Back in Moscow after 37 years elsewhere, I was advised by local friends surreptitiously to inspect the shoes of my fellow passengers on the metro. Instead of the shoddy, leaking, clapped-out footwear I remembered from 1981, consumerism had triumphed. Diluted glue for the soles, inner linings resembling cardboard, clunkiness and ugliness, all had been banished. Even ageing peasant ladies were clad in solid, waterproof, comfortable shoes. Sanctions, currency depreciation and a stuttering economy have not constrained ordinary Russians' capacity, at long last, to be warm and dry.

If the subway offered proof of better times, Red Square demonstrated the enduring strength of established Russian verities. Americans kid themselves when they claim the White House as the greatest home court advantage in the world. If you want to sustain a bluff or project a threat, Red Square is the spot to start. The White House has no fortress walls, no sacred tombs, no medieval churches, no grand parade grounds, no clock towers, no floodlit stars, no Armoury displaying the ludicrously huge boots worn by a previous ruler. (Presumably all the tsars' feet were reliably warm and dry.) Nor does the White House boast a block-long shop within its precincts.

As a store, a place meant to stock and sell desirable goods, GUM used to be self-parodical. Weary women clutching "perhaps-bags" would wander desultorily along its dusty corridors. Those who surprised themselves by actually finding something to take home were obliged to suffer interminable indignities as sullen sales staff checked, charged, wrapped and delivered their items. We pretend to work and you pretend to pay us; that Soviet-era aphorism was enacted anew with each transaction.

Now GUM ostentatiously mocks its former self, as well as laughing at Russia's previous government and its governing ideology. Fairy lights adorn its gaudy facades. Neon illuminates every brand synonymous with Western affluence and decadence. Espresso cups with motifs from Russian novels, fired at the tsar's imperial porcelain factory, vie for space with Gucci handbags, Burberry overcoats and Cartier jewels. An autumn festival in the aisles juxtaposed pumpkins with caviar, honey and vodka.

An average Russian – coping with a run-down health system, rickety education and a rising retirement age – may find GUM too rich for their taste. Nonetheless, the farmers' markets I visited were well-stocked and well-kept, offering a last flourish of fresh vegetables before winter imposed a tinned, canned and bottled diet on Russia. Few people seemed to be suffering, except for those doing so theatrically as part of their religious devotions. The Orthodox religion was omnipresent, in close partnership with the state, flaunting the renovated gilt on its onion-dome churches, the unbelievably deep voices of its basso singers and the humble piety of old ladies praying quietly as they stood in semi-darkness.

The neighbourhood metro station maintained guides outside the entrance to direct worshippers to an exhibit of venerable bones inside a church, which Stalin had earlier demolished and turned into a swimming pool. Religion might not be the opiate of the masses (that might be vodka), but it can usefully promote docility, unity and harmony.

So, too, does a populist mix of patriotism and nationalism, of motherland and Vladimir Putin. Emmanuel Macron had it quite wrong: nationalism and patriotism are Siamese twins. Russian patriotism and nationalism combine into a heady brew, but one built on narrow, brittle foundations. For centuries, much of Russian history comprised successive crimes against the Russian people. The pantheon of Russian national heroes is surprisingly limited, even given the fitting deference paid to the three Alexanders: the poet (Pushkin), the reforming Gorbachev-like tsar (Alexander II) and the victory over the Teutonic Knights (Nevsky). The real, recent Russian heroes are those "hero cities" celebrated one after another outside the Kremlin walls. It is heartbreakingly hard to imagine the monstrous sacrifice and courage in fighting the Nazis required to earn a star as a hero city.

What would you give up for a warm pair of shoes? Keeping your opinions strictly to yourself seems prudent; one observer advised that, when asked why something had gone wrong, Russians are still inclined to respond by insisting: "I'm not guilty." One quite unusual Russian asked me about politics in Australia. When I replied that we had run through five prime ministers in five years, he noted wryly that Russia had had only one leader for 18 years – but one was enough.

I watched the President of Russia whizz by in a motorcade on my way to hear a virtuoso Siberian pianist. A decade ago, as I trudged down to the Washington metro, vice-president Dick Cheney would drive by me regularly – accompanied by a dozen police outriders on motorbikes, a couple of cars full of shooters front and back, two limousines to confuse villains, an ambulance and a few more city police. Putin was more obtrusive still, sweeping at top speed the wrong way down a one-way street. Whenever Cheney waved to me, I would cautiously nod my head, without any abrupt arm movements that might have alarmed the secret service. With Putin, I stood my ground impassively as he proceeded on to impose more discipline and rigour on his far-flung realm. I already had warm, dry shoes to call my own.

Mark Thomas is a Canberra-based writer.