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A number of odd characters on the metro recently. A fellow with no arms, his amputated limbs protruding from a striped t-shirt, an old woman wailing hoarsely with foam on her lips, a young man carrying around an old tinny boombox and listening to loud house music, swarms of dandies wearing all black. Standard protocol is just to bury your head in a book or listen to music that you can't hear anyway because the shrieking of the tunnels is so bad. There are times when the Moscow Metro in the name of V.I. Lenin resembles a nightmare more surreal than frightening, characters from Beckett strolling about. And then you emerge from Okhotniy Ryad, the Kremlin stands before you, a Ferrari is parked behind you, the streetlamps are gilded, the windows you pass reveal a wealth to which you could never even summon the courage to pretend, and in your stomach you are simply perplexed.