Talk:Moscow/Archive 1

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Misc. 2004 discussions

'The native Moscow dweller will negotiate the price to $15-20 or will avoid the taxi rank altogether and take a shared taxi to the nearest metro station for about 50 cent.'

I originally wrote bus instead of 'shared taxi' but someone changed it. I don't know why - There are buses there. And they are slightly cheaper. (I don't know any Moscovites who would throw away $20 on a taxi.)

Seabhcan - 17th March 2004

20$ on a taxi to the airport (from the city center) is really the normal Moscow price (depending on the airport). By 'shared taxi' the person who wrote it meant 'route taxi' (a literal translation from the Russian marshrutnoe taksi), basically a minibus. There are both buses and minibuses that you can take from the airport. They really do cost about 50 cent, though they are no necessarily the most comfortable way to get to/from the city. There are also regular trains (at least from some of the airports), which probably (a guess) cost around 5$.

Just keep in mind that a taxi to the airport in Moscow would cost you a lot less then a taxi from the airport (at least if we're talking about SVO).

Difficulties of Moscow

User:Paranoid removed: "Moscow presents many obstacles to the foreign tourist. The visa system is antiquated and costly. Hotels are too few and too expensive. Also, with the recent terrorist actions being associated with the darker-skinned Caucasian population, official police racism against all dark skin people is rife."

On racism, i think it does apply to tourists. Severly of my french and spanish friends have been harrased by the police in moscow because of their slightly darker complection. Anyone with black skin is taking their lives in their hands by visiting the city. 35 Africans were burned to death last november when their appartment block was set alight. The police announced it to be an accident before they arrived on the scene (even though they had been called to the building the night before by residents who had chased away an arsonist). Asian visitors (including many of the cities bankers from Japan) are currently advised by their embassies not to use the metro for safty reasons.

There is a great shortage of hotels. I have connections with the business community in Moscow. They tell me that if they haven't booked a room for visiting client at least 2 months before all the rooms will be gone. And noone who has ever tried to get a visa will disaggree that the system is awful.

Seabhcan 10:00, 17 May 2004 (UTC)

First, I want to say that in my opinion regardless of it its accuracy the paragraph in question did nothing but perpetuate dangerous stereotypes and was overly sensational. That's clearly not what is needed for Wikipedia article - what's needed are facts and objective analysis. Second, I checked the some other articles and found nothing about terrorism danger of Jerusalem, danger of pickpocketers in Rome or anything about dangers of travelling in Tokyo subway (though the incident was factually mentioned). Clearly, the accepted style of articles about world capitals does not include warnings about statistically insignificant dangers.

The safety record of Moscow metro is excellent. One terrorist attack does not indicate a real future danger, even though overcautious Tokyo diplomats may disagree. Deaths of 35 Africans were one incident, not 35, and it doesn't indicate future dangers to foreigners (or New York would be forever tainted after 9/11). As far as I know, most of the foreign tourists make it through Moscow just fine. And even though there definitely are incidents, they are not specific to Moscow and rather belong to an article about Russia or Russian justice/police system.

If you think these dangers are real and not illusionary (considering that Moscow is THE largest European city and one of the most popular tourist destinations as well), please cite appropriate statistics proving that and I will be all for restoring the warnings.

In regards to Moscow hotels occupancy rates, let me say again that personal anecdotes are not hard data. According to "Finance-Analyst" (http://2b.finam.ru/default.html?f=news&sf=main&id=1867), one year ago the occupancy rates in 4* and 5* hotels was approaching 70%, which is the normal level for major cities and tourist destinations. There is a relative shortage of 3* hotels, but really nothing that would warrant saying "Hotels are too few and too expensive." It's true that the prices are high, but it's mentioned elsewhere on the page already.

As for visas, I think it's a common international practice that visa prices and regulations are equalised. If your particular country charges Russian tourists a lot for a visa, Russian embassy will do the same. If you add unnecessary complications, Russian officials in your country will respond with similar measures. To illustrate this, Finnish citizens have practically no problems obtaining Russia visas and pay about the same as Russians do for a Finnish visa (though the price was recently fixed for all Shengen countries).

