Zombies, Goethe, peen. Also, Moscow.

I have reviewed Alexander Sokurov’s “Faust” for The Moscow News, as promised.

For a person who mostly stumbles around groggily in between caffeine sessions, I’ve had a very productive week. Hell, I even saw Putin. Though perhaps the best sight wasn’t Putin: it was journalist and author Anna Arutunyan, being lifted by a huge, factory worker-type in the air, all to get a better glimpse of the aforementioned prime minister at Luzhniki stadium.

Later, Anna and I went in search of food and my husband, and had a long conversation about physics, primal energy and politics, some which we even taped. It referenced everything from frescoes in the historic Kirillovskaya church in Kiev to Vladislav Surkov. Snow flurries drifted to the ground. The air in Moscow was rapidly warming. We must have sounded like two idiots to anyone who caught even the briefest snatch of our rambling discussion.

On our way home to the baby that night, my husband and I dropped into the Gogol night club, our Kilometer Zero. Maybe. The bouncers were still polite, the crowd was still refreshingly human. Outside the dressing room, a lantern styled like an old street lamp still burned.

In the summer’s, Moscow’s swanky Stoleshnikov pereulok attracts rent-boys who discreetly advertise themselves to passing ladies and gentlemen. But when we came out of Gogol, it was cold and dark and the wind had changed directions, hinting, also discreetly, at spring.