Once I got home after this trip, some friends
asked me to describe in few words each of the places we have visited. It did
not take too long for me to give an answer to that request for Moscow: the city
of contrasts…
On the train from St. Petersburg to Moscow, I
was wondering about how Moscow would look like. According to what I learned,
read and heard, I expected to be a city full of traces from the former system,
where equality in all spheres of life was an irrefutable statement. Nothing
is further from the truth!
We got
shocked with the big differences there are in Moscow. As an example, it is
quite common to see a car that only few people in the world can afford parked
close to an old Lada car from Soviet times. According to a survey from Forbes magazine 25 of the richest people in the world are living in the city. This can
be extended to the whole country, where Russia is the 3rd country in number of
billonaires. It seems to be an extremely unfair situation, when Russia is ranked in the 53th position in
terms of standard of living. I wonder why some people are buying foreign
football teams instead of investing money in their own country… I wonder also why people in the east do not have electricity or water while some people are wasting their money in the city showing off...
But Moscow is not only a city of contrasts when it
comes to money, but also in terms of construction. Some of the most beautiful
buildings I have ever seen in my life are located in this city. However, it is
not a surprise to find an extreme ugly soviet building close to those amazing
constructions. It is difficult to understand how these kind of atrocity were
allowed by former leaders.
Dozens of such examples could be mentioned to show the big and unfair differences in this country and specially in this city. Sad to see how none of the former ideas are valid anymore in the country where a system based on equality was established.