Street Life: Samotechny Lane - Russia saved, thanks to the pyramids

NATASHA CAME round with a copy of Rabotnitsa (Working Girl), a Soviet-era magazine that is now glossy, feminine and devoted to New Age ideas. We turned first to the horoscopes, essential Russian reading. Then Natasha pointed out an article about a man who was building a circle of pyramids around Moscow.

"Aquarius - a meeting this week that could change your life. You should go and see that pyramid man," said Natasha. I thought so too, although I suspected the meeting with Alexander Golod was more likely to produce another in my occasional series, "The Great Eccentrics of Russia".

Mr Golod, whose surname incidentally means "hunger", sent a white Volga limousine for me. I was taken through a maze of Moscow back streets and an unmarked blue gate into a defence factory that produces meteorological equipment for aerodromes, ships and spacecraft.

"I am the director," said Mr Golod. "But since the Defence Ministry has not paid us for months, I am working on my private pyramid project."

A small, white pyramid stood on his desk, with a map of Russia, scattered with crystals, amethysts and other semi-precious stones. He reached into a drawer and gave me a handful of similar stones. "Take those," he said, "now I'll explain.

"Imagine this room is made up of cubes. There is a distorting mirror on the wall. The cubes become twisted and deformed. The space in which we live is like that now. Adam lived for 900 years but we live for only 70 because our space has become distorted. This leads to war, economic problems, earthquakes, holes in the ozone layer and other ills. But pyramids correct the distortion and restore harmony."

How he amassed the money was unclear but Mr Golod said he had spent $2m (pounds 1.2m) on building pyramids around Moscow and planned to erect more. He showed me a video of the biggest, towering 22 metres above the lake at Seliger, 400km north of the capital. There was another, 11 metres high, at Ramensky in the Moscow region and a complex of five-metre-high pyramids in the region of Bashkiria, to the east.

Mr Golod's pyramids are made of glass fibre rather than stone blocks. They are more elongated than the tombs of the Egyptian pharaohs or the pyramids used by Mexican Indians to observe the stars. Indeed, they serve a different purpose.

"My pyramids are protecting Moscow from flu, cancer and Aids," said Mr Golod. "Soon these diseases will disappear. Some people speak of the apocalypse. I say we can live as long as we want. It depends on the harmony we create around us."

"I see," I said, "but where do the stones come in?"

"I buy bags of them and put them inside the pyramids. They become charged with the special energy there. Then I drive round Moscow, scattering them on the roadsides. Sometimes the snow cleaners sweep them away and I have to scatter more. The stones are resonators, spreading the energy of the pyramids."

He said he had dropped some stones around a prison near Tver, north of Moscow, and the restive inmates had calmed down. He also gave stones to the sick, to put around their beds. "I do not charge money for this service. It is an act of charity."

"Is it white magic, then," I asked, "you know, positive psychological suggestion?" "No," said Mr Golod, a mathematician, "it's science. The stones work for you whether you know they are there or not. Of course, the effect is stronger if you know."

He claimed that since he built his pyramid at Seliger, the lake water had become purer, harvests had improved, rare wild flowers had appeared in the forests and storks had returned. He said if pyramids were built in Yugoslavia, the Kosovo crisis would go away. And, since a great shaft of energy rises up from the top of a pyramid, such a structure could also help to close the ozone hole over Australia. "I have written twice to the Australian embassy about this but they do not seem interested."

Not to be deterred, Mr Golod has taken steps to protect not only Moscow but also the entire globe. He has persuaded a cosmonaut to carry some of his stones and they are now orbiting round Earth on the space station Mir.

The stones he gave me had been energised inside the Seliger pyramid and came from the same batch that went up to Mir. To be on the safe side, I put an amethyst in my jewellery box. I gave the rest to Natasha. She was thrilled. "Scorpio - in the new year you will find new sources of energy. There. What did I tell you?"