After arriving at 6am we started walking instead of taking the metro figuring on finding Internet along the way. Several miles later I spotted a Hilton across the street so we went and asked for the business center like we owned the place. It was not open yet so we cleaned our shoes on the automatic brush, used the facilities and grabbed some oranges and drinks off the table of the group that just left after morning orientation, then walked back out the front door.
A block or so later we came across a license plate that had been knocked off a car. It was in a frame with a wire front and took some doing to get it out without a screwdriver but I was successful in acquiring Ben a souvenir. Boris insisted we could sell it for a lot of money but he was going to take it to the police. Ben had me quickly pack it away before Boris could take it.
All over Moscow we see signs promoting families. They have a negative growth and are worried about the future without young people. The government has told everyone the Mormons are a cult. We should run our family adds to improve our image. Another mile later we finally found a post office. They all have Internet. It would open in 15 minutes so we sat on a park bench and I read my American newspaper from the Hilton.
Just a couple of observations. Cigarettes are under fifty cents a pack so a lot of people smoke. The orthodox church has a government granted monopoly on sales of cigarettes and get all the profits, go figure. Russians shake your hand when they meet you but only shake hands when leaving if they are not going to see you again. We are expected to take off our shoes in all the homes and the church. We took the metro to Red Square and went through Lenin's tomb. We couldn't take backpacks in so Ben waited for me while I went through then I did the same for him. I followed two rude teenage girls who dress was offensive and had to be shhhhed by every guard in the tomb. Lenin looks great. Hasn't aged a day.
I sat down on the ground outside the gate to wait for Ben. When a guard saw me he came over and ordered me to get up off the ground. OK, I did. We met up with Ryan who has been staying at another family's home and took a train to Sholkava, Ben's favorite area. He had called ahead and made arrangements to see a family there. We had to walk about a mile from the train but this was a neighborhood of houses rather than apartments. They have no objections to building nice new homes in the middle of old ones. It seems everyone owns a dog, even in the apartments. Ben pointed to a sign on the fence and told me it says "mean dog". I went over to the fence and sure enough the dog behind the six foot fence began having a fit. I reached my camera over the fence and snapped a couple of pictures making sure to keep it high enough the dog couldn't get to it. After a few wrong turns we finally found the members house but they were not home.
Ben had brought two baseball gloves and three balls for the family. All week he had been saying how anxious he was to get rid of them. Ben and Ryan threw a ball to each other in the dirt road until their arms got tired then Ben decided to go try to talk someone into letting him use a cell phone. They wouldn't let him use it but someone called the family for him and soon the family came home. We stayed the night with the family. They live in the back of a home that has been converted into a triplex. It is small and dilapidated. There are pipes and wires all over and the wallpaper is worn and old. When it was installed many years ago they didn't bother to trim the ends so some pieces go for 8 inches or more onto the ceiling where others just make it to the top of the wall or a few inches more. They probably don't even see it anymore. He installed an on demand water heater but there isn't enough pressure to turn it on so they heat up water on the stove for a bath/wash. I chose to forgo the hot water and took a cold bath. Not really a bath since I just washed my hair and splashed enough water on me to soap down and get it off. Ben says all of his apartments had the hot water tied to the boiler that heated the building. When they shut off the heat to the building they were without hot water until fall.
The father has a good job as a warehouse manager over three warehouses. He makes about $1000/month and his wife sells insurance on the street for another $800. They are middle class. Few people here own a car. In the US they would qualify for housing assistance, food stamps, earned income tax credits and who knows how many other government programs. Our unemployed poor live in better housing, eat better food, wear better clothing and drive better cars than Russia's working middle class. For dinner they fed us a pasta dish with pumpkin and hamburger mixed in.
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