Gorbachev's 80th birthday event

As I already covered in an earlier post, I got the chance to meet Mikhail Gorbachev on 21st March 2011, when he celebrated his 80th birthday with journalists at Moscow's Dom Zhurnalistov.

I didn't manage to take photos with him - because I was so much in awe that I forgot that I was holding a camera! But a journalist there did take some and she promised she would send them. When I thanked her I added a polite "whenever it is convenient" - words I have since come to regret.

So I'm still waiting for her to reply - and hopefully she will indeed send them*. But meanwhile, I found this photograph of Gorbachev holding the flowers and birthday card I gave him:



Here is the rest of the photo-essay put together by her for the newspaper, Novaya Gazeta.

*PS - I just received my photographs. Excellent quality because the journalist's was a professional camera after all :)

How I Met Your Gorby

“10:37 AM,” my watch panicked. I had to get to Dom Zhurnalistov (Journalists’ House) on Nikitsky Bulvar by 11:00 AM for a round table conference, where former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev was to celebrate his 80th birthday. And there I was - among Bolshaya Nikitskaya, Malaya Nikitskaya and Nikitskie Vorota - completely lost. When it comes to directions, I’m not the most gifted person so I don’t harbor any illusions of DIY miracles. But I had already asked a few people and they had sent me all over the place. 

The sight of 10:42 AM restored my faith in external help. Luckily, the guy in the next restaurant knew where I had to go…and I ran like the wind, mentally patting myself on the back for keeping my heels in my bag and wearing shoes instead. (I’m quite used to this last minute running and try to make it as painless as possible!) 

 10:53 AM – I was there! Phew! I walked upstairs to the hall where the conference was to take place and met Lilia Shevtsova at the entrance. 

 “Are you ok?” she asked. 

 “Yes,” I said, realizing that I probably still looked a little ruffled. 

 “Are these flowers for him?” Lilia asked looking at the bouquet of orange-yellow chrysanthemums I was carrying. I nodded. 

As I entered the hall, I scanned the table to see where Mikhail Gorbachev would probably sit and parked myself on a seat with the best 'view.' As I caught my breath, I finally had a chance to put everything together. Everything I was carrying had a little story behind it…

…In anticipation of this meeting Marzia, my fellow intern at the Carnegie Moscow Center suggested that we should buy “Gorby’s” books so he can sign them. What a brilliant idea! Except the night before the event, I realized that it wasn’t so easy. Moskva on Tverskaya that has the biggest collection had nothing to offer – all sold-out because of Gorbachev’s birthday on 2nd March. Sadly, Moscow’s largest bookstore Bilblio Globus was already closed for the day so I just bought a birthday card at Moskva and headed to Respublika when my flatmate Ira told me that it’s open 24x7. As luck would have it, no Gorby books there either. 

“Perhaps you would like to buy Harper's Bazaar. There’s a full interview of Gorbachev in there,” the shop-assistant suggested. 

Beggars can’t be choosers so I played along…till I saw the cover. Call me old-fashioned but I wasn’t going to have Gorbachev sign a magazine with a half-naked woman on its cover! 

Biblio Globus – located next to FSB (former KGB) headquarters - was my last hope. It was my first time at Lubyanka metro station and as I went up the escalator, I remembered that Alexander Solzhenitsyn and millions of other Soviet people had gone up the same escalator to be questioned and tortured by the KGB and to be subsequently thrown into Soviet labor camps - this was the system Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev reformed! 

 Fingers and toes crossed, I asked the shop-assistant if they had a book by Gorbachev. 

 “Nyet.” 

 “Anything about Gorbachev then?” 

He handed me a book on Gorbachev and Yeltsin. This was the more decently-dressed version of the Harper's Bazaar blasphemy. Imagine asking Winston Churchill to sign a book titled “Churchill-Hitler” or Shah Rukh Khan to sign “Shah Rukh-Salman.” 

“Anything else?” 

“One more but that’s the only other one,” he said handing me a Wolters Kluwer publication, Vyzovy v zhizni i deyatel’nosti M.S. Gorbacheva (Challenges in the life and work of M.S. Gorbachev). 

