London - fantasy and reality
# Annotation:
Almost all the eastern districts of London today have turned, where entirely, and where partially, into emigrant ghettos, a kind of "New Babylon". Here is a completely different London, a place where tribal laws are placed on a higher level than British ones, a place where national traditions reign. Unfortunately, today London is not alone. Almost all of Western Europe looks like this, and this new reality can no longer be changed.
It so happened that London became the first city that opened the gates to the "west" for me, to the world of "real capitalism".
By that time I had already visited almost all the countries of Eastern Europe. Yes, it was considered a trip abroad and it was processed "as expected", through the "competent authorities". But visiting the countries of the "Eastern Bloc" was not very different from trips to the republics, then the Soviet, the Baltic states.
Sometimes it seemed to me that Riga looks more "foreign" than, for example, Warsaw. The countries of Eastern Europe, the countries of the "socialist commonwealth", or simply "satellites of the Soviet Union" were controlled from a single center - Moscow.
Many years have passed, filled mainly with the struggle for survival in the new world. And finally, the day came when it was possible to relax a little, stop, look around and allow yourself a little more. For me, a "fan of travel", it was a trip abroad. It's time to get acquainted with Western Europe, the world that one could only dream of once.
London, as the purpose of a tourist trip, I chose myself and, being there, I tried to describe every day in as much detail as possible in a diary specially created for this.
More than ten years have passed since then. The world has changed and so has London. But, having returned from my last trip to the capital of Great Britain, I re-read the already yellowed pages of that old diary and was surprised to find that most of the entries are quite relevant today.
Despite the rapid construction, especially in recent times, the historical center of this giant metropolis has not changed much. And it is here that the main attractions are located, among which numerous tourists "hang out" who "fly" into the British capital for a week or a few days.
Exactly "flying".
To really understand this city, with its mentality and traditions, one must be born here or at least live a long period of time. This can be said about any country.
But for London, this expression is especially relevant. How unique is this huge metropolis.
Why London? I'll try to explain.
Sherlock Holmes, Doctor Watson and the British capital.
In 1966, the Moscow publishing house "Pravda", after a long break, published a small edition of the collected works of the English writer Arthur Conan - Doyle, the "creator" of the image of the brilliant detective Sherlock Holmes.
This eight-volume book immediately got into the list of "super scarce" goods. That for a huge country six hundred thousand copies. A drop in the sea.
The stories about the great detective were collected in the first three volumes. Thus, for me, acquaintance with the work of Conan - Doyle began with his world-famous character.
Soon I began to notice that in these "criminal stories", in addition to the two main characters - Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, there is one more, virtual - the city of London.
The capital of Britain in the works of Arthur Conan - Doyle serves not only as a background for the events described, but also acts as a full-fledged hero, living his own life.
Of all the adaptations of the stories about the great detective, including those in English, which I managed to watch, the most "London", as it seems to me, turned out to be ours, "Soviet". With Vasily Livanov and Vitaly Solomin in the lead roles.
The unusual thing about this film was that not a single person from the entire film crew had ever been to London.
In those days, even a trip to the so-called "countries of people's democracy" was very problematic. And here in London, in the "lair of the enemy. "
So almost the entire "Victorian" capital of Great Britain was filmed either in the cities of the Soviet Baltic states, or in scenery created theoretically from books and albums.
I think that Queen Victoria herself liked the way her era was shown in the film. Soviet experts in absentia, purely intuitively, created an image of the city, down to the smallest detail indistinguishable from the original.
british crown
In the years described by Conan Doyle, the British crown was decorated with such diamonds as Egypt, India, Australia. Even one of them was enough to make their mother country the greatest colonial power.
Great Britain owned almost half of the world. Precisely owned - physically.
Like a good owner, the metropolis completely controlled its property - politics and the economy. The management of the vast empire was based on the principle of maximum centralization, while maintaining respect for local orders and traditions.
One small island on the edge of Europe, controlled the fate of hundreds of millions of people.
Until now, many of the now "independent" former British colonies have the same supposedly "racist" laws that no one is going to repeal. Work factories, ports and railways built by the British.
