Spring blogs: 1) An attempt to begin

People who have read my blog before will be well aware of one truth: the less I write, probably the more I am living. In recent times this general rule has reached one of its most perfect culminations: in the last month I have returned to Krasnodar with plans of stability and tea, had a strange bout of mental awakening, left all my obligations behind and moved to the road.

Let me explain.

I arrived back in Krasnodar under a form of mental pressure that, in some ways, I had created for myself: I had taken the decision to return to the south of Russia after Christmas in advance. This was not because I had a strong desire to return to a particular place: it was purely because I had been forced to make a decision about my future a few months prior to the actual event. I wasn't paying for my tickets home: my parents had decided to do it as a Christmas present. Moreover, I knew that if I wanted to go somewhere else in Russia for a longer period of time it would require: a new visa, a lot of planning and a wait of over 2 months (Visa invitation: 6 weeks. Various interactions with universities or inviting organizations including endless self-gratifying reworkings of my CV: minimum 2 weeks. Visa hassle at the embassy in London: probably 46 years + VAT.)

This goes against my nature: I have, admittedly, always made vague plans in advance, but merely in a dreamer-like state. I rarely achieve these dreams in a concrete sense: they motivate me, they let my mind find a creative space and they pass the time. But when it comes to making a big decision, I normally take it completely at the last minute and often on a whim: I don't understand how it is possible to process all the ups and downs of a certain action as if I were the emotionless inner cell of a super computer and, moreover, so many factors are unpredictable. As a result, to date my majorlife decisions have  been somewhat spontaneous and a little bit emotionally mangled. An example: I only applied to my university in England at the very last minute, having been pressurised by a certain teacher who had called my house phone, invited me over for tea and persistently convinced me for several hours that I wasn't too inadequate for Cambridge.

As a result, when my father asked me whether I would return to Krasnodar after Christmas - in October (OCTOBER! THE TIPS OF THE LEAVES WERE BARELY ORANGIFIED!), I soon replied something along the lines of 'alright then'. I was quite happy at that point in time and I couldn't face disappointing him with steeply increasing flights. If I had had my own way, I probably would have made the decision the night before, spent 700 quid on a one way flight and ended up raising flocks of sheep on the slopes of a Tajik mountain. This, however, did not happen. I fear the restless flocks of Tajikistan must continue their impatient and brave-heared wait for an Irish shepherd.

I digress.

After Christmas, I returned to Krasnodar with an odd feeling: I couldn't decide whether I would like it or not, but something was telling me that, probably, not. I flew to Russia through Cambridge, where I had decided to visit my old friends, but ended up just getting horribly ill and sleeping with a stiff neck on a sweaty sofa bed for 13 hours a day, probably disappointing all of those I had decided to smother with unpredictable Russian love. The old streets of Cambridge faded into a beautifuly familiar, but cold and infected blur. I left the city with a feeling that I was close to facing doom (not because I was actually in the throws of a liver cirrhosis or almost croaking the Marseillaise on my death bed, but because I like to fill myself with hopeless dramatic pride in adverse circumstances: especially when I am a reduced state of health.) The journey consisted of the following elements:

1) A 15 minute taxi to Cambridge train station
2)  A 40 minute train to Stansted Airport, London
3) A 2 hour wait
4) A 5 hour flight to Istanbul
5) A 6 hour wait in Istanbul's favourite airport! ... No, not the nice one in the centre that bears the name of the nation's modern day founder,  Mr. Atatürk, but rather the one that is in Asia, is seductively known as Sabiha Gökçen and is full of ridiculously overpriced services, including wifi access that you pay for, not knowing in advance whether it is actually going to connect or or not. In my case: not.  

The airport is both vast and small: it seemed to me that the distances between shops were large and formidable like the prospects of some Stalinist city, but the actual space the airport occupied was rather small or, at least, navigatable. But then again, this could be wrong. After all, I was high on over-the-counter narcotics. The best way to counter any bout of the cold/flu: get off your tits on paracetemol. In any case, a bottle of water is priced 'ridiculous'. But that was to be expected.

