FEBRUARY 12 — When I was growing up in the 1980s, I spent a lot of time playing games on a Commodore 64 computer which at the time was incredible hi-tech but which would look comically prehistoric by current standards.

One of my favourite games was called "Raid Over Moscow”, which put the player in the situation of saving the world (specifically, America) from nuclear attack by evil Communist Russia, with one sequence setting the task of shooting evil Rusky soldiers as they appeared in the windows of ominous buildings in Red Square.

At roughly the same time, a highly-acclaimed music video was Two Tribes by Frankie Goes to Hollywood, depicting US President Ronald Reagan and his Russian counterpart Konstantin Chernenkp slugging it out in a boxing ring — with the metaphor for nuclear war emphasised by the chorus’s refrain: "When two tribes go to war, one is all that you can score.”

On a similar theme, among the most successful movies of the mid-1980s was the fourth edition of the "Rocky” series, which saw heroic American boxer Rocky Balboa, played by Sylvester Stallone, avenge the death of his friend in a bout by dramatically defeating deeply unlovable Russian fighter Ivan Drago in Moscow.

There’s no doubt about it: although brainwashing might be putting it a little too strongly, Western youths of my generation were brought up in a popular culture which strongly encouraged Russia and the Russians to be regarded as the ultimate enemy.

They were the dark, vicious and violent evil communists who lived in the past and wanted to destroy the world, and the only way they could be stopped was by us: peace-loving, rational and fair-minded Westerners.

A few years after that fever pitch of fear and mistrust, the Soviet Union imploded and communism was overthrown, and the last couple of decades have seen a significant thaw in east-west relations, with Vladimir Putin’s recent muscle-flexing not really harming the overall new consensus that it’s now acceptable for Russians to be our friends.

Nevertheless, my boyhood indoctrination had hung around and it was with a mixture of curiosity and trepidation that I made my first-ever trip to Moscow this week, arriving as the sun set last Sunday evening.

People standing on the Great Moskvoretsky Bridge in central Moscow, Russia. — Reuters file picture

What would I find? Would all those tales about grim communist tower blocks and miserable unfriendly people, constantly on the verge of violent outbursts, be true? Would Moscow really bear any relation to that dark city which I once spent hours cyber-bombing on my old Commodore 64? I was intrigued to find out.

I am staying right in the heart of the city, just off the long and wide Tverskaya Avenue which leads down straight to Red Square and the Kremlin, and it is seriously impressive.

The architecture is huge and dominating, but the plentiful monotonous communist blocks are regularly punctuated by a range of far more aesthetically pleasing styles, creating an overall impression of self-conscious grandeur.

When you reach Red Square, the combination of St Basil’s Cathedral, the Kremlin, the Russian history museum and the iconic GUM department store is really quite breathtaking — especially with the whole scene still set in a blanket of winter snow and illuminated by sparkling and obviously very expensive Christmas lights.

A city is not only defined by its buildings, however, and the next striking aspect of Moscow is the weather. It is Cold with a capital C, not helped by the fact that I happened to be visiting in a particularly chilly week which have seen temperatures drop to minus 21 centigrade, with a wind chill factor of minus 30.

After a few days, however, I started getting used to the weather, wearing only three layers rather than five and only needing 10 minutes to dress to go outside rather than 20, and now I can appreciate the mantra repeated by all inhabitants of such extreme climates: you get used to it.

You get used to it, and for the 16 million people who live in the Greater Moscow region, the weather just is what it is. Life goes on.

And life, as far as I have been able to see, is pretty ordinary in Russia. As everywhere, some areas of the city are more obviously wealthy than others; some people are more cheerful than others; some shops and restaurants are more enticing than others.

Of course there are differences, and there’s no sign of the American-style "Have A Nice Day!” over-the-top positivism. But nobody has tried to rob me, rip me off or attack me, and spending time in Moscow has not proved to be anywhere near as "different” as I thought it might be.

Sure, some people fit the age-old Russian stereotype by pacing down the streets in solitary stony-faced silence. But others bounce along glued to their mobile phones, holding animated conversations or checking their social media. Groups of girls prance along merrily laughing, gangs of lads posture and pose, and if you forget the weather it could be anywhere on earth.

On the whole, rather than making a valiant Raid Over Moscow while Two Tribes go to war and evil Russian boxers kill brave Westerners, perhaps a more accurate reflection of life in this enormous country was provided by another slice of mid-80s Western pop culture.

In his song Russians, Sting expressed his hope that nuclear war would be avoided by clinging to the hope that "the Russians love their children too.” And you know what? I think they do.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.