A slug of vodka and half a tomato

...... that's what he had for breakfast.Of course i was surprised, yet in true Russian style nobody else batted an eyelid. The train was packed as usual and i sat opposite him. He opened the bottle of vodka so tenderly it was if he had been seduced.I have come to learn that over here slug of alcohol for breakfast is as normal as the way you and i would eat toast. Drunks and the homeless are part of the landscape. I have yet to become hardened to the beggars on the Metro .You will see people with the most staggering disability getting on the train and asking for help. They get few rubles from one or two people but in the main they are ignored. I've been told by more than one person here that begging here is a 'business' that doesn't benefit the people that you think it does.


One very jaded view that i heard was that these businessmen' go to country villages looking for seriously disabled people to bring to this Metropolis .They make alot of promises but as soon the new arrivals get here they are put to work .I've seen some people here that we'd rush to help at home. Men in soldiers uniforms without legs .Someone else who could hardly speak and whose only limb a horribly twisted arm and a forefinger and thumb. I am trying to harden myself because my big soft heart is costing me a small fortune ! I tell myself 'Do not give anything to anyone today, you need to feed yourself much less everybody else' then someone gets on the train and your first thought is 'Ooooh good God...am i really seeing whats in front of me?'


Yesterday it was a woman bent doubled , with limbs so twisted i thought that she was going to topple over and get trapped between the train doors. The drivers here are not blessed with patience. As the train rocketed through the tunnel she managed (just) to stay upright and deliver her speech. She asked that we( the 'kind' people on the train) spare a few rubles because life is hard for her and her medication that she needs is costly .She carried what must have been her treatment card with her. She moved with such difficulty i was sure that people would respond to her better than I've seen at other times. It didn't happen .Apart from what she got from me and a couple of people she was ignored.I acknowledge that I've only been here 3 months and Moscovites have been seeing people like the woman yesterday for years.


I've been fortunate enough to meet some wonderfully generous native Russians , although to look at their hardened exteriors you wouldn't think that they wouldn't give you the air that they breathe. Yet this generosity is tempered by an ability to ignore things that make you want to run up to them , shake the and say 'Didn't you see that?' . They will probably tell you 'Yes', and , with that fantastically blunt logic of theirs they'll tell you that everybody suffers and everyone is responsible for their own struggle.That's life.