The building is full of really edgy looking (in the good sense of 'edgy') backpackers who are half their way to India and have already descended on the phemonenom of dreadlocks, and lots of really confused Russian-speakers who are transferring to... well, somewhere Russian-speaking. One of these Russian-speakers included an old couple who had arrived for their holiday in Istanbul and, not knowing a word of either English or Turkish, queued up at the transfer desk where they proceeded to show the staff their hotel registration. I felt like a hero as I explained to them that they were, in fact, already in Istanbul and they could just calmy leave the airport. The exit was to their right. I really hope they found their way. Cute people.

 6) A 2 and a bit flight to Krasnodar. Well, supposedly two-and-a-bit. We ended up waiting on the runway when we had arrived for about 30-40 minutes. I didn't really understand why. I think it was something to do with steps. In any case, I was coughing every two seconds with my plague-like symptoms and, having run out of tissues, I was receving rather dirty looks. I felt like the little boy at school who has soiled himself on the bus to a field trip and can't do anything about it until arrival. Dirt, infection, dirt, disease, infection, the disdain of the Russian soul to the coughing old goat.... But then a Turkish woman gave me a pack of tissues and it was all dandy.

7) An extra wait that was reserved exclusively for foreigners. Our airline had forgotten to hand out landing cards before landing (I had even grown nervous and requested them with that help-button thingy during the flight, but they dismissed my worries) and, as a result, we were made to wait another half-an-hour in a fairly cold, dismal space (the doors both existed and failed to exist. There is no way to describe) as the immigration people chased up the airline. Finally they brought to us the little paper forms, we filled them out and passed through the border.

I then went to a taxi, where the olive-skinned Armenian driver decided to tell me he was 'black' (He meant he wasn't Russian) and informed me that the best way to rid myself of my cough was to drink some sort of special spicy vodka, plus tea with honey, and to 'fuck a girl'. I only drank the tea with honey in the end. For some bizare reason which I'm sure none of you will understand, I didn't feel like using my financial resources to order some sort of vodka-bearing seductress and ask her for copulation.

He was definitely chauvinist. But, on the other hand, he was kind and friendly to me. One of the constant contrasts you get when travelling: you meet people with political views you find either out-dated or a tad abhorrent and yet they shower you in kindness. I've learnt that this isn't even a contradiction of terms: it's just ignorance or difference, however unpleasant, that doesn't stop someone from being a realitively good human being.

At some time in the depths of the caucasian night, we arrived at my new home. I was going to be living with a psychologist and her grandmother, both of whom, as I expected, are kind people. The grandmother, despite being well over 80, is completely physically fit and constantly active: she makes jam. She mends clothes. She makes more jam. She makes tea. She makes pickled cucumbers. She goes to the shops and the dacha. She worries (constantly) about her children and her grandchildren and her great-grandchildren and even about me. On one ocassion, when I slept until 3pm (a normal student) she told my room-mate that she thought I had died. On another occasion, she 'almost sent the police out' to look for me because I decided to sleep at a friend's house.  This sounds restrictive: but really it's not. She's far too cute and good-hearted to make me feel restricted under control. She is also absolutely full of advice on healthy-living, constantly telling me which products to take when you're ill ('Onion!', 'Honey!', 'Garlic!'), plus, of course, the stories of her life. Here are a few quotations  (paraphrased from my memory):

'I don't understand why young people don't eat enough bread. Bread is the second gold. When we were starving during the war, we could barely move. But when they gave us bread, our strength came back and we could move again. Brother kept the bread in his mouth for as long as he could, until it dissolved away, because he loved the taste so much.'

'You should get married, dear Daniel. You need someone to mend your jackets and shoes. My husband was always nice and clean and presentable. He would be standing on the dusty tram stop in the most beautiful white shirts. I loved him so much and he loved me. I always took care of him as best as I could so that he became the envy of the neighbours. A good man, who did everything for his loved ones. May the eternal kingdom be upon him.'

'I'll have Putin any day. Putin is stability. Putin means that you know tomorrow that you will have enough to eat and a roof over your head. Before him people were poor and times were so confused. We don't need a new president: food, a house, loved ones, order - what more do you need?'

