Roman.

The forest that Roman showed me. The countryside; the Caucasus; the Russian fairytale...

I intended to name this episode 'Poetry in the Caucasus', but then I realized that during those days I spent with Roman, I never wrote a single line. Nor did I write anything afterwards. I tried not to think too long about what had happened; perhaps it would have caused me pain: after all, Roman is a character who invites you to sympathy, to shared-suffering, as they call it in Russian, and to appreciation for the beauty and the artistic capabilities of what surrounds us.

I have a weakness for those characters. Those 'dreamer' types. I read Dostoevsky and I liked it. And I don't want to fall in love with him. 

Ramán: a rolled 'r', an end stress.

We met online (naturally).

I wasn't sold on his first message: ю из вэри, вэри бьютифул.  This is basically the English words 'You is very, very beautiful' in Russian letters. Grammatically incorrect and weirdly transliterated.  

I replied: Фэнк ю, стрейнжер. (Fank u, stranger).

We soon began to touch fairly deep topics in our correspondence -- at least in comparison with the average conversation on such a website (I can provide many examples, on request.). It turned out that he was a huge fan of the Irish singer/composer Enya and he was extremely impressed when I told him that our family's 'dacha' (country house) was in Gweedore, the place were her parents run a pub. Both online, and later, in real life, he begged me, with odd puppydog passion to go to the pub at any impending opportunity and talk to Enya's parents: to express his huge gratitude for her work, which had inspired him to develop as an artist and to ask, coyly, about the release of her new album. She's getting old now, and her albums have always been few and far between....He is finding it difficult to wait.

I soon discovered that he was a very creative man.  He had lived in Krasnodar for 5 years, studying in art college, but now, unsure of what to do for the rest of his life and having declined an opportunity to study in St. Petersburg ('it isn't my kind of art, there. It wouldn't be true to me'), he was living with his mother again, back in the coastal resort of Gelendzhik, 4 hours from Krasnodar.

Roman's modest bedroom, which he later showed me.

We began to phone regularly and our conversations became more and more personal. He spoke of how he was glad to be back home for one reason: the forests. A few mornings a week he would get up at 5am and take a bus to a village where he had spent his earliest teenage years: there, amongst the mountains and the woods, he would paint the changing landscape and feel inspired. He told me that he was lonely: his pay at the school where he taught young children was much less than what was needed to survive (4000 rubles a month!) and, although he dearly loves his mother and their relations are pure and warm, he still can't help fearing what will happen if she discovers his sexuality. He is less afraid of her reaction to the general topic than of her reaction to discovering he has been lying to her for many years. Their relationship is supposed to be honest and warm, almost without exception. 

We agreed to meet. He would come from Gelendzhik to Krasnodar for a weekend and stay on my spare bed.

The clock passed 11 pm and he arrived. He phoned me. I made a hasty goodbye to my dear friend, J. from England, and our mutual psychologist friend, M., with whom I had been drinking large beers in an interesting pub, and set off to meet him somewhere along the way, despite my lack of orientation in this new city.

He was carrying a canvass, wearing a cap and walking around, small in stature, like a sweet child

I soon spotted him. He was carrying a canvass, wearing a cap and walking around, small in stature, like a sweet child, taking in all of the yellow light that shone on the dilapidated, one-storey houses of Old Krasnodar. His eyes were full of enthusiasm and a kind of beautiful innocence.

He was 23 years old.

'You know,' he had told me on the phone, 'I'm teaching art at the same school I used to attend. All the teachers remember me. I'm often confused with the students for being short and the teachers talk to me in the informal 'ty' form. They call me 'Roma', instead of 'Roman Mikhailovich', like they should...'

Now I understood why. He was very small, endearingly energetic and very adorable.

We decided that we would walk the 45 minutes home. It was a clear night.

He stopped by an old house, told me to be quiet and stood there, staring, occasionally shaping his hands like a picture frame...

'It won't work. It's changed too much already. They're destroying a lot of the buildings in the old centre. Repairing them or demolishing them. They were beautiful because they were old...'

I asked him why he was carrying a canvass.

