Russia and France are both composed of blue, white and red. This is perhaps the first clue of the relationship between the two countries. The tri-colour country flag of Russia does give me much sensation to how the Russian may have fancied about the French belle époque centuries before. Historical reasons…the Russian respects a lot the French culture. It is ‘à la mode’ to them. Since Peter the Great and Catherine the Queen, the Russian has been nurturing from the French in aspects of lifestyle including cuisine, architecture and design, painting and literature. Examples can easily be quoted from the art nouvel architecture in Moscow, the assimilation of French language in the Russian language, or the fashion trend and other French influence in the forms of artworks produced in Russia.
With the controlled capitalist development in the Moscow market, some French companies follow the trait to develop their business in Moscow and bring in new influence to the country. Just now, I visited the Novotel Hotel in Moscow centre. The interior design of the hotel brought me back to France. It’s symbolic not only to me but I guess also for the French people. The hotel is run by the local management team headed by the French people, and the design and layout of the hotel come from the same origin of those Novotels in France. This is in fact the philosophy of many hotel chains in their worldwide development – the philosophy of the same hamburger everywhere. In this Moscow centre hotel, Novotel keeps the French name of the hotel restaurant or the fusioned menu in the restaurant, TV5, hotel facilities…well, no surprise. The only ‘breakthrough’ I discovered is the signage they put at the hotel lobby to remind their guests the wet floor, and to a surprise, the notice was written in Spanish…strange.
From another visit to the Holiday Inn in Moscow centre, I found a French publication named ‘Le Courrier de Russie’. This bimonthly business publication is a nice pick for the French community in Moscow (check lecourrierderussie.ru).
 
After farewelling with Charles des Gaules at the CDG airport in Paris, I met the general face-to-face in Moscow. It is indeed a statue of the General building up in front of the main entrance of the Cosmos Hotel in Moscow. I was surprised to see his statue instead of one of Lenin or Peter the Great at the location. Later, I found out that actually the memorial structure for the General was set up here since two decades before because the hotel was actually built by a French company. To me, the General looks, however, a bit étrangé and lonely under this snowy winter.Libellés : cdg, france, moscow, russia |
