Egypt: Day Two, Part Two

Saqqara, Step Pyramid

By the time we reach the Step Pyramid in Saqqara, we’ve learned it was the first giant monument built, the prototype for all the other pyramids to come after.  Built in 2700 BCE by King Djoser, it’s a mind-boggling 4,600 years old!  The name comes from the fact that it’s actually six different mastabas (“eternal houses”) of different sizes, one on top of the other.  But Djoser didn’t dream up this project; it was his vizier Imhotep, a physician, who decided to build the tomb.  Its deep shaft cuts 92 feet through limestone, and the sarcophagus is of pink granite.  There are dozens of corridors on six different levels with blue tiles all along them.  As with all pyramids, the entrance faces true north.  Ahmed calls it “the biggest tombstone on Earth” because there’s nothing inside it; everything’s underneath it, below it.  It was just one of several buildings that, grouped together, created a mortuary complex, all surrounded by a one-mile-long wall.  Now the only thing around the pyramid is farmland, with no residences.

Mohammed

       While some go down inside, I choose to opt out.  My legs still ache from yesterday and this pyramid is apparently much the same inside except the corridors are only 4' high and very long.  That’s too far to crouch.  Instead some of us decide to walk all around it and we discover another smaller pyramid on the opposite side.  It’s believed that this was his wife’s.
       We split up to explore the several buildings within the necropolis.  Somehow I seem to have adopted a certain Mohammed, who started out wanting me to take his photo, “no money”.  (Everyone wants $1 in bakshish.)  Mohammed proceeds to “show me” (translation: walk around with me) several buildings and finally a statue.  But as I try to leave for the bus, he wants “dollar”.  I use my new word leh (no) - adding shoukran to be polite - but basically I just have to keep walking, with him in my wake until another “volunteer guide” shushes him away.
       Lunch at the Palm Club was a Mideastern smorgasbord (how do you say that in Arab?) with barbecued chicken and beef kefta.
       Followed by the Imhotep Museum, the work of Zahi Hawass which was opened jointly by the wives of Egyptian President Mubarak and of French President Chirac in 2006.  It includes scale models of the site as it once was, plus many of the treasures found during excavations, including our first mummy.  Along with a statue of a scribe that I particularly liked and a collection of jars made out of alabaster, on display are many of the blue-green tiles that lined all the corridors of the Step Pyramid, so at least I can see them without having to crouch along the low passages on my still-aching legs.

Cobra frieze at Saqqara

Back at the hotel after a long bus trip and heavy traffic, we just have time for a rest and change, then an audiovisual presentation by The Great Man himself, the impeccably-dressed Zahi Hawass.  He tells us of how the Cairo Museum was ransacked during the Egyptian Revolution that eventually brought down Mubarak.  Looters, he says, were looking for gold and the mercury placed in the mummies to protect them from evil spirits.  The looters also stole souvenirs from the museum’s gift shop, but not books.  In all, only 54 objects were stolen, compared with 45,000 in a similar incident in Baghdad.  All but 17 were found later on.  Hawass takes this incident as typical of the Muslim Brotherhood, which he feels is ignorant.
       In spite of his vast knowledge, Hawass tends to speak extensively in the first person singular.  For instance, we learn that it was he who discovered the Pyramid builders’ tombs.  Hawass has written a book on Ancient Egypt chock full of magnificent color photos of all the wonders we’re about to see, and he signs the copy I buy, but doesn’t enjoin a conversation with me or with any of us.  Same at dinner - he only talks to his assistant Tarik and others in his group.  Then disappears.
       As I do... to bed, to nurse my still sore muscles.

