"...like a million pieces of vividly coloured gems scattered on a black velvet."
Moscow at night in early winter was more pleasant than during the day - at least you could no longer see the grey low sky. It would have been different if it had snowed but it didn't. It was a city where theatre posters were plastered everywhere, where women were all dolled up, where plenty of restaurant hotel/metro staff had a one line JD (sit there with a poker face and watch people coming in and out of the washroom, for example), where a shopping mall filled with luxury brands lit up like Disneyland stood on the Red Square, where many super cars were fully covered with dirt and the number plate could not even be found (dirt does not discriminate, it seemed), where the old ladies looked just like they had walked out from a Soviet movie, where bare nails seemed to be a crime, where prices were either extremely high or very low depending on where you look, where sushi were very present, where boulevards with 8 lanes were just the way they should be, where even low or mid range stores had their country of origin printed underneath its logo, and where papers and documents mattered so much, that even menus in restaurants are signed, stamped and approved by the "Managing Director".
I had always been fascinated by Moscow and got more than I expected as a complete experience. It was where we had to check in to the same building with full passport checks every single morning even when we were there for weeks, where they loved the question "so for which company are you here?" and you get to choose 1 of the 3, where the person who greeted guests rode a bike, where my magical password was 618, where expats had so many great stories to tell about "how things work here", where we had a crash course on exactly that first hand by working only with locals (and a Japanese top exec who did not speak Russian or English. Tough life.), where everyday and any day could start with champagne and caviar, where Tverskaya was the hood, where men had no hesitation voicing their interest in and out of professional situations, where they thought both Kristi and me were Russians, where 20 vodka shots for a handful of people were not enough, where Starbucks quietly waited for us round the corner, where vodka dominated yet resembled water in the supermarkets, where Pelmeni and Shashlik tasted that much better, where lunch was Borsch, Blinz or other good soups, where we repeatedly abandoned the car for the apparent danger of the subway, where we even dragged the "never been on the subway" director down to the elaborately decorated stations as she watched commoners in awe, where we scared the chaffeur (and ourselves) on that Friday morning after Seb left, where even the daily subway commute back to Belaruskaya was an adventure thanks to the gates, doors, crowds, rubbish bins and most importantly, the old ladies who were there for the sole purpose of watching you.
