In a city of high-rise apartment blocks and vast, teeming traffic arteries, tranquility is at a premium in Moscow. But as the area gets so popular that on weekend nights it overflows with outsiders visiting its bars and restaurants, the rich residents have complained that the influx is ruining their special area. Gentrification in Moscow takes on rather a different form to other major cities, mainly due to the nature of the Soviet experience. Shevardnadze says her own irritation was nothing to do with class, but simply that the quiet area she had moved into had suddenly become a party district. “You have a confrontation now between two classes in the area,” says Asse; “the new hipsters with their energy, and those rich people who paid good money and want to live in a quiet area.

Source: The Guardian October 10, 2016 06:00 UTC