It is a city with lots of room. Moscow is also a city with lots of real estate. When one thinks about the potential of the future, real estate certainly seems like it will play a big part. Many of the older buildings seem to be begging to be purchased for remodeling. This looked to me, on my first day of strolling about, like a city with a potential for a great deal of new enterprises, and indeed, it already is.
New shops are everywhere, in many of the bottom floors of older buildings.
The Russian White House. Passing the Russian White House, my memory went back to the images of the now legendary coup attempt of 1991, and Boris Yeltsin standing atop the tanks. I started to wonder how things might be different now if the coup had succeeded in toppling the government. History has a strange way of making us feel very vulnerable, even in the present. Well then, it's a good thing.