'It's an  Aivozovsky copy. I was commissioned to paint it and now I'm bringing it to my client in Krasnodar.'

I don't like landscape paintings very much. I mean, I don't know how to tell whether they're any good or bad. So I kept quiet. I guessed it must be impressive. Black, twisted clouds. Rough seas.

'It took a long time,' he said. 'It could have taken even more time, I could have made it much better... But I had no soul in it. I just did it for the money.'

'Can I help you carry it?', I asked.

'Yes. But hold it backwards so that no one can see it.'

We went into a corner shop to buy some water. I accidentally let the picture be seen. The woman behind the counter began to praise Roman's creation, à la 'It's good to see a young man pursuing his talent'. The drunk teenager in the shop also began to praise Roman, and almost frisked me trying to touch the painting. I let her see it, but not touch. I might not understand art, but I appreciate the effort.

Later, when we left the shop, we saw her with a group of friends shouting about the amazing talent she had just witnessed.

'She's just drunk,' Roman said, 'She doesn't actually know what she's talking about. I never take that kind of praise seriously. It's just superficial and sensationalist. I get it all the time. Often from the same people who used to tell me I was wasting my time painting...'

We walked home past the crumbling old houses, under a graffiti-infected bridge, past a park... 

We walked home past the crumbling old houses, under a graffiti-infected bridge, past a park...  At one point I stopped and peed in a bush. Roman laughed at me. The walk home was pleasant but seemed to last hours. I became like a child, always asking whether we would reach our destination soon... He smiled and said that we just had to suffer a little bit longer.

'Russians love to suffer,' he cried ironically with an intoxicating joy in his eyes. 

We arrived home, philosophized on love, creativity and romance. I realized that he was a very special and intelligent man. I dimmed the lights and as he slept, I played the music of his favourite artist, Enya, and, coincidentally, his favourite song.

The next day he woke up and thanked me profusely.

'I've never had someone take such care for me in a long time,' he said, 'I woke up for half a second in the middle of the night and heard that you had turned on 'Caribbean Blue' so that I would sleep calmly. You were thinking of me even in my sleep'.

You were thinking of me, even in my sleep. 

I didn't have the heart to tell him that it wasn't deliberate.
I sensed that he was falling in love with me.

I became more strict and a bit colder, but not very much. I told him that we could probably never be together. I was quite categorical. But he wasn't phased. He continued to smile in such a pure way that it almost made me regret my severity.  

'I don't expect to find someone,' he said. 'The only way for people like us to find a partner is through the internet. In Russia there is no other way. It's completely realistic to think that I might end up with no one at all, and I am growing used to that. I don't get disappointed anymore. I've talked to all the boys on the site in Gelendzhik. I know every one of them and now the only new ones are the young people who have just discovered themselves... I don't want that. I still log in. I still sometimes write a message. But I don't expect anything more. Just the usual idiots, I think, and the occasional good person who stops replying...'

Roman left early on Monday morning. I took him to the tram. It was cold. He hugged me rather than shake hands. (Most boys, even if they like me, are too afraid to hug me. They want to avoid any sign that they might be 'other', to protect themselves from possible abuse.) The hug was short, but mildly prolonged. We parted and I agreed to visit him in Gelendzhik in a few weeks time

Arriving in Gelendzhik

A picture of KFC just after dawn. It was near where I lived. I don't fully understand why, but I found this scene enchanting. 

I tried to arrive at the bus station as early as possible, depriving myself of sleep and stepping out into the cold air. I took pictures of the clear dawn over the city, wondering why so many people were already awake. It was a Saturday morning. I was very inappropriately dressed: no coat, just a thin jumper. I held two bags on my shoulders: one of which contained my laptop. I thoroughly expected Roman to inspire me to write something beautiful, and, in that case, I would much prefer immediate access to microsoft word. I also hoped that, given that Gelendzhik is a summer sunbathing resort and further south, I would be basked in warmth.  

