A Trip to the Market in Search of a Thanksgiving Turkey

So I decided to co-host a Thanksgiving spectacular in Kazan and was put in charge of procuring the turkey, not an entirely easy feat in our fair city. I figured since I have been worthless in updating my blog lately while attempting to finish a Qualifying Paper on an experiment that I performed on myself, which will hopefully get me one step closer to the elusive goal of full-fledged PhD candidacy, I would take my camera along and document the trip to the market. It’s a bit rushed as I have to run off to cook said turkey but here you go and Happy Thanksgiving!

We start out in my lobby with a new pair of boots purchased on a recent trip to Moscow, (though not with fellowship funding of course, ahem)

And walk out into the snowy post-Soviet dreamscape

Everything, even my apartment block, becomes charming in the snow

There’s our good friend the Old Windmill where I go when the internet breaks down at my “office” in the Boogie Woogie Pizza

New boots in the snow

Street dog in the snow

Oh and I realized when a friend was in town and looking around for the "wooden houses of old Kazan" which are apparently important and historic, that there are quite a number of them in my neighborhood

Charming

If not a bit ramshackle...

Snow dog!

Snow dog who leapt after me and grabbed my mitten in his mouth and refused to let go, which his owner found charming, and I found less charming as it caused me to miss the tram that was just pulling out from the stop

This left me with a 35 minute, yes 35 minute, wait at the tram stop from which I bring you the following pictures, as well as a hole in my mitten courtesy of the charming snow dog...

What's on in Kazan...

Have I mentioned that it’s a gay mecca, unofficially speaking. Except no one actually realizes how gay something like this upcoming performance by “the blue berets” is and all of the gay men are closeted, which makes being in a gay mecca slightly less fun...

Charming Kazan

Old ladies at the bus stop

The tram arrives! But in the wrong direction—we need to wait for it to loop around and get back to us—yes there is only ONE tram on a loop!

And so we wait...

But we’re finally on!

And here is the ticket, the quality of which you might not be able to tell from this photo, it’s thinner than toilet tissue and dissolves upon contact with skin

The conductor’s space

Two gold coats in a row!

And 30 minutes later we’ve finally made it to the kolkhozniy market! You’d think they’d have changed the name by now since kolkhozes, that is collective farms, went a bit out of fashion in the 90s, but traditions are traditions I suppose and I don’t think all that much has changed at the market since the fall of communism

Pomegranate Lady...

Snack shop in the snow....

Homemade mittens and socks (yes, I just spoiled the surprise—you’re all getting them as gifts when I’m back as there’s nothing else to buy here)

I got yelled at while taking this picture by a guy in a neighboring stall who said “Girl, you have to pay me 5 rubles to take a photograph.” I said “That’s a crock of shit” in English because I still haven’t mastered cursing in Russian, something about reaction times and neural plasticity, the English just comes out before I even begin to think through the appropriate Russian response, have to work on that... 

Trying to capture the fetid color of the trampled snow—a diarrheal brown that doesn’t quite translate on film

We've arrived at the indoor portion of the kolkhonniy rinok!

The Hall of Grains...

The Hall of Pickled Items....

And my favorite, the Meat Hall!

The Soviet Union lives in all its meaty glory!

This woman was not thrilled that I took her picture but then warmed up to me after I explained that I was a foreigner and looking for a turkey for a very important American holiday

Mmmmm, organ meats....

So when I left the Meat Hall in search of the Poultry Hall I had to pass through the Dried Fruit Alleyway where all the Central Asian and Caucasian men linger.

This guy started talking to me about my camera and I was getting angry thinking that he was about to tell me I had to pay him for the photographs until I realized that he was just asking me to take a photo of him!

Then this guy seeing me take a photo of the guy across the way said “Hey, I’m a person too, take a picture of me!” and I complied.

This went on ad nauseum until I explained to them that I had to make my way to the Poultry Hall to find a turkey for a very important American holiday

And then, ding ding ding! Turkeys galore!

