Tomorrow, November 10th, is the annual Militia Day in Moscow. One year, I recall, this involved the partial closure of the Garden Ring for the 'Militia Marathon', where State TV broadcast how fighting-fit the Moscow Militia is. hmm...
Who knows what fun this year will bring?
Just remember, on this day of the year it is polite to smile and say 'thank you' and 'sir' if they try to extract any bribe from you for a perceived sleight. Tomorrow is their day, so be generous!
Friday, 9 November 2007
Thursday, 8 November 2007
Help (or an AK47) is just a phone-call away
One of the 'perks' of my job - but one you sort of hope you will never have to use -is access to the CIS protection service from MIG Security service. The idea is that you have them on short-dial on your phone, your 'crash' code pre-programed.
I have only used them...ahem...once or twice in three years. And today was, amusingly, the first time in ages. From Office #1 in Paveletskaya to my home near Patriasrshy Prudy is usually about 30 minutes by car (but only 15 minutes in the opposite direction, which is odd). Today I was taking a taxi, which journey usually begins with the usual hand-wringing about the Moscow traffic (yawn!).
But 45 minutes later, as we approached the MKAD - hello? - visions of being whisked off and ransomed swam before my eyes....well I am severely sleep-deprived at the moment, having been pushing myself crazily and just returned from a whistle-stop trip to Astana.
So I dialled my crash code. It's an impressive in-your-own-language service and, as I prepared to hand the phone over to the driver - "you are to explain exactly where you are driving right now and why; and If they are not happy, they will track us down and get us" (I never how how they do this, but apparently the nearest Militia car can come to the rescue).
I then remembered a friend of mine who has used this service once 'in anger', so-to-speak. Even in jam-packed Moscow, they sent two bullet-proofed cars, with AK47-wielding guys, to effect 'fast extraction'. Apparently it is a great way to impress the ladies.
This trip didn't come to that. But I certainly felt reassured; not least when I saw the driver look at me wearily and with some more respect after the call. He didn't dare over-charge me!
Afterwards I bought a new mink hat, in quiet, small celebration...well, it is getting way cold here right now.
I have only used them...ahem...once or twice in three years. And today was, amusingly, the first time in ages. From Office #1 in Paveletskaya to my home near Patriasrshy Prudy is usually about 30 minutes by car (but only 15 minutes in the opposite direction, which is odd). Today I was taking a taxi, which journey usually begins with the usual hand-wringing about the Moscow traffic (yawn!).
But 45 minutes later, as we approached the MKAD - hello? - visions of being whisked off and ransomed swam before my eyes....well I am severely sleep-deprived at the moment, having been pushing myself crazily and just returned from a whistle-stop trip to Astana.
So I dialled my crash code. It's an impressive in-your-own-language service and, as I prepared to hand the phone over to the driver - "you are to explain exactly where you are driving right now and why; and If they are not happy, they will track us down and get us" (I never how how they do this, but apparently the nearest Militia car can come to the rescue).
I then remembered a friend of mine who has used this service once 'in anger', so-to-speak. Even in jam-packed Moscow, they sent two bullet-proofed cars, with AK47-wielding guys, to effect 'fast extraction'. Apparently it is a great way to impress the ladies.
This trip didn't come to that. But I certainly felt reassured; not least when I saw the driver look at me wearily and with some more respect after the call. He didn't dare over-charge me!
Afterwards I bought a new mink hat, in quiet, small celebration...well, it is getting way cold here right now.
Sunday, 14 October 2007
A new Season underway...
I don't know why the sudden blogging hiatus - people go through phases I suppose - although this summer (for the first time since I started following blogs) the whole English-language blogosphere seems to have gone through some sort of collective sigh of ennui...
...part of the resason for which may be the rise of Facebook. I have become a Facebook whore. It's incredibly addictive and just crystallizes how brilliant social networking can be. It has put me back in touch with school friends whom I would never usually drop an email to, randomly, but the fact I read their Facebook updates, and they mine, sparks a dialogue which otherwise would be lost. I think it genuinely adds the humanity back to the Internet (and, perhaps, in contrast, can make blogging look rather sterile). Facebook-is-conversation:-blogging-is-rhetoric kind of thing.
Anyway, as winter hits Moscow - grump - I will start blogging again. A random email conversation (the opera/ballet season is only just a week old):
Red Exile replying to a friend on Facebook:
Hi there. Yes the little angels getting me down yesterday. Jean Jacques [very French bistro on Nikitsky Boulevard, rapidly becoming expat heaven in the heart of Moscow] I haven't been to yet, but my colleague swears by it. I might check it out tonight! Friday's Bolshoi was the new production of Corsaire - so-so I thought - more a parade of fiddly dance show-offy bits than a richly compelling narrative, and the music left me unmoved; but I was so tired from only having 2-3 hours the night before (overnight train to Moscow from Kyiv) that I wasn't on my best.