Hi Paranoid. I take your point about sticking to documented statistics. However, I still think its important, in the tourism section of the page, to put a warning about these dangers. I and my family have lived in Moscow for a long time, and the more asian looking of us can vouch for the very real and dangerous racism in the city. Unfortunately, there are no 'official' statistics on this, but this not to do with any lack of evidence. There are hundreds of cases of racial killings reported every year. Only when large groups get killed at one time does it get into the main stream press, as in the case of the Patrice Lumumba fire. Asians and black people aviod the metro not because of terrorism but because of the neo-nazi skinhead gangs who roam the network looking for victims.

On the visa situation, more than the cost, I have a bone to pick with the corrupt system of invitations. As with a lot of countries, to get a visa you need an invite. This can be given by a private person (takes 45 working days), a hotel, or a business. However, there is a an officially illegal system of selling invites (visatorussia, visahouse.ru, etc). Even though it's illegal, the russian embassy often recommends these companies. Seems to me that they must be getting something in return. I have no problem with paying for the visa, but this nonsense of first buying an invite seems like something from Tsarist times and can surely be described as 'antiquated'.

There clearly are different sorts of racism and nationalism in Moscow. Depending on whether you are Vietnamese-looking, Central Asian-looking, Caucasian-looking, Arab-looking you may encounter different sorts of prejudices, stereotypes and outright discrimination or abuse. AFAIK, Indians or Japanese (-looking people) are probably less likely to encounter this. There is also plenty of material to cover in regards to illegal registration scheme of Moscow administration, to outright crimes committed by the police (which are covered in the mainstream press, though even the journalists are not protected from the repercussions). :( I also think that even pure-bred Russians (if there is such a thing as a pure-bred Russian) sometimes suffer [almost?] as much from the police. And I was unaware that asians and blacks avoid the metro due to the reason you name - I always had the impression that it should be pretty safe in metro (but then what would an intellegent and refined Peterburgian know?), though a few of my acquaintances had their money stolen by pickpocketers in metro in the past.

The visa-related corruption you describe is quite believable. But again, I am not sure it should be described in the Moscow article and even if there, not in few sentences which make absolutely the wrong impression. For instance, that point about police racism being caused by terrorist acts is somewhat naive and misguided. If we are to delve into the causes, it's the overall corruption of the police, bad economic situation (and a need to find a scapegoat), return of nationalistic/"patriotic" mentality, perceived threat from organised Caucasian crime groups, etc. But to a Western reader (especially an American) the sentence would paint a picture similar to American sentiments towards Arabs or Israeli sentiments towards Palestinians, which is very different. It has been my experience that Russian people overall are not racist and that needs to be reflected as well. Russia, after all, is a very diverse multi-national country.

I believe it would make sense to add sections on tourist information (including risks) and/or viewpoint of Moscow residents who are not Moscow born and bred. But they must present a balanced view. Otherwise we end up with something like the Moscow Recreation section, which only contained the tidbit about Transvaal incident. (!) How one should read that? The largest city in Europe and the only place you could have a good time is lying in ruins or what? So we get back to Wikipedia basics - stick to the facts and give a balanced picture.

Paranoid 21:23, 17 May 2004 (UTC)

BTW, I just hate when people spread false rumours and concentrate on the negatives. It turns out that everyone who has something bad to say about Moscow feels an obligation to do it here. :( Someone claimed that Asian-looking people were killed during the disorders after the Russia-Japan soccer match. First, he completely ignored the fact that it's usually worse in other countries. Second, he repeated a lie - unless the policement was Asian-looking, since one policement was the only person who died.

There are few Russian users here and we can't expect something as detailed (and cleaned up) as City of New York article. But I would appreciate if people considered the Moscow article as something more than an outlet to vent their frustration at Russians. :(

P.S. I may be reading to much into that, I know... Paranoid 21:23, 17 May 2004 (UTC)

Hi Paranoid. I aggree that the Moscow page needs work. We also need to work on articles within moscow - for example, the MSU page is shocking bad. But I'd argue that most people who add to the moscow page have an honest interest and fondness for the place, or they wouldn't bother editing it. Maybe what we need is a 'List of Moscow related articles needing work' or some such.

