My Bloggy Wog

Critics of the Kremlin often complain about the limited freedom to protest in Russia and its increasing curbs on free speech, but one march organized by foreigners continues to thrive. Now in its 17th year, Moscow’s St Patrick's Day parade is the only festivity of its kind in the Russian capital.

The Irish Embassy and the Irish Club coordinates an annual mainstay of Moscow’s cultural calendar for its Irish community and Muscovites alike. It receives the benign support of Moscow City Hall, the same body that bans gay rights demonstrations and frowns upon anti-Putin protests citing traffic congestion.

Chief organizer and Chair of the Irish Club Avril Conroy is looking forward to an overwhelming sense of pride on Sunday, especially among the Irish community in Moscow.

Novy Arbat will close down to traffic as Dublin’s mayor, Evelyn Byrne, and her Russian counterpart, Yury Luzhkov, seek to put the “pat” in “expat.” This year marks the first time Mayor Luzhkov, a huge supporter of Irish culture in Moscow, will attend in person since its inception in 1992. The street frequently shudders to a halt when governmental convoys pass through with blue lights flickering, but not this weekend as once again, it is transformed into a bustling Celtic party.

"There are absolutely no political problems with the parade, that's down to the Irish Embassy here. If the current Ambassador, Justin Harman, or previous ambassadors didn't have good contacts, we'd never get it, it's clear," says Conroy. Her personal favorite participants are of the wolfhounds (very large dogs) and their proud owners from the Russian Irish wolfhound society.

Barry Whelan, an IT consultant based in Dublin, is in Moscow for ten days on a business trip. “I’m thankful that Ireland’s national day is marked with the same joy and enthusiasm as it is in the old country in virtually every city in the world,” he says.

He says: “Sadly I missed out on all the craic [fun] back home but sure I suppose I can thank the luck of the Irish I that I’m here to celebrate.” It is fortuitous that Mr. Whelan’s visit coincides with the Moscow festivities this weekend.

St. Patrick converted a heathen Irish population from Celtic Druid paganism to Christianity in the fifth century. Legend credits St. Patrick with banishing snakes from the island of Ireland (there are still none to this day, although they remain in Great Britain). It is also widely believed that St. Patrick taught the Irish about the Trinity by showing people a humble shamrock, a three-leaved clover, using it as a tool to highlight the Christian belief of 'three divine persons in one God'.

Weather permitting, over 10,000 Muscovites will turn out at 1pm to see a classic St Patrick's Day parade, with marching bands, Cossack horsemen Irish dancers, decorated floats and of course the said wolfhounds.

The Parade is part of a series of events around St. Patrick’s Day including The Emerald Charity Ball, a concert of classical music by Irish composer John Field at the Glinka Museum, and the second Irish Film Festival in Moscow at Khudozhestvenniy Cinema (March 25-29).

Tourism in Russia has grown rapidly after the Soviet Union’s collapse. Most of this tourism is centered on Moscow and St. Petersburg, since these cities are home to some of the most famous attractions in Russia. No capital city in the world has changed so dramatically as Moscow in the last 20 years.

Foreigners are attracted by the winning combination of a rich cultural heritage and Russia’s turbulent history. Red Square, the inimitable St. Basil's Cathedral and of course, the Kremlin all act as magnets for every first-time visitor to Moscow.

Aside from all that visa palaver, I want to uncover the ease or difficulty levels of tourism in Moscow confronted by all Westerners and non-Russian speakers. The metropolis initially exudes a bewildering air of paranoia and hostility. But, with sometimes astonishing speed, the city gradually unravels to reveal a generosity and welcoming tone quite unlike any other major international urban center. Extreme temperatures play their part in this, creating a kind of collective resilience that draws you in.

Anna Amosova of the National Hotel said: “I know it's a real problem for foreigners to orientate in Moscow while going somewhere because even in the center of the city names of streets and signposts are in Russian.” This is an all too common preconception, based on myth; it has to be said, generated by select helpful guidebooks.

“Another problem is using a taxi - this is expensive for foreigners and they will face a language barrier,” said Amosova. A typical 10-minute journey costs about 100 roubles ($3.50), while you can expect to pay more than 200 roubles ($7) for a 20-minute journey. It is always better to negotiate the price before you get in rather than relying on a meter. A great alternative to official taxis are gypsy cabs. These are just regular people in their cars out to make a dollar. It is the Russian equivalent of American hitch-hiking but in Russia, you always pay. Simply flag down any car as you would a London cab and they will stop for you. As with taxis, always negotiate the price beforehand.

