A letter home from study abroad
September 17, 1996
Today started out as a normal school day...I slid out of bed at
about 8:30 and showered and got dressed in time to run downstairs and
discover that the food was inedible. I had a cup of tea and spent the
last several minutes before class desperately trying to memorise a poem.
(Yes, i pulled it off.) The most interesting thing that happened in class
was during Conversation class: I took my sweater off because I was getting
hot. Within five seconds, Nadezhda, our professor, noticed and started to
tell me that I had to put my sweater back on _INSTANTLY_ or I would end up
in the hospital and how would i feel about taking my sweater off, then? I
put my sweater back on.
After class, several of us started joking about going to the
Michael Jackson concert. (We'd been toying with the idea for weeks) So,
we decided to go out and try to get tickets. Katya told us that the
cheapest tickets we'd be likely to find would cost $50. We weren't
discouraged.....of course, we couldn't find tickets at any of the ticket
offices we came across in out travels. So, we decided to check out Dynamo
stadium, where the concert was going to take place. Lo and behold, there
were scalpers....but these weren't your typical scalpers...most of them
were middle-aged women. It was now five-thirty and the concert started at
seven. Most of the tickets were in the 40 dollar range. I told Shiloh
that i heard one woman only wanted 120K R. and was promptly told that
there was no way they'd sell tickets to foreigners that cheap. We got 4
"Standing Room" tickets for a total of about 85 dollars. Not too bad.
Now, the other three, (Leslie, Liz and Shiloh) had at one time or another
been into Jackson's music...but not me. I was in this simply for the
novelty. Once we had our tickets, I was informed that Leslie needed to
buy some designer jeans before the concert. Liz and I went back to the
dorm to get ready and chill out. If Shiloh and Leslie didn't show, we
were just going to go without them. Well, they appeared at about 6:25
carrying 1 pair of black Versacci (sp?) jeans and a six pack. They were
finally ready to go at about 6:45. When we got off the metro at Dynamo
station, there were tons of military personnel in riot gear. Several were
repeating "Do not congregate in the station. Proceed directly outside."
We did.
At the entrance to the stadium was a crowd of people about 20
deep. A line of police in riot gear was letting people in two or three at
a time. There were occasional surges forward as people strained to get
through. We made it through by about 7:20 without losing anybody.
Inside, we joined the huge mass trying to force its way through the gate
onto the floor of the stadium. We met a nice young Russian woman who had
come alone. Apparently, her boyfriend plays for "Dynamo" and got two free
tickets. There was an old woman cowering in the corner who had apparently
saved her nickles and dimes (or their rouble equivalents) because she
desperately wanted to see Michael Jackson. Unforutnately, she lost her
ticket. After going nowhere for about 10 minutes, we discovered that we
weren't at the right entrance.
Wandering in the direction in which we had been pointed, we came
across a human chain of Militsia in riot gear holding back yet another
crowd trying to get into the stadium. One man was, in broken english,
trying to explain to a cop that he had lost two girls-one twelve and one
thirteen- somewhere in the crowd and that they spoke no russian and that
he was frantic, etc. Unfortunately, the cop's russian was worse than the
german's...so we translated for a bit. We finally found the right
gate...it was the one with the crowd that was an order of magnitude bigger
than any we'd seen so far. We worked our way up to the front, where there
was yet another line of militsia in riot gear. Here, there was a lot of
shoving..and the militsia shoved back. At one point, they came at us with
billy clubs. My head hit against something, but I think it was only
somebody else's head. I was moving away from the front of the crowd too
fast to be sure. Three of us got through the militsia's blockade, but liz
didn't make it. So, I went up to the officer nearest her and explained
that she was with us and that she spoke no russian. He let her pop under
the barricade. It was only one more frantic press through the crowds
before they checked our tickets and permitted us to be patted down. They
used one of those "Metal Scanner" batons on my backpack and I had to pull
out the flask and bag of makeup that leslie had given me to hold.
The concert:
When we got into the park, the opening act was on...they were _REALLY_ bad.
We only heard like two songs before they diappeared. They were replaced with _good_
oldies that I could have listened to all night. Soon, a booming voice announced
"History will begin in 45 minutes" in six languages. 40 minutes later, they announced
"1/2 hour till history." At "5 minutes till history" fireworks went off and a huge
video screen came on. Michael came out on stage in some form of a rocket ship. He
made the removal of his "space suit" a strip-show-esque affair. It went downhill
from there. I left at about 10:45...i just couldn't cope...The walk from the stadium
to the metro was flanked with two rows of militsia in riot gear with locked arms.
The only thing one could do upon leaving the park was go into the metro...where there
were more militsia making sure everyone got on the first train they could. All in
all, it was worth it, only to see russian crowd control at its best.