I could have pulled out more layers from my bags, but I felt refreshed by the breeze and by the sense of adventure. I had heard that there were mountains around Gelendzhik and this made my mind tingle. I love mountains. They create a sense of awe and endlessness in my psyche, which somehow combined with a feeling of security: mountains are both a space of transition and adventure, often forming the boundaries between countries and cultures, and a space of heightened comfort: old wooden houses dangling on the edge of cliffs, toppling over stunning views, and inside nothing but warm rugs, tea and heart-hearth isolation. Finally I was going to the Caucasus! Finally I was becoming Lermontov!  Finally I would be inspired by grandeur and possibility! 

Sunset on the promenade at Gelendzhik. 

But, of course, dear reader, nothing is every straight forward in Russia and I soon made a typical foreign mistake:

"Give me a ticket for the next bus to Gelendzhik, please" I said through the perspex glass.
"You mean the..." The woman muttered a time.
"Is that the next available bus?"
"Yes," answered the woman.

I took the ticket and felt rather dismayed.  I would have an hour and 20 minute wait. 

I phoned Roman. 

"Listen, you said that the buses went regularly. Every hour...Why do I have to wait 80 minutes? I asked for the next bus."
"Oh, no, go back to the ticket desk! You shouldn't have asked for the "next" bus, but for the "nearest" bus. You could have got on the bus in 20 minutes."
"But there's a long queue, and maybe she won't change it. I guess I'll wait."

And I did wait. I pulled on my coat and watched strangers for over an hour. A man tried to sell me a ticket to Sochi. I declined, but made a mental note to visit there as soon as possible.

Four hours in the bus passed relatively quickly. I spent most of the time staring out of the window, expecting mountains, but I found no towering masses. The mountains near Gelendzhik are much lower and more subtle: deciduous woodland on softly curved peaks. It reminded me more of home than the space of transition and Caucasian frontiers I had expected. I guess I would have to go further south to find that kind of place...

Megaphone mountain. The name of this popular mobile phone company is written on the mountain. Roman tried to tell me the real name of the mountain . I immediately refused to listen. For me it will always be megaphone mountain: a place of mystery and mayhem.  Apparently megaphone gives the best signal around these parts, so I think the title is well deserved. 

Roman met me. He walked me to his home so I could leave my bags behind. When we arrived, I was in awe. In front of me stood a crooked, twisting staircase, made of wooden planks: each plank was a different colour. Some seemed new; some were ageing and worm-ridden; some were darker; some lighter; some had fallen away all together. They climbed up to what at first glance appeared to be a tree house: a small wooden shack. In reality, it was no tree house: just a home on stilts with a tree that has grown right up beside the porch, shadowing the entrance to the home.

I was in an odd state of awe. I could not conceal a huge, artistic smile as I met Roman's mother, greeted his cat and took of my shoes. Perhaps I appeared rude as I kept looking back onto the winding staircase and the tree with a feeling of euphoria: I had arrived in the provinces, and I was going to be spending the next few days in a comfy tree house! And they had slippers ready for me! And they didn't have central heating, just the gas stove! And the toilet seats were broken! And the wallpaper was funky and there was a carpet on one of the walls! It was beautiful! 

Like a good Russian, Roman's mother, a beautiful, smiley and laughing woman with red cheeks, a round face and dark hair, immediately proceeded to feed me. She took me into the living room, which also served as her bedroom. I took a seat at the edge of her rosy bedspread where there was a small table, and half slantedly glancing at the TV, I began to eat cabbage and carrot salad. I felt an immediate closeness between Roman and his mother. They watched a comedy programme, which I found difficult to understand, and turned to gauge the other's reaction before they laughed. It was very comfortable, and, despite being a sort of third wheel, I felt thoroughly at home. 

"Where do you store these kinds of beautiful paintings? How do you take care of them?"

"I have to store them in the shed."

"Isn't it damp?"

"I have no choice." 

Later that night we walked around the coastline at sunset. Roman showed be the beaches and the promenade. He discussed whether he should come out to his mother. I said that she would probably accept him whatever he did: they seemed inseparably close. He told me of some of his first loves. He told me that he expected to be alone for many more years and that he thought that possibly he would find someone, possibly not.

