Just Took Deliveryin МоскваSeptember 21, 2011

Well after about 4 weeks of endless paper shuffling, multiple times back-and-forth to the US Embassy, a couple of false starts and an infinite amount of personal patience (not my strongest quality – although better than Nancy’s) I drove our new car, a 2000 Nissan Almera gray 4 door sedan out of the motor pool parking lot. I immediately drove into a gut-wrenching traffic jam that would make a hardened New York commuter cringe.

The car has a couple of dents and a few small rust spots and the interior will need a little work but for $3200 it was a steal. I drove it off to work this afternoon and instantly ran into another crushing jam-up. I had mentioned in a previous post that you can sometimes see cars stand still for multiple red-green cycles before moving a few meters. It was one of those until I got on the highway and then it was clear sailing. The ride home was a piece of cake.

The concept of synchronized traffic lights has not been embraced by Москва. It seems like someone went out of their way to make sure the lights blinked on and off randomly to maximize traffic congestion. There are many Москва police officers about, especially during rush hour, but they never seem to intervene. They just stand on the corner and take in the sight of a massive 6-lane wide tangle of cars all moving close to 0 km/hr.

The word aggressive understates Russian drivers by an order of magnitude unseen in the US. Words like viscous, brazen, maniacal and brutal seem much more appropriate. They make New York or New Jersey drivers look like little old ladies going to church on Sunday. One thing that is the same is the use of horns. There can be 10 people in front of you huddled at a red light with the guy behind you leaning on his horn, cursing you out while giving you the finger. Luckily for me, after crawling down the FDR drive in NYC for more than 20 years I ignore the jack-ass behind me just like I do in the US.

Our car has a 5-speed manual transmission but in and around Москва the last 3 speeds are wasted.

We plan on using the car mostly on weekends to explore and go out to the big malls to stock up on supplies. The Megamall we go to has a Walmart-like store although 3 times as large as we’re used to, an IKEA and a Home Depot-like store called, or at least pronounced “OBI” Once we wonder out into the suburbs I’ll let you know how it is. And yes, I did buy a GPS. We just need to find out how to input Gruzinsky in Cyrillic. If you know please call me. Stay tuned…