Does it make sense when somebody wishes you Happy New Year and Merry Xmas?

Of course it does!

Does it make sense when somebody wishes you ONLY Happy New Year and nothing else?

In Russia, or in the ex-USSR, it does. Since 1917, Bolsheviks had a hard time re-writing the culture and traditions.They could not eliminate Christmas altogether, therefore they created New Year (two in one) – New Year with Christmas traditions, without baby Jesus and nativity scene.A little bit of history)

Traditionally, New Year’s Day in Russia fell on September 1, which ended Russia’s tax year. In 1700, in an attempt to westernize the country, Russian ruler Peter I moved the holiday to January 1 according to the Julian calendar. Therefore Christmas fell on the 7^th of January (if you translate Julian into Gregorian calendar and New Year fell on the 14^th of January by the same logic. Russia was 13 days behind the world, but the proper sequence of events was preserved.

The New Bolshevik Russia started using the Gregorian calendar in 1918, leaving the Church, which kept its Julian calendar by 13 days behind.

Between 1919 and 1937, the Bolsheviks banned public celebrations of New Year’s Day, calling it a bourgeois holiday. It became a non-labor day again in 1947. The Christmas traditions became adopted as New Year traditions. Santa Claus with its Russian equivalent of Grandfather Frost and his granddaughter Snegurochka (Snow Maiden girl) slowly became adopted into New Secular Year traditions.

The Christmas Eve became New Year Eve. The presents were left under New Year Tree (read Christmas Tree) or exchanged at 12am on New Year Eve. Christmas itself, on the 7^th of January became a non-event. Communism won, but so did secularity. The New Year was embraced and celebrated by everybody religion withstanding. For better or for worse, Jews, Muslims, Russian Orthodox, Catholics celebrated New Year with a real gusto. Even Ramzan Kadyrov (a President of Chechen Republic, the one who approves Isis) remembers with nostalgia the Grandfather Frost, who turned out to be his uncle coming from the next village to bring the children presents.

Which religion are we talking about anyway? The “Opium for the Nation” (Definition of Religion by Lenin) was abolished in 1917. If Communism as an idea gets buried forever, deservingly so, I want to have only one thing left  – New Year celebration as a unifying celebration.

I would love to celebrate Hanukkah, but having had no Jewish religious upbringing, I am also a stranger to my own celebrations. My religion was interrupted through three generations. I don’t know Hebrew and believe me, English translations of Hebrew prayers, don’t make sense. If I were back in Russia, I would be like a fish in the water – New Year and no mistakes, lots of room to wiggle, no traditions to understand. There was also a tradition in USSR enjoyed by every kid from the age of 5 till the age of 13. There were New Year performances in the theatres, Houses of Culture, local clubs. At the end of the performance the kids were given little presents containing chocolates, mandarins!!! (in the middle of winter), waffles and many other yummy treats.

But I am in Australia and that’s how it is. We give presents for Christmas for our Christian friends and for New Year for our Russian friends. At the same time I appreciate the fact that we are so free to celebrate anything we want, that every religion has its niche here.

One strange thing about Australian New Year is the hot weather. For the first year in Australia I resented the hot weather, I missed winter, frost, snow, the atmospheric feeling of a “proper” season. Having lived in Moscow from 2005 till 2012, I realised there was no proper season. Who would miss the Moscow fireworks only seen from the Red Square or from the tall buildings around, which are not many. Who would miss the snow treated with special salt to make sure the snow looked like an undercooked porridge? Who would miss obligatory ceremony of taking off their shoes and putting on the “tapochki”/slippers when entering Moscow apartments for celebrations.

But I still miss Russian New Year – the hot beautiful food, the numerous TV shows lasting for 24 hours, the presents given by Grandfather Frost (The Most Non-Drunk Male at Midnight – pretty hard task) and the children promising this Grandfather Frost that they would behave so well next year, that they deserved all of the presents given to them by Most Non-Drunk Male at Midnight. Russians or rather ex-Soviets do the same here and we enjoy it very very much. Having Russian TV handy is a good and cheerful help.

Since our parents died and there is no 1^st of January lunch and dinner visits (soon I will start stealing my granddaughter for the 1^st of January), 1^st of January for the last 4 years feels for me like a 24 hours long flight on the plane. No care in the world, you feel you are in a certain time capsule where everything is taken care of.

I start my 1^st of January with a splash in the swimming pool, cutting the Russian salad (nobody tells me how to cut or what to put there – many variations) and with a bottle of champagne. Reading, watching Russian TV, what could be better than this? That’s the only hedonistic day, I allow myself once a year. And every year I hope the time capsule would take me to the better places…

In 1988, when we were staying as refugees in Rome, we managed to get to St Peter’s Cathedral to watch midnight Christmas Mass. It was the most beautiful singing performed by the boys’ choir and the most amazing feeling there. One felt that something magical would happen after the Mass finished. And it did. We came out to absolutely transformed Rome. The were 2 or 3 snowflakes in the air, the night was so starry, the most beautiful women wearing unseasonable mink coats were coming out from the houses with the most handsome men wearing long cashmere coats,  with the most beautiful children all laden with presents. Everybody were saying to us “Buon Natale”. Everybody was happy. Obviously their Grandfather Frost arrived just in time…Long live traditions! The most beautiful ones, of course.

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Alghero

We flew to Alghero from NYC in August 2003 and left behind the biggest and fattest Jewish wedding celebrations, which warranted the biggest and strictest 100 years of dieting.

We also left behind the biggest blackout in NYC, one of the biggest in history.

We flew red eye to Heathrow, then to Rome. From Rome, the small flying device looking more like a dragon-fly, than a serious flying device carried us to Alghero, in Sardinia. I remember coming in and out of the deepest sleep during the flight. I remember the schoolchildren screaming English words in my ear (I guess to impress us), I remember one of them tapping me on the shoulder and saying very softly : “Guarda, this is very, very, very fantastico!!!” And “fantastico” it was. The bluest skies and the bluest water and the most picturesque coast were approaching us with the speed of light(dragonfly). I have never seen anything more beautiful. 

