Hot mirror action! Lari with her Bodyguards

We wake up around ten and begin to explore our surroundings.  For this leg of the Trans-Siberian journey we’re travelling first class, which means Lari and I share a cabin and Don is in another one.  In the morning we discover that for some reason Don is in what they call ‘business class’.  This seems to mean that he gets a hot lunch and we don’t..  These cabins only have the two lower beds in them, so they feel a lot larger and more open than the second class cabins we normally travel in.  We had read that there are powerpoints in the cabins as well, but Lari and I can’t find one after searching in increasingly strange places.  The most striking difference in these cabins is that they have placed two, large oval mirrors on the walls directly opposite each other.  The walls lean in slightly, so when you sit on the bed looking into one, the reflections gently curve upwards to infinity.  Lari and I play around with it for a while, enjoying the novelty value and appreciating whatever member of the Russian train bureaucracy decided this was a cool idea.

We end up unpacking the ‘Big Lunch’ noodle meals and heading for the samovar for water.  We meet Don there engaged in exactly the same process and he invites us back to the glory of his cabin.  There’s nobody else in it with him, so he’s enjoying feeling like royalty for minute.  We ask Don if he’s found the powerpoint in his cabin and he starts looking as we return to ours and settle down to eat breakfast.  Don returns a few minutes later, glowing with self congratulation, saying that he’s found the mysterious enigma wrapped in brown paper that would give us electricity.  We congratulate him on his genius and poke him with forks until he reveals his dark secret.  He just points at the light on the wall above the mirror and strikes a pose reminiscent of a Buddhist monk on the point of enlightenment.
“So you’ve seen the light, now where’s the frickin powerpoint monkey boy”, I quip.
He nods slowly and sagely and only points at the light again.  I notice there’s a small plaque on the wall next to it with numbers on it as Lari’s face lights up.  The plaque tells us it’s a standard European powerpoint and the two holes are on the edge of the light itself.  Well, on Lari’s light they are, on my light the actual plug has been pushed back inside the casing so it’s unusable.  A minute later I have my four point powerpack connected and we’re happily charging everything in reach.

