re instantly immersed in this hot stifling vacuum, with periodic gusts of tornado wind accompanying an approaching train. Riding the train, you stand in this shaky loudness, hot and sweaty, trying to hold on to the rail with minimal contact as this thing is dirtier than a homeless dog’s butt, while trying to avoid the guy from the right leaning on you. this is what hell must be like for the truebelievers.

But the subway gives you time to people watch or rather stare, as I do so inconspicuously. I am happy to report that the rat’s tail and variations of the mullet are alive and well in Russia. It’s really a great parade of fashion. Pantyhose are big here. For real, for everyone. Pantyhose, or shorter variations thereof, like knee highs, are worn by all women, with all sorts of shoes, at all times. Whether it’s work stilettos, sneakers, or sandals, you inevitably see this polyester sheath going up,…or ending abruptly in a sock band. Pantyhose, for some reason, are off skin-tone, so instead of almost invisible they become starkly visible brown. It looks so awkward seeing these girls in cropped pants and sandals with brown stocking socks. It ruins the picture: you marvel at someone’s shoe, then notice the pantyhose knee highs and think of your grandma…in the 70s. I saw this girl yesterday with a super mini skirt, sneakers and socks, and…pantyhose. Made me want to cry L. In general, though, there are a lot of super cute outfits. Russians, for the most part, really do try hard to look good at all times. But there is also a lot of mismatching. Not just pantyhose, but patterns are worn without regard for other patterns. Stripes and polka dots, odd little sweaters, inappropriately tight skirts and pants for the underwear underneath. But I digress..this is why no one should talk to me on the plane, I’m a b….

Two days ago, while waiting for an interview sitting on a fence on a sidewalk, I saw this little old man walking about a step a minute with a cane. I felt bad for him thinking he was blind and just didn’t know it yet, until the little old man stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, pulled out his penis and peed. He, then, put his penis back, took 2 more steps and sat down on the grass to take a nap. Then, a relatively overweight middle aged lady accompanied by a scrawny man was wearing a fish net top, no bra. The lady jumped around a bit, along with her pendulous breasts, and wandered off to either hail a cab or scare off traffic. She succeeded at the latter, and safely crossed 6 lanes of stopped traffic. Alright I need to transcribe an interview, adventure continues.

site-seeing

so we've been walking around, a lot. between spending all day on my feet adn sleeping on springs that make my legs numb, i'm not sure how long i will last. but...
today we visited the church of christ the savior and the mausoleum. the church was rebuilt in 1997 after years of standing destroyed by the soviets (the foundation left served as a public pool). the church was beautiful from the outside, great gardens and nice architecture. the inside, apparently, one had to wait in line, which i wasnt going to do. the only drawback are hoards of italian tourists who for some reason decided to ruin every one of my attempt to take a pic by getting right in front of me. bastardos!
then, off to the mausoleum. we encountered our first tourist cluster-fuck, when a whole group of asians, simultaneously squatted down in the middle of the square to distribute food. there was this long line for the mausoleum, which was made longer by super rude police lady that refused to answer my questions in any polite form. they made me store my camera for 20 Rubles, then off through the graves of soviet heroes and past soviet leaders along the outside wall, we snaked towards the mausoleum. its black granite on the inside, dimly lit by some hidden candlelight, with police dudes standing silently at each turn, slowly motioning which way to go next. the whole experience is creepily similar to a haunted house, especially since one of the guys had his head down adn for a second i thought he was dead. lenin didn't look too bad. i was worried, thinking i've had enough of anatomy lab and would not want to see that again. but he is relatively well preserved, laying waxy in his dark velvet casket with a light (the only bright light in the whole place) shining on his face. and then i got snapped at. it's a somber silent procession around the casket adn i lingered for a sec to check out his hand to see if the muscles can be seen preserved. the police guard snapped his fingers and pointed to the exit. no soup for you! we walked around the graves and plaques of important past people, seeing both stalin adn gagarin, sverdlov (leader of the revolution) and voroshilov (a general during WWII).
then we walked toward the eternal flame and watched the changing of the guard. these little boys (yes, they looked about 17) were marching in the most awkward way. i understand that it's marching and they're trying really hard to be serious adn military-like, but lifting of straight legs parallel to the ground, the balancing of gun (loaded i think) on one palm while swinging the other back and forth and lefting pointed toe to opposite knee to take a step (not to do a jazz peroutte), made me laugh. i felt bad laughing at them, i'm glad we saw that. some guy was taking pictures of people for money with snakes and iguana. he offered to photograph me with a snake, "like britney spears?", i said. he didn't get it and offered me an iguana, a big one. after snaking through the subway (which is a whole other post in teh making) we arrived in teh office. we're waiting for a cab driver to take us to prostitutes. we'll see how this goes.

