could it be over?

While I wouldn’t want to temp sod’s law and speak too soon, it seems that the dreary Kiev winter might be coming to an end. In the hazy sunshine where a walk in the park (amidst canoodling couples and doddery old blokes playing chess) brings a little joy into one’s heart, it’s easy to forget the tortures one was put through in the more snowy months.

I am reminded of a conversation I had in the first few weeks when sampling Kiev’s expat ’society’; the world of coffee mornings and status enquiries:

princess: so, what do you think of Kiev?
me: oh well it’s not bad I suppose, a bit cold and grey but tolerable (my sunny spin on the misery that is Kiev in winter).
princess: aahh, yes, well, you see I just love winter. I love sitting on my immense window seat….., gazing out onto the snow. Watching it fall down and gather outside is just…… so….. well, romantic… (drone drone drone).
me: gobsmacked silence.

Winter is an entirely different matter when you have a full time chauffeur (one suspects there is more to his role than simply giving m’lady a ride) and don’t have to worry about lugging shopping up the hill. In fact lugging one bag per miserable outing so your other hand is free to hold onto anything solid to stop you slipping on the endless ice rink that is Kiev pavements in winter.

Indeed life is sweet when you are chauffered around in your kitten heels because you don’t have to worry about falling on your arse or head when simply trying to get from A to B.  Incapacitating yourself for weeks (despite porting your most solid flat winter boots) with a dodgy back or trying to hold your head together when you crack it open after another icey incident is mildly inconvenient.

they’re heeeeeere

After this conversation, our apartment block seemed to fall out of favour with the local down-and-outs.  And it’s got to be said the place has been more fragrant-smelling since.  But I ventured out of our flat today and was confronted with that old familiar barnyard stench (yes, like the English countryside).  The snow and freezing winds have brought our old friends  back, who have turned our postbox area into their dining room/rubbish despository. 

By the looks of it, tramps these days are on a pretty healthy diet.  It’s encouraging to see them fight premature ageing with free radical-busting anti-oxidants in fresh pomegranite, not to mention boosting their immune systems with a healthy dose of fresh orange - that’ll fight off that nasty flu bug currently doing the rounds.  Throw in an egg and these guys will be fit for something or other, although I can’t think what.

are you or are you not a devoushka?

Before a wild night out you spend the whole of Saturday afternoon on your hairdo, using the best part of a can of mousse, topped off with extra strength hairspray for a head of immoveable rock. You swear you’ll never spend so much time on your hair ever again, if it weren’t for the strict face control policy at Decadence where you are headed. A real devoushka would never regret time spent on tarting up and wouldn’t worry about face control because her 100 year old ugligarch* boyfriend’s wallet would see them safely through the door.

You apply what you think is a very thin, subtle layer of fake tan but you feel like you’ve been tangoed.  Compared to a regular devoushka, you still look like the pale milkbottle-white pom that you are.

You go to Deetza to buy some hair accessories and on the way there, you can’t quite bring yourself to even look at the much cheaper, much sparklier samples in the metro underpass.  At Deetza you almost reach for the diamante encrusted and tiger-striped clips but you can’t quite make yourself do it.  You settle for something black instead.

You try on your tie-up stilettos with the gargantuan diamante studs (you last wore these for a fancy dress party 3.5 years ago where you were required to look like a tart) and decide that a) you can’t possibly walk in them without breaking a bone, b) it’s winter for goodness sake, you’ll catch your death of cold and c) realise that your other half will, instead of parading you with pride down the street, keep a safe 20 paces behind.

You decide to wear your shortest dress which happens to be black and feel paranoid that someone is going to see your knickers.  This is not an authentic devoushka’s concern, especially where flashing your tampon string is considered de rigeur in this town, even at -10C. 

Just to make really sure no one can see your knickers, in case you bend over or happen to fall over or something idiotic like that, you pull on a pair of your warmest black opaque armpit-hugging tights. This most certainly is undevoushka behaviour for obvious reasons.

You finish off the look with some fairly high heeled (but not spikey) plain black boots with no sparkly or metal bits.

