Jeg er nysgjerrig på «brev» fra spennende steder. Det hender de har detaljer som jouranlister ikke rapporterer. Rachel Polonskys fra Moskva i siste Spectator er ikke akkurat bagateller: Maktmennesker i Moskva kan gjøre akkurat hva de vil og river ned bygninger etter som det passer dem. Dette nedslående faktum var ukjent for meg.

Man kaller Putins Russland for «kapitalisme med et stalinistisk ansikt» nå.

As I go about the City of Reconstruction that Moscow has become, only the proliferation of gourmet coffee shops alleviates my woe. In my street, a faceless office block has just gone up in the midst of a harmonious classical ensemble of early 19th-century university buildings. (Just picture a glass and steel tower in Trinity College Great Court.) Last month, the majestic art deco Military Store round the corner was expeditiously razed (along with a row of smaller 18th- and 19th-century buildings behind it) before pending conservation orders could be enacted, to make space for a shopping and leisure centre. Alexei Klimenko, head of the Union of Artists Historical Preservation Society, recently commented in the press that this demolition was the ‘pure apotheosis of Moscow power being unpunishable’.

Historien handler egentlig om det klassiske gymnaset som hennes barn går i, og som ble grunnlagt av et idealistisk ektepar på begynnelsen av 90-tallet. De tilhører den russiske intelligentsiaen. Yuri og Elena Shichalin. Hans forkjærlighet for gresk og latin stammer fra sovjettiden, da de klassiske språkene var fristeder for ånden. Yuri har en samling gamle bøker, som han viser fram til barna:

Though the family’s extensive property in Moscow was expropriated after 1917, the undistinguished Stalin-era apartment in which the Shichalins live is still adorned with Shervinsky’s small but exquisite collection of Russian and European art (whose treasures I dare not publicise), and a magnificent library of rare books. As soon as the Gymnasium pupils are old enough, Yuri Shichalin gives them a lesson at his home. ‘I want them to understand how close the past is,’ he says, showing me his 16th-century edition of Erasmus, ‘that you can touch it in these books.’ To the Shichalins, these treasures represent the survival of civilisation in the face of barbarism — objects of uncomplicated love and real hope which they want to share with another generation of Russian children. They earnestly believe that only this will ensure the preservation of all that is finest in their cultural heritage, a heritage which, for good scholarly reasons, they regard as essentially European. To witness the effect on children of the Shichalins’ fresh and unembarrassed appreciation of high culture is thrilling.

PS- skolebygningen er solgt til et mystisk firma. De håpet på hjelp fra en mesen. derav tittelen: Why we need Khodorkovsky