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'. 

 

One day in Rostov

This week I didn't have the best time. The reasons are as follows

1) I had a lot of problems with clients for my English lessons cancelling on me, leaving me with a lot less money than I had expected;

2) I went through an existential crisis where I wondered whether the reason for me feeling like I wasn't progressing as fast as I wanted in Russian was because I have too high standards, too little time or I just feel like I'm not progressing when it's late at night, I'm tired and said exhaustion is making me incoherent, raving, and unable to communicate even in English;

3) I received a lot of weird messages from rude people on the internet (oh, mamba. The home of the hysterical, sex-deprived and emotionally-hungry) , including more than one individual asking whether I would be interested in cross-dressing for his entertainment (only if I could provide my own woman's clothes, of course) and a person who told me they had a mental block that meant they couldn't kiss, only spit;

4)  I was unsure about when to leave Krasnodar. Theoretically, I have permission to stay until June, but I'm starting to feel a whole year here will be too much. It's hard to make good friends with Russians (they work far too many hours and are almost never free) and I feel like I've gone as far as I can. But the flights back after Christmas are booked, so I have to come back for at least a month or so. A part of me is thinking of moving to St Petersburg in Spring (i.e. when there is actually sunlight), but this will require bureaucracy, flights back home to the UK, money and lots of planning;

As a result, when the tiredness made me want to cry and almost dispel my cat for its incessant meat-hunger, I decided to go to another city for a while. Hence my day trip to Rostov. Having woken up at 4am to deliberately get on a 6.50 train that I had looked up on the internet, I discovered that the 6.50 train never existed. Perhaps a mistake on my part, perhaps just one of those inconsistencies of Russian transport: this is, after all, the country where, having got on the tram that has '7' written in huge bright letters at the front, the conductor then tells you that it's actually travelling on the 'eighth route'. That is provided she remembers to say the station names at all. In any case, having been sent to 4 separate ticket desks, I finally succeeded in getting a ticket to Rostov, leaving earlier than expected on the 'suburban' train to the 'suburban' train station (I had no idea what any of this meant). It turned out to be fine and take me to the 'suburban' train station, which, coincidentally, is in the city centre, right next to the 'main' station. It turns out 'suburban' wasn't the correct translation, not that it stopped the signs in the train station for being translated that way.

'Passengers of the suburban message'. Sounds like the title for a bad rock band for disaffected teenagers from some Parisian bandelieue. Thanks to my dear student, Marina, for the photo. 

 I ended up reading Confucius at 7 am in a very cramped train bistro and drinking overly-sugared tea. Pretty comfy, really. The bufet lady, obviously dressed up for the important task of selling Mars bars and beer to migrant workers, was wearing huge heels and seductive make-up. Oh wait, that's normal dress code here. Russian woman, as a rule, try to be a lot more sophisticatedly dressed than Westerners, even if all they are doing is buying milk or pickled cabbage.  In any case, just when 4 burly soldiers had entered the bistro, there was a temporary power cut in the train lights: the train kept going, but the corridor lights went out, leaving us in the sexual darkness of one lamp on the bistro bar. To summarize: four muscly soldiers and a seductively dressed young woman in the almost-darkness. Not gonna lie, I felt like I was in a sex dungen. Pity it only lasted 5 seconds. 

 I arrived in Rostov, after 4 hours, with nowhere to stay, no friends in the city and no idea of where the 'suburban' train station actually left me. I decided to just get on the same bus everybody else seemed to be getting on, pay 15 rubles and stop if I saw somewhere pretty. I saw a typically shiny onioned Russian orthodox church and decided to get off. It was really quite impressive, and almost up to the very walls of the church were the innumerable stalls of the 'Central Market', including some  Orthodox icon shops, endorsed by the church itself. 'Really helps the image of the church,' I thought cynically, 'Selling goods and haggling right up until the doors of the sacred building. The capitalism of Christ.'. 

Somebody at the market left an upside-down cup on a blue chair on top of some cardboard in the middle of the street I didn't asked who it was for and what liquid was turned upside down only to vanish and become absorbed into the layers of cardboard, but I did ponder.

At this same market, I soon witnessed a woman laughing hysterically whilst selling raw fish and another old broad selling clothes on coat hangers: including coat hangers that were being held my her mouth. She was quite a beaut. 

Having bought a hat and gloves to greet the bitter, dusty wind, I found wifi and decided to log in to a site to see who would like to show an Irish man around the city. About 90% of people I wrote to didn't believe I was actually a foreigner given that a) there are practically no Westerners in this city and b) Westerners are expected to make a mistake in every second word when speaking Russian, given that it is a complicated language for those who don't have declension, perfective and imperfective tense systems and beautiful Slavic sounds in their native language. Nonetheless, after about 2 hours. I was being shown the city by Anton: a gay man from Rostov, who had studied philosophy at University, dreaming of becoming a professor infecting the youth with passion for knowledge and touching the edges of human mental gymnastics, but soon gave up realizing that the professors at his university were discouraged, ageing and not sure of the answers themselves. Not to mention, badly paid. In any case, he decided to become a chef and is now training, dreaming of emigrating to Sweden.

'I'm a Russophobe. I don't like life here, at all. I plan to leave, and luckily, my boyfriend supports me, even though he probably won't come with me.'

I asked him why he had chosen his boyfriend: whether they had some sort of deep intellectual connection, a passion for knowledge. After all, apart from the history of Rostov and the impressions it had made on my new friend's mind, we had been touching some pretty 'deep' themes.  He replied that no, his boyfriend was quite dim when it came to these topics, but he had concluded that an intellectual connection wasn't necessary for a long term relationship. After all, the keys to happiness and security aren't discussions about Kant (you can get that with friends, if necessary), but unconditional love and the ability to 'take someone as he is'. He also said that he didn't ever get tired of seeing him, which, I must admit, is a very good sign: I can't think of anyone I don't ever get tired of (sorry for offending every single one of my friends. The truth is I don't love any of you, at all. In fact, I despise you all. Go cease to exist in the ditches of your own filth.). I concluded that it sounded pretty good, especially given the fact that the boyfriend had concluded to 'appreciate every moment', not to hold Anton back, to be patient, and to love for what there is. I got a bit sentimental to be honest.

The abandoned building

Along the way, Anton showed me an abandoned, crumbling building with magical waters that managed to keep a constant temperature of 15 degrees all year long. Having heard these messianic words, I decided to immediately start worshipping walls, I threw myself naked into the water and baptised myself in the church of the fundamentally fantastic facades.  No, but really, I barely touched that water. It was cold in the air and I didn't want to become moist.

By 8pm, the hostel I had phoned in the morning still hadn't got back to me, so Anton invited me to stay at his house. I arrived pretty late, had tea with his mother, asked questions about the Soviet Union and then watched them smoke on the balcony, looking out on to the metropolis. 

The next day, suffering from a nose bleed and sleep deprivation, I walked the city, spent to much time on the internet, bought an etymological dictionary of the Russian language, ate pancakes and left.

Another city visited, another Oblast', another friend. 

I never did figure out whether this was just a random collection of exposed piping or a monument. I photoed it anyway.