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Hurdy-Gurdy


Krasnoyarskers heat their flats to outrageous temperatures. Whoever controls our entire block’s heating decided to turn it on sometime back in September, and it seems to be a binary kind of deal – full whack or nothing. I got into the habit of getting up at least once a night to stick my head out the window into the freezing night air just to cool down. I was willing the cold Siberian winter I’ve heard all about to hurry up and come… which it now has.

But last week it still hadn’t, so I was thrilled when I found a reason to leave the flat/sauna and head out to a folk concert. I love folk music. I didn’t realise I loved it last year, but coming to Russia has given me a renewed appreciation for it (for some reason), and now it’s my go-to genre. A guy called Ivan who had some tenuous relation to the organisation where we work invited me and Zuzana to a live concert in the same edgy bar where I went with Olga just after I arrived (the one with the swing).

An unusual combination of instruments... but disappointingly, no hurdy-gurdies
   Ivan was really cool. He’d lived in China, Senegal, and Germany. He also spoke really good English and played the guitar. The band (called Hurdy-Gurdy except in cyrillic so it's more like 'khoordy-goordy') was good, although the members had very mixed levels of ability. Strangely, of all the instrumentalists, the whistle player was probably the best, which made for a slightly odd balance. Then Ivan invited me to his friend’s house, where we sat and talked until the very small hours of the morning. I was stunned when someone got a guitar out and everyone just started singing. I was even more stunned to discover that everyone in the room except for me could play the guitar. They passed it around and sang Russian folk songs, while we all ate defrosted shrimps. I later discovered that the shrimps were secured as part of a bargain with a local supermarket, which sold food past its sell-by date at knock-down prices… But back to the guitars. I felt a little bit silly when the guitar was passed all the way around the circle and I was the only one who couldn’t partake. Someone handed me a one-stringed balalaika instead, and I tried to pick out the tune of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, with disappointing results. ‘I don’t understand how all of you can play the guitar. I’ve never come across a group of friends who all play the same instrument in Britain. Is that just a coincidence?’ The guy across the table from me just shrugged. ‘Guitar is a good instrument for accompaniment. We like singing together, it’s how we cope.’ I’ve heard some poetic stuff in Krasnoyarsk, but I think this takes the prize. Just before we left, Ivan started playing Zombie by The Cranberries, and I could finally sing along. That made me very happy, in a simple way. There followed an indoor pyrotechnic display with washing-up liquid, which involved lots of hair getting singed, which detracted from the poetry of the night just a tad.

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