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“Moscow,” as any Russian will tell you, “is not Russia.”
It’s a phrase you’ll hear from Muscovites and unreconstructed provincials alike. It echoes from the Baltic to the Pacific, and in every grey town and concreted city in between. The world knows the story: a vastly richer capital knows nothing, and cares still less, for the hinterland. The provinces fear and resent what they do know of the big city’s excesses.
The story’s a familiar one – but in the world’s largest country, things tend to happen on a larger scale. Russia’s Rust Belt, with its dozens upon dozens of forgotten, crumbling industrial outposts, is no exception. The cultural and economic chasms between the metropolis and the hinterland are only getting bigger and more glaring. Russia hasn’t yet seen the sort of Rust Belt rebellion that has hit Europe and North America. But it can surely only be a matter of time.
Ask your typical Muscovite what they know of the almost seven million square miles of territory that makes up the rest of their mind-bogglingly massive country, and you’ll get a few predictable answers. St Petersburg is lovely. The Tsars’ old capital can be a wonderful break from the stress of Moscow life. Sochi too, with its subtropical climate and post-Winter Olympics boom, is a firm favourite.
After that, it gets harder. Our archetypical Muscovite will know little more of the motherland. Mention Siberia, and they’ll respond like anyone else: a freezing expanse of Gulags and bears that’s equal parts mysterious and scary. Beyond those old haunts, their knowledge of the Russian Federation is a route that extends for 30 kilometres north-west of Red Square and ends at the departures lounge of Sheremetyevo International Airport.
But drive those 30 kilometres in any other direction and you will find the real Russia. This a country of mouldering low-rise concrete, of 200-dollar-a-month pensions, of the never-ending brain drain.
This is a Russia that definitely did not make the World Cup cut. Out here, our Muscovite might sometimes glimpse it, though strictly at 35,000 feet as Aeroflot carries them off to Rome, Dubai or Bangkok. This isn’t so much flyover country as flyaway country.
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