My Encounter with America
Part 12: Moscow: Not like other cities
By Zadok Ekimwere
zomwere@hotmail.comI.

I visited Moscow in the summer of 1988 courtesy of the Associated Press News Agency (APN) in Kampala. I guess because I had been to many countries in the West, the APN bureau chief sought to balance my international outlook (read: Neutralize My Capitalist Outlook ) by offering me a visit to his country, which was still communist.

I took a direct flight from Entebbe, Uganda, to Moscow in a Russian plane, Aeroflot, and arrived in the wee hours. It was quite chilly, and the checking process through customs and security seemed impersonal but meticulous. Nobody appeared to care about the human traffic, yet eyes surveillanced followed and probed each moving soul. At the end of the process, I was delighted to see someone flagging my name. I smiled and I waved to acknowledge I was the one. We teamed up and drove to the hotel where I stayed.

What struck me at once was to see only Aeroflot planes at the airport, as if no other planes were allowed to land there. They formed a unique and colorful pattern. On the streets, there was only one model of vehicle on the road. It was the Lada, modeled after the Italian Fiat, in either blue or beige colors. The streets were very clean and orderly. No posters, billboards, or graffiti on the walls. Every morning trucks swept the streets and sprayed water to wash off the dust.

However, amidst all this order, it was easy to detect a sense of deprivation and suppressed humanity. It was as if people lived a shallow life from which some essential ingredient was missing. Most communities were organized under compulsory cooperative systems for ease of labor exploitation. Farms, too, operated under this model.

Unlike other capitals I had been to like London, New York, and Berlin, Moscow gave me a totally different ambience. If you judged it by strict standards, it looked like a sprawling provincial capital. The carbon emissions from the Ladas smelt like a decaying ammonia factory. But this aside, there were also very impressive sites to see.

The military parade at the Red Square remains the best I have seen in the world, conducted with precision and perfect robotic finish. Next to it is the Lenin Mausoleum, wherein lies the remains of that great luminary looking fresh and officially dressed, as if in a lunch time siesta after inspecting the parade at the Square.

The most popular drink is vodka, drunk like wine. It is not sipped but swallowed in whole tots or glassfuls. That vodka tastes smooth and sweet, unlike the bitter and wild version I have tasted here in Columbia. I think the superior brand of vodka is not allowed out of the country.

I met a number of American tourists who were in Moscow specifically on vodka binges. Moreover, they found it very cheap after exchanging their dollars for the ruble, the Russian currency. Though it was forced to be at par or even stronger than the dollar, its value was very low.

As a journalist, I was allowed some restricted tourism. I went to Khazakstan, near the border with China. Its capital, Alma Ata, hosted an international health conference prior to my visit. I also visited Leningrad in the north. It has been renamed St. Petersburg, its original name. This is where the powerful Czars had their gorgeous palaces, now mainly for tourist purposes.

My only quarrel was that the trip to and fro Leningrad was by uncomfortable train at night in the bitter cold. Rumor had it that the night trip was meant to prevent outsiders from taking a glimpse at the Russian military installations on the way. I could not verify this. I stopped over in Moscow again in 1990 on my way to Pyong yang, North Korea.

(Next week: Moscow: Reforms bring freedom and chaos)