Hundreds of media scour Moscow unsuccessfully for Edward Snowden

Edward Snowden's arrival in Moscow set hordes of journalists fanning out across the city in hopes of spotting the whistle-blower and unleashed a torrent of rumours worthy of the darkest days of the cold war.

Scores of reporters and camera crew members crowded around Terminal F at Sheremetyevo International Airport, which no doubt was state of the art when it was built - for the 1980 Olympics. Its ceiling lights resemble coffee cans, or perhaps giant listening devices. The dim lighting casts an air of foreboding over a Moscow arrival. There was no Snowden sighting.

The passengers who trooped through the arrival area were besieged by reporters seeking information about Snowden, who has been charged with espionage in the United States for revealing the country's secret surveillance programmes. But the arriving passengers had little intelligence to offer, saying that they did not know whether or not Snowden was on the flight or that maybe he was but they had not been looking for him so would not have recognised him.

Russian security vehicles surrounded the plane when it landed, while plain-clothes Russian agents trawled the terminal, deflecting questions about which state agency they represented by pretending to be businessmen from Munich and journalists from state-run NTV.

Then a Venezuelan contingent was said to be there, fuelling speculation that Snowden was being whisked away to the country's embassy in Moscow, and his final destination was Caracas.

The Venezuelan embassy is conveniently located just up the street from a nest of journalists, the building on Sadovaya-Samotechnaya Street where many journalists were forced to live during the Soviet era, guarded by KGB officers who kept most Russians out. But two hours after the flight from Hong Kong had landed, nothing seemed to be happening at the embassy.

The Ecuadoran embassy also offered little pay-off for a stake-out. An Ecuadoran diplomat's car was observed parked at the airport - identified by the Soviet system of assigning certain numbers to certain countries. RT, the television broadcaster financed by the Russian government, reported that a doctor from the embassy was examining Snowden at the airport. Russian officials said next to nothing, observing only that they had heard the reports.