arrival

waiting on a taxi driver to call us back about visiting sex workers. it's taking a while, and i've exhausted hanging out online and checking facebook yet again, so i'll write some.
so i arrived, safely, in moscow. the flight over was uneventful, if you don't count my neighbor. i prefer window seats: one can escape by staring out of them and you have more space since you can lean towards the wall. my neighbor on the flight over the ocean looked strikingly like putin and immediately decided, for some reason, that i was interested in having a conversation. what about me screams: talk to me? i'm not a nice person, sometimes i make fun of people, wtf? so even before take off, we, correction he, spent an hour talking about airplanes, flights of the concord, and internal combustion engine (ours was not going to internally combust). then, we talked about berries in general and some obscure siberian ones in particular (his favorite are gooseberries) and he offered to buy us drinks since cheap-ass united airlines no longer serve booze. then he offered to let me watch russian cartoons on his mini non-apple ipod because no amount of staring out of window detered him from saying things. i think he was convinced i was flying home or something, so when visa declarations were passed out to foreigners, he was surprised i didn't have a russian passport. 'oh you can apply for one." i tried to come up with some metaphor for how if i were to apply for a russian passport it would be the same as him applying for a portuguese one, but he didn't get it. only at the end of the flight, right before we landed, as he, for some reason, showed me pictures of himself skiing, he asked me how many times i've been to russia. "umm never?" i think he was confused. an old lady in a kerchief sat across the aisle from me and i sort of panicked when she first sat down because i figured she might stroke out mid-air and i'd have to do something to rescucitate her. likely, she made it over, but she did get smacked on the head by her daughter in efforts to lower her seat.
before we were let off the plane, two bulky russian women passed through the cabin and took everyone's temperature with a device that was pointed at each person's head. this was done, i'm guessing, for swine-flu prophylaxis, but those things hardly looked safe, so hopefully i did not get a russian secret spy chip implanted in me or was not radiated with left-over chernobyl waste. the ride from the airport took 2 hours in crazy traffic, we drove over tram tracks at some point. the driver smelled like bad bo and i had to hold back bursts of laughter as i thought of the seinfeld smelly car episode. "it's BO!" but he was very nice and even let me use his cell phone to call the M3 (from now on she will be known as Adya...because that's her name). after hanging out in the office and meeting 'the team' (djonbek the 29 yo econ grad and beautiful and super skinny 20 yo Farzona (she thinks she is fat)) we walked around moscow. (i'll attach pics shortly). got home late and after going over interviews i passed out only to wake up shortly (redundant!) to find the spring of the mattress dug into my hip--no more sleeping on the side. now, if only prostitutes would call back...

the beginning

so once again, i indulge in the selfishly self-centered expression of my own verbal diarrhea. this happens whenever i travel and allows my flight of ideas and bitchy remarks to be shared. used to be that i'd email my friends, those who cared and didn't, about traveling adventures and misadventures. but as progress of technology presses on, and my friends get more and more involved in real world adult things, i feel increasingly bad about bugging them with my stupid remarks. so this blog, once again, becomes the reflection of thoughts, and often lack thereof, in times of travel.
i'd like to say that this will become a traveling diary with great social and sarcastic commentary inspired by none other than anthony bourdain himself. but let's be honest, i could not aspire to be a writer, i eat way less and complain way more. so this will just be my own collection of thoughts and occurrences, poorly written and all. read on, if you so choose....now if i can only fix the font to one style.....