New boy in town
During a few months in 1990 I moved in a suburb of Moscow. It is in winter that I had been installed in Iugo-Zapadnaie to start the career at twenty three years old : - In this tower with two rooms there is nothing much as a luxury : - a German fridge delivered from the West ; a dirty matrass and to shave I haven't even taken a mirror to reflect myself. I must get into the Metro early : around 7:00 AM. There is one hour of interchanges. Part of the way is aerial, just out of the tunnels and from a top ; I can see the smoking factories of the modern socialism, some are abandonned ; there into the belly of the underground I mix up with the Moscovites and I can feel the traumatic-pressure of all this society and its tragedy ; sometimes the paranoïa is disturbing me but I am thankful today for the Soviet harshness had forged me. When I visited Zagorsk Monaster in 1989 with a delegation, two black limousines Neva of the KGB were following us. Though I can evaluate my skills speaking ; getting change in rubles for my kopeks and learn my way. I will jump track to another wagon at Park Kulturi ; this is my next stop getting to Oktiabrskaia kalso. The Metro stations are the deepest clean and beautiful shelter built with the bloods of the Stakanovist efforts but getting out by the mechanical stairways, is rather long to wait in the line. Each one is own turn. Outside, some cold fresh air of winter is freezing you after the warmth. The weather itself also is kind-of depressive as the snow starts to fall, the sky made of radial light like some cold bulb finally fades to grey - it will get you very moody ; I can see the Embassy and I walk a cross- road up to my office.
"5:15, I'm changing trains... No ticket..."
- Angels Have Gone - David Bowie
TEATRALNAIA OSTONOVKA JOURNAL
- D. Veen, Realistic Memories -
Gorky Park : a day with Stas Namin
Each sunday in Moscow by a sunny spring of 1991 ; I walk through the gardens of Gorki Park. Flying pollens of the blooming trees look like fluttering butterflies. Some young military Marine kids in permission are fogetting about their lifes. They get drunk to the point of no return ; they're laying like death upon the paved way bordering Moskovskaia Reka. A bit far I see the ferris wheel and the park where children play. It is there that my boss sends me to meet with Stas Namin for an interview. In the evening I had left him and my article about his band will be ready. A cold shuffle gets installed and the sky gets stormy, I need to cover myself more with a jacket. Tonight I'd do myself a favor getting to my usual restaurant. It is a small room with 5 tables where I can order pirojkis ; some vodka and a mushroom soup. There is not a choice nor a menu ; clients eat what there is proposed : - with the expensive life and deficit : even with money you cannot buy fresh goods ; eating there from the black-market is a luxury. The tenders are gentle and the place is cosy. After this long day I pass in a walking night in front of Mikhail Bulgiakov's home-appartment. It is beautiful and looks oddly dark and abandonned. Though it had recently become a prestige administrative building for renewed theater artists of the Soviet Komsomol. There are legends about Bulgakov native home in Kiev. Some unpredictable tales about black-magic and haunted house made this XIXth century's Russian Modern building a place of cult for fanatics where the Myth is getting alive. A beautiful architecture. Maybe the phantom of Master would return to find his beloved one day ?... Out of this perspective I can see the Arbat ulitsa and I will go back home...