Moscow, Russia - 1997

So it not like I have never been to India before. I know roughly what I am getting myself and Olga into – roughly. I have been an ex-pat before, so I roughly know what to expect in the generic sense – generically. I also know that visiting a place as a temporary interloper, no matter how often you have been there, is nothing like living there. I know this, because I fell for it when I accepted the position in Moscow Russia so many years ago.
Moscow was wonderful the 4 or 5 times I visited prior to moving there. I spoke the language, began to know my way around and really felt like this was a place I could live. When they asked me to go, I had just returned from 2 weeks in Moscow in August. The weather was beautiful and they were celebrating the 850 year anniversary of the city. Little did I know that millions of dollars had been spent to clean up the town, beef up the police force, seed clouds for sunny days and bus the less desirable element to the surrounding villages. Also, I did not have to get myself from point A to point B because I had a great driver named Igor and a brand new Saab 9000. So I agreed to move to Moscow, because apparently in my little demented world, Moscow Russia in the late 1990s was always 85 degrees and sunny and there was no crime.

I arrived in Moscow in December to a slightly different city than the one I left in August. The Anniversary Party has subsided, the weather had broken (read -10 and snow), and my driver and Saab were no longer at my beck and call (or even at my request). Things had changed.

I got pretty lucky in finding a great apartment in one of the elite Soviet style wedding cake buildings. It was a beautiful 1930s, Soviet Art Deco design and towered over everything on the embankment. The walls of the apartment were at least 5 feet thick of solid concrete with two sequential doors – one of solid oak and one of two steel plates with 2 inches of concrete poured in between. If I needed medical assistance and to door was locked, they would have to call a demolition crew to get in to the apartment.


There was a second door in the apartment, though, hidden behind the refrigerator (What Moscow story would be complete without a little intrigue) - smaller and less insulated than the front door. I once moved the fridge to see where it went, but it was locked from the outside. Now understand, this building was built by Stalin for the Soviet elite - the same elite that had a habit of disappearing in the middle of the night. Just to be safe, I taped a piece of string across the door and broke a light bulb behind the refrigerator. If they were coming, I wasn't going without a fight!

Anyway, the wonderfully colorful and simple city of Moscow that I had visited so many times before quickly digressed into a quagmire of frustration, corruption and ineptitude. I had a car provided to me to drive - a new Volkswagen Polo. Littler than a Golf, it had all the quality and amenities one would expect from a VW including attracting the attention of the local police for their daily handout (I would refer to my car as a mobile ATM machine). The first time I was pulled over, my eldest sister was visiting and almost had heart failure as I disappeared into the police jeep with my two new, machine-gun toting, best friends to negotiate the deal. Final cost was roughly $10 US. But that adds up and the frustration of being fleeced begins to take its toll.

So goes the life of an ex-pat. You do not always get what you thought you bought!

The anxiety of continues……