Meeting The Russians
An hour after leaving the Hotel Sever I reached the safety of the apartment building on Rizhskaya where my homestay family were living. This time when I rang the bell I heard the muffled sound of keys jangling behind the padded door.
HOME SWEET HOME!
'They said you were coming next week,' Lena, the mother of the family said somewhat flustered by my unexpected arrival whilst ushering me into the small dark apartment. She was about 50 with short bowed legs and dark hair that reached her shoulders. Vilka, the family's Jack Russel watched me suspiciously as I removed my jacket and backpack, seemingly already having decided she didn’t like me. 'Take off your shoes and go wash your hands then Vlad will show you around.' Nobody had ever told me to wash my hands after entering their home in the UK but I soon realised this was a Russian thing. There was all kinds of filth to be brought home from metro escalators and trolleybus seats was the thinking. Us Brits just don't care about stuff like that I. Filthy animals.
MOSCOW METRO. FILTHY
I placed my shoes in the wooden rack in the small dark vestibule and entered the 1970s construction Soviet apartment that was to be my home for the next few months. The bathroom was just big enough for a sink and an enamel bath along with one long tap which served both of them when swung into place.
THE SINGLE TAP SOVIET BATHROOM
Through the curtains that led to the balcony entered Vlad waiving away the smoke from the cigarette he’d been puffing on. A squat lad in his mid 20s with short dark hair, he shook my hand in the brusque unsmiling way Russians do and commenced the tour of the apartment.
VLAD IN 1993
‘This will be your bedroom’ he said, leading me into a room with a single bed and a desk covered in music cassettes. Lying on top of the bed was a girl in her early 20s who was in her underwear. 'This is my sister Natasha,' Vlad said. She will be yours for the duration of the trip. His sister pulled me into the bed. 'I need a passport, make love to me!' She demanded.
I made all that up by the way.
VLAD'S SISTER
Instead, there was an expensive imported Sony ghetto blaster which had prize of place on a stand, and above it on the wall hung a poster of an oriental looking man with an acoustic guitar. What I did not know at the time was that the man on the poster had written the songs that would be the soundtrack to my trips across the former Soviet Union for decades to come.
VIKTOR TSOI. APPARENTLY HE LIVES
The tour continued to the lounge which had a sofa bed, an oriental carpet on the wall, a tv and bookshelves full of old the dusty old tomes people tend to have in their homes but never actually read.
‘Where will you sleep Vlad?’ I asked.
'I’ll sleep with mum on the sofa.’
VLAD AND HIS MUM
The small kitchen was just big enough for a small table and 90 degree corner bench, a sink, cooker and an old fridge that buzzed loudly. This room and corner bench was to be the place where I would spend so much of my time during the following months practicing Russian and listening to Lena’s stories of life in the USSR and in the newly independent Russian Federation. Stories of happy memories and future fears. It was the table where I would lay out the Soviet maps I would buy at Dom Knigi and trace my finger over future journeys...
MY HOMESTAY'S KITCHEN
As Lena began preparing dinner Vlad and I sat in his bedroom for what was going to be an evening ritual for us over the following months. A ritual that was going to be at times excruciating for me since Vlad loved the sound of his own voice like nobody I had ever met before. If I asked him a simple question he’d spend as long as he could answering it as a way, no doubt of practicing his English. But it ended up meaning I soon became scared to even ask him something simple like how was his night with his mom for the fear of him talking for an hour about his fucking Circadian rhythm. Nobody went around the houses when talking like Vlad did.
VLAD PREPARING TO ANSWER A SIMPLE QUESTION
However it has to be said that Vlad spoke excellent English and he taught me a lot about Russia and the Russian mentality during my stay in his home home. Eventually Lena called from the kitchen and with great relief the first of Vlad’s lectures on the history of Soviet rock music came to an abrupt end.
The four of us sat down. Vlad, Lena, myself at the table and Vilka the dog underneath it, no doubt lying there in hope of a possible handout. My arrival was to be his lucky day.
OUR DINNER WAS NOTHING LIKE THIS
Lena handed me a plate of macaroni without any sauce and a square of rubbery looking greenish meat. But first a toast. Vlad as the man of the house, his father having walked out some years ago, poured a glass of Soviet Champagne for us all and made a meandering toast that then doubled in length as he translated it into Russian for his mother who did not speak a word of English. Even Vilka couldn’t take it anymore of Vlad's monologue and wandered off into the lounge as he rambled on.
ENJOYING THE STORY? CONSIDER READING MORE IN MY BOOK
Eventually we began to eat. I cut a piece of the rubbery looking meat and placed it into my mouth and began chewing. And then it hit me. A recognisable texture and taste I had hated since school. Liver.
WHO THE FUCK LIKES THIS SHIT?
My eyes filled with water as I realised what was in my mouth and I could feel an involuntary desire to spit it out onto my plate. I chewed it and tried washing it down with some champagne but it was impossible. Instead I looked for Vilka under the table, and hiding the action with a fake cough spat the liver into my hand and then with a fake scratch of the leg deposited the foul meat onto the linoleum kitchen floor. Vilka sniffed the meat before grimacing and leaving the room. The meat lay there untouched.
VILKA NOW ON DISPLAY IN MOSCOW
‘Why are you not eating?’ Lena eventually asked.
‘I already ate a lot today,’ I lied.
When nobody was looking I took the remaining liver from my plate and placed it in my pocket. I’d have to smuggle it out of the kitchen another way.
I could of course have just been honest about my disliking liver but Lena was obviously not rich judging by her very modestly decorated apartment and I felt bad for not eating what no doubt cost a fair few rubles to acquire in the local morgue, I mean butcher. It is hard to imagine how poor Russians were back then. The woman sitting next to me on my flight to Moscow had asked me if she could have my unused pack of sugar from my tray to take home.
LENA LOOKING FOR MEAT
Eventually after disposing of the liver in the toilet the meal was over. After tea and cake Vlad suggested a walk around the ‘dvor’ which is the Russian word for the yard in front of all Soviet apartment buildings. The evening was warm and we headed over to some swings. As Vlad droned on about something or other I felt immense contentment. After a tricky start it was all coming good. I had a few months ahead of me in Russia, I liked my host family. Yes, despite the warnings, the Hotel Sever, the liver, I had made the right decision...
DVOR