Sunbathing in Siberia (4 page)

Sat by the window, I watched as we charged down the runway into the early morning sky. Siberia felt so alien to me – all those trees, mountains and little wooden houses. It was hard to picture myself living there, though I had been a guest for a full month already. I didn't know what the future would hold but I knew I would have to return. We had no other choice. There was so much to do and so many decisions to make. I wasn't sure if I could make the transition to Siberian life.

Oblivious to my internal struggles, Nastya smiled. She was excited that we were travelling together, or she seemed to be anyway. Before leaving the apartment there had been a moment where she began crying, but she quickly stifled her tears for my benefit. I had done the same the evening before, lying awake on the bed while Nastya slept. My mind simply wouldn't switch off. As tired as I was, sitting next to Nastya, who was now my wife, it seemed a shame to sleep. I wanted to remember every minute of our last day together. We said nothing to each other the whole time, but swapped occasional knowing glances. When she finally fell asleep, as I knew she would, I thought back over my time in Krasnoyarsk.

Pushkin Square

Stepping off the train onto land felt much like stepping off a ship. My body was undulating from three days and nights of rolling over tracks. It was hard to stand up straight without rocking back and fore. This sensation lasted for a few days. Poor Nastya had it worse as she had come to Moscow by train and returned the same way. We were met at the station by Nastya's Aunt Olga who drove us to Nastya's city apartment where she lived with her parents. Driving or being driven in Russia is a totally different experience from driving in the West. The roads are full of potholes, and when I say potholes, I'm talking the kind of pots you grow trees in. All the cars swerve and weave around both sides of the road to avoid falling into them. Not only that but they drive at speed. Russians remember the location of each pothole like Westerners remember the location of speed cameras and tight corners. When we arrived at the apartment I was closer to a state of panic again.

City apartments and residential areas in Russia look more like Beirut that anywhere else. The buildings are tall and rectangular and are constructed from large concrete block or really big red bricks. The block work, while mostly straight enough to keep a building up, was obviously constructed haphazardly. It is not unusual to see a brick wall, which should be the flat face of a building, full of small twists and turns. Build a wall out of empty boxes with your eyes closed, and you're not too far away from pre-1991 Russian construction. The main courtyards of these buildings are mostly large concrete slabs that also appear to overlap and have big spaces in between for you to fall into. Everything seems thrown together.

To enter the building we had to pass through a large armoured door, plated with thick steel panels that could only be opened with a magnetic key or the combination to the keypad on the side. Once inside we walked up four flights of the most badly-laid concrete steps in the whole world to reach Nastya's steel front door. I stepped inside the narrow hallway, made narrower by a huge brown wardrobe on the left, and removed my shoes, which immediately let out foot-smell. I was worried for a second that Nastya's parents' first impression of me would be pongy feet; I didn't have time to worry. With Nastya and Olga behind me, jostling for space to take off their shoes and coats, I was quickly pushed into the middle of the hallway. The whole place seemed yellowish, like white walls after someone has smoked for a hundred years; and there was a strong whiff of feet other than my own. As I kicked my shoes gently to the side of the hall I saw huge piles of boots that had been shoved haphazardly into the bottom of the wardrobe as both a quick tidy up and a way to mask their scent.

Raising my gaze from the floor I was faced with two shadowy figures, Nastya's parents. I had no idea what to say. I couldn't even force out a hello. Our eyes were locked together. Their inquisitive glare troubled me before their eyes began to smile. We were greeted in Russian and herded into the small kitchen at the end of the hall, where Nastya's mum, Nataliya Petrovna, had prepared some deer meat and herbal tea.