In the mid afternoon, we decide to head for the restaurant wagon to find something to eat.  We have been sitting there only a short time when we meet James, who sits on the table across from us trying to read a book, but mostly listening to us talk about how much we like the Russian people.  He is English, 35, and travelling by himself across Russia for the experience.  His hair has gentle curls and reaches almost to his neck, so combined with his glasses he looks like a more intelligent, but blonde,Doors lead singer Jim Morrison.  James suffers from a surfeit of brain cells and a deficit in comprehension of the female of the species.  In fact, almost every conversation with James will at some point become a conversation about women.  His ex-girlfriends, his current girlfriend in Slovenia, any woman on the train and any female he has ever spoken to during his life.  So we decide early on that vodka is required and order a bottle.  I also order some chicken that apparently comes with vegetables and I’m rewarded this time with the vegetable I’ve been craving; broccoli.
We enjoy the afternoon sun and the view passing by us as James describes a Russian professor of English who is sharing his wagon.
“Last night he had a phenomenal amount of beers with him and was passing them around to anyone who would join him.  That hasn’t stopped since then, I think he only slept for a few hours and started again.”
As he finishes he has an internal conversation about something before deciding to continue,
“He’s on leave from his job in Moscow teaching Russians the English language and he’s determined to celebrate every moment of his freedom.”
Another guy in the restaurant wagon, Ravil, introduces himself as an army officer on leave who wants the chance to practise his English with us.  He shows us pictures of his three year old daughter and his lovely wife.  The waitress, another middle aged trainee babushka, arrives and speaks to him in Russian.  He then apologises for disturbing us and says he hopes to catch us later in the wagons.  I do wonder a little what the waitress said, but I remember reading it is a common trick for Russians to try and join a table of foreigners to make them buy vodka.  It starts friendly but finishes with you sorting out an enormous bill without the aid of Eftpos or credit cards.  We’re quite aware of the size of the bill and we’ve catered for it.  I suppose the waitress is really looking out for us, which I do appreciate.  We move onto a second bottle of vodka as James begins telling us about his Slovenian girlfriend that he’s living with while spending his time teaching English to the locals.  Apparently her sister is so much cuter and he’s wondering how wrong it is of him to think that and whether he should chase her as well.  Between rolling her eyes and sighing, Lari tries to give him some guidance as Don and I encourage him to consider greater depths of evil.
“Why are you stopping with the sisters?  What about the rest of the family?  Aren’t there even more beautiful women where you live?”, Don asks impishly.
“Well, yes, there are some…and I wouldn’t know what to say, but they all know each other and you know women talk when you’re not there and they all know everything about everyone who’s talking to anyone when you do anything”, explains James.
He’s very good at expressing every thought as it occurs to him while speaking.  This makes for some amazing flow of consciousness sentences, which means we always try to provoke him to do more; just to see what will come out next time.
“The only important question is how you feel about your girlfriend and if you want to be with her for a long time or if she’s just temporary for you now”, advises Lari.
James looks confused and thoughtful at the same time.
“But how will I know that?”, he finally asks in an exasperated voice.
“If you don’t know that, then it sounds like she’s just filling in until the next one comes along”, Lari says in a voice filled with disbelief.
“But…how do you know that?”, James asks, raising her exasperation stakes another level.
“Because…because…look….me woman…..know things about women…..you man..…lift heavy things……know about cars”, Lari explains, taking on the patronising tone James seems to respond to best.
“But I don’t know anything about cars!  I’m a terrible man! I know about books and university and reading Hebrew and Jewish traditions…”
“Are you Jewish?” Lari asks, trying to get him away from talking about women for a moment to give us all relief.
“No.”  Our three hearts sink a little.
“I liked this Jewish girl”, James begins as our hearts all fall to the floor, looking for relief.
“So I learned about the faith and started learning to read Hebrew, then attended the synagogue to learn more.”
“So you read Hebrew now?”, I ask.
“Yes, well, I could, I can now, but not as well as then, but there’s these prayers that I really like, I really think the Jewish faith is so deep and real, much more real than these Muslims.  I don’t think they know what faith is.”
I’m startled for a moment, not really expecting a sentence like that from him.
“But Islam has Abraham as a prophet, you worship the same God….”, I begin to explain before being savagely interrupted.
“No they don’t, they don’t worship anything the same, the Jews have the real religion”, James begins again.
“Have you read the Koran?  Have you spoken with any Muslims? What makes you say that?”, I pressure him.
“Well, no, but I don’t have to.  Or maybe I should.  Maybe I should have, but I won’t.  I didn’t.  I don’t like Muslims, it’s Jews I like.”
“So you’ve read nothing and heard nothing, but you’ve decided you don’t like them”, I conclude pointedly.
“Well, yes. No. Yes. I should I suppose, but I won’t”, he concludes, confused.

Dhugal considers his next move...

I decide to try and take this somewhere else and approach the question more philosophically,
“Well, after spending some time to read and try to understand the Koran, the Old and New Testaments from the bible, Buddhist ideas, Hindu ideas, Australian aboriginal ideas and quite a few more animist and nature religions, the only thing I’m sure of is that none of them are absolutely right; but all are like fingers pointing to the same greater understanding.  To say that one is absolutely right and that all the others are not is to be the dog looking at the pointed finger instead of the thing to which it points.”
“Maybe, but the Jewish finger is the one I like”, James announces defiantly.

A dishevelled looking Russian guy with long hair and glasses wanders into the restaurant car.  It’s none other than James’ friend Dima, looking for more people to drink with.  It would be unaustralian to do anything other than invite him to join us for the next round of shots and he readily accepts.  He takes charge of the almost empty bottle and we finish it with the round.  We then ask for another bottle, or rather, Dima yells out in Russian for it and the waitress comes down to give him a long, cold stare.
“Do you want bottle?  This man…problem”, she advises us whilst maintaining her death stare.
We assure her we certainly do need some more liquid refreshment and that we have invited him to join us.  She gives him an even longer stare and speaks in Russian, I’m guessing the same sentence that had sent Ravil packing.  Dima looks very upset and stands up, apologises to us all and says he doesn’t want to cause trouble.  We tell him to sit down, shut up and wait for our new bottle to arrive.  Dima looks around then starts talking,
“I work at the university, now I will go to Vladivostok for my holidays.”
“And you’ll have a few drinks on the train then?”, James prompts him.
“I will be drinking with my Australian brothers until I arrive!”, Dima proclaims to the world as he puts his arm around Don.
“It’s a shame we’re getting off in Irkutsk then”, Lari interjects.
Dima looks genuinely disappointed at the thought.
“You will go to Lake Baikal then?  It’s very beautiful!”
His face lights up at the thought of the lake and we feel even happier about our next stop.
“We sure will, we have to swim in it”, I tell him.
“It’s too cold!”, he says, looking concerned for our welfare, “You must only be in the water for a short time or you will die!”
I look at Lari and Don thinking about this pessimistic Australian.  A pair of guys at the next table introduce themselves as border guards.  One is apparently a Major and both are staring intently at Lari.  They already have their own bottle of vodka; so they join in with some toasts.  Ravil also returns and sees the party has grown to two tables, so he joins the border guards.