We picked up our hired Polo. Out of habit my husband started to drive on the left side of the road. The driver on the opposite side of the road was from UK (the chance of one in million), he was also driving on the left side of the road. We were pretty lucky. After giving each other the wild stare of the instant survivors, we switched the sides and went to the meeting point to pick up the keys from the landlord who, in accordance to our Sardinia “matchmaker”, spoke perfect English. No English, of course, but after my “perfect” Italian we finally understood the directions of how to go to our villa. Villa it was not, it was a very rudimentary house with one bedroom and a tepid shower. We had 5-6-10 hours of uninterrupted sleep. The only thing we knew, when we woke up, that we were in the deep of the night with no hope to eat anywhere. We drove our Polo to the city centre and were pleasantly surprised that at 1am all restaurants were open and bustling with life…

When we woke up the next day and saw the garden with all possible fruit and vegetables and whatever God created in 6 days (read the Bible), after our landlord/ (ressa) brought us clean towels and pots and pans, I decided the Garden of Eden was here, forget the tepid shower.

We spent our first full day in Alghero.

Three rules in Sardinia concerning food:

1) The breakfast (murzu in local dialect) – Expect almond cakes, pastries stuffed with panna, local honey, artisanal yogurts, pecorino made from Sardinian sheep’s milk, prosciutto e salsiccia, and of course proper, grown-up coffee to wash everything down

2) The lunch (pràngiu) finishes early and you feel that at 1pm you don’t want to eat anyway after such big breakfast. Don’t be fooled by the current state of your stomach…

3) The restaurants open for dinner (xena) at 8pm. By this time you are ready to eat a whole pig, a whole fish or both of them stomach permitting.

There is a reason we stopped in Alghero and not in Porto Cervo  even though Porto Cervo is more famous by its luxury, aristocrats, and Berlusconi/Putin duet happening annually.

Therefore a little bit of history:

Alghero pronunciation: [alˈɡɛro]; Catalan L’Alguer, pronounced: [ɫəɫˈɣe], locally: [lalˈɣe]; Sardinian: S’Alighèra; Sassarese: La Liéra), is a town of about 44,000 inhabitants in Italy. It lies in the province of Sassari in North Western Sardinia.

The name Alghero comes from the medieval Latin Aleguerium, meaning stagnation of algae. The Catalan Language is co-official in the city, unique in Italy.

The area of today’s Alghero has been settled since pre-historic times. The so-called Oziere culture was present here in the 4th millennium BC; while the Nuragic civilization was present in the area around 1500 BC.

Due to its strategic position in the Mediterranian Sea, Alghero was built around a fortified port, founded around 1102 by the Genoese Doria family.

The Doria ruled it for centuries, apart from a brief period under the rule of Pisa (1283–84). In 1353 it was captured by the forces of the The Crown of Aragon under Bernardo di Carbera in 1372, following several revolts, the indigenous Sardinian and Genoese population was expelled, and Alghero later grew in numbers because of the arrival of Catalan colonists. In the early 16th century Alghero received the status of King’s City (ciutat de l’Alguer) and developed economically.

The Aragonese rule was followed by invasion of the Spanish Habsburgs. Their dominion, ending in 1702, brought some stylish elegance to the city. In 1720 Alghero and Sardinia were handed over to the Piedmont based House of Savoy. Around 1750 a wide channel was excavated to improve the defensive position of the peninsula. In 1821 famine led to a revolt of the population, which was cruelly suppressed. At the end of the same century Alghero was de-militarised.

Since then, Alghero has become a popular tourist resort. It is interesting that Sardinia was the last country and Alghero was the last town in the world to submit to feudal law, several years before it was abolished all over the world.

In Alghero, a dialect of Catalan is spoken, introduced when Catalan settlers repopulated the town after the Crown of Aragon conquered the city from the Genoese in 1353 and subsequently expelled the indigenous population,

We travelled a lot around Alghero – swam in the cleanest beaches in Mediterranean sea – my best recommendation is Santa Caterina di Pittinuri beach near the little town of (you guess) of Santa Caterina di Pittinuri.

Forgive me Australia, we have the best beaches, but they are too cold for my frozen European body. Santa Caterina beach is the warmest, the cleanest the “I want to stay here forever” beach. We had the best gelato in the town, for which we had to climb up 300 stairs (hate climbing) to reach the fortress gates. Mind you, most of the towns in Sardinia are built like fortresses due to many attacks from numerous neighbours.

We also drove to Tharros – a hometown to Phoenician settlement.

From the 8th century BC, Phoenicians founded several cities and strongholds on south west of Sardinia; Tharros, Bithia, Sulcis, Nora and Karalis Cagliary. The Phoenicians came originally from what is now Lebanon and founded a vast trading network in the Mediterranean. They settled along the South Western coasts. Sardinia had a special position because it was central in the Western Mediterranean between Carnage, Spain, the river Rhone and the Etruscan Civilization. The mining area around Iglesias was important for the metals lead and zinc. The cities were founded on strategic points, often peninsulas or islands near estuaries, easy to defend and natural harbours. The cities were administered by Plenipotentiaries, called Sufetes.

After trying to absorb all this information, we asked our guide where we could have some dinner (6pm)?, he looked at us as we were indeed early Phoenicians. He said, that everything in Tharros opened after 8pm after siesta.

We decided to drive to Oristano , did not see much because of the ever growing hunger and decided to go back to Alghero. When we stopped at one of the petrol stations (AutoGrill) we were pleasantly surprised by the quality of coffee and the food. By the way, any petrol station in any point of Italy has excellent coffee.

Also, as a matter of interest, Sardenia does not have autostradas (toll roads), only motostradas (toll free roads), where the speed of driving is very undefined. Driving on the right side of the road was our prerogative anyway.

Next day was dedicated to Porto Cervo. We were dying to know what was there, which was not anywhere else in Sardinia, what makes Putin kiss Berlusconi with the ardency of a young lover and stay there for weeks…

We drove there for 4 hours and discovered that it was – Nah, nyet, really nothing.

Porto Cervo seemed like a small portion of KitchenAid mix of Beverly Hills and Monaco, even cafes were scarce and shops, well, in Double Bay they are definitely better. There are no sidewalks there, hello Palm Beach!) The villas, real villas were behind high walls and to really appreciate the city we simply had no chance.

A little bit of history):

Porto Cervo (Italian pronunciation: [ˌpɔrto ˈtʃɛrvo]) (Deer’s Port in English) is an Italian seaside resort in northern Sardinia.

It is a fraction of the area of Arzachena. Porto Cervo village is the main centre of the Costa Smeralda. It was built by Prince Karim Agha Khan, together with the other investors. Porto Cervo has a resident population of 421 inhabitants. In a study released by the European luxury real estate brokerage Engel & Völkers, Romazzino Bay in Porto Cervo is the most expensive location in Europe. House prices reach up to 300,000 euros per square meter. In 2011 Costa Smeralda had the second, the 4th and the 6th most expensive hotels in the world, the Pitrizza, the Romazzino and the Cala di Volpe Hotel. In 2012 the Hotel Cala di Volpe, which is featured in the 1977 James Bond film The Spy who loved me is listed at number 7 on World’s 15 most expensive hotel suites complied by CNN Go in 2012. The presidential suite of the hotel billed at US$32,736 per night. And we are saying Intercontinental in Double Bay is expensive)!

