Unfathomable Mysteries of the True Russian Sole

If the shoe fits - and keeps you warm and dry outdoors and comfortable and cool indoors - wear it.

The winter streets and roads of Russia make severe demands on the furless human foot. This is my eighth cold season in Russia and Ukraine without what marketing men would call a comprehensive foot solution for my winter needs.

The problem is finding footwear that keeps your feet warm when it's cold, when you're standing in the open; keeps them cool when it's hot, when you're indoors, or on the metro; keeps them dry when the snow suddenly melts and the only way across the road is through a pool of greenish-brown fluid of uncertain depth; and keeps them smart when you're going to the theatre, or going to a restaurant, or meeting someone with a nice rug and polished floors in their office.

In winter, it's customary to take your shoes off when you visit someone's flat – they'll lend you a pair of slippers – otherwise you leave dark footprints on their floor of an oily suspension that infiltrates Russian urban snow.

But you can't do that in restaurants or public buildings. They'll take your coat, of course. Every building has its cloakroom: there must be tens of thousands of full-time cloak-room attendants in Moscow in winter, adding as much as half an hour to getting out of the theatre. But they won't take your shoes.

The Russians go for vocational solutions to the problem. By their footwear shall thee know them. The basic peasant defence against cold feet are the infamous valenki, or felt boots.

These are exactly as their name describes them. They are crude boot-shaped objects, almost like rigid socks, made of stiff gray felt. You put them on over boots or shoes.

From a purely insulational point of view, they're superb. It is valenki, which enable farmers, fur trappers and fishermen to go about their business in Siberia and northern Russia in temperatures of -40C or less. It is valenki, which enable soldiers to stay at their posts throughout the January night – valenki probably won the war for the Soviet Union.

Less happily, it is valenki, plus sheepskin coats, which enable the traffic police to stand by the roadside handing out fines in all weathers.

I remember reading a western journalist's glowing account of the wonders of valenki before I came out here. He made them sound not only warm but elegant and sought – after.

Well, he was lying. The thing about valenki is that nobody in town, apart from the traffic police, would be seen dead wearing them, no matter how cold it gets.

Why? Because they make you look daft as if you'd just broken free from the mafia before they'd thrown you in the river, when the concrete hadn't quite set. If you wore them to go shopping, or to go to the pictures, or to work, everyone would laugh at you. Perhaps you wouldn't mind as long as your feet were warm. But it would be like walking into your local pub on a chilly night wearing a quilted parka with the hood up, a balaclava, hiking boots, ski trousers and mittens.

In the city, rich Russians can rely on travelling from place to place in warm cars, and not having to spend much time outdoors.

As for ordinary Russians: women office workers wear knee-length warm boots, if they can afford them (the stiletto heels, perhaps, assist insulation by isolating the foot from the frozen ground) which can serve for smart on an evening out and can be swapped for shoes at the workplace. Russian urban men are more of a mystery. I'm assured that they wear smart, warm winter boots too, but when you look at their feet in the street it looks like the same poor, cheap, thin leather, as if they're just enduring it, and hope not to have to spend too long waiting for the trolleybus in the frost. And the trouble with fur-lined boots, which the Russians swear by, is that once indoors, your feet begin a sopping perspiration.

The best boots of all are probably those worn by the Evenk people of north-central Siberia: light, supple, waterproof footwear designed to keep reindeer herders feet warm in the tundra but that still allow the feet to breathe inside your wigwam. Unfortunately, they're made of hand-stitched reindeer skin. Looks like I'm stuck with Doc Martens again.

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Baggage handling is the least efficient part of air travel. An astounding amount of airline baggage goes to wrong destinations, is delayed, or lost entirely. Airport executives point woefully to the many opportunities for human error which exists with baggage handling.

Freight is now going aboard Flight Two in a steady stream. So is mail. The heavier-than-usual mail load is a bonus for Trans America. A flight of British Overseas Airways Corporation, scheduled to leave shortly before Trans America Flight, has just announced a three-hour delay. The post office supervisor, who keeps constant watch on schedules and delays, promptly ordered a switch of mail from the BOAC airliner to Trans America. The British airline will be unhappy because carriage of mail is highly profitable, and competition for post office business keen. All airlines keep uniformed representatives at airport post offices, their job to keep an eye on the flow of mail and ensure that their own airline got a "fair share" – or more – of the outgoing volume. Post office supervisors sometimes have favourites among the airline men and see to it that business comes their way. But in cases of delay, friendships doesn't count. At such moments there is an inflexible rule: the mail goes by the fastest route.

