The BBC's James Rodgers uncovers a Moscow museum which highlights the way the city has been transformed in the last 20 years. His diary is published fortnightly.
WAR STORY
The privilege of reporting from this ever-growing and ever-changing city is that you can always find something new - something which helps you to understand the dizzying transformation Moscow has undergone in the last two decades.
"The museum of the memory of the warrior-internationalists in Afghanistan" is hidden away in the north-western suburbs.
It's a tiny establishment which addresses a huge subject. 
Most of the visitors are school parties. Now, in the long summer holidays, the place was closed. I was expected, so I rang the bell.
Valentina Zhuravlyova opened the door. A short flight of stairs led into the basement of an ordinary apartment block. I had only found it thanks to the marble monument which stood outside - beneath shop signs for a pharmacy and a beauty salon.
The museum is just a few rooms. The first of them is "the history room". Posters on the wall recall the significant dates in the USSR's military campaign - beginning with the day when Leonid Brezhnev decided the troops should go in.
"The General Staff was against this action," notes a reference to the tension between the military and their political masters.
Valentina is polite and helpful - but doesn't want to say much about the museum.
"At the age when I was lucky enough to be at university, they were dying in Afghanistan"
"I wasn't in Afghanistan myself," she explains, before handing me a copy of a speech made by her late husband, Victor Shcherbak. This, she assures me, will answer all my questions.
Victor Shcherbak served in Afghanistan, and later founded the museum. Since his death, she has continued what he began.
Russia has a long tradition of celebrating its military.
The reappearance this year of tanks and rockets on Red Square for the first time since the end of the Soviet era was enthusiastically received.
Victor Shcherbak clearly wanted his modest museum to belong to that tradition.
"Spending days when we remember Russia's martial glory near this memorial is an important part of the military-patriotic education of the youth," ran part of his speech.
"That is, honouring those warriors who gave their lives in the Great Patriotic War," he continues, using the name Russians gave to World War II, "the wars in Afghanistan and Chechnya, as well as other local wars and military conflicts." 
Photos of the dead cover one wall of the "room of memory".
They're all in black and white - presumably copies of photos on the servicemen's official documents. You can imagine them posing for the photographer - perhaps on the day they joined up.
It makes them seem even more distant from a Moscow where digital devices are everywhere - a Moscow they never lived to see.
I did, and I'm still discovering it.
One thing that stayed with me personally is that many of these men were born in the same year I was. At the age when I was lucky enough to be at university, they were dying in Afghanistan.
The phrase "warrior-internationalist" sounds so outdated now. So much has changed here in the last 20 years that the men I looked at wouldn't know their home town today.
Still, the museum claims more than 10,000 visitors a year. So, even if it is hidden away, at least some in their city know about them.
LOVE STORY
Russia has a new festival: "The day of love, the family, and fidelity".
The date of 8 July was chosen because it is the feast day of two medieval saints whose love represented the ideal marriage.
Russia is looking deep into its history as it continues to shape its post-Communist identity.
The country is also fighting off foreign influence.
Valentine's Day is increasingly popular here, and the Russian Orthodox Church doesn't seem to like that.
There was no specific link made this week, but, in February, Church youth groups condemned Valentine's Day as "pagan", and "commercial".
I was at one of the celebrations - at Moscow zoo. The singer at the concert praised the government, and the authorities, and extolled Orthodox traditions.
It was all good, wholesome stuff.
But they'll probably have to offer more to keep the attention of young would-be lovers in a Moscow bursting with bars, restaurants, cinemas, and nightclubs.
BBC News Website readers have been sending us their comments on James Rodgers' diary. Here are some of their thoughts:
Wonderful stories and reporting - I'm a regular reader of Moscow Diary. I'm a British citizen living in Moscow and I would very much like to know where exactly this museum is please. "It makes them seem even more distant from a Moscow where digital devices are everywhere - a Moscow they never lived to see. I did, and I'm still discovering it." I found this statement especially poignant as it applies to me too and I have known some Afghanistan vets and listened to their stories and nightmares, which haunt them to this day.
Victor Romain, Moscow, Russia
The reportage was to cover Moscow but little reference was made to that locale. The second piece mentions medieval saints but doesn't name them. It would have been nice to read which of the ancients the Moscovites revere
James P Brassil Jr, Middleburgh, USA
There are some very good poems and stories written by soldiers serving in Afganistan - the "zinky boys". Some have been translated and they are worth reading.
Chris Batey, Prenton, UK
As far as "The day of love blah-blah-blah" is concerned, I think it is sheer hypocrisy. In the 90s, the Russian government praised everything from West and condemned everything connected with Russia, while now it is vice versa. But any discourse the government chooses is always aimed at cheating people. Now they teach us to be proud of our "ancient culture and traditions", our sports victories and all that stuff, they hope that being proud of this all we may forget about material and spiritual poverty we are surrounded by.
Ekaterina A, Nizhny Novgorod, Russia
Fascinating article. Russia's development into an open society is truly amazing. To see it and read about it, is to believe it. Positive the right thing to develop and see it come true.
Giacomo Zardetto, San Bruno CA USA
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