After such uneventful day (we did not even meet Berlusconi) we returned home to pack – next day we were flying to London, only to discover that we had people in the “villa”. There was a family of our landlords, cooking for us a farewell dinner.

They were very disappointed that we could not eat their local delicacy roasting suckling pig, so they made the most delicious pasta con vongole instead. There were lots of cheeses and fresh figs, local wines and of course, limoncello, (a must to bring from Sardinia along with the local coral jewellery).

Mama, Papa and two kids spoke to us in a mix of Sardinian dialect, Italian and English. The food and the wine dissolved any language differences…Cicadas were singing in the background. The trip was ending with the saddest feeling that we needed another 3 days to fully enjoy Sardinia. Is it not the best trip, then? The one, which makes you want more and more? Very, very, very, Fantastico!

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This is one of the most breathtakingly beautiful places on earth, and virtually any building in the large historic center, threaded with canals dotted with baroque bridges, can be considered an attraction—and indeed, it is a UNESCO World Heritage site. This is a magical city, with a long list of major attractions. Its Hermitage Museum, housed in the Winter Palace of the Romanov Dynasty, is both one of the world’s greatest and oldest collections of art, treasure, and antiquities, and one of its most beautiful buildings.

If it was my first time to visit St Petersburg, and I did it now, in 2014, as a foreigner, I would say wow!!! – “Such a beautiful city, placed in the middle of a very different looking country. It is a Venice of the Northern Europe, no more and no less!”

Summer and Winter Gardens, Hermitage, Peter and Paul Fortress, it is a Disney Land of the 18th century Europe, no more and no less.

I was born in USSR in 1960 when St Petersburg was called Leningrad. In the annals of history we studied, St. Petersburg had been the capital of Russia. The Government was overtaken by The Temporary Government in February 1917, the city was renamed Petrograd in the proper Russian way. It was later, overtaken by the Bolsheviks on the 25th of October 1917. It was renamed Leningrad to commemorate the most loved leader of the working people. Is that it for the history of St. Petersburg?

I will tell you the story from the point of view of a very little girl who grew up in USSR, who was familiar with the officialdom of the history of the country, who knew nothing better, than to trust in the open and to doubt in hiding, who learnt studiously the history and tried to discover the facts behind the lies.

Leningrad to me, was a dream, to finally come true. When I was 12, my school chose the “chosen” ace kids to go to Leningrad school for an exchange for two weeks. I don’t know, what my city of Belgorod could offer for this exchange, apart from the warm weather, but an exchange it was.

We went in a bus via the outskirts of Moscow (Moscow Outer Circle Road), through one of the oldest cities of Russia, called Novgorod (New City, no more no less, of 1220 AC), and straight to the city centre of Leningrad. The ride lasted for two days. When we approached the city centre of Leningrad and we saw the most beautiful cake/bread shop, we behaved in all honesty like a herd of wild tigers let free by Putin into China (not so long ago). The people in the queue asked us whether we were from Moscow, in the same way people from San Fransisco would ask a rude misbehaving person in a supermarket queue, whether he was from New York. We settled in the old school gymnasium, and after two days of riding on the bus, we fell in the thick of the sleep slumber. Straight on the floor mats which was a plenty. For 5 consecutive days we had dozens of excursions all of which, tried to reconcile the history for us with the history of communism, via the history of Peter The Great, who built the city on the swamps in 1703, via Decembrist movement (first aristocrats-rebels) in 1825, via the serfs liberation reforms in 1861, via the first failed revolution in 1905 and via the second successful revolution in 1917…Via relocation of the capital to Moscow and via the siege of Leningrad which lasted 3 consecutive years – from 1941-1944 inclusive. These 5 days gave me my first sense of pride – I saw the most beautiful city in the most beautiful country in the world.

These 5 days inspired me for the rest of my life to look for a beauty in my life, to find a place to live, which was not anymore offensively ugly. Forget Western Siberia, and Belgorod (a little after that, I lived in Moscow, Roma, Vienna, and …Sydney).

My second visit to Leningrad happened during perestroika, in 1986. It was in January, in the coldest January since 1941. Coincidentally, it was 45 years since the start of the siege of Leningrad. I was sent to study some obscure accounting software for some obscure computers made in USSR. It was bitterly cold in the dormitory of the University of Finance where we all stayed. But it was the time of perestroika, and the genie of the evil spirit of Stalin was let out the bottle. Leningrad, once again, became the vanguard of everything progressive. We went to the concerts of “Time Machine” (Mashina Vremeni – prohibited in Moscow), to the lectures of Vitaly Korotich , the editor of “Flame” (Ogonyok), the most readable and the most progressive weekly edition in USSR. The old age communists whistled and booed him at this lecture.

We listened for the first time to the Poem “Babiy Yar”, prohibited since 1960-s and read by the Soviet poet Evtushenko. And look, we were not arrested. It was another country, elevated by hope and by love to “thy” neighbour.

My third visit to Leningrad happened after Putin came to power. He is also from Leningrad. By that time, the city was called St Petersburg. It was a rather neglected city, aged beyond belief, but nevertheless beautiful. It gave away an impression of past glory and not so much of the future. The new cafes and coffee shops, however, were bursting with life and witty interiors. The canals were frozen, the winds were strong, the bridges were the same – I counted them again and again. But the Hermitage desperately needed renovation and the buildings looked like they also needed a facelift.  The main feeling was that the decadent, progressive city evolved into a city chained and waiting to be released when the time was right.

Yet again it became the city of Gogol and Dostoevsky, depressed and physically unwell.

Since the early noughties, St Petersburg became more radicalised, more homophobic, more racist…For the Russian people to become racist, there needs to be a heating from inside to the point of explosion. When there is no steam outlet there, the kettle whistle never whistles. It is called displacement in psychology.

A little bit of history:

Saint Petersburg was founded by Peter The Great, on May 27 1703. Between 1713–1728 and 1732–1918, Saint Petersburg was the imperial capital of Russia. In 1918, the central government bodies moved from Saint Petersburg (then named Petrograd) to Moscow. It is Russia’s 2nd largest city after Moscow with 5 million inhabitants..

