MOSCOW: Malkhaz Katamadze nudged his black Volga forward, stopped and sighed. He is one of the three million people who drive into Moscow every day and, like everyone else, he spends hours in traffic jams.

“It gets worse and worse, there are so many cars. People have got richer and richer in Moscow. Now a husband has a car, his wife has a car, and his teenage son will get a car when he’s old enough,” he said as he glowered at the Peugeot in front. Some 20 minutes and 600 metres of conversation later, he had calmed down a bit.

“This road was like this 100 years ago, and will be just the same 100 years from now. It can’t be changed,” he said, gesturing at one of the leafy and broad, but hopelessly clogged, boulevards of Moscow’s historic centre.

Moscow’s booming economy, fuelled by sky-high oil prices, has allowed Russians to indulge in consumer spending impossible in Soviet times. Cars are at the top of their shopping lists. —Reuters