Ukrainian cities, including Kyiv, are facing nightly attacks by ever-growing swarms of Russian drones and ballistic missiles, forcing citizens to scramble into bomb shelters and seriously curtailing public life. Even Poland has now seen Russian drones in its skies, causing new alarm in the West.
The contrast with Moscow, just a few hundred miles away, could hardly be more surreal.
This modern metropolis of 12 million people is just coming off a summer of almost nonstop public festivities organized by the city authorities – amid almost no signs of the ongoing war to its south. Events include open-air concerts, theater in the parks, public gardening lessons, wave pools, a wide variety of public sports events, outdoor libraries, and literal dancing in the streets – most of it with free admission.
Why We Wrote This
While Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities are experiencing a hail of Russian drone and missile attacks, it’s been a summer of festivals in Moscow, where war feels far more than a few hundred miles away.
It all culminates this weekend as the city celebrates its 878th birthday with a series of lavish events in Moscow’s main parks, spilling onto the major downtown streets.
To outsiders, the elaborate festivities taking place in the proximity of a terrible war seem wrong, and the carefree prosperity of downtown Moscow looks downright inexplicable. Yet few Muscovites seem willing to acknowledge that there’s any problem, not even on the level of optics.
“Moscow is my city, and it’s getting better and better every year,” says Maria, a suburban teacher taking her young son on an outing to Gorky Park, where they plan to visit the new artificial beach and perhaps rent a pedal boat. “I know there’s a military operation going on, but are we supposed to put our lives on hold, stop living as normally as possible?”
According to Denis Volkov, director of the independent pollster Levada Center, 60% of Muscovites say their lives have not been affected by the war.
“Most people live their lives without reference to the conflict, and in general they support” the city government’s efforts to make urban life more enjoyable, he says. “There are some voices doubting whether this is the right time for such activities, but they are mostly marginal.”
Ukrainian drone attacks have sometimes hit Moscow, but the damage has tended to be slight and quickly cleaned up. The threat of drone attacks is ongoing, and there are reports of frequent airport closures and disrupted air traffic. In general, however, most people say the war is easy to ignore.
Anor Tukaeva, an urban planning expert who lives in Moscow but spends much of her time in a small town 400 miles away, where she is helping to restore an ancient church, says the difference between Moscow and the provinces is stark.
“All these festivals in Moscow look like an attempt to create an artificial holiday,” she says. “But it’s mostly young people from the provinces who go off to fight in the special military operation. So, the hard character of this moment is felt more acutely out in the regions.”
Moscow has transformed radically over the past decade or so, reshaping its formerly congested and grimy downtown into a smoothly running and easily accessible urban space with broad sidewalks, bicycle lanes, and lots of green zones. Since 2011, its famous metro has added 150 miles of new lines and 114 new stations. Bureaucratic tasks that used to take days can now be solved online, or with a quick visit to one of many My Documents centers. According to Mayor Sergei Sobyanin’s website, the city has added 700 restaurants and cafes this year alone, and now has almost 23,000 eateries of various types, almost triple the number 15 years ago.
According to Mr. Sobyanin, this year’s “Summer in Moscow” project has hosted over 50 million people in over 400 venues around the city in the past three months, offering thousands of different cultural, entertainment, and sporting events. This weekend’s celebration of Moscow Day is planned to be the biggest ever, he told journalists.
“People don’t just want to work, they want to have a comfortable living environment,” says Igor Korotchenko, a leading Russian military expert. “Moscow is one of the world’s biggest megalopolises, and it’s developing wonderfully. What’s wrong with that?”
As for the war, he says, “Yes, we have military activity in the border zones and along the line of contact. But it doesn’t mean we have martial law [in Moscow]. We’re not a besieged fortress, we’re a normal country that continues to develop. I certainly don’t feel like we are having too many festivals.”