Day Two, Part One - Back to the beginnings

Menna House restaurant

Up not too early, another buffet breakfast and then an organizational meeting with the guide of Ramses Group, Ahmed, who has been doing this for 21 years, after four years studying Egyptology in college.  He and Sira will be our shepherds and information sources.  They prove up to the job on all fronts, including shooing vendors away.  Hassan, who’s been doing this since 1997, is our security officer (for a day) and Mr. Mahmoud is the all important driver, traffic being what it is.  (After a few days, he starts calling me habibi (sweetheart), probably because I always smile at him and say hello every morning.)

       As we ride through crazy traffic, Ahmed introduces us to Egypt and announces that Zahi Hawass and Jehan Sadat will both be on the boat with us from Luxor to Aswan.  He goes down the list of luxuries we’ll enjoy:  entrance to places no one else can go, like right down to the Sphinx or into all the chambers of the Great Pyramid of Giza, which we’ll have all to ourselves before it opens to the public.  (The Temple of Luxor, too, albeit at daybreak!)  Tea with the widow of President Sadat.  Plus seven nights on a new five-star boat.

Farming along the narrow fertile Nile Valley

To understand what we’re about to see, a bit of history is necessary, and Ahmed gives us some invaluable details to help us make sense of all we’re about to experience over the coming weeks.
       For starters, the Nile.  This river, arguably the longest in the world (with the Amazon), is what makes the country work.  Otherwise, it would be all desert.  As it is, only a narrow strip along either bank is green, irrigated by water drawn from it. Egypt’s Aswan Dam ended seasonal flooding while still providing water to the country.  Ninety per cent of the river’s water comes from the Blue Nile, which originates in Ethiopia, and plans there to build the Grand Renaissance Dam are causing serious disputes between the two countries.  Only 10% of the river’s flow comes from the White Nile, which originates in headwaters upstream from Uganda’s Lake Victoria.  (I personally stopped its flow with my finger when I visited Burundi decades ago and visited its farthest source, which is just some water bubbling up from underground in the middle of a meadow.)
       In ancient history, there were two Egypts, based on the flow of the Nile.  Upstream was Upper Egypt; downstream was Lower Egypt.  Mortal enemies, they were finally united in 3100 BCE by King Narmer (also called Menes) of Upper Egypt who defeated Lower Egypt and united the two lands.  “Ancient Egypt” is counted as of this point and ends in 332 BCE when it was conquered by Alexander the Great.

Life in Ancient Egypt as depicted on tomb walls

       There were some thirty dynasties in all.  The Early Period covered the first and second dynasties, from 3100 to 2700 BCE, followed by the Old Kingdom that ran from the 3rd to the 6th (2700-2400 BCE).  During the Old Kingdom, the ruler was very powerful and the government was well-organized.  The capital was established in Memphis, at the border of the two former Egypts.
       To give us an idea of the prowess of what Ancient Egypt built, Ahmed tells us that there was no iron back then, only bronze and copper, making stone-cutting extremely hard work.  There were no horses, only donkeys and oxen... and no chickens (a staple in modern menus).  There were no wheels, which means there were no pulleys - and makes it amazing to think about how the Pyramids were built at all.
       In understanding the multiple carvings on the many monuments we will see, it’s important to grasp a few details that deal with the unification of the two Egypts.  For instance, the symbol of the North was the papyrus plant while the South was represented by the lotus flower.  The king of the North wore a red crown, while the crown of the South was white, and the two were combined to indicate the pharaoh of United Egypt.  Of the 741 gods and goddesses worshipped, the North chose the cobra as its god and the dryer South, the vulture.

(to be continued)

Saqqara, Sstep Pyramid

Egypt: Day 1 - An introduction to Egyptian pyramids

My wake-up call comes at 7 am, giving me ample time before our 9:00 departure by bus.  I open the curtains and - misty as it is - there stands the Pyramid! Couldn’t see it last night.  It’s looking down on me through the centuries.  I can’t believe I’m here!
       The first day of the trip.  A time for getting my bearings.  Breakfast is a buffet, plus omelette makers who flip them expertly.  The tea is good, as befits an ex-British “protectorate”.  Then just time to brush teeth and empty tanks before we’re off!