Inside the terminal is Trans America Control Centre. The centre is a bustling, jam-packed, noisy conglomeration of people, desks, telephones, teletypes, private-line TV and information boards. Its personnel are responsible for directing the preparation of all Trans America flights. On occasions like tonight with schedules chaotic because of the storm, the atmosphere is pandemonic, the scene resembling an old-time newspaper city room, as seen by Hollywood.

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In the late 1950s and early 1960s young artists reacted to abstract expressionism to produce works of "mixed" media. Robert Raushenberg and Jasper Johns integrated everyday objects such as photographs and newspaper clippings into their paintings.

The reaction to abstract expressionism continued with a movement called "pop art" ("pop" is short for "popular"). The members of this movement attempted to produce works of art that would reflect pervasive influence of mass marketing, mass media and other trends in American popular culture. Important in the pop-art movement were Andy Warhol (1930-1987), famous for his multiple rows of soup cans and multiple portraits of Marilyn Monroe; and Roy Lichtenstein, recognized for his mimicry of well-known comic strips.

Unique forms and styles of music have developed in America. Ragtime, blues, jazz, country-western, rock'n'roll and the musical are all American-born.

The black American music tradition has produced and influenced a variety of genres. Ragtime was the first black American music to gain wide popularity. Composer Scott Joplin (1917-1968) helped develop ragtime from simple parlor piano music into a serious genre. Ragtime is most important for its association with the blues, which then inspired jazz, America's most original music form.

The blues evolved from American folk songs and church music. Sung by soloists or featuring solo instruments, blues music often expresses disappointment or regret.

Jazz, now recognized as a world-wide art form, originated around the turn of the century among black musicians in the American South. The music was inspired by African culture but evolved directly from spirituals, ragtime and blues. Jazz is characterized by improvisation and a lovely attention to rhythm, something famous jazz musician Duke Ellingtone (1899-1974) called “swing".

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God bless you

It happens everywhere. You sneeze, and people you've never met, mere passersby, say: "God bless you" or simply "Bless you". Believing that it is simply common courtesy rooted in social etiquette, you may have given little thought to why people say this. Yet, the expression is rooted in superstition. "It comes from the idea that you are sneezing out your soul". To say "God bless", is, in effect, asking God to restore it.

As you are probably aware, there are still many who view a black cat crossing their path as a bad omen or who are fearful of walking under a ladder. Many also believe that Friday the 13^th is a day of bad luck and that the 13^th floor of a building is a dangerous place to be. Such superstition persist even though they are irrational.

Think about it. Why do some people knock on wood when expressing some hopeful sentiment? Isn't it because, without sound evidence, they believe that these acts will ensure good luck? The book A Dictionary of Superstitions observes: "A superstitious mind believes that certain objects, places, animals, or deeds are lucky (good omens or charms) and that others are unlucky (bad omens or signs of misfortune)".

A journalist recently made a tongue-in-cheek remark about a chain letter, which is a letter that is sent to several persons with a request that each send copies to many others. Often, one who passes such a letter on is promised good luck, whereas the one who breaks the chain will supposedly experience evil consequences. So the journalist became a new link in the chain and said: "You understand that I'm not doing this because I'm superstitious. I just want to avoid bad luck".

Anthropologists and folklore experts feel that even the term "superstitious" is too subjective; they are hesitant to label certain behavior patterns that way. They prefer more "comprehensive" but euphemistic terms "folk custom and belief", "folklore" or "belief systems".

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Aside from the schools' task of socializing and equalizing youngsters of different social, cultural and economic backgrounds, schools have the obvious task of providing quality instruction. The public's concern for better schools and more learning is increasing as results of standardized tests show a continual decline in students' academic achievement.

The 1983 report, A Nation at Risk, by the National Commission on Excellence in Education asserted: "The education foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity." The following statistics of the report bear out this claim:

· 13 percent of all seventeen-year-olds in the United States are functionally illiterate;

· among minority teenagers the figure may be as high as 40 percent;

· average achievement of high school students on most standardized tests is lower that in the mid-1950s;

· reading, writing and math skills are so poor among young people that employers have spent millions of dollars on remedial education and training programs for their employees.

