I was in Moscow for first time in 91. The situation was unreal and it was snowing thick and the atmosphere of semi-darkness of a latent November announcing a tough winter. The Moskva was now frozen and tails formed as usual in front of empty shops in the yellowish glow of the early afternoon, was full of tired faces and depressed, while the few cars went around the Kalzò leaving a trail of bluish and ill-smelling fuel. The atmosphere seemed very dark. After leaving office, walking the few hundred meters on the wide sidewalk that takes us to Gastiniza Pekin. The snow creaked under my soft soles heavy as I squeezed in dublionka with shapka fell on the ears, to keep the sweet warm environment from which I had just been released.
time I did not catch cold. After the great semi-deserted square opening, forcing a bit ', since they were all battered, the doors of the old Stalinist hotel. The classic building of the system, one of seven neoassiro style, borrowed from New York visit that the dictator did in the United States and that were mimicking the style he liked so much. The Pekin was the smallest of the seven, and perhaps the worst succeeded by his ten-storey towers and the final disproportionate, much less even than his brother at the Hotel Ukraina across the river, more airy and composed. But the most awful feeling I had it inside, past the buffer zone between the doors that separated the hall from the square outside dark and covered with snow. The same sad task heavily involved in counter where you were tired the favor of retiring the various documents and I reluctantly handed the internal passport, then you went to the elevators, nearly all broken through to your floor.
Here, if you had luck finding the dejurnaia , the head of the plan, most of the time sleeping on a couch, and when leather chipped, incattivita from unwelcome wake up, hands you the key, went, without disturbing further, to look for a room along the enormous and endless corridors. Then you lock yourself in the gigantic room. Everything had to be big and grand when the hotel was built, the size should be clearly at the same time warning and a threat to those who use, or just watching them, witness to greatness, but also of severe attention. Look at what you do that the big brother you see and judge you. At any time. This was the feeling. In addition, you fantasize that there were microphones everywhere and legends abounded in this sense, even if the final agony of the regime, I think it was all a bit 'left to itself and invaded the general neglect this aspect of political life .
the ground floor in the back there was a restaurant, a poor and sparse interpretation of Chinese cuisine, always poorly equipped even to those three or four dishes that brought the disappointing menu on tablecloths stained and rumpled. It was reluctantly attended by a few hotel guests in the morning, there were a dismal breakfast of cucumbers and Smietana, while a huge (everything had to be large) samovar steel enthroned in a corner of the room for tea. On Saturday evening, small groups or pairs of students came to celebrate some birthday Russians, filling a few tables here and there, the males with the threadbare jackets and narrow with a rose in hand, girls with beautiful diaphanous and transparent polyester blouses and shoes with heels that were worn in the plastic bag to change into snow boots which had arrived from the metro station nearby. They waited a long time after ordering the waiters svogliati, ma non sembrava loro importare. Poi si mangiavano con cura gli involtini primavera rinsecchiti e il pollo alle mandorle freddo, guardandosi negli occhi, inconsapevoli e forse disinteressati ai cambiamenti epocali e ai durissimi anni che stavano alle porte, al di là del grande ingresso, mentre la neve continuava a cadere stanca, a soffocare i pochi rumori della notte sovietica.
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