This woman was very happy to sell me a “very young” turkey which I suppose is a good thing (?)

  

She then insisted that I take her number in case I need anything else, the anything else was left ambiguous, a turkey, some conversation, a trip to her Tatar village, whatever I like!

  

Everyone was incredibly open and friendly at the market which was nice reprieve from the general rudeness that abounds on the streets and I made my way out the back entrance looking for a cab. As I sat the heavy turkey down in the snow a little man in a Tatar/Muslim skull cap walked by and said “I have a car.” As is natural to me in former Soviet spaces this sounded auspicious rather than sketchy and I went with him to his car. Stuck in traffic for over half an hour he taught me Tatar words, told me all about his family, invited me to join them for banya day in their village this Sunday and refused payment at the end of the trip because he believed he had been fated by God to run into me outside of the market and drive me home, "It was written in the book," he said.

With that I bid you all a Happy Thanksgiving!

Another Memory from Moscow

So the other Sunday I was having a lovely brunch with Miriam in the oasis that is Le Pain Quotidien in Moscow. And this phenomenon in itself is interesting: the fact that I can walk into LPQ in Moscow and see the same arrangement of long rustic wooden tables, little jars of marmalade and jam, drink the same cappuccino out of the same heavy china, eat the same flaky almond croissant or goat cheese omelet that I would in New York or London or Paris. There is not an ounce of influence from the city or culture—not a sprig of dill or dollop of mayonnaise. It’s not like the ex-pat restaurants that try to mimic generic western fare and atmosphere but inevitably limited by their supplies and staff succumb to local influence around the edges—shaky tables, sweet milk, bread that’s just a bit too thick. Instead it’s an international chain reproducing itself exactly, like a strand of DNA or Roman army camp. I mean, it’s not a new concept, McDonald’s does the same thing—allows you to get the same disgustingly satisfying burger and fries in any capital around the world. But this exporting of ambiance and gastronomy at a more sophisticated level creates an international space in the city where you can truly feel untouched by the local experience for the time you are there. The warm orange walls help suspend the disbelief and even the glass of the thick-paned floor-to-ceiling window is tinted blue enough to lend a dreamy ambiguity to the streetscape.

I had my back to this romantic window as we sat clucking about the fact that all of the men who had stayed to the end of the party the night before had had wives or serious girlfriends at home waiting for them as they drank and danced excessively until 6am, some coming onto other women, including the hostess’s barely legal little sister, one bringing an extra-marital girlfriend along and another making out with a girl in the bathroom who, ok, might have been me. “Wait,” Miriam startled, “Are they doing what I think they’re doing?” she squinted toward the window. I turned around and gawked, “Umm, kicking the shit out of that guy? Yes,” I confirmed.

Because framed in the perfect window out from our LPQ oasis were four thuggish guys in ski coats tossing around a fifth. There was extraordinary theatre to the scene. They would whack him and thwack him and then sit him down crouched on the ground, touch him like a brother, talk to him, stroke him. And then—Wham—a blow to the side of the head. Crack—a knee to the nose. He’d wilt, hang his head and they would care for him again, put an arm around him, beginning the scene anew as if rehearsing for an upcoming performance.

“I can’t believe people are just sitting around watching this. Fucking Russia!” Miriam cursed as she stormed off toward the door. I felt only mildly bad spectating with the rest of the clientele who had bothered to look up from their pastries to the watch the street beating. It was all so perfectly framed in the window like a show for us. And while in the US I’d like to think I would have leapt up immediately, calling the police, informing the wait staff, telling the perpetrators I’d done both or some good-citizenly combination thereof, here none of these options made any sense to me. The police were unlikely to come in a timely fashion if at all, and if they did make it, might just watch too, rather than bothering to stop the beating. The LPQ wait staff were not likely to take any action to stop it themselves, not perceiving a threat to their business or security as they might in another country. And getting involved directly as Miriam had gone off to do, while brave and honorable, was not likely to be effective and could wind up entangling her in the violence, as I actively worried from my perch, wondering what I’d do, who I’d call if that were how things played out.

