THERE'S a lot of gold in Russia these days: gold tooth-fillings, gold domes on newly-built churches and gold interlocking wedding rings atop the flower-decked stretch-limos and pink Rolls Royces hired for the big day, writes Mary Russell
There is even a gold statue of Lenin standing in the square of Terenga (population 6,000) in the governate (province) of Ulyanovsk. This need come as no surprise: Lenin, whose family name was Ulyanovsk, was born in the town of Simbirsk and the governate, including the chief town, was renamed after him.
Lenin's father was a schools inspector and the various houses which the family rented before buying their own denote people of substance. In the town of Ulyanovsk, the family home (now a museum) has a cosy feel to it with an oil lamp on the table, children's board games stacked in one corner, a piano in another. Further down the socio-economic scale, serfdom was pervasive but in the Ulyanovsk household there was just one live-in servant - a nanny - though many other locals helped in the kitchen and the garden. Bedrooms were shared between siblings, three to a room, with a wall sternly dividing the boys' room from the girls'.
Then Lenin left home and the rest is history - and history which is still being rewritten. A present-day guidebook to Moscow now describes the great events 1917 - known in Ulyanovsk and elsewhere as the Russian Revolution - as "a coup by the communists". In former times, two red flags flying over the Moscow Kremlin with the scarlet star between them, all dramatically floodlit at night, were icons of the Soviet Union and people flocked to Red Square to watch the changing of the guard at Lenin's tomb. Now they wander round the corner to watch the same ritual, though this time at the tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Lenin's tomb is no more than a curiosity.
Soviet-era caps, badges and military regalia are sold as cutesy memorabilia, while in the state-of-the-art shopping malls Dior and Versace beckon. In present-day Russia a display of new-found wealth counts for a lot.
At the recent Economic Forum held in St Petersburg, Chelsea Football Club owner Roman Ambramovich berthed his 115-metre yacht (with helipad, cinema and staff of 44) on the spot on the Neva where the battle-cruiser Aurora, herald of the 1917 revolution, used to be moored. And at the same forum, even the measurements of the footwear of the Petersburg governor, Valentina Matienko, were noted in the press: 12cm heels in case you're interested.
For someone like myself - I first visited Moscow in 1980 and then regularly until 1990 - the experience is akin to seeing Neanderthal man being parachuted into Las Vegas. Bling is everywhere, the traffic jams are biblical and the price of coffee - even for a caffeine addict - is prohibitive. Men's clubs proliferate, with names like the Rasputin or Divas ("Private Dancing and Mirror Gallery").
More to the point though, people generally look happier than they did 20 years ago. In Moscow, the markets overflow with fresh produce from Georgia and Uzbekistan. On the overnight train from Ulyanovsk to Moscow - with spotless bed-linen and regular checks to see if we are all right - the blue-uniformed coach attendant welcomed everyone on board and within minutes of the train starting, another appeared with a hot meal, the price of which was included in the ticket.
Nevertheless, there are areas of discontent. Olga, a university lecturer earns 4,000 roubles (€108) a month, which is barely enough to live on, what with rent and child-minding costs; so she also works as a translator and interpreter, bringing her income up to 30,000 roubles. And still she's short. "So, is it better now than then?" I want to know.
" If you're asking would I want to go back, the answer is no," she says. She'd just like a more equal distribution of wealth. Plus ça change.
Still, some of the enormous revenue from oil must be coming her way: she has just bought a second-hand car and is planning a holiday in Turkey where Russians can get more US dollars to the rouble than a euro country will deliver.
But if bling abounds, it is gloriously balanced by the things Russians have always been good at. Their trees and their parks are marvellous and they cherish both. A concert is still something to celebrate, which Moscovites do by dressing up to go to one. The theatre too is alive and well. At the Satire Theatre, I paid 500 roubles (€14) to see my favourite bad guy, Richard III, and was not disappointed. There wasn't much dressing up here,
though, for clearly the play is still the thing and the Shakespeare-loving audience wore jeans and T-shirts. Three large SUVs parked outside were the only visible signs of wealth.
One afternoon, I went to Pushkin Square. Here, in the old days, political activists peddled their subversive ideas and people came to lay flowers at the foot of the statue of their much-loved poet. Not any more. There were no adulatory bouquets and what flowers there were had been set into orderly rows of holders put there by the dead hand of Moscow City Council.
One cheering thing, however, is that despite being under the watchful eye of the Kremlin, your ordinary Moscovite now feels free to break the law occasionally. The overnight train attendant had presented me with a fragrant bunch of lilies of the valley which I was advised to conceal, as picking wild flowers is an offence.
Diligently hiding the floral offence in a plastic bag, I got out of the train to find virtually every Moscovite in sight carrying a bunch of the proscribed flowers.