Although the short version of her mother's name was Natasha, I had been cautioned by Nastya to always refer to her as Nataliya Petrovna, as a sign of respect. Everyone spoke in Russian, which of course I didn't understand, though thankfully this didn't last for too long. Nastya's parents simply wanted to have a good look at me. Which they did – a good long look. Though the kitchen table was slightly bigger than the one on the train we were all struggling for space – the kitchen itself was not much bigger than our train compartment had been. We were hungry; very hungry. Nastya had asked her mother to cook something for when we arrived, and I had visions of a large meal, with sauces and various vegetables. I don't know why I imagined it would be like that. Wishful thinking probably. I was so hungry I thought I could have eaten anything, but that wasn't true. When two half-cooked meatballs of nondescript meat were placed before me, I could have cried. I cut one in half and put some in my mouth, as did Nastya. They were cold on the inside. Out of politeness I kept eating, washing down each mouthful with tea. When I had managed to make the first one disappear Nastya told me that her mother confessed to rushing the food and we didn't have to finish if we didn't want to. I left the other ball on the plate. After giving me one final look over, the parents left, taking Olga with them, and we were free to sleep off our travel weariness.

I spent the following morning familiarising myself with the apartment. Normally it would have been inhabited by Nataliya Petrovna's eighty-seven-year-old mother, Baba Ira, but she was in hospital following an infection caused by an ingrowing toenail. Nastya's parents had gone to stay at their dacha on the west of the city to allow Nastya and myself the freedom to walk around the apartment half-dressed, which we did most of the time because it was impossible to turn down the heating. As that day was Sunday, and there was nowhere Nastya could really think of taking me that would be open, we organised our papers ready to take to the wedding court the next day.

Before going to the wedding office on the Monday morning we had to obtain my registration paper. This is a separate document from the immigration card that was given to me at the airport. Your registration paper must be applied for at a post office or local immigration office (UFMS) in whatever city you visit, and must be obtained within seven days of arrival in any city that you plan to stay at for more than a week. Leaving the apartment to walk to the post office I felt acutely aware of how vulnerable I was being a pre-registered Westerner. Even though I still had six days left to obtain this document I knew that if I was stopped by the militia on our short journey there was a risk I could be asked to hand over all the money I had.

From the outside it was impossible to tell the building housed an office at all, as many shops in suburban areas and offices in Russia all look very much alike. The queue inside the post office was horrendous: rows of babushkas waiting to pick up their pension money. When it was our turn, we were informed that they would need a photocopy of my passport, immigration card and Nastya's residential permit. We copied these at a building not far away. Back in the post office Nastya had to fill in two copies of the same form, which were are as long and complex as my visa application, except the boxes to write in were tiny and only perfectly handwritten block capitals were accepted. Many mistakes and many forms later, we finally had it right and so queued one more time to hand everything in and pay the few hundred rouble fee (equivalent of a few pounds). I was now a completely legal resident of Krasnoyarsk city for a month. Should the militia try to squeeze money out of me, I now had the power to threaten them with a harassment investigation by the British Embassy. Still, I felt uneasy whenever I walked past them or if they drove past us. This was their country and they had the ability to arrest me, deport me or make me disappear entirely if they felt like it; having an embassy two thousand miles away in Moscow wasn't actually much of a comfort.

Opposite the post office we caught the 91 bus, which took half an hour to reach the city centre. Bus journeys in Krasnoyarsk are not a pleasant experience. Most vehicles are old second-hand machines from Germany, Korea or China, and still have emergency exit signs in the language of their native country. The interiors are spent from about fifty years of use and there are never enough seats. There are no ticket machines either. Instead, a painfully thin girl or large middle-aged woman walks up and down the bus collecting thirteen roubles off every new passenger. As the bus moves at speed and weaves all over the road to avoid potholes, it's appreciated if you have the correct change ready, which I didn't. Nastya paid the twenty-six roubles and the collection girl tore two tickets off the reel in her hand and passed them to me, while giving me a very sour look. In Russia it is still frowned upon to let your woman pay on the buses or at restaurants. In a land where women are raised to cook while the men are raised to either hunt or go to work, equality is a word very little used.

