I had had my fair share of contretemps with them: once they slashed my car tyres, another time they tampered with my brakes - -- or at least I assumed they did.
But that was the attraction of Moscow and Gorky Park in particular - -- a mix of the popular, the crowded, and the suddenly quiet and furtive.
Has it changed? To a degree ... the ice cream is globalized, the beer is globalized, the buggies and the clothing are globalized. But the atmosphere remains distinctive.
This is still the best place in Moscow's city center to hang out in the summer -- if you can't get away to a country dacha -- and it is one of the most enchanting and safe city venues for ice skating the world has to offer. I suspect the KGB, or its successor organization, the mafia, knew of better places in which to dispose of awkward people.
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