I am one lucky bastard.  Here I am in some of the most amazing places I can imagine, with drivers and tour guides to enhance the entire experience.  The touristy bit of our trip is over and now it is time to get some work done.  Our last bit of sightseeing took place today in and around the Kremlin.  Growing up in the USA in the 80’s, Red square is just one of those forbidden places you just are sure you will never in your life step foot in.  With the cold war over, I walk these streets hearing the sounds of american, and british accents, japanese tour groups and signs advertising levis, coke and budwieser on every corner.

It is perhaps a bit too naive to think that I am getting the ‘real’ feel for the city, what it likes to live there, to make $500 dollars a month while tourists spend that on a four person meal.  Moscow is a city of wealth extremes.  And it can’t represent the soul of Russia any more than one can get a feel for America by visiting New York.  These cities are in a global peer group.  Moscow shares more with London, Paris, New York or Tokyo than it does its own country.  Its a Global Metropolis, and as such I found myself struggling to really identify with Russia as a whole.  When I compare Moscow to St. Petersburg, I see chaos, traffic and concrete soviet era buildings sprinkled in between the historic facades.  If St. Petersburg is the noble aristocrat of Russia, Moscow is the caffeine addicted, rally proven cab driver with a flask of Russki Standard vodka within easy reach of the drivers seat.

Moscow is older than St. Petersburg.  And the architectural style of St. Petersburg’s cathedrals is light years ahead of Moscow’s most famous church.  It was a real shock to finally stand in front of St. Basil’s cathedral after all these years.  It is a famous building and everyone knows it.  What you can’t know however,  is that is is basically a large and intricate painted clay pot.  The entire building is made of simple bricks.  It is incredibly small and impractical.  I loved the contrast between it’s audacious shape and its humble construction and size.  For all of its ornateness there is not a single space inside that is larger than what you would find in a large american house.  The interior ornament is all painted plaster over the brick structure.  The Muscovites are not really taking good care of it either.  For all the love and affection shown St. Petersburg’s buildings, St. Basil’s is just kind of like a dog that lives out in the yard.  It is just kind of left to the elements, never getting any attention. Around every turn there are postcard and trinket vendors in the small corner niches.  Almost sacriledge, I thought.

Never have I seen a culture so completely ignore the practicalities of dress in the face of their environment.  In Moscow, it would be a miracle to find a shoveled sidewalk or a plowed street.  Someone could make a billions trucking salt into this place to clear the roads.  But then again, would anyone even care?  There is no shortage of mink here either.  Like St. Petersburg this place is a nightmare for our friends at PETA.  As I thought about designing, manufact-uring and selling quality outwear to these people, I realized we may have a challenge.  They have been dealing with this weather far longer than thinsulate or goretex have been on the scene.  And god forbid those icy sidewalks get in the way of a hot, thigh high, spike heeled pointy toed women’s boot.  Fashion is definitely kicking function’s ass all around town.

The retail environment around Red Square was reminiscent of Harrods or Saks Fifth Avenue.  The place wasn’t just filled  with tourists either.  There is some serious money floating around this town.  I just can’t seem to figure out where the huge spectrum of wealth has emerged so fast in this new capitalist society.  It really made me reconsider the notion of americas golden paved streets with homeless sleeping on the subway grates.  We show this shocking paradox to the world every day in the US, and somehow we (I) have let it become a normal part of the experience. Here it was jarring.

Click HERE for pictures of Moscow.