Zen Coffee at Belorussky Vokzal

Well, it’s 1 p.m. and I’ve been sitting by the window at Montana Coffee’s Zen Coffee Shop since around 10:30. They have great coffee but at $4.30 for a large cappuccino, I won’t have a second cup. A calm, welcoming atmosphere with air conditioning and no cigarette smoke, it’s a nice relief to the stifling heat and humidity in my flat. The scene outside is quite civilized, traffic flowing fairly well, pedestrians striding at a normal pace in the mid afternoon sun. The beautiful Belorussky Vokzal, or Train station, is opposite the shop across the 15 lane main thoroughfare connecting Leningradsy Prospect with Tverskaya St., which takes you directly from the Kremlin to the airport. Summer in Moscow - everyone is on vacation!

Coffee is good, service is excellent and I wonder where I am - Moscow or Palo Alto? Advertising surrounds me everywhere! From billboards, to live digital video ads on the rooftops of historic 4-story buildings, offering the latest in digital cameras, cellphones, computers, European cars, vacations

Yesterday, I went out to find a place to have lunch, and the choices within one block were endless. I could have a business lunch with soup, salad, main course and beverage from between 190 and 290 rubles, or $6.50 to $10,00. I opted for the Japanese lunch, wondering what kind of quality fresh raw fish I was going to get in the middle of Moscow. It was superb, and other than the incredibly slow service for a “business lunch”, I was impressed.

Russians are crazy over sushi - there are sushi bars on every corner these days. I suppose investing in fish farms would be a great business here.

I’ve been trying to track down my old friends and colleagues and finding it difficult. Since I was here last in 2000, so many companies have disappeared, merged, reemerged and many people have moved, either up and bought new apartments, or out. I can’t find them. As it turns out, some districts have had major restructuring of the phone system, making myriad of numbers null and void. Access to cell phones, as I mentioned, is so easy, that everyone seems to have one. In a city of 12 or more million, that is a lot of phone numbers.

The handful of people I have found are so busy, rearranging meetings as they fly to and from various parts of the world. I have met up with a few, enjoying a yoga class on the Old Arbat (new vocabulary for me as I twisted and turned my body into contortions that would challenge a real yogi), a concert at an old palace, and the dacha.

Ah, the dacha. Life in Russia in the summer wouldn’t be the same without the dacha. I remember visiting Zhenya’s parents at the dacha about 12 years ago. We drank samogan, or homemade spirits, and grilled meat. This time, we drank Russian plum wine and Bulgarian red wine out of a box, called bag in box, and grilled meat. They now have electricity, but still no plumbing in the outhouse. The little 2 story dark blue dacha was built about 20 years ago. It boasts a small utilitarian kitchen, an entryway which doubles as storage, a medium-sized living room with a big oval dining table, a pale green sofa and a 17 inch tv equipped with dvd player. There are 2 bedrooms downstairs and a narrow creaky staircase takes you up to 2 more rooms and a balcony. Even at the dacha, the fresh air was not enough to relieve the humidity of a July evening and suburban Moscow mosquitos. Again, a torrent of biters ripped through my socks, leaving big red bloody wounds around my tender ankles, these were worse than the Chuvashian ones.

We took the kids to the lake, softly treading through the forest, picking wild strawberries along the way. We sang songs and listened to distant festivities of various others enjoying the late Saturday afternoon sun. Dozens of enormous gated new dachas along asphalted roads were now crowding out the horizon and creating a world of have and have nots. Zhenya told me of a theft that took place at a businessman’s dacha. The thief, who stole a laptop, was caught and ordered to not jail time, but community service, the businessman being the recipient of his community service duties.

On Friday, I managed to get into the Ria Novosti building on Zubovsky (or tooth) Boulevard, opposite the Cultural Park Metro Station. I arrived 45 minutes early, which gave me time to ultimately deal with the negotiation process of getting in without a pass. None of the 4 elevators would stop on the 4th floor, so I walked down from the fifth, only to be escorted back up again. I met with two British blokes from the new Russia Today English Television Station that is hoping to launch this Autumn. It seems the Russian government has $30 million to invest in showing the world that they can compete with CNN and BBC with an international and fully reliable and objective news station. Government sponsored and paid for, I understand how challenging it will be for them to create a credible objective view of world events from a Russian perspective.

It was a long shot, but they are looking for native English speakers to become correspondents, copy editors, etc. and they called me in to chat. Must admit, my marketing, sales and PR experience would probably be best used in an English speaking Russian reality television program. I suggested they focus a daily or weekly segment on cultural issues and interviews with Russians on the street: get the every man or woman’s perspective on things from Putin to the Oligarchs to shopping and home repair issues. Connect an American audience to things that they are concerned about - show them the human side, the emotional connection.

Who knows, maybe one day you’ll see me on an international Russian station interviewing Muscovites. In the meantime, I’ll research the market for apples. Apples, apples everywhere, but none to eat. Argentinean, Chilean, Chinese, Moldavian, but where are the Washington Apples? Ask the Washington Apple Commission - they seem to think it’s time to reinvest a bit in the Russian apple market and take a bite out of the pie. After all, with nearly a dozen varieties and high quality produce, as well as a niche in the organic market, Washington could become king of the high end apple market in Russia. But do they have the stomach for making business here?

Well, it’s time to wonder off and find another “biznis launch” somewhere downtown. Wish I could hook up with a friend, but the reality here is that no one eats lunch - they are too busy making business.