This week I have been watching The Idiot – the Russian TV adaptation of the book, and although the subtitles seem to have been assembled in a hurry, or by a Russian who doesn't know his English too well, often with big chunks of dialogue missing, it's a delight to watch and has made reading the book seem like a less daunting challenge. If only there was a way around the long confusing names.
However, the actor playing Prince Myshkin is the first good-looking Russian man I've seen, which is a bonus.
Other than that I went to the art gallery, saw some 'art' and some sculptures, that was after getting past the Frank Butcher in a Hawaiian shirt lookalike who I assumed was the 'manager'. They clearly don't get many foreigners going in to the art gallery as after the initial excitement and commotion of tying to communicate with the locals we ended up just saying 'take our roubles dammit and let us in, we don't care which Siberian artist we get to view', they seemed quite pleased that we were there, not least because they get more roubles from us for being foreign. Frank Butcher walked away with a grin on his face and we got to see some sculptures made of bone, the same kind that I've seen in the local department store souvenir section. There were some brass sculptures, one of which was of Pushkin, and the rest of whom were of other less well known people.... there were oil paintings of miserable looking men in snow, and lots of traditional Russian artefacts like wooden sculptures and dolls.
And.... more students have cancelled lessons, the heat wave has unsurprisingly changed dramatically into a cold front, with temperatures down to 10 degrees, and I've been invited to a dacha on Saturday. It's all go here, I can tell you.

Well, friends, only two weeks are left of this adventure of mine, and I must share with you all of my impressions and thoughts, if you will be so kind as to let me indulge in a moment of self reflection and narcissistic meandering.

I arrived here in January a mere pup, bounding around eagerly, eyes wide, keen to experience the different culture in which I found myself, excited and nervous and very cold. Everything was new and different and nothing escaped my attention... And now? Now, I am the face of sobriety and wisdom, no longer an innocent puppy lost in the world without a clue, but a grown up.

I have seen great kindness and also great ignorance while I've been here; I've been humbled by the generosity of my host family – without whom my stay here would have been completely different, and I've been angered by the narrow-minded and judgemental nature of some Russian folks, who I gave up trying to enlighten many months ago. I've seen the great wealth of the rich compared with the modest lifestyles of the poor... In short, this is a land of contrasts. There are some things that no matter how long you spend trying to work out you will just never understand. Russia, for me, is one of those things.

I owe it a great debt though, for it's people have given me hours of interesting and thoughtful conversation; it's weather has made a huge impression on me and I hope I will never forget these wonderful sights I have seen of snow frost mud rain and sun; and finally the food has made me realise just how much I appreciate Britain and its celebrity endorsed supermarket chains. Thank you Siberia for helping me to realise that Britain isn't that bad after all.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, cos I have a tendency to repeat myself, especially after a glass or two of the old Russian Champagne (which is all one can purchase in the way of wine at the moment) but I have so much more fun communicating with people who don't speak English. There's a lot to be said for body language, facial expressions and mimes! And in the process of speaking with someone who only understands 10% of what you are saying it doesn't matter if you say the wrong thing because they don't understand anyway – in a nutshell, it's very hard to offend someone, unless you use some vulgar body language which could be interpreted as an insult. So the past two days have been very pleasant for me, communicating first of all with my landlady and her boyfriend about, among other topical issues of the day, Top Gear: using the most minimal amount of English. Haha how we laughed and threw merit towards the fantastic programming of the BBC for their universally understood themes. Then, today I have spent the day with my landlady's mother who speaks even less English (well, none, to be precise) her granddaughter (who hasn't even begun to speak) and the dog (who tries to speak I'm sure). We understood each other perfectly, and when there was doubt, we just smiled and nodded, or growled in the case of the sabbotchka (that's the puppy)! Perfect way to communicate with anybody to be sure.

This is a picture of the beach, as you can see it is a wonder of nature, you have a lake a beach and a forest all for the price of one!

There you have a picture of a Siberian summer, unexpectedly blue and picturesque is it not? I'm sure you'll agree that it's not what one would imagine.

News: no rain for almost a week, which must be a record....uh, what else? More students have cancelled so I have even more time for sightseeing and excursions!! Haha, if only there were sights to see and if an excursion didn't cost so much or involve risky journeys with psychotic taxi drivers...

