A tale of two cities – London and Moscow

We’ve been here two days now, and we’ve met high and low and some of the sandwiched in the middle, so I hope we can be forgiven some first impressions?

Do Muscovites love Moscow?

Do Londoners love London?

I think Londoners are in love with London.

I think Muscovites feel as if they are living with an irascible bear. From a distance it is alluring, enticing, soft and cuddly. But get up too close and it will swipe a paw and knock off your head.

They feel a certain pride in their guts and nerve – not many people are steely enough to live in a bear pit. They see us Londoners as soft and spoilt, are skin cuts easily and we bruise at the slightest bump – we are not hard and we probably can’t take care of ourselves in a fight.

Here, in Moscow, I heard the word «crisis» a lot.

Now we have the same crisis in London, the great crisis of capitalism and finance and the resulting unemployment, but you don’t hear the word used – recession is about as hard as it gets.

Crisis is a tough, hard, uncompromising word.

I think it’s the right word.

Maybe that’s an important difference.

Here, they tell it like it is and they don’t mind if it hurts.

If you chop down a forest, goes the Russian proverb, chips will fly.

Here, you have to say what you think and everyone knows the words that hurt and those that heal.

We blend them to a puree so that they can’t be separated.

London is a pretty and gracious city – in parts.

Moscow is imposing, monumental and its manners are brusque.

The blood runs cold for much of the time but when it heats up, it gets very hot, a dispute is a fight, and a party is a shouting and jumping occasion for banging the table and shouting to be heard.

Like most things in life, from religion to sex, it’s a matter of taste.

Since we love both places, we can only conclude that we are a couple of broad minded lost souls!

Unless otherwise stated all photographs by Elena Bruce