Gradually, against considerable resistance and resilience, the city has been whittling down the number of kiosks, heading toward the magic figure of 8,000 by Feb. 1. The process, naturally, has been accompanied by charges that kiosks are unsightly and unsanitary, and by countercharges that the mayor is strangling free enterprise and is being paid off by the builders of mini-malls.
Behind this debate, though, lies a long history. In the Moscow Historical Museum, there is a remarkable series of paintings by the historian, archeologist and artist Apollonary Vasnetsov. On these canvases, laid out for all to see, is the truth about Moscow's kiosks in historical perspective.
Vasnetsov's paintings, based on a lifetime of meticulous research, depict the life of Moscow's streets from the founding of the Kremlin to the 19th century. And they show beyond a shadow of a doubt that, on one hand, Moscow has always been filled with kiosks and, on the other, that the government has always been trying to get rid of them.
Even before Moscow had real books or very many people who could read them, there were wooden kiosks throughout the city peddling lyubki, those pretty wood-cut prints that are so popular at Izmailovsky Park nowadays. In the days of Ivan the Terrible, you could stop by a neighborhood kiosk for a refreshing cup of kvas.
And back when the Kremlin was still made of wood, the government -- even though it did not have those special kiosk-removal trucks -- had to order the kiosks cleared from Red Square because of the danger of fires.
Moscow has always been a city of traders, far more traders than shops. There has always been a business chain -- from people standing in crowds to sell their produce to kiosks to markets to stores. Kiosks are as integral to Moscow life as hot-dog vendors in New York or newsstands in London. Even Stalin could not get rid of them entirely.
This is by no means to say that the city does not have the right and the obligation to control the kiosks. It is obviously ridiculous when there are 60 or more kiosks in one area selling identical products at identical prices. And there are important concerns about sanitation and public order.
But claims that kiosks are just an early stage of capitalism in Russia and that their time is past are naive. There is just something about Moscow -- and there always has been -- that keeps the kiosk tradition alive. Ivan the Terrible wouldn't recognize the place without them.
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