Nonetheless, despite the human warmth of being given such care, I was feeling very unsettled. I felt like a phase in my life had past: I loved my old clients (English teaching), but I didn't want to keep doing the same thing. Nor did I want to keep following the courses at my university. Some of the warm people I had left behind were still in the same places, but they were happy up high in their apartments and in their relationships and I was somehow mentally demanding more. I felt lonely in a place I used to know. 

I put pressure on myself to return to the life I had before christmas. But phases pass. And although things were good, in some way they were now over. It grew cold and the ice started to fall from the trees. The roads became blocked. Houses were damaged, the park near were I live was full of torn-up branches...Something was cracking.  



I needed to leave. 

 I called my friend in Yekaterinburg (whom I had never seen in real life, only through active correspondence). I told him that in 2 days I would fly to see him, despite the money, despite the risk, despite the fact that it required abandoning all my plans indefinitely. He told me to come live with him, find work and clear my mind. I quit my job last minute, flew 2500 miles away and left everything behind. Adventure was better than confusion, boredom and the odd mental state I had tangled myself into.

He greeted me in -30 cold at the airport at 2am.  He gave me a handshake. I didn't know if and when I would return to Krasnodar...

1 month has passed and I have no regrets. It's now my task to keep you informed of what has happened. But for now, I think you can wait. This is, after all, only an 'attempt to begin'. 

 

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. 

Meeting the Mafia

My ghostly home in  Krasnodar, which I recently moved out of for good. It looks much more ghostly by night. Believe me. 

Russia has faded from my mind, a new environment has risen up…

It's time to write a sentimental post about the past four months in Russia, crying into a teacup and wondering about what it all means. But I will control myself. I want it to build up, emotionally and in plot terms, so that I can process things in a more logical manner before I start writing Ginsbergesque poetry that no one can understand and which will end up much worse than Ginsberg.

As a result, I am going to catch up, chunk by chunk, on the mysterious, mad and wonderful events that have happened during these months that I never had the time, motivation or retrospect to process in written form.

The titles will be something along the following lines:

1) Meeting the Mafia

2) The Snow

3) Poetry in the Caucasus

4) Helping the Homeless

For the meantime, the title of this post, which, dear reader, illuminates on your screen, is: "Meeting the Mafia". It aims to tell the story of my final evening in Russia before returning to the UK for a one month Christmas break.

I wasn't prepared to leave. I had decided to spend my final day seeing as many friends as I could meet, rather than beginning to pack my suitcases and empty my bedroom. This has always been my pattern. Unless I am forced to pack in one hour, I will take 12 hours to do it, stopping after every 3 minutes to reminisce, to read a line from a book that I never felt inspired to open before, or to just stare stupidly at the ceiling, wondering at how wine managed to get up there or why I had never noticed the design before.

On my final day I met four friends: first, I tried out lots of strange snacks with my Armenian linguist friend, who talked about why he hates Moscow. “It’s like a huge virus: it sucks up all the people from the rest of the country and after a few years they already consider themselves Muscovites and start to behave like one, which is really quite unpleasant. There’s Russia and there’s Moscow. In Moscow people have a good quality of life: the pension is 10 times higher than here in Krasnodar. It’s where you come to get rich. As long as Moscow is doing well, it’s not really that important what happens everywhere else.”

Then I had a long walk with my first friend in Russia. We reminisced about those days when I had arrived, when I had been very unstable and very confused. Cultural shock. He told me about a time he went to an orgy and convinced me that the human race is evolving in such a way that men are dying out and women will reproduce by themselves.

 Afterwards I had a lesson with one of my favourite students which, towards the end, was interrupted by a phone call. Where in England, answering the phone would be very rude, in Russia it seems normal to take calls at any time. It can actually be quite offensive not to answer a call – people get worried and phone about 6 times. You could have been dead, you know. It’s better to answer and say “Hi. Call me back in an hour, please. I’m in a lesson/ at work/ on a tram/ at my granny's / in a sauna/ at an orgy/ eating waffles and too lazy to chat” and then hang up. That way they will be calm. And they’ll probably not phone back anyway, because they were just calling for a chat. You also get a lot of calls from unknown numbers in Russia: they don’t text you beforehand to warn you who they are, they just call and you’re expected to answer. This was the case with my new phone friend. The conversation went as followed:

Unknown individual:       ‘HELLO. Who are you?’