One of the last parts of the Empire to gain independence was Hong Kong, which was "leased" for 99 years. In 1997, the British handed it over to China, not forgetting to build one of the world's largest airports, which received its first passengers in 1998.
All of the engineering work for this "man-made marvel", from design to completion, was done by the British.
The ethnic English themselves, who were born and raised in Hong Kong, are no longer quite Europeans. This is a new community of people that the locals call "gwailo".
After the transfer of Hong Kong to China, many of them returned to their "historical homeland" and there they discovered that they and the local population are far from the same thing, that their mentality is different and European culture, in its modern form, is alien to them. And the stream was pulled in the opposite direction.
By the beginning of the twentieth century, Great Britain was considered one of the most economically developed powers.
But, as history teaches, it is not enough to become a great empire. It is also necessary to preserve, if not forever, then at least for a long time, the imperial status.
When, at the same time, such states as the USA and Germany sharply increased the pace of economic development, Great Britain "rested on its laurels" of its colonial policy.
Despite a powerful base and the continuing status of the most economically developed country in the world, Great Britain is gradually losing some of its positions.
The foreign policy doctrine - "Brilliant isolation" - served for many years as the core of British policy,
The growing competitiveness of Germany forced Albion to abandon the doctrine that has passed through the centuries.
This was the beginning of the collapse of one of the greatest empires in the world.
Despite the victory of the Entente military bloc - the union of Russia, France and Great Britain over Germany in the First World War, the weakening of the main economic competitor and even the annexation of the former German colonies and most of the territories that belonged to Turkey, including almost the entire Middle East - all this is no longer could save the British Empire. The war had weakened the mother country too much.
Not only economically, but also politically.
The first independence was received by no means a distant exotic colony, but a part of the United Kingdom itself - Ireland. The Great Empire was disintegrating from within.
The short peaceful respite was ending. The Second World War began.
Since the time of William the Conqueror, the British Isles have not been attacked by an enemy. Luftwaffe planes flew freely over the territory of the former "Queen of Heaven", German ships and submarines blocked all approaches to the former "Mistress of the Seas".
Britain was on the verge of death. There was a small push - the occupation.
But Hitler was in no hurry. Why?
Germany was not ready to attack? Doubtful.
After the seizure of the countries of the Anti-Hitler coalition, almost all of Europe worked for the Nazis. "Independent" states - Italy, Spain, Portugal, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary were considered, some theoretically and some practically, Hitler's allies.
Who was he afraid of? Soviet Union?
But Great Britain entered the war in September 1939, and between the USSR and Germany until June 22.1941 there was a "non-aggression pact", unofficially called the "Molotov-Ribbentropp Pact". With bold pieces of applications recorded in secret protocols, which no one has yet seen in full, and if they have seen, they are silent.
Fear of France? "Great Power", which the Nazis had only a few weeks to defeat. After that, this old prostitute fell under the new owner, thereby confirming her "world image".
"Pompous" with importance, the leading countries of the European Union such as Belgium and Holland, went to Germany during the "long walk", almost without resistance.
The same can be said about Denmark and Norway. "Neutral" Sweden served both "ours and yours", with a bias towards Germany.
Switzerland, as always, worked as a "world piggy bank". For fascists, communists, socialists and other politicians who plunged the world into a bloody "slaughter".
Those who survived remained with money and even with the required interest. For example, for the supply of materials for the gas chambers of Auschwitz, Majdanek and thousands of other extermination camps, German chemical concerns that still exist today deposited more than one million into their accounts in the same Swiss banks.
The money of the unfortunate, mostly Jews, who were killed in these gas chambers, is safely hidden in deep dungeons under the streets of Zurich and is protected by the secrecy of deposits. The famous Swiss banks, with their unshakable reputation, have already credited these unclaimed capitals for a long time, and it seems that they are not going to return them. Even the legitimate heirs.
So in this confrontation with Germany, the United Kingdom found itself alone.
However, there was no push - there was no order to occupy the islands. Why? In my opinion, Hitler wanted to have London as his ally more than Moscow, where the British were simply hated, especially without hiding it.
