Connections
I wake up around six in the morning, the duvet covered in a pattern of whorls and flowers, projected across the bed by the bright sun behind the gossamer curtain. Looks like the driver will have a fine day for his trip to the dacha – perhaps God does speak Russian...
The schedule which I've been given stipulates that I will be visited by someone named Andrei between 9am-10am in order to set up the internet. I make myself some tea and porridge from the provisions that have been left at the flat. It strikes me that they have perhaps been selected in order to give us British fellows a taste of 'home' – though maple syrup might have been more appropriate in my case. I have the unsettling impression of assuming another person's identity; here, in accordance with the terms of the programme, I am considered British, whereas I am in fact Canadian. And from still another perspective, I am probably more Russian than any of the other fellows...So what does that make me, exactly?
By noon, Internet Andrei has still not made an appearance, and meanwhile I have been confined to the flat and unable to buy any proper groceries. For lunch, I resort to eating a pink mucus-textured yoghurt, made of milk powder and gelatine, and flavoured with “aroma identical to natural strawberry”. Confusingly, it is “Approved by the League for the Nation's Health”, an organisation seeking to “improve the health and living standards of Russian citizens”.
I telephone the office ready to make all kinds of non-politically correct cultural assumptions about lazy Russian internet technicians, only to be told that Andrei had arrived promptly at nine o'clock and had tried to call up to the apartment. This is alarming, considering that I have been there the whole time, certifiably (though rather unwillingly) awake. I inspect the intercom and it turns out to have been switched off. Now I must wait until after seven, when he has finished his other rounds, which is very disappointing as I'm desperate to be in touch with family and friends. I've never missed the internet as much as I do now. How much more difficult must it have been to travel to distant lands when unreliable letters were the only form of communication.
Gingerly digesting my Definitely Very Healthy Approved Lunch, I am sitting in the kitchen writing on the laptop, when a high-pitched trill comes from the direction of the hallway. I'm not sure whether the sound is being generated in my flat or not, so I creep up to the door to investigate. I hear a man speaking on his phone outside. Suddenly the trill shrieks out again, right next to my ear, making me jump (in a dignified professional manner, ofcourse). Based on this direct sensory experience, I am drawn inexorably to the scientific conclusion that the intercom must be working.
It is not Andrei, but an unassuming grey-haired man in a white t-shirt, who kindly points out that I have left my door open. He introduces himself as one of my neighbours from Number 28 – I've heard several voices next door and assume a family is living there. I thank him and say that I was planning to drop in to introduce myself, to which he replies that I am welcome come by any time. I will go tomorrow when I've hopefully had a good night's sleep.
I decide to stave off my imminent collapse by going for a walk and exploring the area. In some ways it seems distinctly foreign and it is hard not to feel awkward, out of place. At the pharmacy across the road, the products are all in glass cupboards, and I'm not sure whether I should try to slide the pane across to take something myself, or whether this will set off alarms and generally cause commotion and embarrassment, so I sheepishly leave the shop. There are kiosks along the sidewalk selling everything from magazines to bras to pastries and large cream-smothered cakes. The wares are again displayed behind glass, with a small window for the vendor, sometimes so low that you have to stoop and shout your order into the unknown. I find a supermarket nearby, Azbuka Vkusa, which has a gratifyingly sophisticated range of products, albeit at markups of 80%.
Further down the street there is a cheap corner store where lonely tomatoes languish on plastic-wrapped styrofoam trays. I pick up some dish liquid and laundry detergent – the brands are all recognisably Western, except Mr Clean has for some reason become Mr Proper. Is this a kind of moral cleanser, say, for washing one's mouth after accidentally saying something rude? At the checkout, the cashier, a boy of about 18, whispers excitedly “navernoye, Anglichanka” to the girl standing beside him – “nu, sprosi, sprosi!” (“she must be English – go on, ask her!”). I am amazed that without me saying a word, he has assumed I'm from Britain. What was it that gave me away? Have my years in the UK imbued me with an air of ineffable Anglo-Saxon cool, or perhaps just ineffable scruffiness? Either way, this is not helping with my identity crisis.
His face when I throw “deistvitel'no, Anglichanka” (yes, I'm English) over my shoulder, is priceless.
All at once, I realise that I've left my passport at home – we were strictly instructed to carry identification at all times. I instantly have visions of being carted off to the police station and forced to pay an $800 bribe to secure my freedom (apparently, the average bribe paid by Russians doubled last year). I turn around and head back quickly, trying not to attract attention.
Andrei finally arrives at 11pm. I offer him a cup of tea and he tells me about an immense shopping mall nearby called Golden Babylon, a name which he pronounces very casually, as though it was perfectly banal, but which strikes me as eerily symbolic of the excesses of the New Russia.
