Fyodor on Tour

What’s worse than a day of shopping in Russsia’s New Year rush? That’s right. Having your face grated off by a cheese grater and then being hung, drawn, and quartered. Although there’s not much in it. But another thing that’s worse than a day of shopping in Russia’s New Year rush is TWO days of shopping in Russia’s New Year rush, and that’s exactly what your intrepid narrator decided to do. I got up early on the morning of the 31 st December, seeing as I had an entire party to cook for, a ton of presents to wrap, and two gifts still to buy. The mug that I wanted to buy for Lena was located in the centre of town, and the T-shirt printing place where I was to get my special design printed for Eldar was in the trading quarter, which, for those of you who are geographically-inclined, is the exact opposite direction to the centre of town. So that wasn’t great planning by me. Getting to the mugs place was less of a schlep than I expected. There was a designated bus lane most of t...

It was the 30 th December, and Krasnoyarsk had fallen into an expectant hush. It was like that eerie silence as you strengthen your fortifications and go buy a ray gun before a wave of undead soldiers comes crashing through the walls of your hidey-hole in Call of Duty: World at War (Nazi Zombies, obvs). This was the day that everyone had warned me about. ‘Whatever you do’ they said, ‘do NOT go into any shops from sunrise on the 30 th December until midnight on the 31 st . In fact, don’t go NEAR any shops. No, don’t LOOK at any shops. Actually, you know what? Best thing to do is just not leave your flat. Ok? Don’t leave the flat until the 1 st January alright? I mean it, Theo. They will merk you.’ This inspiring speech was generally accompanied by a long, chilling stare. Most people stopped short of wiggling their fingers in my face and going ‘OOOOOOOOOOOH!’, but they did a pretty good job of communicating that going shopping on the 30 th December was a no-no. My plan for t...

The nursery where I’ll be working for the next two months is attached to a senior school. The headmaster of the joint schools was quite keen for me to help them with a project of theirs. They were taking part in a competition for best teacher, which they’d entered one of their language teachers for. They opted for a video entry, which they were going to shoot in the nursery (while it still had the decorations from the Christmas party up). The headmaster had spared no expense, hiring a professional cameraman, having a script written, and training the youngest children in the nursery to pretend to be cute little mice and carry a cardboard model of a toy from one side of the set to the other (a surprisingly difficult feat). Even as I screeched to a halt by the gates of the nursery in the car of Slava (a guy who works for the school in some mysterious capacity which I still haven’t worked out), I wasn’t exactly sure where I came into all this. All I knew was that I’d been asked to hel...

Now this is a story all about how, my Christmas got flipped turned upside down… Christmas in Russia is not on 25 th December, it’s on 7 th January. 25 th December isn’t just not Christmas, it’s not anything. It’s an ordinary working day. In fact, it was starting to look like it would be juuuust a smidge worse than your ordinary working day. Two days before Christmas, I got a horrifyingly cheerful text from one of my colleagues saying something along the lines of ‘Hi!!!! Are you free on Wednesday, 25 th December at 9am?’ … … … ?!?!? My response read something like this: ‘Oh, you mean Christmas Day? Yes, in theory.’ This was to be no ordinary meeting. It was my first introduction to a class in a local nursery who I will be working with next year. I was going to be dressed up as Santa Clause, and I can’t say I was particularly looking forward to it. My prospects for Christmas were not much brightened on Christmas Eve, when another colleague asked i...