Moscow diaries

Last week I worked from our Moscow office. I do this from time to time, because of the Russian laws: Geophysical data can’t be taken out of Russia. That’s the general rule. Therefore, the easy solution is to go to Moscow to do the work.

I worked long 12-hour days. Not much of interest happened, except from fun science that I won’t say much about. This is some of what I wrote in my notebook. It’s not very interesting.

Sunday
A taxi picked us up in the airport. The Moscow traffic jam was about as usual, even though it was Sunday night. It was dusk and raining.  I checked in to the hotel, tried a new one this time, a hotel I haven’t stayed in before. It was a 4-star hotel. That's perfect; 5 stars are too much, too much useless luxury for me. Then we went out to eat in a German-style restaurant nearby. The sausages were good, but I was disappointed that they had no Russian bears.

Monday
I walked to the office around 9 in the morning, in light rain, carrying a small and almost empty backpack. The new thing now is that we can’t bring our own laptops anymore. We can’t bring our regular phones either. So, I had a special one, for this trip only, with a temporary SIM card. The Russians are spying on us all the time, trying to steel our business secrets.  I borrowed a computer in the office, and installed the software I needed for the rest of the week. The first day isn’t too busy. We went out in the lunch break to eat in a nearby restaurant. I ordered borscht, the great Russian beetroot soup.  One of my colleagues told me that it’s of Ukrainian origin. The Russians now how to take things from Ukraine.  I worked till 9 pm, and went back to the hotel. I had a simple dinner in the hotel restaurant, and the went to the bar to have a Russian beer; Hamovniki, unfiltered, very good. There were about 10 other people in the bar, most of them speaking Chinese or Japanese. I wasn’t the only foreigner in the hotel, quite the contrary.

Tuesday
Another 12-hour day at work. We had lunch in the canteen in the basement of the office building. The canteen is big, like a labyrinth, where I can hardly find my way. We share it with all the other companies in the 22 story building. The chefs in the canteen only speak Russian. I ordered pasta. It’s an international word that they understand. Then I worked for another 7 hours, and went back to the hotel.  Once again, I had dinner in the hotel restaurant. 
"We have a special Lent menu, without meat",  said the waitress.

“No problem, I’m not a Catholic, fortunately”, I said.

I’m free from all religion. At least I’m free from something. 

Wednesday 
Gray and cloudy in the morning. In the middle of the day it was nice and sunny, but I only saw it through the dirty windows from our office on the 14^th floor. We had a quick lunch in the cantina. The lunch breaks get shorter and shorter, there’s still a lot of work to be done. It was dark when I walked back to the hotel. Once again I had dinner in the hotel restaurant. There was a new waiter tonight, and he was slow serving the food. I had a Russian beer while waiting; Zhiguli, classic Soviet beer, light lager. Not the best. Before I went to bed I talked with a good friend on Skype.

Thursday
Last day in the office, very busy, to get things finished. I skipped lunch. A geologist sitting on the desk next to me gave me a yogurt.  In the evening, we had a meeting to go through the stuff we had done during the week. Then I spent a couple of hours to clean up my stuff, moving files around, and storing all my results on the internal network, where others can pick it up. I can’t bring anything with me back home. Then I left the office, for the last time on this trip, and went to a sushi restaurant on Garden Ring, to have dinner with colleagues and friends. A couple of hours later, I walked alone back to my hotel. Mission completed, for this time. I noticed that there were a lot of people outside the Paveletskaya metro station, and in line outside the movie theater close to my hotel. This way of working is somewhat special. It’s like living in a bubble, paying attention to nothing but work, closing out the rest of the world. I kind of like it. I like Moscow too, my Moscow.

Friday 
I packed my stuff and checked out from the hotel. I sat down in the reception to wait for the taxi driver to show up. After ten minutes, I went out to look for him. The drivers do things differently. I they speak English they call when they’re there. If not, they just sit in the car outside, waiting for you to find them. Outside there was a black Mercedes parked on the corner.  I said my name, and jumped in.

“Nur Deutch,” said the driver, “in Schule gelernt, aber slecht”.

“Zum Flughafen”, I said.

On the way to the airport, we passed through Central Moscow; the Kremlin, with the Bolshoi Theatre, the Lubyanka building (KGB head quarters), and the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. At least I got to see it from a distance, through the window of the taxi >:)

(Picture taken one morning on the way to work. Nice and quiet street to walk through.)