Year: 2006

One other thing that I’ve noticed different from Russia of ten years ago and Cyprus of current days is graffiti. Loads of it. The center of Moscow is somewhat clean off it, but there is plenty of it on walls and fences in suburbian areas. Togliatti has it throughout the city. There’s a bit less of it in Mezhdurechensk, but still enough to notice it here and there.

Most of the graffiti signs look cool. There’s art and color to it. Images, logos, names, things like that. Some advertising companies use graffiti as well. I’ve seen a lot of examples of promotions and contact information done in a nicely designed way on concrete fences. Looks interesting.

Of course, there are some racist and fascist signs too, as usual. But most of them are too small and unoriginal to even be noticed, let alone taken seriously.

I remember taking a few pictures of graffiti walls in Moscow – we’ll see if any of those pictures made it through, after I’ll find my card reader. Or get a new one (I am already considering this option).

Cyprus is a somewhat small island. But it still has plenty of unoccupied land, even in the middle of cities. With current prices on real estate it looks surprising.

But when I came to Russia, my perspective on spaces changed a bit. There is just so much more space in Russia! Kilometeres upon kilometers of untouched fields and forests. The feeling is also true for inside the cities. Buildings are far away from each other. There are empty spaces everywhere.

Travelling by plane, I saw hours and hours of unoccupied land. It’s somewhat hard to digest it – so much I’ve got used to the distances in Cyprus.

Beer was everywhere. And everyone was drinking it – boys and girls, men and women, grandpas and grandmas. Everyone. And everywhere. From the early morning hours on the way to work til late night before bed. People were out on the streets, going each their own way, carrying an open bottle or a can of beer in hand, sipping constantly. That looked mad.

I mean I am a beer fan myself, but there should be some cultural rules to the drink too. I have no problem with drinking in the bars and pubs or a few pints at home. Hell, I can even understand enjoying a pint at lunch or comprehending some magnificent view. But running around the town, drinking from morning till night – that’s way too much.

The only exception though was my native city of Togliatti – a pleasant surprise. Municipal laws allow for draught beer to be sold only in a places that have tables, walls, and toilets. Also, drinking in public places is forbidden and enforced! The fine is 800 roubles (about $35 USD), which is a lot (yup, with average salary around $200 USD). Police patrols everywhere, not only the main streets, but everywhere and frequently.

Also, there is a federal law about beer advertising. People cannot appear in the beer ads. That has something to do with people associating themselves with those who are in beer ads. Or so they say. In reality, more restrictions on what can and cannot appear in the ads make ads more creative and interesting. There’s plenty of beer ads on TV and most of those short videos are nicely done and a pleasure to look at, even over and over again.

I’ve seen this before and I saw it again. People’s faces change even before they come home. For some reason, most Russians tend to have this hard look on their face and an absolute absense of smile, unless, of course, they see something funny. People can enjoy walking down the street, but the moment they get to the Russian Embassy, they change. The same happened in the Larnaca airport. People were coming relaxed and rested from their vacations, but the moment they queued up for flight registration, their faces were changing.

Needless to say, when I came to Moscow, everyone had a wooden face. I’ve been to several cities across the country, and the faces were almost the same everywhere. Moscow faces were a tiny bit more serious than everywhere else, but there was no huge difference anyway.

As always, the first couple of days consisted of most impressions and deepest degree of cultural shock. That’s why I’ll cover the first few days in more details than the rest of the trip.

At first it seemed that everything is different from how I remembered it, and from how things are in Cyprus. All these differences overloaded my brain pretty quickly and started to ignore them. Pity, but that’s how my head works.