Muscovite

In his everyday life the Muscovite is always in a rush. He is like a cog in the huge machine of the metropolis, whose laws he cannot change. He is at the mercy of traffic jams, transport and huge distances. He curses this city, these hordes of ever-hurrying people and sluggish visitors and tires of it all.

But at the end of the working week he forgets all about his pressing concerns and troubles, putting them off to another day. He is going to relax. He has a liein and goes to a theatre premiere, takes his umbrella and even in bad weather goes to a concert in Red Square or grabs a blanket to throw on the ground in one of the city parks, so he can lie on the grass and listen to some jazz, at midnight he will walk through the colourful festival of light which transforms the squares and streets, at Shrovetide he will go to Vasilievsky Spusk Square and taste piping-hot pancakes, sharing his holiday with smiling tourists... And once again he declares his love for his city and rejoices in the fact that he is a Muscovite.

And in th|? morning, running into traffic jams, struggling to squeeze into his metro carriage, hailtng a taxi, he finds himself once again in a rush and curses this megacity... and dreams of the next weekend.

Krasnoselskaya Street and Shcherbakovskaya Street, Lubyanskaya Square and Suvorovskaya Square, the Garden Ring, the architectural installations of the All-Russia Exhibition Center and the Moscow Canal were built in the Stalinist style. But, of course, one of the most famous monuments to this era is the Moscow Metro, rightly regarded as the most beautiful in the world. The metro was opened in 1935 and was designed not only as an underground transport system but was also supposed to lift the spirits of Soviet people and demonstrate the entire world the triumph of the new Soviet nation's creative thinking.

Sculptor Vera Mukhina's "Worker and Collective Farm Girl" monument is both a memorial to that time and one of the symbols of the U.S.S.R. Several years ago, it was put back on its original place after undergoing restoration.

Moscow is also proud of its unique engineering structures such as television towers: the Shukhovs-kaya Tower in Shabolovka, and the Ostankino Television Tower with an observation deck at a height of 337 meters, from which opens a breathtaking view of Moscow as far as forty kilometers around.

In the 2000s, Moscow was enriched by a large number of modern building structures, which were designed by Russian and other world-leading architects. The Moskva-City International Business Center, the Triumph-Palace high-rise apartment complex, reminiscent of Stalinist architectural grandeur, and the ultra-modern Khodynka Field residential complex, whose ice rink has already hosted the World Figure Skating Championships, have all sprung up. The unique engineering structure of the cable-stayed bridge across the river is called Zhivopisny Bridge for a reason (in Russian "zhivopisny" means "picturesque") - it really does make the city more beautiful.

Over the past decades, Moscow has become more beautiful by night as well as by day. Lighting designers have made the city bright, festive and dazzling through its night panoramas. Architectural uplighting has given historic monuments a new vibrancy. In October 2011, the first international festival of light took place in Moscow and transformed the city's squares and streets into a light show.

Today, Moscow is both an ancient and a modern city, and everyone has their own particular view of it. If^u still have not been to our capital city, then take a look at it through the eyes of those wlio long ago fell in love with it.

Welcome to Moscow!

Squares, courtyards and side streets are sometimes like time machines. If you climb the stairs of the Ivan the Great Bell Tower and look down on Cathedral Square, then everything here is like in the olden days.

The skyscrapers of the Moskva-City Business Centre make you think about the future of Moscow. Walking down Prechistenka Street enable? you to appreciate the tastes of the Russian nobility of bygone centuries. Looking at the simple, exact lines of the constructivist houses you think about the time of hope in the first years of the new regime. Or you can go to Sparrow Hills and feel yourself soaring high above the city, in which the difficult history of the country, the city and the people is intertwined.

But every Muscovite has a place which, so it would seem, is his alone. This is where they first met and sadly, or happily, where they parted. Here everything is different. Or, sadly, or perhaps happily, the same as it always was.

Lovers, students and pensioners have their own spots. But often another couple is already kissing on your bench, and your place under the shadow of an old elm tree in the avenue is already taken by an elderly stranger. That is how it should be - one Moscow for everyone.