I quickly examined the table of contents: a collection of essays – fabulous! And since it was the translation of a German book, I was reassured that it had positive things to say about him. Gorby, sometimes spitefully, is referred to as “the best German” by Russians who blame him for the collapse of the Soviet Union… 

…Having bought the book, I had one more thing to do – buy flowers. I must confess that I still haven’t gotten used to this Russian custom because never do I feel more robbed of my femininity than when I have to give flowers to a man. Ideally, it should always be the other way round - but when in Russia, do as the Russians. 

“What about these pink and red tulips?” the flower-shop owner suggested. 

“You know…I have to give these to a man…so maybe something else?” 

“So what?” she sounded enraged. “Tulips are beautiful flowers. Why won’t you give them to a man???” “How about something that isn’t pink or red?” I tried to calm her down. 

Well, that’s how I ended up with the bright orange-yellow chrysanthemums representing “the Sun and good health” as the lady said…

…And now me. So how did I end up getting invited to a meeting with Mikhail Gorbachev? Well, if I have to justice to this story, I would have to go back to the time when I was five and fell in love with Russia but to keep your (and my) sanity, I will stick to more recent dates. 

A few days into the Carnegie internship, I got my second translation assignment. Lilia Shevtsova – the Al Pacino/Gérard Depardieu/Amitabh Bachchan of the think tank world - had written, “How the West Has Become the Kremlin’s Hostage.” She was so happy with my translation that she asked my boss to thank me. That’s when my boss mentioned that I would love to work with Lilia and she took me under her wing. 

Late February, while discussing a research paper that I’m writing under her guidance, we landed on Gorbachev’s topic. Lilia mentioned that he's a very good friend of hers and that she was attending his 'birthday party' that weekend. So you can imagine how my mind works - I started debating if should I ask her whether I could come along. The Good Aanch counseled, “Don't be silly! You don't even know her and it's too big a "favor" to ask for – especially because you were just trashing Gorbachev’s economic policies during perestroika and now suddenly you want to meet him!” 

The Bad Aanch said, “You f***ing nitwit. This is the closest you will ever get to a chance of seeing Gorby, the great. Ask her NOW!” Now in case you didn't already know, I usually end up listening to The Bad Aanch because she's my only insurance against the four words I hate the most - "What if I had...?" 

 So I asked and Lilia politely explained that I can't go because it is a small event for family and friends only. "But..." - and this is the only time in history when the word 'but' was followed by hope instead of disappointment! - "…there is a closed event on 21st March when he celebrates his birthday with journalists. I'll put you on the list…” 

…So there I was on 21st March 2011. 11:07 AM – things were about to start. I couldn’t wait! This man changed the world. He halted the Soviet nuclear arms race, allowed democratization of Eastern Europe and of his own country, and ended the Cold War. And while Ronald Reagan had merely taunted the Soviet leadership, Mr. Gorbachev did indeed tear down that Wall. He is not just a leader, he’s a Statesman – in the same league as Mahatma Gandhi. And for those who hate him for the disintegration of the USSR, let me remind you that it wasn’t Gorbachev but Yeltsin, Shushkevich and Kravchuk (Presidents of the Russian, Ukrainian and Belarussian SSRs), who - knowing fully well that the overwhelming majority of the Soviet people had voted in favor of preserving the USSR with reforms – signed the Belavezha Accords to dissolve the Union. As he entered the room, I couldn’t believe I was right there! I wondered if he would run right at the end of the conference and perhaps I wouldn’t get the chance to give him the flowers and the card. Perhaps his body guards won’t let me get the books signed – both mine and my flatmate Nastya’s – ‘Translating History’ by Igor Korchilov, Gorbachev’s translator. And then even if I managed it all in a rush, perhaps, the flowers and card would get lost in a big heap of other things and wouldn’t matter. 

 The conference began and the speakers around the table went on to say great things about Gorbachev. One man said that he feels lucky to have experienced more freedom than even his son who was born in the late 1980s and has grown up in Russia. Some even joked saying Gorbachev had destroyed many a Sovietologist’s career. One woman started speaking and Gorby interrupted asking who she represents. “Thanks to you, I can say that I represent myself,” came the prompt reply.

I was absolutely amazed with Gorbachev, who even at 80, will instantly charm you with his wit and humor. His voice is deeper than I had imagined and his manner thoughtful. But more than all that, he’s incredibly modest. When it was his turn to speak, he described himself as a small actor, who could not have done what he did without various factors like West Germany’s economic success and Soviet Union’s stagnation. 

