Off to SPB

[Don't know if it's kosher in blogland to back-date posts, but I am going to try to reconstruct my trip to SPB in that fashion. I guess this is my space so I should be able to do what I want, right?]

I got up at 5am to get in a cab at 5:45 - the cabbie dialed up 120 km/hour pretty much the whole way, barely slowing down to blow through a couple of police checkpoints and getting up to 135 on the home stretch, so we got to Sheremetyevo-1 in about 20 minutes. He did stop at the stoplights, for the most part, but still it was one of those times when Russian "bespredel" (a term people here like to use to describe the lack of order here that's developed in the past 15 years, translated loosely as "lawlessness," in this instance in a relatively innocuous form) was exhilarating and refreshing - this happens often enough to merit a separate post.

In the Sh-1 business-class lounge (the one perk I've so far been able to gain from my "silver" status in Aeroflot's bonus program aside from checking an extra bag a couple of times), I put on the earphones of my mobile phone radio and observe somewhere between 25 and 50% of my fellow loungers taking advantage of the free bar to drink brandy at 6:30 in the morning on a Thursday. They might prefer to call it коньак - CIS-made "cognac," which can be Bely Aist (White Stork) from Moldova (described along with the rest of the Moldovan wine & liquor industry in this interesting Kommersant article, which is in English unlike some of the other links here); Ararat from Armenia; one of the many Dagestani brands; or, in a pinch (or as the free brand at an airport lounge bar), Moskovskii - although this site about the classifications of French cognac demonstrates that there are Russians who understand the difference. Listening to a melancholy techno-polka song about a girl who wants to learn just 3 guitar chords, so she can be “like Zemfira” - who has no doubt become a role model for a generation of young girls who wanna rock, and justifiably so - I sip coffee and then get some tomato juice.

The annoying obese guy in a dark-brown shirt and gold lamé (I mean shiny, but the spelling without the accent mark fits also) tie is gone now, so I can safely take off my earphones - I did that earlier and my ears were filled with his musings to some captive listener about how the Americans after “September 9th” [sic] should really have gone after the Chinese, etc...

But I won't stop the music, because another other hot song with an accordion loop - “Chorny Bumer” is now on. This song - by one Seryoga - has been a pretty big hit here, and the lyrics are actually a pretty good snapshot of what one imagines is the mood in this country outside of Moscow (and even in some of the suburbs of the capital). The song is all about a young guy growing up on the outskirts of the city, surrounded by hopelessness but delighted with his own situation at least temporarily because he owns the black BMW mentioned in the title. This is probably a better reflection of what the youth here today values - and a more realistic portrayal of the many challenges they face if they are not from a rich or well-connected family - than anything that the pro-Putin youth movement Идущие Вместе (Moving Together) can offer.

You should be able to download and listen to the song here - the combination of a decent, if basic, hip-hop beat and several elements traditional in Russian folk music is pretty interesting. Seryoga's debut album is called "Мой двор: спортивные частушки" - "My Courtyard: Athletic Chastushki" - the last word of the title is incompletely translated as "couplet," "ditty," "jingle," or "limerick," and describes a particular form of rhyming song traditional in Russian folk music. But the beat and the hard-core tone of voice are imported from the US, and they sing the praises of a German automobile. Globalization, indeed.