Blow away the Moscow blues- Spring 2020

Everything I write on this here blog, is my own opinion and experience and may differ from some peoples but I have found it hard to adjust to Moscow life. I arrived here with my family in the year of our lord, in September 2009. We came from a small city in eastern Europe where we lived happily and uneventfully for five happy years. This city was Bratislava Slovakia. Small by many standards but a place where everyone one knew someone you knew, it is and was, not crowded, friendly, cheap and had clean air. It is a city in a great location for everything and was until the last few years of our stay there, fairly unknown, it was a secret. Then towards the end of our time there, binge drinking hooligan Brits began to arrive on stag party weekends and bars and coffee shops began to spring up on a weekly basis like mushrooms in a forest. The secrete was out, Bratislava had come of age and everyone wanted a piece of it.

We chose Russia, as my other half speaks Russian and it was the only choice financially and her employer has (and is) ruthlessly cutting jobs abroad without mercy. We came here, because we had to. Before I came here, I was working every day and making a living, this was before I became a full time stay at home dad here in Moscow Russia.

I then found myself alone, with my young off spring, at home in a big stinking, gray city in a country I did not know. It was a big shock. I woke up and smelt the coffee, ripped from my protective country life environment, I had to adjust and cope, it was a big slap in the face. Moving abroad, especially from a small place to a big place, in an unknown land and culture is very hard. Moscow has been cold and gray since about November to March. Now the sun is poking her head round the clouds and smiling down on us through the gray smoky Moscow haze. I used to go running everyday but here I was unable to go running because of the cars and no park near me, I got very fat, drank a lot and felt very sorry for myself. Then a few weeks ago, I joined a gym. I now exercise each day and meet other parents at baby groups, I feel a bit better. Exercise is a good mental tonic.

Despite this, Moscow is an isolating place and in a large city you are faceless and invisible, no matter how hard you try to fit in. People keep to themselves and have a suspicious attitude to newcomers and outsiders. The cloud and blanket of depression can swallow you up if you turn your back on it. My advice to anyone moving to Moscow or any large city in the world from a small place, is to keep busy, meet people (they won't come to you, people are naturally like that) get out, be positive and exercise. The culture shock can be hard. In Moscow, people push and shove, don't generally hold the door for others, drive without care or courtesy, spit in the street and have a get ahead of you attitude. Chill out, let it go and don't let it get you down. Think of your time in your new home as an experience, it will not be forever and try to make the most of it, above all, get out from the city by car or plane to another country whenever you can to re charge your batteries. You will need regular breaks just to keep your sanity. I think Moscow is probably like any other big city like London, New York or Tokyo but that does not make it any easier or any more acceptable.

I can't say I will ever love Moscow, but I hope to like it, now spring is here and the sky has some days of blue and the snow has gone, I feel my mind is having a spring clean and the cobwebs of gloom are slowly blowing away. Binge drinking hooligans won't come here, although terrorists have resurfaced like a bad rash and it is expensive, I try to see the good through the bad dear reader, for in all bad there is some good.