babulia

— Efrosinya Gadzhieva has been coming to Gorky Park since Stalin’s time. ‘In those days the flowers were tended,’ she muses, her gold teeth glistening in the sun. ‘Now it’s just arcades and noise. Then you could buy sandwiches with caviar, not all these strange kebabs.’ But Babulia (granny), as the locals call her, is not one to complain. Since 1976, she has been operating the weighing scales from her spot near the shooting range.