You forget to wear your sunglasses. When you realise your mistake you are quite grateful because you probably wouldn’t be able to see anything anyway and would probably do something stupid like bump into an object which would be very uncool.

You and your group walk down the road to Decadence chattering excitedly about the night ahead.  This is not very cool as if you were a real devoushka you would be scowling and wandering why you were bothering with treating this club to your presence.

You mount the steps to go into Decadence whereupon you slip on some ice and falling arse-over-tip, crash into the rope barrier bringing the metal post thumping down onto your head. This is not a very cool devoushka thing to do and gives you precisely -100,000,000 street cred points.

You leap up, utterly humiliated and dash into the club trying to forget what has happened and attempting to regain some cool. You could say this is quite a devoushka thing to do.

On entering the club a friend points out that you have blood trickling down your face. You thought that the tickling feeling was a piece of loose hair and had been cursing your rubbish hairspray for failing in its duty to keep your hair perfectly prostitute-like. This is quite devoushka-like though.

You refuse your better half’s attempts to dab at your wound with wadges of tissue, using instead your brand new leopard print scarf** to staunch what is now a throbbing flow of blood covering your face. A little bit of devoushka-ness now creeps in when you realise with horror that your painstakingly applied makeup and fake tan are also running down your face.

You go back home with a promise to return in 10 minutes for those mojitos you’ve dreamed of all week, once you’ve cleaned yourself up. But you end up spending the rest of the evening curled up on the sofa in your dressing gown drinking sweet tea and feeling very sorry for yourself.

You curse your liberal use of hairspray, because while it may have helped to hold your scalp together it is one mother of a pain in the arse to get out of your hair. Especially combined with backcombing that you haven’t done since the ’80s. You swear you will never spend time working on your make up and up-do ever again. That is not a very devoushka-like sentiment.

But I have just one question - are these boots really devoushka?

*ugligarch - a facially-challenged, size-ample, age-disadvantaged man with a huge wallet.  Usually carries a chain-smoking, peroxide blonde 15-year-old on his arm.

**ok, ok I succumbed to the temptation - but isn’t animal print back in fashion?  Or have I been here too long?

them good old days…

Our esteemed rag, the Kyiv Weekly, is guaranteed to print at least one article per publication that has me falling off my chair in stitches.  This week’s gem was a piece on a new amusement park, named ‘1984′ which has recently opened in Lithuania. 

Do you have a hankering for Soviet times?

Do you want to feel the former USSR spirit for a few hours?

Do you have a spare $50 to burn?

Are you a sandwich short of a picnic?

If you answered ‘yes’ to one or more questions, then head on over to a bunker located 25km from Vilnius, where you will be treated to:

• A cup of burnt barley coffee
• An excursion run by guards accompanied by German shepherd dogs who will make you speak Russian or be silent (whether it’s the dogs or the guards that make you speak Russian is unclear)
• Marching under the red flag accompanied by the USSR anthem
• Running around in gas masks screaming out Soviet slogans

If you refuse to do the above you’ll be sent to a KGB ‘investigator’ who falsely accuses you of some minor crime and threatens to send you to Siberia.

If you make it through the excursion you’ll be treated to a glass of vodka with tinned buckwheat porridge and meat slices.

Interestingly you are told to ’stop thinking as the party will do that for you’ and smiling is an offence.  (That explains a lot in these former USSR joints…)

If you disobey or smile you’ll be beaten with a leather belt.  (Are we sure this is not some dodgy S&M organisation masquerading as a tourist park?) 

The adventure is not for children, claustrophoics or those with heart problems.  To make the experience even more stressful all instructions are barked out in Russian.  (Yes, that’s stressful, alright.) 

By the end of your excursion you should have been cured of any nostalgia ‘illness’ you had for Soviet times.  Anyone got a spare $50?

you’ve been in kiev too long when… (part 2)

You are trying to buy a pair of plain, black unadorned winter boots but you can only find the ones in metallic or animal print or with numerous unnecessary bits of metal and you think - well, that’s quite nice, you know a little bit of shine and sparkle would brighten up these grey days, besides, animal print is making something of a comeback, I’ve heard…..

…..you want to buy a new top and you find yourself fingering something sequin-encrusted and brightly coloured and you think - well, that’s quite nice, you know a little bit of colour and sparkle would brighten things up a bit.  In your pre-Kiev life you would have been allergic to colour and sparkle.

A tip for handling the above two points - before you commit to fripperies like colour, sparkle, unnecessary metal bits, even animal print, ask yourself - is this nice or have I been here too long? - and the inevitable answer will be - yes I have.  Alternatively take a friend who’s been in Kiev less than 6 months and the answer will be - yes you have.

You have the trazillionth power cut, the fridge rattles to a halt and you think - oh that’s ok I’ll just put everything outside on the windowsill, it’s cold enough.  And you think it’s quite an adventure - like training for camping or something uncivilised…..

…..and when the fridge fails to come back on again after aforementioned powercut, you don’t bother reporting it to your landlord because you’ll be told it will take a week for the ‘fridge master’ to come and look at it, you can’t be bothered to argue about it and anyway, you know that if you just wait a while, perhaps give the fridge a kick - it’ll probably shudder back into life again in a day or so.

You have the ten trazillionth power cut and you think - oh; no tv, no kettle, no computer, no internet, no hoover, no washing machine, no dishwasher, no lights - and you feel almost grateful that you have an excuse to get out of the apartment on a shitty Kiev-grey day because you can’t even read or make yourself a cup of tea or do the hoovering (who am I kidding?) to keep warm…..

…..and then you think - oh well there are people worse off than us, at least we have a roof over our heads and can afford to go out for a cup of tea blah blah blah.

You go out for lunch with some girlfriends and the most devoushka-y devoushka walks in, unzips her metallic blouson and reveals her buttfloss.  Your table express their disgust but secretly you think - ooh, well if I had a figure like that I think I might be tempted to expose a bit of buttfloss too.

And to cap it all off, you find the remnants of a tramp’s dinner in the stairwell (because they are barred from the cellar, but they still manage to get in the main doors and huddle up to the big radiator at night) - orange peel, empty beer bottles, cigarette butts. Whereupon MDF (the fearsome tramp-scaring warrior) says - well, I don’t mind them being here but they could at least take their rubbish away with them in the morning.

Then you know it’s time to go home.

you’ve lived in kiev too long when… (part 1)

 

It’s mid winter, -2C and you think - pah! that’s so waaaaarm.  So you leave your thermal gloves at home when you go out and think how disappointing it is that you can’t boast to everyone back home how cold it is.

You find yourself saying to folks back home - actually it’s been a very mild winter, the most we got down to was -21C AND that was WITH the windchill factor…..

…..then you shrug your shoulders and say - yep, that’s got to be good old global warming - for the ten millionth time…..

…..you are addicted to the Euronews breakfast weather report with that roving map and when it reaches Kiev and it has the lowest temperature beating all of eastern Europe AND Moscow you yell - yay we won! we won!

You see some crass graffiti which you just have to photo and you reckon it’s quite nice to see a bit of colour and even better if it’s a word you understand - besides, it brightens the place up a bit.  In your pre-Kiev life you would mumble - ugh! what kind of a slum is this?

You wait an extra 2 or 3 seconds after the pedestrian lights flash green just to make sure you don’t get knocked down by a car trying to beat the lights…..

…..you cross after 2 or 3 seconds and you are almost mown down by two cars trying to beat the lights but you just stand back, shrug your shoulders and trudge along with everyone else.  You no longer yell out ‘wanker!’ or want to bash the car with your handbag.  You think they’ll probably shoot you anyway…..

…..you are paranoid that everyone has a gun because in expat-land the one story about a foreigner getting shot at a traffic light years ago has circulated so many times over the years that traffic light shootings would appear to be a regular event.

