Jogging in Moscow

The Moscow Times has a hilarious article about the trials and tribulations that joggers face in Moscow. It starts with an anecdote about a foreign correspondent in Moscow in 1981 who was trailed by the KGB because his jogging routine aroused suspicion, but here's the best part of the article (especially the last paragraph):

Greg Walters, a former Moscow Times reporter and now a guitarist in Brooklyn-based indie rock group Red Wire Black Wire, used to jog in Chistiye Prudy when he lived in Moscow.

“If I ran through after 2 p.m., I’d get heckled by groups of men drinking beer and smoking cigarettes. A couple times, some of them sarcastically jogged along with me, laughing uproariously. They thought I was hilarious,” Walters said in an e-mail.

The woman who answered the phone at the Russian Athletics Federation simply sneered. “We have nothing to do with people who just run around outside for exercise. We have athletes, professionals who run in competitions.”

Now that I think about it, I never saw people jogging when I lived in Bucharest.

...and I've said it before and I'll say it again: The Moscow Times is a great paper.