....he loved to drive fast. Indeed, which Russian does not thrill to the sensation of speed? And the Russian soul, which longs to roister and whirl about, to throw caution to the wind and say: “To hell with it all!” - how can the Russian soul not thrill to that sensation when it can hear in it something rapturous, something wondrous? It is as though some unknown force has gathered you up on to its wing, and you are flying, and everything flies with you: the versts [pre-Revolutionary measure of distance] fly past, the traders perched high on the coachman's seats of their kibitkas [vehicle with two wheels] fly towards you, the forest with its dark rows of firs and pines, with the knocking of axes and cawing of crows, flies by on both sides, the road itself flies away into the unknown, fading distance, and there is something terrifying in this flashing by of objects, so swift that they fade from sight before they can be distinguished – and only the sky above, and the wispy clouds, and the moon glinting through them, appear motionless. Ah, troika [vehicle with wheels pulled by three horses], bird troika, who dreamed you up? Surely you could only have come into being among a spirited race, in that land which has no truck with half measures, but which has spread in a vast, smooth plain over half the earth, so far that you would go cross-eyed before you could count all the verst-poles. Nor in this conveyance some cunning piece of work, held together with iron nuts and bolts – no, it has been hastily hewn to life with a rude axe and chisel and assembled by a nimble-fingered Yaroslavl peasant.....the very road quakes beneath them, and a terrified passer-by cries out as he stops in his tracks – and it's off and away! Off and away! Off and away!... Very soon, all that can be seen in the distance is the dust raised as something cleaves the air.

Replace 'troika' with Volga and you have my experience yesterday in a taxi. I went to the beach and happily I lived to tell the tale. Although there were times when I thought my last sight as an alive person would be of an oncoming Lada going at 80 mph while our taxi was overtaking very riskily the other Soviet-era Eastern European produced machine that passes for a car in these parts.

Gogol stands the test of time thanks to the wonders of his language and also the unchanging nature of the Russian people. Unfortunately he didn't write about the Russian beach experience so I can't copy his words to illustrate to you the picture I witnessed yesterday. I shall have to do it myself instead. But, another time, friends, for time is scarce.... I will report to you soon.

Word has reached me once again from our travelling comrade Elliot. You'll be pleased to know that he is now in Ireland enjoying real Guinness and the warmth of the notorious Irish hospitality. No, I keep telling myself, I'm not envious. After all what has Ireland got that Russia has not? There's the literary heroes; can we compare Dostoevsky to Joyce, or Yeats to Pushkin? They've got Guinness, but we've (I'm a temporary Russian) got Baltika number 7. They've got the fiddle and we've got the balalaika. We have opera and ballet and they have Michael Flatley..... need I really go on.... Yes? Well I can't think of any more so that'll have to do.

I took myself off for a walking tour of the city, with a Russian companion, who seemed to have an ulterior motive of trying to get me to become an Orthodox Christian, which she has tried and failed to do before (it was once again a case of me saying 'no' and a Russian person ignoring me). We walked for miles and funnily enough ended up at a church, a most sacred place here in Tyumen for it is the oldest church in the town. Having been destroyed in the Soviet days, it's still undergoing repairs, but it has a very fine selection of portraits of all the well-known Biblical characters adorning the walls. It's recommended that when entering an Orthodox church ladies should cover their hair and legs (or hairy legs haha) with dirty rags that are provided at the entrance, not for any religious reasons but to stop old women tutting and old men perving! It's true. I suggested that they just have a door policy – no judgemental or lecherous people can come into a place of holiness, seeing as they're not very admirable characteristics anyway....

Moving quickly on, there's not much else to tell, folks. I have done a colossal 6 hours work this week so far, which has been tough I can tell you. The weather has been good for a change and we went a whole day without rain. This weekend I am going to Tobolsk, which is another Siberian town, smaller than this one, but more historic.

Ok, Tyumen and it's inhabitants..... Part 2 of your cultural exchange lesson.