But the Soviet Union could not afford to lose such, albeit temporary, ally in the anti-Hitler coalition.
Great Britain was bombed and quite brutally. The capital was subjected to repeated air bombardments, the heaviest of which occurred in September 1940 and May 1941.
In total, during the war, in London, 30.000 civilians became its victims, 50.000 were injured, tens of thousands of houses were destroyed. In war as in war.
But the order to occupy the British Isles was never issued.
After the end of the Second World War, the collapse of one of the greatest empires in the world began.
Deprived of sources of raw materials, markets and cheap labor, the economy of the country, which until recently dictated the will of more than half of the world, was to fall. But, apparently, the too great internal potential inherent in the UK helped it not only get out of the crisis, but also remain in the "club" of the most developed countries in the world.
Despite all the upheavals, Britain today occupies one of the leading places among the great powers.
The Union Jack, the state flag, is also proudly flying. All also "respectfully take passports with a double English left. "
So wrote Vladimir Mayakovsky at the beginning of the twentieth century. This continues today.
What is London?
Growing up behind the Iron Curtain, we had no idea what was behind it.
Therefore, the third "protagonist" of the stories about Sherlock Holmes, the city of London, in my eyes looked like something virtual, "Western", like the capitals of "our" Baltic republics. There was no other option. I had to fantasize.
Even the most famous and "especially close" filmmakers were very rarely allowed to shoot "abroad" in "natural" conditions. So, for example, the absent-minded professor Pleischner from the film "Seventeen Moments of Spring" died not at all in Swiss Bern, but in "our" Riga.
The cities of the Soviet Baltic served as a backdrop for a huge number of films about "foreign countries". It doesn't matter which one. It was believed that most of the audience would never see her anyway.
New times have come. Numerous questionnaires about "moral stability", humiliating interrogations in the district party committee, with the participation of former "Chekists" who fell into almost complete senile insanity, but continued to make decisions, taking into account their rich life experience, disappeared.
Today, money is the same questionnaire. And, if there are enough of them, then a pass to any country is guaranteed.
London. The capital of Great Britain. Britain, England? The official name of the country is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland - United Kingdom.
The capital of the state is one of the largest cities in the world. Despite its almost two thousand years of history, London begins to turn into such a "monster" as we know it today only by the beginning of the eighteenth century, during the time of Swift and Defoe. Even then, the number of inhabitants of the city exceeded seven hundred thousand people, and by the end of the same century it reached a million.
The capital turns into a giant "anthill", where hundreds of thousands of "subjects of the British crown" come from all over the vast empire, mainly in search of a better life. Such is the destiny of big cities - to create illusions and break destinies.
Nineteenth century London is a city of contrasts. On the one hand, it was the economic and political center of the world, and on the other hand, it was a city where millions of poor people lived in slums with virtually no means of subsistence.
In the same century, a huge number of new factories and plants were built in London, and entire industrial areas appeared.
The face of London is undergoing dramatic changes. In 1836, the first railway was opened, connecting London Bridge and Greenwich, and in less than twenty years 6 stations were built.
In 1863, the world's first subway appeared in London.
In the same nineteenth century, Big Ben, Albert Hall, the Trafalgar Square complex, Tower Bridge were built. For the first time in the history of London, there was sewage.
The capital of a huge empire in terms of the intensity of construction and the level of improvement was several orders of magnitude higher than continental Europe.
London becomes the first cosmopolitan city in the world, in the truest sense of the word. Look how many people from the colonies are in the works of the same Conan - Doyle.
Today you will not surprise anyone with huge Arab, Indian and Chinese regions in Brussels, Paris, Rome, Munich. And throughout the rest of Europe, where in any, even a tiny town, you can meet women in veils, and in the evening - groups of noisy, aggressive teenagers of a completely non-European look. It is not clear where the indigenous population disappeared from the streets, if it still remains.
Modern London occupies a vast territory. With a population of approximately eight million, it is twice the size of New York City, which has a much larger population.