For the gazillionth time in a restaurant you get something you didn’t order but you just shrug and think how much worse things could be, there are a million worse off people in the world, at least we’re lucky enough to be able to afford to eat in a restaurant blah blah blah…..

…..on that very rare occasion that you complain (usually when you have visitors from home who get extremely affronted by aforementioned wrong order) you feel incredibly proud of yourself that you have ‘challenged the system’…..

…..and if the evil devoushka waitress smiles and is pleasant, you walk around like a grinning idiot for the rest of the day because someone was nice to you.

not whingeing pom

It was mentioned in a comment on a previous post that I seemed to be hating Kiev.  Now that really isn’t true, despite my occasional whingeing which is just trying to paint a realistic picture of life as it happens to me.  Come to think of it, I am one of the less whingey expats in Kiev - and most ex-pats whinge a lot.

But you show me an ecstatically joyous expat in Kiev and I’ll show you a near middle-aged paunchy American / British male with 19-year-old busty blonde Svetlana draped on his arm.

There are various coping mechanisms for living in Kiev, such as leaving every other week for Paris / London / whatever airport is at least 3 hours flight away from the FSU region.  MDF, for example has chosen the mooney route (not the bizarre religion) which he performs out the window of our apartment whenever life gets too desperate. Thankfully we are not overlooked by neighbours. Moonies are to be recommended as they are a great laughter generator. And as MDF and I agreed, the minute we stop laughing is the minute we leave. That minute is fast approaching.

To prove that sometimes we have a good time in Kiev, I’ll tell you about Saturday night.  The day started at lunchtime with MDF’s company party - for expats.  I would have preferred it if the local contingent were invited as it would give a chance to discuss other topics than - how long have you been in Kiev / where were you before? / how long have you got before your time’s up? / how much do you hate Kiev? 

Being a work do, the alcohol was in full flow, and despite my grumblings prior to the event (why does it have to be a Saturday? Why do I have to sit and listen to MDF schmoozing his boss, blah blah)the do was a lot of fun.  When else do you get to have salsa lessons, wine tasting, sushi on tap, cooking lessons from a top chef, gorge out on funny nouveau cuisine stuff like tuna doused in dry ice with a frozen wasabi cream followed by a frozen pina colada chaser; all washed down over 9 hours with as much beer and wine (and vodka and brandy for those hardened alcoholics) as you can stomach, and every bit of it on someone else’s budget?  Do you see me whingeing?  No you don’t.

When the last bottle of wine ran out it was time to go and I had the great idea of heading to the Rock n Roll diner.  The atmosphere was, well, rocking and there were no annoying posy devoushka types.  Our waiter was a sweetheart - he put up with our drunken idiocy with a sense of humour and he spoke French, English, Arabic, Russian and Ukrainian as required. So I got to practice ordering in French.

Several mojitos later MDF took us off to Art Club 44 for more mojitos, monkey business and a white russian which isn’t a bad description of our contingent.  There was an excellent live band, but a bit hard on the eardrums - although that may be my advancing years speaking.  And there were no annoying posy devoushka types.

M and I went to throw some shapes on the miniscule dance floor, and as ever here is an actual conversation for good measure:

Ukrainian boy: you! Where are you from?
me: not Ukraine.
UB: hahahahahahaha! Where are you from?
me: I’m from Africa*.
UB: no!
me: yes, I was born in Zimbabwe.
UB: aaaahahahahahahahahahahahahoohohohohohosnortsnort! (And almost collapses on the floor).
And that was the end of that conversation. Insightful or not, you can decide.  Maybe the guy was just high.

A very large man stripped himself to the waist and stepped up onto the stage to demonstrate his pelvic thrusting ability.  This made my mojito a little hard to swallow.  The bouncer, who was half the stripper’s size, asked him to step down and the large man did so without protest.  

All in it was a great night** and we wished we did it more often as it would be another Kiev coping mechanism to add to the list.

*I am trying this phraseology and it completely changes the direction of conversation, or brings it to an hysterical halt. Previously I would say I’m English, and leave out the Africa bit, thinking no-one gives a hoot where I grew up - I was wrong.

