Sorokin 1 – 7: “The Eros of Moscow”

I’ve finally finished my translation of Vladimir Sorokin’s “The Eros of Moscow” with the seventh and final installment, “Kapotniya,” which covers the oil-refinery situated outside of the city.

Moscow is an incredible sight, both the largest and the greenest city in Europe, head of an Asiatic empire, living Soviet relic and witness to the greatest socio-political shift of the 20th century.  Sorokin’s story, and the tasks he gives out, are worthy of the city’s many nooks and crannies.

The story follows in its entirety.

The gas-fed flame in Kapotniya, outside Moscow.

The Eros of Moscow – Vladimir Sorokin

Cities, like people, turn out to be sexual and frigid.  You can live your whole life with a person never having understood his eros, never having felt it.  And so any city is capable of making you tremble with orgasmic pleasure or the just the opposite – doom you to tens of years of dreary existence together.

I lived a year-and-a-half in Tokyo, but to this day I have not opened for myself the eros of this extraordinary city.  Berlin gave herself to me after half a year.  Saint-Petersburg – after a week.  Paris – after 12 hours.

Each city has its own eros.

Moscow for me is not a city.  And not a country.  And not even inland Russia.

Moscow is a sleeping giantess.  She lies on her back in the middle of Russia.  And sleeps a heavy Russian dream.

In order to enter into her, you need to know her erogenous zones.  Or else she will rudely throw you off and forever close herself off to you.

For each Muscovite there are his own tender spots on the body of the capital.  But you have to really want to find them.  Then the giantess will give herself to you.

For me these erogenous zones on the body of Moscow number seven.  I started to instinctively grope for them back in my student days.  Before those, like hundreds of thousands of Moscow inhabitants, I saw in Moscow only the “capital of our motherland,” the place where my parents and friends lived, a “comfortable city with a developed infrastructure,” a “historical monument,” the “Third Rome,” the “center of Russia, to which all paths lead” and other such banalities.

But my intuition hinted that with Moscow things weren’t as simple as they seemed.  And I wasn’t mistaken.  It took almost 12 years to find and touch Moscow’s mysterious and tender places.

Now I can truthfully say that I learned this city.  And I’m ready to share its secrets.

There are seven erogenous zones on the body of Moscow.  It’s better to touch them in the summertime.  And so:

1. Moscow State University and the overlook on the Vorobyev Hills

On a sunny and fair day, approach the Stalinist mass of Moscow State University from the side of the Moscow River, come in by way of the granite stairs and stop in front of the columns at the entrance.  Alongside them sit an iron young man and an iron young woman with iron books in their hands.  If you’re a man, go to the girl, if you’re a woman, to the boy.  Softly come closer to your object, climb the pedestal and place your hands on the iron chest.  Cry out “Moscow, let me in!”, stand there for a few minutes, then climb down and go to the overlook.  There place your elbows on the glossy granite parapet and look out over the panorama of the city sprawling out before you until your eyes begun to tear up.  As soon as they break out and the panorama flows together in a flickering kaleidoscope, try to feel Moscow in the form of a colorful orb gliding through the air.  Having felt this, wipe away the tears and proceed further …

2. VDNKh

Entering through the main entrance into the territory of the former Exhibit of the Achievements of People’s Farming, go straight until you see the first fountain, “Friendship of Nations” – 15 gilded female figures in the national costumes of the peoples of the U.S.S.R.  Climb over the side, step into the water of the fountain and walk around the fountain three times clockwise.  Then go further, until you reach the fountain “The Stone Flower.”  Here perform the same action – three times, knee deep in the water, clockwise.  And immediately proceed further to the very end of the exhibit territory, to the fountain “The Golden Ear.”  This is a large, deep fountain.  They used to sail around it in boats.  Undress and swim around the gilded ear of wheat.  Three times clockwise.  If all ends well, as it did for me and the artist Andrei Monastyrsky and his wife Sabina in that memorable year of 1986, get dressed and immediately head somewhere nearby to have a drink and eat something.  Having opened for ourselves this erogenous zone of our home city, we then headed to the restaurant “The Golden Ear.”  The enormous restaurant lay empty in light of Gorbachev’s infamous anti-alcohol campaign –they weren’t even serving beer there.  At the same time, the food was generously portioned.  After our ablution in the three waters we very much wanted to warm up.

