Moscow (April 2000). Added. Even some Russian friends twisted his mouth into a grin when they heard our new address. "We live now in the third radiator road, house 13" could indicate No, not with such an address here. In the north-west of Moscow, hidden behind the houses of the Leningrad Highway, three radiators with their low-lying roads - that is five-to twelve-story apartment buildings from various post-war decades - and many tall trees lining the roads.
for taste not: Moscow, Rubljowskoje road to Yeltsin's House (c) Rödi
had once directly found on the road the large radiator factory that polluted with their chimneys, the air and with their production waste contaminated soil. The name of our district, recalled the long since rotted industrial culture, the times when the heating plant had not yet been transformed into a chaotic construction market.
That was a blessing. Of the residential blocks of the radiator on the major roads could be Lakes of the adjacent city park view, in late spring on warm nights croak through the open windows to hear the frogs. And despite all the rents were much lower here than just a Metro station further into town in the prestigious district of Sokol. The Moscow were quite sure in which quarter of the Twelve metropolis this was a "prestischny raion," a "prestigious district." Sokol was "prestischny" not our neighborhood was a kilometer north-west roads along with the radiator.
houses from the Stalin era raise the prestige
The more people in the Russian Capital money came, the more of them wanted to live in style. Residential area in the city but there was not not even neighborhoods with single family homes. Accommodation is in Moscow almost exclusively in residential high-rises, mostly unsightly prefabricated buildings. And yet, who lives in Moscow learns immediately that can range from first glance identical, monotonous neighborhoods worlds.
Sometimes there were reasonable grounds for the prestige of a quarter: I liked the houses from the Stalin era, lie at the apartments with high ceilings and bay windows and ornate, which made the streets there something more human. Because there is no front of the window stainless scrap heap and factories were.
was a rule but rather unclear where did the high regard in which some parts of the city was said. Bringing the drab dormitory towns along the main road Rubljowskoje road had earned its status must remain the secret of real estate agents. It is common along the famous route that connects the Kremlin with President estate, could be preferred the rich and famous down the capital city. A look at the signboards of the local boutiques and furniture stores was proof enough.
prestige and greed
That made the repulsive Soviet bloc with its blue and white Tiles on the walls certainly not pretty. From the central line of the huge loss and not to mention the significant fact that this road was completely closed to traffic on a regular basis, so that president Putin lawn with his escort in the Kremlin could, without being disturbed by the subjects. In a way it was with the "prestigious neighborhoods" as the "leading universities" in Russia. Even in those times turned out to be dignified as dummies, as I had now experienced painful.
Even once we had an apartment Rubljowskoje on the road. We also felt a touch of prestige that came from that street. Probably made the "prestige" of the area where the landlord but also very greedy. Our landlord, a dentist, which we had found through acquaintances, as the late nineties was quite usual turned out to be - to say the least - as an impostor. Although she was even officially registered in the apartment, but it was not her but her step-son.
The learned one day from the windy shops his relatives, and finally landed here with police escort from an unpleasant visit. Unfortunately, they chose well remember which day we had arranged with Anna's colleagues, a second wedding reception in the flat and straight On the last gentlemen were waiting when the doorbell rang.
The celebration was overshadowed by the need to put on a police report, a few days later we moved away from and for ever from the world of the rich and successful. Still, I consoled myself that our dentist had taken over their greed and a little before it was now due judicial trouble with the stepson.
view of Yeltsin's apartment
At the "Rublyovka," as the saying goes that route calls, but there was still a very special home. Just before the city limits, maybe two and a half miles from our temporary apartment building, stood in the middle between the repulsive prefabricated housing a beige brick building, six stories high, surrounded by a high fence. Here, on the hills of Krylatskoje, there was the official residence of Moscow's Mayor Yuri Luzhkov and omnipotent - the head of state by no less than Boris Yeltsin. Neighbours reported that Yeltsin's wife Naina in the early nineties even occasionally appeared even in the grocery store nearby.
Politicians elite had over the years, of course zugeschanzt noble self-service villas and country houses provides. Officially, the beige block housed on the homes of some of the most important politicians of the country. Before our wedding we had rented an apartment in a nearby house for the German guests. They do not believe me until today that they looked amidst the concrete jungle of the kitchen window directly on Yeltsin's apartment. The fact that they were staying in a place that is not simply "prestischny," but was "super-prestischny."
had occasionally even I am supposed prestige of some of Moscow's dazzling addresses. Stalin's wedding-cake skyscrapers seemed to me a long time as possibly the best address in the capital. A dwelling had to be a dream high above the city, I thought. Then I learned that a colleague from the Moscow radio even had just such an apartment. Commentator Alexander Scholkwer, zu Zeiten der Sowjetunion langjähriger Korrespondent in Bonn, war nach seiner Rückkehr mit einer Wohnung in einem Seitenflügel des Hotels «Ukraina» belohnt worden, direkt an der Prachtstraße Kutusow-Prospekt.
Mir blieb vor Neid der Mund offen stehen, doch Scholkwer winkte mit einer geringschätzigen Handbewegung ab. «Es ist die Hölle», sagte er und berichtete von dem dröhnenden Verkehr, der sich Tag und Nacht an seiner Wohnung vorbei wälzte und ein normales Leben unmöglich machte. Scholkwers bescheidenes Nachwende-Gehalt reichte noch nicht einmal für den Einbau schallisolierender Plastikfenster.
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