Spliced-together panorama of Moscow in July, 1989 from atop the since demolished Hotel Rossiya.
Previously: 40 Years in Beer, Part Eighteen: In Ostrava, the beer of the people at the factory gates.
In the autumn of 1989 my travels led me back to lovely Prague, where I’d started the trip in June, back when the lovely continental weather encouraged t-shirts and tables in the shade. Now in September there was a nip in the air even on sunny days, and the locals already were bundling up.
Then it dawned on me that I hadn’t even considered the need for a winter coat.
At least Prague’s classic pubs stayed toasty, and the Czech beer was as good as ever. They were quiet places awash in venerable wood conditioned by decades of cigarette smoke, hushed like libraries, with clusters of drinkers seated at long tables conferring in low voices, almost whispering.
Summer was gone and there was something unusual in the air—murmurs, fidgeting, uneasiness. People seemed tense.
One morning the three of us were walking through Malostranské náměstí near Castle Hill when it gradually became apparent that we were hemmed in on all sides by perfectly stationary East German Trabant and Wartburg automobiles, packed two and three deep...
Read more
