Moscow Metro through the eyes of foreigners

The journalist, who recently arrived in this city, is struck by the spectacles of poverty and despair, and is also encouraged by fleeting cases of benevolence in the subway

The old woman was so crooked that she involuntarily rested her chin on her chest. Wrapped in several ragged sweaters, worn one over the other, she stood meekly against the tiled wall, stretching out her hand to the passing ones. In Moscow, deep underground in subway crossings, elderly Russians can be seen everywhere asking for alms. And yet, looking at her, I felt my heart pounding sadness.

And then four awesome-looking teenagers, dressed in shabby leather jackets, ran past her. They whispered, returned and surrounded the old woman.
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I panicked. My heart sank. But then I realized what was happening before my eyes. These guys, moving with a loose gait, stinking of tobacco and beer, hurriedly rummaged in their pockets and gave the old woman all their trifles.


Seven months ago, I moved to Moscow and since then I have learned well the harsh reality of Russian society thanks to the fact that I take the metro daily to the office and to Russian language classes. This extensive network of tunnels and rails, it seems, allows you to look right into the soul of Moscow. The subway is faded luxury and hopeless cynicism, fights and extreme poverty, barely restrained cruelty and moments of kindness.

This place has a powerful effect, and sometimes I simply do not have the strength to come in contact with it. I literally force myself to go down to the station and look at my shoes all the way, for fear of looking away to the side - I never know what I will see ...

But in these halls there is something telling the story of Russia itself; This is a monument to the era of the communist regime, when underground palaces with glittering chandeliers, decorated with mosaics, frescoes and sculptures of Stalin's times, were erected for ordinary passengers.

Now the interiors are shabby, the metro has become too crowded; bulbs burn out in the chandeliers; in the halls a dreadful crowd, the bodies run against each other, all sweaty, disheveled. On the surface, frantic Moscow, lawless and crazy, cold and rich, lives at its insane pace. Down below through the darkness, roaring trains are flying; miss one - after him comes the next.

In the subway you will find people who barely make ends meet in the shadow of the oil wealth, as well as those who have already fallen to the bottom of society. This is a refuge for stray dogs and lovers in their ears for teenagers, homeless alcoholics and wounded veterans, tourists and deadly tired passengers traveling to and from work.

One morning, a stray dog ​​struck me. Perplexed, he hobbled on three legs, lost among the turnstiles. One of the front paws hung lifelessly. She seemed to be broken in two, blood was dripping from her — it seemed that someone had crushed her. In desperation, the dog looked around, as if seeking help.

The station was flooded with hundreds of passengers, but no one stopped for the sake of a dog. An old man leaned over to the dog for a moment and then hurried on. I was on the other side of the turnstile, I was looking in the travel pocket. When I looked up again, the dog disappeared somewhere - disappeared into the forest of legs.

I looked around, but he was nowhere to be seen. I looked at the endless rows of students, workers, retirees - a faceless crowd, impassive, with stone faces.

Somewhere in this vast Soviet-era building, a living thing suffered, but I would never find it. And if I do, then so what? The dog was too big to carry in his arms. I didn't know how to find a vet. I lived in Moscow for only a few months and could barely connect two words in Russian.

I had to take my place in the queue, and the queue moves only in one direction. If you hesitate, you are pushed in the back. It only remains to tighten the bag to your chest and move forward.

All day I thought about the dog. I told my teacher of Russian about him, and she gave me a puzzled look from under her painted eyelashes. Spangles flickered on her eyelids. “But the people you see in the subway have terrible problems,” she reproached me.

“I know,” I said. She was right, but I could not stop my feelings. I was embarrassed.

Still, on the way home I looked for the dog. But I did not see him. I returned to my apartment, walking slowly, trying to forget his crushed paw and the way he cast around indifferent passengers in a suffering, hopeful gaze. Thoughts about the dog did not go out of my head. When I reached the house, I sat down on the sofa and burst into tears.

When I first arrived in Moscow, the summer heat and hustle in the subway almost made me a sober woman. I could not bear the stench spreading in the carriages drunk: vodka evaporated from their bodies along with sweat, their wet skin clung to mine, like plastic wrap. Empty beer bottles were rolling under their feet.

But then I saw how young people gallantly jump to their feet, giving way to old women, or how Russians stick in a book while the train roars through the tunnel, and decides that it is not so terrible here.

But I was still horrified by the cold faces of all these strangers, the pictures of anxiety and adversity, illuminated by the greenish light of massive fluorescent lights, so gothic that they are almost beautiful.

“When you go down the escalator and look at all these faces, when a wave of all this longing, all this alarm covers you ... it's just unbelievable,” says some of my Russian colleagues. “You are like a herring in a barrel among the stresses of others.”

At first I felt the most acute discomfort. I was awakened by thoughts of death camps and cleansing, bread lines and the collapse of banks. I once complained to my Russian teacher: “I did not see anywhere in the world that people were so gloomy. I spend an hour on the road from home here, and during that time I have not seen a single smiling person. No one!"

“And what, in other countries, do people always walk and smile?” She said incredulously.

“Actually, yes,” I said.

“In Iraq? Are they smiling in Iraq? ”- she firmly decided to knock me down, get to the bottom of the truth.

“Yes,” I said. “Iraqis are smiling a lot.”

“This,” she said, twisting her lip contemptuously, “is very strange.”

Somehow I went to university to study Russian. It was on Saturday, about noon, and the city was waking up from a dream, while the first early snowflakes were flying from the sky. The subway car was almost empty.

I sat and looked at the girl who sat opposite. She must have skipped all night. Her wild hair kept traces of styling. Fragile-looking, well-dressed, in expensive boots, with an expensive bag. Her head was leaning, as if she was drugged by heroin. Thickly painted eyes were closed. She dropped her head to her chest.

Then she rolled onto the floor and woke up for a while, only to sit on the bench again and fall back into sleep. The fat young mother, who was sitting next to her, picked up her son and, repressively pursing her lips, moved to another bench.

The girl fell back to the floor, this time right on the feet of the old man sitting next to her. He angrily freed his foot. The girl again took her place on the bench.

By this time the whole car looked at the girl, but somehow impassively. Two men of ominous form devoured by her eyes, like predators. I was worried about her. From the subway train, she could get rid of anyone, take her with her, do anything with it. Who threw her here? How long has she been running through the tunnels, waiting for her to sober up? I glanced at the men again. They were whispering, laughing, looking at her limp body.

Then the train arrived at my station. I got up and went out. In the end, I was just another face in this crowd: I also looked and went my own way.

A source