It’s not a Moscow I recognize any more. When I first came to the Soviet Union in 1981, the grey, quiet streets of Moscow moved at an Adagio, with a formality that bespoke centuries of burden. The sufferings of the Second World still reflected in the eyes of everyone the age of my father. Long lines and heavy satchels characterized every day. The shelves were empty most of the time. But there was a dignified quiet to everything. Just by virtue of having Western glasses and shoes, I stuck out as a foreigner and, by definition, fashionable. I assure you, I was not.
Emerging from the glitzy 24-hour Gastronom across the jammed six-lane Smolenskaya Boulevard with a sack full of anything one might desire, I looked down at my teacher-lady long denim skirt, my traveling “Tennies,” and glanced up at the Moscow gals walking towards me. Blond (mostly) and with perfect makeup, they are wearing short Twiggy dresses and heels tall enough to require a ladder to don them. No suffering reflects in their eyes.
How much has changed in these not yet 3 ½ decades. Young people today dominate Moscow, as you would expect in any major capital city. The charming limo driver who ferried me from the distant Domodedovo Airport (yes, I know there is a speed train) kept me entranced by his observations. A lazy student, he told me, he squandered his chance to study seriously, but now reads voraciously and studies history. He knew classic films and writers, and had much to say about good music. He reads the Western self-help books and is entrepreneurial in his spirit. We talked about “Start-ups” and, yes, that is the Russian term.
His observations about Putin did not surprise me, for I know well how much Putin is admired here. His wording did surprise me. “He is like our Hitler,” he said. I asked for some clarification. “No, not like that, of course. But for the economy. He has brought back our economy. And self-respect, and much more.”
He told me how disgusted people are by the degraded elements that have wrecked so much of Russian society and order in recent years – Western elements (he’s not wrong about that). But people will return to their roots, their heritage, their traditions, he believes. And the country will be strong again, as it once was.
We covered many more topics. It was rush hour and the drive went slowly. But I’m woozy. Off to sleep, directly in the shadow of one of Stalin’s Wedding Cake buildings out my hotel window. Those things are following me around lately (cf. Warsaw).