Me:    ‘Ammm…who is this? Can you tell me who you are?’

Unknown individual:       ‘Why did you send Nikita a text??? Who are you? I will find out who you are!”

Me:    “I don’t even know Nikita…Why don’t you phone me back after my lesson? But I’m pretty sure you’ve got the wrong number.”

…Hang up.

I continued, finished the lesson and walked out into the cold towards the tram. I decided not to answer the stranger’s calls. I needed to get home and pack, not listen to someone shout at me in Russian. I dropped the call about 4 times. I hoped he would give up. But no, he kept calling and an angry, badly-spelt text soon arrived. It went something like this (all text messages loosely translated, to keep the general feeling of how he would have written in English):

“And, do u no even who I is??? Tomorrow Ill go to ur uni and find u. Answer now!!!” 

I decided to pick up the phone. I had a tram to wait for. Maybe it would kill time. His crazy, angry rant continued. I asked him whether he knew my name. He said I was called Denis. I told him my name wasn’t Denis and I couldn’t think of anyone called Nikita. He replied that he was a very jealous man and that he would find me. It was only a matter of time.  He needed to talk to me immediately and in person. I proceeded to explain that he shouldn’t be jealous, that I was a complete stranger and that I didn’t know him. He told me that he would drive to my house and come “sort things out”. I was just about to call bullshit on this prank call when he said ‘You live on Tamanskaya, don’t you?’. Now it wasn’t just a jealous madman on the phone; it was a jealous madman who knew my address...

‘Tell me where you are right now! I will come drive to get you!”

“I’m not at home. Don’t come. I’m leaving for Ireland in 6 hours and when I come back, I’ll be living somewhere else, so there’s no point trying to find me.”

“I’ll send a car for you. I’m coming.”

At this point, I hung up. I thought maybe he would calm down. I felt nervous as I got on the tram to come home. I had arranged to meet my good friend Julia at my house. She would help me pack, take one of my suitcases to her home for the Christmas period, and say goodbye.  I didn’t want to cancel the meeting for the sake of an unknown madman and I thought she might protect me for those 2 hours whilst I was packing my suitcase.

I continued to reply to his text messages, but ignore the calls.

Me: “Who are you? Why are you threatening me? I’ll phone the police.” (I wrote this text message in my UK mentality and only later did I remember that the police here probably wouldn’t help me. They would just laugh, and, if they did send someone out, it wouldn’t be to protect me against a madman, but probably to bribe me for something or other.)

Half an hour passes. No reply to the texts. But more unanswered phone calls on his side.

Me: “Who are you?”

15 minutes pass.  More calls. Finally a text message comes.

Stranger: “Let’s let this go. Good luck.”

Okay, I thought, the stranger has just threatened me, told me my address, phoned me about 40 times and then decided to calm down, move on and wish me good luck. In Russian, wishing someone ‘good luck’ is often a parting greeting i.e. a way of saying ‘we’ll never see each other again. Good luck with life and all that jazz’. Okay, I thought, I have to find out who the madman is at least, for my own curiosity. As a result, I texted him back, trying to mimic Russian assertiveness:

Me: I want to find out who you are. You were very aggressive and unpleasant towards me in the phone call. I don’t tolerate this kind of behaviour!" 

He tries to phone me a few more times. I send another text asking him to reply to my messages instead of incessantly calling me.

Me: ‘Who are you?’

Stranger: ‘The mafia.’

Me: ‘Aha. Yes, of course.’

Ten minutes pass. I get more and more curious about who this person is and why they are telling me they’re in the mafia. Maybe he’s like some sort of gay basher in a big gay bashing mafia? ‘Oh well’, I thought, ‘if he’s going to bash me, he only has a few hours before I leave the country. I might as well try to find out who he is’.

Me: ‘Tell me who you are. Without any jokes.’

