St. Basil's Cathedral, Red Square Russia’s heatwave continued. Seeing the grandeur of the buildings in Moscow, the palaces, theatres and the museums, I had the feeling that much of the country's wealth had historically flowed in this direction, rather than to the small wooden houses in rural Russia or to the rusting industrial towns in some of the less touristed areas. For some reason it felt like a grasping octopus. It did not help that I was hot and tired and that on arrival I immediately got lost. I was also charged about three times as much for a piroshki (a small bread-like pastry with cabbage or meat inside) than I had been paying in the country and that the first taxi driver wanted the special tourist rate of 1680 roubles per kilometre to take me anywhere at all. Just as well I found out before we had gone got too far, because several frustrating hours later, I discovered that the place where I was staying was only a short distance from the underground and that he was ...
Practising Geographer - nature culture places people