Grapefruit juice in Istanbul:

A door ad in Moscow:

A DOOR nicknamed THE BEAST, a chain of stores all around Moscow: "IT'S EASIER to break into the FBI's website."

Stretching and hugging in Istanbul:

Fishing in Moscow:

To prevent people from going to Dissenters' Marches, authorities in cities like Chelyabinsk are threatening to draft them.

Nice army they're gonna get this way, very efficient, very reliable.

Again, thank you all for kind words and advice. I'm now writing down everything that Marta eats during the day - and it sort of looks okay, I guess. She's smaller than other kids her age (and smaller than some of the younger ones, too), and this is another thing that's making me nervous, but I've read that growth rates are all really individual, so I hope there's nothing much to worry about here. She's so much fun now, such a precious sweetheart...

***

On to some negative stuff:

I was at Staryi Arbat a few days ago - one of the most touristy places in Moscow, where they sell all kinds of souvenirs, etc. A foreign-looking couple was picking postcards outside a store when two cops approached them and asked to see their IDs. One of the cops was huge, fat, capable of knocking down half a dozen people with no special fighting skills but his weight alone, I guess, and he was the one who addressed the couple menacingly:

- Molodyye lyudi, vashi dokumenty! ("Your documents, young people!")

And the "young people" looked totally innocent, so like everyone else in the crowd around them. The woman was beautifully plump, something that caught my eye even before the cops showed up. And it was so shocking to see them singled out like that, like some "dangerous element." It was embarrassing.

I didn't pause to see the rest of it, whether the cops succeeded in extorting their beer money or not. But I can't get it out of my mind.

It's been years since I last worried about my own status here, and I believed everyone was feeling more or less at ease in Moscow by now. Well, everyone except for all those dark-haired migrant workers. But turns out nothing has really changed. Just think of it: they are brainwashing the people about all kinds of terrorist threats, but in the meantime, they are hunting down harmless tourists.

It's making me miss Istanbul so much more.

It also got me thinking that even if you stay away from politics here, this ID-checking shit should give you such a perfect glimpse into what this country is really like and how all this "widespread corruption" business really works.

And even if they elect themselves a saint as president, nothing's gonna change, ever.

Sorry for not writing here. All my energy goes into trying to get Marta to eat. I think I'm failing miserably as a mother.

Serbia has just won the Eurovision - I liked Marija Serifovic's voice.

I voted, like, 14 times for our Verka Serdyuchka (I'm in Moscow, not Kyiv, so I'm allowed to do that), and I also voted four or five times for Romania.

Ukraine came in second, and I'm sort of glad, maybe because we have Euro-2012 to prepare for, and hosting the second Eurovision in three years would've been too much.

Estonia gave 12 points (the highest mark) to Russia.

Turkey gave 12 points to Armenia.

Very strange - and moving.

Then there's all the diaspora voting: "France" giving 10 points to Armenia, "Portugal" giving 12 points to Ukraine.

Israel gave its 8, 10 and 12 points to Russia, Ukraine and Belarus (maybe not in this order, though).

All the former Yugoslav countries voted for Serbia.

Maybe Eurovision should replace politics. Eurovision and the World Cup (football). This would make the world such a passionately friendly place.

:)

My May 9 photos are here.

First, there are the real (or more or less real-looking) veterans:



Then, there are the so-called average Russians, many of them with all kinds of flags:



And at least one non-Russian, with a Soviet flag:



And there's also this kid:



Then, there's all the disgusting Stalinist shit from Lubyanka Square:



And some more freaks from the same rally:



And finally, there are the nationalists, marching toward Pushkinskaya Square and making themselves comfortable there:



All in all, 87 photos.

***

I had only two hours for picture-taking that day, which is probably good, because, honestly, it was something I'd rather not see.

Two years ago, I didn't have to rush back to Marta (though I was already pregnant), and I spent about four hours among the freaks. Then, they were all piled together near Belaruskiy Train Station - and it was something. That was one of the first times when it occurred to me that if these people were the alternative to Putin, then it'd be better for Putin to stay. I also sort of sympathized with the cops then - the freaks were cursing them for those four hours non-stop and it would've been a completely logical human reaction to end it all in fucking bloodshed. But it ended peacefully then.

This year, they were allowed to march through the city. Accompanied by the riot cops, yes, but still, this was something that Kasparov's folks were not allowed to do on April 14. Strange, huh?

Two years ago, the freaks were really hurt by Putin's decision to occupy Red Square, fill it up with all the foreign guests - it was the 60th anniversary of the Victory. They were really mad at Putin then.

This year, they cursed Yeltsin the Drunk for having died before standing trial, and they also cursed the der'mocrats (this is what they call the "democrats" - "shitocrats"). I heard one of the speakers say that Putin was an okay guy, sober, but there was still no Order in the country.

The nationalists also seemed discontent with Putin: they were calling for a "Russian" regime. Kondopoga is the Hero City, according to them, along with Sevastopol. My favorite chant of theirs was "Christ has risen!" - "Indeed, he has!" It sounded weirdly Soviet somehow, the way they chanted it. Many people on Tverskaya looked at them as if they were aliens (the UFO type of aliens, not the gastarbeiter ones from Central Asia).

