We drove to their apartment, conveniently only two miles south of where we lived. It was nice inside; they’d had it repaired to a pretty high standard, although like Nastya’s parents, Dima and Marina slept in the living room because their one designated bedroom was lived in by Semka and his giant indoor climbing frame. The kitchen was also smaller than Nataliya Petrovna’s, but it was just big enough for the four of us to sit down around the small table. We drank, we drank and we ate. Marina was trying hard to make a good impression, so I got to eat from the jar of pickled mushrooms which were her favourite food. I also tried pelmeni for the first time, having been a bit afraid of trying it before. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Though a bit salty and a bit slimy, it was very similar to ravioli, except it wasn’t served with any sauce and instead of being square, each parcel is round and looks more like a bowl of cream eyeballs. Marina explained that Russians offer many foods when they have guests, but when the guests are gone the hosts always cook pelmeni for themselves as it’s cheap, and very easy to cook. Pelmeni is to the Russians what rarebit is to the Welsh. All was going well until the vodka and cognac came out. As a Westerner, Russian vodka etiquette wasn’t something ingrained in me. I forgot to eat something after each shot, and there were many shots. The bottles had to be finished or we would suffer some sort of bad luck.
I was woken the following day by Dima at 6 p.m. Nastya had left earlier because she was annoyed at me for throwing up the night before. I had the worst hangover. Worse than any I had known at any other point in my life. I was in Semka’s bed; fortunately he had stayed with his grandparents for the night. Marina forced some soup down my neck and I had a shower. I felt disgusting. At 8 p.m. Dima drove me home to where Nastya was waiting for me. We had planned to celebrate New Year’s Eve with Nataliya Petrovna at her friend Lilya’s apartment, as Boris was out on a hunt and Nataliya Petrovna didn’t want to be stuck at home with only Baba Ira for company. Nastya was thoroughly pissed off with me. I changed quickly and we made our way by taxi to the east of the city where Lilya lived with her granddaughter, also named Nastya. Lilya’s apartment was quite like the other Lilya’s I had visited on Christmas Day. It was very well decorated. In fact I would say it was posh. There were many rooms, a giant sofa, an equally giant television, and the kitchen looked horribly expensive. Lilya was an accountant and liked to buy only things of the best quality. I was afraid to touch the plates and because the crystal glass looked so expensive I gripped it like it was some kind of precious sculpture, strong enough not to let it go, but careful not to crush it.
In keeping with Russian etiquette, it was my job as the man to pour champagne. I had terribly shaky hands, a chronic hangover, and every glass was worth more than all the money I had in my wallet. I drank juice all night, except for one glass of champagne at midnight. When the changing of the year struck, Putin gave a speech on TV, and was on most of the channels. Out the window, because we were ten floors up, we could see hundreds of fireworks. The New Year’s celebration is so huge, and there are so many fireworks for so long because Russia is nine time zones big. At the stroke of midnight, nine times consecutively, a different part of Russia begins to celebrate. It used to be eleven; however in March 2010 The Kremlin abolished two time zones, one in the far west of Russia and one in the far east. Apparently so many time zones had a negative impact on the economy. A year later, daylight saving time was also abolished. Before I left for Russia in the summer, Moscow was three hours ahead of the UK, but when the clocks went back in the UK in October, Moscow was ahead of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) by four hours. All very confusing when you’re booking flights often, and annoying when I was in the UK because I was used to calling Nastya at 5 p.m. GMT as it was 12 p.m. KRAT (Krasnoyarsk time), usually to say goodnight. After the clocks went back if I called Nastya at 5 p.m., she would get annoyed because it was 1 a.m. KRAT and she would already be sleeping.
At 1 a.m. Nastya and I left for home in a taxi, leaving Nataliya Petrovna and Lilya dancing to a pop concert on the TV. Nastya had a day shift the next day and needed to be up at 6:30 a.m. I was glad of this because I was desperate for a proper night’s sleep and my hangover wanted to avoid the inevitable karaoke.
iv. Red Tape
From December 31st to January 7th Russia comes to a full stop to allow room for the New Year hangover. It is the largest national holiday of the year. After the revolution of 1917, most of the traditions that were originally associated with Christmas, like Grandfather Frost, were moved to New Year’s Eve because the Soviet leaders (being devout atheists) wanted to steer clear of anything remotely Christian. Because of this, Christmas trees in Russia are known as New Year Trees. The relationship between Russia and tree decoration goes back to the 17th Century when Peter the Great, the man in charge at the time, decided it would be a good idea to introduce Christmas trees to Russia after he had seen them in Europe while on his holidays. All was well until 1916, when indoor trees were banned because the tradition had originated from Germany, and the Russians were pissed off with the Germans over World War I. This ban continued until 1935, when a letter calling for Christmas trees to be reinstated was published in a communist newspaper. To avoid the religious element, Christmas trees were rebranded as New Year trees and because they no longer had anything to do with God they were allowed back into people’s apartments. They even went so far as to allow Santa Claus back into the country (though I’m not sure what visa he had).
The modern tradition of having a day off work after New Year began in the late forties and was originally called non-labour day. This was later extended to five days, but, with Christmas Day on the 7th and old New Year on the 13th, the holiday was unofficially extended by the will of the people so it could include both Christmas and New Year’s parties. By this time I had become an ardent reader of The Moscow Times, the only daily English-language newspaper in Russia, and was really surprised to see an article that implied ‘see you when the partying stops’.
After the New Year party at Lilya’s, Nastya and I started to lean towards the idea of me moving to Russia permanently. We were tired of saying goodbye so often; the way we were living simply wasn’t right. We spent some of the holiday period researching Russian immigration policy; there was a lot to learn and if it was anything like obtaining a visa, we had to get it exactly right and perfectly timed when I applied for documents. To become a permanent resident, I first needed to obtain temporary residency. To get this I needed a private visa, which could only be obtained through Nastya formally inviting me to Russia with some lengthy letter obtained through the immigration office, stamped a hundred and one times and validated by a stamp that is the boss of all other stamps. After this invitation and all the stamps were issued, it then needed to be submitted, along with passport, photos, and all other relevant blah to the Russian embassy in London. When the immigrant had re-entered Russia on their private visa they then needed to submit a criminal records certificate, with Apostille, translated and notarised, with two completed temporary residency forms, a notarised translated copy of the person’s passport, a notarised copy of something else, written consent of everyone currently living in Russia, written consent of everyone living outside of Russia, a chest X-ray certificate, a leprosy certificate and a partridge in a pear tree to the official Russian Office of Comings and Goings. On top of this, all the medical tests must have been performed at clinics specified by the Office of Comings and Goings and must have been validated by at least two thousand and fifty six stamps, which all had to be the exact same shade of pink and all had to overlap each other one tenth of an inch. In fact, the real list of requirements was ten times longer, but I’ve cut it short as it adds fifty more pages to this book. The only thing I needed to worry about initially was the criminal records certificate. I searched online for the right place to get one and, on the website of the Russian embassy in London, I found a page dedicated to non-criminal records certificates for immigration purposes. Bingo.