Farther East

One week nicely spent in Moscow visiting my friends... What's changed since the last time I was there, about 2 years ago? Not much, at first sight. Well, prices are much higher if you earn Rubles or Dollars (the 1.000 rubles note, that I rarely had in my wallet 2 years ago, is now easily spent in a meal and a pair of drinks), although I didn't notice the rise myself, as the Euro exchange rate has rised accordingly. And there's much more infrastructures and construction investments; they're, at last, renewing Sheremetevo Airport, and it has now linked by train with Moscow city.

But the streets, the cafés, the people's faces and expressions remain quite the same. That's not bad, I reckon; of course there are many things that should get better, but it must be nice to have some rest after all these years of rapid, sharp changes in a spinning country. A roundabout that has made so many people dizzy, and even dropped off the weakest, although it's equally true that, if you held on and tight, it pushed you forward, never to look back.

Unchanged remains the "technical pause", that euphemism for "coffee break" I like so much when I don't have to suffer it. A holidays curiosity, a daily life pain in the neck.

Unchanged remains the bad taste of the novye russkie ("new Russians", that is, new rich), that now use Hummers even for weddings.

Unchanged, it seems, remains the habit of homeless and empoverished old men and women of collecting all the empty botyles and cans... Now there's a brand new machines at the exit of the metro stations and in many other spots by the street where you can obtain money in exchange of certain bottles and cans (I tried one out of curiosity and my bottle wasn't recognized by the smart mashine). I left Moscow without having seen one single person to use these machines... I keep wondering whose idea, whose investment, is this "individual neocapitalist" way of implementing some recycling system around the city... I wouldn't mind if it fails, I wouldn't mind to see a municipal collecting and recycling system in Moscow (will my grandchildren see that?).

Unchanged, but closed forever, is the door of Muzey Kino, the film house situated in the back of a very expensive building in the centre of Moscow (Barikadnaya), and that has been closed after some years of public but low supported resistance. Apparently, it has been moved to some neighbourhood in the far end of one of the Moscow metro lines. A feeble hope, as feeble as the blue ink, almost invisible from the outside, used to scribble the new address on the "the film house doesn't work any more" note hanging on the Muzey Kino door.
So bye bye, Moscow, I'll be back.
Nice to meet you, Voronezh' chiornaya zemlya!
And welcome me back, Bucharest!