Spring came late this year in Moscow. Mornings in March would greet drivers in the frantic Russian capital with gray skies, a drizzling mix of rain and snow, and roads covered with dirty slush. This was the weather I found the day I landed here for a stay that would include witnessing the end of space station Mir's 15-year mission. On my way from the airport, I saw a giant billboard towering over a highway. It depicted a spacewalking cosmonaut painting a logo of Java, a brand of Russian cigarette, on the nose of the U.S. space shuttle. A stylized rendering of Mir floated in the background.
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