The Recreation section is bad and It been an eyesore since feb. What should we add to it? There's a F1 circuit being built in the south, anybody want to add that? also some stuff on the football clubs would be good (we can leave out the supporter violence, which is a usual thing all over the world). To be honest, I don't know much about this area - not a football fan.

I'd also argue against only adding material which is positive. We shouldn't have an audience only of americans in mind.

Seabhcan 11:18, 20 May 2004 (UTC)

I'd like to revisit this old discussion and point out Paranoid's canard about citing statistics. Most of the official statistics about crime and anything related to the police and/or government are FALSE. Every sane and informed Russian knows this; for instance, Moscow crime statistics frequently state that there are no or few racist attacks in the city, when in fact it's a very frequent occurence. Further, it is a disservice to every tourist to exclude the information that was removed. I can personally attest to the fact that there is a lot of discrimination in Moscow, and even if you're not discriminated against, that a lot of low-lifes will try to extort your money by threat of intimidation or misuse of authority, especially militia looking for bribes. I've spent long periods in Moscow over the past few years. I won't go into all my experiences but suffice to say that it's a long list, and these things are a fact of life in Russia, not "a stereotype", especially in the two major metropolises, Moscow and St. Petersburg. All the English language dailies, etc contain news stories about regular gang attacks, if not stabbings, on foreigners, whether students, workers or tourists, non-Russian (ie ethnically) citizens, recent immigrants and so on. To pretend that life is otherwise is not simply a "positive approach", it is deceptive. Any English language forum you visit that gives advice to expats and visitors will be filled with stories about the milita abusing its powers and the racism common to most Muscovites - ie usually of the lower classes. Even many of the politicians are racist. It's no secret either that the militia are always told to look for people that look "Caucasian" (to confused Westerners, this is the original sense of the word, ie "from the Caucasus" and not the distorted connotation of "white" that it has in Western jargon.) If you want to find this information, it takes a simple google search - you can also look through the archives of the Moscow Times if you have a subscription, or visit the sites with free archives. I'm not saying that everything in Moscow is a bad experience - it's a great place to be or I wouldn't have returned repeatedly, and of course this information needs to be balanced out by speaking of educated Russians, the attempts to reflect diversity in popular culture, and so on - but our point here is to be honest and accurate, not diplomatic and evasive. -- Simonides 07:25, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

I would very much support having a few lines about racial tensions in Moscow, and about the increased odds of being harassed if you're non-white. I was in Moscow about a year ago on a training course with people from all around the world, and many of the non-white people basically didn't leave the hotel. The participants of middle eastern descent were especailly targeted, with virtually all of them reporting having been stopped by the militia. This being said, these people didn't report feeling 'unsafe', simply 'targeted'. The best defense against this was to have a russian-speaker nearby. I would highly recommend a trip to Moscow, but being accompanied by someone familliar with the language and culture is to me a must.

As for Visa corruption, I was forced to pay a $250 fee to the Russian embassy in order to get my Visa in time to leave for the trip, this while my sponsor was the Russian government itself. It's ironic that once you apply for a Visa and declare what dates you want to be in the country, they know exactly how long to delay the process. Definitely plan for extra expenses like this, they are common and unavoidable. Burtonpe 16:39, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Historical population stats

Why are the populations given of such non-uniform date? There is a huge population explosion implied between 1925 and 1950. However, it takes a closer look to realize that the date range given for this population growth is five times large than the date ranges for some of the other periods. I suggest adopting a 5 to 10 year range for population, and posting the population at regular five or ten year marks.Tritium6 19:12, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Demographics section removals

Hello everyone. On August 1, I deleted the following paragraph from the 'Demographics' section, which I felt was overtly opinionative--I hope I didn't go to far, I thought about simply changing it but I couldn't think of how:

Historically, the city's population used to be very racially homogenous with Whites composing up to 99% of its population, 95% being Slavs. During the last decade, however, large numbers of Asian and Black residents have been attracted by the city's developed infrastructure have given it a more cosmopolitan look. Native born Asian Afro-Moscovites mainly of mixed racial origin feel comfortable in the city and are not generally discriminated against and are even better integrated in the mainstream society than similar groups in Europe and the US. Many of them have been successful in show business. There is considerable discrimination however against recent migrants from Africa and Asia.

