Dec. 12 – Moscow

The last times I went to government offices – to get my driver’s license renewed, or my passport – I went to some anonymous mid-rise or strip mall in a bland office park. Today, my path to obtain the oh-so-crucial migration document, which I stupidly misplaced somewhere beyond the Urals, was anything but ordinary.

I set out on foot from my friend’s apartment in the centre of the city, crossing the Moskva River and cutting through the park where the massive election fraud demonstration had taken place two days earlier. Along the Kremlin’s walls around Red Square, past Lenin’s Mausoleum, then past the ritzy G.U.M. store. I found the agency that had issued my tourist invitation easily enough. They phoned a colleague who could handle the matter at an office nearby. One employee was kind enough to guide me. Off we went, St. Basil’s colourful domes in sight, under the Bolshoi Theatre’s colonnade, to a lane next to Tverskaya, a major shopping avenue. The relentlessness of history, culture and architecture in Moscow doesn’t feel forced, though. As I observed Russians entering the immense, gold-domed Christ the Saviour Cathedral, it seemed to me that tourists do not dominate the core as they do in Paris, Rome, New York. The streets are busy with Muscovites going about their lives. And yes, that includes a large police presence.

To summarize my document replacement experience (still in process, mind you!); good, fast, not cheap. A stubbly-faced man made a copy of my passport and visa, then placed a phone call. He winced as he told me what it would cost, saying I’d be able to pick it up end-of-week. It is a steep price, but I would rather pay it now and avoid problems at the Ukrainian border. Blogging from a detention cell is tricky – no WIFI, probably.

I’m staying with another Daniel. Like his Beijing namesake, Moscow Dan is a former colleague who has been kind enough to let me stay for a few days. Arriving in Moscow feels like a major milestone. I’m halfway around the world from where I started, I’ve been to the city before, I know a few people here. Under those conditions, arrival is mellower. Gone is the tense excitement of arriving as a complete stranger, friendless. I suppose that’s why I slept so soundly last night. The kind of deep slumber leading to a where-the-heck-am-I-oh-yeah-oh-gosh-did-I-really-sleep-two-hours-past-my-alarm sort of wake-up that indicates exhausted relief.

The apartment is modern and tidy, something you’d never guess from looking at the dilapidated staircase. My clothes are gloriously laundered, and I even did some ironing today. Travel and life administration now done, it’s back to Moscow explorations tomorrow.