Moscow Top Secret

Sorry this took forever for me to post. Life got a little busy in December and then I went home for Christmas. But here it is, finally....


There are some countries I dream about visiting for their beauty and culture and experiences waiting to be had: Thailand, Peru, China, India, Lebanon. I can think about fifty others offhand. All it really takes to pique my interest is overhearing a conversation, a NYtimes article or a fabulous commercial on CNN. (LOVE travel commercials. My most recent favorites are Uzbekistan and Slovakia. The former I’m guessing doesn’t look at all like the advertisements, the latter I know for a fact doesn’t). Then there are other countries that aren’t high on the to do list. I don’t dream about sightseeing there or picture myself sharing romantic dinners with foreign men. Even if given a convenient opportunity, like being on the same continent, these are places I might not even spend my own money to see. But if I’m really honest with myself, I do want to see them, preferably on someone else’s dime, albeit for one simple reason: I’m likely to read about them quite regularly over the course of my life and its fun to know what I’m reading about.

Russia is one of the latter destinations.

The vastness of Russian history in Europe, its language and political power spreads far and wide. You can feel the remnants of it, from the way people speak badly of their former occupiers, to the Russian swear words used all over the former block. Obviously, the Cold War is over, the Soviet Union failed yet Eastern Europe is forever scared by the memories of communism. It doesn’t take a genius to notice the vestiges of a society that us Westerners cannot quite fathom. Less than twenty years ago, my teammate’s lives resembled the antithesis of all we hold sacred in America: individual freedoms, choice, free markets. As well as other basic rights we take for granted: political punditry and humor, shopping malls and television. They couldn’t go out and buy jeans, the government decided where they would live, what car they would drive, what milk products were available at the store. This might make me sound like an ignoramus but all this sounds like a movie to me. About the time that I was forging cryptic notes regarding orthodontist visits and skipping class, members of my teammates families were being shipped off to Serbia for forced labor or restrained in the KGB torture prison down the street from my apartment in Vilnius. This really does sound like a movie.

If I think about the history of America in the last fifty years, there are events that have affected my life specifically but mostly through other members of my family. Of course, if you want to get philosophical about it, a butterfly flapping its wing in Asia will no doubt alter the course of history, mine and everyone else in the world. But, in all reality, America has been fairly sheltered from the rest of the world’s problem, some of it simply because of geography. Of course we’ve had our share of wars and tragedy and many people have had to sacrifice for the ills of the world. But, at least for my generation, everyday Americans have lived their lives with very little significant change. We’ve seen tragedy and terror but for most of us, sacrifice consisted mostly of longer lines at airport security and our water bottles being treated like dangerous weapons. Despite George Bush in office, our political system has maintained itself through trying times and while civil rights for all were a long time coming, our standards for equality far exceed the rest of the world.

From years and generations of believing in freedom and equality, Americans have gotten a little bit entitled. In many ways this is fabulous: the belief in oneself, the drive to make your life how you want it, the courage to decide your own fate are all wonderful qualities. But the right to buy gasoline at $1.50 while the rest of the world walks or builds public transportation infrastructure or drives small fuel efficient cars, is a direct result of entitlement going a bit too far. Its great to think your country is the best place in the world, it’s another thing to think that it’s the only great place in the world.

My teammates here don’t worship America but they have noticed some things that they envy and have told me so. They like that you can be who you want in America, that there is so much diversity and acceptance that you can dress how you want, listen to what you want, without feeling the need to conform. I made sure they realized that this is true to an extent. Another teammate commented on how relaxed we are, how we don’t worry so much what other people think. I told her that from the moment we are born, we are taught we are free and that we have rights and that ideologically at least, we are all equal. I’m not immersed in their culture enough to make broad generalizations about what Lithuanians are taught but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t have anything to do with being entitled seeing as twenty years ago they couldn’t even travel outside their own country.

