Tuesday, December 12, 2006


For those who are still following my updates

well, I got news! Great news...to be cynical..

I got fired!

No shit! well, I guess I had to experience that strange feeling once

so why not in Russia! quite unexpected!

I got two weeks to find something otherwise I'm going back home!

Miss Network is doing her best to write impressive coverletters

or should I do as shown above...the good old announcement

I'll keep you posted on the result...

Thursday, December 07, 2006



What a fight!

Struggling against the wind on your way to the Subway Station with the cold biting through all the layers of your clothing including your beloved coat – the only one you took! God bless Woolrich!
You hardly look at people, ‘cos your eyes are crying from the cold but yet, you still see them, all these ladies, (running with there high heels on the ice covering the sidewalks - while you’re trying to stay alive with your timberlands), shaggy as a bear, florid faces from the cold, but obviously warm in there long fur coats.

You finally got to the Subway Station, but now you sweat: quick! Unbutton! Unzip! whatever you can, just to catch your breath but here comes the train…strategically run to the front wagons - sweat even more!, you might catch a seat … even though – depending on the time of the day - chances are low! To the contrary, chances you’ll get squeezed in quite violently, facing some soviet compatriot who’s breath is unbearable, are quite big! You can’t really move, so you stay put, looking at your shoes! No way you can take out your small vocabulary booklet now, and use the time to learn some words. With the crowd moving in and out you might make it under his arm, which is not a better situation. Everybody puts on his METROFACE (that means, no expression what so ever, or pretend to sleep). Your luck depends on where you work…As for me...i got to hold it for 25 min! Quite a challenge, believe me!

The speaker announces your station, Fight your way out – because everybody has the tendency to bloc the entry - Button up, scarf on, gloves… quick!…to fight your way through the cold again….up to your overheated office!

back to French Upates

Au bout d’un mois, la ville prend forme, on la connaît aussi bien dans les méandres des couloirs creusés par le metro qu’à la surface, sur les grands boulevards qui renvoient une image encore très sérieuse, du passé..de la grande histoire!

Les relations prennent forme aussi, au fil des rencontres, on se découvre affinités..mais dans mon cercle, pas de russes! Trop ou pas assez, qqch…j ai encore beaucoup de peine…ou peut être eux avec moi? (je reviendrai la dessus)
Au bout d un mois, les habitudes s installent, elles aussi! de facon sournoise! Mais je ne me relancerai plus dans un essai sur les habitudes et le besoin d’en avoir…

Je découvre encore bars et boîtes, je filtre l’afisha, le journal culturel, à l’affût du concert, de la soirée..je le lis attentivement pour ne pas que le cyrillique me trompe…l’offre est bonne même si je ne suis ni à Londres ni à N.Y! ..j’avoue avoir frémis tout de même plus d’une fois à l’écoute de certains mélodies bien placés par dj moscovite bien renseignés…
peu d endroits sont payants – à part les concerts – mais on y pratique un très aléatoire “facecontrol” (encore plus convaincant en cyrillique). A ceux qui pensaient que se faire refouler de la SIP à minuit, bien qu’accompagné, était une aberration purement genevoise…vous auriez de quoi vous énervez ici aussi. Surtout après avoir traverse la ville en taxi, quoi que… la plupart du temps,les hommes peuvent rentrer, les filles aussi…mais à la maison!

La nuit moscovite est multiple et il est bon même recommandé d’abuser…certains endroits exclusivement recommandés pour se mettre en jambe et d autres, mythiques, pour les fins de soirées décomposées où je me suis surprise en train de me déchaîner sur des tubes russes…. Les taxis “sauvages” vous emmènent pour trois fois rien d’un bout à l’autre de la nuit! a nouveau, quelques lignes de plus pour plus de perspicacité dans l'argument..promis, bientôt

Les habitudes consommatrices dévorantes des moscovites nouvellement riches justifient le 24h/24h… 7/7, bien évidement! Concept américain largement adopté ici: shopping jusqu’à 22h, courses le dimanches, resto a 3h du mat..
Alors quoi de plus normal que de finir son week-end, dans un dinner (à l’américaine) serveuse blonde en jupette et reebook montantes vous demandant en un parfait anglais si la viande de votre burger, vous la voulez: “well done”, “medium” ou “medium rare”!!

Tuesday, November 28, 2006


Commonplaces...

1- a bit of a cliché, but definitely has to figure at no 1: when drinking many Russians really just don't get the concept of stopping at your limits and will try to get you as leathered as they are. (I m speaking as an experienced person since I had my first bad, very bad experience with vodka last Thursday)

2- ladies, shaggy as a bear with florid faces from the cold, but obviously warm in there coat are wearing fur. All of them wear fur! If not a coat then hats, trim on garments and boots. Mink, fox, sable, seal… you name it. I don’t think that wearing fur is of any cultural statement anymore

I will come back later to this Commonplaces column
With fresh ideas
















For a very short moment yesterday, about 15 minutes not more, I saw the sky: blue followed by the sun...and maybe, for I wasn t sparkling with happiness Mother nature decided to treat me with a rainbow...imagine me running wild in my appartment to admire that rare beauty under all its possible angles, with all my cameras and filters ready to fix it...