Tyumen is home to some 750,000 inhabitants none of whom are famous. Unless you count the girl who currently stars in Russia's reality programme Dom Dva (House 2). Despite the absence of celebrity spotting as a fun walking-around-town game, these folks are pretty happy chaps. Tyumen region is the oil centre of Russia, but all the oil is found up in the north where it's not as good a climate or vegetation, hence this city was born, down in the south, for all the wealthy oil workers to buy apartments and spend their wages, well, it was already here but it's popularity soared, as you can imagine. Not everyone here works in oil though; as with any big booming industry, it created hundreds of other jobs in different industries. Where there's money, there's business opportunities. So hundreds of 'businessmen' and 'businesswomen' appeared; where once there was a lonely corner shop selling stale bread and locally caught fish products there is now a shopping centre stocked with all the imported brands employing 50 staff, and where there was once a run-down flea-ridden bed and breakfast run by a toothless babooshka and her son-in-law, there now stands the arabesque Quality Hotel aka Tyumen Hotel. It's a city that's looking up and up, there's no going down, as they say. So although I convey my observations to you, yes you three that still read this nonsense, in a misanthropic manner, my cynicism is just pretence. In fact, the place where I live is thriving, and it's very interesting to witness a city being born, in the process of developing. The effects of all this good work, and more importantly, the fact that you can see the development happening in front of your very own eyes, is that everyone here loves their town. It's very interesting for me, coming from Manchester. Ok people love Manchester, but they'd never admit it outright, they'd disguise it behind a nonchalant phrase like 'yeah well there's been good music scenes and some good architecture sprouts up sometimes and what was that thing ... the industrial thing, yeah that was historical'. But that would always come after a complaint (no doubt completely justified) about the weather or the people all being moronic fight-heads and tarts on a Saturday night. Let's just say that folks here in Tyumen have a pride in their town that transcends any notion of pride in a Mancunian (believe me, it can be embarrassing). It's true, people don't get out much, which may also have something to do with it, you know, the nearest big town of any interest is a 4 hour drive away and that's just another big town like this one. But still, it never fails to touch my heart strings to hear the community speak well of their surroundings.

It hasn't made me think any better of it though; they are living and building on an uninhabitable swamp, the machinery, brain power and greed of mankind has defied nature, as it does so often in city life; but long after the oil has been extracted dry and the defunct neon casino lights have sunk into the concealed depths of the swampland, there'll still be the dust, the mud, the -40 conditions and the electric storms that are nature's way of telling us that we shouldn't be here. Not to mention the insects, which I'm beginning to take personally now, as an indication that I'm just not welcome.

So, last time we met (see previous entry) we explored the town and I gave you a brief description of the kinds of buildings which line our pretty yet dusty streets, and what our inhabitants like to do in their free time. I think I need to elaborate on this topic for I merely touched upon the superficialities. Like I mentioned, the Russians like to escape from this hum-drum life of cars and dust, maybe it reminds them too much of work or perhaps they feel suffocated by the capitalist trappings of their modern big city so they retreat to the country, which is actually very close to the city, and consists of forests, lakes and flat land for as far as the eye can see. It's dotted with small villages where you find Dachas, although some villages are where people live all year round, but they're different types of villages. Ok so a dacha is a wooden hut, or sometimes it's made of stone, I guess depending on how much dingy you gots. (Er, dingy is like, Russian for money). What they do is buy the land and then build whatever they like on it, so some folks have a wooden house like a shed and some richer folks have got a house similar to one found in British suburbia, complete with servants quarters and a special house for the dog.
If you don't have a dacha or any friends with a dacha, or if, more likely, it's raining, then what do you do at the weekends? You spend money in shopping centres and cinemas and restaurants. Or if you're like me and are scared to shop for fear of having to speak Russian you go to a summer tent to witness real Russians getting drunk on beer and vodka. Actually, I haven't been to the summer tents for a while what with the rain and the departure of my international friends. So, I've been lacking in the culture recently, preferring instead my own company or perhaps an evening with the dog chasing my feet.
So that's what people do at the weekend.... but like I said, there's more to do in winter because of the snow when you can go and do winter sports in the forest.

The thing that the girls here are always interested in is the family life of the British and Americans. People in Russia get married young, in fact, if you're a girl and you're not married by the time you're 30 that's it, forget it. Every woman wants a baby and it's not just because the government tell them to and offer monetary incentives for having them, but they really do think there's something wrong in the head of a woman who doesn't want to be a mother. They think it's the most wonderful thing for a woman to do the housework; cooking and cleaning for her husband. Whereas we 'feminists' as they like to call us in the West see it as a chore and would rather be doing something else, they see it as their way of dominating the men.... like – 'you know, you couldn't survive on your own, you'd starve and you'd run out of clean socks'. It's a completely different way of thinking, perhaps better or perhaps worse, but I see a lot of women who are supported by their rich husbands who give them money in return for doing the housework, and even give them a large sum of money to play with in a game called 'starting your own business', and I think 'that would be fun'!