Saint Petersburg is often described as the most Western city of Russia, as well as its cultural capital. The Historic Centre of the City constitute UNESCO protected cultural site.(8000 monuments are UNESCO protected). Saint Petersburg is also home to Hermitage, one of the largest art museums in the world.  Louvre and Hermitage are still competing for this title.

Peter the Great was interested in seafaring and maritime affairs, and he intended to have Russia gain a seaport (“window to Europe”), so it could trade with maritime nations. He needed a better seaport than Archangel, which was on the White Sea to the north and closed to shipping for months during the winter.

During its first few years, the city developed around Trinity Square on the right bank of the Neva, near the Peter and Paul Fortress. However, Saint Petersburg soon started to be built out according to a plan. By 1716, Domenico Trezzini, had created a project, where the city centre would be located on Vasiliyevsky Island and shaped by a rectangular grid of canals. The project was not completed, and is evident in the layout of the streets. In 1716, Peter the Great appointed Jean Baptiste Alexandre De Blonde as the chief architect of Saint Petersburg.

In 1725, Peter died at the age of fifty-two. His endeavours to modernise Russia had met with opposition from the Russian Nobility —resulting in several attempts on his life and a treason case involving his son. In 1728, Peter II of Russia moved his seat back to Moscow. But four years later, in 1732, under Empress Anna Of Russia, Saint Petersburg was again designated as the capital of the Russian Empire. It remained the seat of the Romanov Dynasty and the Imperial Court of the Russian Tsars, as well as the seat of the Russian government, for another 186 years until the October Revolution of 1917.

In 1825, the suppressed Decembrist Revolt against Nicholas I, took place on the Senate Square in the city, a day after Nicholas assumed the throne.

The Revolution of 1905 began in Saint Petersburg and spread rapidly into the provinces.

On 1 September 1914, after the outbreak of WW1, the Imperial government renamed the city Petrograd, meaning “Peter’s City”, to remove the German words Sankt and burg.

In March 1917, during the February Revolution, Nicholas II abdicated both for himself and on behalf of his son, ending the Russian monarchy and over three hundred years of Romanov Dynastic Rule.

On November 7, 1917 (Julian Calendar, October 25), the Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, stormed the Winter Palace in an event known thereafter as the October Revolution(there was not much to storm, to tell you the truth), which led to the end of the post-Tsarist provisional government, the transfer of all political power to the Soviets, and the rise of the Communist Party. After that the city acquired a new descriptive name, “the city of three revolutions”, referring to the three major developments in the political history of Russia of the early 20th-century.

During World War II, Nazi Forces besieged Leningrad following the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. The siege (“blokada”) lasted 872 days, from September 1941 to January 1944.The Siege of Leningrad proved one of the longest, most destructive, and most lethal sieges of a major city in modern history. It isolated the city from most supplies except those provided through the Road of Life across Lake Lagoda. More than one million civilians died, mainly from starvation. Many others were eventually evacuated or escaped, so the city became largely depopulated. My own father’s auntie survived the siege, but died 10 days after from the consequences of food deprivation. Shostakovich dedicated his longest and the most famous 7th symphony to Leningrad and the people living under the siege. It was completed in December 1941 and is called Leningrad.

In 1960 they opened Piskarevsky Memorial with the words engraved at the entrance:

“From the 8^th of September 1941 till 22^nd of January 1944, there were 107185 bombs dropped at the city from the planes, 148478 of live ammunition, 16744 people were killed, 333782 wounded, 642803 persons died from starvation.”

There is a permanent heartbeat of the metronome upon the entrance to the cemetery. The diary of Tatiana Savicheva whose whole family died from starvation during the siege, is displayed in two pavilions of the cemetery. The diary is eerily similar to the diary of Anna Franck. Maybe all human suffering is eerily similar?

The wars and revolutions, this city lived through, makes it one of the most suffering city in the world. And yet, the soul of Leningrad is not destroyed.

It might have hardened, bit it lies in waiting for the winds of freedom coming its way…See you soon, one of the most beautiful cities on Earth…

My love, my youth, my dream 

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Life offers to us the chores and also little things we enjoy. Shopping is one of those little things. It is up to us to make it a chore, a source of anxiety or of a marital discord.

But…there are circumstances, when this little joy could be killed by the background noise of the relationships and “its complicated”☺ matters. I would only try make an attempt to generalise what I know, the cultures I am familiar with. Generalisation assumes a bias of error, lets say, of 20%. Generalisation assumes offence, which is not intentional here, but nevertheless, an offence, for which, I apologise.

I only tried to write on behalf of the married and single women because I have been both…I only tried to write on behalf of two cultures I know. It took me the whole month to wrap it up in a non-emotional, non biased☺ form and shape… Without a further ado…I will try to describe the shopping habits in Russia and Australia. Generally, there are ways we shop, and they could be categorised as

1) Couples shopping – married (first wife), de-facto

a) Russia:

Generally, Russian men could be stingy but they are embarrassed to admit to it. Usually, during husband/wife shopping, the stronger part would whisper to the wife, of how difficult the life is, and that  he might lose his job tomorrow, that they (the family) would not be able to  go on holidays in Turkey, that the mortgage payments would be made  impossible because of this single shopping bag, that life would stop and sun would never shine again.

b) Australia:

Generally, Australian men would tightly hold their wives hands when passing the shops. Some would think it is out love, some would think it is out of control☺ Sometimes, the wife is “allowed” to enter the shop on her own, without a wallet… 5 minutes after inspecting the goods she would come back with a line –“ I will come back when I am on my own”.

Sometimes the women would just fly in and come out with – “I have a table waiting (at the café)”; “my hairdresser’s appointment is in 5 minutes” (I know perfectly well, that this particular hairdresser could wait for another 10 minutes). The best excuse I ever heard was – “I left my 1 year old at home – he is there by himself!” I did not know whether to call a  police, or just let it go as the best invented excuse ever☺. I took a second  option.:)

As much as Sydney is a champion of excuses, it is, at the same time, a champion of expenses. To afford  a decent rent or a mortgage in Sydney, a couple or a single person would have to earn 100k per year. There are  no dreams of going to Turkey with the expenses like this. I tend to agree  with the husbands, – only if they did  not whisper – “How many shoes, bags, dresses, would one person need?” In my opinion, it is a very wrong thing to say to your wife…

Well, well well, after all of the  obstacles tackled, and the the holy of the holiest is reached in the form and a shape of a cash register,– the  husbandless (for 1 hour) wife would say, – “Please do not wrap it, I will put it in the boot of my car/in my bag and will bring it home unnoticed”. Sadly, I have been there, and I have done this. There are beautiful exceptions, though, in every  culture… I noticed, that most Asian Australians would usually shop together and the husband would help to choose the clothes for his wife. He would insist on buying more than she would choose. Do they buy more than the others? I think, the result is still the same, but the backdrop of the marriage is different…

