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.