Does this say 1930's to you?
This is what one of my teachers used to call a “drive-by shooting”, meaning that you shoot from the car window. Sometimes when you are on a tour you have no choice. I don’t usually shoot from a window, but with digital what do you have to lose?
This was taken a couple of years ago and shows an apartment house in downtown Moscow. No color to speak of with wires, traffic and street lamps galore, as we used to say. I added a layer of texture and changed the colors to give the photo this faded, worn look. Does it say 1930’s to you?
I’d hate to say 1930’s to the Muscovites as those were nightmarish times when Stalin was rounding up anyone and everyone and sending them to gulags for decades. He wanted to build a modern Soviet Union and he needed slave labor so he got it by accusing people falsely. Stalin caused the deaths of more than 23 million of his people. This is a fact that many people refuse to admit. Why?
I was in Moscow during Glasnost (1989) and it has changed. At that time there were few cars on the wide streets. You could flag down a taxi by holding out a package of Winston cigarettes. The food was horrible (and we tourists got the good stuff). When I was on Arbat Street this time, I had my choice of Starbucks or McDonald’s for a cappuccino. I chose McDonald’s.
Now Moscow’s streets are filled with cars and traffic is a mess even though most people take the subway. Young people, with a good education in science and math, can buy cars and live fairly well. The older ones…say 50ish have it hard. They find it hard to get work due to their age. And the elderly are in dire straits unless they have family to help them.
Big Sister is watching you
The Muscovites now are quite stylish in modern clothes, especially the women who are strikingly beautiful with lovely faces and long shapely legs. In 1989, the women did not seem so beautiful maybe due to poor diet and hard work. It was touching then to see how they tried to make their outfits look like the latest western style. I remember a woman pleading with me to give her my cosmetics, and a young man who wanted my sunglasses for his young wife.