From Gorky Park to Oligarkhs, Hammer and Sickle to Slap and Tickle, Moscow has seen more face changes than a second-rate film star.
I first came to this city in 1984; pre glasnost, full-on grim, grey USSR, all trench coats and furry hats; ‘Niet’ was the word.
The streets were dark and forbidding, the only light cast from the occasional street lamp. It was November, the Mockba river frozen, thick snow abundant. For the first time in my life I was reprimanded for jay-walking. I've never been so frightened, before or since.
A return during the fabulous World Cup that was Italia ’90, nights shoe-horned into the Heineken Bar at the Cosmos hotel shoulder to shoulder with singing Belgians and weeping Italians. David Platt in the last minute of extra time, Champanski, the Lambada . . . so many memories. A nation in transition, post-Chernenko, the time of Gorbachev, MacDonalds on Red Square, freedom in the air, a new hope.
And now, sixteen years later I’m back; and I’ve not seen the like of this place.
Street signs blare in the October night, a parody of the true Land of the Free. The Spirit of Free Money-Making is alive and well in the belly of modern Moscow. A cab from the airport to the hotel, an hours’ bumpy ride at full speed even at two in the morning, cost me sixty quid. I assumed I’d been mugged but swapping tales with colleagues its about the going rate. Hookers populate the 'tourist' bars and lurk in the lobbies and drinking dens of the larger hotels; the air is thick with vice and corruption.
At the shiny new exposition centre at Crocus City on the northern reaches of the sprawling metropolis corruption thrives like a new-born reptile, squirming through every badly-lit passageway of business life. Use the freight elevator sir? That’ll be two hundred dollars. You need a couple of workers - Oh, you’ve prepaid a vast sum of money? Well, if you slip me a small King’s Ransom I’ll see if I can persuade them to actually do some work for you. It's an endless, exhausting cycle. The system is as faceless and intransigent as it ever was; the wheels are no longer greased with a packet of smokes or a bottle of Vodka. Only Hard Currency will cut the ice and greed is the word.
There’s an expo here next month that well reflects the state of modern Russia.
Its called Millionaire’s Expo, and as the name suggest caters for the man who has everything but would like a bit more. Volker, my Ukranian-born, German- raised associate here, informs me that last year one visitor purchased a helicopter five minutes after entering the building. Next to this center is a shopping mall. It’s a magnificent building replete with columns and facades, a glittering marble entrance and ample parking. In the past four days I’ve seen a grand total of two dozen vehicles at any one time parked outside. Visitors arrive, whisked into the building with their wives or girlfriends, sheilded by a bustle of large, bald men in dark suits sporting ear-pieces. They emerge some hours later, minders laden with bags marked Prada, Gucci, Rolex and Bugati. This is not IKEA; this is not Homebase. This is not a ‘Mall for All’ – this is Millionaire’s Row, a private shopping facility for the New Russia.
On the running front its been a disappointing trip.
I located a Hash group, meeting every Sunday at 13:05 at the Tchaikovsky Theatre to move on via car share or Metro to the start of their chase. Sadly I was up to my neck in packing crates and customers and missed a great opportunity. At Andy’s suggestion I checked out Run the Planet, finding a couple of likely circuits, one starting from Red Square, traversing the mighty river and on to Gorky Park. I hope to give this a whirl on Wednesday, my morning off. 'Gorky Park' evokes memories of the eponymous eighties thriller starring William Hurt as a downbeat Moscow Copper on the trail of murder, corruption and death.
It seems to me these themes, whilst morphed out of all recognition, remain at the core of life here.
Spaceba Bolshoi; Вы и настолько длинне от Moscoq
The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph
