let that be a warning

This is a cautionary tale about an American who died after the utility company cut off his electricity – he took 4 days to freeze to death.  How long did the gas ‘situation’ go on for in Kiev?  Well, the reason for the cut off was because this old bloke didn’t pay his bill. 

This reminded me of December time when a notice with names and numbers was posted on the front door of our building.  We pondered over this for a few days (read: we looked at the notice and thought – yep, whatever that means - as befits all notices in our building) until I eventually bumped into lovely Dmitri (a story for another day involving our neighbour and his underpants) who explained that this was a list of apartments in our block and their outstanding utility bills.  brrrrrrrrrr could have been chilly in there…….

lena the tailor

mindthegap is doing positivity this week.  MDH and I had dinner with his replacement (yes, you heard correct; replacement – we are leeeeeeeaaavinnnnnggggg) (oh and not really replacement because MDH can’t be replaced – he is irreplaceable but anyway).  So we had dinner with Mr and Mrs Replacement – following a strict briefing beforehand to be absolutely positive about Kiev.  Is there any other way to be? 

I got thinking about the positives.  Kiev is a 3 hour flight to Paris.

No, there is a smidgen of other shiney nuggets that mindthegap should start sharing before desserting.

A recent positive is Lena the tailor.  Introduced to me by a good friend, MDH and I have found Lena a godsend.  In fact she is the goddess of needles.  She can bust a mean stitch.  These recession-driven times brought us to Lena with 30 items of clothing that needed holes fixing (did you know that lavender oil beats the moths? I didn’t.), rips mending, seams taking in (MDH) and seams letting out (me). 

How one can require 7cm more on the waist especially when one has been tortured in the gym by Natalia the trainer (that’s another nugget for later) is beyond me.  Anyhow this is why Lena is really a goddess – on measuring my expanded waistline she said not to bother letting the seams out and told MDH to buy me new trousers (yeah I like that) and when he groaned, told him that the gap’s body was very womanly and all natural.  Yeah hahaha.  The needle goddess rocks. 

Needle goddess’s number is 80506917675.

mindthegap confirms: there is a recession

In case you have been hiding under your duvet all winter, which is quite likely, you will have felt the buzz about the recession wherever you are.  And now mindthegap can confirm that yes there really is a recession and Kiev is definitely feeling the squeeze.

Nevermind not being able to buy butter at our local supermarket and a dearth of decent fresh fruit and vegetables because import taxes are being buggered about again.  Nevermind the nice fruit and veg lady and man in our underpass disappearing overnight.  Forget about the endless clothes shops with closing down sales.

No, all that pales into insignifance when you are faced with this:

fizz at the opera

Last night Little Miss Moi and I went to the beautiful Opera house and saw a fabulous performance of Swan Lake. Half the fun of the opera are the perfectly spaced bar breaks. If you are clever and can situate yourself near a door opening onto the bar area to be first in the queue your experience is greatly enhanced.

So being experienced pizzers – well, LMM still has her post baby licence plates on but she managed to do the Dairy Queen before she left home so was free to indulge in a few drops of fizz – we were first in the queue every time.

Despite the high gained from watching men in tights, our spirits were dampened at the bar. When mindthegap first arrived in Kiev one could get a decent sized glass of fizz for near on ten grivnia (about $1.50). Now you get about 2 drops for near on $4. AND the (first) glass was flat. In the good old days one munched on smoked salmon sandwiches but last night one manky bag of M&Ms was shared between two.

Hells bells if this isn’t the clearest indicator of a recession tell us what is.

2008

2008 was something of a year.  Heaps happened – I passed round two of my exams ( I blame Little Miss Moi’s pregnancy-induced absence (abstention?) not distracting me) and best of all MDF became MDH – yes he made an honest woman out of me, we bought a house (not in Kiev), we took a trip down under, I learnt bribery and I gave up driving in Kiev.  What else?  That’s enough for now. 

Somehow my blogging mojo went out the window in 2008 and I now feel the need to smarten up my act.  Here’s a picture:

 

This is the view from our living room window right now.  That snow drift is menacing the power cable, but as we have limited heating (unless you’ve been living in a hole you’ll know why), why not screw up the electricity too?  Candles are romantic. 

See the barbeque in the bottom right corner?  A reminder of summer months gone past. We discovered we could hang out the window and barbeque to our heart’s content without having to leave our flat.  Folk (expats) say you have to be happy in your flat to survive this city as you’ll be spending a fair amount of time in it.

 That barbeque will come in handy when we have to set fire to our furniture to keep our skinny asses warm.

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.