Museums, Old Women, Gender Roles and Clubs

Worried that I would rot away in a boozy haze, I decided to go to the Hermitage, Russia’s No. 1 cultural obligation. I was told that one day just isn’t enough to see the whole thing, and I would just like to categorically disprove that; you can actually do it in less than two hours if you have no interest in what anything is or when and where it’s from.

In a summary for the iPod generation, it was like this: first floor – things ranging from old to very old from all the major civilisations of history. They’ve got all the big guns: Egyptian Hieroglyphs, Greek vases, Roman busts, as well as stuff from all the B-list civilisations like the Celts and Aztecs. It’s all very rare and in very good condition - top marks; second floor –religious paintings: Jesus on the cross, Mary with baby Jesus, Jesus on the cross, Mary with baby Jesus etc. If you like that sort of thing, go there, there’s fucking loads of it.

I didn’t make it to the third floor because me and my friends were late for the ballet (ooooooo mince), but I think I would have enjoyed it a lot more as its largely modern art, which I take as a byword for art you don’t need to know anything about to decide if you like it or not. Sadly, my favourite room was the photography one, where they have pictures of celebrities who I don’t even like, like Jamie Foxx and Nicole Kidman, but they are seriously proper famous though.

Moving on, I don’t know if what I’ve written so far has accorded with peoples’ stereotypes of Russia in general, but a one stereotype that is definitely true is that old Russian woman (babushkas) are fucking hardcore. I live next to a particularly scary babushka who frequently buzzes aggressively on my door, before berating me in incredibly fast Russian. When I say ‘I don’t understand’ in Russian, she seems to use it as an opportunity to breathe before starting again, so at least I’m helping her not die. Other words I like to use are, ‘what?’, ‘slower’, ‘could you repeat that please?’ and, if I’m feeling really confident ,‘yes I see’, just to pretend I have some idea what’s going on. 

The other day she was especially incomprehensible, but eventually I managed to glean from her that water was dripping out of my shower onto her husband’s head. Soz! Anyway, she decided to order a plummer for us, a notoriously dodgy profession in these parts, and my flat mate told me that if he came when I was here I was not to let him out of my sight. In response I made some joke about plummers and porn films which was obviously hilarious. The whole thing turned out fine, and now I can shower my brains out in Russia’s grimy, fishy water (when they say the tap water is undrinkable they mean it).

Now to gender roles again: guys ALWAYS pay for everything on a date. This manifested itself in an amusing but expensive way the other day, when I went on a date with what can only be described as a real-life girl. After our charming date in Russia’s very own form of faceless, omnipresent coffee shops (genuinely called ‘Coffee Shop’) she turned to me and said ‘do you want me to pay?’.  ‘What a nice girl’, I thought, ‘she’s actually offering to pay for me.’ Gallantly I declined, quite willing to split the bill, at which point she rapidly stuffed her cash back into her bag and was like, ‘no, no, it’s 400 rubles, why have you only put out 200’, before adding ‘and you should probably leave a tip’. In hindsight she’d obviously meant, ‘do you want me to pay for myself?’, which to my English sensibilities just seemed so ridiculous I hadn’t even considered it. I didn’t have the heart to tell her I’d misunderstood, or that I’d deliberately not gotten a drink so that I could wait to get a cheap one from a shop (not really a turn on), so I just paid.

Such a system is pointless in my view since the guy receives no gratitude, as the girl already expects it, and the whole thing only serves to reinforce archaic gender divides between men and women. Man buys stuff, girl looks nice, they get married and man is allowed to get fat, while girl stays thin in exchange for being bought more stuff. (And right there you have an exhaustive exposition of Russian gender roles, cheers everyone).

Or maybe I’m just bitter about having to pay £4 for her fucking latte.

In other news, Russian clubs also have an amazing policy (you decide in what way) called ‘face control’. This basically revolves around rejecting girls from clubs based on what they look like so that the high paying foreigners/nouveau riche Russian businessmen are getting the absolute best for the money they lavish on those girls. Think of it as a slightly more respectable, less coercive form of prostitution. Obviously I was obliged to go to one of these clubs for journalistic purposes, and the atmosphere was cattle-market like as expected. There were more beautiful girls per square foot than at a Duran Duran concert, all trying desperately to attract the men’s attention, whilst simultaneously trying to look like they weren’t. Very awkward. I asked one guy how his night was and all he said was ‘plohoi (bad) face control’ and gave a thumbs down. I left after that.

I should say the traditional nature of this gender divide does have nice, or at least sweet, elements. For instance, if you like a girl, whether it be someone you’ve seen in a cafe, a long-term girlfriend or a stalkee, it is tradition to present them with a flower as an expression of your admiration for their beauty or kindness or whatever, as well as your intentions thereafter. Isn’t that nice? It is isn’t it? But it’s also an absolutely piss easy chat up line if you can’t think of anything to say. And the fact is, in a wonderfully circular process, because the girls are old-fashioned, they love it. Having said that, I presented a Bar Lady I’d been chatting to with 3 white roses the other night, and she just said ‘cheers’, and then put them on the bar behind her – guess you need to have something to say too then...

Right, all for now. Having singularly failed in writing informatively about anything culturally high-brow, I’ll probably just to stick to writing about what I see on the street, in cafes and in bars, so look forward to more of the same. No book review this time by the way, but I am incredibly excited to announce the inclusion of a guest film review, written by fledgling journalist Stan Kazach, so please show him your support by giving it a read (as well as my own film and music reviews).

Do svidaniya,

Ronan Davidovich