As you might expect, the group is now starting to get quite loud and boisterous.  This is probably not the best moment, since more people are arriving for dinner.  It’s now about four bottles of vodka past three; or roughly seven o’clock in the old time.  Don and Dima have settled down to a steady pace of shots that no-one else is keeping up with.  Lari has got her shine on and stopped some time ago, I’m sharing about every second or third one.  Dima has his arm around Don and keeps calling him “My Australian brother”, Don is returning the favour for “My Russian brother”, as they both sway into sharing another shot.  In a moment of clumsiness, Dima knocks over the almost empty bottle, two glasses and sends the orange juice carton flying.
“Oh Dibosh!”  He cries out.
“Zapoi!”, yells Don.
“Zapoi!”, yells Dima.
He then pauses and asks,
“How do you know that word?”
Don explains the film he saw and then asks,
“What does ‘dibosh’ mean?”
“Oh it’s like when you get drunk and trash everything in sight”
“Like ‘debauch’?”, I offer.
“Yes.  I think so”, he replies while pouring another round of shots that I join in with.
“Zapoi!”  I propose and we all drink to it laughing.
The waitress doesn’t think it’s that funny.  Don then decides he has to leave to return to the cabin and lie down for a while; Dima has broken him!  The whole group is being told to quiet down every few minutes by the waitress and Dima chooses this moment to explain to anyone listening,
“You must understand….Russians are not animals.  My Australian brother, we are not animals.”
Lari also chooses the moment to make an exit and leaves with Don after handing me some money.  I remain to distract the other guys from this quick exit and finish paying the bill.  I make very sure the border guards have no idea where we will be, only James and Dima have some idea if they remember what we told them an hour earlier.  I slip out of the restaurant car and glide down the train to our wagon, wondering what has become of my erstwhile companions.
Don has passed out on Lari’s bed and she’s sitting on mine, staring out the window.  I remember there’s going to be a fifteen minute stop at a station soon and duck into the corridor to look it up.  I’m now very much at home with these timetables and….Yes! We’re a bit over an hour away from that stop, but there will be a five minute stop very soon; so I prepare to run a beer mission.

Broken Don

The problem on the trains is they frequently don’t have any good beers and often they aren’t that cold – the Russian refrigeration problem continues.  On the station platforms, however, there’s a wide choice and a fair chance they’ll be cold; and you can always check.  So when the train stops, I’m one of the first off and begin my search for the closest shop.  It doesn’t take long to find four cans of Baltika Seven that are suitably frigid.  I return to our cabin and Lari and I share a couple of beers and talk about the afternoon’s fun.  We place bets that James will come and find us pretty soon and speculate on who will be with him.  We decide Don needs to get back to his own bed to avoid further destruction of his liver and shuffle him down the corridor to relative safety.

James and Dima soon appear in the doorway together, followed closely by Ravil.  Dima’s eyes are even more drunken than before, but the way they still manage to fix on Lari tells me all I need to know.  I ask her to move against the window on my bed and make a point of sitting next to her, such that they will literally have to come through me.  It isn’t that Lari is in any way incapable of looking after herself, just having a big guy like me in the way means they have to think a little harder about it.  We invite them to join us and they have also found some beers, so we drink and chat happily for a while.  I’m not sure exactly when the change appears in Ravil.  At some point during the last hour or so he has gone from being a lovely, warm, chatty guy practising his English, to a Lari targeting missile.  Dima isn’t much better, but at least his English is still fine, in fact impressively good considering his current state of inebriation.