Today is an extra excursion above and beyond the actual tour:  Meidum and Hawara, two pyramids a good distance south of Cairo.  Both are about an hour and a half away.

       Once out of Cairo, the trip is mostly across barren land.  Not desert, although we’re headed west, but rather what wind erosion has created over the millennia.  Occasionally there are housing projects, one of which is decorated with Tom chasing Jerry across its facade.  Strangely, each apartment building - about five to seven stories high - has a huge pile of dirt between it and the next building, as if the earth excavated for the foundations had just been dumped there and left. Not a nice view for the lower floors!

Gradually Meidum rises on the far horizon.  Called the Seven Step Pyramid, it was built by Sneferu, but he doesn’t appear to have been buried there.  The top is now missing, which means that this pyramid was once almost twice as high as it is now.

       We are being escorted by a police car, which changes with each administrative department (like county lines for sheriffs).  There are speed bumps on many streets in both towns and countryside, as well as multiple guardposts where all vehicles must stop and no photos are to be taken.  Security is important here; these measures were implemented during the upheavals of the 1990's.  Keeping tourists safe is serious business, literally, as tourism is Egypt’s second source of income, after oil and gas (and fees from the Suez Canal, I believe).

       Scattered along the road are stands selling soft drinks and, I suppose, other food staples.  Although they're selling to passers-by, there are also tables for drivers who need a break from the tedium of the flat, dry terrain.

       We pass pick-up trucks with sleeping passengers crowded in the back.  Others have a flock of sheep shoe-horned in.  Have they just been bought or are they already on their way to slaughter?  There are myriad microvans:  six-passenger Suzukis - the little brothers to the white minivans that compete with and are preferable to the municipal buses, which are not too... enticing.  Plus many cars that seem to aim down the lines drawn to create lanes, obviously just a concept here, rather than stay within them.  And almost no traffic lights.  (Ahmed, our other tour guide, will tell us later that, in case of an accident, you don’t call in the police, you shout at each other and then leave.  He claims the only “big deal” in driving in Egypt is if your car’s horn doesn’t work!)

Jihan, our guide

We reach Meidum and shed our escort, who will wait for us at the guardpost.  Jihan, our guide for today, is a knowledgeable Egyptologist and she explains a bit of the history to us.  (I’m surprised to learn later that she has no university degree in architecture!).
       After her introduction, those brave and able enough are handed over to an Arab guide to go down into the pyramid's tomb.  Although the corridor has a ramp a bit like the ramp to get on or off a ship, it’s a lot less user-friendly, with a 45° angle that descends for the equivalent of several stories.  Following that is a horizontal corridor followed by several ladders up to the small burial chamber.







       There are no furnishings left, no sarcophagus and no decorations.  Just a very small room.  I’m not claustrophobic but the air in here has definitely been breathed many times over, and it’s very stuffy.  I decide to climb back down and leave more room for the other 20 people.

      The ascension back up the ramp will turn my thighs into steel for two or three days to come.  I remember stopping, alone in this cramped shaft, looking up toward the speck of light far ahead.  It looks so very distant and makes me realize completely how deep inside the earth I am.  Gives me a good idea of what it would be like to have been buried here almost 5,000 years ago.  My mind boggles at the ancientness of this place.

       Up in fresh air we wait for the others, then off to the second pyramid, Hawara.  Now just bricks, it was robbed long ago of the limestone facing that gave it the name Black Pyramid.  No visits inside because it’s filled with water from the aquifer below.
       So off we head for a lunch and then back to Giza and Mena House.

Mena House was built in 1869, in time for the opening ceremony of the Suez Canal.  We arrive just early enough for a tour to see the rooms Churchill and Montgomery lived in when they and Franklin Roosevelt met here during World War II.  This is a more recent page out of history, and one I didn’t know about.  I only knew they met in Yalta, but this was a pre-Yalta meeting minus Stalin, to plan strategy for Operation Overlord, the liberation of Europe.  The rooms have been left as they were, and the furniture is stunningly retro.