Stood on the practically seat-less bus to Pushkin Square, I noticed how nearly every vehicle except for the buses had blacked out windows, some even with blacked-out windscreens. It seemed as though people did whatever they could to remain unseen. I later learned that it was illegal to have the front windows of a car darkened and that the militia did stop vehicles regularly forcing the drivers to scrape off the darkening plastic cover there and then.

The wedding court was yet another building that could have been anything. The reception was unmanned so we had to go through to the back office to register, which was really simple. As fortune would have it, not only was getting married really cheap, but they had a space on the Friday of that week; no bribery was needed. We booked our wedding for 10.30 a.m. on Friday the 8
th
April. It was just four days away and we felt relieved. The rest of the week was filled with shopping. We needed two things – wedding rings and new boots. The rings were an easy affair as Nastya much preferred silver to gold. The rings Nastya chose were basic and cost the equivalent of £12 each. The boots were a much more complex affair. Russians are crazy about boots and like to have a new pair for all special occasions. We went to a large complex that sold only boots; millions of them, boots in every shape and size. I don't remember how long we spent there but I do remember being a bit short-tempered after the fiftieth pair tried were still no good. Nastya finally decided on a pair from a high street store towards the end of the day, more through desperation than for love of the actual boots. I bought a pair of black shoes in the morning, from the first men's shoe shop we entered, and took all of ten minutes to choose them, which is a pretty long time for me.

On the evening before our wedding, Nataliya Petrovna came over to the apartment to wish us well and to interrogate me. Neither of Nastya's parents knew me very well and they needed to make sure their daughter was making the right decision. It must have seemed odd to them that someone from an affluent country would travel all that way to marry a Siberian girl. British men also have a reputation in Russia for treating women badly and spending their wives' money. Russian men are gentlemen in comparison; they do things like holding doors open and take off a woman's coat for her when she gets home. I told her that although there had been a few short periods where I had little or no work, I had a pretty sound work-ethic, and though I had never taken off a woman's coat, it wouldn't be a hardship. She seemed satisfied with that but still asked ‘Are there no women in Wales?' to which I replied ‘Yes, dozens of them.' Her final question was ‘Scientists have said that a person's life partner is usually born within a few miles of them; what do you think of this?' My answer was ‘Scientists also once said that the world was flat.' The discussion was over.

The one thing we had overlooked and almost completely forgotten was our need to find an official translator for our nuptials; the law stated that we must have one as my Russian was appalling, and still is. On the evening before our wedding we emailed everyone in the vicinity who could speak both languages and might be free. It was a tall order as most translators work Monday to Friday. Our savior came in the shape of Kostya, a Russian missionary who had travelled the world doing good deeds. He didn't even want paying, although we bought him a box of chocolates for his kindly efforts.

The morning of the wedding felt like any other morning. We wore jeans, shirts, new boots, and normal winter coats, and I took a black ushanka just in case it snowed. We caught a taxi as we were worried all the buses might have magically disappeared, and so we arrived in plenty of time. Kostya came by foot and arrived five minutes after us. The wedding ceremony was very simple. We sat in plastic chairs opposite a wooden desk in the same back office where we had registered two days before. A woman in smart casual dress read through the laws and official stuff of marriage; Kostya translated; we said ‘I do' and it was done. Nastya shed a few tears while I tried to contain my nervous laughter. The certificate, which seemed to have been printed before we arrived, was handed to me, as I was now the ‘head of the family'. We were wished good luck and farewell and left the office no more than fifteen minutes after we had entered.

Although, legally, we had to use the international wedding court, we could have had another much larger church ceremony afterwards. Most weddings in Krasnoyarsk are lavish affairs, with showy receptions, that finish with a limousine sightseeing tour of the city. Siberian newlyweds simply love posing for the camera and like to have their picture taken near the Yenisei as well as some of the older, Orthodox church buildings. By contrast our wedding had been very modest, to the point that we neglected to take any pictures at all. I had worried that our small ceremony might not have been enough for Nastya, but each time we spoke about it she affirmed that she didn't care to waste lots of money on one single day, when we had a whole future together to look forward to.