It feels like yesterday, when we were sitting in our small office at 45 Bond Street and Rosapaola walked in with her portfolio under her arm. We have just lived through the period after Sept 11th and we needed to move from our larger office into a small share, in order to reduce cost. Times were hard these days and we spent a lot of our idle time (there was absolutely no work!) with our fun project 2-ZERO. Stefano, one of our contributors, brought in Rosapaola. Looking at her photos was just as a beam of light in these dark and grey times. I don’t recall, why we never did anything on her in 2-ZERO. Think it was just too late and the time when I was about to close down and make a move to Spain.

Photo: Rosapaola Lucibelli - http://www.rosysite.it/

I came back from a business dinner in the city last night. It’s rather cold here in Moscow (16 C) and I took a walk along the Garden Ring in the rain. It was grey and dark again. At home, I had an email of Rosapaola in my inbox. She is back in Rome now (away from NYC as so many of us) and just launched her new website, which I find very good in terms of style and how the content is organized. But best of all are her photos.

Well, just check it out yourself…

Alistair read my car crash article and posted his views in his Ruminations on Russian Tech and Venture Capital Investing … I find especially the last paragraph interesting:

“Now the fun starts. After a crash you are not allowed to move your car until the traffic police arrive - we crashed at 13.30. they turned up at about 17.00. Fortunately the sun was shining so we sat by the side of the road. Once they had turned up it took another 90 minutes of form filling (and 3500 rubles to “expedite” matters) to get a form from the police to use with the insurance company.”

Yep, that is Russia as we know it.

Sam read my accident article and wrote a nice follow up piece. Check his site and read the stories about 2 accidents he had in Yekaterinburg (below my story, you’ll have to scroll down). I like the 100 Rubel piece, but I believe you won’t get away that cheap in Moscow (even if the other one is guilty).

http://youngsamwon.blogspot.com/2005/06/fender-benders-in-russia.html

One can see (and learn) a lot when he travels, even more when you actually live in another country. Sometimes cultures are so different. Living in Russia, I feel sheltered when I’m back home in Germany, like last week when I went for 2 days to Berlin for business. Anyways, a few days ago I visited a friend. While we sat in his living room and chatted, we heard a mild bang outside. It wasn’t dramatic enough for us to jump up and look, but a few minutes later I checked the street below his window and saw an accident.

Two Mercedes had crashed into each other and a few other cars seemed to be involved. The drivers and their passengers were standing on the sidewalk discussing the situation. My friend than explained to me, how you handle traffic accidents in Moscow. First, you pull your cell-phone and call support. That may be someone high up in the hierarchy, who sends some loyal cops or some other people to handle the situation for you. It doesn’t matter who has made a mistake, he says. It matters who has the strongest support. I didn’t quite understand what he meant, but about 30 minutes later I should learn and see.

That’s when a black Lada (with black windows) arrived at the scene and 4 black haired people in black leather jackets got out of the car. I didn’t pay much attention when they walked to the group of the discussing parties, but shortly after one of the drivers lays on the ground. First I thought, he fell unconsciousness because of the accident and the stress, but my friend told me, that the other party had “beating” arguments. The victim stayed on the ground for about 15 minutes laying there in the rain, while some people try to get him back on his feet. It has been a true knockout.

By that time some traffic cops have arrived and they must have called backup and an ambulance. Shortly after 2 militia (police) Ladas arrived at the scene. The (I call him) victim is back in his feet and they continue to argue. Than, the beating starts again, but the cops get in between. The victim is obviously bleeding, because he is holding something to his mouth and nose, but now there are other people involved in the beating and it turns out to be a streetfight. The cops arrest 2 of the violent supporters (tha black leather jackets), but when one of them sits in the police car already another driver comes by the police car and gets hit and kicked by him again.

From there on it was silent, apart from some mysterious guy who arrived at the scene later. He was also a supporter of the guy who called the beat-up team. He went straight to the cop in charge (there were many, but he knew exactly who is in charge) and introduced himself. The cop saluted and after a 5 minute chat the cop seemed to have gotten an explanation of what happened from that mysterious supporter, which shortly after went back to his car and drove away with a hot tire. That’s when the ambulance arrived with siren and blue lights on. 3 hours later!! Man, I hope I never have an accident in Moscow (of no kind). I’ll probably die before someone comes to help me.

When I left my friends house around midnight, the “evacuator”, a tow car was stuck on the wet ground trying to pull the silver Mercedes jeep out of the grass and I guess the scene was going on for another 2 hours before everybody got home. Over all it was a 5 hour event until I left. Nobody got hurt, apart from the beating and the cars were not damaged so bad, but that’s how you handle an accident in Moscow. Hope I never have one, because as a foreigner, I’d not know who to call for my support and at the end I’d end up loosing and probably paying or being beat up by some southern type mafia guys.

VIDEO (2 minutes, Quicktime, 4 MB)

Even though my friend warned me about not recording or posting this video, I recorded the last part of the fight. Its pretty blurry because it was late already and my Pentax photo camera isn’t good for video. Sorry, I had been to excited before to even think about recording. First you see the scene of the accident with all cars involved, than it shows you when the victim argued and got beat up for the second time by one of the aggressors. Follow the crowed to the street. Police arrests on of the aggressors and puts him into the red/brown police Lada. That’s when another guy in a black leather jacket comes. The aggressor jumps out of the police car and starts beating him and kicking. Sorry for the bad quality again, but I guess you can see what happened and like this nobody can be identified anyways. Moscow live!

