I've been having trouble updating my site from Russia. I've found a new way to do it with the connection I'm currently using, but there's no telling if this will work when I'm in Ufa or Kazan. So, if there aren't any posts here for a long time after today, you know the reason why.

For the first time in my life I was a witness to the famous 'money-dropping' scam last night. Back when I was doing the Fulbright here during graduate school, we had an in-country orientation in which folks from the US Embassy came by and talked about all sorts of scams that get pulled on foreigners here (interestingly enough, all of the examples they gave us involved US Embassy employees as victims). In the money-dropping scam, one person drops a huge wad of money on the street right in front of you. You are expected to pick it up, either to give it back or take it for yourself. A second person then stops you, calls over the first person, and they demand the money back. Only when you give them the money back they say that some of the money is missing, threaten to go to the police, etc.

Anyway, last night I was walking up Tverskaia and a guy dropped a huge some of money in front of me. I didn't pick it up, but after walking a few more seconds I glanced back and saw the second guy pick it up and give it back to his partner.

To be honest it was a bit disconcerting, being 'marked' in this way, especially as I had been feeling really comfortable here. Most of my experiences in Russia have been in provincial cities like Kazan where I went out all the time, met all kinds of people, climbed into all sorts of cars driven by people I didn't know, and nobody ever tried messing with me. Maybe things in Moscow are a bit different, or maybe I just really looked like a tourist in a touristy part of town. In any case, I guess the Fulbright orientation paid off for me.