A Montage of Unlikely Anecdotes

I've been wracking and wracking my brains trying to think of how I can start to describe what it's like to be in Russia, before I actually leave. I've come to the conclusion that it's absolutely impossible. There are no sweeping statements I can make or generalizations that I can really get behind- just the weird ass stories. Here's an excerpt from last year's blog

...as I was walking along the canal, I looked down on the embankment to see a man watching a little Pekingese paddle to shore and then get out and shake off. The man regarded the dog, the dog regarded the man. I assumed that the dog liked to swim after ducks, and the man was letting it do so. Then, as I rounded the corner of the canal, I looked down to see that the guy had that dog up by the scruff and was sort of staring at it at arm's length. The dog seemed to be pretty nonchalant, so I thought maybe this was some sort of drip-dry routine they had. Then, as I walked on, I heard a huge SPLASH and looked down to see the pekingese paddling back to the embankment. The dude threw it back in the canal! Then it got out, shook off, looked up at the guy, and peed on the railing. The man just stared at it, with no sort of expression on his face. Then they just sort of ambled off together. I have no idea what happened after that, except that I then passed someone I'm pretty sure was the guy, walking the opposite direction he had been, sans dog. I checked, and it wasn't hopelessly paddling in the canal anywhere I could see, so I have NO explanation for this.

Weird, right? Well, you can read all those little things on that old blog, and I have no doubt that there will be far far more of that this time, since last time I was only documenting the strangest of the strange.


But for now, in lieu of my own personal craziness, I offer another's illustration. I have told many of you about the horrors of Russian traffic- a subject hair raising enough to thrill scores of cautious drivers. Or people who like crossing the road. (the entry from which I took that excerpt also includes an account of almost being mown down)

I humbly suggest that all of you make your way over to this post on English Russia. Watch the video you find there, and know that that's actually pretty tame, normal Russian driving.

I promise I'll look both ways and run fast.

ETA: It's not that dangerous, I promise!