The commission's recommendations for improving student achievement, widely supported by the public, include the following points: 1. stronger academic curricula with a back-to-basics emphasis on reading, writing, math and science; 2. stricter standards for students, including a heavier homework load and higher grading standards; 3. higher salaries to attract and keep talented, well-qualified teachers.

By its democratic standard America has succeeded in educating the many and has made gains in evening out inequalities. The challenge for American education today is to improve the quality of learning without sacrificing these gains.

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In 1996 I decided to participate in the auction of Svyazinvest, the state telephone holding company. I agonized over the decision. I was aware of the pervasive corruption. It would have been easier to keep my hands clean by sticking to philanthropy but I felt that Russia needed foreign investment even more than philanthropy. If Russia could not make the grade from robber capitalism to legitimate capitalism all my philanthropy was in vain. So I decided to descend from my Olympian heights and participate in a competing bid for Svyazinvest which turned out to be the winning one. It brought about the first genuine auction in which the state was not short-changed. Although we paid a fair price, just under $2 billion of which my funds put up nearly half, I calculated that it would prove to be a very rewarding investment if the transition to legitimate capitalism came to pass.

Unfortunately that is not what happened. The auction precipitated a knockdown, drag-out fight among the oligarchs, a falling out among thieves. Some of the oligarchs were eager to make the transition while others resisted it because they were incapable of operating in a legitimate manner. The main opponent was Boris Berezovsky. He threatened to pull down the tent around him if he was not given the spoils that he had been promised, and that is exactly what he did. I had a number of heart-to-heart talks with him but I did not manage to dissuade him. I told him that he was a rich man, worth billions on paper. His major asset was Sibneft, one of the largest oil companies in the world. All he needed to do was to consolidate his position. If he could not do it himself, he could engage an investment banker. He told me I did not understand. It was not a question of how rich he was but how he measured up against Chubais and the other oligarchs.

Text 12

Coffee – Aroma of life

For sheer sensory enjoyment, few everyday experiences can compete with a good cup of coffee. The alluring aroma of steaming hot coffee just brewed from freshly roasted beans can drag sleepers from bed and pedestrians into cafes. And many millions worldwide find getting through the day difficult without the jolt of mental clarity imparted by the caffeine in coffee. But underlying this seemingly commonplace beverage is a profound chemical complexity. Without a deep understanding of how the vagaries of bean production, roasting and preparation minutely affect the hundreds of compounds that define coffee’s flavour, aroma and body, a quality cup would be an infrequent and random occurrence.

Connoisseurs agree that the quintessential expression of coffee is espresso: that diminutive heavy china cup half-filled with a dark, opaque brew topped by a velvety thick, reddish-brown froth called crema. Composed of tiny gas bubbles encased in thin films, the surprisingly persistent crema locks in the coffee’s distinctive flavours and aromas and much of its heat as well. Espresso – the word refers to a serving made on request expressly for the occasion – is brewed by rapidly percolating a small quantity of pressurized, heated water through a compressed cake of finely ground roasted coffee. The resulting concentrated liquor contains not only soluble solids but also a diverse array of aromatic substances in a dispersed emulsion of tiny oil droplets, which together give espresso its uniquely rich taste, smell and “mouthfeel”.

Aficionados consider perfectly brewed espresso to be the ultimate in coffee because its special preparation amplifies and exhibits the inherent characteristics of the beans. Espresso is useful for our purposes as it is in effect a distillation of all the numerous techniques by which coffee can be made, including the Turkish method and various infusion and filter drip processes. To know espresso is to know coffee in all its forms.

High-quality coffee arises from maintaining close control over a multitude of factors in the field, in the plant and in the cup.

Coffee cultivation entails myriad variables that must be monitored and regulated. Once a coffee bean is grown. Nothing can be added or removed: the quality must already be present. For a single portion of espresso, 50 to 55 roasted coffee beans are required; a single imperfect bean will taint the whole sufficiently to be noticeable. This is because human olfaction and taste senses originated as defence mechanisms that protected our ancestors from rotten – hence, unhealthy – foods. Only through modern technology can one economically and consistently identify 50 nearly perfect beans.

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Date: 2016-01-14; view: 916