In the meantime, yet another scene noticed in the streets of Moscow.

I had a KFC lunch on Sunday. The place was crowded, everyone around me was angry and sweaty, wearing too many layers as the day turned out to be unexpectedly warm. However, the lady serving me was genuinely nice and happy. Yet another joyful person within the same week. It seems that Moscow is finally smiling back at me: she has clearly decided that, since I didn’t run away screaming yet, I deserve some common courtesy. It seems that I passed the test.

A couple of minutes later a lady walked in, looked around and asked if she could leave her big travel bag with me for a second while she queues for the food. I agreed. She came back with a big paper cup of tea, put it on the table and started going through her bag. It took her at least ten minutes. Finally, from the very bottom of it, she dragged out yet another teabag and put it in her already brewing tea. She said that after the sanctions the tea has become much worse and that they’re putting only half of what they used to put in tea bags before the sanctions, so now she needs two of them. Then she said goodbye and walked away towards Belotusskyi Vokzal.