POSTING #50

Dishwasher Problems;  Looking for an Apartment in Moscow (Conclusion)

Dishwasher Problems

When we were looking for a new home, one of the absolute requirements was that everything had to be brand new---the house, the furnace, the air conditioner and the appliances.

We had fixed up three houses---one in Ottawa and two in Grimsby---and felt that we had done our bit for preserving Canada's urban landscape. More prosaically, we had swallowed enough plaster dust, and negotiated with enough contractors and repair people to last us for the rest of our lives.

Our Virgil home met all those requirements, and we have enjoyed the luxury of a trouble-free life (there was, of course, the construction of the basement rooms, and a small flood from the water line to the refrigerator, but who is counting).

Then a couple of weeks ago, we noticed that when we emptied the dishwasher, the dishes weren't very clean. We studied the trouble-shooting part of the handbook and couldn't see a solution.

As I got ready to deal with the dishwasher people, Pat happened to say that she had noticed that the current bottle of dishwasher gel was more liquid than usual. We assumed that the company had changed their formula but when we checked a recently purchased backup bottle, the gel was thick.

When I called the company's 1-800 number and gave the clerk the batch number from the bottle of the gel, she immediately apologized and said she would be sending a coupon for a new bottle.

I got the clear impression that ours wasn't the first complaint.

It kind of boggles the mind how with all the quality control measures that companies supposedly take that a whole batch of watery gel could leave the factory.

I tell this story in case any reader has been feeling that the dishes aren't coming quite as clean as usual.

Looking for an Apartment in Moscow (conclusion)

Last week's posting ended with my feeling blue because I couldn't find an apartment in Moscow at a rent I could afford.

Gennady, the real estate agent, had come up with another apartment, which a number of westerners had already looked at and rejected because it had not been modernized.

Although the asking rent was beyond my means, perhaps the owner would be prepared to negotiate a lower price.

We agreed to have a look at it.

The places I had been looking at had all been in low-rise apartment buildings but this was in one of Stalin's Seven Sisters, a group of skyscrapers that Stalin commissioned after a trip to New York after the War. He is supposed to have said that communism needed some skyscrapers to show that it was capable of doing anything that capitalism could do.

Stalin used Russian architects to design the buildings but most of the construction was carried out by German prisoners of war whom he refused to return to Germany after the War.

Two of the buildings became  hotels, another one housed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, one became the main building of the University of Moscow, and one became an administrative centre. Two of the hotels became apartment buildings, one for senior party people and one for cultural heroes. Click here for an article about the Seven Sisters.

The apartment that Gennady had in mind was in the last building, the one for cultural heroes, called the Kudrinskaya Square Building, which is located near the US Embassy. 

(Here is a quote from Wikipedia about the apartment building: " Designed by Mikhail Posokhin (Sr.) and Ashot Mndoyants. 160 metres high, 22 floors (17 usable). The building is located on the end of Krasnaya Presnya street, facing the Sadovoye Koltso and was primary (sic) built with high-end apartments for Soviet cultural leaders rather than politicians.")

There was a locked door with a combination to the lobby but no guard. The lobby must have been spectacular in the Soviet period with marble columns, high ceilings and lots of gilt paint but it was now tired and in need of sprucing up.

But it was clean and there was no smell of urine.

The apartment, on the 13th floor, had a heavy oak door, not steel, with two locks. Inside, the kitchen was large, with older but serviceable appliances, and a splendid view of the Russian parliament, the so-called White House.

The bathroom had a deep tub, huge porcelain sink with a pedestal. The bedroom was not large but would work.

The living room and dining room were combined into one large room with an enormous crystal chandelier hanging from the 12 foot ceiling, and fine views of Moscow. The table and furniture were well-crafted with simple lines, not the overstuffed items I had seen in other apartments.

The oak parquet floors were sprinkled with fine carpets.

I liked it.

Turning to Gennady I asked, "What's the matter with this one?'

After a perplexed silence, he replied, "That's what you're supposed to tell me".

Then muttering with distaste, he added, "This could be the set for a 1950s movie".

I asked him to find out if the owner would come down to my price level. He said the owner was a widow with a son at university studying medicine and the rent would be her only source of income.

But, he mused, for a single tenant she might come down a little.

The owner insisted on meeting me to discuss the rental. She came with her son to the meeting. She was in her late 50s and was the daughter of the senior military officer who had first acquired the apartment. Her son was in his early 20s, tall with dark hair, We met,  negotiated a price I could afford, and I finally had an apartment.

Pat, who came over for five visits, said that she always felt at home in the apartment.

And the groups of Canadian consultants, who came to Moscow on their way to their assignments in the provinces, always came for a pizza and beer evening in the apartment. (They always stayed at the KGB residence.)

In the summer of 1996, our children and their spouses came for a two-week visit and used the apartment as the base---they too stayed at the KGB residence.

The apartment worked out very well.

ooo

During Pat's first visit we discovered pencil marks on the kitchen door jamb. Looking at them we realized they were height marks, made over the years for the young man who was now studying medicine. There were short horizontal lines made, we assume, as he stood with his back to the jamb, and then the date.

The markings made me smile. During the Cold War, when we were so worried about what the Soviets might do, the original owner of the apartment who was a senior military officer---and proud grandfather---was recording the growth of his grandson.

ooo

The apartment had a cable TV connection but no TV. I bought a set and then spent weeks trying to get someone to activate the cable. Yuri finally called the owner and she successfully intervened with the building management.

I was finally able to get CNN and the BBC.

I was told that the delay was caused by the fact that the cable signals came into an antenna on the roof and my apartment had to be connected to the antenna. Also on the roof were numerous eavesdropping antennae pointed at the US Embassy a few hundred yards away. Only people with the highest security screening, I was told, could go up on the roof.

However, looking back I suspect that if I had offered a good bottle of cognac things might have moved faster.

ooo

There is a story that I was told about the US Embassy. During the Cold War when part of the embassy was being rebuilt, a number of KGB agents worked as labourers, their task being to plant bugs in the walls. The Americans realized of course that the KGB would attempt to plant bugs so they had inspectors watching the work.

(The US General Accounting Office included this sentence in one of its reports at the time about the Moscow Embassy, " The State Department considers Moscow to be one of the most technologically hostile intelligence-gathering locations, requiring the highest level of security.")

At one point, a KGB operative was about to plant a key bug when an American inspector appeared. Another KGB fellow seeing what was happening threw himself off a scaffold to create a diversion.

In the confusion that followed this 'accident', the bug was planted.

The KGB agent, who survived but was badly crippled, was celebrated as a hero by the Soviets but after the end of the USSR he was ignored. A Russian friend, who was no fan of the Soviets, argued vigorously that the nation should not have turned its back on someone who made such a selfless sacrifice.

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See you next Sunday for Posting #51 with more stories from our family’s universe! If you have comments or suggestions, please leave a comment at the bottom of this posting, or email me at johnpathunter@cs.com.