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There's a large bronze monument to Peter the Great on a small island in the Moscow River. Peter the Great created Russia's first naval force. Some say he wasn't so great and judging by the monument, perhaps the artist thought so too. In Gorky Park, we saw the Russian space shuttle, Buran, sitting next to a ferris wheel. It's a real Russian space shuttle, which made one unmanned flight before being retired to kiddieland.
Our company's office is on floors five and seven of a building owned by a huge economic powerhouse in Russia - McDonald's.
We found that we could buy cheap bottled water in a kiosk around the corner. It seems you can pay radically different prices for the same thing in different places, and sometimes in the same place. My friend and I bought the same bottle but mine cost nine Rubles (thirty-six cents) and his cost twelve. Some people are more equal than others.
Here's a little trivia for you: The cobble stones are so smooth in Red Square that they have to put sand down for traction whenever there's an uprising and they need to drive tanks there. That's central planning for you.
Moscow has 8.5 million people and 3.5 million cars. Only about half of these are Russian (Lada's, Skoda's, Volga's and names that can't be reproduced by my Western keyboard). Only about half of these are running. The rest are the normal European mix of Fiats and what-not with the occasional BMW or Mercedes driven by the nouveau riche. |