For several centuries, London has had the status of the "sea capital" of the world, although it is located 64 kilometers from the nearest sea coast.
The founders of the city were far from stupid people. London is located in the valley of the River Thames - the most extensive and fertile in England. It is here that it becomes a natural transit point for trade routes, a center of domestic and foreign trade. And the Thames is quite full-flowing, both then and now, which allows you to receive any ships. Nearly.
For modern cruise "monsters" there are enough ports on the coast.
However, in the post-war period, London lost its status as the largest port in the UK, as the equipment of the docks was outdated and could not serve large cargo ships. The water terminals were moved to the nearby towns of Felixstow and Tilbury, and the Docklands area was redeveloped in the 1980s to house offices and apartment buildings.
So what is modern London?
The development of the capital is still quite chaotic. So you will remember the Soviet Gosplan with a kind word.
Until recently, most of the city's territory was built up with low-rise buildings, no more than two stories high.
How London works
In the first among the skyscrapers that line the ancient winding streets - the layout of the City has hardly changed for a thousand years - bank clerks scurry back and forth with sandwiches. In the second, the picture is similar, but the government clerks, the houses are lower, and the streets are wider. Between these two poles along the ancient tract, now known as the Strand, there are the judicial Holborn and the commercial and theatrical Covent Garden - the oldest of all London suburbs.
These places are considered to be the center of the metropolis "Greater London".
Geographically and financially, the best way to imagine the borders of the "heart of Britain"... on the map of the underground. The territory, which is located within the boundaries of the first zone of the subway, is conventionally considered to be the center of the city. Most of the tourists using the "pipe" - the popular name for the metro - hang out within this part of the city and only a few cross the "border".
Behind it, London itself begins, that is, that same "hundred villages".
In the western direction - the prestigious St. James and Mayfair, a little to the north - Bloomsbury and Fitprovia.
This aristocratic zone is separated by an invisible wall from the rest of London and is steeped in its hereditary and other such problems.
Behind Hyde Park, Kensington begins, next to the rather prestigious Chelsea.
The list can be continued, but is there a need for this. I can only say that almost all the eastern districts of London today have turned, where entirely, and where partially, into emigrant ghettos, a kind of "New Babylon".
Here is a completely different London, a place where tribal laws are placed on a higher level than British ones, a place where national traditions reign.
Unfortunately, today London is not alone. Almost all of Western Europe looks like this, and this new reality can no longer be changed.
My diary - year 1996, London.
On the outside of the virtual internal "Iron Curtain" that surrounded the USSR, there was a "buffer zone" consisting of "countries of people's democracy", satellites of the Soviet Union. On the border of the "socialist camp" another, external, "iron curtain" passed.
Everything that was between them was "foreign" for us. Then they broke through on a "special order".
Those units that were allowed to do this were very reluctant to share their impressions. And they could be understood.
Today the main limitation is money. With a strong desire, and this is surmountable. Especially after returning home, when you need to repay debts.
The opportunity to see the "forbidden fruit" called to the road and made me forget about other problems for a while.
The place of the first trip was determined immediately, as soon as I looked at the familiar, black, eight-volume book. Over the years, he was so read that he had to change the cover on all the books.
So, with the light hand of Arthur Conan - Doyle, the purpose of the first trip was determined.
It was a beautiful sunny morning when our plane landed at London Gatwick Airport, one of the five located in the UK capital. Standard start, but the morning was really sunny.
Speaking of the weather. London is always personified with endless rain, fog and smog.
All this is. However, both the first time and my subsequent visits to the British capital, the weather was fine. Perhaps there is an element of luck involved. But what was, was.
Gatwick International Airport.
The first thing that struck me was that they smiled here. At passport control, at customs, at the information desk.
Between the two terminals, a monorail road was laid, along which a train runs without a driver. From the window of the car, hares frolicking in the tall grass were clearly visible. It is hard to imagine that in the center of a huge airport, with its noise, planes, fuel trucks, trains, there is this natural oasis.
Long queues stretched to the railway ticket offices. At first I did not even understand what it was and went straight to the window. But I was quickly turned back. In the best Soviet traditions.