After dinner with the two Lindas and another Sandy, it’s time for a hot soak to unknot my aching Meidum thigh muscles... and then to bed.

EGYPT: February 4 - Getting there

Cairo, from the Citadel

After my Malta fiasco, where the airport gate was changed and I unknowingly watched my plane take off, I’ve become wary of missed flights.

At the airport

       Which is a good thing because 45 minutes before take-off to Egypt there was still no one at gate 44, and very few passengers, only one of whom was headed for the same destination as me.  I see a staff person coming down the walkway and ask if this is for the Cairo flight.  No, he says... and it isn’t even the right building!  A case of wrong church, right pew.  For some reason they have you check in at Terminal 2F but the flight leaves from Terminal 2E way across the parking lot.
       But I’m not alone in my error.  The other Cairo passenger and I rush off down never-ending hallways, running along moving walkways.  We breeze through immigration - luckily! - race past Gucci and other duty-free shops and manage to make it to the right gate 44 just as pre-boarding starts.  Close call!

During the flight, on which we are wined and dined, my neighbor is a young man from Utah, non-Mormon, non-Trump.  He’s going scuba diving in Sharm-el-Sheikh with his girlfriend.  We spend the 3½ hour flight talking politics, as I did on the way to the airport with the Haitian cab driver.  With Brexit, Donald Trump and the upcoming French and Dutch elections - plus Ukraine and Syria - politics seems to be all that’s on people’s minds.
       Upon arrival in Cairo, the group organizing this Ancient Egypt tour - Archaeological Paths - has a man already in the customs area.  He points us to the visa counter (automatically granted for $25 cash, U.S.), after which it’s the customs stamp line, then baggage.  I have all my clothes in the carry-on my daughter bought me for Christmas so I have a head start.

The trip into town, with about six other people, takes a good hour.  It’s not that the airport is so far outside of town, but rather that Cairo is the largest city in all of Africa.  Traffic is intermittently heavy, even at this late hour, and many on-coming cars have dim headlights or none at all.  Lane lines have no meaning whatsoever and horns are used to announce someone coming through between two cars where it seems there’s no room.
       Many people are standing along the busy 4-5 lane highway.  I presume it’s like Martinique, where you have island taxis cruising.  There are also many tow-trucks carting off wrecked cars, trucks with crushed cabs, etc.  As much as I like to drive, I don’t think I’d like to drive here!

Mena House

When we arrive at Mena House, our hotel, there is a chicane barrier at the gate to the property.  A soldier comes out of his sentry box, retrieves a German shepherd from its dog house - a sniffer dog - and walks slowly, carefully, all the way around our van.  Only then, and after checking the luggage compartment and the driver’s paperwork, does the barrier go up and we’re allowed in.

       The hotel is magnificent.  While our lovely Armenian minder, Sira, takes our passports to the front desk, we sit in the “bar”, listening to a flute and violin duo and sipping our welcome hibiscus drinks.  A golf cart then takes us down garden pathways to our various buildings.
       The room is spacious and clean, the mattress firm, and me tired.  So I eat one of the three complimentary oranges and it’s lights out.  Literally.

St. Petersburg, Russia: Take-aways

In St. Petersburg, nothing could be built higher than the Winter Palace.  That reminds me of Philadelphia, where nothing could be built higher than William Penn’s hat, on the statue atop City Hall.  (Anecdote, although skyscrapers finally broke that rule in March 1987, a small version of William Penn was ultimately mounted on the final and highest beam of the Comcast Center, currently the tallest building in the city.  So even today, nothing is higher than William Penn’s hat.)