“I really want to sit next to Lari”, Dima appeals to me.
I look straight at him and give him a simple reply I’ve learned so well from the ticket window women,
“Nyet!”
Ravil watches with interest as Dima explains,
“Normally when a Russian man sees something he wants, he just goes and gets it.”
That was the moment I knew I had to reveal Lari’s terrible secret.
“Dima”, I say conspiratorially, waving to him to lean in closer.“You should know that Lari is a hermaphrodite.”
His face contorts through a series of horrific, sad, angry and heartbroken expressions that I will remember for as long as I live.  He focusses on my face, then on hers and leans over to her.
“Really? You are man as well?”
Lari puts on her best deep voice and says,
“I’m whatever you want me to be….baby.”
I still don’t know how neither of us broke out laughing through this, but it has the desired effect on Dima and he explains it to Ravil in Russian.  The upshot of all that is we’re almost at the fifteen minute train stop and we all prepare to go for a walk on the platform.

Myself, Dima and Ravil decide to try and find some vodka.  You really can’t find vodka on the platform at train stations, I knew this, but was vaguely hoping that this pair could do better than me.  I was wrong, but the mission was fun anyway.  There’s something about striding down a train platform arm in arm with two crazy, drunk Russians looking for vodka that made me feel once again how similar Russians and Australians really are; or at least of the universal bonding that alcohol produces.  We do find some more beers instead, so we buy a bunch of them and head back for the train.  Dima chooses this moment to explain to me again,
“You must remember my Australian brother, Russians are not animals.”

Lari is walking with James and buys a couple of slices of cake that some women are selling.  We all enjoy the break from the train village and the walk in the open air during the early evening light refreshes everyone.  We enter the cabin again and Dima suddenly remembers my revelation, because the first thing he does is take Lari’s hand and ask her if she’s a woman.
“I’m all woman”, she explains with a mischievous smile as I sit down next to her.
We calm down for a while then and chat about Dima’s job.  Apparently because of his role at the Moscow State University, it’s very hard for him to leave the country.  It seems the Russian government fears academics will stay away, so there is some policy that makes it very hard for them to cross the border.  Dima thinks he will never get to see most other countries because of this, unless he leaves and never comes back.  This is something he also won’t do; because he does still love his country despite the government.  Ravil disappears for a while, I think to sleep as well, he must get off the train at one o’clock in the morning.  I’m mostly glad after he leaves, the way he’s looking at Lari and acting generally makes me fear he’s going to become aggressive sometime soon.

Dima moves next to Lari while I’m having a toilet break.  My return becomes her cue to have a toilet break as well.  So I spend the next few minutes explaining the truth to Dima.

Dima and James share a moment

“You know Lari is actually very famous back home and I’m her bodyguard.”
He looks suitably confused again, so I continue.
“That’s why we’re in first class and I’m protecting her.”
The word ‘bodyguard’ escapes Dima for quite a while, he thinks I’m confusing him with the ‘border guards’.  Finally the word enters his increasingly sluggish mind and once again the revelation strikes him with a series of incredible expressions.  He looks at me differently again, weighing up his options, I’m certainly bigger, taller and crazier than him, so he decides something and leans over to ask,
“She is a star?”
“Yes”, I confirm, “She’s a singer and a dancer, very famous, that’s why I must look after her.”
He nods sagely.
“A star.”
He sits quietly for a while considering this before silently wandering out of the door and into the night.  James and I watch him leave and the two of us exchange a look of curious understanding.
“I told you he’s been drinking since last night”, he comments.
“True, but he’s still fun to talk to now, Ravil has turned to the dark side already.”
We both nod and I wonder if Dima will return at some point, or if he’s currently waiting in the corridor to catch Lari on her return.  I get up to check outside as James asks,
“So is Lari really a hermaphrodite?”
“You’ll have to check yourself, if you dare to James.”
“But does that mean she is?”, he asks again.
I smile enigmatically and step into the passageway to see Lari returning.  The carriage is otherwise empty and we both decide sleep is a good option.  James says goodnight as I close and lock the door securely before sinking into my bed.