In my experience and with my tendency to vastly over generalize, Eastern Europeans are more stoic, less outgoing, dare I say colder in comparison to the rest of Europe. They don’t necessarily make small talk, they aren’t especially affectionate, and smiling and getting to know new people don’t seem high on their to do lists. This all sounds like a very cynical view on the whole region but I don’t mean it that way. It’s almost like shyness more than anything intentional. Because once you break the ice, they are extremely nice, hospitable people. They just aren’t very demonstrative about it. It’s quite understandable, however, once you hear what it was like to live under communism.

Its interesting how different cultures admire different behavior and therefore perpetuate these behaviors. For example, the idea of the individual in American culture is a strong one. From style to individual accountability, from a meritocracy to counterculture music and clothes, conformity is not en vogue. For example, Americans might say, the squeaky wheel gets the oil; in other countries they might say, “the tall reed gets cut down.” I have to say however, a KGB torture prison on the main street of town would make me think twice about being ‘a tall reed.”

Which brings me to the American mindset, which includes a distinction between rules and laws. In keeping with the theme of vast generalizations I would say that Americans respect laws but realize that rules are meant to be broken (i.e. school attendance). Some places I’ve been to lately seem to think the opposite; Rules are important, laws are not so much. Americans believe in justice, in following our constitution and laws (except when it comes to jaywalking or arcane laws like kissing in public on Sundays) but rules, rules are meant to be got around by whatever clever means necessary. It’s like a little game to exercise the corrupt part of all of us that gets suppressed in order to avoid jail. Maybe this comes from believing the government is of the people instead of against them. Because some places, they don’t want to break rules but when it comes to laws, you are always one bribe away from getting out of punishment.

So back to Russia. As I said earlier, Russia (aside from St. Petersburg) hasn’t been high on the travel list. However, I’ve have wanted to see it so that when I read Tolstoy or Dostoevsky I know what they are talking about.

We left Lithuania on a Wednesday afternoon on a direct flight to Moscow, anticipating a short flight but a long drive. Stories of Moscow traffic and Louis Vuitton stores, emanate all through eastern Europe like urban myths; the amount of gridlock and luxury stores growing exponentially each time the stories are passed on. I would soon see it for myself.

We arrived in Moscow, only to wait 30 minutes for the team bus, which was predictably stuck in traffic. An unidentified man had been traveling with us since Vilnius and after offering him some of my crackers, I asked my teammates who this guy was. In between, translating words like ‘money laundering’ and ‘shady’, I understood that this man is a friend of the owner of the team we are going to be playing. The team (Spartak Moscow Region) is the richest team in the world, notorious for its wealth and the suspicious rumors circulating around it. Its owner, whom I’ll call Mr. S, pays astronomical sums of money for players and apparently is a former Israeli and Latvian spy. He owns hotels and restaurants in Riga, got rich with oil money and has suspicious connections that no one can really explain. Apparently, he owes Lithuania favors because the government granted him a passport after he was a spy. I mean really. So this guy that is traveling with us, is not only the godfather of one my teammates, but he’s also a good friend of Mr. S. He apparently orchestrated an arrangement where Mr. S financed the Lithuanian national team (this is where the ‘money washing’ got translated). Five minutes into my trip to Moscow and I already felt like I was in a fusion of ‘the Godfather’ and ‘007.’

So the bus arrived and we settled into the lap of luxury. The Spartak team bus, to be distinguished from the Spartak team plane, met us with huge reclining seats and a cameraman who got important footage such as us loading and unloading our bags. This led me to comment that Mr. S just likes to think up ways to spend money. My teammate, Noel, who played for Spartak briefly, told me I had no idea.

We drove through the cold, dark Moscow night, with nothing much of interest until we passed the ubiquitous international McDonalds, with letters that looked like they were written by a dyslexic Greek. We sped along in our luxury bus, past snow covered trains whistling through the frigid night, smoke stacks billowing in the industrial area, and finally through the center where gorgeous elaborate buildings were lit up in the distance, mostly likely either parliament buildings or cathedrals. I really did feel like I was in a Russian novel. Then came the expected plethora of communist apartment buildings; this is one visual that I’ve exhausted. I’ve seen enough ugly Soviet buildings in Eastern Europe to last a lifetime.

