Well, this is certainly the earliest time yet for a daily pic, by a margin of some 110 minutes. Still, it could have been worse. It could have been Sheremetyevo airport. (This wry comment of course means nothing to anyone unfamiliar with the pleasures of Russian airspace.)
I do own a tripod, but I’m not lugging it to Moscow on the off-chance that I might need it for a night shot. So I did my best to get this one without too much hand-shake. The ‘mountain’ in the distance is the ‘Monument to Corporate Failure’ depicted also on this blog post. Can’t argue with this view of it however. It’s been a beautiful winter’s day here (unlike the weather at home, I’m led to believe) and so it went into the evening.
My last morning in Moscow today – though I’m returning in 6 weeks. I post this while awaiting my flight back to Manchester in Heathrow’s terminal 5. (‘Sympathy for the Devil’ is on the stereo, which makes the wait more bearable.)
I realised I had got through all my time here without a single actual person (Russian or not) appearing in the pictures so tried to rectify that today. Russians are a paradox. When you don’t know them – the severe woman who checks in your coat or bag, the guy who approaches you and hassles you on the street – they can be phenomenally rude. But when you know or work with them they are among the friendliest and most helpful people I know. There is something deep in their national psyche that closes up to strangers, I guess, and you should feel privileged to be admitted to the bosom. It probably explains a lot about their national history.
Propaganda cuts both ways. I can’t be the only person who grew up in the ‘West’ in the 1970s/1980s who became conditioned to think of the Kremlin as some gloomy, grey, dark castle of ill-omen. What we were never told is that, particularly at this time of year, when the trees have turned, it is all white, gold and beautiful.
Being 42 