In Moscow, all's well that sells well

Author: By William Ecenbarger, Globe Correspondent

Date: SUNDAY, January 11, 1998

Page: M7

Section: Travel

I cruise past furniture displays with lavender walls and lemony sofas, past kitchen shops where the pot calls the kettle turquoise, past electronics stores offering the latest miracles of the silicon chip. Hardware, software, wash 'n' wear, ready-to-wear. All's well that sells well. Once a showplace for communist power, where uncountable tanks and rockets were paraded on May Day, Red Square and the area surrounding the Kremlin is a showplace of commerce.

High-fashioned men and women, with the aura of money that makes headwaiters and bell captains jump the world over, flutter all around me like exotic birds preening their plumage and exchange trendier-than-thou looks. They are, all these Mikhails and Natashas and Alexeis and Olgas, the Heroes of the New Capitalist Order.

I spent a week in Moscow recently and was startled by what I saw. Communism? Forget it; the workers of the world have united and stand shoulder to shoulder -- behind American capitalism. The whole city is literally a Mickey Mouse operation, from Levis to Barbie dolls.

When I arrived, I had some questions. So each day I would venture forth from my sanctuary, the Radisson Slavjanskaya Hotel, to find out what I could about this historic city 80 years after the Russian Revolution overthrew the last czar and just six years after the Soviet regime disappeared.

Is the city unfriendly? The first day I spent nearly a half-hour vainly seeking the subway station. Finally, I walked up behind a man waiting for a bus and reading a newspaper. He wore a belted trenchcoat, KGB-like, and was built like a Russian war memorial. I tapped him on the shoulder and said ``Metro?''

He looked quizically at me beneath dark, bushy brows. ``Metro?'' I repeated. He put his finger to his mouth contemplatively, intent as a man listening to a bulletin of the world's end. Then his face glowed with understanding.

``Ah,'' he said triumphantly in a deep bass voice, ``MEE-trrro!'' He bade me to follow him and we walked more than two blocks to the station. He tried to give me a subway token, but I assured him I already had one. Then he left me in a flurry of mysterious syallables. ``Spasibo,'' I mumbled. I wished there were an international language of thoughts.

Spasibo -- ``thank you'' -- was a word I would use frequently in the ensuing days and nights as Muscovites gave me directions, advice, and information.

Is Moscow unsafe? Near the end of my visit, I tried what has become a tradition among Muscovites and expatriates alike -- hitchhiking. I stood along the side of Moscow's main drag, Tverskaya, holding out a 50,000-ruble note -- about $8. Immediately, a black, generic four-door veered across three lanes of traffic. The driver leaned toward me with a question on his forehead. ``Radisson,'' I said. He gave me a look you could pour on a waffle and opened the door. We whiz-banged across town, exchanging smiles but no words, and he dropped me right in front of the hotel.

The expatriate Americans I talked to don't think Moscow is nearly as dangerous as visiting Americans are told it is by Chicken Little travel agents. ``The streets of Moscow are safe,'' said Richard E. Hoagland, who has been press attache at the American Embassy for two years. ``I'd rather walk here at midnight than in any American city.''

Is Moscow dull? The city is bursting with energy. A building boom is changing its skyline, cultural life is in ferment, and people are trying out new ideas and products. Party headquarters now refers to the growing number of nightclubs. I paid a post-midnight visit to one of the hottest, the Hungry Duck, just outside the Kremlin walls. Men in Italian suits with linebacker shoulder pads danced on the bar with women in miniskirts and long, high-heeled leather boots. The dancers jostled each other like molecules in an overheated jar, practicing immoderation in all things, and when I left about 3 a.m. the place was throbbing like a helicopter.

But the best part of my trip was standing in Red Square and looking at the fairy-tale, Wizard-of-Oz silhouettes of St. Basil's Cathedral and the Kremlin. The double-towered, red-brick Resurrection Gates, demolished by Stalin so he could get his tanks and artillery in for military parades, have been rebuilt from the original plans. Here I felt the sweep of Russian history, from Ivan the Terrible to Gorbachev.

