On a clear day, the approach is dominated by the mundane topography of podmoskv’e (the city’s suburban region): a few roads and railway tracks intersecting forests and fields, accompanied by clusters of small summer cottages (dachas) and some non-descript buildings that grow a bit denser as the plane nears the runway. Although the landscape has altered somewhat recently thanks to increased development near the airport, arriving into Moscow, I’ve always been keenly aware of how much the view is dominated by the countryside: flat, open, and seeming endless. From the air, the city is hard to discern. It’s almost as if it is in hiding, enveloped by prostranstvo – the vast space that encompasses the country’s near limitless hinterlands. In direct counterpoint to the sharp verticality of its politics, Moscow’s topography is decidedly horizontal.

I am always excited to find myself returning to Moscow. But from the standpoint of an aerial eye, the arrival has never made much of an impression.

That changed last week.

As my plane descended toward Sheremetevo last Friday morning I noticed something that I hadn’t seen before: Moscow now has a skyline. Or, to be more accurate, it has a skyline now visible from an airplane. And it’s modern one at that: a distinct cluster of steel and glass high-rises that emerge from the Eurasian plain to mark the location of the capital and its bustling business center. It’s certainly not much compared to New York, Tokyo, or Chicago, but it is definitely there.

The “cluster” is Moscow-City (Москва-Сити) — a gigantic $12 billion (and counting) development project first begun in 1995. It’s the latest in a long line of grand strategies to renovate Moscow. However, as I rode into town toward the apartment where I’m staying (located a brisk twenty-minute walk from Moscow-City itself) I noticed something else – there’s little activity at the construction site. From up close, Moscow-City has all the appearances of an abandoned development surrounded by sleeping boom cranes. Thanks to the onset of Russia’s worst economic crisis since 1998 – work on the architectural mega-project (like others elsewhere) has slowed to a crawl. Although spokesmen for the project pledge that construction will continue, the opening of some of Moscow-City’s partially built structures will be delayed until 2016 — four years behind schedule. The again, things could be worse.

It would seem that skyline that I saw through my airplane window was something of a mirage. At least for now.

To read the rest of the piece, head over to The Russian Front by clicking HERE.

Stone begins:

There is a great deal of blame to go around for the disastrous war over South Ossetia. Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili deserves the greatest share, for starting a war to reassert control over South Ossetia that Russia can now finish on its own terms. The Russian government, with former President and current Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in the lead, has cynically taken the conflict Saakashvili began as a golden opportunity to flex its muscles, make Georgia an object lesson for the rest of Russia’s neighbors, rally Russian voters, and tighten its grip on Georgia’s breakaway South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

But in a classic example of blowback, past American policy also bears some responsibility for the mess in the Caucasus…

For the rest of the piece, click here.

Although I managed to get a quite a bit done, it’s meant that things around here have been quiet for rather longer than I had intended. Sorry. Then again, what d’ya expect for free?

I’ll get back in gear with an aviation-related post early next week.

In the meantime, one of the more interesting stories to have emerged from Russia over the last month was the mid-December announcement that the Moscow city government has given the go ahead for the construction of the world’s largest building: a mega-structure known as “Crystal Island.”

The brainchild (or hellspawn, you pick) of the London-based architectural firm Foster + Partners, Crystal Island will enclose nearly 27 million square feet of space within a 1,500 ft. tall multi-use structure that will feature 900 apartments, 3,000 hotel rooms, an international school for 500 students, cinemas, a theater, a sports complex, and more. A 16,500-space underground parking lot is intended to accommodate visitors.

And there’s more! As the folks at the architecture and design blog Inhabitat note:

[The] building will also incorporate a number of sustainable design features into the overall scheme. The exterior facade will be solar responsive and will include solar panels which, along with wind turbines, will generate electricity for the huge tower. Natural ventilation will be provided thanks to numerous strategically placed large atriums. The internal environment will also have dynamic enclosure panels slotted into the structural framing that will allow daylight to penetrate deep into the heart of the structure; the panels will also be controlled to modify temperature inside the building – closed in winter for extra warmth and opened in summer to allow natural ventilation. Energy management is at the heart of this structure, several on-site renewable and low-carbon energy generation projects are planned.

The project has gotten quite a bit of coverage on-line among news services and bloggers. Although most recognize it as stunning statement of Russia’s hydro-carbon fueled economy, opinion appears divided as to the meaning of the statement. Does Crystal Island speak to Russia’s resurgence as a cultural and political force? It’s self-confident faith in a radiant future? It’s penchant for hubristic excess? All (or none) of the above?

Interestingly, few seem to be aware that Crystal Island is simply the latest (though, admittedly, largest) in a series of Putin-era architectural mega-projects recently completed or still under way. Others include Triumph Palace, the “Moscow-City” business complex, and the Kurkino micro-region. Then again, ambiguously symbolic, large-scale architectural projects are hardly unique to the government of Vladimir Vladimirovich. The Yeltsin administration oversaw the completion of several as well. The most famous of these was the Cathedral of Christ the Savior: a concrete and plastic reproduction of Imperial Russia’s largest church. The original Cathedral was itself obliterated in 1931 to make room for a colossal Stalinist-era architectural project: the never completed Palace of Soviets.

As far as Russia’s architectural legacy is concerned, Crystal Island is certainly news. But it isn’t exactly new.