WEEKLY GROSS-OUT: Traffic congestion

Sergei Shoigu, the newly appointed governor of the Moscow Region, recently proposed that Russia move its capital to Siberia. Shoigu, a native of the Buddhist majority republic of Tuva, may have just been playing to his home audience. The idea was immediately squelched, and the Moscow regional assembly dutifully approved Shoigu’s appointment to run Russia’s richest region. But think about it: it was an ambitious idea, moving the capital inland. The idea of taking a capital out of an old city is a good one – and it works. Case in point: Brasilia. Brasilia was a bold statement by the leaders of a people who had clung to the Atlantic coast for five centuries. By moving the capital 1200 kilometers into the interior, Brazil’s leaders refocused the nation toward its western frontier. Half a century after the move, Rio de Janeiro has recovered from the loss of its capital status and is now far better off without it, what with the 2014 World Cup AND the 2016 Olympics slated for the general area in the near future. Similarly, the construction of Islamabad in the 1960s drew Pakistan’s focus away from the coast, where the then capital, Karachi, was located. And by creating Abuja, a new capital in Nigeria’s interior, Africa’s largest nation has drawn economic activity (but sadly not advance-fee fraud) out of Lagos, on the coast. Both are reasonably functional capitals in fairly chaotic countries. By moving Russia’s federal capital, Russians would finally take their eastern vocation seriously. An even better reason to consider a move would be Moscow’s creeping traffic paralysis. With 800,000 new cars hitting the streets of Moscow every year, streets are slowly seizing up. Moscow’s constant traffic jams are a big obstacle to turning the capital into a financial hub. They are a strain on the commuters, who spend on average three hours each workday on the way to or from work (maybe that work-from-home scheme doesn't sound like a bad idea after all.) To sum it up, it's time to move the capital, with a good idea being to split the government agencies between three capitals like South Africa did.