2) Couples shopping – second marriage

For all cultures, however, when the couple is in their second marriage, at least one partner has learnt the mistakes of the first marriage, at least one of the partners would have mellowed, and would become more generous towards the other half, and would have realised that not everything should be about control. Hard lesson though…

3) Shopping with the mistress

a) Russia

Generally, Russian men could be stingy, but they would be extremely embarrassed to admit to it at the presence of a mistress. They would not be able to tell a mistress that they might lose their job tomorrow, that this long awaited business trip to Paris would not happen, that the diamond ring in Place Vendome would be lonely without its rightful owner. In most circumstances, mistresses have their own credit cards. In most circumstances, Moscow shop managers have separate files for the wives and the mistresses. God forbid them to have the wires crossed over ever…

b) Australia

In Australia we are much more moralistic than in Russia…I am sure, affairs do happen, but the blatant shopping in the same city?!!! Never…, but let me think…:)

4) Shopping overseas with your better half.

a) Russia

Generally, Russian men are very generous when overseas. The credit card payments are far away, Bacchus is pouring champagne even for breakfast, lots of mistakes could happen, but restraint is not one of them…

b) Australia

When we go overseas, we are all penny pinching, wives including. The savings on Chanel bags are heavily outweighed by the price of the tickets… Sightseeing, excursions, thats where we are generous – we need  it, we live so far away…En plus we are a very curious nation…

5) Shopping overseas with your sinful half

a) Russia

The sky would be the limit. There is no immediate family in the vicinity of 5000  km, the phone is not working properly, the time difference and the roaming charges allow for 5 minutes calls only to the immediate family. The diamond ring in Place Vendome finally claims its rightful owner.

b) Australia

We are led to believe it does not happen ☺

6) Shopping with your girlfriends – the same for all the cultures

Usually, young and unruly girlfriends culture is no Sex in the City. Beware when shopping with the friends. Will they tell you the truth? Maybe…If its  an ugly straightforward truth. None of us could be Natalia Vodianova, therefore, the truth is almost always not pleasant. The truth gets better by the age. We soften up and become kinder to each other.

7) Single women shopping on their own;

a) Young women working hard and still living with their parents.

Usually, they are very generous to themselves, life is young and good, there is always somebody to prop them up without any judgement passed;

b) Women working hard and living on their own.

The lesson is very hard – she is living away from her parents, expenses become exponential, she becomes very careful with the money and with the  spending.

c) Single and successful women.

The spending is limitless. There is no control anymore. She has lost weight, has joined the gym. Every time she tries on clothes she might think about sending her selfie to her ex…☺ Might she? Maybe not, she just found her main object of desire, – herself.

That was my weak attempt to generalise our shopping behaviour. It does not matter whether the country has more of the feminist history, than the other (Russia has had women working in the mines, women performing brain surgeries, women-famous mathematicians for the last 120 years). The question of co-dependable spending is quite complicated. I had a young Saudi Arabian woman in the shop, who shooed her husband out and told him to get some coffee and wait for her outside. He was smiling.

Go figure! I think the answer still lies in the areas of control, quantity of money, and wisdom to know that money is not the solution to all the problems, …but the true love is.

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When we first visited Korean Fashion Week in Seoul in 2009, the experience was similar to Taipei Fashion week of 2014, with the only exception that Seoul is a major hub city in the world, and Taipei is more provincial and quaint.

We were met by the interpreter in Hotel Rivera, which is pronounced by Koreans as Ribera, to do with [b] and [v] sounds mixed in Korean language.

It was an OK hotel, but predominantly Korean speaking, which did make our life a bit difficult. We did not know that the interpreter was like a spy for the fashion week). They had to report how many shows we missed and why. At the time it was important to see the shows, more important than to do a buy. On the following morning, the bus picked us up and we went to the location.

In 2009 Seoul (Soul Fashion Week) was held in the Seoul Trade Exhibition & Convention at Hangnyeoul station, the event comprised the Seoul Collection (a catwalk show featuring leading designers in Korea), Generation Next (featuring selected promising local designers), and Seoul Fashion Fair (with a focus on the presentation of only13 designers). There were lots of delegates who were invited season after season and who did not buy anything. It was a free trip, free accommodation (I should not have whinged). We were real buyers, we tried to buy and we could not. In the front rows apart from the buyers and the press (VIP seats) were the faces of pensioners (free tickets) and officials who were nodding off during the shows. I must explain that in Korea the first seats are given to the pensioners and disabled, the second turn goes to the children, the third turn to the tourists and only then to the ordinary Koreans. As much as this feels fair, as a general rule, officials were a bit out of place at Seoul Fashion Week. Unfortunately, the government suits who were sitting in big boardrooms then and commanded large amounts of money for Seoul Fashion week, generally liked to engage in promotion for promotion’s sake. Unfortunately, the government officials, preferred girly, pretty, feminine fashion, of 50 years ago), and there was nothing for us to buy for our style women’s fashion. The problem was even deeper than the style of fashion itself.

The problem was with the sizing and the prices too. Korean designers were eager to sell abroad, but for exuberant prices. You could feel it was their only chance to get ahead. The only brands suitable for western women were at the time Kuho (Chiel industries-Samsung), Time and Mine, System (LG), which did not participate in Seoul Fashion week, but were widely available at the luxurious department stores.

We found few brands among men’s fashion, namely Songzio and General Idea.

In general, Seoul Fashion week was exclusively for Korean speaking people at the time. There were Korean celebrities, Korean press, none of the English speaking media including the bloggers were invited.

A little bit of history:

Korean fashion industry has been on the international scene for a long time, but as an export industry since after the Korean War. Many from the fashion industry already know that South Korea has been a major exporter of high quality textiles for decades already. It is still very slow in producing top end designers well known on the world runways.

You must remember, that until the early 1990s, South Korea had essentially lived under military dictators, the 1st of them, Park Chung Hee, had banned fashion shows outright after his takeover in 1961 as part of austerity measures designed to weed out as negative elements of bourgeois society. South Koreans are still wrestling with the challenge of untangling the civil society from government control.

Since our first fashion week in Seoul to the last one in Spring 2014, a lot of things have changed. The buyers and press, are now staying at W hotel, the shows are at DDP (Dongdaemun Design Plaza), one of the most futuristic locations in the world. The male and female designers are plenty, the government officials decided to share the fashion week with the KFDA (Korean Fashion Designers Association).

