Here a picture I snapped on my way to the gym yesterday morning. It's about three quarters of a mile to the gym, and that walk is a nice way to get moving before my workout. My morning walk takes me through apartment-building land, past a school, and past (not through!) the netherworld of garage land.
What is garage land? Well apartment buildings weren't built with the idea that residents would have private cars, so they were not equipped with any facilities for car storage. That worked in the Soviet Union when no one could afford a car, but now more and more people have cars (although not on American levels: most families have just one car, and a lot people don't have a car at all). All these cars choke what little parking exists near apartment buildings, and open space near apartment buildings is usually taken up with makeshift garages: metal or concrete structures that people build--usually illegally--wherever they can. These garages are really ugly, occupy what little open space exists in many neighborhoods, and create a warren of unseen space--a perfect environment for all sorts of sketchy activity.
Garages have a few important functions, though. They, of course, are a place to store cars. We Americans are really spoiled: Think of having to walk ten minutes on a frigid, dark, snowy morning to your little metal garage to get your car, only to find out that some idiot parked his car right in front of it (most garages have a stern warning painted on them not to park in front of the door). Garages have other functions, too. They act as the Russian equivalent of man caves, giving guys a place to tinker with stuff, swear and spit with impunity, and to get a break from life in their two-room apartments. There are also plenty of informal businesses in garages--mostly tire stores and greasy car repair shops.
Garages are also a place for criminal activity, committed by everyone from drug addicts to wanna-be thugs to actual thugs. If you see a couple of guys in Adidas track suits hanging out in the garages near a black BMW, you should probably turn around and go back the way you came. The garages near my apartment have a bad reputation--people get beat up as they take a short cut to the bus stop, and a girl was recently raped kidnapped and raped as she walked through them. Needless to say, I don't cut through the garages anymore. Also you don't have to look very hard to see discarded heroin syringes lying around near garages. I was walking to work one morning last winter and a guy came up to me griping about all the drug addicts in the neighborhood. What set him off? Someone had jabbed a used syringe into his car tire. Welcome to post-Soviet, post-industrial garage land.
What is garage land? Well apartment buildings weren't built with the idea that residents would have private cars, so they were not equipped with any facilities for car storage. That worked in the Soviet Union when no one could afford a car, but now more and more people have cars (although not on American levels: most families have just one car, and a lot people don't have a car at all). All these cars choke what little parking exists near apartment buildings, and open space near apartment buildings is usually taken up with makeshift garages: metal or concrete structures that people build--usually illegally--wherever they can. These garages are really ugly, occupy what little open space exists in many neighborhoods, and create a warren of unseen space--a perfect environment for all sorts of sketchy activity.
Garages have a few important functions, though. They, of course, are a place to store cars. We Americans are really spoiled: Think of having to walk ten minutes on a frigid, dark, snowy morning to your little metal garage to get your car, only to find out that some idiot parked his car right in front of it (most garages have a stern warning painted on them not to park in front of the door). Garages have other functions, too. They act as the Russian equivalent of man caves, giving guys a place to tinker with stuff, swear and spit with impunity, and to get a break from life in their two-room apartments. There are also plenty of informal businesses in garages--mostly tire stores and greasy car repair shops.
Garages are also a place for criminal activity, committed by everyone from drug addicts to wanna-be thugs to actual thugs. If you see a couple of guys in Adidas track suits hanging out in the garages near a black BMW, you should probably turn around and go back the way you came. The garages near my apartment have a bad reputation--people get beat up as they take a short cut to the bus stop, and a girl was recently raped kidnapped and raped as she walked through them. Needless to say, I don't cut through the garages anymore. Also you don't have to look very hard to see discarded heroin syringes lying around near garages. I was walking to work one morning last winter and a guy came up to me griping about all the drug addicts in the neighborhood. What set him off? Someone had jabbed a used syringe into his car tire. Welcome to post-Soviet, post-industrial garage land.
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