Fairy-tale palaces, castles, even churches…. is it Disney-World?
No—it’s “Vernissage”—an amazing outdoor market in Moscow. Here you can find just about anything, from fur coats to icons to antiques….
And of course, the ubiquitous souvenirs: matryoshka dolls, fur hats, icons painted on eggs….
(Above: Colorful ladies collecting a 10-rouble entrance fee to the market)
It’s getting near Christmas (Orthodox, of course) and I have to find some presents. Also, have to get some warm gloves, since I lose a pair every year some time in early spring…. so off to Vernissage I go….
After having been a balmy 45 degrees Fahrenheit out for a couple of weeks or so, the weather finally decided to become more seasonably Russian, and today it was only 23 degrees out.
(Yes, these people are eating outdoors in 23-degree weather—Russians love the outdoors!)
I was dressed warmly enough with my heavy woolen coat with fur collar, and my goat-fur-lined gloves, but after only about a half an hour outside my feet suddenly felt in danger of frostbite: I had worn my waterproof but not very warm rain boots instead of my sheepskin-lined snow boots....
What to do?! Here I might lose my toes, while the hawkers in their stalls were standing there all day like it was nothing. What was their secret? Aside from the sheepskin boots, I decided it must be anti-freeze--Russian anti-freeze, that is: vodka. But where to get some here? Providentially, a man came along with a cart just then, peddling hot food and hot drinks. I looked at the drinks section--it looked just like the cart they bring down the aisle in airplanes. Amidst the coffee, tea, and juice, I thought I saw the tops of little bottles. I asked the man if he had any vodka. "Of course," he replied, smiling a great big smile adorned with the traditional Russian gold teeth. "Vodka or cognac?" Hmmmm.... I remembered that I got sick on cognac once, so I ordered vodka. "How much would you like--100 grams? -- 50 roubles," he added. I told him I couldn't think in grams... He started pouring vodka into a plastic glass and when he reached the contents of a shot glass (or less) I said "khvatit." "20 roubles," he announced. Happy that I got my quota for less than 50 roubles, I downed the vodka in a flash, and then began running down the long outdoor "aisles" to get my blood circulating.
Within about 10 minutes I could feel the magic start
to work: my feet began to feel warm again and the rest of me felt fine, too--slava Bogu! Was I relieved!
Right after the man with the vodka and hot food, I saw a tiny little old lady painstakingly shuffling along. She had no gloves and walked with one hand held out cupped, as if she were begging. I marvelled at how she could go without gloves in this cold, and as she looked up I saw that there was absolutely no eye in one of her eye sockets--just skin and a hollow hole. These are the Lazaruses you will never see in warm, cozy America.....