The Neva

As far as the layout of St. Petersburg is concerned, it was evidently the work of a Frenchman:  Jean-Baptiste Alexandre Le Blond (in 1716).  Just as Washington, D.C. was laid out by another Frenchman:  Pierre Charles L’Enfant (in 1791).  It seems that, even back then, or maybe especially back then, France had a recognized flair for knowing how to make a city beautiful.

One question remains unanswered: where are the blacks, the  Arabs, the Asians?  I was told afterwards that the era of subsidies for students from developing countries is over.  And aside from that, there was no great influx of immigrants either during the tsars or the Soviet days.  That would explain it.  The only non-Caucasians I saw during the entire trip were those tourists in the Korean exhibit at the Hermitage.

Out of 22 channels on the hotel’s TV set, one was encoded, one was in Chinese and the remaining 20 were in Russian.  Of all the places I’ve been, including the motel along the Volga, that is the only time that ever happened.

A word to the wise:  Russian showers work the opposite of American or French showers. Toward the left is cold; to the right is hot.  I remembered that from last year, after the puzzlement but before the cursing started.

The Winter Palace

I spotted only a few dogs over the five days - I could count them on the fingers of one hand.  But then again, I was downtown and not in a residential area, so perhaps that’s normal and not a sign of a dislike of pets.  Of the four or five dogs I saw, two were wearing raincoats!

From the House of Fabergé

I found that Pushkin had a decidedly mulatto look to him, something that surprised me because I’d actually never seen his face.  The mystery was solved when I found this on the British Library’s On-line Gallery, written by Mike Phillips, who started by describing Pushkin’s great-grandfather:

Pushkin Café

       “According to his son-in-law and first biographer, Abram (or Ibrahim) was the son of a ruler in Africa: possibly Chad, possibly Abyssinia.  At an early age he was either abducted or sent to the court of the Turkish Sultan in Constantinople.  Bought from the Sultan, Abram arrived in Russia and was baptised with Tsar Peter standing as his godfather.  Peter visited France in 1717, and at the same time Abram was sent to study there.  He returned with the conventional skills of an officer of artillery, but he had also acquired a new surname, Hannibal (in Russian, Gannibal), and the name had significant echoes of republican defiance.  A respected military engineer, he was promoted under successive rulers and lived on into the reign of Catherine the Great.  There is no reliable likeness of Gannibal.  Hugh Barnes, in his book Gannibal: The Moor of Petersburg (2005), has shown that this portrait, long thought to be of Gannibal, cannot be of him.
        "Gannibal's third son (of 11) by his second marriage, Osip Abramovich, married Marya Alexeevna Pushkin, and their daughter was Pushkin’s mother Nadezhda.  Pushkin’s father Sergei Lvovich Pushkin came from a family of boyars (nobles) whose fortunes had declined under Peter the Great.  Sergei Lvovich inherited the family estates, and had the reputation of being idle, frivolous and miserly.  He was also a fluent French speaker and had a large library of French literature and philosophy, both of which offered Pushkin a solid grounding for his later education.  Pushkin’s mother inherited the family estates from her father Osip, but he had left it so heavily encumbered with debt that, during her lifetime, the income went into paying it off.  She was beautiful and elegant, but Pushkin was no closer to her than he was to his father.”

Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood

St. Petersburg, Russia: Day Five

The Admiralty

My return flight to Paris is at 3:35.  I thought that would give me ample time for a bit more St. Petersburg rambling.  But my ride has called and decreed that he will pick me up at noon!  Rats!  That doesn’t leave me very much time.  I had hoped to make it back to the St. Peter and Paul Fortress, but I guess that’s not to be.  So I pack up my bag and head out the door for some last minute memories.