I must share with you my pain, my suffering.... or should I in fact be pleased that the Russian insects have really taken a delight in my blood and I seem to have been offering an all you can eat buffet which has attracted some of your most greedy and obese insects. I was even lucky enough to have the company of one very fine midge in my bedroom for about two days until we fell out, he was taking liberties, keeping me awake, and after many failed attempts I finally succeeded in killing him, accidentally it seems, by squashing him in my sleep.

I realise that I haven't ever given you good people an in depth description of the town in which I'm living. Apart from my detailed account of the mud I think I've been very miserly in my portrayal of my temporary home. So, for your pleasure, I will now paint a picture in your minds eye of the town that is known in these parts as the Dallas of Siberia....

Take a stroll down the main streets of Tyumen on a fine, sunny day and you will be witness, first of all, to some of the most erratic and, well let's be honest here – dangerous driving that man could ever hope to see, but secondly, after crossing the road you can then thank God personally for getting you across it alive by visiting one of the many cathedrals that adorn the streets of this typical Russian town. There are no shortages of Cathedrals here, they are all traditionally white with green and gold onion-domed tops, and look very quaint and historic. I think you may see a picture of one such cathedral in an earlier entry in this here blog.

So, what can one do in the town when the sun is shining and spirits are high? Well, it appears that at every opportunity the residents leave the town, and journey for about 30 minutes in a car to one of the small villages outside the city where they most likely have a Dacha. This is a small country house where they grow vegetables and fruit, have a banya, and generally have a knees-up Russian style. They like to go to the forest and swim in a lake or have a barbecue. So, usually, if you walk around the city at the weekend it's very quiet. Unless you pass by a summer tent, in which case you'll find all those folks who don't have a dacha drinking beer and singing karaoke. I could make a comment here about class distinction but that would be cynical of me.

I'm not sure what you imagine a Siberian town to be like if you've never been here. I imagined it to be very Eastern European but the ground on which I walk is in fact part of Asia, or, as some folks here like to call it, Euro-Asia. But this particular city is quite Western looking, with patches of Eastern Europe dotted around. For example standing outside the glamorous Quality Hotel you would not be surprised to see a poor Babushka begging for money or selling mushrooms.

As you move out of the centre of the town and the wealthy area in which I am lucky enough to live, you see more traditionally Soviet style buildings and shops. In the centre there are about 2 or 3 large shopping centres complete with food court and cinema complex, but further afield you get markets and old apartment blocks, which all look identical and which house the majority of the people. So really it's a mish mash of different styles, there's modern luxury apartments, soviet-style rabbit hutches (which remind me of modern Manchester city centre accommodation, complete with standard balcony), and really old wooden one storey houses, which are few but which are colourful and individual.

I will think of more interesting things to tell you next time, but really, it's a very simple place with not very much to do, especially in summer, unless you like swimming in the lake (as for me well I seem to have enough problems with the water that comes through the taps so I wouldn't risk jumping in the lake).

Join us next time for part 2: Tyumen and it's inhabitants........

Latest news: It's been raining all night.... and all morning. Yeah rain, mud etc etc.
And....
The puppy that we have(I say 'we' but I mean 'they' – the family I'm living with) turns out to be a girl dog not a boy dog. It's quite cute now as well, being a chowowa (er, yeah I figure that I've spelt that wrong) it's constantly trying to jump up as if in an effort to be bigger. But it usually just falls over itself and does a backward roll before getting straight back up to try again. It's also discovered the delights of eating human food. May this be the start of a beautiful friendship between a dog and it's food. He, er I mean she, has been eating croutons like they're the best thing since bits of cooked bread.... which they are I suppose. That 's what people eat here you know, instead of peanuts or crisps which are western, ooooh evil bad, you get obese like everyone in America if you eat crisps, so they have croutons. Without soup! Crazy folk.
And in my final piece of news, the long running TV serial which must have been on for over 100 hours now, is as far as I can tell, coming to an end. The ugly woman, who's not so ugly now because she's had a make-over but is still a miserable looking freak, has at last won the heart of our handsome hero, who's not got many heroic qualities by my standards, but seems to capture the hearts of the ladies nonetheless. So a happy ending it is, but in true Russian style they'll probably make the happy ending last another 2 weeks before we can finally say it's over.

