My first moves in Russia took place in the mid 80’s when I was still in music, and our band Kadotetut (The Lost Ones) was among the first western rock groups to play in the USSR (this was roughly two years before Uriah Heep’s 1987 concert in Moscow). The train was then a great way of making it to Leningrad or Moscow. The atmosphere in the old style restaurant cars was charming, something that you could still enjoy in 2006 on a train to St. Petersburg:
Recently the Repin trains were changed to modern hardware, resulting in interiors quite as uninspiring as their Finnish counterparts.
Commuting in the large cities can be nightmarish instead, like when I was in Moscow photographing at the Millionaire Fair: the previous night’s 20-minute taxi drive took 3 hours and 40 minutes the following day. Many drivers had the nerve to start tailing ambulances wedging their way through the streets. The picture below was taken towards the end of the drive.
At the fair houses like this were on offer.
Meanwhile, in the outskirts of St. Petersburg multiple colossal suburbs were under construction.
