Feeling tired after our last seminars and classes, I thought I would go back to the room and take it easy until later, when many of us had said we would go to a club. But someone was looking at the Moscow Times and glancing over a shoulder I happened to notice that Hillary Hahn was playing at the MMDM (Doma Musika) with the Philharmonic. I decided I was going and managed to get a group to come, despite various plans to go to a botanical garden, go to a bar, go to a Mongolian restaurant, all of which inevitably involve wandering around and doing nothing with big groups. Anyway, seven of us made the march to the metro, past the broken sidewalks and apartment buildings and anonymous neon lit cafes. After some directional mishaps underground, and problems crossing the street (these problems would pursue us all night, later when we were with the whole group) we managed to find the theater. Well, we couldn’t miss it, gorgeous, epic glass giant that it was. The concert was sold out, but we managed (with Melissa’s help) to make a deal with some scalper outside: 200 a piece (talked down from 300), with 4 minutes until showtime. Nevermind that the tickets were originally 50 rbl. – we’re talking seven dollars per – but as we were about to enter we noticed that the date was a day ahead. Devestated and humiliated, we pondered what to do before Dylan and Melissa marched back, all the way down the wide palatial stairway, to have a chat with our salesman. But they insisted it didn’t matter, and sure enough, it didn’t. Also, the show didn’t start for half an hour. Eto Russyia.

The music was great—Paganini’s Violin 1—and Hillary excelled. She was so sweet, so precise, amazingly lively and forceful in her moments of silence, plucking, crescendos. After a lovely Sarabande by Bach for the encore, we heard Mendelsohn’s Italian Symphony, not as interesting, but led by a truly Russian maestro, Vladimir Spivakov, who earned almost as much applause and flowers as Hillary before launching into some Mozart (and perhaps Berlioz? Puccini?) encores with the full orchestra. Powerful.

The intermission was a trip; ultra-rich mingling over hors-d’erves on the mezzanine, caviar and champagne, colorful suits. After a schwarma, we met the rest of Team America in front of Lenin’s tomb and spent about forty-five minutes meditating on what and where to go next before actually heading to Club Propaganda. Well, “heading” is a very debatable term in the context of a traveling troupe of 20 non-Muscovites. We were being led by Olga, the very nice IREX woman (girl) who decided to hang out with us. But instead of heading to Kitai Gorod (Chinatown) we ended up moving towards the Arbat—the opposite side of Red Square. Anyway, she felt so bad she cried, and we comforted her before heading back to the Kremlin for some street beer and then a lively ride back home on the metro. Spoke to Megan the whole way home about her Fulbright in Ukraine, her Ukranian heritage, garbage, literature, and Ukranian orphanages, with a brief break for three policemen who pulled a group of us aside outside the station. Fortunately, Doug, passportless slipped away, thus avoiding who knows what of bureaucratic hell and probably a bribe. Anyway, the problem of our registration was soon resolved (we were only in Moscow for two and half business days, not three), and we were on our way, down the dark, torn up streets to a last loud night in the dorms before our various adventures.