Red Square: Something Larger


I stood with my wife and step-son in red square. We saw the Kremlin. We saw the sights of central Moscow. We stood in red square. And as we stood, young people in love strolled past with beer bottles in hand, characters mellowed by the brewskis they fondled. In front of Lenin’s tomb, a black pigeon pecked at the fallen crumbs of something larger left behind. The tomb was closed until tomorrow. The hungry black pigeon pecked on. Beyond the tomb, between the Orthodox Church and a horse-mounted monument to a Russian General who stopped the fascists taking Moscow in WW2, Lenin, Marx, Tsar Pyotr and Tsarina Caterina offered photo-ops for three bucks American.
Through two archways out of red square and back into downtown Moscow, people threw money in the air ensuring one day they’d return to this place. A crowd of poor old folks stood ready for the next person to throw their money. Over the shoulder and tinkling on a Hollywood star like emblem inlaid in the sidewalk, the old folks closed in and grabbed as they could. Have you ever thrown Macdonald’s Drive-thru French fries out the window of your car and watched the seagulls fight for every morsel as you munched down your drive-through quarter-pounder with cheese meal? Sad truths exist in downtown Moscow, it appears.
Meanwhile, skirts are short, girls are slim and bare A LOT. Stilettos are of the latest fashion and usually enticingly laced to pairs of Neet-bared young Russian female’s legs, very hard NOT to look at, even with your pregnant wife punching you in the arm six or seven times: “Rowbertt!!, Rowbertt!!, Rowbertt!! ”, then slapping you silly – just kidding, I’ve learned to be far more furtive then that and of course I somehow find the way to remain faithful in spite of the occasional Holy Moses, look at that over there, can’t help it if she walks in front of me, dear, lingering glances. We strolled back to the car, through a construction tunnel, past tables of hawkers hawking items of value to tourists. Pirate software freely displayed – Windows XP Professional – $2.00 Am., Russian Army hats in perfect shape - $5.00 Am. Russian Army medals – $10 Am. Sunglasses – cheap. Socks – cheap. Across the street, Government Universal Market which used to house essential goods for citizen’s lives now houses fashion boutiques and storefronts of every branded merchant worthy of note. Capitalism has a permanent residence at the entrance to Red Square and no-one seems to mind at all.

I write

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