Tucker Carlson plus Moscow equals one love

US journalist Tucker Carlson spent eight days in Moscow. It was not only the Kremlin that he visited for that interview. Carlson had a chance to ride the Moscow metro, go to Moscow restaurants and buy groceries in a Russian supermarket. It appears that the journalist wanted to see for himself what it was like to live in Moscow these days.

Carlson later admitted that Moscow impressed him a lot. He liked the Moscow architecture and praised the Moscow metro, which, as he said, was better and nicer than anything in his home country. The American also visited a restaurant of Vkusno i Tochka chain (formerly known as McDonald's).

Speaking about his trip to Russia, the journalist said that Moscow shocked and amazed him. Carlson had never visited the Russian capital before and only knew about it from his father's stories who had often visited Russia in the 1980s for work.

"It is so much nicer than any city in my country. I had no idea. My father spent a lot of time there in the '80s when he worked for the U. S. government and they barely had electricity," Carlson said.

Among other things, Carlson pointed out the architecture, food and services that are available to Moscow residents. The journalist also visited the Kievskaya metro station. The metro surprised him a lot as there is no graffiti on stations and trains, no unpleasant odours, no dirt, no drug addicts and other suspicious individuals. He compared what he saw to the situation in the New York subway, which is dangerous to be in.

One may have a negative attitude towards the Russian government and its policies, but today's Moscow, unlike US cities, is a great place to live, he noted.

Tucker Carlson also wanted to see real effects of sanctions that the West imposed on Russia and how they affected the lives of ordinary Russians.

The journalist went to the former McDonald's flagship restaurant near Pushkinskaya metro station, which in June 2022 became the main restaurant of the Vkusno i Tochka rebranded chain. He ordered several products from the menu and said after trying them that the taste was no different from similar products in America. "It just became Russian,” the journalist concluded.

Carlson's next stop was the Gagarinsky shopping and entertainment center on Vavilov Street. The journalist recollected food shortages in Russia during the Cold War and decided to compare the past with the current situation. To this end, he went shopping at an Auchan hypermarket to find out in practice how much Russians spend on food and what their diet consists of. Carlson's shopping list was made to cover the needs of a family of four during the week.

The American discovered advantages even before he entered the store. He liked the convenient trolley rental system. A customer needs to insert a ten-ruble coin into a special slot on the trolley handle to release the lock and take the cart. When you're done shopping, you can have your coin back when you return the trolley in its place.

On the shelves of the grocery store, the journalist found imported food products such as Snickers, Mars, Bounty chocolate bars, Mentos chewing candy and Gillette razors. Carlson also pointed out the quality of domestic goods, such as fresh bread from a local bakery. Carlson bought bread, fruit, flour, Crimean wine and other products. He said that he collected more food than he could eat in a week, and the total price was a lot lower than what he would have to pay for all those groceries in the US. He spent $104 dollars (9,400 Russian rubles), while in the United States he would have to pay about $400, the journalist said.