St. Isaac's Cathedral

First on my list, St. Isaac’s Cathedral over by the Admiralty. St. Isaac was the patron saint of Peter the Great, who built this city.  And the cathedral is huge, the largest in the city and evidently number four in the world.  Designed by a French architect, which is fitting, given that Peter wanted Russia to be part of Europe, not Asia, and did everything he could to make St. Petersburg as striking architecturally as any European capital.  Like all the other churches in Russia, it was turned into a museum during the Soviet period.  But now it holds services for feast days, and on Sunday mornings has Russian Orthodox services.
       It’s pretty cold this morning, and the walk over is chilling, but at least nothing “like snow”.  When I get there, the ticket office is closed, so I decide to wait a while.  After about a quarter of an hour, I notice a tourist bus pull up on another side of the cathedral.  I walk over and see the tourists all just waiting outside the fence while their guide explains something in Russian, so I decide to wait with them.  Then I see a family, in their Sunday finery, walk up and thread their way through the crowd.  Aha!  I follow their lead and find that the service is about to start.  There’s incense and a lot of chanting and bells and it’s all very beautiful, but after a while I feel the clock ticking, so I head back.
       Outside there’s a man setting up some souvenirs on a stand he’s just unfolded.  When he catches me looking, he says something to me in Russian and motions to his tchotchkes.  I smile at him and say “Nyet Russki”.  He laughs and says “Dasvidania” - good-bye - to which I give him a heartfelt “spaseeba” and, having run the gamut of my Russian, keep on walking.
       Almost back to the hotel, I pass something I’d love to have more time to delve into:  the Soviet Café.  But it’s just opening, and the clock is still ticking.

 I still have an hour, theoretically, so I decide to check out what a luxury department store in Russia looks like inside.  I’m looking for something amber, a specialty of the region, for my daughter’s birthday.  And right across from the hotel is the DLT Department Store which has been selling luxury goods since 2005 in a five-story building that was totally restored in 2012.  Wikipedia later informs me that it was originally built as a garrison store in 1908:  “ At the time, officers were paid a high salary and were expected to live a lavish lifestyle. Along these lines, the officers' cooperative felt it appropriate that their store should be no less luxurious than the most fashionable Parisian department stores.”  Which explains why it resembles Le Printemps or Galeries Lafayette or even Le Bon Marché in Paris.  Same architecture, same décor.
       Once through the doors, the similarity extends to the product lines.  Sisley, Dior and Chanel for cosmetics.  For women’s fashion: Chloé, Gucci, Prada, and Dolce & Gabbana. But nothing “amber” within my price range in jewelry.
       A nice touch is a whole colorful corner, with cartoon characters, set aside for children. Books, games, child-size tables and cushions strewn on the floor to sit on while Mom shops (hopefully with attendants to ride herd on the kids, although it’s too early on a Sunday morning for many shoppers, so I’ll never know).
       But now it’s time to get back to the hotel.  When I get there, my driver is already waiting, even though it’s just 11:30.  Probably not speaking English, he drives me in silence one last time down Nevskiprospekt and out to the airport.  I have plenty of time to check in, and even find a necklace of multicolored amber for my daughter in one of the duty-free shops, the one run by the Russian Museum.
       St. Petersburg has been cold and grey but beautiful.  People have been very helpful, in spite of the language problem, and the museums and churches are wondrous.  So many good memories.  Thank you, Vladimir, for helping me know your country, first in the Volga Valley and now here, in the still-beautiful former capital.

St. Petersburg, Russia: Day Four, Part Two

Now for something completely different, as Monty Python would say: Dostoyevsky’s apartment.  How the other half lives.  A world different from that of Fabergé and its clientele.
       On the way, I stop at Our Lady of Vladimir Church, chock-a-block with icons.  And people.
       Around the corner is the Vladimir subway stop.  For some reason just outside the exit peasant-looking people stand with bouquets of onions, or bags of apples or potatoes.  Is this how they round out their salaries?  Is it regulated?  Or a bit of free enterprise?  (I find out later, back in Paris, that these people are retirees who live in the near suburbs and have garden plots.  They take the subway line in to this terminus every Saturday, and yes, it’s to round out their insufficient retirement pensions.) 