While the others were speaking, Lilia had come up to me saying that when Gorbachev finishes speaking she will invite me over to present him the flowers. 

WOW! So I was going to be able to do at least some of what I had wanted to. I played the scene in my head - I would walk up to him, give him the flowers and the card, shake his hand and wish him ‘S dnyom rozhdeniya.’ It was going to be that simple... But it wasn’t! 

When Gorbachev finished, everyone applauded and Lilia stood up saying that she would “like to invite Aanchal Anand, who has come from India and would like present a bouquet to Mikhail Sergeevich." 

I walked up to Mr. Gorbachev and extended my hand – but perhaps not enough. I looked into his eyes – long enough for it to have been mistaken for a stare – and his deep eyes ‘stared’ back. 

“Ti govorish po russki?” He asked if I spoke Russian and that’s when I realized that it had been more than a few seconds since I was standing there – not having said a word. I was in complete awe. I mean what do you say to such a great person? 

But his question broke my frozen state. I extended my hand enough so he could take the flowers. “Zhelayu Vam s dnyom rozhdeniya. Vsevo samovo samovo xoroshevo!” He took the flowers and the card and placed them on the table and then turned back to me, with his arms wide open to hug me.

“You’re hugging Mikhail Gorbachev! ****!” my brain – or whatever part of me was still capable of thinking – said to me. “I love India!” he smiled. “Me too…” I uttered, immediately realizing what a dumb response that was, “…and I love Russia as well,” I tried to ‘save the situation.’ (I clearly need more practice of speaking with Nobel Laureates and former Heads of State!) But he found it all very amusing and I walked back for the closing comments of the conference. I was back in less than a minute with my books because there were no body guards there to spoil the show. He had been so warm that I was confident he would sign them. But I was absolutely not expecting him to sign them with personal messages for Nastya and I, while casually chatting with me. He even invited me into photos other attendees were taking with him. Buying flowers and being Indian has never paid off this much! And I never thought a simple translation could lead to so much!

When he was gathering his things, I saw that my card was tucked between the pages of his diary. I felt honored that he was going to read it. As he walked out of the door, he patted me affectionately on my right shoulder. What a day it had been! As I mentioned to my flatmates Nastya and Ira, I couldn’t believe that someone so great can be so modest. In case you think it’s because he’s old and might as well be nice, think again - Robert Mugabe is 87, Fidel Castro is 84, and Idi Amin and Pol Pot died at 78 and 73 respectively. Being nice is a choice and Mikhail Gorbachev is great not only because of the things he has done but also because he chooses to be nice – and that’s why he commands so much respect. And here is my two cents for those who want to be great leaders – keep your ego in check. There’s a very thin line between confidence and arrogance and the former mutates easily. Coming from the corporate world, I know that every second assistant director thinks of himself (or herself) as God’s gift to mankind. And here I met God’s gift to mankind, and he thinks of himself as just any other ordinary man!

Guess who's back?

Some adventures are just impatient and begin before their time. I was still 48 hours away from landing in Moscow when the owner of the place I had booked called to say that it had been flooded out and was “out of use.”
“That’s ok. I can get another place for a week and move in then,” I tried to sound very calm.
“You don’t understand. It has been completely flooded out. It’s dangerous to even use electricity and repairs can take up to 6 months”

****! And just like that, began what I like to call “Russia–Volume III.” Incidentally, Russia-Volume III is also Moscow-Volume I. The last two times I’ve been here, I’ve lived in Petersburg (Piter). This was going to be my first time living in Moscow. If such a thing happened in Piter, I have a gazillion friends to bail me out. In Moscow, I knew as many people as Jeffery Archer had in the title of Kane and Abel.

Truth be told, Aeroflot is not the best airline in the world. I was so drained after the red-eye that my brain couldn’t even figure out if it was because of the uncomfortable seats, the terrible food or the flight announcement at odd hours. (Oh well, at least it didn’t crash!) My initial plan was to roam around in the city-center till noon and then check in to the last-minute expensive hostel I had booked to temporarily save the day. But I made one of the better decisions of my life by heading straight to the hostel and paying for the previous night just so I could go to bed.