But…for the likes of Anna Vintour or Emanuelle Alt to come to Seoul Fashion Week…It needs to be enough knowledge spread there by medium-level fashion media outlets doing stories on Korean designers and the street. And to get to that level, Seoul fashion Week needs to have enough English speaking bloggers and journalists doing stories on Korean fashion and “Soul” fashion week to generate the basic information in the “ether”. The biggest problem for the Korean fashion industry is the same problem as for the country as a whole. South Korea is a pretty insular culture, both online and offline. There is a lot of information about Korean fashion designers on the Internet, most of it in Korean. Korean cultural assumption is such that non-Koreans do not care about Korea anyway. Even the international events information is mostly in Korean. Combined with the fact, that Korean language is one of the most difficult languages in the world, Korea is still the country with the big Non-English speaking padlock on the outside, and with the most hospitable people on the inside.

“Soul” Fashion week, in my opinion, deserves to be one of the 5 major weeks in the world. It only needs to be “seasoned” with the English interpretation.

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I always thought, if another week would have to be added to 6-7 days of Paris Fashion Week, I would had needed direct champagne line going straight to my head, feeding my brain 24×7. That and the constant buzz, and, sometimes purely Brownian motion of designers, buyers, fashionistas, journalists, bloggers, people to be seen and people not to be seen ever…All of this creates the feel of madness after which one needs to sleep for few days, somewhere, in the soundproof room…

The fashion week usually starts with preparation. Your PA would make your appointments and would also make few mistakes, resulting in you flying from one arrondissement to another within a minute.

It usually continues with arrival to Paris, naturally…As much as anybody dreams Paris, Aeroport Charles De Gaulle is a bit of a shock and would be better fit for the city like Moscow. Warsaw or Berlin,  than for the City of Lights. It is plain and  grey. It could be sunny and hot, it could be rainy and cold, it could snow outside, inside of this airport the colour is always grey. If it was intended to turn off the visitors, it did not work…

Upon the exit from the airport, the reality throws you another curved ball – Parisian Taxi Driver…Parisian Taxi Driver will not speak any English and will not take credit cards. When you give him a big tip, he will say “Thank you” in English without a tinge of an accent. You spend 10 Fashion week seasons dreading taxi drivers in Paris, and Paris in all totality, until you come up with a unique idea of hiring your own driver. You quickly realise that this decision is blessed by heavens. It changes your impression of Paris forever, for the better. You start to smile and notice that the world is smiling back to you.

Designer showrooms…

The first morning of the fashion week starts from 5 minutes before the appointment, because you sleep in. Forget the breakfast, nobody in Paris has breakfast anyway and here you go.

5 appointments per day mean 2 hours spent on each appointment. You have to really concentrate on the sizes, silhouette, the preference in colours for Russia or Australia. Sometimes you really have to concentrate, because your designer friends give you so much champagne) Sometimes, you have to interrupt the appointments for the fashion shows of the designers you buy or are lured to buy.

Fashion Shows…

The fashion show is an animal on its own. It is a good manner for a designer to start later. The more important this designer feels about him/herself, the later is the show. Rick Owens shows usually start 1.5 hours later, John Galliano (before his famous escapade), used to start 2 hours later than scheduled. It is interesting that Junko Shimada shows were always on time (and she is one of the famous remaining couturiers in Paris). It is imperative to be sitting and to be seen in the front row. For the buyers and bloggers it is not a problem. There is also the pressure to be photographed and not to look exhausted or fat)… It starts to take its toll at the end of the day. Champagne is always handy and it comes handy before or after the show.

Trade Shows…

To make the story really complicated there are very important shows outside the designer showrooms and outside the designer shows. They are called Trade Shows and they are split between Tranoi and Premiere Class. Tranoi is owned by the owners of L’eclaireur (chain of the very good concept stores in Paris), by Hadida family, namely by Armand Hadida. It takes place in Palais De La Bourse and in Carousel Du Louvre.  Tranoi started in 2002. You need two full days to visit those locations and to make the orders.

The other Trade Show is called Premiere Classe and its usually held in Jardin Des Tuileries. It is very good for the buyers of shoes, bags and accessories. Champagne is served during lunch, afternoon tea and, I am afraid for breakfast. Premiere Classe started in 1989…

Two Fashion Weeks Per Season…

To make the story even more complicated, there is another fashion week in Paris end of June/start of July and end of January/start of February. It is for Haute Couture and Men’s collections. I am afraid, that people who attend four of those fashion weeks in Paris are completely champagne dependent.

A Little Bit of History…

Long before Fashion Weeks became, what they are today, fashion reigned, as you may have guessed, in the salons of France. The concept of the fashion presentation dates back to 1858, when Charles Fredrick Worth first developed the concept of showing his clientele a pre-prepared selection of original designs (a collection). Furthermore, he shocked high society by showing his designs on real, live women (models) for all to view. Both were highly novel ideas at the time.

In 1868, Worth helped create the Chambre Syndicale de la Confection et de la Couture pour Dames et Fillettes, a trade association whose mission was to develop the French fashion industry. One of the most noteworthy functions of the association was to legally regulate the phrase “haute couture” – meaning it could only be used by registered members of the Chambre Syndicale. The organisation also set a minimum number of looks for those designers who were granted membership.

The tradition of bespoke fashion presentations in private residences or in a designer’s salon for aristocratic clients continued in France into the 20th century, securing France’s reputation as the fashion capital of the world. As the trend grew, the presentations became more and more grandiose, engaging all of the senses in a full experience of photography, music, sophisticated staging and sets. Designers started calling them fashion “fêtes”, and thus, the basis of the modern fashion show was set. As the world looked almost exclusively to Paris for fashion inspiration, international fashion magazines from around the world filled their pages with chic styles being shown at these fêtes.

The course of fashion history changed, however, in 1943. With World War II at its height, fashion journalists were unable to travel to Paris for fashion inspiration, with the shows being cancelled due to the Nazi occupation in France. In an unprecedented maneuver, a fashion publicist named Eleanor Lambert seized this opportunity to divert the attention of the fashion industry from Paris to America, in order to enhance the reputation and prestige of local American designers on the international scene. She invited all of the journalists to New York instead, arranged shows, and advertised that “Press Week” was coming to town.

There are Main Four Fashion weeks now – three of them preceding Paris (New York, London, Milan). For the buyers, Paris fashion week is still the best venue, since almost everybody from New York, London, Milan shows comes there with their collections.

