ugly, ugly, ugly

V also deliberately took me on different routes to and from his dacha. On the way there we saw endless new high-rise apartment building (both on Moscow's outskirts and around the nearby 'satellite' city) being constructed and piled together in almost exactly Soviet-era industrial building fashion - save for some trivial gimmickry on the facades.  On the way back (thankfully after dark) we passed dozens of enclaves for the new Russians; estates of disneyland housing surrounded by tall ugly walls like you would have around a prison, enlivened - which is certainly not the right word - only by the occasional pastiche old-style gatehouse with its big fat gates and guard huts. Ugh.