Economies Of Scale

Novosibirsk

Everything about this city is huge. I'm staying on the 14th floor of a massive hotel opposite a very busy station (Omsk-Novosibirsk is the busiest stretch of railway for freight in the world) and a big, wide square. It's a city of the 20th century, the Soviets clearly had plans to make it a place with 10 million people, and the whole centre is laid out as if it is that big. As it is, the 1.5 million who actually live here scuttle around like ants, never even nearly filling the space around them. I've never been to Milton Keynes but I imagine it's like this, only about 50 times smaller.

Went to a bar last night and a band did a reasonable set of covers. A few Russian songs but mostly British. Sting got 3 tracks played (including a decent stab at "Shape Of My Heart") which was one more than U2 and Robbie Williams, proving that there's life in the old tantric dog yet at least as far as Siberia is concerned.