The capitalism in Red Square

[kwassa]

Seeing Bush do the parade thing there ...

I was there in February, 2002. Some impressions of the square.

1) It is a long trapezoid, not a sqaure.

2) It is a lot smaller than it appears in pictures; they did a lot with camera angles. St. Basil's Cathedral at the end is small, too, though a very interesting building.

3) Almost no one goes to Lenin's Tomb anymore. The tomb is also pretty small, and the parapet where the Soviet leaders used to stand is only about 15 feet off the ground.

4) Directly across the sqaure from the tomb is the old GUM department store, a beautiful Victorian structure of stone arcades. The two stores in these arcades that most directly faced Lenin's Tomb, less than 100 feet away, were Calvin Klein, and Hugo Boss. We commented on who won this war! There was also a Fredericks of Hollywood inside the arcades.

There were 60 McDonalds in Moscow by 2002. The first thing we saw when we drove out of Moscow airport was a huge IKEA. We also saw in central Moscow, in Cyrillic-scripted signs, of course, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Sbarros Pizza, and TGI Fridays. The mallization of Moscow!

Also, the huge Moscow subway, which carries 13 million people a day, uses electronic strip cardboard fare cards almost identical to the ones on the Metro in Washington, D.C. Same size and design, different language.

[NewJeffCT]

1. Similar to China

Only, I think China is more commercialized.

Everywhere you go in China, you see McDonald's, KFC, Starbucks, Haagen Dazs. Heck, there is even a Starbucks in the Forbidden City, and the "areas of interest" signs that are in both Chinese & English in the Forbidden City are brought to you courtesy of American Express. I even went to a Chinese Wal-Mart in Nanjing that was on the 4th & 5th floors of a large multi-story shopping mall...

Amazing how capitalism has changed China, yet will still can't have anything to do with Cuba.

[MuseRider]

2. WOW

I was there in 1997 or 1998. GUM had very little in it, nothing but local stuff and a lady with the biggest handlebar moustache I have ever seen. Things have changed!

Did you go into Lenin's tomb? It looks like Lenin jerky in wax, pretty disturbing and if you move too quickly they do point those guns at you, ask my husband.

I was also surprised at how small Red Square was. We had a picture taken of us there with St. Basil's in the background and even that picture made it look much larger than it really is.

The first place we were taken was the very first (only at that time IIRC) McDonalds, sheesh. After eating there for 3 days I was ready for a Big Mac though. I don't remember seeing the others except KFC.

[kwassa]

3. Lenin's tomb was only open a few hours a day

and we were there at the wrong time. There aren't lines to get in anymore.