There does need to be some information of Moscow's demographic situation, but IMO it's got to have better grounding in established facts.

Regarding infomation for visitors about Moscow's hassles and dangers, wouldn't the Wikitravel.org Moscow page be a better place for frank warnings about potential dangers and annoyances for visitors to Moscow? An Encyclopedia article should be more reserved in my opinion. johnsemlak 5 August 2005

Administrative regions

I finally did Moscow map. It is on the Moscow main page right now, but if it is possible, a separate Administrative Districts page of Moscow similar to the one in St. Petersburg could be in order. When the main districts list has the desired order, I will add the numbering to the thumbnail map. Any comments and improvement suggestions are surely welcome. I noticed the line thickness changed from St. Petersburg map. If I have time/patience, I might correct that to be in line with St. Petersburg map but for now I think it is fine.

I will create the Administrative divisions of Moscow article some time this week (unless I have something urgent to take care of, in which case I'll certainly do it by the end of next week).—Ëzhiki (erinaceus europeaus) 15:24, Apr 20, 2005 (UTC)

This turned out to be much easier than I expected. The article is ready. Thanks for the map, by the way—great job!—Ëzhiki (erinaceus europeaus) 17:21, Apr 20, 2005 (UTC)

Thank you, that was quick. I fixed the numbering on the districts. When I have time, I'll draw more detailed map of each main district with subdistricts in them. -- Huopa

Coat of arms

The Russian Federation does not state that the coat of arms of Moscow and the Russian Federation is St.George It is just a common belief Dudtz 7/30/05 5:44 PM EST

This is official coat of arms by the Moscow law.--Nixer 12:17, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

Postal codes

I live in Moscow and have postal cod 107589. It seems the information on postal codes in the article contains mistakes. Nixer

One of my friend's address is: Moscow 117526 Leninskiy prospekt 144... Avia 09:15, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

Table/Graph of population

I understand the desire to remove duplicating entities from already large article, but because of the scale the graph is unusable for population before 20cent - it only shows that it was much less than now. Should we either return the table or rebuilt the graph in Log scale (and make it larger) abakharev 21:35, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

I actually think that this information is not needed in this article. No other city article I know of has such information. Also, its not very interesting. I think we should move it to the Demographics of Russia article or to a new Demographics of Moscow article. The History of Moscow article might also be a good location. This level of detail is not needed on a main city article page. Seabhcán 08:44, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Seabhcán - the table on historic population is hardly interesting or important enough to justify the amount of space it takes in the main article. Let's move it somewhere else. Azov 07:44, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

In London, this information is contained at History of London.Seabhcán 07:56, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

I find the information about historic population interesting and useful. Matter of taste perhaps; agreed though - it may not be laid out in the best way, does take a lot of space. How about moving it closer to the footer temporarily? But in fact, my concern initially was that after being edited out, the table might just drop out of remembrance, especially since its removal so unfortunately coincided with a series of other unexplained and pretty agressive removals of entire blocks of information and images which are not easy to track down.

As to moving it to the History of Moscow article -- this article is the "History of Moscow", which seems to have outgrown itself into the article about Moscow as the whole.

So, Demographics of Moscow, any takers? How about adding a section about business, the new Moscow City? or adding a section on "research in Moscow", adding to the "education" section - there are many known schools in Moscow and not just the universities. Mosfilm? Moscow Circus? :) etc, etc... This is the one fine article yet there are ways and avenues and boulevards to improve!  :) Let's do it, folks? let's write more first, and then, refactor, and delete what's extra. Hmm? - Introvert ^talk 05:16, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

This article should be on Moscow, not just its past. I also think there is too much history in this article. The standard layout for city articles is to have one or two paragraphs on the city's history and a link to a seperate "History of" article with the details. I believe that filling this article with history discourages addition of more current information. I'd like to move it to a "History of" article to make space.

