Sheremetyevo's Revenge

Sheremetyevo International Airport (or the part of it that most foreigners see anyway) was opened in 1980 in anticipation of the Moscow Winter Games. That was the year that the U.S. men's hockey team upset the Soviet Union in the since-named Miracle on Ice, and there's little doubt that the airport is still seeking revenge.

An hour-and-a-half after landing, Brooke and I tracked down our luggage and our driver and were on our way to Moscow. The drive in is spotted with modest outposts of city life and the occasional plug-and-play quick-fab community of gated Russian-style McMansions, which our driver, pictured above, claimed are built with mafia money. Brooke did her impressive best to remember the Russian she had learned 12 years ago and carried on a long conversation (it's obligatory after all) with Alexei, who could hold the wheel and smoke and praise Putin all at the same time. As Brooke understood him, Alexei believes that his president "does what needs to be done for Russia."

We arrived at our apartment in the now-fashionable Patriarch's Ponds section of Moscow to find ourselves without phone or internet service (which, by the way, is why no blog post appeared here yesterday). And it soon became clear that John, a business man I befriended at the airport, was right. He told me to keep patience close at hand because "things move a little slower here and there's construction EVERYWHERE." One, of course, has something to do with the other.

Moscow is a city virtually molting its layers on every street corner, including not ten feet from our front door. The view from my bedroom window is a wide trench in the ground that doubles as a construction site. Even Anna, our fixer and translator who grew up here, has been wide-eyed at the pace of change. Buildings pop up seemingly in weeks and streets that were once two-way are now single file. And on the ring roads of market economy Moscow she sometimes finds herself boxed in by Lamborghinis and Maseratis.

I suppose it's all worth it when serendipity rains down from on high and blesses the skyline with the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour set against a Mercedes dealership.