С Новым Годом Happy New Year

Comrades,

Well, I finally managed to be on Red Square for New Year's eve. I will have pictures later and have yet to develop them and scan them. On December 25 I left Odessa for Moscow and spent the week there enjoying the galleries and city's atmosphere. I notice each time I go there how much things change and how quickly they change. Some things for the better and some things for the worse. When I first went to Moscow in December 1999, just before Putin became PM under Yeltsin (and Yeltsin resigned shortly after I was in Moscow - not because of me!), I have to say I found is incredibly refreshing and a direct contrast to what I experienced in Europe. Moscow was and is well organized - the Metro system is in circular form with lines cutting through rings in "x" shapes allowing people to quickly and easily get around the city - it is the way a rational economist would plan the city. The Metro was cheap, friendly, clean and each station an interesting peice of art work. There were few advertisements anywhere and not a lot of glamorous stores. Walking around the city I felt free of all that glitz that is such a big part of mainstream cities everywhere else. London, Paris, Amsterdam, etc all have the same shops now and fewer and fewer unique qualities that really make them different. This is both good and bad, and not really my point as much as it is to say that I did not feel like this walking in Moscow. For a city of some 12 million, I felt safe, unlike in most of New York's areas, people were friendly, offering to help me figure out where I was going, people chatted, people said hello on the streets and in the subways.

What I did not like at that time was that most of the new bars, restaurants, and so on - big shops, were mostly full of English speakers - the goods and services that most of us take as givens in the West were for the few - and mostly expats at that. Except for MacDonalds- I did not eat there but walked in to compare prices - it is a duty for an economist to check out how much a Big Mac is in every country where he/she goes. Same shit in every country costs different amounts. There were only two cafes at that time with real coffee beans and the place was like being in a Starbucks or Second Cup - prices the same, but only expats could afford these places and very few Russians. Next to Red Square, they have a large department store - called GUM - Goom - And in it were very few designer labels - people were in there, in the city center, in their public space enjoying some of the things. There were still then basic Soviet stores with more affordable goods than there are now.

But suddenly, out of nowhere, society changes. Billboards started covering the city, cell phones were even in Babushkas' hands, ATMs were sprouting up every where - multi lingual and multi currency, cafes opened all over the place, prices rose,a nd I saw even more Russians in these places - and English became the exception rather than the norm in these higher priced places. My friends who used to swear they did not eat out in restaurants suddenly started going out once in a while to enjoy the nightlife in addition to the wonderful music and entertainment scene that is Moscow - that probably no other city in the world has to this degree and this accessibility. GUM got rid of the old stores and in with Calvin Klein, and designer labels - only these shops and stores are now for the new wealthy people rather than everybody - so in one sense I am glad that people have more options than before and am happy to see not just expats enjoying this - but I wonder about the people I do not see in these shops - how many people are there who still cannot afford to go?

Moscow retained, however, its humanity from the Soviet Era. This has fortunately not been lost, probably thanks to President Putin. I was happy to be in Moscow on June 12, 2002, for their national holiday and managed to catch a glimse of this guy during a parade. You can imagine that if the president of the USA were out in public, security would be very high. Also it is the case in Russia and I was one block, within sight, from where Putin sat (I saw him but he did not likely notice me!! Just kidding). I was first amazed at how happy the crowd was to see their president - something I do not see genuinely happen anywhere else. But also, as the parade went in front of Putin, they had to cross security and then exit so not to allow people just to walk in with the parade and potentially get at the President. Yet, people still tried. People actually tried to sneak under the parade floats and get into a secure area. What did all those officers and men with suits, glasses, guns, and earphones do? They quickly walked up to the culprits and asked them politely to please not do this. The culprits looked and laughed, went back to the proper side, and would try again. I watched with a sense of awe as I saw the guards use their judgment - they are protecting the president, but they are also not shooting people - yet getting their job done without incidence.

This was the same kind of humanity I observed in Moscow on New Year's eve. I saw people walking through the streets saying Happy New Year to strangers, and sellers set up selling bottles of Soviet Champagne. People bought these, and fireworks for the New Year celebrations. Truck loads of military were brought in and I watched them get into formation and set up detectors all over Red Square with multiple check points to prevent any one getting in with explosives - except for fireworks. The set ups were impressive, but I did not witness any harshness. They did their job, checked bags, and so on, but still said have a Good New Year. I saw a guy who was carrying a backpack of Nescafe hot coffee to sell on the square actually checked a second time on the square to make sure nothing but coffee was in there, walkie talkies used to verify that this was okay, and then he was allowed to continue. Thousands upon thousands of people crowded onto the square - fireworks were lit off - and people had brought picnics, shared their drinks, watched the concert, and after ushering in the New Year the square efficiently emptied out as people used the Metro system to leave. I did not witness any crowding, crushing, hooliganism, or anything like this. Very little liter laying around anywhere - there was some, but not the amount I expected to see given the numbers of people.

For me, Moscow has changed a lot - there is more big money spending in the city center than what I saw before. But one thing remains the same - it is a big city - but not like in the West where everything is individualistic and egocentric. An old lady slipped here on the ice and I stopped to help her as did a guy walking buy drinking a bottle of beer. Actually several people looked concerned. This is the city that houses the President who just before Christmas went on national television and housed questions from journalists all over the world about the state of affairs in Russia - given the content of questions - I would say that they were not prepared - Japanese journalists asked why Putin was not giving them back their islands, and so on. Putin answered and gave reasonable evidence for most questions including being open about Russia's recent role in the Ukrainian elections. I hope this element of the Russia I witness in reality, and so rarely in Western media, is retained. If there is one reform I hope not to see - it is that introducing of staged politics and societies where no one matters to anyone else.