I remember going to the Goodwill games in Seattle when I was about ten years old. My dad had suspected that I kind of liked basketball a bit, so he’d gotten us tickets to see the USA women play the Russian Women. I didn’t really understand the political ramifications of the competition, and if I’d heard the term ‘cold war’ had probably thought it had something to do with temperature. I did know that Russia was a long way away, if only because their expressions were sour and their jump shots were of the foreign looking variety. It’s safe to say, I never really contemplated that I would venture there someday, and probably never once thought that it would be for basketball.

These days, however, Russia is the top country in the world for women’s basketball. I’m not quite sure how this happened except I know the words, ‘oil’ and ‘mafia’, come up quite often. Some teams budgets would probably compare closer to the NBA teams than a WNBA one. Well maybe not that much. Maybe half of an NBA team. Still, that is saying a lot.

Hours later, we pulled up outside the posh hotel, also owned by Mr. S, and checked in to our $400/night hotel rooms. The hotel was nice but being fifteen miles outside of the center of the city, or 2 hours in traffic, it seemed a little expensive. Welcome to Moscow, where Starbucks is 8 dollars.

I settled in to eat in the hotel with a “Moscow Times”. I read about the Mayor of South Ossetia’s assassination, and about the murder trial of Anna Politichka, the author gunned down in the elevator of her apartment after writing about government corruption in the Kremlin. I don’t expect newspapers to be uplifting with stories of puppies and new borne babies but along with all the other weird stories circulating around me, lets just say, I wasn’t reading the paper with rose tinted glasses on.

To add to the weird Russian ambience, the other top team in Russia had folded the day before. Apparently the owner went bankrupt and fled the country, leaving all the players without a single payment for the year. My agent’s wife plays for this team and she had just left for the USA that morning.

My current coach had coached in Russia for a few years and really had nothing nice to say about the country. In fact, no one does. He says its all about money and totally corrupt. For so long, the rich of the country have literally had money flowing out of the ground. They would make large contracts with players, knowing that all they had to do was sell some oil. The money was never ending. Until now of course.

The game was ridiculous, meaning I don’t really want to talk about. The most notable part was that after the game, an MVP from each team got $500. Another way Mr. S has figured out how to spend money.

I went to eat with my agent after the game, catching up on news from Greece, talking about my team and career, and asking about life in Moscow. He talked about how corrupt Russia is (a continuing theme) and how everyone is out to screw everyone else all the time. Coming from a Greek, this is quite a statement.

All the players in Moscow have a personal driver so they don’t have to brave the crazy traffic alone. So while we are inside eating sushi, my agent’s driver is sitting outside in the car listening to sports radio. It felt really weird. I’m like ‘is he going to join us.” I’m not used to having people at my service.

Later I joined my teammates in the hotel room for girl talk. This consisted of more rumors and suspicious stories. Mostly the topic of discussion was who on the opposing team was a lesbian, who was dating whom within the team, and all the drama that surrounds these situations. Twelve women working in close proximity day after day promotes enough drama; it doesn’t help when some of them are sleeping together.

We also discussed passports. European teams generally have a limit on the number of foreign players they can employ. European Union country residents are not considered foreigners. So, generally the term applies to Americans, Canadians, and Australians. Most leagues limit foreign players to two. Spartak has six.

There are obviously a few ways around this rule. One is to get married to a European and apply for citizenship. This is not a popular option for a number of reasons. Another way is to drum up some European ancestry; the actual lineage is debatable depending on the individual countries restrictions. A third way is to have lots and lots of money and connections.

So one of our foreign players is actually Bulgarian. In addition to being black, she’s not at all Bulgarian. But she did play for Spartak last year and they didn’t want to count her as one of their two foreign players. So Mr. S went and bought her a Bulgarian passport, with the agreement that she will play for their national team. Now she is on loan to my team for the season. As a result, she isn’t supposed to play against Spartak. In the last game with them she played, but since we were winning, the Spartak coach looked over at the opposing bench and told my coach to take her out of the game. So weird.

