Moscow Diary

Dream Streets

After carefully ticking the ‘must’ destinations in Europe, the US and UK off my travel list, I can now safely say that if Moscow is not on your bucket list, you don’t have a good enough bucket list. Moscow, every step of your way, is straight out of a fairy tale—even if you restrict yourself to Red Square, or ‘Zero Miles’, as locals call it. The quadrangle, steeped in history, is fascinating. It’s like a walk on the clouds: the 16th century St Basil’s Cathedral could have been Rapunzel’s home and the Kazan Cathedral (built in the 17th century, razed on Stalin’s orders in 1936, and reconstructed in 1993) could be the castle of Cinderella’s prince. A Harry Potter sequence might be set along the forbidding stretches of the Kremlin wall. Moscow is a dream sequence with lilting music. The city fascinated me in childhood. In Dehradun, where I grew up, the famous MKU Book Shop on Rajpur Road kept up a constant supply of Russian literature to my father’s library. Moscow was also the first international destination for my father after he won the Soviet Land Nehru award in 1977. So my trip to Moscow was karmic. I must admit that being married to a man who sings for a living comes with a few perks, especially when an invitation to the husband lets you tag along legitimately.

Mithun redux

The two-day Indian Film Festival (IFF), curated by the Alam brothers, Sarfaraz and Shahbaz, was revealing in more ways than one. The brothers are from Bihar and have been living in Russia. Sarfaraz is a doctor by training, but makes films. His Tears of Nandigram received critical acclaim and won an award at the Berlin Film Festival. The IFF venue was the People’s Friendship University. The festival was organised by Indian medicos and doctors who, having studied in Moscow, are fluent in Russian, and with them, Russian students who know some Hindi, picked up from Indian friends and Indian films. The effort was serious. For the first time in Moscow, local Hindi film enthusiasts went beyond screening random Indian films in the name of a film fest. They curated a separate retrospective of Imtiaz Ali’s films, with Ali available for discussions. Films like Love Aaj Kal, Highway and Rockstar required re-runs on audience dem­and, mostly from Russians. It helped that the organisers had managed Russian subtitles for all the films that were screened. In his recorded message for the IFF, Karen Shakhnazarov, dir­ector general of Mosfilm, the oldest and largest studio in Russia and Europe, proved once again the immense popularity of Bollywood in Russia, singing Goron ki na kaalon ki, duniya hai dilwalon ki, from the Mithun Chakraborty-starring 1982 B-circuit blockbuster Disco Dancer. Indian films could mean good business in Russia. Local film producers are now looking to invite Indian filmmakers to shoot in their country. The film frat in Russia is convinced that any Indian producer can rake in as much as Rs 30 crore with a single release in Russia. The country has a Rs 8,000 crore film market, so far dominated by Hollywood films.

Azeri Hindi

Bollywood is something else to Russians. Yes, they still love Raj Kapoor and Mithun Chakraborty. You can still jump as many queues and collect as many favours from complete strangers of Russian origin by simply humming Jimmy Jimmy or Mera joota hai Japani. Indian students on the campus narrated tales of winning dates and university elections by dancing to Mithunda’s songs. For young Russian girls, Shahrukh Khan, Salman Khan and Ranbir Kapoor (Raj Kapoor’s grandson!) are the new entrants in the list of Indian cinema gods. But like everywhere else, Hindi film music and dance remain the biggest draw ever. Elmarr, an artiste of Azeri origin, earns his living by singing Suresh Wadekar songs in gigs all across Russia. Long years ago, Elmarr also made a trip to Mumbai to pay homage to his idol Wadekar. Elmarr performed at the IFF in impeccable Hindi. The Russian audience greedily lapped up every filmi number.

A Sip of Chai

For foodies, a visit to Arbat is a must. Timur Lanskey’s Chaihona No 1, in Novy Arbat, is a gastronomic delight. Chaihona (it’s pronounced chaikhana), a chain of 25 in Moscow alone, sprung up some 15 years back and should soon have an outlet in Goa. It offers East European, Uzbek and Russian delicacies. The vodkas on the menu, all Russian, are some of the best: Kremlin, Gzhelka and Russian Standard among others. But it’s the decor that stuns you: inverted metal pumpkins and lifesize kettles for lamps, partitions of huge colourful wooden beads. Bring back as much hummus as you can. There will never be anything like Chaihona’s hummus.

Last week

I caught Air India’s ground manager at Moscow airport singing Jeena yahan marna yahan to passengers before they took off into the skies

Prarthna Gahilote is Outlook’s assistant editor based in Mumbai; E-mail your diarist: pratty [AT] gmail [DOT] com