vlad.tribnet.com / Issue #151 / Social life / Reading article...

During a recent visit to European Russia I felt oddly at home seeing security guards in shoe stores and airline ticket offices.

And in a railway car from St. Petersburg to Moscow, I was reminded of Vladivostok when another passenger in our car – a beefy guy with a crewcut and a fawning girlfriend who giggled every time I spoke – tucked what looked suspiciously like a gun under his jacket.

Still, though Russia’s historic capitals have much in common with the rough-and-tumble of the Far East, the atmosphere is different there. A consumer economy is taking hold in Moscow and St. Petersburg, and cities actually work – with smooth roads and shops filled with designer labels.

Inspired, I have returned with a 500-day program to make Vladivostok a Pacific Rim challenge to the Moscow-Petersburg hegemony in Russia. Some key points:

A politicians parade. During Moscow’s 850th anniversary ceremony Sept. 6, floats carried three-meter high dummies of celebrities and politicians like Mayor Yury Luzhkov. Primorye residents would be equally inspired to see cartoon Cherepkovs and Nazdratenkos popping out of flower-covered trucks.

Billboards. Moscow was dominated by slogans evidently written by out-of-work Party propagandists. I know I would feel better about our city if I were surrounded by signs reading: “Vladivostok – even when I don’t believe myself, I believe in you.”

Canals. Why shouldn’t we be the Venice of the East? If Svetlanskaya, Russkaya and a few of our other potholed arterials were replaced with waterways, a boom in tourism would follow.

Cigars. Any serious city needs luxury stores offering Cuban stogies wrapped in tobacco leaf. Cigars have the added benefit of distracting the populace from the malodor of smoldering trash during garbage strikes.

A railway reptile museum. While waiting for a train in St. Petersburg’s Moscow station, I wandered through a basement filled with terrariums of live crocodiles and rattlesnakes. In Primorye, such a facility could also introduce schoolchildren to local politics.