At the Red Square you will feel kind of out of place in trainers and one-decade-old jeans. It will definitely be hard for you to stand against local fashionistas. Dernier cri is increasingly associated with the East. Long queues in front of shops? Only at Gucci’s. Moscow is the city of decadence: At the Twerskaja Ulitza fashion queens stage high-heel races, only to indulge in idleness in the chic and overpriced cafés afterwards. Paris? How boring! While there the last Bohemians stumble home in the wee hours of the morning, the party only kicks off in Moscow. Champagne flows like water, and people devour caviar as if there were no tomorrow. And when morning has finally broken, the run on the shopping streets can begin. The concentration of sparkling facades crushes any tourist, robbing him his willpower. You’ve got to buy, even when the platinum credit card screeches and your tax adviser suffers a nervous breakdown. Afterwards, you can only afford a ride on the subway but there’s nothing wrong with it: The underground palaces are as beautiful as they are cheap – and fast, as on Moscow’s congested streets nobody really moves forward. However, it fits Moscow’s life in the fast lane to get stuck in a traffic jam now and then.