Hamsters on Barbados

Here's the story, word for word as i heard it from my childhood friend Adelaida Pomerantz when we met in Moscow, on my spontaneous Return to Fatherland this Easter, or Passover if you like. As the story goes, a Russian oligarch who was taking a vacation on the Caribbean island of Barbados called his personal guard and told him "you know Alexei, as a child I read a book about this place and it said that there were hamsters abiding in this country, but I don't see any, how can this be?". The clever Alexei without procrastination called his partner in the remainder of the garrison in Moscow and ordered hamsters to be delivered to Barbados in no time. Ostap Petrovich can not wait. The big boys in Moscow plundered all city pet shops and loaded a private jet full of hamsters, destination - Barbados. The sun was slowly rolling down behind the turquoise water, as slowly Ostap Petrovich moved his mellow gaze away from his mojito glass when he saw a real hamster running on the sand right past him. "You see Alexei, haven't I told you?". Adelaida swore the story was true to the last bit, and I believed her, after all I knew her from when I was 12. Actually she was my childhood friend from Israel, I haven't lived in Moscow from the age of 10. When I located her in Moscow she was overwhelmed. She said she tried to look for me on the russian equivalent of classmates.com - apparently Facebook is considered as an American imperial colonization attempt because no one has heard of it. They all heard of iPhones and personal navigators let me tell you! In any case, Adelaida sent her driver to pick me up - "look for a silver-colored Mercedes." As i entered the seemingly very elite bar five men double the size of an average western male lined in front of me. "I am ... to see... Adelaida" I mumbled, luckily she was right there, appearing from behind the human wall, to save my soul. I must say I felt absolutely inadequate in my travel jeans, flat boots and two down jackets worn one on top of the other to resist the fierce April in Moscow - "my body is adapted to withstand the burning desert of the Middle East" i exclaimed... and my outfit is adapted to going downstairs drinking in the local bar in my pajamas. we have our own ways - in the land where military service is compulsory for all genders and where every body knows each other or their mother there is no point for me wearing 6 inch stiletto boots and clipping fake eye lashes when I can ask their mother for a match-make or simply kick their ass. But Moscow is Moscow and connections are connections, and if you're a Jew who knows a Jew you can forget all your troubles, forget all your cares... I was in, cocktails were served and memories from the times of our first hangover in my parents' house, my first boy friend who kissed Ade's friend and other uncensored material began to materialize. We continued in Ade's house, she insisted I meet her mother and her one year old boy, the son of a random oligarch. She kept me up until 9 in the morning, she talked and talked and talked, about how she was taken back to Russia at the age of 17, how she cried for two consecutive years, about her job in the television, the crazy cash, the crazy people, the ex-husband, the random oligarch, the son, the lover. The whole soap opera.
The fast money made people's heads spin. Somebody who only yesterday was a nobody, in no time with no skill became as rich as a Wall Street broker. When the bottom became the top traditional values went down. In the metro there are posters advertising the institution of family and procreation, as most families are single parented and the natural growth rate is negative. Scary age for girls is 25, and a good man is hard to find. Men in Moscow don't do laundry, don't do dishes, don't do contraception. What they do though is carrying your bag for you, letting you first in every door, giving you a hand with taking off you jacket and eventually paying your bills. But before you've found your scattered underwear they're off, helping some other girl with her jacket. Girls on the other hand sell nothing but sexuality, at least that's what comes on your mind when you see the high heels, the micro-skirts and the generous make up. But norm is made to be normal - as my cousin said, a girl who doesn't care for herself probably has something that's wrong with her.
To be fair I must say that some values are definitely still there and are to be learned from the Russians - a special one is the Russian hospitality. Only in the home of my closest family was I received so dearly and so generously! Strangers gave me keys to their houses and fed me caviar.

A famous Russian poet wrote about Russia some 140 years ago:

You will not grasp her with your mind
Or cover with a common label,
For Russia is one of a kind –
Believe in her, if you are able...


more about hot chicks, my cousin Borat, finding the old house where i used to live, my old school and kindergarten, my ride in the night train to Saint-Pitersburg, and my spontaneous visit to Helsinki with only a toothbrush in my pocket - all this and more (of the same) is very soon to come...