The next morning we ate breakfast at the hotel. Us Americans were still a little bitter about the fact that we had missed Thanksgiving the day before, but really enjoying the fact that the hotel had American pancakes. Afterwards, we packed up and left the Moscow suburbs for the center of the city. There was very little snow left and I’m sure the temperature was uncommonly warm but we all bundled up for our day excursion: wandering around red square. But first we got a stern warning about keeping our bags close by; par for the course in every tourist stop in every city in the world. But then were also reminded to keep our passports handy at all times in case the KG…er, police stopped us.

We first stopped to take pictures by St. Basil’s cathedral, which reminded me of a gingerbread house that was besieged with Hershey’s kisses. It really is quite spectacular. The colors and magnificence and detail are a bit out of place in the drab surroundings of Moscow. It kind of reminded me of walking down the streets of Barcelona: building, building, building, oh shit there’s a Gaudi. But this was even more unexpected and exciting because I don’t think you are supposed to smile in this country much less create enjoyable architecture.

The Kremlin was cool to see, as was the tomb of Lenin but would have been cooler if I could have seen his embalmed body. We walked around a bit, took lots of pictures, tried to stay warm, and then finally gave in and went to the mall. If you want to know more about Red Square, there’s lots of info on Wikipedia. Shakira sang there once. Oh and the Nazis marched through…. But I mean really, where didn’t they?

I’m not a mall person. I generally try to avoid them in fact. I’m not sure if it’s the tarmac style parking lots or the food courts with a mandatory Orange Julius and Cinnabon. I think ultimately though, it’s the concept that gets me going. Like we need to build big monstrosities in the suburbs so that everyone has to drive. They are like Mecca for commercialism and play right into our increasingly lazy existence in America.

I’ve found malls to be nicer in Europe, but that might only be because obese people aren’t balancing plastic trays of 800 calorie cinnamon rolls and ventie frappuccinos. By the way, I love it when I hear people ordering things like ventie light mocha frappucinnos, or grande vanilla frappucinno with no whipped cream, sugar free carmel.

But I digress. I went into the mall in Red Square with low expectations obviously. I had heard good things about it. But to me, hearing good things about a mall is like hearing good things about a science fiction movie; I know some people that would appreciate it, I’m just not one of them.

At the very least, I was hoping to check out some mafia guys shopping with prostitutes, buying absurdly expensive jewelry and lingerie. No such luck. Kind of disappointing really. But the mall was impressive. In fact it was unbelievable. It was constructed from normal streets. The buildings had all been restored and painted a milky cream color. Above us was all glass windows that had enclose the street but left the natural light to stream through. It was beautifully decorated for Christmas and every store looked classy and simple and obviously out of my price range. I passed Gucci, and Chanel, and Louis Vitton before I got dizzy and quit counting the luxury stores.

After a few laps around the world center of opulence I checked out the bathrooms. Not quite up to par I’d have to say. On my international Richter scale of bathrooms, a ten being the Olympic Four Seasons with lotions and plush hand towels, a zero being Turkish toilets in almost every gym or gas station in Turkey, this was about a 5. Just nothing worth noting. No one handed me even a paper towel, I had to get it myself. But there was toilet paper. Writing about mediocrity is so boring.

Soon it was time to get back on our moving palace but since this is Moscow, we ended up waiting out in the freezing cold for thirty minutes while the driver was stuck in traffic and/or drinking vodka around the corner. As luck would have it, there were some limos with wedding parties parked along side the street in front of us. This happens every thirty seconds at Red square by the way; it’s THE place to go for pictures.

I know all this because I was reading an essay in my travel book on Russian weddings. Like I said, I like to read about the places I am going, will go to in the future, or will never see in my life. So I read about the myriad traditions that Russians employ over the course of a wedding week. Its sounds very complex, with lots of vodka drinking and something about stealing the bride and having the groom pay to get her back, real 21st century kind of stuff.

