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In the weeks leading up to Russia's invasion, I would walk for hours in the central Moscow district of Zamoskvorechiye, where I had lived and worked in the BBC office for seven years.
An unspoiled and peaceful part of the city, for me it embodies Russia's complex present and past.
For centuries Muscovites have come here to build homes and businesses and get on quietly with their lives, leaving their rulers to pursue greater ambitions on a bigger stage where ordinary Russians have never had a part to play.
It is bordered by the Moskva river and the Kremlin on one side, and on the other by imposing Stalinist apartment buildings and 21st Century skyscrapers on the noisy Sadovoye ring road.
A maze of narrow streets echo the past, dotted with churches and aristocratic mansions from the 19th Century. Bolshaya Ordinka street takes its name from Tatar-Mongol rule, hundreds of years before, when emissaries would come to collect tributes from Moscow's princely leaders.
I was there last February when I was phoned by a friend, born in Ukraine's second-biggest city Kharkiv, who now worked in Moscow.
Was Putin really going to start a war with Ukraine, he asked. Neither of us wanted to believe it.
But surrounded by reminders of Russia's often relentlessly violent past I felt war was now inevitable. My daily walks were my way of saying goodbye to a world, and perhaps even a country, that could never be the same again.
Russians are seen attempting to leave their country to avoid a military call-up for the Russia-Ukraine war as queues have formed at the Kazbegi border crossing in the Kazbegi municipality of Stepantsminda, Georgia on September 27, 2022
Hundreds of thousands of Russians have left Russia, including me and my BBC Russian colleagues. But for the majority who have stayed in Russia, life outwardly is pretty much the same as it always was.
Especially in the big cities.
In Zamoskvorechiye, most of the shops, cafes, the businesses and the banks are still open. Many of the hipster journalists and IT specialists may have left but others have replaced them.
Shoppers complain about rising prices, but local alternatives have replaced some imported goods.
You can still meet for coffee and the logo looks similar, but the Starbucks chain is long gone
Bookshops still have a wide variety of titles, although books deemed inappropriate are sold in plastic covers.
The popular car-sharing service still works, but the cars are now largely Chinese-made.
International sanctions have not brought Russia to the brink of 1990s-style economic collapse. But, as Belfast-based Russian academic Aleksandr Titov has observed, Russia is nonetheless living through a crisis.
It is a slow-burning crisis, but look closely and there are signs of it everywhere.
In Belgorod, close to the Ukrainian border and just 80km (50 miles) from the now war-torn city of Kharkiv, local people are now used to convoys of military trucks roaring towards the front line.
If they are troubled by Russia bombing a city where many have friends and relatives, then they're trying not to show it.
Most Russians either do not know or do not want to know what their military has done to Ukraine's second biggest city Kharkiv
Most Russians either do not know or do not want to know what their military has done to Ukraine's second biggest city Kharkiv.
Cheery street festivals organised by the local governor are well attended, a friend tells me.
But local doctors are leaving their jobs in droves, unable to cope with the numbers of war-wounded being brought for treatment in local hospitals.
The shelled Russian border town backing Putin's war
Residents feel abandoned and angry in the little frontier town of Shebekino, where cross-border shelling has become a daily reality.
One local family visiting St Petersburg were shocked to find nothing had changed while their own lives had been turned upside down.
In Pskov, near the Estonian and Latvian borders, the atmosphere is gloomy and everyone pretends the war has nothing to do with them, I am told.
Pskov is home to the 76th Guards Air Assault Division, now notorious for the war crimes its troops are accused of carrying out in Bucha, outside Kyiv.
A bus service has started up connecting the city to the local cemetery where growing numbers of soldiers killed in Ukraine are being buried. Under a bridge someone has daubed PEACE in big red letters.
When the BBC visited this cemetery near Pskov there were dozens of fresh graves for Russian paratroopers
On a train heading for Petrozavodsk, near the Finnish border, a friend meets a group of teenagers playing a "Name that city" game.
Someone mentions Donetsk: Is it in Russia or Ukraine? None of them are sure. It has been occupied and annexed illegally by their government.
Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-64703768
In the weeks leading up to Russia's invasion, I would walk for hours in the central Moscow district of Zamoskvorechiye, where I had lived and worked in the BBC office for seven years.
An unspoiled and peaceful part of the city, for me it embodies Russia's complex present and past.
For centuries Muscovites have come here to build homes and businesses and get on quietly with their lives, leaving their rulers to pursue greater ambitions on a bigger stage where ordinary Russians have never had a part to play.
It is bordered by the Moskva river and the Kremlin on one side, and on the other by imposing Stalinist apartment buildings and 21st Century skyscrapers on the noisy Sadovoye ring road.
A maze of narrow streets echo the past, dotted with churches and aristocratic mansions from the 19th Century. Bolshaya Ordinka street takes its name from Tatar-Mongol rule, hundreds of years before, when emissaries would come to collect tributes from Moscow's princely leaders.
I was there last February when I was phoned by a friend, born in Ukraine's second-biggest city Kharkiv, who now worked in Moscow.
Was Putin really going to start a war with Ukraine, he asked. Neither of us wanted to believe it.
But surrounded by reminders of Russia's often relentlessly violent past I felt war was now inevitable. My daily walks were my way of saying goodbye to a world, and perhaps even a country, that could never be the same again.
Russians are seen attempting to leave their country to avoid a military call-up for the Russia-Ukraine war as queues have formed at the Kazbegi border crossing in the Kazbegi municipality of Stepantsminda, Georgia on September 27, 2022
Hundreds of thousands of Russians have left Russia, including me and my BBC Russian colleagues. But for the majority who have stayed in Russia, life outwardly is pretty much the same as it always was.
Especially in the big cities.
In Zamoskvorechiye, most of the shops, cafes, the businesses and the banks are still open. Many of the hipster journalists and IT specialists may have left but others have replaced them.
Shoppers complain about rising prices, but local alternatives have replaced some imported goods.
You can still meet for coffee and the logo looks similar, but the Starbucks chain is long gone
Bookshops still have a wide variety of titles, although books deemed inappropriate are sold in plastic covers.
The popular car-sharing service still works, but the cars are now largely Chinese-made.
International sanctions have not brought Russia to the brink of 1990s-style economic collapse. But, as Belfast-based Russian academic Aleksandr Titov has observed, Russia is nonetheless living through a crisis.
It is a slow-burning crisis, but look closely and there are signs of it everywhere.
In Belgorod, close to the Ukrainian border and just 80km (50 miles) from the now war-torn city of Kharkiv, local people are now used to convoys of military trucks roaring towards the front line.
If they are troubled by Russia bombing a city where many have friends and relatives, then they're trying not to show it.
Most Russians either do not know or do not want to know what their military has done to Ukraine's second biggest city Kharkiv
Most Russians either do not know or do not want to know what their military has done to Ukraine's second biggest city Kharkiv.
Cheery street festivals organised by the local governor are well attended, a friend tells me.
But local doctors are leaving their jobs in droves, unable to cope with the numbers of war-wounded being brought for treatment in local hospitals.
The shelled Russian border town backing Putin's war
Residents feel abandoned and angry in the little frontier town of Shebekino, where cross-border shelling has become a daily reality.
One local family visiting St Petersburg were shocked to find nothing had changed while their own lives had been turned upside down.
In Pskov, near the Estonian and Latvian borders, the atmosphere is gloomy and everyone pretends the war has nothing to do with them, I am told.
Pskov is home to the 76th Guards Air Assault Division, now notorious for the war crimes its troops are accused of carrying out in Bucha, outside Kyiv.
A bus service has started up connecting the city to the local cemetery where growing numbers of soldiers killed in Ukraine are being buried. Under a bridge someone has daubed PEACE in big red letters.
When the BBC visited this cemetery near Pskov there were dozens of fresh graves for Russian paratroopers
On a train heading for Petrozavodsk, near the Finnish border, a friend meets a group of teenagers playing a "Name that city" game.
Someone mentions Donetsk: Is it in Russia or Ukraine? None of them are sure. It has been occupied and annexed illegally by their government.
Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-64703768