I felt very sad. Night fell. We walked home, and when his mother had gone to bed, Roman showed me a very bright mythological painting that he had painted aged 16. It was very beautiful and more so with every word he added to the description: inspired by Enya, it was the entrance into an unreal world, moon-lit and ethereal. 


'I don't like to translate her lyrics. When I understand them, I feel so disappointed.  It feels mundane. But the music is beautiful and mythical and it transports you to this untouchable world....like something from Lord of the Rings'

I am not a visual person. I am auditory. Roman made me listen to the song that had inspired him and stare at the picture and as I listened I remembered all the words of description tangling through my head, combined with the stories of his childhood and I grew to love the scene.

I asked him how he looked after his pictures.

"Where do you store these kinds of beautiful paintings? How do you take care of them?"

"I have to store them in the shed."

"Isn't it damp?"

"I have no choice." 

Later Roma told me a story that almost brought me to tears. Having forgotten most of the details, I asked him to rewrite what he said for the purposes of this blog. This is my translation of what he wrote, with some added levels of description in order to capture the atmosphere of his tale.

Love on the river

We met on the site. He wrote to me first and we soon developed a pretty active correspondence. Initially, he lived in Gelendzhik (where I was born), and I lived in Krasnodar (for study purposes), but pretty soon afterwards he moved to Krasnodar. He told me that he felt quite strong for me. He wrote some beautiful words. I had never heard those kinds of words from anyone before.... I didn't really believe him. After all, we had never even met in person. But, I can't deny, it was very pleasant to hear and I had always wanted to hear things like that from a person who I actually liked.

 We agreed to meet on a specific day. But, at the last minute, me and the whole of my art group at university were taken away to the mountains for 10 days of landscape painting near Goryachii Klyuch. It was torture. I had been so much looking forward to our meeting and then... they took us away at such an inconvenient time. For ten whole days. I suffered. I got angry. I couldn't work properly... I ruined everyone else's mood. I tried to phone through to him, and every phone call that managed to work out was like swallowing a breath of fresh air...

The night seemed extraordinary, strangely unusual

In the end, I met up with him on the exact day I returned from Goryachii Klyuch.  We met in the evening on Krasnaya Street. Very soon, I was going crazy for him. We ended up on the shore of the Kuban' River. The night seemed extraordinary, strangely unusual...Quiet and peaceful, the moon light up the night sky...Like in a fairytale. We walked together towards the other side of the river bank....Adygea began. The river banks were overgrown and tangled...Trees all around. We sat down in an embrace right next to the water. The moon lit up all that could be seen around us and was reflected, beautifully, on the river surface. We crossed the moonbeam road.... His words were warm. He said he loved me. At one point, my mistrust for him disappeared. I really wanted to believe that there was a person out there who appreciates me, towards whom I don't feel indifferent... I started to believe. We bought some gin tonic. We started to drink it and smoke a cigarette on the bank. It was pure joy. I was in that dream I had always imagined... Then we decided to walk a little further. He started to feel very ill because of the spirits...And just to make things worse, the police drive up to us. They were patrolling those places. They stopped us because he was being sick and staggering... I felt wonderful. The alcohol hadn't effected me at all...

 I thought the deal was done: I would get a fine and he would end up in prison for 15 days. 

They took us to the Adygean police station. I didn't know what to do there. The hours past. They inspected us and realized that I was a normal lad... With him it was a bit more difficult. He was behaving very oddly indeed. Like an idiot, really. I couldn't understand him, at all.  He started talking to the police about the most random topics. He told them he had a very difficult life (he'd never said anything to me about his life being particularly difficult). He even faked poverty.... I sat there, wondering who he had become and began to lose my mind listening to his words. I thought the deal was done: I would get a fine and he would end up in prison for 15 days. I didn't expect a good outcome.

The policeman grew sympathetic and finally let us go. He didn't even make a protocol. No fines.  Nothing. 

It was four in the morning. My friend told me that he had acted that way to achieve this result: a real actor. He had made it all up. A piece of mastery.

