Thursday 3 September 2009

Potemkin villages

so, President Medvedev was next to my place a few days ago. In a result they re-painted the bridge close by.
Of course, why to do things proper, when you can do it quick and dirty?! After all Mr. Medvedev will not leave his car to check the construction work, right.

So they just went with black color over the balustrade, not removing all the dirt, dust and old layers of similar procedures in the past.

The term "Potemkin villages" (odd enough, exists in a lot of languages) goes back to an incident that happend in the 19th century in Russia.

So I assume we can conclude this is no bungling. The workers just uphold a beloved tradition :o)

back to normal chaos

so, this was Moscow city (around the red square) beween 9 pm and 10 pm.
holiday are over, traffic jams are back on...

Imagine you leave the office at 9 pm, have to go 05 km to you family and face this. This and worse is bitter reality for most of the people.

About this blog

This blog is a close up on Russia and the CIS. I am not giving you the big picture.
I would anyway fail. I am too long here. So beauty & decay,
education & corruption, high culture & kafka-style administration are meanwhile normal for me.
So this blog is like a painting from from Roy Lichtenstein... when you are with your nose on it :) You will just see the dots, not gaining any understanding of the whole.

Most things will look strange in this blog. But you can be sure, I would not live here, if there would not be a lot of great things here. Unfortunately, the weired stories are more interesting to tell & read.
Don’t judge Russia on this blog, if you want to know the country, come over and take a look by your own.

Gilles