“Address yourselves to the porter,” the waiter kindly whispered.  Andrei addressed himself, and within a few minutes a whiskered porter approached and set upon our table a bottle of Bordzhomi mineral water filled with vodka.

“Is this vodka?” asked Sabina in good Russian.  The porter silently nodded.

“But why is it in a mineral-water bottle?”

“It’s hard to explain,” the porter answered and strolled off.

It seems to me, he was speaking not just about the camouflaged vodka, but rather in a deeper, more metaphysical sense.

3. Boulevard Ring

Invite your two closest friends, buy three bottles of port wine, hide them in the pockets of your coats and head down the boulevard arm-in-arm.  You should silently walk the entire Boulevard Ring, keeping hold of each other and deliberately, surreptitiously sipping from your bottles.  I recommend you start the journey through this erogenous zone at Yauzsky Boulevard alongside Solyanka, moving counterclockwise – Chistoprudny, Sretensky and so on.  You need to walk silently, intently peering at passerby on the boulevards.  If you meet any acquaintances, preferably keep silent and turn away your eyes.  You should not drink hurriedly, but rather with feeling.  Having finished the promenade on Gogolevsky Boulevard, you should set the bottles in the middle of the boulevard, embrace each other about the shoulders and perform a slow dance around the bottles, singing and whistling.  Next it is essential to quickly, without saying good-bye and not looking at each other, head off in different directions.

All this was done by Igor Vinogradov, Sergei Kutin and me on one warm June day in 1974 after we successfully passed an engineering exam.

4.  Vagankovskoye Cemetery

Entering the cemetery grounds, steer right, to the most distant part of it, taking with you an unread book.  Finding nothing noticeable besides a tidy tomb with a small bench, sit and read the book until dusk, until the evening cool appears and the letters on the page start to run together and resemble soldiers sleeping side by side.  Close the book, carefully put it on the grave and quietly leave the cemetery.  I behaved in this exact manner in May 1980.  Having gone to the maternity clinic to visit my wife, who was preparing to cast out into our contradictory world two twins, I left to aimlessly wander Moscow, warm and reeking of gas and asphalt, with a Xeroxed copy of Nabokov’s novel King, Queen, Knave under my arm.  I don’t remember, how and why I ended up in Vagankovskoye Cemetery.  The cemetery, not yet ruined by the tasteless tomb for Vysotsky, humbly lay in the shade of the lindens and poplars, spots of sunlight dancing in unpretentious crosses, young grass pushing up on the mounds of the graves.  Having sat on a bench next to someone’s well-kept grave, I read Nabokov until dusk and, not having read to the end, all of a sudden stood and walked off between the graves, not really thinking about anything.  Why did I leave the book on the grave?  “It’s hard to explain,” as that same porter would say.  It’s still harder to convey the feeling that I left the gates of the cemetery with.

5.  Metro station “Krasniye vorota”

The Moscow metro, at first glance, seems to be one giant erogenous zone, a palpating system, each curve of which requires soft caresses.  But this is only a superficial impression.  In my 45 years of travels through this labyrinth, I’ve found only one station with erotic vibrations: “Krasniye vorota.”  Go there after midnight, undress and stand in one of the granite niches and freeze for several minutes in the pose of Apollo (if you are a man) or Aphrodite (if God created you a woman).

6.  Cheremushkinskii Market and Novodevichii Monastery

It is essential to arrive a little before the opening of the market already dressed in tatters.  Having brought a wooden box, go through the main entrance into the market and immediately sit down on the box next to the doors.  Place a scuzzy ushanka on your lap, take a deep breath and start to softly but persistently moan, “Moscow is red with buns!  Moscow is red with buns!”  You need to repeat this phrase continuously all day.  As soon as the market closes, stand and, without counting the money given to you over the course of the day, clutch the ushanka in your hand and go to Novodevichii Monastery.  Enter the grounds of the monastery, stand in the center, cross yourself, bow, and, with the cry, “To you, God, what to us is unfit!” throw the hat with the money as high as you can.

7.  Kapotniya

Having improvised a paper kite, wait for darkness and set off for Kapotniya.  Find the gas-fed flame there, stand not far away on the windward side and release the kite.  See to it that the kite flies into the flame.  As soon as the kite catches fire, draw the string in toward yourself and light a candle off the burning kite  Hold the candle to your chest and shield it from the wind, loudly pronounce: “Fire, come with me.”  Then with your burning candle set off for home on foot.  Entering your home, carefully extinguish the candle, place it beneath your pillow and immediately go to bed.