This week, yet more of my students have abandoned their English lessons in favour of sunning themselves in a part of the world where it rains less frequently and where they can go one whole day without being feasted upon by ravenous insects. I am having, what one could easily call, a holiday. Yes, 6 months of living in a plush apartment in the Dallas of Siberia, teaching the locals the wonders of the English Language, that's what will be going on my CV, but I what I won't mention is that what I've spent the majority of my time actually doing is reading (English translations of) Russian literature, and Lord of the Rings (in the original English – not translated from the Russian, although that would be interesting), listening to an unhealthy amount of Morrissey, and sitting in an armchair pondering on life, the universe and, well, everything (when in Russia, they do advise, you should do as the Russians do, which I have done with fervour). So, as my time here is reaching it's concluding month I am happy at the thought of putting all these daft musings to the back of my mind and resuming my mindless existence of 9-5 and binge drinking! Haha, I jest of course.

Actually, this is my point: the old proverbs are true, and the proverb I refer to now is, 'you can take the (insert nationality) – man out of (insert country) but you can't take (insert country) out of a (insert country) – man.' Er, I hope I got that correct, but I'm sure you are familiar with the one I speak of. It is true you know, and I have proof, oh yes I do... hear my anecdote and you will see that the old proverb does speak wisdom after all. It's not long and I'll try and make it as entertaining as possible (however it involves Russian people so beware, there may be over-emotional language that some of you find embarrassing)....

There is a bright spark in our school who had the idea to start an English Club, you know, us being an English school and all, and us having me, who's British, to recite tales of old Albion, to bring enlightenment and culture to where there once was none, all accompanied by tea and biscuits!... or, at the Russian's suggestion, we could watch Groundhog Day and practise our English by way of amateur philosophy and, in true Russian style, talking about us us, glorious US! You see I tried to explain to my Russian colleagues that British folks just don't talk about emotions, feelings or any of that stuff and nonsense. If one is to capture the essence of the British through an English Club then one must act in accordance with the cultural rules, yes? Unlike our Russian friends, the Brits don't like to talk about themselves and they don't particularly like it when other people talk about themselves either, unless they're all drunk, in which case they can then pretend that they can't remember any of the conversation the next day if indeed they do remember it at all. Instead we talk about the weather and about traffic jams on the A6, about the poor bus service and maybe at a push, if we're speaking with a close friend, we'll talk about politics, briefly. So here I am, in an English club in Russia, discussing whether anyone has ever had deja-vu (remember we've just watched that philosophical masterpiece Groundhog Day – by their own admittance, a Russian will find meaning in a three day old tea stain) and asking have people found their perfect love, and what is perfect love anyway (that old one – it seems that not a day goes by without this question floating around somewhere). I hide in the corner hoping that they will be so engrossed in their own details that they will forget me, but when all heads at once turn to me for the 'foreign' response (remember, I'm representing all of us) all I can say is 'love is a concept', misquoting John Lennon slightly, but it seems to do the trick.

(Please note: the end of my tale is a lie; in fact the English club hasn't taken place yet and is due to do so on Friday, I'm just predicting what will happen).

So here we have a typical scenario, one which I am faced with constantly in my unfamiliar temporary home. In order to survive in a foreign place you have to comply with your hosts at all times, even when they desire to gain an insight into your own culture, it must be done in the safe environs of a setting which makes them feel at ease. And no amount of coaxing will break them of this habit, after 6 months of trying to get them to trust me, they still have to confirm everything I say by looking in a dictionary.

It seems that in my haste I did a great disservice to the genius of Pushkin in my previous blog entry. As I explained the story of Eugene Onegin, rambling like an excited schoolgirl, I appear to have confused the plot, and omitted great chunks of important information essential to the understanding of this epic poem. I took the liberty of reading the actual poem, not wholly trusting my own feeble attempts to interpret the opera from it's original and untainted form. So even as I will have grasped a mere semblance of the original that would lose multitudes of it's brilliance through even the most professional translation, I seem to have been unable to decipher even the simplest plot from the opera, that being the love... I will stop, for fear of again doing it an injustice. Let the blog-reader go and find for themselves the delightful Pushkin poem, if they are not already familiar with it, in which case I am sure they are laughing at my lame retelling, as well they should, for such a clown was I to not even familiarise myself with such a splendid poem before making myself acquainted with the opera.