Five long minutes later, Miriam returned safely, though more infuriated than she’d left, “They said: ‘Devushka, don’t worry. We’re almost finished. He’s owes us money. It’s all good.’ and waved me away. I continued screaming and they thought it was funny. I can’t believe people are all just sitting here watching like this. Where is any sense of civic responsibility? This country!” she huffed.

And not to defend cowardice writ large, but I argued that civic responsibility as we know it can only exist with the force of a functional police force and legal system backing it up. What we think of as a spontaneous independent action of intervention by a civic-minded individual in the US is actually a person stepping up to serve as a civilian representative of the state and the law. Without the threat of the state’s force behind the individual, he has no leverage over the hooligans. One person going out to yell at those guys in the US carries the threat that the police are on their way to make them pay for the consequences of their actions or that someone has seen their faces and will be able to testify against them in a court of law later on. That one person holds the place of the police until they arrive and speaks to the criminals with the voice of the laws that will be enforced. This not only stops crime in action but may often deter it altogether.

Here in Russia, or any country without a police force and courts to consistently enforce a consistent set of laws, Might actually does make Right, not in a moral sense but in practical terms. The individual who intervenes like Miriam did is only armed with the relative weakness of her one physical body and the possible appeal to the conscience of the criminals. Her physical strength is easily overcome and her appeal to conscience is not likely to work. Meanwhile, to get enough people mobilized to actually outweigh the physical strength of the perpetrators, sets up a classic collective action dilemma that is not easily overcome without lots of forethought and planning. The collective incentive of “safer streets” is too abstract to attract enough people on the spot willing to risk their own physical safety to deter the criminals, I mean, who knows if these guys have guns. Moreover, with the arbitrariness of the Russian court system as it stands, there’s no guaranteeing that intervening wouldn’t put a civic-minded individual on the wrong side of someone with sway over the law who could then ironically have him put in jail or forced to pay a fine for some elaborately falsified charge. You’ll note that the by-stander-cum-Good-Samaritan in the recent brutal beating of Kommersant journalist Oleg Kashin is described not as calling the “police” to stop the attack but the “ambulance” to come collect the body. 

In the end, the beating ended without fanfare. Whether the guys got their money back or exacted the equivalent in pain and suffering remains undetermined. We left soon thereafter, the mood of the LPQ oasis irreversibly tainted by the intrusion of real life in realist Russia. On the plus side, at least the whole incident made the inappropriate behavior of our male cohort (and my own) the night before seem slightly more civilized in contrast. Mmmmm, the slippery slope of moral relativism, a good note to end on.

  

A Little Bit of Beauty for the Sake of Balance

To be fair, Kazan is not all sink holes and broken pavement. The other day I took a new route to the university and found a random doorway strewn with rose petals.

The sign from afar looked like it was in the style of an official government office (green and gold, go Tatarstan), which seemed very romantic. Ministry of Culture maybe?

Upon closer inspection it's a flower shop, but still a nice surprise that a new assortment of petals appears daily.

Also I realized as I was on my not exactly daily but maybe tri-weekly run across the Millenium Bridge, built in celebration of the 1,000 year anniversary of the founding of the City of Kazan, which looks like an odd fusion of the McDonald's arches with the George Washington Bridge, that if I took pictures of it from my phone while running I could make the arches bend crazily in the pictures.

Here is the bridge at a standstill.

First from afar.

Then a little closer, though still straight. 

Now it goes all bendy.

Woohoo.

GWB + Mc-yD's 4EVA

Tired of the gimmick yet?

Apparently, I'm not.

From behind. (Sorry for the bit o' thumb in the corner).

So you see, there are some beautiful things in and about Kazan. Even if some of them require camera tricks.