I promise you, upon waking tomorrow, you will know Moscow.

“It’s that simple?” you ask.  Yes, it’s that simple, since everything is obvious.  In order to feel the eros of Moscow, it’s not entirely necessary to conduct sinister ceremonies and ritual sacrifices.  There is decidedly no need to sprinkle the yellow bile of a bear on the Kremlin wall, take a squat off the Krymsky Bridge at midnight, fling darts at prostitutes or masturbate on the monument to Timiryazevu.  Moscow, like a dear woman, needs earnest tenderness that flows from the heart.

Many Muscovites are ready to place the main erogenous zone on Red Square.

In the 45 years I, however hard I tried, haven’t been able to feel the eros of Red Square.  Meanwhile, I have felt it in the abovementioned places.  About this I can earnestly testify.

As Prigov wrote, “Each has his own heavenly Moscow, and each has his own worldly Moscow.”

Sorokin part 5 and 6: Metro “Krasniye vorota,” Cheremushkinskii Market and Novodevichii Monastery

In the pose of Apollo, albeit only half-naked, in one of the inexplicable niches in the Moscow metro station "Krasniye vorota."

The Eros of Moscow (continued)
By Vladimir Sorokin

5.  Metro station “Krasniye vorota”

The Moscow metro, at first glance, seems to be one giant erogenous zone, a palpating system, each curve of which requires soft caresses.  But this is only a superficial impression.  In my 45 years of travels through this labyrinth, I’ve found only one station with erotic vibrations: “Krasniye vorota.”  Go there after midnight, undress and stand in one of the granite niches and freeze for several minutes in the pose of Apollo (if you are a man) or Aphrodite (if God created you a woman).

Novodevichii Monastery.

6.  Cheremushkinskii Market and Novodevichii Monastery

It is essential to arrive a little before the opening of the market already dressed in tatters.  Having brought a wooden box, go through the main entrance into the market and immediately sit down on the box next to the doors.  Place a scuzzy ushanka on your lap, take a deep breath and start to softly but persistently moan, “Moscow is red with buns!  Moscow is red with buns!”  You need to repeat this phrase continuously all day.  As soon as the market closes, stand and, without counting the money given to you over the course of the day, clutch the ushanka in your hand and go to Novodevichii Monastery.  Enter the grounds of the monastery, stand in the center, cross yourself, bow, and, with the cry, “To you, God, what to us is unfit!” throw the hat with the money as high as you can.

Here’s to you, Viktor

“How many songs are left unsung?
Tell me, cuckoo bird, sing out.
Is it my destiny to live in the city or in the village?
To lay as a stone or burn as a star?
Like a star.”
Kino, “The Cuckoo”

Sunday was the birthday of Viktor Tsoi, the Soviet Kurt Cobain, who wrote some iconic tunes, changed the Russian music world with his group Kino, and then died young enough to become a martyr.

Unfortunately it was also the day after the perennial shitshow “Aliye Parusa” (”Crimson Sails”), which celebrates the end of secondary school for graduates, but is actually just an excuse to pack way too many drunk people and police into the center of St. Petersburg (sometimes the two parties aren’t mutually exclusive: a gang of cops were tipping a few back in Cafe “Bochka” when we arrived). The point is, by the time Sunday rolled around, compatriots to raise a glass or two to Tsoi were few and far between; I didn’t make it out to the artist’s grave at Bogoslovskoye Cemetery.

But I did make it to a birthday concert near my apartment on Petrogradskaya, in the Palace of Culture Lensovyeta, an entirely Soviet venue, down to the angry babushki patrolling the giant, crumbling halls.  Apparently Aliye Parusa really took it out of the Petersburg populace, because the concert itself was ill-attended.

In fact, headliner Torba-na-Kruche, a band I’ve seen twice and often imagined as a Russian Coldplay with the slightest metal edge a la Bon Jovi, refused to play because of the low turnout.  Before there scheduled performance, the MC came out and announced their absence with an enigmatic Soviet saying: “The money to the ticket counter, the culture to the masses.”  But his meaning was apparent looking at the empty hall, where spider webs outnumbered people two-to-one; apparently, the take-in at the door wasn’t enough to pay Torba.

The small crowd began to shout a few meek protests and rumble with discontent, before a savior emerged in the form of an unknown concertgoer with an acoustic guitar who emerged and played half-a-dozen Tsoi tunes.  It was just what the audience was looking for, since the bands at the event almost completely avoided Tsoi covers, like Phish always refused to play the Grateful Dead.