 **I didn’t mention that I honked my guts up when we got home because I don’t want to appear whingey.

smells

 

Everyone knows how evocative smells can be - the smell of freshly baked biscuits that drift you back to childhood in mum’s kitchen, the smell of first rains on a boiled tarmac road that float you back home if you were lucky to live in a hot country and so on.  And every city has it’s own smells - take Kiev for example. 

There is something unmistakably cabbagey, mixed with sweat and laced with diesel.  And if you live in my apartment block you have the additional welcome in the foyer (i.e. bombed out looking dusty stairwell) of lashings of chicken shed mingled with the throat-choking muck spray odour that is equated with the English countryside.

Chicken shed? Muck spray?  How can this be, living in a civilised (ahem) city?  This might help explain:

me: hi ludmilla. Oof, what is that terrible smell?  I feel like I’m going to choke.

ludmilla (from the agency next door): that is bleach.

me: oh - someone’s cleaning the stairwell with bleach?

ludmilla: yes, in winter these people come to sleep in cellar so we have to take them out.

me: oh?  The poor people? (i.e. tramps)

ludmilla: yes.  We throw bucket of water down in cellar and they come out. Hahahahaha.

me: oh.  That’s not very nice.  Where will they go if they can’t sleep in our cellar? (of course I know the answer but I like stringing these things out - to see whether people really can be this mean and besides, it makes for a longer blog post.).

ludmilla: hahaha they go to some other apartments! (that’s right, pass the problem onto someone else).

me: well, I suppose the men smell quite bad, but they aren’t really doing any harm are they?  I mean, what are they supposed to do when it’s -10C outside and they have nowhere to sleep?

ludmilla: if you see these people you must throw bucket of water down in cellar. Ah no! Not you - MDF must do it! Hahahaha!

when I wish I spoke Russian

There are moments when I kick myself for not having made the effort to learn Russian, past the the basics of “1kg of tomatoes please” or “where are the green peppers”, which actually comes out as “where green peppers” when I say it.  The ability to mime animal noises (learnt from buying meat) doesn’t help either in certain circumstances.

Dealing with our rental agency is one of those moments.  Like this morning, when I was being yelled at by the maintenance man to fetch a bucket to drain the radiator (I had been waiting for him since the heating was switched on - that was mid October), and then being yelled at again because my bucket was too big.  Not being able to tell him to wind his neck in, in his own language was a sure disability on my part.

And sometimes it can be a bit painful when I have to express myself in extended gestures and stretched out explanations in simple English when one or two Russian words would do.  For example yesterday, reminding the agency next door that we needed aforementioned radiators fixed:

ludmilla: where you go these weeks?

me: I was away.

ludmilla: away.  Holiday?

me: no, not really.

ludmilla: where you go?

me: to Africa.

ludmilla: Africa! Why you in Africa?

me: because my father lived there and he died so I went for his funeral.

ludmilla: which country?

me: Zimbabwe.

ludmilla: why Zimbabwe?

me: because my father lived there but he died.

ludmilla: died?  What is died?

me: dead.  He is dead.

ludmilla: dead?

me: yes, dead! You know - dead (in desperation I do the motion of a finger slicing across my throat with tongue out to mimic being dead).

ludmilla: ah! Dead! I see.

me: so, can we get our radiators fixed?

overheard

madame: ‘the fox’, do you understand what ‘fox’ is?

me: yes I do.

madame: explain to the class please.

me: well, it’s a creature that is red.

madame: it has an orange coat.

me: oh, yeah ok, orange coat.

madame: continue.

me: it is an animal which is orange. In England they is in the countryside and sometimes in the big towns.  They like to eat chickens. Some people in the countryside do the horse and walk very fast on the horse to take the fox (try to understand what my preschool French is like)

madame: so they don’t use the fox for making coats?

(me being a goodie goodie know-it-all in French lessons)
.
.
.

natalia: I feel sad for our teacher.

me: why?

natalia: she must hate us because we are so stupid.

(walking home after our French lesson, I couldn’t agree more).