I have tickets for Norma at the Novaya Opera tonight, but not sure I am in the mood for Bellini.
Hot things in opera and ballet this season? Well, actually I think this side of Christmas the Bolshoi is looking rather tame (apart from the 'Kings of the Dance'; a four night spectacular, which is sold out but scalpers are now selling tickets for about $300 each, but fortunately I bought mine ages ago); so I have temporarily transferred my affections to the Stanislavski-Nemirovich-Danchenko (theatre on Dmitrovka Pereulok).
I think their new ballet, 'Chaika' (based on Chekov's seagull) is very fresh and has some interesting music, including Scottish percussionist Dame Evelyn Glennie! [she has a great website! and an amazing life story] The production has a fine young cast and is another Moscow work for Hamburg ballet's John Neumeier, who did the Bolshoi's production of Midsummer Night's Dream and whose style of melding traditional with avant-garde, both musically and in terms of dance I think very intelligent and emotionally charged. Below is a YouTube piece from Kyltura TV on Chaika - it's in Russian, but you'll get a flavour of what this production is like:
Last week there, on the opera side, I just loved their Carmen: the tenor singing Don José, Mikhail Vekya, is just INCREDIBLE. He doesn't look how you imagine Don Jose to look, but the sound is extraordinary and he literally stole the show (there is a mirco-bio in Russian only here).
His final scene raised the hairs on the back of my neck and reminded me of another great Don José performance: check out José Carreras , from 1987 in New York, here.
The S-N-D is also organising 'Dance Inversion: international ballet festival' in November and I am going every night for about a week :) LOL
That's it for now from your Moscow arts correspondent!
...part of the resason for which may be the rise of Facebook. I have become a Facebook whore. It's incredibly addictive and just crystallizes how brilliant social networking can be. It has put me back in touch with school friends whom I would never usually drop an email to, randomly, but the fact I read their Facebook updates, and they mine, sparks a dialogue which otherwise would be lost. I think it genuinely adds the humanity back to the Internet (and, perhaps, in contrast, can make blogging look rather sterile). Facebook-is-conversation:-blogging-is-rhetoric kind of thing.
Anyway, as winter hits Moscow - grump - I will start blogging again. A random email conversation (the opera/ballet season is only just a week old):
Red Exile replying to a friend on Facebook:
Hi there. Yes the little angels getting me down yesterday. Jean Jacques [very French bistro on Nikitsky Boulevard, rapidly becoming expat heaven in the heart of Moscow] I haven't been to yet, but my colleague swears by it. I might check it out tonight! Friday's Bolshoi was the new production of Corsaire - so-so I thought - more a parade of fiddly dance show-offy bits than a richly compelling narrative, and the music left me unmoved; but I was so tired from only having 2-3 hours the night before (overnight train to Moscow from Kyiv) that I wasn't on my best.
I have tickets for Norma at the Novaya Opera tonight, but not sure I am in the mood for Bellini.
Hot things in opera and ballet this season? Well, actually I think this side of Christmas the Bolshoi is looking rather tame (apart from the 'Kings of the Dance'; a four night spectacular, which is sold out but scalpers are now selling tickets for about $300 each, but fortunately I bought mine ages ago); so I have temporarily transferred my affections to the Stanislavski-Nemirovich-Danchenko (theatre on Dmitrovka Pereulok).
I think their new ballet, 'Chaika' (based on Chekov's seagull) is very fresh and has some interesting music, including Scottish percussionist Dame Evelyn Glennie! [she has a great website! and an amazing life story] The production has a fine young cast and is another Moscow work for Hamburg ballet's John Neumeier, who did the Bolshoi's production of Midsummer Night's Dream and whose style of melding traditional with avant-garde, both musically and in terms of dance I think very intelligent and emotionally charged. Below is a YouTube piece from Kyltura TV on Chaika - it's in Russian, but you'll get a flavour of what this production is like:
Last week there, on the opera side, I just loved their Carmen: the tenor singing Don José, Mikhail Vekya, is just INCREDIBLE. He doesn't look how you imagine Don Jose to look, but the sound is extraordinary and he literally stole the show (there is a mirco-bio in Russian only here).
His final scene raised the hairs on the back of my neck and reminded me of another great Don José performance: check out José Carreras , from 1987 in New York, here.
