From Russia with Love

A Trip to the Barber's

I woke up late on Thursday morning. Being officially done with my semester, I thought this would be a nice little treat to myself. Finally done with my academic semester in Russia, it was time to take care of the real business, namely getting a haircut. I have been scared of doing this since before I arrived in Moscow (I even tried growing my hair out last year so I wouldn’t have to deal with it). My first haircut was around Hallloween and was free, done by Chris and his electronic clippers. Needless to say, it’s gotten a little too cold in Moscow for the buzz cut, and when I woke up, I knew my time had come for a real trip to the parikmakhirskaia (barbershop, which literally means in Russian the person who makes wigs).
When Tatiana served me breakfast, the conversation did not center around my plans for the day as usual, but my earring. For those who don’t know, I have what’s called an Industrial piercing. It is a metal barbell that goes through the cartiladge of my left ear in two places. In the last four months, the subject of my (by Russian standards) unusual piercing has not been brought up by my hostess. I guess she finally worked up the courage to ask me about it.
“Does it hurt when you sleep?” she asked.
“Well, when I first got it, yes, but now I can sleep on it without discomfort.”
“Ah-ha. You know Mish, you really have to be careful when putting holes through your body, especially in a place like your ear. Have you ever heard of ‘akupunktsuariia’?”
I thought about the word…”Aaaah, accupuncture. Yeah, sure I’ve heard of it.”
“Well, you know all along your ear there are pressure points that all affect the rest of your body, different organs, etc. You really should be careful about that kind of stuff. Do you ever take it out?”
“No, it’s really not meant to be taken out. I would need a professional just to get it back in,” I responded. I had never really examined my thoughts on accupuncture. I have friends who swear by it, but having never experienced it myself, I would never base a decision to get a piercing on the ancient science. Tatiana Nikolaevna went on about a former boarder of hers (an Italian) who had her tongue and nose pierced, and how it was just horrible to mess around with your body like that. Luckily, my tongue ring was not in at the time (honestly, I’m not sure if her weathered eyes have ever really noticed it), so I politely nodded in agreement and changed the subject:
“You know, I think I’ll get my hair cut today. Do you know any places around here?”
She helpfully recommended a barbershop around the corner, assuring me that they specialize in men’s hair. I finished breakfast, took a shower, got dressed and was off to rid myself of the mane of hair that I had been unable to do anything with for months.
On my way to the salon, I practiced to myself what I would say to my stylist about how I wanted my hair to look. In the back of my mind, I was hoping they’d have those hairdo books available so I could just point something out.
When I arrived, I realized that I would have no such luck. An imposing man whose own haircut wasn’t what you would call a masterpiece quickly shuffled me into his seat.
“So, what do you want done?”
“I would like to keep my hair on top and make less the hair here,” I mumbled out with some body language to point out the hair under the level of my browline.
“Ok, yeah, yeah,” he said, filling in the gaps that my description left out. I let him know that my hair was clean and the experiment began.
During the course of the haircut, I studied how he did it, noticing that Russians have a very different way of cutting hair. I assumed that this was a result of different school of barbery between our two countries or that this man was just a ‘homeschooled’ barber. The majority of the cut continued in silence until he was almost done.
Having noticed my accent, he asked, “So, where are you from?” I responded and he started asking me the typical questions: what are you doing here? Why Russian? Etc., etc. He was quite kind and patient with my answers, and I started to feel comfortable making the small talk apparently required in all barbershops around the world. He started cleaning up the region around my ears (‘opening up my ears’ as he called it) and noticed my barbell.
“Wow, I’ve never seen one like that before. I hope a professional did that for you; you know, you really have to be careful with that kind of stuff what with all the nerve endings in your ears. You could really screw up the organs all over your body if it’s done wrong” It turns out most Russians are rather well acquainted with the dynamics and principles of accupuncture. Even barbers!
After a silence, I felt the need to hold up my end of the conversation:
“So, are you a Muscovite?” Like in New York, not everyone who lives in Moscow is actually a Muscovite, which is, in fact, a term reserved for those who grew up in the capital or have lived there for a considerable amount of time (judged usually by their acquisition of the Moscow accent).
“Well, I guess you could say that. I grew up in Yerevan,” he said, studying the look on my face to see if I knew where this was.
“Ahhh, Armenia?”
“Yeah. My Mom’s Russian and my Dad’s Armenian, so ya know. After institute, I moved here, married my wife. The usual.” I assumed that ‘institute’ isn’t a word used to describe beauty schools in Russian. His somewhat dishevled appearance was suddenly explained. The man must have been a scientist before, like many other citizens of the former Soviet Union, economic and political crises forced him to take up a more reliable profession. After all, people will always need haircuts, right?
“Interesting,” was the best response I could come up with.
“So, what kind of roots do you have?” my new friend Andrei asked. This is the second time a Russian has asked me about my ancestry while getting acquainted. During my first folklore lesson with Andrei Sergeevich, I was also asked to characterize my Northern European mutt descent. At the time, I assumed that this was a result of Andrei Sergeevich’s profession; as a folklorist, the man was obviously disposed to getting to know his roots as well as others’. Andrei, my barber, showed me that this interest might just be inherent in the culture, which for seventy years was extremely proud of their international character, much like America’s ‘big melting pot’ idea (indeed, the USSR national hymn was called ‘The International’).
“Well, northern-European. My family comes from Norway, Germany, etc.”
“Ah, so that’s both sides? Did they speak Norwegian in your house?”
“Well, no. We immigrated generations ago, and my Dad’s family is actually form Ireland and Scottland.”
“How many generations?” an odd question for most Americans. If I hadn’t done an ancestry project in fourth grade, I wouldn’t have been able to make even an educated guess to this answer:
“Oh, about three, four generation, I guess.”
“Ahh, I see. You know, there are a lot of famous Armenian-Americans; we had a pretty big diaspora. You know Andrei Agassi?” he asked. At first, I didn’t recognize this name, but then I put it through my Russian accent filter and recognized the famous tennis player.
“Oh really?”
“Yeah, his dad’s Armenian.”
“I had no idea!”
“Also Chear, the famous singer.” Again, I filtered the accent out of this name, whose vowel sound is particularly hard for Russians to pronounce.
“Cher?! No kidding!”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“I could see that, though. She has that beautiful dark hair, those eyes! Quite an Armenian face, really.” I thought, as a man was in the hair business, he’s appreciated this compliment to the beauty of his kinsmen’s follicles. I caught myself with the last comment though. In Russian, this ‘Armenian face’ expression is reminiscent of the expression ‘caucasian face’ which is a PC but nonetheless not polite way of talking about the face of terrorism in Russia. Luckily, he didn’t seem to take offense.
At this point, he was brushing the tiny bits of hair from the back of my neck and getting ready to style my new ‘do. I usually don’t like how other people style my hair, but it’s always fun to see how it all turns out. In any event, I usually enjoy getting to try out new hair products for free.
Before going to the reception to pay, Andrei slipped me his card:
“I also work at this other salon. It cheaper there, so if you’d ever like to come back, you should call me here. Go ahead,” he said, pantomiming and urging me to slip in indescreately into my pocket.
I paid my 650 rubles and went out into the chilly Moscow air a new man, slightly more Russian in appearance and happy to no longer be sporting the psuedo-mullet look.

posted by Misha Molodoi @ 8:11 PM