Hairdresser On Arbat

A diary entry from 2021-03-10.

This day started with symptoms of caffeine abstinence. Less torturous than the last time I tried doing this, but it still took me a while to crawl into my chair, hugging a cup of boiling hot black tea. It's dark, slightly bitter and at least warms me better than water. The work seemed harder than usual: I barely did anything at all. Soon it was time to get going. I gasped as the door opened and cold air rushed into my lungs. Twenty degrees below zero, centigrade. All the slush froze, forming awkward uneven khaki-colored lumps that are hard to walk on.

An hour and half a dozen subway stops later I arrived to my hairdresser. Bold, skinny guy in his fifties, very good at his work and exceptionally picky with office placement: the most expensive and luxurious areas there are in Moscow. He greeted me with a handshake and waved at a chair. 

- Any preferences? - He asked, smiling.

- No, not really. Make me pretty, - I smiled back; I always do. 

The next hour or so the professional was doing his work, and doing it well. An old lady was sitting behind me; she was getting her hair dyed dark blond, to hide inevitable grayness. She pulled a smartphone out of her purse and went on surfing the web: it seemed that her age wasn't a big deal. She is either lucky or very persistent: I could barely explain web browsed to my grandparents, and they still use folding phones.

- What do you think? Good?

- Great! - I shaked my head, looking in the mirror. The guy in there lost a bunch of hair and gained a few years. You never know in what will new haircut look like on me. This time I looked like decent mid-twenties guy, and last time I walked out looking like fifteen year old middle school student, and that was a few months ago. 

I walked back to subway. A ten minute trip down Arbat - the most famous street with bunch of overpriced souvenir shops and cafes. I never liked it for obvious reasons: few or even none of the interesting places, new buildings pretending to be old and crowds of people. There is one exception, street artists. It's too cold now, but when spring comes people will come with their pencils and paints and easels, offering a portrait or a caricature for what seems like a reasonable price to european but is way too high for locals.