Zoom Zoom

As a former short-term resident of New York, one whose 40-minute train commute from the UES to Lincoln Center was decidedly a factor in her return to her gas-guzzlin’ NC lifestyle, I must take a moment to express my total wonderment at the Moscow Underground. While I have always really enjoyed the culture and mystique of the molepersons and the different customs and attitudes and the stories that inevitably emerge from our subterreanean interactions, the metro here is Really Something Else.

In the New York metro and the Boston T and the London Tube and every other subway I have ever been into, save the sandwichery, one enters by swiping or inserting a card into an apparatus and rolling through a turnstile. Not so in Moscow. Yes, there are cards, but like the Oystercard, they needn’t be swiped but rather are sensed through pants and purses. You walk through the turnstile-less gate, and in the event that you are not carrying a card, these little doors swing out at knee height and essentially clothesline you, potentially fatally and certainly resulting in a fractured wrist or two as you tumble over the once-invisible gate. So instead of presenting the traveler’s obstacle at the get-go, which can be surmounted for a small fee, the Moscow subway appears free! But then you die because you have tried to violate something very sacred.

And O! Lo! How sacred. After you have gotten in, you ride down the longest, deepest, most absurd escalator you ever thought possible. They were apparently built as bomb shelters (or so the guidebooks say) with special secret tunnels further still underground that could serve as nuclear shelters for a select few. The system of tunnels is completely labyrinthic and confusing—you go up an escalator, then to the left, then to the left again, then down an escalator, then to the right, then up an escalator, etc., to get to your connection. But it doesn’t matter because it is SO BEAUTIFUL. There are guilded sconces, detailed mosaics, busts, bas relief, murals, lighting fixtures that belong in the Biltmore. It’s wild. Even the buskers are more refined, playing beautiful classical pieces on violin instead of yowling or whatever they do in America.

See what I mean? This isn't even one of the pretty ones, and it looks like a fancy hotel.

Get it, man.

And there is cellphone service. Even 38 miles underground or however deep it is. I don’t know how this works, maybe there are transmitters all over the place—creepy, but it’s nice. You can rendezvous on platforms and chat as you ride.

I live where the brown circle intersects with the green. Yesterday the circle was only running one direction-- 'twas a mere forty minutes from where the orange intersects all the way around clockwise. Totally pleasant, save for the MAN MYSTERIOUSLY COVERED IN BLOOD who showed up in my car for a few stops. I've avoided theorizing too much about that one. 

I have also on more than one occasion seen these hugely fluffy (Moscow winter) stray dogs hanging out in the stations (outside the invisible dangerous gates, as they do not have cards) in groups of 3-4. I think this is smart and resourceful of them—holing up in the art gallery listening to violin, free, for once, from the cigarette smoke.

Just headin' home for the night.

Answer to Blog Bowl #3: V. I know. What?

Blog Bowl Question #4: So far I have counted 19 women dressed head to toe in which single color? Hint: it is not a neutral.