Moskvichka, a lifestyle publication run by one of the Kremlin’s most notorious propagandists, Kristina Potupchik, just published a review of Ava, a new restaurant overlooking Red Square that serves crab doughnuts, a scallop-and-strawberry salad, and a white-chocolate-and-sour-cream cake wrapped in edible gold. What the magazine failed to mention is that the view from Ava has changed drastically in the last couple of weeks.
F.S.O. (Russia’s secret service) officers in full military gear are stationed around the Kremlin. A masked gunman is perched on Lenin’s tomb. First-time diners who have trouble finding the restaurant will have to ask directions from the drivers of armored cars and pickups with mounted guns that have recently appeared on every road leading to the Kremlin. Because, for three weeks, the Russian capital has had no mobile Internet or G.P.S. Here, Google Maps—along with every other app that needs an Internet connection—is nothing but a blank screen.