Lari the Star Hermaphrodite having a rest

Tretyakov Gallery Action

It’s Friday and today has been an emotionally draining time.  Later in the day I discover the train tickets are still not ready and I ask him to send them to my couchsurfing host’s apartment directly.  I’m glad I’ve already been talking to Alisha for a couple of weeks about my visit, so this is no problem.  It does add to my worries; without those tickets, this is going to be a very strange journey in Russia.  The thing that’s really twisting my mind is a painting I saw in the Tretyakov gallery this morning.  The gallery is awesome and I had already seen a number of the paintings before, but there’s nothing like the real thing.  I can’t find a good picture on the internet of the painting that is haunting me and I suspect no picture can capture it.  You just have to be there.

It’s called ‘The Demon Prostrate’ and is kind of a picture of Satan just after his exile from heaven.  And it kinda isn’t.  The body in the picture is angular and beautiful, with dark skin; but it takes a while to be able to notice that, because the entire picture lives in the eyes.  Betrayal, fury, disappointment, confusion – like a child punished savagely for someone else’s crime.  These eyes beg for sympathy, but warn of a purely malevolent intent.  They draw you closer to empathy, but reject you with spite at the same time.  There is pure animal madness in them as well as the savage pure discipline of a conquering hero.  I’ve never felt anything like the flow of emotions this picture draws from me effortlessly.  You’re left feeling somehow robbed and richer at the same time.

My guide tells me Vrubel produced this piece of mad genius when he was on the verge of the massive nervous breakdown that heralded the end of his career and then his life.  Already driven by his own demon, it seems Vrubel tried to take control back by overthrowing it and instead captures the moments before the demon claims him entirely.  He repainted the eyes in this picture over forty times.  Even after it had been exhibited to some acclaim, he continued to change them until they reached this final state.  Probably exacerbated by third stage syphilis, this was the beginning of the end of the artist’s mind and provides a dark and complete insight into his internal struggle.  If you’re passing by Moscow, I’d highly recommend a visit.

I still feel like my insides have been rearranged with a cricket bat when I meet Ludmilla at the entrance to the Metro station near the café.  I just want the demon’s eyes out of my head.  The place is certainly very new, modern and belongs more in Europe than Moscow.  Ludmilla’s English is not conversational, but still so much better than my Russian, so we chat in stilted fashion while we peruse the menu.  Alexander arrives just after our drinks and this helps conversation a lot.  He asks me to call him Sasha, so I should take a moment to explain Russian names.  Everybody has at least three or four.  Your first name and family name are pretty set, but there are standard shortenings for first names that everyone uses with friends.  Alexander and Alexandra both get shortened to Sasha, but Vladimir is Volodya, Dimitry is Dima, Nataliya becomes Natasha and Anastasia becomes Nastya.  To further confuse this there is not a huge variety of first names in Russia, so it’s quite normal to have two or three people with the same name at any gathering.  To add to this you also have a patronymic name which is derived from your father’s name.  It has male and female versions so you can always tell someone’s sex from their patronymic name.  Lenin’s father’s name was Ilya, which is why he is Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.  Volodya to his mates.  So in the interests of identifying this confusing array of Russians with the same name, I’ll add my own epithet to their short name.  So anyway, it turns out that Sasha the Siberian had been a top English graduate in his hometown of Novosibirsk, the capital of Siberia.  We all chat much more freely as more people arrive and soon we have a group of eight or so Couchsurfers, including the Dutch guy, Hanspeter, and Tanya, one of the locals from Tuesday night.  Tanya is short for Tatiana by the way.

