One other thing that I’ve noticed different from Russia of ten years ago and Cyprus of current days is graffiti. Loads of it. The center of Moscow is somewhat clean off it, but there is plenty of it on walls and fences in suburbian areas. Togliatti has it throughout the city. There’s a bit less of it in Mezhdurechensk, but still enough to notice it here and there.
Most of the graffiti signs look cool. There’s art and color to it. Images, logos, names, things like that. Some advertising companies use graffiti as well. I’ve seen a lot of examples of promotions and contact information done in a nicely designed way on concrete fences. Looks interesting.
Of course, there are some racist and fascist signs too, as usual. But most of them are too small and unoriginal to even be noticed, let alone taken seriously.
I remember taking a few pictures of graffiti walls in Moscow – we’ll see if any of those pictures made it through, after I’ll find my card reader. Or get a new one (I am already considering this option).