By Peter, on April 24th, 2007
1120pm sitting in a wagon at Kievskaya station (central Moscow) with several other youngish folks. Doors still open waiting to move off toward Smolenskaya station one stop down the line (also central Moscow) and a purposeful, intelegent looking lady in her mid 50s steps in. Announcing to the whole wagon and to nobody in particular ‘is this central?’ (Eto v senter?).
Being completely ingored was to be expected with a question like that on that train at that station as we were in the center of Moscow on a train line with several central stops either side of our station one of which is the end of the line. So in short she was already in the center and only going to stay in the center or stay on the train and head out of the center.
Anyway the whole carrige kept blank faces or continued thier conversations only to be interrupted by a now agressive and not so intelegent looking lady repeating her question only louder, ‘is this central?’ (Eto v center?).
Another pause with still no answer saw her demanding, ‘answer my question!‘ (atverchaet moi vopros).
The guy opposite me broke the impass and asked her politely, ‘center of what?‘ (Kakoe v center?)
Snapping back, ‘center of Moscow!’ (vsenter Moskva).
Still politely the guy replied ‘this is the center!’ (eto vsenter Moskva!)
Realizing that she wasn’t going to get the information that she was looking for she got off. The guy didn’t say anything after that, just looked as amazed as I think I looked wondering what the hell just happened there.
Moscow Metro is great!
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By Peter, on April 16th, 2007
We had a prett long day today. The day started out with three early school lessons to catch up on the four days that we missed last week after our car tour around the Golden Ring. The lessons when down well enough that he earnt himself to a trip to the movies to catch the latest Mr. Bean. For dinner we had a massive bowl of Spag Bol which took a bit longer to make than expected. So by the time it and the strawberry ice cream desert (unusual treat) were gone we had one tired kid on our hands. Unfortunately our tired kid had trouble getting to sleep.
To isolate him from the sound of the TV and my tapping on the computer we put him down in our room. About an hour later we crept in to check on him and straigt away he rolled over and said “counting sheep doesn’t help!” What a sweet kid! Mum advised him to try with his eyes closed and within 3 minutes it did the trick.
Nigh-night Richard. 
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By Peter, on April 4th, 2007
Today I dropped into an upmarket supermarket Azbuka here in Moscow. A brand new location for this famous chain but none the less they managed to fill it up with cashiers with diplomas in antibusiness majoring in organizational destruction.
As I aproached the line of shiny new cash desks I was faced with a choice of at least five neatly uniformed young to middle aged cashiers. How to choose? Well the cashier closest to me was an easy option which I soon regretted. As I placed my 112ruble ($4.35) loaf of freshly baked wholemeal bread on the conveyor she caught sight of the 1,000 ruble note that I was preparing to pay with. . . . This is where the troubles started!
Quite calmly but matter of factly she announced ‘Without change I won’t’ (bez zadacha, ya ne budu)! Quite often it is the case that shops run short of change but it’s just as common for the cashier to ask for small change quite politely, even in Russia. So I showed her all the small change I had, which wasn’t enough of course and we stood staring at each other wondering who was going to break sentense next. I knew if it was me she would come off much worse.
Before long she said, ‘give me the 10 rubles’ refering to the note that she saw in my small change. I handed it over knowing that it didn’t help her reduce the amount of change that she had to give me. Snatching it from me and angrilly punching the amount into the key pad was expected and acceptable behaviour from her now so I let it slide without incident. Next though was different.
When she opened the till to place the money and get the change I noticed that there was money of all denominations in plenty sufficient quantity for our transaction. Here is the exchange that followed:
[Me] Rudely but not as bad as I could have been ‘what’s that’s not enough?’
[Her] Point blank ‘If I give this to you then there will be nothing left for the next customer!’
[Me] ‘There is plenty there so what was the point in telling me that without change you won’t sell it?’
[Her] No response, just a stupid direct stare.
[Me] Still calm but getting ruder ‘this is complete rubbish, not my problem and anyway doesn’t mean you have to talk like you did!’
By this time I had my change, had made my point and was on my way with my toasty warm and expensive bread. Looking back the cashier was of course recounting our conversation from her perspective to the remaining cashiers.
Each time I make it through an incident like this I think, how much money can a good well run business with polite staff make in this town???
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