Stranger: ‘U think this is a joke?? If you dont believe, I can drive to u right now!!! The no. of the car is… H222HH23.’

I decided not to reply.  I was already at home and packing my bags. I wasn’t about to go outside and stand waiting for a H222HH23 (Why did the car have so many H's and 2's? Was it a code?). At this point, I was pretty sure it was some guy who had found out my address from someone else and had just decided to go a bit mad. Maybe he was drunk.

After 15 minutes, I received another text: “Do u not beleeve me??? Were shud my my car cum pick u up??? It will b dis one: Number A 555 XX 05. Toyota Landcruiser’

Okay. So the psycho had already changed cars. I guess he didn't like all those H's and 2's. I decided that, even though he was probably just foaming at the mouth from rabies and general insanity, I would be careful and brush him off firmly. 

Me: “I don’t want to meet up with an absolute stranger! Don’t write to me again! Don’t call me again! Understood?”

Then I remembered he knew my address. I decided that, just in case he did decide to drive up to my house without my permission and start some sort of incoherent scandal, I would throw him off the scent by saying that I was somewhere else. As a result, I sent him a text saying I was at a friend's house on Montazhnikov street, which is about 40 minutes from where I live.

About 20 minutes passed. I got home and started packing. He hadn’t replied. I got a bit lonely. I don’t like packing – it makes me nostalgic and I can easily start crying. As a result, I decided to text him back some gibberish. He was clearly insane, right? Two could play at that game. 

Me: “Baby! Baby! BABY!!! I’m waiting for you in the badger’s den! Come quick!!!!”

I was interested in what he would say about the badger’s den. Would he think it was some sort of secret society or the code name for that random address on Montazhnikov street I had given him? Maybe he would think I was a badger.  Badger, badger, badger. 'What sounds to badgers make?' I pondered. 

I remembered that famous badger-badger-badger-mushroom video. I wondered what it would be like to lock someone in a room with padded walls and just play that song over and over again for several plays. Would it be more effective than conventional torture?

Link to the Badger Song

Badgers aside, our dear jealous friend soon replied.

‘Do u think this is a game??? Okay. Just u wait n see!!!’

10 minutes pass. Julia arrives. We have a great old time and I give her a bag full of Christmas presents, which, to be honest, was mostly the stuff I couldn’t take home with me anyway (tinsel, air freshener, cat food), plus a small gift. In return, she gave me some chocolate. We talked about our emotional lives, got lost in our tea and chat, and forgot about the insane man and the badgers. So many odd things like this happen in Russia, that I’ve started to just take them as normal. If anything strange or bad occurs in Russia, it is automatically justified with ‘это Россия, детка» (“Guurrrl, this is Russia.”). I had adopted this mentality. Shit happens. 

Nonetheless, after about an hour I received another text.

“Ive already arrived! Im at the intersektion of Montazhnikov/Garazhnaya!”

I told Julia the story. She said that I could go to her house if I liked and stay there until  I had to go to the airport at 2am. I declined, but thought seriously of taking up the offer. We decided it was just some sort of ridiculously jealous madman, who thought I had slept with his boyfriend (this mysterious Nikita he had mentioned). I tried really hard to think of who Nikita could be and why I would have texted him. Finally, I remembered: It was Nik! (Okay. I was a bit slow in working out the puzzle. But I genuinely thought that Nik’s full name was Nikolai, not Nikita).

Nik was a guy, who I had met with once.  He had written to me online for about 2 months, constantly wanting to meet up, but not really giving me any good reason to do so. Finally, one day I gave in and invited him for tea. We ended up chatting for about 2 hours. He was just over thirty, but had already decided that he was probably too old to leave Russia, even though he’d like to. He seemed like quite a nice man. Fairly intelligent, if not that interesting. I had expected he would just be one of those relatively dim older guys who ask me questions like “Is Ireland in Scotland?’ or ‘Do you speak Dutch in Ireland?” and then proceed to flirt with me, not knowing that if you get my country wrong, I’m definitely not going to fall into your elderly seduction clutches.

