If I listened to only some people here, I would think this is a lie.
I listen to others, one a well known conservative attorney and another a well known Hollywood Jewish figure who has for the most part leaned left, have traveled there and have related what they saw there.
They say Moscow is an incredibly modern and attractive city. More up to date than most cities here in the US. Clean and there are not any tent cities of homeless drug addicts and gay parades.
Your last paragraph is quite true. Still, it’s rather tasteless to celebrate the lifestyles of Moscow’s elites while young Russian men are dying in Ukraine.
There’s probably no city so despised by countrymen who don’t live there than Moscow is to the average Russian.
You think we hate NYC? That’s nothing.