Christmas preparation in Moscow

 

Moscow is getting closer to the holiday season and so are we. Like in Houston I am into holiday season and not Christmas. It is one of those things with respect for the culture you live in.

 

In Norway, yes we are into Christmas and New Year. Two distinctive vacations that tumbled into one by use of some vacation days, yes a nice two week vacation. In Moscow we have to accept that the last week of the year is not focused on the Christmas part but on the New Year part and the vacation is the first week of the New Year.

 

 

Looking around in the city Centre area it looks like the preparation is the same, just a bit delayed compare to Norway and US. It is all acceptable the way it is here. This week we do not feel the buying pressure, but nice to see the decoration in the shop windows and anxious to see some of the more famous stores what they will come up with.

 

I had one of these culture crashes when I walked down to Red Square yesterday. The picture in my head of a Moscow street is a street with Lada, Volga and Moskovitz. When I see a red Ferrari in the street, I get a disturbance like a Salvador Dali painting. So yesterday looking to the Red Square a Luis Vuitton suitcase took a large space of it, and it was not a suitcase to carry with you. No, it was an extra shop design like a suitcase with the company logo’s as you all know them from their hand bags.

 

It once again a reminder that Russia is not as it used to be, even you just a 100 meter away in a backyard find the small local sales person with her bread and old buildings you expect to fall down anytime. It’s like the facade tells you one thing and the backyard something else.

 

 

Next to Red Square is the shopping mall GUM, a 120 year old Magazine with many shops individual laid out. It is possible to spend a day here if you are up to it, and have nice small café’s to have a break. Some days I just walk down to this magazine to walk around and do some of my grocery shopping.

 

 

Most of the time they also have exhibitions related to Russian or international history, and they do like their Old Russian cars on display.



 

So Moscow is partly ready for the holiday season and so are we. Just back from a week in Norway with our most wanted Christmas food, “Pinnekjøtt” from Idsø in Stavanger in the fridge. I have not found rutabaga in Moscow yet so as a substitute a package of TORO mashed rutabaga is with us like the porridge “Risengrøt” that we will add some whipped cream into and have a clean almond in one of the plates. The person who gets the almond gets a marzipan pig. The Norwegian traditions are taken well care of.

 

 

 

Moscow is getting ready for Christmas.