It's good that my English was not at a very high level. But something I understood. It was the first queue I saw in the world of capitalism. But not the last.
The cashier, without asking anything, smiling, handed us the tickets. Of course the most expensive, on express. This train goes to Victoria Station, making two to three stops along the way. Fast and convenient.
But there is another option, which the cashier, smiling, "forgot" to tell.
Another train passes along the same line, stopping at all stations. On the way, it is only ten minutes longer than the express. And the difference in ticket prices is very significant.
So, despite the smile, trust, but verify.
"Gatwick" is located quite far from the center of the British capital, about sixty kilometers.
Outside the window of the carriage stretched fields interspersed with forests. The greenery was so bright, juicy, that it seemed unnatural. Beautiful, do not say anything.
But where, finally, is London, the city of my childhood dream.
Here are his first houses. I didn't expect to see this. Especially compared to the Russian capital.
Moscow welcomes you with huge micro-districts of snow-white high-rise buildings. Light color, especially in combination with a good sunny day, creates a feeling of festivity and spiritual uplift.
London began with skyline-reaching neighborhoods built up like twin red-brick two-story houses. Moreover, in the direction of the train, it was not the front, also very peculiar, facades, but the inside of the house, courtyards, where multi-colored linen fluttered and some boxes stood.
In the background, groups of typical multi-story buildings of a gloomy gray color were visible. The picture is depressing.
Finally, our family arrived at the Victoria station and, taking our suitcases, we set off to look for an entrance to the subway.
Here I decided to show off my English and began to ask passers-by where Subway was located, which, in my opinion, meant "metro".
Every person I met tried to explain something for a long time and patiently. From all this, I only realized that we need to reach the nearest corner, and behind it there will be what we need.
So our family, together with suitcases, went from turn to turn, rejoicing at the symbol of the London Underground that appeared in the distance - a circle with a horizontal stripe in the middle. But it turned out to be an ordinary bus stop, with the same logo, only smaller.
Turning around the fifth or sixth corner, we finally realized that our route, to put it mildly, was wrong.
As a result, having bypassed the station building around the perimeter, we returned to the main entrance, next to which the desired metro turned out to be. Only here it's called Underground, not Subway.
Finally arrived at the hotel. How much I have traveled around the world, changed many hotels, but this has never been seen again.
This service smelled great of "scoop".
They did not want to hear about receiving the ordered room until two in the afternoon at the registration desk. You will have to walk around the city for several hours.
Can luggage be left? Yes, they provided it. Right next to the main entrance to the hotel, a booth "clung" to the column, in which sat, as we would say, "a pensioner with experience. "
A long tail of the same "early arrivals" stretched to this "storage chamber" knocked down from anything. It seems that the unsightly structure brought a good income.
But all this "nostalgic" service was forgotten as soon as we went out into the street. The hotel was located in the city centre, close to the British Museum and tube station. What was especially important, since he himself, the center of London, is huge.
Those few hours that we wandered around the hotel were enough to forget about my virtual London.
In reality, everything looked different. Not better or worse, but different.
When the clock began to approach one in the afternoon, we returned to the hotel. After all, they had to defend two queues - one for the "luggage office", and the other for registration.
By three o'clock, which, they say, is quite fast for this place, they received their long-awaited number. After a sleepless night and walking around the hotel, we "fell" on the wide beds and passed out.
After a couple of hours I woke up and tried to figure out where I was for a long time.
London - the city that I dreamed of since childhood, here, outside the window! And we sleep!
Down with "sonchas"! We quickly got dressed and headed to the nearest metro station.
London "Underground" is not just a means of transportation, one of the types of urban transport. It's something else. Rather, a lifestyle, a symbol of the British capital.
Let me begin my story of modern London with this peculiar landmark.
"Grandfather of the Subways"
The idea of moving underground has long haunted the engineering minds of the most advanced country then, in the nineteenth century.
In 1843, a pedestrian tunnel under the Thames was opened in the presence of Queen Victoria. In 1863, trains rushed along it, and since then the movement has not stopped.