The S-N-D is also organising 'Dance Inversion: international ballet festival' in November and I am going every night for about a week :) LOL
That's it for now from your Moscow arts correspondent!
Wednesday, 1 August 2007
"Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage"
As I was editing, with one of my analysts, a presentation deck we're giving tomorrow, he laughed and said I reminded him of Rowan Atkinson...strangely, he still has a job here...
...apparently he was referring to this, that he had found on YouTube:
I gather he was referring to my urging him to "give it [the presentation] some more sex and sizzle".
...apparently he was referring to this, that he had found on YouTube:
I gather he was referring to my urging him to "give it [the presentation] some more sex and sizzle".
Monday, 30 July 2007
Random email conversation today
From: [Red Exile]
Sent: 30 July 2007 08:22
To: [UK political mate #2]
Subject: Good grief...
Kitty Usher is a UK Government minister?!?!? She’s a sweetie but, really, is that the best New Labour can do now (is this the same mousey little girl who was a member of the ‘Floral Street gang’* in 1998 and who then hung out at Britain in Europe?) Gosh.
FT flash extract
‘Hassle of Heathrow’ takes toll on City
By Christopher Adams, Political Correspondent
Published: July 29 2007 22:03 Last updated: July 29 2007 22:03
London’s status as one of the world’s leading financial centres risks being undermined by excessive delays at Heathrow and the airport’s sprawling layout, the new City minister warns on Monday.
In her first interview in the role, Kitty Ussher has told the Financial Times that the government shares business concerns about queues at passport control, the effect of security measures and the airport’s set-up...
[The Floral Street gang, by the way, was a group of about 10 of us that met in an apartment in the London street of the same name. Lobbyists, a civil servant or two, a BBC political journalist, the poltical editor of a major national newspaper and some senior Tories from the City of London, we started a grouping that became the later somewhat doomed 'Britain in Europe'. This - oh burn out my eyes - planned to be...the 'yes' campaign for the UK to join the Euro...
...I will remember the night well because I arrived late having been at a Labour party fundraising drinks party at the swish home of a UK celebrity and where Cherie Blair was guest of honour (she and I discussed the nude portrait of our host...Somewhat socially odd. Halcyon days...]
From: [UK political mate #2]
Sent: Monday, July 30, 2007 1:15 PM
To: [Red Exile]
Subject: RE: Good grief...
The very same. She was Pat Hewitt's Special Adviser for a while 2001 - 2005ish, then became MP for Burnley in 05; became Hewitt's PPS, and now the heady heights of the Treasury. I think she is actually quite bright, and hopefully none of Hewitt's character will have rubbed off on her.
From: [Red Exile]
Sent: Monday, July 30, 2007 1:17 PM
To: [UK political mate #2]
Subject: RE: Good grief...
But she is ‘here kitty, kitty…’ sweet.
The City will at best ignore her; at worst eat her alive.
Poor wee thing.
Sent: 30 July 2007 08:22
To: [UK political mate #2]
Subject: Good grief...
Kitty Usher is a UK Government minister?!?!? She’s a sweetie but, really, is that the best New Labour can do now (is this the same mousey little girl who was a member of the ‘Floral Street gang’* in 1998 and who then hung out at Britain in Europe?) Gosh.
FT flash extract
‘Hassle of Heathrow’ takes toll on City
By Christopher Adams, Political Correspondent
Published: July 29 2007 22:03 Last updated: July 29 2007 22:03
London’s status as one of the world’s leading financial centres risks being undermined by excessive delays at Heathrow and the airport’s sprawling layout, the new City minister warns on Monday.
In her first interview in the role, Kitty Ussher has told the Financial Times that the government shares business concerns about queues at passport control, the effect of security measures and the airport’s set-up...
[The Floral Street gang, by the way, was a group of about 10 of us that met in an apartment in the London street of the same name. Lobbyists, a civil servant or two, a BBC political journalist, the poltical editor of a major national newspaper and some senior Tories from the City of London, we started a grouping that became the later somewhat doomed 'Britain in Europe'. This - oh burn out my eyes - planned to be...the 'yes' campaign for the UK to join the Euro...
...I will remember the night well because I arrived late having been at a Labour party fundraising drinks party at the swish home of a UK celebrity and where Cherie Blair was guest of honour (she and I discussed the nude portrait of our host...Somewhat socially odd. Halcyon days...]
From: [UK political mate #2]
Sent: Monday, July 30, 2007 1:15 PM
To: [Red Exile]
Subject: RE: Good grief...