The crowd sang along with every word (Tsoi lyrics are more widely known than those of the national anthem, which has changed so often since the fall of the Soviet Union no one’s sure what they are anymore) and swayed arm-in-arm in the mosh pit.  Tears and sweat streamed beneath the strains of acoustic guitar and plaintive teenage wailing.  It was a 100 percent Russian experience, one that lacks an American equivalent.  As the co-pariah of the Moscow expat newspaper The eXile (which has ironically enough been exiled from Russian soil) Matt Taibbi noted, “Americans can’t do anything without irony.”

The next few bands weren’t bad, and Moscow group Priklyucheniya Elektronikov, which might be loosely translated as “Adventures of the Electronicists,” played a great punk-rock cover of the cartoon classic “The Song of the Bremen Musicians.”  But the highlight of the night was everyone belting out “The Cuckoo” with our surprise guest.

“Sun, have a look at me,
My palm has become a fist.
And if there’s gunpowder, give me fire.
Vot tak.”

Sorokin part 4: Vagankovskoye Cemetery

The much-derided grave of Soviet bard and actor Vladimir Vysotsky.

The Eros of Moscow (continued)
By Vladimir Sorokin

4.  Vagankovskoye Cemetery

Entering the cemetery grounds, steer right, to the most distant part of it, taking with you an unread book.  Finding nothing noticeable besides a tidy tomb with a small bench, sit and read the book until dusk, until the evening cool appears and the letters on the page start to run together and resemble soldiers sleeping side by side.  Close the book, carefully put it on the grave and quietly leave the cemetery.  I behaved in this exact manner in May 1980.  Having gone to the maternity clinic to visit my wife, who was preparing to cast out into our contradictory world two twins, I left to aimlessly wander Moscow, warm and reeking of gas and asphalt, with a Xeroxed copy of Nabokov’s novel King, Queen, Knave under my arm.  I don’t remember, how and why I ended up in Vagankovskoye Cemetery.  The cemetery, not yet ruined by the tasteless tomb for Vysotsky, humbly lay in the shade of the lindens and poplars, spots of sunlight dancing in unpretentious crosses, young grass pushing up on the mounds of the graves.  Having sat on a bench next to someone’s well-kept grave, I read Nabokov until dusk and, not having read to the end, all of a sudden stood and walked off between the graves, not really thinking about anything.  Why did I leave the book on the grave?  “It’s hard to explain,” as that same porter would say.  It’s still harder to convey the feeling that I left the gates of the cemetery with.

Ukraine: “Countrybumpkinland” in a good way

On Ai-Petri with Gever the dog, whose forest-ranger owner named him after the "Sturmgewehr" Nazi assault rifle.

Sorry for the absence; I’ve been in Ukraine to get a new Russian visa.  I stayed in Kiev for a week, then hitchhiked down to the Crimea to soak in some sun and see some nature.

Overall, Ukraine seemed like a mini-Russia: Everything looked the same, only the cities are smaller, the distances are shorter and the people are nicer.  No stereotypes shattered here; there really is a little of the podunk “Khokhlandia” about which Russians like to joke (”Khokhlandia” means “Land of the ‘Khokhols,’” “Khokhol” being a slightly derisive word for “Ukrainian” that carries connations of country-bumpkinness; the word comes from name for the single tuft of hair Cossacks traditionally wore).

"Or even worse: Turn into a Khokhol."

You can stop along the highway to buy milk — milk that somehow tastes earthier, farmier — from a farmer who squeezed it that morning, or strawberries from a babushka.  Or listen to the country folk speak Russian with an accent of exaggerated vowel sounds.  Or listen to them speak Ukrainian, which, to the Russian-speaking ear, sounds like a deaf person reciting tongue twisters.

But the ups outnumber the downs — Ukrainians are kind and friendly folk.  And it is a land of adventure for those who know how to find it, from the sea cliffs of Ai-Petri in the Crimea to the abandoned farmhouses of the middle country to the “industrial alpinism” (rappeling off abandoned factories) of the Soviet cities.

“Inhabited Island 2″ no “Star Wars” after all

In my review of the first part of “Inhabited Island,” I positively raved over the film (as did the living co-author of the series it’s based on, Boris Strugatsky), predicting a possible Russian answer to the original “Star Wars” trilogy.