Amosova recommends learning at least the Cyrillic alphabet and carrying a small dictionary. She said: “No doubt it will be a great advantage to speak Russian even on a basic level. If a person is staying at a hotel it will be very helpful to use its Concierge Service to learn important information about Moscow.”

Moscow has a great transport system. It’s funny that in Russsia, where most things really don’t seem to work efficiently, the metro and trains gemerally run like clockwork. Don’t let the metro intimidate you, it’s no more complicated than the New York or Paris undergrounds and you will be surprised at the system’s beauty. To find the metro, look for signs with a big “M” meaning … metro! Remember when in the metro, most signs are in Cyrillic so you’re advised to bring a map with you and study the words and letters carefully. A typical journey will set you back 13 roubles – about $0.45. The metro opens at about 6am and most stations close around 12.30am.

To understand which direction you need quickly, a good tip is to know the last stop of the train so you can identify it at the bottom or end of a list (except the circle line!) It’s a good idea to count your stops if you don’t speak Russian. Also, if you are in a station that has multiple exits, each line is color coded so if you are looking for the red line, follow the signs written in red etc.
 
Looking and behaving like a pure Muscovite can be highly useful when visiting Moscow. Firstly, and most importantly, the risk of being robbed is significantly reduced. As an added bonus, it can allow tickets to some museums and other cultural and entertainment establishments to be purchased at lower prices, due to the widespread practice of setting higher prices for foreigners.

A major characteristic of Muscovites is famously rugged gloominess. This is not due to any stubborn rudeness. Tour-guide Irina Chulkova said: "People often complain that there are no smiles here. Westerners often feel that Russian people will stare at them very intently, but without ever smiling, and they see this as a threat." She likens these initially impregnable and rough facial expressions to innate traditions handed down from a dispiriting Soviet era.

Be prepared to revise and reassess those harsh first impressions as your experience grows. Chulkova said: “People are not inclined to have conversations about personal things and can talk for hours without telling you anything in particular. Small talk about the weather, traffic jams or overcrowded public transport abounds but you won’t hear discussions of a personal nature, for example.”

Exploring the culture and learning the local language makes a big difference. That could mean socializing with locals as well as expats, and then you start to see them as people, not just ‘strange Russians'. Don't go to Moscow with a lot of expectations. It's different. It's big. It's exciting. It’s unknown.

Ulitsa Tverskaya is to Moscow what Park Lane is to London or Fifth Avenue is to New York and provides a central axis to the historic Beliy Gorod or “White Town” residential district that encircles the Kremlin and the Kitay-gorod. If you want to see cartoon criminals in darkened Range Rovers accelerating through the New Russia, take a stroll down this most beguiling of streets. During the days of Soviet military parades, Tverskaya Ulitsa was the artery from which tanks and soldiers would enter Red Square.

Moscow’s main and probably best-known radial street originated as the principal road leading to the old town of Tver, continuing to Novgorod and (after 1713) on to St Petersburg. Inns and smithies sprang up along this route, until they were replaced in the 19^th century by merchant’s stone palaces.

As Moscow’s most important street, it boasted two monasteries and four churches, past which Tsars proceeded on arrival from St Petersburg en route to their Kremlin Palace residence. Renowned as a magnet attracting the city’s social elite, the nobility considered it fashionable to settle in this district in the 17^th and 18^th centuries. Among the Palladian mansions dating from the reign of Catherine the Great are the governor’s residence (1788-82) and the English Club (1780s).

Its present form owes to a massive reconstruction program in the 1930s, when Tverskaya was also renamed in honor of the writer Maxim Gorky (it reverted to its old name in 1990). To straighten the street and create a wide avenue, numerous buildings were either demolished or moved back and replaced with gargantuan structures.

Towards the end of the 19th century, the street was reconstructed, with stately neoclassical mansions giving way to grandiose commercial buildings in an eclectic mixture of historical styles. A characteristic edifice of the time is the eclectic National Hotel (1901), whose art nouveau interior is now an architectural landmark of both Moscow and Russia.

Now the Mayor’s Office (Meyra), the building was formerly the residence of Moscow’s Tsarist governors. Its crimson edifice with golden crest bears little relation to influential neoclassical architect Matvey Kazakov’s original design. When the avenue was widened in Stalin’s era the entire building was moved back fourteen meters, its wings were removed and a new two-storey entrance added.  

Several triumphal arches were constructed along Tverskaya to commemorate coronation ceremonies during the imperial period.

