Winter has Cometh to Moscow!

Our “dress rehearsal” during a brief cold-snap in October

Nearly 6 months into our lives as Muscovites and ex-pats in Russia, not a snow flake had fallen (or at least that I had seen). Temperatures were hovering close to 50 degrees most days and rain was more than abundant. This is not what I signed up for. I bought the warmest coat I could find (Patagonia – of course during a 50% off sale so it was still only moderately expensive), we practically bought a snowsuit for the dog, and Dani bought what we affectionately call “the sleeping bag” coat for herself. We were ready for winter months ago. But in early November, we found ourselves switching to our fall light jackets! Umbrellas were needed more than gloves and hats. Russia, you are supposed to be cold and snowy. I want snow, dammit.

I love snow. My whole life, I’ve never lived somewhere that got more than 3 or 4 snowstorms a year. I survived Snowmageddon in DC a few years ago, which was AWESOME for the most part, but I’ve never been able to experience a snow covered life before. Almost everything is better when it snows. Everyday ugly turns pretty. The air is crisp and strangely invigorating. Every tree looks like a fine piece of art. As long as the roads are safe when you have to get somewhere and you’re dressed warmly, snow is grand. I love snow.

November has come to pass, this is December. It is a whole new ballgame, folks. It was 10 degrees last night and the highs are below freezing for the foreseeable future. I am beaming with equal parts excitement and pride when I announce – IT IS SNOWING! In fact, for the last week, it has snowed at least in some form every day. An inch here, a snow shower there, nothing crazy. But right now, as I write this, it is really snowing. The dog is in his snow suit, we are in multiple layers upon layers and the ground, buildings, cars, trees and even the people are covered in white. The usually ugly Moscow streets and buildings have taken on a new life. The parks are beautiful and the train trip from the airport, which passed several miles of forests and open fields and little onion-dome churches, provided the best snow-covered scenery I’ve seen in ages. Picture it, tiny, ancient brightly colored onion-dome laden churches, made of wood, covered in snow on the Russian countryside. Now that is the stuff.

Being an experienced and avid amateur travel photographer, naturally I don’t have a single picture of these beautiful scenes. But I do have some phone snaps of the streets around our house, just to prove that it is indeed snowing. But they are also kind of interesting to me because they represent some very Muscovian (not a word) aspects of Moscow. And what the hell, I’ve thrown in a gratuitous pics of Max in a coat (two coats at the same time, actually). Ok, and a baby in a snowsuit too. Because no blog is complete without a pic of a baby in a snowsuit, am I right?

Oh so Moscow. Ads for fancy stuff, snow falling, an expensive glowing mall in the background and a crappy old car in the foreground.

Women in coats. A common scene in Moscow.

Behind this snowy scene lurks one of Stalin’s famous Seven Sisters, a gothic tower that is now the Radisson’s Hotel Ukraine.

And here we have…Max in two coats. In the snow.

Baby. In a snowsuit.

I went to Pyongyang for dinner. No, for real. I did.

Filing this under “things I never, ever thought I would do”: Going to dinner at a North Korean restaurant in Russia.

I have a bit of a fascination with North Korea. Everything about the country and what little we know about its government baffles the mind. It seems utterly insane that an entire country and society can be completely closed-off to the world in the 21st century, a time of almost total globalization, and that a government can continue to have near-total control over everything its people do, regardless of the conditions they live in or little freedoms they are allowed. But let’s put aside, however hard it may be to do, the prison camps and starvation and poverty and oppression for just a few minutes. Let’s do it briefly just for the sake of a very unique cultural, and culinary, experience.

It’s not every day that my wife texts me to let me know that some friends are going to a “North Korean restaurant” for dinner. In fact, it’s never happened. What is a North Korean restaurant and how does that actually exist? I’m a big fan of Korean food, I’m always down for a new cuisine type and, as mentioned, North Korea is…well…interesting. I have so many internal questions. How did these North Koreans escape their home country? How did they open a restaurant? What is different about their food vs. South Korean food? Will it be scary there? Is there an even greater chance of being under secret surveillance while eating at a North Korean restaurant while being an American while living in Russia? (A lot of whiles, but it was for affect.) Who knew North Korean restaurants even existed?

