Moscow 2011: a visit to a world full of excesses It is Thursday, December 14, 2011 and the day is ending. We are driving through the city with a song from the movie Mission Impossible 2 on the background. A well-known song of Limp Bizkit, Take a look around. The quiet melodies and solid rock in the song are probably the perfect description for this special city where we are for a visit to the company TopCar and the TopLine exhibition. While a low-lying misty cloud brings the city to sleep, another crazy day ends. Moscow is vibrant, exciting and as the title describes a world full of excesses. You are in Moscow or you aren’t even close to that. In the following detailed report we look back one more time on the adventure that took place in December 2011. It all started in November when I received an invitation from TopCar, to visit Moscow in December. While most of you would rather depart towards the sun in this time of the year, we were given the opportunity to visit the cold Moscow. That is something totally different than a visit to Monaco, Geneva or Gothenburg, just to name three cities that I have visited in 2011. The idea everyone has about Moscow is totally different than other big cities in the world. Yet I accepted this great opportunity and Karsten was lucky to accompany me on our travel to the country of the Lada, vodka and ushanka’s. Wednesday We go back to December 13, the day of departure. The PR-manager of TopCar had made a full program with some visits to the exhibition TopLine, the company TopCar, some reports with cars of TopCar and of course visiting the city of Moscow itself. While it’s not cold and rainy in the Netherlands, we get a text message at around twelve o’clock at night that it is currently snowing in Moscow. We fly at six o’clock in the morning from Düsseldof International Airport and need about four hours to get to the border of eastern Europe where they have a time difference of three hours compared with the Netherlands. Our final destination is Sheremetyevo International Airport. Traveling to Russia requires a visa, so the control at the airport is very strict compared with other countries within Europe. Russia wants to know exactly when you enter and leave the country, if possible on the minute correct. It takes some time to get used to this when you have never been in such a strict country before. In addition, Sheremetyevo International Airport is huge and English isn’t used very much. It takes some time to find the exit. At one o’clock in the afternoon we meet Anton, the PR-manager of TopCar and Olga, our translator for the coming days. It is snowy outside but that doesn’t make any difference for the Russians on the road. It is the first of many remarkable experiences we gain during the miserably long journey to the headquarters of TopCar. The traffic in Moscow is a total chaos. The roads around the city have six lanes, but all these lanes are just packed from six o’clock in the morning until eleven o’clock at night. Those who become impatient of the Dutch traffic jams can get a good lesson of self-control here in Moscow. Every free space is quickly taken by people in a hurry, with often a small drift because of all the snow on the highways. They do not scatter salt like we know in the Netherlands and most drivers are experienced enough to react to dangerous situations. Meanwhile, some people stop on the middle of the highway, just to fill their windshield wiper fluid or just for something else. You don’t have to stop on a parking lot in Russia but you can just do this wherever you want. So you can stop on the highway, on a highway exit or any other place you can imagine. It is one big fair ground and those who are not experienced with these circumstances will have some damage quickly. We ourselves have an appointment with Oleg, he is waiting for us on the highway. After a ride of about two hours we arrive at the headquarters of TopCar where we get our first tour. We get to see the first sketches of the new Mercedes-Benz ML63 AMG on which TopCar is working and we hear about other plans of the company including McLaren. During the tour we hear all the ins and outs of the company and see several models in the workshops. You could already read about the company in a special we published earlier. TopCar is a company in development. They are very busy and the company is actually open 24 hours a day, as long as the customer pays. Shortly after our first encounter, Oleg leaves with his own TopCar Vantage GTR2 for an appointment and we dive back into the traffic jam in order to check in at our hotel. The next five nights we stay in the Kadashevskaya hotel. This small but very good hotel is located just a five minute walk from the Red Square. We agreed to have dinner at six o’clock in the afternoon in the center of the city with the rest of the team of TopCar. We found out on our fist day that it is very difficult to make a decent agreement. Purely by traffic it is almost impossible to get somewhere on time. The first restaurant where we check in is the Vermishel on the Tsvetnoy bul’var. The Vermishel is part of the Ginza Project in Moscow. This is a project where a large number of restaurants are build with all their own, unique style. The contradiction of the restaurant with the big mess in the center is huge. The chaos on the streets gives way to a stunning setting on the fifth floor of a luxury department store. During dinner we get busy, talking about cars and the differences between TopCar and other tuning companies. Another thing quickly mentioned was fishing. This is Oleg’s big hobby and therefore a great inspiration for the design of the models. If you look closely at the design certain elements from the fishing world will be found here. We hear more great information about the Mini Bully. This is a project of which only one copy is made. The Mini was designed by Denis Simachev, but who is this Denis? This is an eccentric Russian who had a totally golden Porsche 996 Turbo. This car was spotted in St. Tropez a few years ago. The Bully has unique graphics on the side of the car that are put on by airbrushing them. The interior is beautifully finished with carbon fiber and leather with the necessary stitching in a diamond pattern. For those who want to go out for dinner in Moscow, it is important to know your budget. In Moscow you pay 20 to 30 Euros for a meal in a normal restaurant and this gets more expensive very easily. The first conclusion of a busy, chaotic first day is that the people of TopCar are very passionate about their company and their products. It is not just about making money but they want to make good quality products. TopCar is not the only one in this, there are more companies with the same attitude. Nowadays there are so many car manufacturers who are only busy with mass production that there is no passion for their product anymore. Tuners can be seen as the only coach build companies left. How unique is a Ferrari, Porsche or Bentley nowadays? After the dinner we made the planning for the next week. Thursday is dedicated to the TopCar Stingray GTR and a first real introduction to the city of Moscow. After dinner we went on a search for a location for the photo shoot with the Stingray GTR and we soon found a nice place. After that we quickly went to bed after a long day. Thursday On the first full day in Moscow we had the opportunity to go for a walk in the morning, because we won’t be picked up by Anton and Olga until between eleven and twelve o’clock in the morning. The neighborhood where we stay this week is the district Zamoskvoretsje. In the thirteenth century this district was built as an outpost against the Mongols. Since the reconstruction that took place between 1930 and 1940, almost nothing has changed in this neighborhood. It has a traditional atmosphere with few modern buildings which you can find in other places in the center. In order to start the day we decided to walk to the Red Square to finally see the St. Basil’s Cathedral in real life. This is the famous church with all the domes which makes it look so fabulous. We walk towards the cathedral through the street opposite of our hotel, Bolotnaya ulitsa. Both streets are connected with the Lzhkov Most, a bridge on which newly married couples take photo’s and eternalize their wedding by hanging a padlock on to a metal ‘tree’. People say that this will bring the couple luck in their life. The Red Square is from there only a five minute walk. Of course this is the place you must have seen in Moscow. It impresses by the many buildings that are all very nice to see. We decided to walk back and see if we could spot some cars near our hotel.