MOCKBA

Last fall I was in Moscow, to present a paper on a geology conference. Half of the presentations were in Russian, and I didn't understand much of the simultaneous translation to a language they called English. It was one week before the start of the heating season. Turning the heating on was out of question, in spite the thermometer clearly suggesting so. Therefore everybody was wearing big coats and thick jackets in the auditoriums.

Whatever, it was cool to be in Moscow again. It's almost 20 years since last time I was there, when Moscow was the capital of Soviet Union, and Gorbatchov was the president. The city had changed a lot in 20 years, and then I really mean a lot. All the Lenin statues (except one or two) were removed. The huge banners with communist propaganda was replaced by, guess what, huge commercial posters. Ferrari and Lamborghini had both opened auto stores in the city center.

Every evening, I went for a walk around Red Square, which was looking very much like it used to. I took lots of pictures of course, and above is one I was very happy with. If you look carefully, you can see the St. Basil's cathedral through the entrance to Red Square.

There is a crazy story from the construction of the St. Basil's cathedral: When it was finished, the emperor Ivan the Terrible was very satisfied with the result. To show how happy he was, he gave the architect a very special reward. He blinded him by sticking out his eyes, so that the architect could not build a similar church for another emperor.