The Story Behind the Name, Part Two: Moscow Metro

Yesterday’s terrible tragedy on the beautiful Moscow metro has had me thinking about my own experiences on it, specifically my first impressions.

You can catch up on part one of the story behind the name of Birchtree Photography in Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears.
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Foreigners

Mom had us put on our Sunday best, as she usually did: cute, matching dresses, shoes, and even an Easter hat to complete the look. We left our apartment, the steel door slamming shut behind us, and we made our way to the entrance of our metro station, Konkovo (Коньково). An old woman–a babushka–bends down with a scrabble of sticks tied together for a broom and sweeps at trash and dirt along the steps leading to the station. We push through the grimy glass doors, and a blast of stale, warm air hits us in the face. My sister and I try to pay with some old brown tokens, but the bosomy babushka guarding the turnstiles waves us through without a smile. Down the creaking escalator we ride a relatively short decent to the station platform.

Bleak florescent lights serve as a sun in an oval-shaped concrete sky. Except for a few dark figures scattered about the station, we are alone on a Sunday morning. Tracks line either side of the platform with large, red numbers on the far ends counting the time since the last train left. Gradually, we hear the noise of an approaching engine, like some beast emerging from a winter’s hibernation. Two lights beam from the dark tunnel’s recesses, growing slowly larger. Then, almost without warning, a blur of blue rushes loudly into the station, sending a fresh blast of stale air into our faces. With strange precision, the train comes to a stop and the doors slam open, as a crackling woman’s voice mutters the station name. A few people file out, and then we step into the carriage.

It’s a slow morning, and we see several empty spaces on the flat brown benches facing each other along the sides of every car. My sister and I sit down together next to an old man, my legs not long enough to reach the ground. Mom and Dad stand and hold on to the handles and greasy poles for stability.

Every eye fixes its focus on us.

Growing up, we were told it was rude to stare. Apparently, that was a lesson not taught here. Everyone stared at us, thoroughly looking us up and down–old babushkas with woolen shawls, scruffy men with matted hair, middle-aged women with worn shoes. The only shame was ours, as we continued to endure the silent, shocked eyes. I had never experienced such profound, unrelenting embarrassment, and all I wanted to do was shrink to an invisible size and slip away. Alas, we had only just begun our day’s journey through Moscow, and I knew we’d have to return by the same way.

What seemed to our American culture as an ordinary thing to do–dress up for church–became the most bizarre site any rider on that metro train had ever seen in their life. We were so obviously foreigners that they couldn’t help but stare. The bright colors of our clothes, the nice shoes (to them) that my sister and I wore–they had never seen anything like it. My first taste of culture shock was so strong that I would forever take great pains to blend in as much as I could.

I laugh now about the incident because I can see just how comical we must have appeared to those poor Russian metro riders. Now, of course, we would probably not stand out as much as we did then, but those were the early days of the new state. Foreigners with their strange clothes were still a rarity. Fortunately, I would have many positive experiences of Russian culture, one of those being her old forests–but that is another story altogether.