my Moscow chronicles - part 1

I have been in Moscow now for 3 days and I must say this city overwhelms me. It is huge, fast but slow at the same time. You can stay for hours in traffic jams but the city changes from day to day: new buildings, new people, new weather and new things.

The city is rich but a lot of people are poor and you can actually see it. It is not hidden like in most european towns.

I have witnessed so much and have so many anecdotes, most of them funny ones. All I see here is a yearning for individualism and wealth. People try to grab your every last rouble. At the same time, the communist way of life is still in the air.

The city itself is huge. Huge buidings and huge streets. It eats you up completely. It is shiny and new but old and crummy. All the monuments, especially religious buildings, have been rehabilitated or even simply destroyed and built again identically with new materials (it is the russian way). The traditional touches the modern, the new makes the old look out of place and everything clashes.

Moscow is definitely the city of contrast.


:: listening to russian talk radio in the car