St. Basils Cathedral in January 1987

I’m getting thousands of my old slides scanned at the moment. Since I’m not doing it myself, I reckoned that the “post-production” and archiving would cost me a few hours’, perhaps a day’s work. I was utterly wrong.

I forgot about the memories old photos evoke. For example the arrival in still-communist Moscow in the winter of 1987. Freezing people in groups at the Red Square and a massive cloud of smoke looming above St. Basil’s cathedral – a cloud that may have been part of the reason why the colours of the church were certainly less sparkling than now. The original vivid colours were brought back during the last restoration a few years ago (see Wikipedia and make a Google Image Search).

The cloud from the power station is still there, especially on cold winter days. And it is perhaps more symbolic for the current state of affairs in Russia than for the situation 25 years ago, in the midst of Glasnost and Perestroika…