The Moscow Metro is by far the best buy in town. For about 40 cents, you can spend an afternoon visiting station after station decorated with marble, mosaics, stained glass, statuary, elaborate stucco, bronze fittings, and chandeliers. It's also a chance to get close -- sometimes a little too close -- to some real Muscovites. More than 10 million of them use the Metro every day. Sadly, classical music is being phased out of the stations -- rock has replaced Rachmaninoff.

There's a more practical reason to ride the Moscow Metro -- traffic. Most of the time every main street is a brutal river of vehicles. Traffic lights allow pedestrians about 3.5 seconds to make it across the street, and several times I was obliged to dash across eight lanes of cars crouched like sprinters awaiting the starter's gun. Pedestrians seem to have no rights in the new Moscow, and a carcinogenic haze hangs over the streets.

Gone are the famous long lines waiting to file past Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, whose embalmed body has been on display in the mausoleum off Red Square since 1924. I got in and out in less than five minutes -- though I was hassled afterward by a guard upset that my camera was not put away in my case. The new Russian government is gingerly exploring the idea of burying Lenin in his family plot in St. Petersburg.

The lines have moved up to Tverskaya Street, Moscow's main drag, where the world's largest McDonald's is packed to its 700-seat capacity day and night. A Big Mac goes for $2, which will be served to you by a young person earning $1 an hour.

The huge McDonald's seems to carry on a centuries-old Moscow tradition -- giganticism. The Russian Hotel has 3,000 rooms; the world's largest bell, 210 tons, sits in the Kremlin (it has never pealed because it was too big to fit inside any building); nearby is the 40-ton emperor cannon, largest in the world and never fired because no ball ever big enough was ever made.

There is probably no other city in the world where classical music, dance, and drama are offered as widely as in Moscow. I went to the ballet at the Moscow Musical Theater and sat among children as young as 10, hand-holding teenagers on dates, and septuagenarians applauding lustily. I developed a theory. The Russians love the performing arts so much because their everyday lives are so drab and devoid of beauty.

It remains to be seen how Russian culture will fare under the brave new world of rampant capitalism. As Moscow fumbles with the transition from communist monolith to Western-style free market, a new species has emerged known, somewhat contemptuously, as the New Russian, which is the Russian equivalent of George Babbitt -- the stupid, insensitive, greedy entrepreneur.

New Russian jokes abound, including this one told to me: ``One day, the devil meets a New Russian and offers him anything he wants. `I want a license to import anything I want free, I want oil fields, I want tax breaks,' the New Russian says. `Now, what do I owe you?' `Your soul,' the devil responds lustily. The New Russian scratches his head and thinks hard: `Uh . . . so what's the catch?'' '

Not everyone is getting rich in Moscow, not by a long shot. Beggars and homeless are everywhere. At the Kiev Station, I saw a woman dressed in rags and singing. Through an interpreter, I asked why she was singing. She dug her bleached denim eyes into me like nails and said, ``If I don't sing, I will cry.''

Much of Moscow has a frayed-sleeve, worn-at-the elbow look. The public buses, trams, and trolleys are very old and carry too many coats of paint. Many of the museums need maintenance. At Tsaritsyno, the summer home of Catherine the Great just outside the city, the palace is a decrepit ruin of broken windows, graffiti, and weeds growing out of the red bricks. Even the famous Moscow Circus is a little ratty and rundown, the acrobats make lots of mistakes, and the dancing bears seem more pathetic than endearing.

Last year, only 52,000 American tourists came to all of Russia, and most of those went to St. Petersburg. But for an American even slightly curious about Russian history and culture, Moscow is a feast. Jacqueline Luce came here two years ago as a special projects coordinator for the Radisson Slavjanskaya Hotel, and she still has not run out of things to do. She says Americans should come to Moscow now, and she offers these tips for those with limited time.

-- Get on English-speaking guided tours. Most museum and historic sites do not offer exhibits in English.

-- Before you arrive, take time to learn the Cyrillic alphabet. It's surprisingly easy, and it is essential if you are to read street signs, subway stops, and other basic information.

-- Schedule your days well ahead; closing hours vary from one attraction to another.

-- ``Mingle with the Muscovites -- go to a banya (steambath), ride the Metro, shop at a market, visit a nearby Russian village.''