Click here for the video

I have written about this guy in my last article and I just decided to look up the lyrics and post them here in case you have troubles finding the song. I heard it first on Pete Tong’s Essential Selection last Friday. Well, its not really a guy, but a project of Danish Søren Rasted and 20 other people.

There is no artist…but there are over 20 songwriters, some of the best professional speakers, such as Ted Maynard (This Is The Truth, The Manual (chapter 4) ), Julie Berry (Facts of Life, We only Read the Headlines) a well known newsreader for CNN and the BBC and Patrick Allen (Inhale Positivity, Are You Qualified) who was involved with Frankie Goes To Hollywood as the chilling voice offering information on what to do in the event of a nuclear war. Not to mention the comic genius that is Greg Giraldo (Underwear Goes Inside The Pants), Greg is a well known face in the states appearing regularly on shows like David Letterman and Connan O’Brian.

Here is a link to Lazyboy’s website:
http://www.lazyboytv.com/LAZYBOYhome.html
And here is the video as a Real Media stream.

Underwear Goes Inside The Pants

Why is marijuana not legal? Why is marijuana not legal?
It’s a natural plant that grows in the dirt.
Do you know what’s not natural?
80 year old dudes with hard-ons. That’s not natural.
But we got pills for that.
We’re dedicating all our medical resources to keeping the old guys erect,
but we’re putting people in jail for something that grows in the dirt?

You know we have more prescription drugs now.
Every commercial that comes on TV is a prescription drug ad.
I can’t watch TV for four minutes without thinking I have five serious diseases.
Like: “Do you ever wake up tired in the morning?”
Oh my god I have this, write this down. Whatever it is, I have it.
Half the time I don’t even know what the commercial is:
people running in fields or flying kites or swimming in the ocean.
I’m like that is the greatest disease ever. How do you get that?
That disease comes with a hot chick and a puppy.

The schools now: It is all about self-esteem in the schools now.
Build the kids’ self-esteem, make them feel good about themselves.
If everybody grows up with high self-esteem, who is going to dance in our strip clubs?
What’s going to happen to our porno industry?
These women don’t just grown on trees.
It takes lots of drunk dads missing dance recitals before you decide to blow a goat on the internet for fifty bucks.
And if that disappears, where does that leave me on a Friday night with my new high speed connection?

Masterminds are another word that comes up all the time.
You keep hearing about these terrorists masterminds that get killed in the middle east.
Terrorists masterminds.
Mastermind is sort of a lofty way to describe what these guys do, don’t you think?
They’re not masterminds.
“OK, you take bomb, right? And you put in your backpack. And you get on bus and you blow yourself up. Alright?”
“Why do I have to blow myself up? Why can’t I just:”
“Who’s the fucking mastermind here? Me or you?”

Americans, let’s face it: We’ve been a spoiled country for a long time.
Do you know what the number one health risk in America is?
Obesity. They say we’re in the middle of an obesity epidemic.
An epidemic like it is polio. Like we’ll be telling our grand kids about it one day.
The Great Obesity Epidemic of 2004.
“How’d you get through it grandpa?”
“Oh, it was horrible Johnny, there was cheesecake and pork chops everywhere.”

Nobody knows why were getting fatter? Look at our lifestyle.
I’ll sit at a drive thru.
I’ll sit there behind fifteen other cars instead of getting up to make the eight foot walk to the totally empty counter.
Everything is mega meal, super sized. Want biggie fries, super sized, want to go large.
You want to have thirty burgers for a nickel you fat mother fucker. There’s room in the back. Take it!
Want a 55 gallon drum of Coke with that? It’s only three more cents.

Sometimes you have to suffer a little bit in your youth to motivate yourself to succeed in later life.
Do you think if Bill Gates got laid in high school, do you think there’d be a Microsoft?
Of course not.
You got to spend a long time in your own locker with your underwear shoved up your ass before you start to think,
“You’ll see. I’m going to take of the world of computers! I’ll show them.”

We’re in one of the richest countries in the world,
but the minimum wage is lower than it was thirty five years ago.
There are homeless people everywhere.
This homeless guy asked me for money the other day.
I was about to give it to him and then I thought he was going to use it on drugs or alcohol.
And then I thought, that’s what I’m going to use it on.
Why am I judging this poor bastard.
People love to judge homeless guys. Like if you give them money they’re just going to waste it.
Well, he lives in a box, what do you want him to do? Save it up and buy a wall unit?
Take a little run to the store for a throw rug and a CD rack? He’s homeless.
I walked behind this guy the other day.
A homeless guy asked him for money.
He looks right at the homeless guy and says why don’t you go get a job you bum.
People always say that to homeless guys like it is so easy.
This homeless guy was wearing his underwear outside his pants.
Outside his pants. I’m guessing his resume isn’t all up to date.
I’m predicting some problems during the interview process.
I’m pretty sure even McDonalds has a “underwear goes inside the pants” policy.
Not that they enforce it really strictly, but technically I’m sure it is on the books.