Moscow people

People are most interesting in any city. We meet them on the street, in the transport, they describe to us correct way or ask us «Where are you from?» Very different people can life in the one place. But something make them together. This is one general experience and similar understanding of present time. Who are they, modern Muscovites? What kind of history has created their present time?

 Bureaucrats
Civil officers. In the Soviet era bureaucrats occupied a privileged position in society. Then their authority plummeted. Bureaucrats have remained in dishonor until quite recently whilst the state again needed a strong governmental machine. Increases in pay and fringe benefits have restored the bureaucrat’s authority, and a young superseding shift cheerfully began its walk along the corridors of public offices. At 8:30 a.m. and at 6:30 p.m. the public transport in Moscow as if at a command is filled out with civil officers, where one half is in the age of retirement, and the second half has recently graduated from higher education institutions.  

 Office-men
Office staff. This numerous tribe simultaneously appeared in all big cities of the world. Maybe for this reason office clerks look like the same wherever their office situates in. This is a vivid example of global unification, which trends have been distinctly underlined in the modern world. During weekdays they say “we” about themselves, meaning the whole corporation. An office clerk is a constellation of brands dressing him/her and watching his/her cleanness and the state of skin, forming and supplementing his/her changing “ego”, which is extremely sensible to fashion. An office clerk is optimistic; he/she believes in progress and willingly consumes all the new things. Many clerks do not leave the limits of Moscow Ring Road for several years.

 Guest workers
The citizen of another country (CIS as a rule), employed in Russia under working visa.A rapid development of Moscow in the latest decade has quite shortly revealed a shortage of man power. An additional labor force came from CIS countries. Azerbaijani started to lay out roads, the Kyrgyz to look after the city neatness, the Ukrainians and Byelorussians to construct new buildings. Each guest worker’s relocation is carefully monitored by migration services having charge of working visas and controlling the size of employed foreigners in Moscow.

 Free people
The people free from cliches stereotypes, choosing their own individual way. This small, but important part of social medium may not be more or less systemized. They are extremely individual, their values are non-material, they clearly realize their boundaries, and may not be manipulated. They are not enjoyed by consumption. Most people think they are unpredictable. However, it is their pure thinking that very often becomes an initial cause of all important events in the city life.

 Night people
People leading a night way of life. They are not troubled by an open sky; they are dulled by plenty of daylight; disoriented and depressed by traffic jams. When the torchlight supplants the sunlight the night people come to the streets so that by short moves to leave one and visit another night spot. During a non-party period they have time to work in the sphere of PR, advertising, fashion, design and web-programming.

 Students
Students of Moscow higher education institutions. Moscow is the biggest intellectual center of Russia, where a great number of higher education institutions are concentrated in. Young people from every corner of the country come to Moscow to get a higher education. In 5 years (the period of full tuition) not all the graduates return back home. Many of them remain to live and work in Moscow.

 Business persons
People having their own business. Moscow has always been the center of economic life in Russia. The return to liberal market relations has revived this stratum of society, which vanished in the Soviet era.

 Tourists
Travelers from other regions of Russia and other countries. Most tourists usually come to Moscow during warm season – since May to September. The vacation time of Muscovites comes exactly in this time. Many of them leave the city for the period of vacation. The metropolitan vanity and hurry becomes less intense, the number of passengers in public transportation decreases, and in the downtown there are more pedestrians. Many of them are tourists.

 Virtual generation
Born in after-war years (1945-1960). They were born in the country safely covered by an iron curtain, where public media every day and within several decades modeled a certain special form of reality for the whole country. It was a planned benevolent semi-virtual world that still exists in their minds. Some sacredly believe that the Russian language is understood by almost everyone on the planet.