No such luck.  The second installment, “Inhabited Island: The Encounter” (“Obitaemiy Ostrov: Skhvatka”), falls flatter than an Ewok who just got crisped by an AT-ST Walker.

The main problem is that director Fyodor Bondarchuk (who also plays the role of the main antagonist Umnik) doesn’t have the time or initiative let this film find its own unique dynamic.  With the original “Star Wars” trilogy, each film had its own distinctive feel: “A New Hope” was truly iconic as the introduction to the Star Wars universe and contained an element, like its title suggested, of hopeful rebellion, “The Empire Strikes Back” became a favorite of hardcore fans with its darker, ominous feel, and “The Return of the Jedi” brought everything to a head in an action-packed, plot-turning climax.

Whereas the first “Inhabited Island” mirrored “A New Hope,” the second fell far short of the kind of rousing finale “Jedi” achieved, leaving an impression of a brusque, made-for-the-SciFi-channel flick with entirely uninspiring action sequences.  Bondarchuk should have split the film into two parts and followed the “Star Wars” mold exactly, with a darker middle section for contrast.  Instead, he tries to cram everything into one film, giving such a rushed, schizophrenic presentation that his movie tests the limits of the viewer’s credulity and patience.

In this encounter, our hero Maksim (Vasiliy Stepanov) travels south to a borderland of mutants in order to enlist their help in his quest to bring down the regime of the Unknown Fathers, the circle of Stalinesque magnates who rule an empire based on a network of mind-control towers.  Two of these magnates, “Umnik” (“Smart One,” played by Bondarchuk) and “Strannik” (“Strange One,” played by Aleksei Serebryakov), want to use Maksim, who as a physically engineered citizen of the advanced future civilization of earth wields special physical and mental powers, to achieve their own ends.

Maksim, however, motivated by the simple creed that people should be free, could care less about either of their intricate schemes.  He travels on from the borderlands, getting conscripted into a war with a rival empire and learning more about the higher forces at work in the planet’s power structure, before he makes it back in time for a final confrontation with Umnik (a development accompanied by the film’s single major plot twist) that decides the fate of the empire.

In the rush to pack all this in, Bondarchuk misses every opportunity to build chemistry between Maksim and Umnik, or, for that matter, between Umnik and Strannik.  When the movie comes crashing to a close, the viewer is left without a strong sense of involvement with any of the characters.

For most of the movie, any tension or sense of dynamics is centered around bosom friends Maksim and Gai (Pyotr Fyodorov), which also fails due to the rather simplistic take on what is in essence a complicated, conflicted relationship.  Gai wrestles his brainwashed reflexes like they’re a bad cold, lacking the kind of deep, ambiguous psychological conflict displayed by other such Raskolnikov-style characters (Gollum in “Lord of the Rings” comes to mind).

Meanwhile, Maksim is lollygagging along without a care besides saving the world, while Gai whines and nags him in a strained, manly yelp.  In this manner, the film jumps schizophrenically from scene to scene, relying heavily on a series of deus ex machinas even more egregious than those in the first part: “Oh, here’s a giant working rocket ship they kept hidden in these stone ruins all these years” or “Oh, here’s an abandoned White Submarine like the one we’ve been looking for, with a man-sized hole blown in the side right next to the ladder.”

Likewise, the movie is chock full of characters who decide to stick their necks out and help Maksim in the most unbelievable ways, all with no apparent motivation besides a late-blooming sense of benevolence or personal ambition so misguided it is hardly realistic.  The ultimate such example is when Strannik decides to literally hands Maksim the keys to the empire and then expects him to play nice and do as he’s told.

Although the final plot twist is compelling and intriguing, the combat scene between Maksim and Umnik is pathetic, paling next to the tension-filled atmosphere and appropriately epic setting of the final scene in “The Return of the Jedi.”

Of course, it’s obvious after the second part that there’s no comparing the two series.  “Inhabited Island” is a fun flick that quickly fades due to its rushed feel and missed opportunities for the drama and tension that should accompany such an epic.