We walked along the river bank again. The moon was still shining. He stopped me, hugged me and kissed me. I melted into him. We lay on the grass...under the bridge...and I will never forget those moments... At about 6 we headed home. Time for him to go to work, time for me to go to art school. But I was in such a beautiful bliss that I couldn't force myself to go to class. I schemed it. I didn't phone him all day. Finally, I made a call and received the signal that his phone was off.  I continued to phone him many times. I started to worry about him... Finally he answered and it turned out that he had been at work, where he isn't allowed to talk on the phone (he's a waiter.) I calmed down. 

I quietly waited for him, standing under the rain...

In the days that followed he never called me unless I called him first... We met up a few more times. Near his home. He constantly talked about how busy he was; that he was up to his neck in work and that he couldn't even find time to carry out a normal phone conversation with me...In my heart I began to understand that maybe he was lying. But I didn't want to believe that yet. I trusted each of his words. He never phoned me first and as time progressed his telephone voice became ever more cold... I told him that if he was busy then I could at least meet with him after work...

He agreed.

 At 11pm it was raining....His restaurant was closing up. I quietly waited for him, standing under the rain, waiting for him to become free so that we could go home together...He came out on to the street and told me that they still had to clean up. I would have to wait 2 more hours....I decided to wait for him. My home wasn't too far from the restaurant. I went home to wait for him and....fell asleep. Waking up at 8am, I ran to the telephone expecting that he would have been calling me... But there were no missed calls. A great depression fell over me. I was very upset. In the depths of my soul I understood that this man was lying, that he didn't need me and that he was avoiding me. But, still, I wanted to believe. It feels good to keep believing. In my soul there was a feeling of uncertainty. I wanted a concrete answer: Are we together or are we not together?

I was on the verge of hysteria

I phoned him one more time. He offered me another meeting at 11pm. History repeated itself. I had to wait 2 more hours for him again...I went home to wait for him to phone me in 2 hours time... But I didn't let myself wait all night. 2 hours passed and on the dot I arrived at the restaurant. It was clear that it had closed a long time ago... I realized that it was just another one of his deceptions. I was on the verge of hysteria. It was so painful...

A few days passed and I decided to go to his restaurant whilst he was working. I told him to delete my number. He coldly replied: 'okay'. And that was it... Clearly he had already put an end to our relationship a long time ago. He had simply never bothered to tell me...I told him these things not for him, but for myself. So that I would feel calm again. It was a huge relief, even though I still didn't manage to sleep for a day and a half... I just cried. Odd. I very rarely cry. This was the exception. 

At this moment, I felt very impressed by Roman. He had fulfilled the role of the dreamer. The beautiful Russian dreamer I had read about and felt so close to myself. Naive, a little bit detached from reality, willing to forgive ugliness in humanity and keep believing in the best...

This night, I let my defences fall again. Even though I had felt from the first instinct that I would never be able to fall in love with Roman; that it wouldn't work out; that something was missing; I felt so overwhelmed by the scenery, the canvasses, the stories of naivety and dreams, the warmth of that tree house that I fell asleep in his arms. 

In the morning, I already felt guilty for leading him on, but in the moment I was warm and I was happy. I had already told him openly how I felt about him and, smiling, he had accepted it, as if he had expected it from the beginning. In the morning I repeated it, and the reaction was the same. With Roman, you often feel like he already knows. 

Wide crack

After breakfast we took the bus to 'wide crack' (широкая щель). This was the name of the small village, not far from Gelendzhik, where Roman had spent much of his teenage years. He wanted me to appreciate the mountains, the deciduous forest and the flourishing autumn.

We took the bus from what looked like an ageing tin shelter and travelled to the village. There were two stops: the village centre and the road entrance to the village. They were about 200 metres apart. There was one shop in the village. It was closer to the road than the village centre. Sometimes in the summer they open a bar. 

A piece of graffiti written by Roman's old sauna buddy: 'It's not sweeping that makes a place clean, it's about not making a mess in the first place.' A wee bit ironic. 

