Russia's imperial past looms large over Moscow. The Kremlin walls and towers make visitors feel like tiny specks on Red Square.
Five miles away, I get a similar feeling when I go to Victory Park. It is a sprawling complex of museums and memorials built to commemorate the Soviet Union's victory over Nazi Germany. The centrepiece - a massive square with an obelisk 141.8m (465ft) high - 10cm for each day of the Great Patriotic War, as the Soviets called their part in World War Two after the Nazi invasion.
When I visit, it is National Day of the Russian Flag. An enormous tricolour - allegedly the largest in the country - is being unfurled on the square.
Ringed by rigid lines of Russian soldiers, the flag is unrolled as a military band plays patriotic music. The museum director gives a speech, stressing that such occasions "unite our people".
The Kremlin has been more actively encouraging patriotic events like these since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Inside the Victory Museum itself, I find an exhibition dedicated to the "heroes" of the "special military operation". Information boards compare Russian troops fighting in Ukraine to Soviet soldiers in WW2.
Andrei Afanasiev, a pro-Kremlin blogger and university lecturer, agrees to meet me. He tells me patriotism is more important during wartime, and that what he calls "the West's war on Russia" has made Russians realise that they're on their own.
"You can only rely on yourself, your country and your army. Definitely, patriotism is higher than it was before. War mobilises us and unites us," he says.
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