The weather has remained full of surprises, just when you think it's safe to go outside in white jeans, the clouds crash together as if they had been lying in wait and wish to announce to the world 'She's left the house!', and masses of rain falls, dust evolves into mud and before you know it you're not wearing white any more but a two-tone effect which may be popular in the big cities but not here. Not with me. 'They' lured me back here on the premise that it would be warm, 'oh it gets so warm here in summer' they cooed. What they omitted to tell me was that practically every day there is a tropical storm. However, such endurance of bad weather can only be admired. When we Brits complain and say 'oh, I can't stand this weather any more Trevor, I'm emigrating to Spain' just because it rains a bit and there's not very good summers, take a moment to think about these folks who live here in Tyumen. Not once have I heard somebody say they want to move to another city, let alone another country, and believe me I give them every opportunity to express this wish. Yet here they are, in winter shovelling snow just to get out of their front doors, and in summer losing 10pounds of weight every week through sweat, getting eaten alive by God knows what kind of insects and standing under trees when there's an electrical storm (please! Somebody tell them they shouldn't do that!). Do they talk of emigration? Do they complain? No, that's right they just get on with it – ignore it even. The Russians are famous for arguing one day and being best buddies the next, as if all memory of the disagreement was erased, well, so it is with the weather. Day after day you see the same scenario – women put on white sandals and white trousers only to be caught in a rain storm. You'd think they'd learn, but no, they just carry on as if 'oh, it won't rain today!' Optimism, that's what I like about these people.

I wasn't sent here to Russia for nothing you know. As well as informing the locals of the latest business English jargon and giving them an alternative to a dictionary, I have been sent on a cultural mission. You see, the Russians know how to spend an evening in refined company, behaving in a civilised manner, partaking in cultural activities. Even when they're being uncultured, drinking vodka they do it with style, accompanying their chosen variety of diaphanous venom with copious amounts of fresh frozen fish and glasses of water. And despite their slightly alarming affinity with karaoke, they don't let the side down when it comes to after-work activities; unlike the typical Brit who would be happy with a pint of ale down t'pub with his colleagues or a steaming microwave dinner and a helping of EastEnders of an evening, not for your average Russian, no thank you! It just wouldn't do I tell you. It's a walk in the mud strewn forest picking mushrooms happy as a hippy, or it's don yer stilettos time for a grand ol time at the opera, for our comrades this side of the Urals. And this is where our story begins, dear reader, as you see, your narrator was lucky enough to purchase a ticket to the opera; indeed you may be thinking 'well what the devil would that scruffy mare be doing at the opera and in Russia no less!' And for that I cannot begrudge you, my good friends, for that was my first thought too.

Unfamiliar with the rituals and etiquette of a night at the opera I spared myself any embarrassment of committing a social faux-pas and played it safe with wearing just what I normally do, replacing the white trainers with black ones! But as it happens going to the opera in Russia is not as big an occasion as one might expect; for a country whose lady population seem to dress up in frocks, struggle in 6 inch heels and apply 3 layers of make-up just to do the weekly shop it was surprising to see the lack of effort made by the majority, and I felt put out that I'd bothered to change my shoes at all. There were of course, as there always is, those who wanted to seek attention and praise and who did so by getting into their Sunday Best and parading around with their heads held metaphorically higher than their fellow theatre-goers sneering at us lesser mortals who dared to share the same air as them.

But back to the opera, for I'm certain that you are intrigued, and would be happy for me to give you an act by act retelling of the story, which, incidentally was Eugene Onegin by Tchaikovsky, based on the poem by Pushkin. I'm sorry to have to let you down and you'll have to make do with a brief summary of the whole thing, for, long as it was, I didn't understand very much of it!

We meet Eugene, he's a happy young chap, only he's a bit of a rogue, and he makes an advance towards his friend's woman, who seems quite keen and does her bit of flirting back, the wench! So his friend, who's a bit put out by the whole scenario challenges the scoundrel Eugene to a duel, whereupon Eugene does the gentlemanly thing and kills his friend. Oops says Eugene, especially when his other friends shun him for his rapscallion ways, and he discovers that the woman has shacked up with some other man who she now calls hubby. Despair grabs Eugene by his frilly collared neck and he dies of a broken heart, or kills himself, I'm not too sure. Tragic. And, fact-lovers, when Pushkin himself died after he challenged a friend to a duel over the affections of his beautiful wife, it was an uncanny case of life imitating art. Double tragedy.

I'm happy to discover that my 'person in front jinx' as I like to call it, still applies here in Russia, and I had to endure two hours of head movement and big hair from the girl in the seat in front. However this was not to spoil my experience, and I fear I must find something to complain about, otherwise I would wonder at the state of my mental health.

And it ended like all fun evenings in summer Siberia, in a summer tent drinking beer and eating who knows what, listening to out-of-tune karaoke.