Seabhcán 11:06, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

Historical images

I think there is no need in historical pictures of the city. I think we should replace them with contemporary ones as soon as possible.--Nixer 08:40, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Historical pictures set context, show what's changed and what's not. There should always be a mix of historical and contemporary. Most historical should go to the history article though - about 10-20% historical pictures seems right for this article. Stan 11:56, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Yes. It needs work, I think--Nixer 13:59, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

I really think we need to move a large portion of the history (incl. Images, population charts, etc) to a History of Moscow page. All other city articles have gone this route. I'll do it soon unless someone gives a good argument against it. Seabhcán 14:10, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I fully agree, but think may be we should leave the population chart here. Most of the history and historical images of course should be moved there.--Nixer 17:19, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Stop shamelessly promoting your own images, or you will be reverted. --Ghirlandajo 14:03, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

It seems the article doulbes the history of Moscow article.--Nixer 09:34, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Having not revieved strong objections in the past week, I moved the bulk of the history to History of Moscow. Nixer, I fail to see why the population chart should stay here. It is history and should be on the history page. Seabhcán 10:29, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Moscow rapid transit system: naming and related issues

Re: Edits of 01:02, 25 October 2005

Rapid transit name on official metro map called just for pronouncing. Like light and mini metro, that is technically usual heavy metro. Star-manner? It's have official and common name in public - radial-ring. Boulevard Ring is not innermost. Roads around Kremlin and Kitai-gorod make ring as well. Azov, you didn't mentoined about Earth Town, but mentoined about White Town. So added it. And of course Garden Ring is not boundary of historical center. Not officialy, nor in common public understanding. In most of places historical center goes outside of ring. TTK was mostly completed in 1997. Don't? Time goes pretty fast. So it's not recently now... I was stressed on periphery for TTK and ChTK. Those are freeways within city limits. Those three rings are not only freeways in megapolis, but ring freeways. Removed it however. Elk Salmon 01:04, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Elk Salmon - good point about the Earth Town, thank you. It might be a bit too much of historical context for a transport section, but I think those are important facts helping to understand why today's Moscow laid out the way it is, and we should mention it - if not in transport section, then somewhere else in the article.

Word-by-word translation of an "official and public" Russian phrase does not always yield you a correct English term. Could anybody familiar with urban planning terminology clarify? I believe it's called either a "radial", or a "star" system.

Of course you can draw all sorts of rings on a city map, but Kremlin Ring does not count as a major transport ring. If it did, what's now called Third Transport Ring would be Fourth (unless you're a programmer and count starting with zero :) Anyway, Boulvard Ring is the innermost out of the rings we mention in the section.

If there's anything defining historical center in common public understanding, it would be the Garden Ring. But "common public understanding" is too subjective, so I'll leave it out.

TT(K/R) was completed in December 2003. Given that we're talking about almost 900 years old city, I'd say it's recent. And as far as I remember, the idea was to keep traffic out of the city center.

TTK & MKAD (I'm not 100% sure about ChTK) are not the only freeways within the city limits? What are the others? Azov 04:00, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Facts vs. opinions

Simonides, thanks for adding Business and Trade section, I think the article really needed one. BTW, if you feel the info on Rosinter must be in the article, I suggest that we move it to the Business section - it doesn't have much to do with dining per se.

As to your other changes - could you provide some verifiable references to the facts you're stating? In particular: where did you get average salary data? Are there any surveys comparing compensations of foreigners or expatriates vs. Russian citizens for the similar positions? Do you have any objective data on how businesses are affected by crime and corruption?