Then, in 1863, the main event in the history of metro construction took place - the launch of the world's first 3.6 km underground section of the off-street railway.
Despite the fact that trips in the tunnels filled with locomotive smoke and soot were far from comfortable, the practical expediency exceeded all expectations. And already in the year of launch, the parliamentary commission approved the construction of an underground ring road with a total length of about 30 kilometers.
The locomotives worked on steam, and so that the passengers did not suffocate, ventilation wells were punched in the tunnels every 100 meters.
The streets of London, under which the "pipe" passed, must have resembled a valley of geysers - with clouds of smoke escaping to the surface.
Finally, in 1890, electric train traction was introduced on the South London Line.
The very first metro line in the world, the one opened in 1863, is still alive and even retained its original name - Metropoliten line.
London, the city that opened up the advantages of this type of urban transport to the whole world, today has a fairly extensive network, including a ring line and many radial lines, which, as they approach the outskirts, diverge several more, forming the so-called "fork".
At first glance, it seems that the Moscow and London underground are almost twin brothers. But, unlike the Russian capital, going down, the passenger sees a very simply finished station, a kind of piece of a "pipe" intended only to perform its functions and nothing more. Only occasionally slips something like a timid attempt by the architect to at least somehow emphasize the individuality of the station, linking its design with the place near which it is located.
However, recently the situation has changed somewhat.
For example, the new line "Millennium" tries to live up to its name - the stations here are decorated with something like chewed tinted aluminum. A little strange, but remembered for its extravagance.
And on the rest of the lines, everything is very simple - an escalator tunnel, as in Moscow, hung with advertisements, a small average hall with minimal decoration and poor lighting, and on the sides there are openings for passage to the platforms.
Striking are the ceilings, gray from years of dust, the walls, hung with garlands of electric cables and huge advertising posters.
In the London Underground, there are lines where the dimensions of the tunnels allow only certain sizes and shapes of trains to pass.
For example, the Piccadilly line, where the upper part of the car, along with the doors, has a semicircular shape. Therefore, having entered the train and stopped at the entrance, during the closing of the doors you have a real opportunity to be pressed by their doors so that the body will be in the car, and the head in the tunnel. But it's okay. It is very easy to get out of this captivity.
In general, the London Underground is a fairly convenient mode of transport, which is often used by far from poor people, getting to their offices much faster than standing in countless traffic jams on the narrow streets of the center.
As in Moscow, London Underground stations are not very close to each other, however, by this mode of transport, you can get to all the main attractions of the city - museums, train stations, large stores like Harrods, as well as switch to intracity and suburban lines of British Railways. roads.
"Red shirt passenger, don't pretend to be reading a newspaper. We know, dirty pervert, you're looking at your neighbor's bust. " Or this - "A request to American tourists - speak quietly. "
These are the "jokes" of Emma Clarke, a longtime announcer on the London Underground.
In 2008, the "voice of the pipe" was fired. The formal reason was her interview with one of the TV channels, where she admits that she is afraid to ride in the metropolitan subway. Here is such an "advertising".
In addition to such "jokes" on trains, especially those that serve the emigrant outskirts, you can hear classical music.
So, with the help of Rachmaninoff and Vivaldi, the leadership of the subway and the local police are trying to reduce crime on the subway.
We'll see. In the meantime, an inexperienced tourist should not leave the borders of the first zone, especially in the evening.
The scheme of underground lines in the form that we know came to us from London. Despite its simplicity and obviousness, it has become one of the biggest inventions of the century.
Initially, the lines were plotted on a regular city map at an appropriate scale. Despite the accuracy of the scheme, it was impossible to use it.
The intervention of draftsman Harry Beck, temporarily hired by the signaling department, helped. In his free time, he came up with a map, applying the same principle as in the electrical circuits he draws.
This principle is now used by subways all over the world - each branch has its own color and is located strictly horizontally, vertically or diagonally, and stations are marked without taking into account the actual distances between them.
A trial diagram was published in 1933 and since then no other version has been found.
