The May that Putin was crowned for the first time,

in the cathedral the Tzars had used,

and made-men of the Russian mafia,

in blacked-out SUVs, were taking their kids

to private English-medium schools,

we walked in sunshine along the Arbat,

a pedestrianised, consumer street,

once the trade route from the Kremlin to Smolensk

and the Steppes, Moscow’s main thoroughfare,

featuring in Tolstoy’s WAR AND PEACE,

and where Pushkin, with his bride, rented

a small apartment: ‘Better the illusions

that exalt us than ten thousand truths’.

We had the modern traveller’s currency

of choice, dollar bills, the lingua franca

of secure world trade. Young Muscovites,

in smart-casual attire, were queuing

outside the newly opened McDonalds.

Almost directly opposite, in the shade,

between Timberland and Shake Shack, dressed

as if for winter, a bespectacled babushka

was begging, her hand held out for kopeks.