The brooding Central Telegraph Office with its illuminated globe sits at the junction with Gazetny pereulok, a side street which features prominently in Anna Karenina. During Brezhnev’s time, the Telegraph Office’s ill-paid female staff were renowned for moonlighting as prostitutes, imbuing the globe with the significance of a red light in a seedy neighbourhood. In Yelstin’s years, streetwalking flourished the mayor’s back yard, so to speak, until current mayor Luzhkov finally cleaned up the avenue’s image.

In 1792, Tverskaya Ploshchad was laid out directly in front of the governor’s house, naturally becoming as a staging ground for mass processions and parades. An equestrian statue of Yuri Dolgoruky, the founder of Moscow, dominates the square. It was belatedly unveiled seven years after the city’s 800^th anniversary in 1947. 

It is alleged that Wassily Kandinsky (1866 – 1944) had a harmless condition known as synaesthesia. This bestows on a person an ability to appreciate sounds, colors or words with two or more senses simultaneously. The involuntary capacity to hear color and see music results from an accidental malfunction in the brain that is found in one in 2,000 people.

Etymologically speaking, the gift is an amalgam of the Greek words for together (syn) and sense (aesthesis). The philosopher John Locke was left bemused by a “studious blind man” who claimed to see the color scarlet whenever he heard a trumpet first discovered it. In Kandinsky’s case, colors and random painted marks triggered particular sounds or musical notes and vice versa. This creates an exquisite visual symphony, which is rarely found in many works of his modern successors (some might say imitators).

Indeed, Kandinsky is considered to be the founder of abstract art. He wanted to evoke sound through sight and create the artistic equivalent of a grand orchestra that would stimulate not just the eyes but the ears as well. Some of his most famous paintings are categorized as Impressions, Improvisations and Compositions. Nowhere is this more apparent than in his largest work, Composition VII from 1913. It is through this artist’s pre-WW1 output that Russia can lay legitimate claim as the origin of abstract art. 

The monumental canvas seems like nothing more than childish nonsense at first glance and sometimes it is even vaguely threatening. Composition VII, like many other Kandinsky originals, requires a leap of faith. He wanted art to go directly into the viewer’s soul with a similar emotional power and immediacy to music. The viewer is drawn into a fluid ocean in which everything is set into motion. Each detail, each color and line moves to the pattern of forces generated by the interaction of forms and colors. The rounded waves, the crazy zigzags, swinging curves, crescents, black lines and staccato cuttings weave into one another. Form and color interact and separate in a kind of cosmic big bang. He uses swirling colors that contrast deeply to create a visual rhythm like a composer uses notes.

You may think it is all a bit haphazard and silly. But Kandinsky, in achieving his task of painting the world’s first abstract watercolors, faced ridicule from his early twentieth century art circles. In doing so, he opened up the previously closeted art world to a more inclusive audience. For example, it was suddenly possible for a special emotional resonance to be given to deaf viewers. Kandinsky obliterated almost all pictorial form and erased traditionally visible elements in art. This allows listeners a freedom of imagination, personal interpretation and emotional response that is not observed in more literal or descriptive works. Objects in the visual world played no part in his art although he always rejected the notion that he was painting music – this being an “impossible and unattainable” feat.     

Kandinsky's Composition VII can be seen at Moscow's Tretyakov Gallery of XX century art.  

Receiving a special Oscar upon its release in 1948, Vittorio De Sica’s neorealist Italian masterwork is considered a timeless masterpiece of 20^th century cinema and makes a welcome return to the big screen this year. The Bicycle Thieves details an everyman story of innocence lost in the middle of a destitute society, while the film's poignant acting and directing creates an individual and heart-wrenching tale of one man's struggle to feed his family.

After nearly two years of unemployment, Antonio (Lamerto Maggiorani) finally finds work as a billposter. A bicycle is the only requirement, which he was ironically forced to pawn long ago. In a humbling scene, Antonio exchanges his family's linen for his bicycle. But when the bike is stolen on his first day of work, he must comb the streets of Rome in search of it: his family's only means to survival. After three days of hunting, Antonio and his faithful son, Bruno (Enzo Staiola), find the thief (Antonio Antonucci) – but without witnesses or evidence, the police are unwilling to help Antonio. Hopeless, Antonio and Bruno wander aimlessly through Rome, landing outside a soccer stadium where hundreds of bicycles are parked. His will broken, Antonio is left desperate.

There is no silver lining and no solution here; the film simply ends with a tragically convincing denouement. It is constantly involving, beautifully made, marvelously acted and even has little touches of humour. We are left with the memory of a strong filial relationship and the hope, but not the certainty that somehow things will turn out all right. Forget re-runs of It’s a Wonderful Life this Christmas, this is the only classic post-War production you will need during the upcoming festivities. 

Released in cinemas 19 December