Paris is a very hectic place at the time, and if you are a tourist, just wait for another 5 days to feel fully welcome in this beautiful city. All decent brasseries and restaurants are fully booked and the Right Bank is teeming with all fashion week characters. The places to be seen and eat well are Les Flottes in Rue Cambon, Le Meurice Restaurant in rue Rivoli, Les Jardins Du Marais in uber trendy Le Marais. The places to drink champagne and to be seen doing so are Costes Hotel, Pershing Hall, Experimental Cocktail Club, where you can say goodbye to mojitos and margaritas, since it is a proper mixology bar.

That’s not it, of course, for Paris fashion week. I failed to mention the friendships you forge, the encounters with people from all over the world. Paris fashion week is a like a little World Global village of like minded people. I dread it every time, I miss it all the time…

A bit thirsty now, in desperate need to reach for this long stemmed glass of perfectly cold champagne…

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We, humans, come into this world with certain branding – family name, ethnicity, nationality, religion. Then, some of us, attend private kindergarten, private school, prestigious University… Most of us enter corporate life, or join a family business. We go to churches, synagogues, mosques, temples. We get admitted to the hospital, we die at the end of our life. All of the stages in our life are accompanied by the new flag, new branding, new logo. Even the funeral agencies have logos(…

Logo is not only an artistic image – logo has the power to put us where we want to be in the society, in the world. I am not talking about golden arches of MacDonald, not about so called identification logos.

When we are in public schools (I apologise for the English/Australian discrepancy), the meaning of the logo is more about our own achievements (especially, when we get to selective schools). Private school logo says more about achievements of your parents. Whatever it is, its still a club where the entry is regulated by the tickets stamped with the logos.

I studied the history of fashion logos for some time, and was not surprised to learn, that the founder of Gucci, called Guccio Gucci worked as a lift operator in a very famous Savoy in London at the beginning of the last century. He came up with the idea that even the rich people in Italy then needed something to enter the club they were not allowed to enter – the aristocracy club. Thats how famous Gucci’s monogram was created – it instantly infused his clothes and accessories with aristocratic flavour.

Most certainly Ralph Lauren from Odessa immigrant family in Brooklyn would have many dreams about polo games and polo clubs. Maybe their doors were closed for him too?

Coco Chanel, of poor childhood, with lots of dreams and aspirations.. Maybe, she also knocked on the doors which did not open for her? It seems that the founders of great brands dreamt about something they could not get – their logo might have represented the ticket to the sacred places of their dreams.

Therefore in my opinion, people who buy logos are buying tickets to the theatre of their dreams, sometimes to the theatre of life, to the club closed to them. The logo consumers are sort of saying – “the only items which are value for money, have logos, because they place us in accordance with the price we pay. Therefore, Guess and Coach will put us in the gallery in this theatre, Gucci or Chanel might give us a front row.” This ticket has a price, but there is no price tag for the place on the stage, or in the holy of holiest, behind the curtain, among the people we worship and want to be like them. Does it not make them wannabes?

In the post soviet Russia, logos have had the mental price tag for many historical reasons, mainly for the absence of its own aristocracy, for the absence of its own self esteem. Russia, therefore, became one of the biggest consumers of fashion logos in the world. Even the layers of post soviet society started to get its shape in accordance to the money paid for the entry tickets.

Meanwhile, all over the world September 11 became the historic landmark for the fashion consumers, because it marked the start of anti-logo movement. Suddenly, it became unfashionable to be glitzy rich, to look like nouveau riche and to wear expensive logos. The new wave of consumers started to boycott the logos, willing to dress not in accordance to the brand, but in accordance to their own taste. Bottega Veneta for example created the motto – “When your Initials are enough”.

Many of self sufficient people realised, that wearing logo, also meant free advertising for the logos. Those people started the movement, called now “Discreet Luxury”, they wear cashmere sweaters and expensive shoes sans logos, while they can afford very expensive yachts and private planes. They could buy art, they could do whatever they want to do.  Even if they cannot afford any of the above,  they could still afford to be themselves. This movement in the world faces many obstacles, due to enormous advertising budget the logo brands allocate to all channels of media.

The future of Discreet Luxury movement depends on the proportion of people with individual taste, with their own opinion. What matters, these people have emerged, their discreet society is becoming bigger, their presence is becoming more noticeable, the membership in their society is becoming more and more prestigious.

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It is very difficult to write now about Russia, without mentioning political situation surrounding Russia and Ukraine, but I will. I wont mention politics, because Moscow, as one of the most beautiful cities in the world deserves my love and admiration. My story of Moscow is not politically clouded.

I was born in the city of Kursk, grew up in the city of Belgorod (size of Newcastle but with pollution of 100 times more than in Newcastle). We had asbestos factory, 5 nuclear stations around, we even had Vitamin A pollution from the vitamin factory.

I have never been to Moscow until I reached the age of 14. My school organised a trip to then Leningrad via Moscow. We stopped in Moscow for 15 minutes to buy Fanta and to allow the driver to have his long awaited cigarette. I remember, that we stopped on the outskirts of the city, the night was lit by the windows of “very tall buildings” and by the huge streetlights – anything was bigger and taller, than in Belgorod. I did not see a city, I saw mirage. At the age of 15, during summer holidays, I fell in love with a very cute Moscovite. All factors combined, I promised to myself to make everything possible to get an entry to one of the Moscow Universities. To cut the story short, I did. 5 years passed, and my husband and I had to leave Moscow, since Moscow was the city closed to people from other regions (see “propiska”). Since then, I saw Moscow only in my dreams, I was desperately, hopelessly in love with the city, with my own mirage.

25 years passed since I came back to Moscow from my homeland Australia to start our own Cara&Co, to get a second education, and to re-start my life there in some sense. I did not recognise the city. All of the streets were renamed back from their communist names to the original pre-revolutionary names. It clashed with my geographical cretinism and, voila!, I found myself in the city, completely unknown to me. It was again, a mirage, based on my amnesia.

As Heraclites said:

“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.”

I lived in Moscow from 2006 till 2012. I can only vouch for my own experience.

I will start from few postulates:

1)   Moscow never sleeps. It is a very entertaining city. Forget New York, which sleeps sometimes, – if you want to go to the nightclub in Moscow, the alcohol supply won’t stop at 1 am (makes Sydney stupidly provincial), you can go to the movies at 1am, you can sit on a beautiful veranda in the restaurant at 1am, and nobody, would be washing the floors around you, to show, that your time is over.You can have manicure and pedicure at 1am, a bit more expensive than in daytime, but you can. You can sit with your friends at 1am and leave their place at 4am, because Russians are incredibly conversational people, and they don’t need to drive their kids to netball on Saturday morning). The fitness centres close at 1am and open at 6 am. The nightclubs are abundant, and are one of the best in the world.