During dessert Ludmilla and the other locals discuss our itinerary before we gather together and leave.  What follows is an incredible trek across the city to discover places that were full, weren’t open yet or were too expensive for some of the group to want to pay to get in.  We see a lot of the streetlife at night and not so much of the nightclubs.  I’m amused to see large black vans filled with beautiful women parked next to the entrance of a casino.  I ask what they were doing and my hosts diplomatically explain it’s for rich men to have some fun.  We end up getting beers at pavement shops twice during the mission and drink them on the way to the next place.  On the way I find myself explaining the Australian love of shortening words to Sasha the Siberian.
“Anything with three syllables is going to be pinched, even two is a little long.  A heavy Australian accent is made unique by the way words are shortened and slid together into an endless stream of whiny noise.”
“Yes, we like to shorten words too…everybody’s name, places…it’s common to not say the whole thing”, he says.
“True? I suspect all languages do it to some degree, but one of my favourites is un-fucking-believable.”
He laughs at hearing the sausage word created,
“But that’s longer!”
“True, but it’s spelled u-n-f-k-n-b-l-v-b-l”
He bursts out laughing and we toast with the beers we’re carrying as he says the letters over and over again.
“But it’s not the best one, the best Australian saying is ‘No wuckers’.  It was originally ‘No worries’.”
“Yes, I’ve heard that before”, he says, nodding.
“Somewhere it became ‘No fucking worries’, then ‘No wucking furries’…Until someone realised that’s too damn long and made it ‘No wuckers’.”
He laughs with each variation and his eyes shine with the amusement of learning the final part.
“You don’t get that one so much in cities, I’ve heard it more in the country”, I add.
“So Australian changes around the country?”
“The accent certainly does, words do as well, but you can normally understand it everywhere.”
“Russian doesn’t really change across the country, we speak the same language everywhere.”
“Really? Over such a big country I’d expect so many more variations!”
“Not really, the Trans-Siberian line connects everyone and we all move around doing national service too.  So the culture might be different, but not so much the language”.
I make a note to see if I can pick different accents as I cross the country.

Actually the beer stops introduce me to another curious part of the Russian psyche, when in a group; everyone likes to wait for someone else to take responsibility for leading.  It doesn’t seem to be for politeness, more that nobody wants the burden.  We stop to pick up the beers and then ten minutes later we’re still standing around sipping them and finishing second cigarettes.
“What are we were waiting for?”, I ask.
“Nothing.”
“Well…Davai davai”, I chant, trying to move everyone.  This is followed by more of the same as all the foreigners present agree they also thought we were waiting for something or someone.  The locals agree that indeed we aren’t waiting for anything and we stand sipping beer for a while longer.  I’m not sure who moves first, but a few of us start walking saying,
“Davai davai”.
They point in the right direction and we surge onwards.  After a little while it occurs to the two of us at the head of the group that we have no idea where we are or where we’re going; but somehow we’re leading everyone.  We pause and wait for a couple of our local group members to stroll by and start following them.  After a short time, they realise we aren’t quite heading in the right direction and cross the road and curve back slightly in the direction we had come.

By the second stop I’d figured out this would probably happen again and keep up the pressure to keep moving.  The only other explanation of these pauses is that it is technically illegal to be walking down the street drinking beer, but everyone does it.  So if we finish beers near the shops, we’re less likely to be hassled.
“When was the last time any of you have been bothered about this law?”, I ask.
They look thoughtful and generally agree it’s been a long time.  All it really takes is someone prepared to say, ‘Davai davai’ and everyone will follow pretty directly – just as Ayuna had done yesterday.  Finally, we resolve to head to a place called ‘Soup’ to actually sit down for a while.  The walk across the city has stretched into a three hour tour and we all just want to sit down anywhere.  Well….anywhere with a beer.

We’re led to a table and I’m forced to order a beer and two shots of vodka.  Sasha the Siberian smiles and does the same.  Some of the others order soup, apparently it really is well known for the soups they make here.  This is apparently a common format for Russian clubs; you enter in a group, are seated and enjoy table service.  You could head for a dancefloor, if it has one, but this one has more of a café style atmosphere.  I enjoy sitting down more than anything and learn some new Russian toasts.  Most of the Moscow locals were horrified at the thought of saying ‘Ha zdorovie’, a traditional Slavic toast meaning ‘to your health’.  It’s probably the first toast any foreigner learns and I discovered I had to find some new ones to be really Russian.  To make it more difficult, when I ask for another one that was the equivalent of ‘cheers’, their faces cloud over and then they say, ‘there’s too many’.  I laugh and demand they pick one.  Sasha the Siberian tells me the Russian word that effectively means ‘to our future’ and we drink our first shot together.  A while later he tells me another one of his favourites, which means ‘Let’s do it’, so we can finish the second one.

Thus armed against the cool night air and regenerating our tired legs we make for Krisis Zhanre.  Apparently the live music only gets started there about midnight and when we enter the first band is only a couple of songs into their set.  The clubs name in Russian glows on the wall and the place is packed and vibrant.  Sasha the Siberian and I stash our coats in the coatroom I find hidden at the back of the dancefloor and he volunteers to find some beers while I wait with the rest of the group.  We finish them quickly and all of us launch ourselves onto the dancefloor with mad abandon.  The band finishes, we don’t, but the DJ keeps us going as they setup for the next band.

