Moscow is a mucky city. Not in the sense of being covered in litter - it isn't, it's admirably tidy - but as far as the dirt is concerned. The authorities try to keep a handle on it, they really do, with fleets of orange trucks travelling in convey along the streets and spraying water to keep the dust down, but it's a thankless and interminable task. I suspect that the reasons for this are multiple; pollution, open ground, power stations in the city (although I suppose that falls under pollution), the number of cars on the streets (ah - pollution again), and diesel trucks. Which is of course, also pollution...
Anyway, keeping your car clean is like Sisyphus's task of rolling a huge boulder uphill only to be forced to watch it roll back down at the end of every day - an endless job. The car is cleaned, and by the time you get back from your next trip to wherever, it's already looking dirty again. This is made even more fun by the fact that you are not actually allowed to clean your car on the streets of Moscow (because of - doh - the dirt and pollution it causes), or even in most compounds; you have to take it to a car wash where they dispose of the dirty water in the correct manner. Whatever that may be*.
Many people still manage to have spic and span motors, but they tend to be those who have drivers to deal with such things. Their driver takes the car to the moika (Russian for 'car wash') once a week to keep it gleaming when they have to fill a couple of hours between dropping their client off somewhere and collecting him / her again.
We, however, do not have a driver. Keeping our car clean is pretty much down to me - and frankly, I have better things to do with my time - so our car is, much to my children's embarrassment, usually one of the dustiest ones in the school carpark.
But even I am forced to admit that the cleanliness of the car might deserve to be slightly higher on my list of priorities when, the morning after I finally got it cleaned, Boy #2 (who didn't see it the night before) walked out of the back door to find it parked next to the house and asked "Who's car is that?"
* I have my suspicions that 'the correct manner' may just be down the drains like the rest of us would do, but then I'm cynical like that and of course I have no proof...
Anyway, keeping your car clean is like Sisyphus's task of rolling a huge boulder uphill only to be forced to watch it roll back down at the end of every day - an endless job. The car is cleaned, and by the time you get back from your next trip to wherever, it's already looking dirty again. This is made even more fun by the fact that you are not actually allowed to clean your car on the streets of Moscow (because of - doh - the dirt and pollution it causes), or even in most compounds; you have to take it to a car wash where they dispose of the dirty water in the correct manner. Whatever that may be*.
Many people still manage to have spic and span motors, but they tend to be those who have drivers to deal with such things. Their driver takes the car to the moika (Russian for 'car wash') once a week to keep it gleaming when they have to fill a couple of hours between dropping their client off somewhere and collecting him / her again.
We, however, do not have a driver. Keeping our car clean is pretty much down to me - and frankly, I have better things to do with my time - so our car is, much to my children's embarrassment, usually one of the dustiest ones in the school carpark.
But even I am forced to admit that the cleanliness of the car might deserve to be slightly higher on my list of priorities when, the morning after I finally got it cleaned, Boy #2 (who didn't see it the night before) walked out of the back door to find it parked next to the house and asked "Who's car is that?"
* I have my suspicions that 'the correct manner' may just be down the drains like the rest of us would do, but then I'm cynical like that and of course I have no proof...
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