This year, Red Square was inaccessible again, and the cops, via a loudspeaker, were directing people towards Lubyanka. I found it amazing - because a much more appropriate destination would've been the tiny square in front of the Bolshoi Theater, halfway to Lubyanka, where veterans gather every year to listen to wartime songs and move everyone, including themselves, to tears. But the crowd was encouraged to go to where the Stalinist freaks were:



Around the flowerbed where Felix Dzerzhinsky used to stand, there was a little flea market: Soviet-time books, Stalin's portraits, toy soldiers. One woman was selling Taras Shevchenko's Kobzar, among other things (a Russian translation, the black-and-red book in the very center):



***

Darkness at Noon has a wonderful roundup of the day, with great pictures. He was lucky to see only one portrait of Stalin that day - the big one, attached to a minivan. I took a picture of it when it was already parked at Lubyanka, but Darkness at Noon saw it being driven there - and it made him wonder:

I don't know how the driver saw where he was going.

Here's my photo of the thing:



This same portrait was there two years ago as well - my 63 photos from the 2005 freak show are at fotopages.com, here.

(In 2006, I photographed the parade in Kyiv - 65 photos are here.)

***

The old Asian Stalinist from the previous post was there in 2005, too:



She's still wearing the same leather jacket and headscarf, but she's gained some weight in the past two years, and her Stalin is now safe inside a transparent plastic folder.

Back then, she was walking along Tverskaya, all alone, solemnly, and one of my thoughts was, "Doesn't she understand that if she decided to walk like this in, say, 1937, with a portrait of, say, Trotsky, she wouldn't last a hundred meters?"

Now one of my thoughts is, "Old age can be too fucking scary."

***

As for the Bronze Soldier hysteria, I think Putin is helping the angry folks let the steam out in a way that's safe for his ass. Kasparov is trying to do the same thing, but he's directing all that steam at Putin, not out of Russia, so it's not surprising that they are demonizing him so grotesquely.

But with this yearly Stalinist freak show, I don't get it. Because using the freaks to emphasize how scary/gross Putin's opponents are seems too smart for the people who act with so little common sense against Kasparov.

After reading through a whole bunch of WWII stories that I found through this blog (here, here, and here, all in Russian), after being moved to tears by a number of them, after finally managing to pick two texts for a GV translation - after all this, I don't really want to think of what Moscow was like today/yesterday, on May 9. It's such an embarrassment - and, in many ways, such an outrage. What this regime is trying to accomplish by letting the freaks rally all they want is totally beyond me.



Disgusting.

More pics later (I hope).

Moscow, May 8, 2007: how typical...


"Vladimir Mikhailovich Chkhaidze, Hero of the Soviet Union, attended this school."



"Dear Citizens,

PLEASE DO NOT PICK OR TAKE AWAY FLOWERS FROM AROUND THE HERO'S MEMORIAL PLAQUE.

Thank you!

HAPPY VICTORY DAY!"

***

(I mentioned this school once before - here.)

From a New York Times story on Turkish politics:

[...] Turkey has had trouble choosing a president before. Shortly before the military coup of 1982, the parliament held 114 rounds of voting to elect a president. All failed. Candidates included an actress and a singer. The political jousting went on for six months. [...]

We're back in Moscow: it was a very short trip, but it went really great.

This time, I spent very little time photographing the city, and when I did, I was just shooting randomly, while walking, so there are very few quality pictures. I guess I overdid it on my previous trips: wherever I looked now, I knew I'd be repeating myself if I paused to take a picture...

***

The revelation of this trip (our tenth one, I guess) is how much Turkish people love children and how eagerly they show their affection. All those beautiful young men, pinching Marta's cheeks, saying, "Masaallah, cok guzel!" - this is something I'll definitely miss here...

When we were making our hotel reservations back in March, we thought we were doing it sort of early - or, just in time. But we were late, and this is why we had to change rooms yesterday. Not a big deal, as long as we stay at this hotel.

The place - Kybele Hotel at Yerebatan Caddesi - is like home, and people here are family.

I used to consciously keep myself from writing about Kybele - guarding a secret, sort of - but there's no use to anymore: there are way too many visitors here anyway, and we've nothing to lose. So here goes:

I do recommend this Istanbul hotel to everyone - though I hope I've no jerks in my readership, and I also hope that none of you will beat us to a room next time we travel here again :)

We're in Istanbul, since Monday. I'm so supersticious, I didn't want to write about the trip before we actually got here. And since both Marta and I are more or less sick, I was scared we'd decide not to go.

Marta did really well on the plane (that's a 3-hour flight), but I didn't: my right ear still doesn't hear anything. To make things worse, my nose is running like crazy, and I can neither smell nor taste anything. The loss of taste perception is especially depressing, as I love and always crave Turkish food.

Istanbul is incredible, as ever. I'd love to move here one day - live here full-time.

It's been almost two years since we were here last - in June 2005, when I was pregnant - and this gap, as well as the fact that I spent the happiest almost-a-month of my pregnancy in Turkey, somehow helped me realize how much I've changed since Marta's birth. Everything is about Marta now, nothing else really matters.

Everything, including my photos.

Marta is extremely popular here, but of course.



Mashaallah.

Finally, the rallies - Istanbul is so huge that the only way we could tell something was happening somewhere on May 1 was by seeing that black helicopter flying over us again and again. And I don't regret missing it; I went to Taksim Square today, saw the remnants of the riot police, but soon forgot about it - because to me, riot police is a Moscow thing, something that Istanbul knows much better how to transcend.

I'm sitting on the stairs at the hotel right now - because their wifi doesn't reach up to our room. So I guess I better go now. Iyi geceler to you all. Good night.