Also, statements like "very ugly housing blocks" clearly represent your judgements and opinions, not hard and verifiable facts. If you're including such opinions, you should be able to balance them to maintain NPOV. Otherwise it's better to stick to the facts and avoid subjective generalizations. Azov 07:12, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Azov, I shall assume your objections are in good faith, but your actions seem contrary to that assumption. The article is littered with airy descriptions like Moscow being "cloaked in powdery snow and the dusky twilight" in winter, which of course appeals to many editors here, and yet when the word "ugly" is inserted in a verifiable context, it is quickly removed because it may sound too negative. Honestly, some of you guys don't need your media monopolized and whitewashed by the Kremlin, which happens to be the reality, since you do the job so well yourselves, parsing out anything that doesn't make Moscow sound like the next Atlantis. Think about it. Get a group of people together - of any number, of any denomination - and ask them to tour all the housing blocks that make up the outer fringes of Moscow. Find me a single person who'll admire them for their attractiveness. Apparently "objectivity" only counts when you're not throwing out pretty phrases! And when I call the 19th century bourgeois homes "charming", of course, you don't remove it - you want more "balance"! It is absurd to require "hard and verifiable facts" when you're talking about art and architecture - is there any "hard and verifiable fact" that Tolstoy is a great writer, or Stravinsky is a great composer, because it's been noted in some national registry? I suppose you look these things up in a table of statistics. Or maybe you place your faith in Zhdanovist, Soviet style bulletins which demanded that for all performers in an orchestra to be truly equal, they must all get equal playing time?

Let me get to the point: there are many contexts and situations for which no "hard facts" exist, but on which a common consensus can easily be reached, because the mass of subjective opinions lend weight to an opinion that is as close as possible to objectivity. Of course, I'm not referring to politics or (usually non-existent) political truths, I'm talking about things like the fact almost everyone will agree that the "Alps are beautiful" or that "faeces is disgusting", without requiring a poll or an official census. And you want "official data" on how the militia and the government extort bribes from every other business owner? Are you nuts? Or have you maybe cultivated that special sense of irony so common to totalitarian states where you get arrested for not having had the good sense to inform on your family? As for average salary data, I don't have any on hand, but you could easily find it if you wanted to - are you going to argue that the average Muscovite gets paid as much or MORE than the average Londoner or Parisian for the same work? Or that a non-native editor of English gets paid, on average, as much as a native-speaking editor? I clearly mentioned that it was for specific positions where the experience or skills of the foreigner will be valued - do I have to list every single instance of this? How much experience do you have with foreign-owned or foreign-based corporations in Russia anyway?

You know, I used to edit copiously on Wikipedia, but I left because of the immense amount of energy involved in merely getting idiots or ignorant people to agree or admit to some basic facts, even before any progress could be made on any article. I'm not saying that you or anyone else here is ignorant/idiotic, but this discussion certainly is. Just yesterday I was happy to spare a few hours starting off on some points on this article that could do with a lot of expansion - Moscow is a great city and this article can potentially be hugely informative and interesting - but if I'm going to have extremely silly, bureaucratic debates and face reverts for every few hours of work, I'll be happy to hand over the article to people who want to keep it small, pleasant, misrepresentative, and of course "neutral and objective". -- Simonides 08:33, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

I understand that you spend your time and energy trying to improve the article, and I do appreciate your contributions. We're both here because we love Moscow and want people to have a useful source of information about the city. There's no intention to whitewash facts or discourage editing, the intention is to have the article informative, interesting, and conforming to Wikipedia standards.

Beautiful, ugly, awful, fortunately - I think this kind of language is more appropriate for a personal blog then for an encyclopedia article. More importantly, it clearly indicates that you're presenting a point of view, and there is well-defined Wikipedia policy on how to present a point of view. If you look at the article about Tolstoy, you'll notice that it does not state that Tolstoy is a great writer - it states that he's widely regarded as one of the greatest of all novelists. There's a big difference: first is an opinion, second is a fact which could be supported by verifiable references.

As long as you're saying that "corruption and crime continues to be a problem hindering business development" - you are within common consensus area. But if you want to make an assertion that "nearly all businesses are connected to organized crime" - you need to back that by some data, not necessarily official (as in "published by some governmnet"), but reasonably reputable. The same applies to the other generalizations. Be careful to state what you know and others can verify, not what you guess. This is also a Wikipedia policy.

Finally, I agree that there might be other places in the article that are not neutral or verifiable. But our goal is to fix them, not to use them as an excuse for adding even more speculations.

