The city is like a movie set, one omnipotent director's warped vision of utopia. Huge sports stadiums and concrete apartment blocks line clean, wide boulevards. The members of an all-female brass band play revolutionary songs on the sidewalk to inspire their comrades. The only thing lacking in this workers' paradise is life. Buildings are largely empty in a city that is supposedly home to 2 million people.
Factories lie dormant, without electricity or fuel to power production.
There is no litter on the streets. Policewomen in powder-blue suits and heavy makeup stand in the middle of intersections, spinning on their heels and pointing their batons mechanically. Their job is to direct traffic in lieu of the perpetually dark stoplights, so they do it, even though the few cars on the streets are driven by military men who speed by, ignoring police and pedestrians alike. Since the country stopped receiving aid from the Soviet Union 10 years ago, everything has been put on pause. Descending into the bomb shelter turned subway is like finding the buried remains of Soviet-era Eastern Europe.