This afternoon in Moscow — a minus 25. At the exit of the metro station “Dinamo” the saleswoman spread their wares right on the sidewalk: socks, tights, mittens, hats, shawls, scarves, felted insoles and other warm things. Are the street selling points flourished in the Russian capital, while its mayor, Siberian Sergey Sobyanin, decided to eradicate small businesses in the metro stations and, thus, was able to destroy the chaotic maze of tents and vendors where Muscovites were stocked with goods, returning from work. In return, he gave them a swing on the triumphal square.
Wrapped up like onions in scarves, shawls and coats, the clerk was already standing in his usual place, when I went to the press conference, and two and a half hours later, when I put it back. I asked if she had knee pads of a dog’s fur, which the Russians warmly recommend for travel in extreme cold regions. The knee pads were. Turkish, 500 rubles. The saleswoman told me that she from the North Caucasus, from Dagestan, and that all the morning she is freezing in the cold. And asked me to guard the goods, while she escapes to the bathroom. “I quickly,” she says.
“In the face shows that you’re a good man,” the ingratiating she says and before I can react, it disappears in a subway, apparently the toilet is on the other side of the Leningrad highway, one of the biggest arteries of the city. While it’s not, I’m trying to find the appropriate distance relative to the decomposition of the product is neither too close nor too far. However, the people I associate with them clearly. A woman asks about socks, another man interested in the insoles. I explain that I am quite a stranger, performing a humanitarian mission.
But I’m starting to worry. What if the police come? How do I explain the transformation in street the shop, especially now, when the Minister of foreign Affairs, Sergei Lavrov, brought clean water to American diplomats, trying to sniff out information, wearing women’s clothes, wig and false eyebrows. In the troubled background of the current international situation, foreign correspondent for Newspapers is also possible to suspect that he’s pretending to be a saleswoman mittens.
And if these bales of scarves is going to explode? Dagestan remains a very unstable country and then thundering explosions and gunfire.
Some subject staring at me. Maybe it’s the thug who “protects” the area and came to the saleswoman with its stake that it did not touch the police?
I call a colleague to tell her about this strange situation, which turned out to be. “Hurry out of there. Maybe this woman drinks coffee in the nearby diner,” suggests a colleague on duty in the state Duma.
I was so tempted to run, to turn trade some passerby “face of a good man”. I talk about their anguish a woman who asked if I do not sell chewing gum. “Hold on,” says one, before quickly jump into the bus approached.
Time goes on. The police came, socks, and mittens exploded, suspicious passerby passed by. Finally, the clerk returned smiling. “All was great” — as though nothing had happened she explains, showing a bag of food. I answer her that she has no conscience, and she, still smiling, takes a pair of socks and hands them to me, “you didn’t complain”. That’s all. 25 minutes on the street at 25-degree frost. The knee pads of a dog’s coat and socks as a gift.