Then, well... Business as usual
greyish fluffy clouds covered the sky again
dusk and fog
always

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Tunes....
musical journey with Ivan

the Mosthigh must have heard me..
finally found a great music shop...
my selection below, influenced, i admit, by the cold temperatures

tita lima
- 11:11; tropicalia mood, Brazilian funk, mellow and pleasurable album (best cure for lack of light and warmth)

Tutti Moreno Feat.Joyce - Magica
; outstanding mastery of samba jazz

henrik schwarz - dj kicks; tracks that ooze class & imbued with style. It is a mix
for your mind, body, and, most importantly, SOUL

dj jazzy jeff - hip hop forever 3 - same formula
mixed and brewed by the Magnificent himself..sit back, relax
and enjoy yourselves....

Monday, November 20, 2006


Like a clock, our lives come in a full circle back to the point were we started. So you might believe that my daily life in Moscow is very different...but I cant stop noticing how much I’m repeating myself…there is something about repetition in life… ( Rhythmically repeated movements were a presupposition for the origin of our life – sorry for being a smartass – let’s say I’m just giving you a little insight in my thoughts, sometimes very different from my very superficial considerations on street fashion…So I guess that the repetition of everyday rituals sets our daily course.

All this as an introduction to my original thought that was about
"Breaking habits" – or how fast human beings need to create habits to feel reassured, I guess!

So here I am, with quite a few newly created moscovite habits which my
Sense of decency wont let me list here! One of them, though, – you can “admire” above – is to take the same picture of my neighbourhood each morning when I wake up and each evening before going to bed…
Another habit, that I miss a great deal is listening and searching to some new tunes. The ones among you, who know me and my musical taste please do not hesitate to provide me with your fresh and updated playlists… I will be very thankful for it…

Thursday, November 16, 2006

this is it..yes!
by minus 5C
everybody telling me that this is only the beginning
five times worst in a month.

I wont lie..it's not easy to live in this big city and
the cold, the people and the language do not make
it easyier...it just takes a lot of energy...so for the moment
I'm still adapting...

Monday, November 13, 2006

Moscow's girls..


Everybody I know always admired London girls for travellin’ light - to put it in a nice way or in other words - to brave the cold and unfriendly weather in London with their extreme high heels, no tights and their short, scary short skirts.
Well, I got news for you. Girls in Moscow not only run half naked under their fur coats across snowy and already icy November sidewalks wearing high heels with alarming dexterity but they also barely perspire in their fur coats on the metro.
Guys, the general consensus holds that Moscow’s metro scores higher on the babe-o-meter than any other metro in the world…

Friday, November 10, 2006



Welcome to the land of the Petrodollars profits!...
Where a fair is organized for the millionaires…


The statistics present it this way: "officially"3 new millionaires a week in Russia. Allow me to express it in another way: in the national currency a million is worth a very modest 37,000 USD. Hopefully, the organizers targeted some of Moscow’s (dollar) billionaires. After all, with 25 of them in the 2006 Forbes list, Moscow comes second in the world only to New York, with 40!
I read somewhere it would be a very low key event..but I don’t believe in discrete sophistication “à la russe” neither in understated elegance as I wrote earlier.
so I guess the famous concept LESS IS MORE doesn’t really match with the Russian society
mmh..
Photos de rue

Thursday, November 09, 2006

too many people...really! i allways thought london and paris were exhausting after 2 days..but Moscow is on a complete other level!
12 mio inhabitants, plus 10 other mio from outside coming in every day...everyone, please enjoy your small little towns and your 10 min walk to the office while I get squeezed in the subway!!

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

first impressions after 48 hours..

Ice cold temperatures and snowflakes!
the kind of cold that bites your face…
I’m all covered up like an Eskimo going fishing, and I must admit it, I like it!

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If Europe, and I mean here, the Occident…is all about low fat-low carb, no smoking, no cholesterol, no sugar… you would love to be here,in Moscow, where excess is tolerated, what do I say, celebrated!

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and If fashion around the European capitals is deceptively simple – long live the Russian opulence and show off! A real feast for my hungry eyes.

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Welcome the land of the extremes…guys, girls, please take a good look at a Russian map…
And you’ll get it instantly. I’m not gonna bore you with a geographical class here but bear in mind that European Russia is bigger than any other country in Europe...so is there ego too..

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Everybody here is "manager", or doing "bizniss" or if worst comes to worst...they are into marketing....but don't ask them to explain...