The metro

The ride on the metro on my way to work is always an interesting experience. The system daily carries more than the London and New York metro combined (9 million) with metros running every minute. Funnily enough, people still run to catch the metro in the station and so do I, in my attempt to integrate. Another way of integrating is striking the typical metro pose. Russians do not smile to strangers and most people look like they are all in a terrible bad mood (see http://weblogs.nrc.nl/weblog/moskou/2007/01/30/in-de-metro/ for some examples). But you always get a good overview of the Muscovian society in the metro as it is one of the last things that are still relatively cheap in Moscow (with tickets as cheap as 20 eurocents per ride) and a lot of people like pensioners are entitled to use it for free. This morning I couldn't help myself smiling (twice). The first time was when I spotted a guy having a beer as I was on my way to work and still in the process of waking up fully at around 8.30 AM. The second time was when I spotted a stray dog on the metro platform that attempted to go down the escalators. Nobody seemed to pay any attention as everyone is always in a hurry to get somewhere. One of the things I don't like about the metro is that it's so hot in there. No aircondition and since you are all wearing thick winterjackets, one can imagine what the results are of that!