With that in mind - please feel free to re-phrase your edits. I suggest that you first post them here so that we can reach an agreement and avoid unnecessary reverts. Again, thanks for your efforts to make the article better! Azov 03:07, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Nowhere did I make the assertion that all business are connected to organized crime. Most of them are victims of extortion and corruption, however, and no one who has worked in or with several companies in Moscow, as I have, will deny this. I really wonder where you get your 'facts' from. I suppose you're under the illusion that independent surveys and official statistics in a place like Moscow are really presented without any interference or modifications. I also get the impression you've never actually had to handly any red tape. My information is both verifiable and documented, and like I've said above, you only have to read The Moscow Times or other semi-independent media based in Russia. Do you know the paper I'm talking about? -- Simonides 04:44, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Okay, now we're getting somewhere. "Most of them" is better then "all business in the city, like in all of Russia", but it would be even better if you, as an editor introducing the facts, did the research and presented the actual numbers along with the reference to a source that you feel is trustworthy. Azov 06:03, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Have you lived and worked in Moscow for long periods? -- Simonides 04:44, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

I was born and lived in Moscow most of my life :) But this is irrelevant - according to the policy I pointed to, neither mine, nor yours personal experience counts. Only the facts that can be independently verified are admissible. Azov 06:03, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

All the information that I have posted on can be independently verified. However, it cannot both be verifiable and palatable to you, which is the real problem here :). You mention being born and living in Moscow, but you say nothing about your work experience; I on the other hand will be happy to list a few organisations among others: Reuters International, TNK-BP, Renaissance Capital, Cascade Films, The British Council, etc - all of whom I worked with or for or knew enough about, in Moscow. -- Simonides 06:32, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

As for the adjectives - they could be reconsidered, but they are still well within the bounds of acceptability in WP, and I have contributed to a wide variety of substantial articles here. Beyond a certain point however, concision is more valuable than a hardline attempt at objectivity - you don't have to say "apartment blocks widely considered as ugly'" instead of "ugly apartment blocks" because then you begin to border on silliness. Also, removing whole paragraphs for the sake of one or two 'offending' adjectives is hardly a revert to NPOV, it's more on the lines of lying by omission. If that's not discouraging, I don't know what is. Not to mention that you don't seem to have any justification for removing wholly verifiably and extremely neutral paragraphs like these which you have removed in blocks:

"Further, many 'house-museums' exist in the city, mostly of famous Russian writers but also of composers, artists and so on. These are very popular among both Russians and tourists. When house museums are missing, plaques on the house exteriors, like those in London, will inform the passer-by that a well-known personality once lived there. Since the plaques were a common Soviet practice, Soviet celebrities not known to the outside world frequently have their own dedications.

There are many world-class museums and galleries in Moscow, which thrive on both the new and the classic, as they once did in pre-Revolutionary times. From the diversity and frequency of excellent exhibitions in every branch of the arts - painting, photography, sculpture and so on - it would appear that the Muscovite art world is steeped in many traditions: Russian, Western, Oriental, both old and new.

Moscow is the heart of Russian performing arts, including ballet. Theatres and ballet studios dot Moscow. The most famous of these are the Bolshoi (Big) and Malyj (Small) theatres. Ticket prices were as low as $1 in the Soviet era, but have increased dramatically since. However, despite the presence and reputation of internationally renowned Russian filmmakers, there are few independent cinema theatres in Moscow." -- Simonides 04:44, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Oops, I haven't noticed you've added this while reverting. My bad, sorry. There are no objections to these paragraphs, I have re-inserted them with some minor style edits. Azov 06:03, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

You're really very transparent, Azov. Once you again you only re-insert the edits that sound pleasing to your ears. Statements like "However, despite the presence and reputation of internationally renowned Russian filmmakers, there are few independent cinema theatres in Moscow." which are both neutral and factually verifiable have been left out once again. It appears that you're not just here to maintain any WP standards but to find an outlet for some patriotic chest-beating. Can you even name two independent theatres in Moscow without doing a search on Yandex or looking up Afisha? -- Simonides 06:32, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

See below. Azov 08:49, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

But you can have it your way. I'm not going to reword the article as you seem to enjoy keeping a stranglehold on it and keeping it pretty and uninformative. -- Simonides 04:44, 15 November 2005 (UTC)