It COULD ONLY HAPPEN HERE

The travel guidebook to Russia: 1991By the year 2000, the target date for the final achievement of the "Communist Model City" (in Leonid Brezhnev's words), every Moscow family is to have a dwelling of its own and every inhabitant is to have an average of 20 square meters of living accommodation and 30 square meters of open space.The constitution of the Soviet Union guarantees its citizens freedom of conscience, "that is, the right to profess any religion or none, to practice a faith or propagate atheism."People eat fairly well in the Soviet Union. For breakfast, as well as bread, butter, marmalade, sausage and cheese, there is usually something hot (sausage, omelette, fried eggs, bliny) with sour cream. When dining in a restaurant in the evening the Russians like to take plenty of time, as there is often a band playing to provide entertainment. Most restaurants are busy after 7 P.M. and after 10 P.M. it could be very difficult to order a meal ...Nightlife as it is known in the cities of the West does not exist in Moscow. Moscow people look for their evening's entertainment to the large restaurants with their elegant and relaxed atmosphere. ("Baedeker's Moscow," 1991)The travel guidebook to Russia: 1994The first thing that should be said about restaurants in Moscow is that you will find few average locals at them, as the prices are prohibitive to all but the wealthiest. Most Muscovites only dine outside their homes on weddings ... The restaurant market is largely defined by Western businessmen, journalists, and government-funded consultants who are not paying their own bills.Any guidebook writer faces a dilemma trying to describe Russia. On the one hand one must describe world-famous icons of culture and history, such as the Hermitage in St. Petersburg and the Kremlin in Moscow, with the reverence they deserve. On the other, one must expose the repulsiveness of Russian life. Moscow is one of the great cities of the world -- but as such it has more in common with Beijing, Bombay and Mexico City than with New York and Paris. By Western standards Russia first disgusts, then maddens and finally saddens. It is wracked by ecological devastation and economic hopelessness. Life in Moscow and St. Petersburg is as expensive as the West, as squalid as much of the Third World, and the weather, scenery and cuisine are better elsewhere.Why come, then? Well, Russia is, in places, breathtakingly lovely. In other places it is awesome. (Standing in front of the Stalin-era skyscrapers in Moscow one cannot help but feel both fear and respect.) And though public life on the streets in Russia is very difficult, individual people, especially inside their own apartments, are warm and giving. In museums, churches and concert halls, Russia's cultural and artistic heritage survives.And Russia is extremely important -- to recent history, to the present, and to the future of the world. It is important to see and understand the evil the Soviet system perpetrated on its people, in the same way that it is important to learn about the Holocaust.Yes, you must step through puddles, avoid open manholes, crowd onto escalators, search hard for a decent place to eat, and talk to many unfriendly people through tiny holes in large windows -- but it's worth it.("The Baltics and Russia Through the Back Door," a guidebook researched and written in 1994 by Ian Watson.)