Part II, From a Bird's-Eye View, 1989-1991, Chapter 4, The Third Rome, Chapter 5, The Temple and the Palace Summary and Analysis

At the beginning of Chapter 4, Ryszard remarks that when the Berlin Wall fell in the fall of 1989, he began to hear of the Imperium's territories again. By this time, he had lost his contacts and knew little about the countries' current state. With all the new information coming to light, Ryszard decided Moscow would be worth a visit to see the great metamorphosis. Dictatorships were falling all over the world and the USSR's system looking like a relic.

Ryszard wants to cover the fifteen federal republics of the Soviet Union, a large area of the world. So much of the borders that were formerly covered by barbed wire would...