The future of the London Underground was first predicted in 1914. A certain professor wrote in a transport magazine that in 85 years comfortable waiting rooms would open at the stations, where all messages about the movement of trains would instantly flow, perhaps even in the form of pictures on artistically illuminated screens.
Today, the "grandfather" is complemented by a mini-metro - the Docklands Light Railway (DLR). This branch runs above ground, trains in it without drivers, and formally it does not belong to the London Underground. DLR makes sense to use when inspecting the docks and Greenwich.
My diary - year 1996.
The first day seemed to drag on forever. Night flight, several hours of walking around the neighborhood, accommodation in a hotel. The accumulated fatigue made itself felt and, having decided to rest for a "minute", we slept until the evening.
But the day is not over yet. It's good that the metro station was very close. Our first trip to the city of my dreams, of course, began with a visit to Baker Street, the street where Arthur Conan Doyle settled the great detective Sherlock Holmes.
Instead of the narrow alleyway I had imagined, Baker Street turned out to be one of the city's main thoroughfares. A wide street, built up with multi-storey buildings, on which only two or three "Victorian" buildings have been preserved. One of them has been turned into a Sherlock Holmes museum.
But this evening we only "kissed the castle", like another world-famous landmark.
The wax museum "Madame Tussauds" is located very close to the house of the great detective.
The morning began with breakfast, also very original.
There was no restaurant or anything like that. On each floor, food was "given out" in a small room, where there was a small table with jars of yogurt, a tea corner and that's it.
No, another security guard disguised as a bartender. He vigilantly monitored the number of treats taken from the table and stopped attempts to exceed the "required".
It doesn't matter who was "on duty" - a Chinese or an Indian. There is only one policy - to let the guest take as little food into the room as possible. There, in our room, we had breakfast. There was no other place.
Having finished with food, which, thanks to the "efforts" of the barman, there was not much, we rushed to the subway.
The station turned out to be closed, and an African woman in a yellow waistcoat stood at the entrance and, smiling broadly, said only one word to everyone - strike.
On this day, we traveled, if you can call it that, endless standing on the streets clogged with traffic, on buses, the famous double-decker ones.
In the late evening, when there are no traffic jams, a ride on a double-deck red bus is great fun. Especially if it is with an open back platform and a conductor who pulls the rope with a bell. <
The rest of the time it's the most exhausting means of transportation - sometimes it's faster to walk. Buses run from 6 am to midnight. Convenient schemes hang at the stops with the designation of all directions to which you can go by bus not only from this stop, but also from all in the district.
Ghetto for tourists.
The central part of London, surrounded on all sides by areas with a population exactly corresponding to the classical social pyramid, has become a kind of ghetto for tourists.
Of course, even in this limited space, so many museums, theaters, monuments are concentrated that, even if there is time, months are needed to inspect them.
A "standard" tourist does not have such an opportunity.
Our goal is to get acquainted with the agglomeration of two medieval cities - the City and Westminster.
The City is the business center of the British Empire. Here, in a small area of approximately one square kilometer, the largest banks in England, the London Stock Exchange, offices of British and international concerns, editorial offices and publishers of the largest English newspapers, the Main Post Office and the Central Criminal Court are concentrated.
Once, the finances of the vast Empire were controlled from here, and in the Middle Ages, mainly artisans and merchants settled here.
Today, the City of London, as before, is one of the largest centers of the global banking system. In many countries of the world, the business districts of large cities have the same name. The word "City" today has become more of a household name than just the name of an area in which there are practically no permanent residents. They come here to work.
Approximately one and a half million people accumulate in the City during working hours.
A small square with the metro station "Bank" is formed by three monumental buildings with multi-column porticos. The allegorical sculptures that adorn them represent the power and financial power of the United Kingdom.
One of the buildings is occupied by the Royal Exchange, built in 1841-44 according to the project of the architect W. Tite and used today not for its intended purpose.
The modern Stock Exchange is housed in a 26-story structure behind the Bank of England, the second building overlooking the square.
The third building - Manshi House - the residence of the Lord Mayor of the City. The main attraction of this building is a banquet hall, also called "Egi