To be fair, though, I had almost completely forgotten about Nik, apart from the fact that he had offered to let me live in his old apartment after New Year ('You'll be living with some friendly gays. I'm just moving out because they don't have a washing machine and they don't wash their dishes. It's unacceptable: I only forgive disorder and messiness in people under 25'). Recently, about 2 days ago, I had sent him a new message asking why he had never got back to me about the apartment and, in my new found harsh Russian honesty, said that we’d probably never meet again, so good luck with life and all that jazz. Suddenly I began to form a picture: maybe this madman was his boyfriend (that I hadn’t been informed about), who was reacting to what must have sounded like a dramatic parting message from a virulent lover.

The text messages continued:

Stranger: U invited me heer. And now u dn’t want 2 meet?

Me:  What do you want from me? Are you trying to be friends with me or are you threatening me?

Stranger: (Blank text)

3 minutes pass.

Stranger: Its not me whos waitin der but my people! If u want dey will tak u to my house! I live in the german village.

Me: And what are we going to do in the German village?

Stranger: Come out now. A 555 XX 05 Toyota Landcruiser is waiting for u. Ill take u 2 the airport.

Me: Is it waiting on Montazhnikov? You know, I’m not going to get into a stranger’s car.

Stranger: Its on the intersection Montazhnikov/garazhnaya.

At this point Julia decided to leave. I hauled my suitcase down 4 flights of stairs, lifted it into her car and we parted with much love and affection, speaking the most beautiful, dramatic New Year wishes into the cold night air.

“A beautiful and fulfilling new year!” I cried.

 “Happiness and love!” she shouted back.

I almost cried. Where with most other people this would have been sickeningly sentimental, with my dear friend Julia, an honest and kind person, it felt somehow a relief to shout such beautiful words into crisp night and actually mean the sentiment. I could almost imagine how they would add the effects in a film: the words would be uttered from our mouths, twist up like a warm breath in cold air, white, dusty letters across the screen, rising up to some sort of heaven and then when they had reached the roof of my dilapidated, 4 storey ghost house, they would intertwine, fade and just become ever more unclear, more distant, more elusive…

But, of course, packing removed my sentimentality once more. Having remember which Nik we were talking about, I decided to give him a call. It went as follows:

'Hello.'

'Hello. Can I ask you a rather awkward question? Are you Nikolai or Nikita? I’ve always just thought of you as Nikita.'

'I’m Nikita.'

'Oh, well, then I really need to tell you something… today this crazy man phoned up and said that he knew you, asked me why I had texted you and told me that he was a very jealous person. I felt like he was threatening me.'

'Oh, yeah, he probably was. He is extremely jealous.'

'Did you used to date or something?'

'Yes, you could say it like that…'

'You know, I think he’s quite dumb, no offence. All his texts are in really weird, grammatically incorrect Russian with terrible spelling.'

'He’s not dumb, he’s just a foreigner. He’s from Uzbekistan.'

'Oh, I see. And why is he phoning me? He won’t stop.'

'As I said, he’s jealous. Just don’t answer. I don't know what he'll do'

#Okay. I won’t. But yeah, I’d stay clear of this guy, Nik. He sounds absolutely crazy. He seems to be sending cars out across the city to look for me. And he told me he was in the Mafia…'

At this point, rather than denying that the Uzbek man is in the mafia, Nik wishes me a happy new year, a good flight and says that he hopes we will meet again. Our conversation ends on a positive note.

Intrigued, and with still 2 hours to go before I had to be at the airport, I decided to phone the Uzbek man and explain the situation, hoping that this time he would be more coherent and the phone quality would be better. Maybe that way he would move his car away and go home.

‘Hello.’

‘Hello. Why didn’t you come out to the car on Montazhnikov?’

‘Well, to be frank with you, I thought you were a psychopath. Firstly, you never explained who you were, secondly, you weren’t making any coherent sense. You just kept saying you were jealous and needed to see me immediately. Do you think that's normal behaviour?’