Sorokin part 3: Boulevard Ring

The Eros of Moscow (continued)
By Vladimir Sorokin

3. Boulevard Ring

Invite your two closest friends, buy three bottles of port wine, hide them in the pockets of your coats and head down the boulevard arm-in-arm.  You should silently walk the entire Boulevard Ring, keeping hold of each other and deliberately, surreptitiously sipping from your bottles.  I recommend you start the journey through this erogenous zone at Yauzsky Boulevard alongside Solyanka, moving counterclockwise – Chistoprudny, Sretensky and so on.  You need to walk silently, intently peering at passerby on the boulevards.  If you meet any acquaintances, preferably keep silent and turn away your eyes.  You should not drink hurriedly, but rather with feeling.  Having finished the promenade on Gogolevsky Boulevard, you should set the bottles in the middle of the boulevard, embrace each other about the shoulders and perform a slow dance around the bottles, singing and whistling.  Next it is essential to quickly, without saying good-bye and not looking at each other, head off in different directions.

All this was done by Igor Vinogradov, Sergei Kutin and me on one warm June day in 1974 after we successfully passed an engineering exam.

In this section, Sorokin starts to really jump off on a John le Carre-trip.  I mean, who wants to get together with their two closest buds and three bottles of port wine (a pretty stiff drink, even for Russia) only to walk silently arm-in-arm for two hours?

When we attempted this part, we followed the spirit rather than the letter of Sorokin’s story, walking arm-in-arm but conversing evermore jovially as the port wine tinted our mood.  Early attempts to stare creepily at passerby were quickly abandoned, since such behavior can get your ass kicked on the Boulevard Ring, which loops through central Moscow like a never-ending outdoor dive-bar and attracts an even worse clientele.

I don’t know if it was the port wine or just the natural chaos of real-life occurrences, but we diverged from Sorokin after a short time.  Music was definitely a theme; I vaguely remember being nauseated by some buskers with a sound system doing a heavily-accented rendition of “Kansas City Blues,” then later running into a group of kids with a guitar and giving them my own port wine-fueled performance of the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ greatest hits.

Photographic evidence emerging after the fact would seem to indicate I also climbed on the shoulders of a bronze clown, only to be joined by my friend Yura, who climbed on my shoulders in a highly acrobatic, drunken formation.

First-hand accounts prove, however, that once all was said and done, we did indeed place our collection of bottles, at that point somewhat more numerous than three, in the middle of the boulevard and danced slowly around them signing at the top of our lungs (in Russia, it’s considered rude/weird to whistle).  Success, dear Vladimir …

Sorokin part 2: All-Russian Exhibition Center

The Eros of Moscow (continued)
By Vladimir Sorokin

2. VDNKh (The All-Russian Exhibition Center)

Entering through the main entrance into the territory of the former Exhibit of the Achievements of People’s Farming, go straight until you see the first fountain, “Friendship of Nations” – 15 gilded female figures in the national costumes of the peoples of the U.S.S.R.  Climb over the side, step into the water of the fountain and walk around the fountain three times clockwise.  Then go further, until you reach the fountain “The Stone Flower.”  Here perform the same action – three times, knee deep in the water, clockwise.  And immediately proceed further to the very end of the exhibit territory, to the fountain “The Golden Ear.”  This is a large, deep fountain.  They used to sail around it in boats.  Undress and swim around the gilded ear of wheat.  Three times clockwise.  If all ends well, as it did for me and the artist Andrei Monastyrsky and his wife Sabina in that memorable year of 1986, get dressed and immediately head somewhere nearby to have a drink and eat something.  Having opened for ourselves this erogenous zone of our home city, we then headed to the restaurant “The Golden Ear.”  The enormous restaurant lay empty in light of Gorbachev’s infamous anti-alcohol campaign –they weren’t even serving beer there.  At the same time, the food was generously portioned.  After our ablution in the three waters we very much wanted to warm up.

“Address yourselves to the porter,” the waiter kindly whispered.  Andrei addressed himself, and within a few minutes a whiskered porter approached and set upon our table a bottle of Bordzhomi mineral water filled with vodka.

“Is this vodka?” asked Sabina in good Russian.  The porter silently nodded.

“But why is it in a mineral-water bottle?”

“It’s hard to explain,” the porter answered and strolled off.

It seems to me, he was speaking not just about the camouflaged vodka, but rather in a deeper, more metaphysical sense.

Taking the old tanks out for a spin

Nukes roll through Red Square during a rehearsal for this year's Victory Day parade.

This past weekend was Victory Day, which commemorates Nazi Germany’s surrender to the Soviet Union and the end the Great Patriotic War (the Eastern Front of WWII). Before heading out to the countryside like most Russians do on a holiday weekend, I had a kefir (the best morning pick-me-up for a hangover, they say) and caught the parade on Dvortsovaya Ploschad.