Anyway, the main point of the story was that wedding parties like to go to St. Basil’s cathedral for pictures and they like to drink vodka. As far as I could tell from the two groups beside me, huddling around the limo and passing around cups, the author got the traditions down pat.

Since we were still standing there in the freezing cold when one of the parties returned from pictures, the bride insisted on taking a picture with us. My teammates were ambivalent, which Lithuanians tend to be. I was jubilant, which I tend to be. This time I had a reason though, since I had just read the story, I thought having a picture would really tie the experience together. Plus we looked ridiculous in our bright orange adidas coats. The bride kind of did too though. I’m not sure what it is with Europe. They haven’t quite caught onto the classy bride trend. The dresses all look like giant doilies to me.

My American teammate came back from the mall with a Louis Vitton purse she had been eyeing. The $500 MVP cash from the night before was burning a hole in her pocket. Though the purse was $775, she drew the line at the attached keychain ($300). The shopping bag it came in was nicer quality than a lot of purses I own.

I don’t get the Louis Vuitton fascination. Its ugly. I wouldn’t use a bag from there if someone gave it to me. I’m not kidding. It reminds me of dog feces with baroque designs across it. And the white version is even worse. It looks like something that would come with a Rainbow Bright doll or a My Little Pony. I don’t know how the brand got to be so famous. (and yes I did just use Rainbow Brights and My Little Pony in the same sentence).

Finally the bus came and we thawed out on our way to the restaurant. I was told we were going to eat A@#$#^#^&%# food, so I nodded and replied with my requisite ‘great idea’. The establishment was another in Mr. S’s empire so we were shuffled through the restaurant, past the kitchen, and out the back door. Interesting.

Eventually we made our way through the literal forest in the back to a small gazebo. In fact, there were several such small buildings, each one catering to a group of people. Inside our hut was a feast of food in vibrant colors. My first thought was that this was WAY better than turkey and mashed potatoes. My second thought was that the people at the restaurant were smiling. Weird. We are still in Russia aren’t we?

We all crammed into the long table and began gorging ourselves on the buffet. My young teammates were fighting over the Soviet soda pop bottles from their childhood in fun flavors like tarragon (gross) and peach (manageable), while I kept gesturing to the godfather at the end of the table to please pass down the bottle of vodka. But because there are rare times when I actually show self-restraint and don’t do what I really want to do (get hammered on Russian vodka in Russia), I only had a few shots. So all my self-restraint was used up and there were piles of food in front of me. AND it was the day after Thanksgiving, which genetically predisposes me to over eat.

It got ugly. The food was so amazing and forthcoming that our whole team left the restaurant not wanting to ever see food again. It started out okay. There were huge displays of fruit in front of us, plates of cucumbers and lettuce and radishes, appetizers involving eggplant and beans. Then there were plates of cheeses and meats (ever tried horse meat?). But the real problem was two fold. First of all, the bread was unbelievably good. It was still warm from the oven and soft and fluffy and Frisbee sized. The second problem was that we were all full from appetizers.

But then the main course came which consisted of meat; lots and lots of meat. They only brought two platters to the table but the platters were each the size of a Smart car (small for a car, but big when discussing meat consumption). In fact, I think they might have brought two lambs to the table since each platter consisted of ribs and chops, kebab and liver. I tried everything except the organ that serves as the dust mop of the body. It was amazing.

Since I am really smart, I eventually figured out that we were eating food from Azerbaijan; the food is almost identical to Turkish cuisine, which explains everything on the table with the exception of the refreshments. This also explains why the people were smiling and relatively friendly.

I did smuggle out a shot glass. It was thrilling actually. In America, it’s just not that exciting to steal something from a restaurant. Its like built into their budget and no one really cares. What are they gonna do, arrest you? But Russia is a different story. Who knows what they would do. I’m not sure what got into me but I’m pretty sure it had something to do with all the corrupt stories I was hearing. I think I kind of wanted to get in on all the action. Too much talk of spies and mafia. It was my 007 moment.

All for now but I’ll write soon. FYI, I left my team in Vilnius and am now playing for my old team in Athens (Panionios).