walking up escalators

The escalators in Moscow are long, and in the rush hour, people stand on both sides - so even if you want to walk, you can't. You can say 'excuse me' to the person in front, and even with difficulty squeeze past them, if you can tolerate the grumbling (and the squeeze). But then you only have to repeat the same performance with the person next in line, and then the person after that, and then with tens of people after that. The end result may be that you reach the top or bottom a few seconds earlier than you would have done, but you have made a lot of enemies.

You can, alternatively, stand grumbling and cursing the person in front of you, for not knowing the British etiquette (on smaller escalators) where people stand on the left and walk down on the right hand side - the wrong way round, in any case, for every other country in the world. But you know full well that the person in front could also be grumbling and cursing those in front of her, and so on up the line. The person in front is trapped as much as you are, and so is the person in front of them. Unless everyone wants to move, and everyone knows that all the others want to move, and everyone decides to move together - no-one can.

Most of the other people on the escalator are probably not too worried about this: first of all, because they have built in standing on the escalators to their daily schedule. They have not left the flat 10 minutes later than they needed to, on the assumption that they can walk up the escalator. They realise they won't be able to, and they have brought a book, or thoughts, or a companion to talk to in order to enjoy the brief respite which standing on an escalator gives you from the frantic rush of daily life.

I am heated and angry that I can't make them all move in the same way that I want to; they know you can't increase the pace, and they enjoy the scenic route instead of hating it.