Moscow Traffic Management

Okay, quick quiz:  What do the UN, NATO, African Union, EU and Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) have in common? Answer: When they are really needed to resolve a crisis, they become paralyzed.  I’m not suggesting that we go into Libya or the Ivory Coast with guns blazing, but certainly the restoration of law and order in these and other countries seem to be at the heart of what these organizations are all about.  Sanctions and strong language do not work. Concrete actions are required, especially went you are dealing with petty tyrants and nut jobs. Okay, so I guess I don’t have a career in diplomacy.

On a more relaxed level, here is a story that was told to Cindy by one of the ‘old timers’ at her school.

When some friends at the school first moved to Moscow in the late 1990s they were taking pictures with film (weren't we all).  After the roll of 24 was finished Bruce looked for a place to get them developed and was thrilled when he spotted a sign over a store that said Kodak.  He dropped off the roll and got a receipt.  Feeling proud of his progress thus far, he returned a few days later and was handed an envelope full of negatives.  Stymied but not knowing enough Russian to ask questions, Bruce took the envelope to the school secretary (who was Russian) to ask why he'd only gotten negatives.  Well, you have to ASK for prints.  So back he went to order prints, and a few days later picked them up - but there were only 18 prints out of 24.  Stymied again, he went back to the secretary, to be told that they only print the good ones!!
Even though we don't use film any more, this and similar stories are the norm here...

I took a very long walk today, and even though it is ten degrees cooler, it is bright and sunny and the sidewalks are clear.  I was in a more affluent area that has rather narrow streets when I heard this loud metal against metal sound.  Normally those sounds are preceded by the screeching of brakes, a bit of a crash, and then the crunch of metal, but not this time.  As I got closer to the sound I saw a big white bus, the kind that the military uses to move people around, blocking a T in the road.  Traffic was halted on all three sides of the T. Drivers were honking their horns even though they could see that the bus was not going anywhere.  It turns out that a new, very clean, bright red Honda Civic was illegally parked on the corner of one of the narrow roads.  That did not give the bus enough room to make the turn and the middle of the bus was wedged into the side of the Civic and couldn’t move.  Right on that corner is a café/ restaurant favored by the rich and famous and it always has a contingent of armed police and what look like body guards/secret service types in suits.  Three of the uniformed police came over, looked over the situation and tried to lift the Civic onto the curb. They could not move it despite their best efforts. Meanwhile the suits were getting upset that the only way in and out was now blocked, which from a security point of view isn’t good.

What came next I’m assuming could only happen in Moscow.  There was a quick conference, one of the suits went to the driver of the bus and said something and then the driver got into the bus, gunned the engine and proceeded to make the turn by knocking the Civic onto the curb. The bus kept going, traffic eventually cleared out and the Civic will need to have a new left side installed.  I would have loved to have stayed around until the owner showed up.

Dinner last night was a variation on soup and salad, except we didn’t have salad. Instead I heated some pre-prepared corn blinis until they were nice and hot. I then spread them with salmon roe paste, placed a sliced tomato on top and capped it with sour cream and a fresh parsley leaf.  The soup was Mulligatawny; at least that is what I called it. It was prepared with some fresh chicken stock, some vegetables that had been saved from other dinners, some rice from last night and extra curry for flavor. It all seemed to work well and my critic gave it a thumbs up.

We hope you have a lovely weekend, Cindy and Wm