Zee Beam News

April 10, 2005 Chris Clark HAMISH ROBERTSON Australian Broadcasting Corporation - It's often said that you should never go back. But it seems that someone forgot to mention this to Chris Clark, a former ABC Moscow correspondent, who's just returned for a brief visit to Moscow, his first glimpse of the Russian capital in nearly 10 years. It's a city that's changed almost beyond recognition. In this report, Chris Clark gives his impressions of Moscow, 10 years on. CHRIS CLARK: If you ever come to Moscow, try to come in winter, or at least when there's still snow on the ground. For me, that's what's always given the place a slightly unreal quality. It creates the impression of a vast city seeming to rise out of nothing. Try to imagine something a lot bigger than Sydney, where Alice Springs stands now, but in the snow. I thought of it the first time I saw Moscow from the air and it still struck me as I returned after nearly 10 years. How did it happen? How did it start? Why here? A city of well over 10 million people just rising out of the plain. It's not even on one of Europe's big rivers, the Moscow River's a bit of a creek if put alongside it's much more famous cousin, the Volga. And 10 years later, Moscow is even bigger, faster, and noisier than ever. The noise is overwhelming at times. It's like living on the back of a snoring giant. My hotel still has the old-style heating, which won't be turned-off for another month or so. But it's now surprisingly warm for early April, too hot for the heating. Problem is, if I open the window I can't sleep for traffic noise, and I'm on the 27th floor. Russia's population has been falling, but Moscow's growing. I was the ABC television news correspondent here in '94 and '95. Moscow then was fast cars, fast black cars driven by men in black suits with even blacker sunglasses. They're still here, but now their children are driving too. Moscow is more of everything. Ten years ago there were perhaps a dozen good hotels or restaurants where the rich could flaunt their wealth, half a dozen supermarkets where imported food was plentiful and expensive. Dozens and dozens of shops in the part of town where the ABC has its bureau were derelict, a few old soviet era places struggled on, tins of cabbage or jars of pickled cucumbers piled-up, the final traces of a system that really was of another age. Now, downtown Moscow is crammed with Casinos ­ it's Las Vegas on ice. Slot machines greet you at the airport, just in case the urge to punt is utterly overwhelming. Across the street from the ABC office is a shop the size of a supermarket that sells only cosmetics. According to a recently published survey, Russian women spend about 17 per cent, or nearly a fifth of their wages, on cosmetics. And below the cosmetics emporium is a wine shop, no window display to lead you there, just a blue neon sign, where I stumbled across Chateux Lafite, Latour and Margaux and hundreds of others, where your appetite for fine wine is limited only by you're the size of your wallet. Excess does not begin to describe the scene. I was at dinner with a very successful young Russian businesswoman who offered me these insights. We were in a restaurant few foreigners could afford but which was packed with Russians. Today, she says, you're simply trading up or trading down in every aspect of life. That's the calculation to be made. That is, you might argue, human behaviour the world over. But what I think she meant is that, at this moment, the overwhelming focus of people's lives here is about getting ahead financially. Ten years ago, I was reporting on the collapse of the rouble as it slipped out to nearly 5,000 to the dollar. Now, 27 roubles will buy you one greenback, it's actually gone up against the dollar in the last year. So people are making money while they can. Are some missing out? Yes, millions. And what of the politics? The sense is of a rather remote game played by the very rich and the very powerful. Not unimportant, but not the daily focus of affairs for most. Stability is key, people recall the chaos of the mid-nineties, and only a fool would want to return to that. The Presidency of Vladimir Putin seems likely to be judged on economics, rather than ideology. And by that measure, a lot of people are better off than they were a decade ago. So there it is, my snapshot of Moscow 10 years on: bigger, louder, faster and flashier than ever. Can we stop now please? I'd like to get off.