Proxemics in Moscow

MOVEMENT

 I read a piece some time back called “Proxemics in the Arab World.” I’d never heard of proxemics, nor had any dictionary I could find, but it is, as one would assume, the study of how people relate to each other on a spatial level. I guess the word stems from “Proximity”.  No doubt sociology would cover the same ground in one of its manifestations. Anyway, the notion is essential to grasping the tenor of life on the Moscow streets. One’s initial reaction is to think them all impolite to the point of absurdity, but to do so is, surely, to fall into cultural prejudice. Which may be the best bet.

Some examples, all of which hold for, at least a majority of the time.

If one holds a door open for a woman behind oneself, she will sweep through it without a word of thanks and, rather than taking hold of it herself to prevent the next person from getting smacked in the face, will leave you with the problem of how to deal with them. The heavy wooden metro doors are particularly lethal. Should you decide to hold the door a little longer in this case then the process is repeated until you realize that you will have to stand and hold the door for the entire population of Moscow. Even when I hold a door open to allow my three-year old son to pass, people will jump at the gap and push their way through, blithely ignoring his safety.

 Or, one is walking in a gap between, say, two cars. Having just about reached the end of the gap, which is wide enough to allow only one person to pass at a time, some other, approaching from the other side and seeing the situation clearly, will walk straight into the gap, thereby ensuring that neither of you can pass the other.

Now what do they expect? That you will walk backwards all the way to permit them to pass you? That you will somehow struggle past each other smearing dirt from the cars all over your clothes? Perhaps the question is not pertinent. Perhaps “thinking” doesn’t enter into it. If one forces the issue, or merely raises the point, then, pretty much without exception, people will see that you are right.

 There’s something deeper than just a lack of politeness at work here.

I watch people from the windows of Berlin house at times and see them walking across each other when it would be easier to avoid doing so. Yet they very rarely actually bang into each other: a point that implies a workable, and a working, system.

 On the roads the problem is magnified a hundred times. Volodia Pavlov said that when a Russian gets a car he immediately thinks himself to be a vastly important person, above such petty considerations as the rights of others.  One frequently sees people driving down the pavements, surprised and confused should any pedestrian fail to get out of the way.

 Parking a car follows the same pattern; the notion of leaving a gap between the machine and the wall of the adjacent building, that people might be able to pass apparently never enters their minds, if you’ll pardon the exaggeration. So old women and mothers with prams are forced to walk into the puddle filled and dangerously busy roads. Now, this can happen in England too, but with the inevitable result of someone gouging a couple of hundred quid’s worth of paint off the offending machine. Here folk seem to just accept such thoughtlessness as another cruel blow of fortune such as Kafkaesque bureaucracy, corrupt policemen and terrorism. One seldom sees any sense of outrage, with the exception of the odd babushka.

 At a crossroads or set of traffic lights one can often observe them mindlessly sneaking into every gap that appears until the entire junction is irreparably blocked. Having effectively fucked themselves over, they will then sit there in their little metal boxes just blowing their horns repeatedly until a policeman arrives to sort the mess out. It’s hard to exaggerate this level of stupidity. Friends tell me that there is a “lack of road culture” due to Russia’s only recently having seen a large number of cars. But, to my mind, it is merely an extension of the odd pedestrian behaviour, intensified perhaps by the psychology that Volodia described.

In doors and out doors are weak concepts; this can infuriate a westerner.

cars will kill you here. They have two types of pedestrian crossing: the simple zebra crossing and the little green man sort with traffic lights to stop the cars. To put faith in the former is simply suicide; they will not stop. The latter is better, but cars will still run you down if you are not careful.

One stands at the side of the road where there is no crossing and waits for a gap in the stream of cars. If no gap comes then often a large group of pedestrians will assemble, waiting. If there is still no break in the traffic then the crowd will edge further out as it grows and a game of chicken will ensue until critical mass arrives and the crowd floods out into and over the road. Occasional car drivers will be too jealous of the tenuous authority that being a vehicle owner affords and will not stop until absolutely forced to.

holding a small child by the hand makes little difference here and one can stand forever waiting for some small act of courtesy, but, and this needs understanding, when one does force one's way out brandishing the child and glaring belligerently the drivers who are forced to choose between losing five seconds or killing a child generally show no sign of anger.

 Likewise when one is walking along the pavement and some driver is behind you blowing his horn in rage at one who presumes that the pavement is for pedestrians, turning round and looking directly at them prompts shamefacedness more than rage. Does this mean that they know they are in the wrong, or that I have a menacing appearance? I believe that most of this idiot behaviour is thoughtless and this is why a challenge that forces them to think will go unpunished, but I don't have sufficient bravery to test this notion to its limits.