2)   Moscow is a very old city – the first reference to it dates back to year 1147 when Yury Dolgorykiy met Svyatoslav Olgovich. The original Moscow Kremlin was built during the 14th century. It was reconstructed by Ivan,The Third, who in the 1480s invited architects from Italy, such as Petrus Antonius Solarius, who, in turn, designed the new Kremlin wall and its towers, and Marco Ruffo, who designed the new palace for the prince. The Kremlin walls, as they now appear, are those designed by Solarius, completed in 1495. The Kremlin’s Great Bell Tower was built in 1505–08 and augmented to its present height in 1600.

Moscow ceased to be Russia’s capital when Peter the Great moved his government to the newly built Saint Petersburg on the Baltic coast in 1712. After losing the status as capital of the empire, the population of Moscow at first decreased, from 200,000 in the 17th century to 130,000 in 1750. But after 1750, the population grew more than tenfold over the remaining duration of the Russian Empire, reaching 1.8 million by 1915.

3)   Moscow is still a very Russian city. Usually, when the foreigners praise St Petersburg, as much more beautiful city, Moscow, however, IS a Russian City, The Mother of the Russian cities (“Мать городов русских”). St Petersburg was built mostly by the Italian Architects, based on Peter the Great idea to create a European city. St Petersburg, somehow, does not have the same feel of Russianness, that Moscow has. Moscow has incredible examples of the early Russian church architecture like St Basils Cathedral, where the history mentions the name of the architect, Ivan Yakovlevich Barma (Varfolomey). Legend held, that Ivan The Terrible blinded the architect so, that he could not re-create the masterpiece

There are incredible examples of Russian/Soviet modernism architecture, evolving later as the Soviet constructivism. There is a very distinct parallel in those styles with Art Nouveau, and Art Deco in Western Europe and USA. At the same time there is a distinctly Russian /Soviet difference.

The finest examples of this are of Yaroslav Railway station (by Fyodor Schectel), Church of Saint Martha (Aleksey Schusev), Moscow Metro (first stations like Mayakovskaya and Belorusskaya were based on designs of Alexander Deineka), The Government House, aka “Dom na Naberzhnoy” by Architect B. Iofan, TSUM by architect Roman Clein.

The architecture course in France is taught and based on the early examples of Soviet Architecture, with the best names in mind like Vladimir Tatlin, Nikolai Nikitin, Roman Klein, Aleksey Schusev.

4)   Moscow is a fashion savvy city. Russian women have, as I always put it mildly, so called “garbage bin syndrome”. They would rather be seen dead than without proper makeup and proper attire, even when they take the garbage out. Nothing like Australian celebrities, wearing approaching their death sentence garments, caught by paparazzi, when picking up the morning newspaper.) Moscow shops have all brands imaginable on the planet. Moscow does not have giant shopping malls, the ones I was writing about before, and invading Sydney, but it has very good shops and boutiques and department stores.

GUM:

William Craft Brumfield described the GUM building as “a tribute both to Shukhov’s design and to the technical proficiency of Russian Architecture toward the end of the 19th century”.

The glass-​roofed design made the building unique at the time of construction. The facade is divided into several horizontal tiers, lined with red Finnish granite, Tarusa marble, and limestone. Each arcade is on three levels, linked by walkways of reinforced concrete.

It is still open nowadays, and is a popular tourist destination for those visiting Moscow. Many of the stores feature luxury brands from all over the world; locals refer to these as the “exhibitions of prices”, the joke being that no one could afford actually to buy any of the items displayed.

TSUM:

TsUM is one of the most fashionable and trendy places in the city, and the largest fashion department store in Eastern Europe. It carries more than 1000 brands of fashionable apparel, perfumery, jewellery, as well as “TsUM Globus Gourmet” gastronome, a fusion restaurant, a cigar room, a café, and champagne-bar “Veuve Clicquot”.

TsUM new seasonal collections appearance is supported by sound advertising campaigns with world-famous fashion stars, Milla Jovovich, Naomi Campbell, Natalia Vodianova, Malgosa Bella, and Cindy Crawford.

The world-renowned designers participate in TsUM events, introducing to the guests and clients of TsUM their newest collections in person.

Tsvetnoy Central Market is a mall located in a newly built 5-storey building near the Tsvetnoy Bulvar metro station. It’s one of the trendiest places in the city, a real hipster paradise. The more you go upstairs, the more expensive and extravagant the boutiques get, and there is a food market on top.

Stoleshnikov Pereylok, Tretyakovsky Proezd, Petrovka are the areas where the best concept stores are located, Podium, Kuznetsky Most 20, 3.14 (Pi), Luntz, Leform.

Below are Miroslava Duma – a socialite, famous blogger, and aspiring designer(on the left) and Vika Gadzinskaya, the most famous Russian designer. Her creations are in Colette, The Other Stories(H&M) and many other famous stores in the world.

5)   Moscow is a very cultured city

With 50 museums, I mean museums-museums (not just the History of Buttons Museum)), with around 100 art galleries, with 80 State Universities in Moscow alone, with so many theatres and world renowned directors like Kirill Serebrennikov, Russia is still an epicentre of all things cultural. My favourite place, when I lived there, was the Catholic Church (Metro Belorusskaya) where Sunday concerts of different varieties, all of incredible finesse and perfection were held, and where the tickets would cost you only 50 roubles (1.6 AUD). Our Australian Ambassador gave away to me this well hidden secret. My Sundays became very memorable.

I must admit at the same time, there is a Vodka Museum in Moscow…)

6)   Moscow is a very corrupt and very bureaucratic city. I have had my business in Moscow. Russia is proudly ahead only of Nigeria and Bangladesh in the corruption ladder, depending on who is making the order.

One has to oil the wheels every time, when one wants anything to happen. That’s why so many Western companies in Russia have an army of brokers and middle people to handle all of the awkward situations. To start and register a company in Australia takes you one week, to do the same in Russia takes about 6 months. Go figure.

I left Moscow in 2012 to start my business in Sydney. I left a very successful business there and the rest is history. I still miss Moscow, not as a mirage anymore, but as a city, where I forged many friendships, the city where I lived a non-stop social life, and where the sparkles were not only in champagne, but in the pure atmosphere of the city. I miss Moscow, as one misses a very good friend, maybe a bit unstable and manic, but a friend, nevertheless.

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