Letters from Russia | I drove to Putin’s home to see if the street ads were sending him the same strange message they were sending to the rest of us in Moscow

of Moscow there are thousands of big billboards along the streets. There are twenty square posters, there are giant posters 15 meters wide. The video ads run in screens almost 30 meters wide.

In the darkness of December, you can’t miss the bright lights of street advertisements.

And you can’t ignore them because they are so shockingly at odds with reality.

I take my kids to different places for activities, and I start paying attention to ads that all have the same bland background image – most of them have a laughing mother and child, a father and child together – and the advertising slogan in big letters over the picture.

First: DREAM.

Then: REJOICE.

A little further: LIVE.

And again, a short distance away, LOVE.

Later still HUG and CLASS.

These orders seemed to be everywhere. What is being advertised here? Homes. The advertiser is Donstroi, one of Russia’s largest construction companies.

I started to observe other advertisements. Yes, the western advertisers have left, so currently the billboards are filled with Russian ads.

First, I will tell you a detail that may be of interest to Finns. Valio has sold its production in Russia, and now some iconic Finnish cheeses are being renamed. Viola is still Viola. Instead, Oltermanni is Laplandia, that’s what the billboard says.

ATTENTION! CHEESE REDAMING. LAPLAND.

This communication is unusually concise. Otherwise, the city is filled with empowering messages.

Just construction companies seem as if they have some kind of hidden agreement, a new common good news.

HERE IS HAPPINESS shouts the campaign of a construction company called Hals.

WHEN OTHERS BUILD, WE CHANGE THE WORLD, says the Badaevsky company.

The advertisements present the names of new housing companies: Dream Towers. City Wow. Hide. It’s High Life. Level. Famous.

There are also things for sale for Z-patriots, such as apartments in buildings called Liike, Kunnia, Kansantasavalta and Marsalkka. (This is already going so far that you have to laugh: “Where is your new Moscow home?” “In the People’s Republic.”)

In the dark great Orwellian posts. I’m already almost used to the romantic musical advertisement that appears everywhere.

The musical is based on the production of the Soviet 1980s cult band Sekret. It takes place in the white nights of Leningrad in the 1980s. There is generational conflict, a divided youth, and difficult choices between happiness and duty.

The producer of the musical is Dmitry Bogatsevwhose resume includes western classic musicals such as Cats, Mamma Mia, The Phantom of the Opera and Chess production to Moscow.

The name of his new, Russian major production is: Don’t be afraid of anything. I am with you.

In the ads, the name is in huge letters. Admittedly, I was startled when I first saw it:

DO NOT FEAR ANYTHING. I AM WITH YOU is a strong message in a country at war in 2022.

I am since the summer I have been wondering what Muscovites have in mind. Or rather: I have no longer understood what they have in mind. I can’t figure it out anymore.

I remember well how between 1998 and 2008 Moscow changed from a smelly post-Soviet village to a dynamic city and how the evolution continued from 2008 to 2022 so that the city became an innovative megalopolis.

In autumn 2022, I will not recognize Moscow and its people.

Perhaps it can be concluded from the advertisements that Muscovites are sinking back into the apathy of the early 1990s. (You can read about the gloomy atmosphere studies as well.)

The war continues, the sanctions continue – even in the spring, everyone believed that the sanctions would be lifted within a year. The borders to Europe have been closed. The launch is on the skin.

Society is being cleared in one ideological direction, propagandists shout on television.

Positive messages on billboards managed by the city are used to lift the mood: LIVE. REJOICE. LOVE THE FIREPLACE.

HERE IS HAPPINESS.

DO NOT FEAR ANYTHING. I AM WITH YOU.

Let’s talk did i see everyone or just the Moscow middle class? To get someone’s answer, I drove to the Rublevka highway.

Rublevka is in the province of Moscow and is famous for having Moscow’s elite living within the walls in their villas around it.

The leadership of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union has lived in Rublevka About Lenin from

There is now a president along it Putin’s dacha, i.e. his home and official residence Novo-Ogarjovo.

What is advertised there? Any empowering messages?

No. The elite will not be disturbed by orders to CLASS or LOVE.

Their roadside advertisements sell luxury goods as always.

There is one real estate brokerage billboard, but I remember it from three years ago. It caught my eye even then, but now it’s even more exciting. For some reason, the company has chosen the slogan for its marketing:

MOTHER OF GOD, SAVE THE LAND OF RUSSIA.

These words are used to sell apartments in Putin’s neighborhood.

In the Letters from Russia series, exiled St. Petersburg journalist Mihail and Moscow cultural professional Jan write to Helsingin Sanomat. Their real names are not published for security reasons. Work as an independent journalist is a threat to authors, which can lead to arrest or imprisonment in Russia. Stories are compiled and information acquisition is also done in HS’s editorial office. Production and editing: Tuija Pallaste / HS