Dancing, beers, vodka and shouted happiness prevail for a few hours.  At one point all the Couchsurfers join together in a circle with arms around each other and keep dancing together.  This only lasts a minute thanks to some filthy looks from bouncers, we have to break it up.  I’m baffled as to what was so bad.  Konstantin, one of the locals, leads me to a back area for a cigarette.  We travel past the end of the bar, finding ourselves in a group of tables and then open French windows that lead to a small outdoor location designed for smoking.  The back ‘wall’ of this area is a canvas tent that conceals a building site.  Konstantin produces a cigarette which I then drop on the floor almost instantly.  As I bend over to retrieve it, he looks appalled at the idea and stomps on it whilst producing another.  I can’t picture anyone in Australia doing that; a single cigarette is worth up to seventy five cents.  However, in Russia a whole packet costs the same; which would help to explain why almost everyone smokes, everywhere.  Konstantin leans forward after lighting up and explains the bouncer’s reaction to our mini-mosh.  Apparently the worst thing you can do is to be moving together in a big group like that, it’s banned in every pub, club and venue.  Moshing is strictly forbidden thanks to the bad reputation it has for causing unforeseen injuries as the mass hysteria takes over and everyone in the room is heaving together as one.  People have been suffocated, trampled and generally damaged.  Which is probably why I love the mosh so much, I’ve already been in many good ones and loved every minute of it.  The surge of energy I get from moving both together with the crowd and by myself within it is spectacular and invigorating.

Somehow we get talking to a pair of Mexicans who are visiting Moscow and I discover this club is a huge hangout for ex-pats in general.  I’m more than happy to throw myself into the night and see where we all land. For most of the next few hours I find myself drinking beers and returning to the smoking area to enjoy random conversations with Mexicans, Americans, Germans, Serbians and a host of Muscovites.  I meet an extraordinarily drunk local who gives me his card so we can go out drinking again tomorrow night.  He’s out with his girlfriend and an old mate who’s in town for the weekend.  All three of them are at the level of drunkenness that would get them removed from an Australian pub with vigour, but none of them seem to have a problem finding another round.  I pass Tania on the dancefloor and she leans in close to be heard,
“Are you coming back with us all to my place after this?”
“Definitely! When are we going?”
She shrugs and says,
“Soon maybe.”

It’s while talking to an American journalist about where the country is going under Putin that I realise I have no real idea where I am in the city.  We walked here after the monster trek, leaving me with no orientation for a Metro station and I’m not entirely confident about organising a Russian people’s taxi with my poor language skills.  The idea of being alone and lost in the middle of Moscow makes me feel suddenly vulnerable, so I move to return to the group.  To my horror they have disappeared.  I look in every corner of the club and can’t find anyone.  I retrieve my jacket and begin to work through my options on finding my way home.  It’s just after six in the morning and I’m floating on a sea of beer inspired warm comfort.  I think if I can get directions to the Metro I can navigate myself home safely without a problem.  So when I walk into four members of the group standing together outside, I give a little cheer.  They look up at me and smile.
“I thought you’d gone home already!”, I accuse them.
“You’re still going!”, the chorus of voices chime.
“I couldn’t go, I have no idea where I am right now.”
They laugh and Hanspeter says,
“Moscow!”
“Really? I thought I was in Africa somewhere!  How the hell did I get here?!?!…..What happened to Tania? One minute she’s saying we’re all going there and now she’s disappeared with her friend.”
“Oh they left half an hour ago, I think they were looking for you, but you’d disappeared.”
“I was out the back in the smoking tent talking to drunk Russians”

They laugh as we meander to the Metro station.  As we separate at the circle line station I wonder when exactly the best time to send a message to Victoria is.  I opt for an SMS five minutes before I arrive back and follow with a phonecall when I get there.  She buzzes me in the building and ushers me inside the apartment with a tired smile.
“Good night?”
“Was extensive and great fun; good people, good music, good conversations, what more is there to cram into an evening?”
She smiles evilly and adds,
“Oh maybe one or two things, but you can’t have everything.”
I laugh on my way to the shower.  By the time I return she’s already sound asleep again, so I stretch out onto my mattress setup on the floor and blissfully follow the trend for unconsciousness.