Our intrepid CEO Steve Bercu is currently in Russia attending the Moscow International Book Fair. He’s sending along entries from his travel log. Stay tuned for more transmissions from Russia as Steve’s adventure unfolds:
September 5–around Moscow
I woke up at 6:00 am, probably due to the time change. I hope I can sleep tonight so I will be able to function for the book fair. Ginger was fast asleep so I went to the fitness room and worked out for a while. Then back to the room to read email and wirte some and then I went to breakfast. It was still only about 9 am.
I finally woke up Ginger and we met Edward Kasinec at breakfast. He is part of the Read Russia group and quite an expert in many things Russian. He studied here in Moscow in 1971-72 doing post-graduate work, speaks fluent Russian, and is an expert on antiques and antiquarian books. He retired from the New York library system after spending years at Harvard and Berkley library systems. We all walked into the center of Moscow from the hotel. Going with Edward made a huge difference. He knows the history of just about everything and everywhere we walked. It was wonderful to learn about the old Soviet apartments, national library and everything else we passed.
He took us to the Globus bookstore. It must be the biggest book store in the world. All of BookPeople would fit on one floor of this immense store. It has 4 or 5 floors that each cover a giant city block. There were so many books inside that I had to stop even thinking about the cost of that much inventory because it was beyond my imagination how it could be paid for. It was around 11 am on a Monday and there must have been 2000 people wandering around the store. Russians are readers. It looked like Christmas at BookPeople.
After Globus, Edward went off on his own and we continued wandering around Moscow. We headed up Tverskaya (a major avenue) and ended up at the Square Pond. It really is square and is surrounded by a pretty little park with apartments on all 4 sides. There were restaurants on the ground floor of many of them. One of the buildings here was where Bulgakov lived and wrote. We ate lunch at Cafe Margarita in his honor. It appears that he spent a lot of time in the restaurant eating and writing. It is a cool little place with about 12 or so tables. The walls are lined with books. I had a good feeling of being there a century ago and having it be just the same.
Just before getting into the restaurant a woman on the street saw my BookPeople cap and asked if I had ever been to Austin. It turned ou that she was from Austin but now lives in Moscow. She filled us up with tips for restaurants and promised to come by the store next time she is in town. She said she shopped at BookPeople every time she was back. It was good to know that people in Moscow have heard of us.
The next stop for today was Gogol’s house. The grounds were good, the statue great, but the house was closed. It looked like he lived in a good neighborhood. The Gogol disappointment was enough for the afternoon so we headed back for a rest before dinner.
Dinner was in the hotel restaurant on the 14th floor. The views over Moscow were fantastic.
BookPeople 