We joined two friends at the nearest metro station and made it to the restaurant, called Pyongyang Korea, at about 6:30pm on a Thursday night. The guy who invited us was wondering if we should have made a reservation. We opened the front door to two attractive, tall, slender and well dressed employees who immediately welcomed us by saying hello in Russian and motioning for us to follow them down the stairs to the restaurant. We walked down two short flights of stairs with our friendly escorts into a large and almost entirely empty dining room. The four of us were shown to a 6 person table (passing by several 4 person tables) I assume for ultimate comfortability. We were then welcomed again and given three menus (for the four of us) and left to peruse the menu while our waitress walked to the bar and stood beside three other waitresses, all four of them now staring at us. I don’t think they were staring at us to be rude or to watch us, rather to show their willingness to take our order or assist as soon as we were ready. They would however continue to basically stare at us for the rest of the meal.

Our friend who had picked the restaurant, and had a little background knowledge on it, which I did not, mentioned something about it being state-run. After briefly arguing the point and forgetting we were not still in the U.S., it hit me. This is actually a restaurant owned and operated by the Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea. These young ladies are not dissidents who escaped and are trying to make a living in Russia, they are state recruited and trained to run this restaurant abroad as a direct representation of North Korea. I am sitting at a table owned by the Dear Leader himself (actually I don’t know if ‘Un’ qualifies for that title, or if that still belongs to the now departed ‘Il’) and being served by young ladies who grew up in, and most likely will return to, the most isolated and closed-off country in the entire world. Then it also hit me…is my money benefiting the government of North Korea? Again, it had to be put aside for the sake of the cultural experience. Plus, the restaurant was seriously empty.

After getting over my initial shock of this realization, my excitement returned to trying the food, comparing it to South Korean cuisine and enjoying a night out in Moscow. The staff, as far as I/we could tell, spoke Russian fluently. They clearly had years of training in language and service. We picked some known items off the menu, at least those we could figure out that we knew, like bulgogi and bibimbap. But we also asked for a few recommendations and made sure to get what I believe is the most well known dish of North Korean cuisine, a cold buckwheat noodle soup (raengmyeon or 랭면). Obviously this cuisine has roots in the food of their brothers to the South, who actually were their brothers until about 60 years ago, but has been adjusted over the decades due to very limited resources, ingredients and most likely refrigeration or cooking capabilities. The food was all tasty with unique flavors, but the dishes that we were familiar with didn’t excel past the Southern varieties we’ve had before. The cold soup was not my ‘cup of tea’, but our friends enjoyed it more than I did. The bimbimbap had an overly-fried egg on top instead of the semi-raw egg that you get to mix down to the bottom of the hot pot so it cooks itself amongst all of the other deliciousness all mixed in, but I will live. And the bulgogi was more than satisfying. But forget the food, the real star of the meal was…THE STATE RUN NORTH KOREAN TELEVISION PLAYING PICTURES OF PEOPLE KISSING  KIM JONG-UN’S HEAD OVER AND OVER AGAIN ON LOOP ON THE WALL BEHIND US. As well as many females singing songs about stuff and people marching and stuff. BUT KIM JONG-UN IS ON TV BEHIND ME. AND OMG WAS THAT KIM JONG-IL TOO!!!

That is a terrible photo of the TV showing Kim Jong-Un. I promise you, it is Him.

I couldn’t help but be a little paranoid. Are we being spied on? Are these impeccably trained waitresses actually our minders? I quickly stole cell phone pictures of the TV while trying to not be seen. Will consuming this propaganda make me a friend of the place affectionately known as the “Hermit Kingdom”? Perhaps a slight exaggeration, but it really was a rather surreal experience when you sat back and thought about it all. But then again, if you just found this place wandering the streets and simply popped in for a bite to eat, I suppose you could just see it as any other restaurant. Any other restaurant aside from the pictures of the great Il and Un streaming straight from Pyongyang, that is. Oh and also, occasionally the waitresses all danced in unison to the background karaoke style music. But for some reason, I am the only one who ever witnessed it. When my friends turned around, they stopped. Aside from that, this could have been any other Korean restaurant.

After splitting two glasses of soju (Korean rice liquor), we paid the check. When we approached  the door to walk back up the stairs to the exit, all four waitresses waved excitedly and nearly in unison while as they repeatedly said goodbye to us in Russian.

I just ate at a restaurant owned by Kim Jong-Un. In Russia. Bucket list? Complete.