The Moscow Vortex. How to keep up with life when a year flies by in a month

🍂 October, But It Feels Like January

I’m sitting here thinking: Monday was just yesterday, and now it’s Friday. The days just fly. It feels like the New Year’s corporate party just ended, but the leaves outside are already yellow—it’s October.

There’s a slightly naive but precise line spinning in my head: “August hung summer on a nail…”

Exactly. Summer was simply hung on a nail, and you didn’t even notice when.

Just look at the last month alone: I managed to launch two work projects, hold a dozen business meetings, go on five dates, and “take out” my friends twice. That’s the whole point: the city moves at such a speed that the details blur, leaving only an aftertaste.

You can’t even remember the name of that blonde you met, the one you started with ice cream at Patriki’s Ponds and ended with a champagne bruderschaft at “Simach.” It’s not because you’re a cynic. It’s because tomorrow brings a new day, new faces, and new deadlines.

☕️ My 10 Minutes of Armor: Coffee and Rammstein

And that’s precisely when you need a ritual. Not the kind they write about in glossy magazines. Not “an hour for yourself.” In Moscow, you don’t have an hour. You have 10 minutes.

My ritual isn’t about “balance.” It’s about armor.

I get up 15 minutes earlier than I have to, just for one thing: my morning coffee in absolute silence, while my phone lies in another room. This is my personal “changing of the guard” before diving into the chaos.

And then—the metro, my personal office. I put on my headphones. From there, it depends: either Rammstein at full volume, to drown out the outside world with my own controlled noise, or… yes, I confess… I mindlessly zone out to YouTube Shorts.

The point of the ritual isn’t what you’re doing. It’s that, in that moment, you are in your “bubble.” It’s not about slowing down. It’s about calibrating your sights.

👵🏻 The Shadow at My Back and the Art of “Not My Problem”

But why all this armor? Because living in Moscow isn’t just about enjoying this vortex. There’s another side to the coin. Fatigue.

It’s constantly lurking, haunting me. Sometimes a mild depression hits because of the workload, an apathy, and you just don’t care about the world around you. You crave silence and peace. But you have to work.

The key is to get in the right mindset, to shed the extra tasks, and to accept the main rule of survival in Moscow.

The Moscow Survival Rule: Don’t be the best. Just be good enough to pull yourself through.

And it’s so easy to lose your instinct. So easy to get “bogged down” by sticking your nose into every “fun” thing, only to find yourself drowning in hassles that have nothing to do with you and should have passed you by.

Of course, a vacation is salvation. But you have to survive long enough to get there.

🥂 The Vortex as a Lifestyle: The Art of Forgetting the Trivial

That very vortex, that champagne bruderschaft… This is the Moscow ritual, one born of fatigue. We don’t create traditions that last for years; our tradition is to live fast, live intensely, and immediately archive it.

We aren’t afraid to meet people, and we aren’t afraid to say goodbye. This is a city of high-density events, where we instinctively conserve our energy.

Speaking of meeting people: In Moscow, that’s a whole separate, complex ritual, a real cultural code. If you’re interested in how Moscow life turns dating into a strategy with no time for reflection, I recommend you read my post on the topic: The Moscow Dating Code.

⏸️ The Price of Speed: Placing a Comma

So, why do it? Why the Rammstein in my ears and the coffee in silence?

This vortex, where you don’t remember names and August instantly becomes October—this is Moscow. It’s an intoxicating but terrifying feeling. You’re racing, you’re in the flow, you’re efficient. But the price of this speed is the details. And that ever-present shadow at your back.

You lose the nuances. You forget the taste of that champagne and the color of that blonde’s eyes.

And my rituals—they aren’t “rest.” They aren’t “balance.”

They are my desperate attempt to place just one, damn comma in this runaway sentence.

To stop for 10 minutes, just to prove to myself that I still exist. That I am not just a function—”manager” or “passenger.” This isn’t a way to slow the vortex. It’s a way to simply feel it carrying you. And to not let that old woman tap you on the shoulder.