The very same. She was Pat Hewitt's Special Adviser for a while 2001 - 2005ish, then became MP for Burnley in 05; became Hewitt's PPS, and now the heady heights of the Treasury. I think she is actually quite bright, and hopefully none of Hewitt's character will have rubbed off on her.
From: [Red Exile]
Sent: Monday, July 30, 2007 1:17 PM
To: [UK political mate #2]
Subject: RE: Good grief...
But she is ‘here kitty, kitty…’ sweet.
The City will at best ignore her; at worst eat her alive.
Poor wee thing.
Sunday, 29 July 2007
Cargo plane crash kills seven at Moscow airport
End of the 2006/2007 Bolshoi Season
Last week, having scored a front row seat from my usual dealer, I watched the fantastic end to the 2006/2007 Bolshoi season: the gala concert "all the stars of the Bolshoi ballet". It was an incredible show and a very high note on which to end a great season...no more Bolshoi Ballet now until October (!) - but they will be on tour in London and, I think, Berlin.
An orgy of YouTube discoveries follows [although, in truth, I am...ahem...unable to make any claims as that the permission of the copyright holders was always obtained, by the people who made these vids...oh well].
In the First Half, Maria Allash wowed us with her Aegina from Spartacus; while the prima ballerina goddess that is Svetlana Zakharova gave us her extraordinary solo piece, 'Revelation'
[choreography by Mitoso Hiroyama; to music by John Williams]
This is an extraordinarily beautiful piece I think (music by Yuri Khanon). The duet is between the sublime Natalia Osipova and Andrei Merkuriev; who is, IMHO, featured as a soloist not nearly enough by the Bolshoi. You can see almost the full Middle Duet here (performed in this version I think in Seoul, by St Petersburg's Mariinsky Ballet). BTW, the staging is supposed to start very dark, very dimly through the shadows...
That gay old trouper, Nikolai Tsiskaridze, and the dramatic Ilze Liepa, gave us their La Dame de Pique which I am coming to like (nothing on YouTube yet, sorry), although I find Tsiskaridze a little too hammy a performer for my taste...
The finale was Zhakharova and Denis Matvienko, and the full company, performing the Grand Pas from Don Quixote:
But since I am show-casing ballet on YouTube, I offer these two discoveries.
The first is a piece that captures Carlos Acosta, whom I mentioned recently, as he performed the lead role in Spartacus:
As well as a fantastic segment of Twlya Tharp's In the Upper Room (music by Philip Glass), which I watched again on 14th July, with I think the best cast rotation for this piece (including Denis Savin, Alexander Smoliyaninov, Natalia Osipova and Andrei Merkuriev):
An orgy of YouTube discoveries follows [although, in truth, I am...ahem...unable to make any claims as that the permission of the copyright holders was always obtained, by the people who made these vids...oh well].
In the First Half, Maria Allash wowed us with her Aegina from Spartacus; while the prima ballerina goddess that is Svetlana Zakharova gave us her extraordinary solo piece, 'Revelation'
[taken from Russian TV, I think, sound quality not terribly good]
[choreography by Mitoso Hiroyama; to music by John Williams]
In the Second Half we were treated to a performance of Middle Duet, a fantastic piece choreographed by Bolshoi Artistic Director, Alexei Ratmansky (who I think is really coming into his own now and nudging the Bolshoi to do some really edgy, raw and wonderful pieces):
[piece taken from Kultura TV]
This is an extraordinarily beautiful piece I think (music by Yuri Khanon). The duet is between the sublime Natalia Osipova and Andrei Merkuriev; who is, IMHO, featured as a soloist not nearly enough by the Bolshoi. You can see almost the full Middle Duet here (performed in this version I think in Seoul, by St Petersburg's Mariinsky Ballet). BTW, the staging is supposed to start very dark, very dimly through the shadows...
That gay old trouper, Nikolai Tsiskaridze, and the dramatic Ilze Liepa, gave us their La Dame de Pique which I am coming to like (nothing on YouTube yet, sorry), although I find Tsiskaridze a little too hammy a performer for my taste...
The finale was Zhakharova and Denis Matvienko, and the full company, performing the Grand Pas from Don Quixote:
[an illicit recording of a 2006 performance by Matvienko]
But since I am show-casing ballet on YouTube, I offer these two discoveries.
The first is a piece that captures Carlos Acosta, whom I mentioned recently, as he performed the lead role in Spartacus:
As well as a fantastic segment of Twlya Tharp's In the Upper Room (music by Philip Glass), which I watched again on 14th July, with I think the best cast rotation for this piece (including Denis Savin, Alexander Smoliyaninov, Natalia Osipova and Andrei Merkuriev):
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