Roman told me that the shop was run by his mother and his aunt, that business has been going poorly lately due to rises in prices and that in some ways he resented returning to the village because he knew every single person there and was condemned to small talk with people who hadn't changed in many years. From my own experience I can confirm that the smaller the place, the more time and lives seem stagnant.  On the other hand, Roman reassured me that he had many warm acquaintances here and, in the beauty of its landscape, it was the only place of recent times that could inspire him. It kept him feeling alive and creative with no real concrete goals for the coming years. 

Roman grew angry at the sight of a large group of runners. They had invaded the village for a competition, set up all sorts of odd orange barriers, started blasting their megaphones and even put up some sort of bizarre bouncy castle finishing line. It lacked the floor that a bouncy castle has, but it was much too inflatable to be an arch of triumph. Pondersome.  

'Now we won't have privacy. Now you won't see the real side of the village... I hope they leave soon. Otherwise I won't be able to paint for days. And it's getting colder and closer to Winter. I'm running out of Autumn...'

Certainly, it did feel a bit weird to hear the visitors' loud Russian pop blared through the trees as we walked up a slope away from the village, but in a way it was very well placed to underline one of Roman's main concerns: the character of the village was changing; one of the farmers was destroying areas of landscape where Roman liked to paint and more and more people were moving to the area. I could appreciate Roman's concern, but, given that the village centre was a circle of concrete with a bus stop (buses come 4 times a day) and you could probably only swing half a cat in the village shop, I wasn't completely sure that it was on its way to becoming a metropolis. 

She bore one year of abuse and then left, taking her child and her dignity. 

We spent a long time in the trees, just listening to music and thinking. I almost fell asleep on a log. Roman grew quiet and lay on my knees. He told me many stories, but the stories have faded and grown into each other. He had lived here with his step father and mother. At one point, the stepfather almost destroyed the relationship between Roman and his mother. He began to beat her and drink heavily. She bore one year of abuse and then left, taking her child and her dignity. 'It could have been longer,' said Roman gratefully. 

He also told me about a boy he had spent time with as a young teenager. They had their first sexual experience in the sauna together. It happened several times after that with each visit to the sauna... Roman had grown to like him and their meetings. But after unpleasant incidents with his stepfather, Roman moved away, back to Gelendzhik, and, low and behold, now this young man still lives in the village, has got married, his young wife has born children and he has become a very heavy drinker. We can only wonder what demons he might have. 

The dogs roam wild around the village without supervision. They're friendly though, even if they do look like they should be protecting their owners' houses rather than approaching strangers looking for cuddles. 

Ancient cave homes in 'Wide Crack'. 

On the way back from the village, two old women entered the bus with huge carts of apples that seemed impossibly heavy. Roman and I helped them with their burdens and felt thoroughly heroic as we lugged them to their positions. They looked on proudly.

 There were also two old men who had a heated argument about whether or not one of them had actually served in the war. 

'You're bullshitting!" one accused.
"No, I fought against the facists just like you!"
"Prove it! I'm sit of you fakers!"

It felt very surreal. Old wounds hadn't healed and, judging from the population of the bus, the village was ageing quickly. Luckily, the men ended up being great pals in the end and even agreed to have tea some day. Fighting the fascists can be a real solid base for friendship, it seems. Just make sure to prove you weren't one of those pussy pacifists first though, because that just wouldn't wash. 

I came home. Tried to eat Roman's mother's dinner of dried porridge and meat, but couldn't force myself to digest it. It wasn't her fault. She had done her best and I had honestly tried my best, trying not to waste what had already been prepared and killed. I just don't appreciate a lot of Russian cuisine. But she didn't seem to understand this. I tried to reassure her, but my words probably didn't reach her the way I intended.

The strings of the beautiful story suddenly grew limp, I began to feel uninspired, Roman didn't seem creative any more,  I didn't feel creative any more, all I felt was an urge to leave...before I complicated the connections between me and Roman any more. We went to the bus station. I had a tense conversation about my pronunciation of certain Russian vowels and how I should improve them. And then I left. Somehow the magic had faded. Maybe it was tiredness.

It wasn't the last time I saw Roman, but it is the last event in this blog. I will leave you waiting for the conclusion. 

Good luck, and thank you for bearing with a long read,

yours,
D.