Moscow in the Rain

I am currently reading Yuri Andrukhovych’s The Moscoviad, about a Ukrainian writer living in a Moscow where it’s almost always raining during the late days of the Soviet Union. In his book, Andrukhovych has some very pointed things to say about the city:

This is the city of losses. It would be nice to level it. To plant again thick Finnish forests, introduce bears, elk, deer: let them graze around the moss-covered Kremlin ruins, let perches swim in its rivers and lakes returned to life, let wild bees focus on storing honey in the deepest fragrant tree cavities. This land needs a rest from its criminal capital. Perhaps then it will be capable of something good. Since it cannot go on forever poisoning the world with the bacilli of evil, suppression, and aggressive dumb destruction!