View From a Cab

Moscow days and nights: street chronicles from a fracturing society where everyone sells and everyone is for sale

A standard Moscow taxicab sifts through traffic along the city's Boulevard Ring road on a mild, hazy winter's afternoon. The windows are coated with a viscous film of mud and grit, residue of city snow turned to slush. Wipers, old and misshapen, scrape slowly across the windshield, clearing just enough space for the driver to spot a stout old man waving his hand from the curb. He pulls over. A few words are spoken, an agreement reached. The man and his wife, both wearing dingy overcoats, fur hats and rubber boots, clamber in.

"We buried my sister today," the old man...

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