The Victory Day Parade best known to the world is the one held on Red Square in Moscow, which was restored to a modern analogy of its Soviet-era, warheads-on-wheels splendor. This year, however, a new law has dicated Victory Day Parades be held in 23 Russian cities.

My Russian friends shook their heads in bewilderment that I bothered (”We’ve lived here all our lives and we’ve never gone to the parade!”) and stayed home to watch the Moscow parade on TV. Good move — on the people-packed expense of Dvortsovaya, nothing much was visible, and the parade was so pitiful I only glimpsed a few troop carriers and several rows of marching cadets before it apparently ended, leaving spectators to guess at what was next before wandering away when they decided that it was likely over (apparently Moscow had a real wham-dinger, with 9,000 personnel, 103 vehicles and 69 aircraft, albeit much of it dated Soviet hardware).

Other Victory Day sights were equally gloomy. Friday afternoon I stumbled upon a celebratory concert in Park Pobedi (Park of Victory) where some dude in a tuxedo was crooning over some canned Soviet tunes. If a giant Order of Victory (see left) replica hadn’t have been hanging over the stage, he would have looked like a groomsman singing karaoke at a reception.

As he wailed patriotic fluff like “Fireworks Display of Victory” (”Salut Pobedi”), old-timers and veterans’ wives jammed out in their black-and-orange remembrance ribbons and blazers festooned with medals. Those not yet crippled by arthritis snapped their fingers, the rest just swayed arm-in-arm like dandelions in the breeze.

Sorokin part I: Moscow State University

I got back from Moscow bleary-eyed at 6:40 a.m.  Although I’m still slowly detoxifying like a half-pickled vegetable in the sun, it’s time to kiss and tell how our Sorokin excursion went.  First, the translation:

The Eros of Moscow (continued)
By Vladimir Sorokin

1. Moscow State University and the overlook on the Vorobyev Hills

On a sunny and fair day, approach the Stalinist mass of Moscow State University from the side of the Moscow River, come in by way of the granite stairs and stop in front of the columns at the entrance.  Alongside them sit an iron young man and an iron young woman with iron books in their hands.  If you’re a man, go to the girl, if you’re a woman, to the boy.  Softly come closer to your object, climb the pedestal and place your hands on the iron chest.  Cry out “Moscow, let me in!”, stand there for a few minutes, then climb down and go to the overlook.  There place your elbows on the glossy granite parapet and look out over the panorama of the city sprawling out before you until your eyes begun to tear up.  As soon as they break out and the panorama flows together in a flickering kaleidoscope, try to feel Moscow in the form of a colorful orb gliding through the air.  Having felt this, wipe away the tears and proceed further …

When the first day of our big excursion arrived, I of course forgot the damn story at home.  As a result, we had to go off of my worm-eaten memory and the collective recollections of the small group of Russian friends to whom I had shown the story one beer-sodden, vodka-pissed night last week in St. Petersburg’s Retro Bar “Chyort Poberi” (”The Devil Take You”).

We ended up approaching from the opposite side, where we found two other statues of an iron young man and woman with iron books, no different from their easterly counterparts besides a pedestal three meters higher.  I pompously scrambled up and yelled “Moscow, let me in!” before ingloriously scrambling down to avoid yet another cop patrol taking part in the mass outpouring of police force for the May holidays.

Passing the entrance to one of the gargantuan dormitory towers, we Pop-Eyed our chests and headed inside like we owned the place. Inside was a mix of college dorm — skis and old furniture stacked in the halls  — and professor colony, with old academics sitting quietly at desks in private apartments visible only through mail-drop holes.

There on the top floor, however many stories up, we found our further progress barred by a five-button lock, which we outwitted by a little deduction of the most worn-down keys.  We were still patting each other the back when an old crone emerged from the shadows of the dim green stairwell like the Ghost of Christmas Past.  It eventually became clear from her disjointed grumblings that she lived in the tiny, uber-Soviet apartment (i.e. moldy furniture, a wood-paneled TV and strings of sardines drying in the sun outside) on the very top and wanted to know what we were doing there.

One of my Russian friends without so much as a wink explained that they had let us in at the front desk to come take in the view.  The crone calmed down and we had the best view of Moscow available outside of Ostankino Tower or the Moscow City skyscraper cluster.

After a half-an-hour we dried our eyes and ran out the way we had come, nearly getting called out by the front-desk watch as we fumbled with the main door.