       The Dostoyevsky “museum” is on a corner and I spot it almost by accident.  My Cyrillic is getting better.  As with many places (the Hermitage included), you enter into a half-basement level.  As I’m not a Dostoyevsky fiend, I forego the audioguide and just settle for any signs written in English.  There is even one in French in his study.  It’s as much information as I need, and a somber antidote to the frivolity of Fabergé.
       Then it’s back to Nevskiprospekt and quite a walk back the way I came, but on the opposite side of the avenue.  A collection of street scenes - and so many people.  There was a sketch artist drawing a portrait, and someone inside a pig costume handing out flyers, and a women with two children looking at carved Hallowe’en pumpkins in a store window...
       Then another navigation problem:  finding Nabokov’s house/museum.  I go inside what I think might be a tourist information agency, but it’s not.  I see a young man at a counter, with a computer.  We don’t understand each other but he hits Google and turns the keyboard to me.  I type in Nabokov Museum, he sees what it is, and ultimately prints out a map for me.  Then gives me directions with his hands - outside, left, left again, straight on.  Spaseeba!
       But after due consideration, and given the time of day, it’s too far and in the opposite direction from my next stop, a must:  Pushkin’s apartment.  What’s more, my feet are very tired.  After yesterday’s miles of Hermitage halls, I’ve covered an additional three or four miles today already.  So Pushkin it is.  Besides, the young man will never know.

Pushkin's Houseb

The museum is in a large courtyard, with no indication of where to buy tickets.  I opt for the side with people hanging around.  A door with a sign in several languages says cryptically  “tickets further”.  Finally I find it... a long way from the entrance, which is again in a basement.  I get an audioguide and here again “scuffies” to go over your shoes and protect the wooden floors.  Each room has all doors closed and no indication where to go.  Luckily a woman guard opens one for me, and I learn each room has a guardian angel to see you don’t take photos (but I sneak a few just the same).  One offers me her chair - I must look very tired! - and makes me wait a few minutes until she hears the previous group is done in the next room.  She’s the warmest of all the guards I see on the entire trip. And I’m getting used to exchanges without words.
       This is so much better than Dostoyevsky.  I’m glad I didn’t miss it by seeing Nabokov’s.  It couldn’t have been any better.

Fontanka River

       I trudge back to the hotel, mercifully nearby, for my cup of chai and a rest.  Then it’s time for a meal.  For my last meal in St. Petersburg - and the only real one, actually - I go to Aprikosov - Apricot.  A friend, a physician/jazz percussionist with a Russian wife, tipped me off to this one.  I’d walked past it several times, never suspecting this three-steps-down place was the fantastic restaurant he’d told me about.  But I checked it with the front desk and then ventured forth.
       I order the roasted filet of venison with potatoes and morels, accompanied by a glass of red wine.  When the venison comes and I taste it, I call over the waitress.  At first she looks concerned, but then I give her a message for the chef.  “Tell him I live in Paris and even in France I’ve had no better venison than this.”  And it’s true. She walks off to the kitchen, looking very pleased.   After that I have their crème brûlée, which is also very good, and a glass of champagne.  Total: 3750 rubles.  Translation: just short of 58€.  Perhaps a lot for Russia, but not for such a great meal in Paris.

As it’s early yet (meals eaten alone go quickly), I stop off at the Grand Hotel Europa’s Lobby Bar, which the jazz friend has recommended because... well, jazz.  They advertise live entertainment every night, although for the moment it’s just a piano player.  I order a drink and settle into a plush chair to wait.  After about half an hour, Vilena shows up to sing.  After her first set, she takes a break and I call over the waiter.  I ask him to ask her if she knows “For All We Know”, and she opens her next set with it, looking over at me.  The waiter has done his due diligence.  She and the pianist do an excellent rendition of the ballad, after which, with a smile and a nod to her, I take off back to my hotel.
       Tomorrow will be a short day before my departure.