High Heels: A Retrospective

Things are changing fast, in a lot of ways in Russia. It's a rich country now, with loads of generic shopping malls and streets full of Toyotas. Drinking vodka on trains and in the street is illegal now; people work their 12 hours a day and go home and watch reality shows, just like everywhere else.

But so far one thing remains constant: ridiculously high heels, ALL THE TIME.

This was a girl I gave a private lesson to at the school the other day. Those are my dirty Caterpillar boots in the foreground; I snapped this surreptitiously with my phone.

This is just some random girl on the bus -- and remember -- this is NOTHING UNUSUAL. Most girls wear similar footwear.

At a shoe shop. You'd need to go to a S & M specialty boutique to find shoes like this in America.

AThen I saw this laying in the snow one night in March. The symbolism was profound. . .