November 11 – Day 55

This morning I sat on the window sill in the kitchen for nearly forty minutes watching a dog meander back and forth outside the construction sight below our building. It just looked bitterly cold and I felt a strange correlation with his pacing and my uneasy mood. I suddenly felt very paralyzed with options. There was so much I could do and so much I should do but I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to do. I ultimately decided to forgo the American vs. Russian student soccer game in lieu of another art gallery, this time the Tretyakov 20th Century Museum. I assumed given the bitter cold that there would be a wait to get it (pretty standard for absolutely anything in Russia) but I was not prepared for the hour and a half I spent in line to get my free ticket or the bizarre babushka interactions that would come as a result. I have to say I have had a rough time with the babushkas here. I don’t know but when I think of grandmas I think of warm cuddly ladies with silver hair who sneak you ice cream before dinner. These women are vicious. I have always been taught to respect my elders, offer them my seat, move out of the way, that type of thing but these women will seriously knock your ass to the ground and as a result and I can’t believe I am saying this, I have felt an overwhelming urge to clock one or two of them with my purse. (I sound terrible, insane, I know but that is what this place does – I did not come to Russia. I came to the loony bin where everything is some sick scientific experiment and the men behind the glass are just waiting to see how long it is until I break!) Maybe it was the cold but today the evil babushkas were out in mass and there is nothing they hate more than an American girl who can’t speak Russian. I was standing in line doing my best to be small so that the man behind me who refused to stop touching rear, would get the hint that I am Amerikanski and respect my personal bubble, when a short round babushka in a huge fur coat jumped in front of me in line and started saying something to me in Russia with a friendly look on her face. When I returned her question with my warmest ‘Izvinitiye, Het Ruski,’ she not only huffed, rolled her eyes and stomped away but I could here her muttering something about ‘stupid American’ under her breath. That was just the beginning of my run-ins with babushkas today. I don’t know what it is as I have learned it is best to just avoid eye contact and American speech at all cost but somehow they still find me and then weirdness occurs. On the up side my final babushka occurrence of the day was startlingly lovely. I was circling this massive gallery, which contains one painting that takes up three walls, when the most vindictive looking babushka I have seen came right up next to me, so close that I could feel the itchy wool of her sweater through my blouse (we are the only two people in the gallery, mind you) and she just stood there and glared. No, glared is not a strong enough word but I can’t quite think of one that could describe a jaw that gripped like it was made metal and eyes that bore a striking resemblance to the evil Grinch, prior to the heart enlargement. I stood there frozen, looking straight ahead, not knowing quite sure what to do but I could feel her gaze tearing a hole through my temple. So I turned and smiled politely, an American reflex I was sure might get me killed but instead she burst out into laughter and began asking me about my impressions of the paining. I know this because she was the very first non-English speaking Russian I have met, babushka or not, who upon realizing I don’t speak Russian continued to try to communicate with me, without judgment or maliciousness. I would have stayed there playing charades with her for hours but the sheer proximity between us was really freaking me out and I had to get away. It was a pleasant mood shift and I began to find the rhythm I love so much in going to an art museum alone. Walking in a museum, particularly an art museum, is unlike walking anywhere else in the world. There is a tempo, a pace, that starts at the very back of the heel and vibrated down through the hard wood floors and up into the ringing in your skull. It is a quiet place and yet if you listen closely you can always hear a cacophony of melodies echoing from the separate galleries. It is such a spiritual place that I suppose it is no wonder that it always makes me thing of church. The Tretyakov is a deeply spiritual place regardless and it was one of the first places I have been in Moscow that shows Social Realism for what it was and explains (in English, as well as Russian!) the cultural and political realities it created. No work of emigrant artists was published during the soviet times during the life of Stalin. These people were truly in exile, meaning not only would their life and ties be severed from the land that held their roots but long after they died, their entire existence would be banned from memory. I did not know these things. To be honest, before I came here I knew practically nothing about Russia or the USSR and what I did is from the perspective of my own countries political agenda. Learning about this place and these artists who I greatly revere has been a heartbreaking experience and one I am sure will change my perspective on life forever.