…

I then proceeded to explain how I had met Nik and reassured my dear Uzbek that I was not having an affair with him. Nik was all his -- as long as Nik consented to that, of course. I felt compelled, however, to tell him that this is not the appropriate way to behave with someone. I transformed into a sort of bizarre counsellor for a complete stranger, listening carefully to his every word, speaking in soft tones (although sometimes in harsh words), and reminding him that this kind of extreme jealous would not be beneficial: not to him (‘it’s clearly making you act in an extreme manner. It’s not normal to phone a complete stranger in rage’), nor to Nik (who sounded pretty afraid on the phone) or really to me.

He told me his story. He said that he was a successful business man in Krasnodar, that he had 3 cars and he had sent some of his employees out to wait for me on Montazhnikov. He insisted that he wasn’t angry (‘I’m not that kind of person. I would meet you before I judged!’) but that he simply wanted to meet me in person so we could clear up the situation. He told me that he had fallen madly in love with Nik (‘even though I never normally date old guys. I used to date twenty year olds’) and that he was, by nature, an extremely jealous guy.

‘What do mean you’re jealous?’

‘It’s in my nature. I just always get crazy jealous. I can't control it.’

‘It can’t just be in your nature. There has to be something behind it. There must be some reason for you feeling so uncontrollably jealous. You need to find out what it was. And in the meantime, think logically: who is this jealousy helping? It’s scaring off complete strangers and driving Nik further and further away. The more jealous you act, the more he’ll think you’ve lost your mind’.

Apparently he had known Nik only for 2 months, but was already doing all he could to help him, or, in my mind, control him.

‘I paid for him to get a huge apartment in the city centre. That’s why he moved out. I told him from the very start that if he met any other guys, I would castrate him. I paid some of my workers to follow him around the city… I found out who he was seeing and what he was doing.’

‘You do know that makes you absolutely insane, right? That is not acceptable behaviour.  The less freedom you give him, the more he’ll run for the hills…  Was he your boyfriend?’

‘I’m in love with him.’

‘But is he your boyfriend? Did he ever actually say the words ‘I am your boyfriend’ or ‘We are in a relationship’?’

‘No.’

‘Then frankly you have no right to be controlling his life, sending cars around the city to search for potential lovers and to tell him who he can or cannot date. Even when you are in a relationship, you have to give people freedom. You have to base it on trust, otherwise you’ll live in suspicion the whole time and destroy yourself. But you’re not even in a relationship.’

‘I told him I loved him. He said he didn’t love me yet.’

‘He’s not your boyfriend. Let him be free. Don’t go crazy, jealous, because the way you acted today was not even half a step from a mental asylum.’

‘Okay. But I love him!”

 ...

‘And what happened today?’

‘Today I saw his text to you and jumped to conclusions…’

‘You know I thought you were threatening me….’

‘Of course, I wasn’t! I’m not insane. I’m a good person, believe me,  I would get to know you first…I have to establish the facts.’

 ...

‘Why did you say you would come find me in university?’

‘Oh. I know people there. I know people everywhere. I’m very famous in this city. Everyone knows my name, everyone knows my car. I would have found you through someone or other.’

 ...

In the end, me and my old Uzbek friend ended up having an hour long phone conversation, which consisted mostly of me telling him that his behaviour was crazy, that he needed to learn to trust people and to not let his emotional state depend so strongly on the life of someone he had only met two months before.

‘But, Daniel, haven’t you ever loved before? What would you do if you loved someone and they were seeing someone else? Wouldn’t you be jealous?’

‘Yes.  I probably would be jealous, depending on the situation. But I wouldn’t take my jealousy out on a complete stranger. Who does that help? At some points tonight I literally thought you were a psychopath. I was ready to lock the doors. Jealousy is a very negative, destructive emotion. It’s better to understand. You don’t always have to forgive. But try to understand, and to let your emotions depend less on other people and more on yourself.’

After this long conversation, having felt like I was a supercounsellor (not least, having done it all in Russian), my dear Uzbek friend bid me farewell, threw his old New Year wishes of good luck and happiness into the telephonic air and promised that after Christmas he would track me down and we would have a lovely lunch at his expense.

I’m not sure whether to be happy to have made an Uzbek friend or whether to fear death by mafia on my return. In any case, I’ll try to keep him on my side. He does have 3 cars. I guess I should memorize those number plates…