When I woke up at 2:30PM, I was surprised to see that it wasn’t dark yet. That’s the norm in Piter at this time of the year and I was glad to discover that Moscow is ‘powered’ till just after 5PM. Luckily, Moscow is also not as cold. While Piter shivers at around minus 20, Moscow is relatively cosy at around minus 10. People here say that once the temperature dips below minus 5, you can’t really tell how cold it is. But if like me, you had gone from plus 13 in Delhi to minus 11 in Moscow, you’d damn well be able to tell how cold it is. I guess that’s why clicking photos at the Red Square felt like such an ordeal. I was wrapped inside 3 thick sweaters, an overcoat, jeans thrown over 2 pairs of tights, along with the usual hat, scarf and mittens and yet, somehow it was still not warm enough. After taking less than a dozen photos of the Kremlin, St Basil’s Cathedral, Lenin’s Mausoleum, and the beautifully lit GUM(1), the index finger of my right hand, which was all I had chosen to expose to the Russian winter, had already slipped into a coma. I had to practically do a Vidya Balan and suck it to bring it back to life!

I’m Garfield when it comes to Mondays but 17th January 2011 was a special Monday. It was my first day as an intern at the Carnegie Moscow Center(2) and also my official baptism into international relations. Even though I devoured Foreign Policy more lustfully than The Wall Street Journal, I had been a corporate kitten so far. This internship was going to be my transition - an attempt at converting my hobby into a career.

I walked in excitedly and was at my work-station in 30 minutes. And what a work-station! I sit in the library, which is the dome of the Galeriya Aktyor building on Tverskaya - Moscow’s most famous street – that overlooks Tverskaya (obviously!) on both sides, Pushkin Square with his statue, and you can see 3 of the 7 Stalinist skyscrapers(3) including the imposing Ministry of Foreign Affairs. But the view I fell in love with was the Pepsi billboard right across the street that said, “Vsyo tolko nachinaetsya!” (It’s only just beginning). How true!

First days usually involve quietly slipping into a new environment but mine involved a 4PM office party with lots of champagne and wine! It was our IT Manager, Volodya’s 50th birthday and we all gathered to celebrate in style. (They even made me toast in Hindi!) The party was a great way to meet all the research experts and staff at Carnegie, who were all very curious and welcoming as I am their first-ever Indian intern. That’s also how I met Alexander Starikov. He came up and told me that he had visited Delhi back in 1959. Wow! Nostalgia lit up his eyes as he gently sipped his wine. “I stayed at Krishna Road.”
“Krishna Road?” I struggled to remember.
“It is where all the embassies are.”
Really? Then this is somewhere in present-day Chanakyapuri – where I live!

Alexander went on to explain his role as the Deputy Director of Carnegie’s journal, Pro et Contra, and also shared that the photos hanging around the office and the conference hall were his works! At first glance, I wondered what photo-editing function had been used to get the wind and ripple effects but Alexander revealed that he usually sits by ponds, waits for a leaf to fall and snatches the perfect moment. None of his works(4) had been edited. He had captured life either through the rainy glasses of moving trolleybuses or through the dusty windows of the city’s high-rises. I could hardly believe that such exquisite art hadn’t been edited! Adobe Photoshop – eat your heart out.

As I walked back home that evening, the champagne wore off and the Moscow winter began to ferociously gnaw at my skin. You know it’s too cold when:
-You accidentally leave Backstreet Boys on repeat play on your iPod but it’s too cold to take it out of your pocket and change the song
-You spend an extra couple of seconds behind a car exhaust while crossing the road just so it can warm you up
-You want to give a fitting reply to the construction worker who just made a rather inappropriate gesture at you but your middle finger is too scared to leave the warm confines of your mittens

So ladies and gentlemen, stay tuned because there’s a lot more to come. After all, vsyo tolko nachinaetsya!

Notes:
1. Gosudarstvenii Universalnii Magasin = State Universal Shop–the abyss of shopping during Soviet times now adorned by the Louis Vuttons, D&Gs and Chanels of the world
2. About Carnegie: http://carnegie.ru/about/?lang=en
3. Moscow’s Seven Sisters: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Sisters_(Moscow)
4. Some pics of Alexander Starikov’s photos are here: http://tinyurl.com/5vyevl9

Varun Gandhi must be on dope!

http://election.rediff.com/report/2009/may/09/loksabhapoll-varun-gandhi-for-sterilisation-compulsary-military-service.htm

1. Varun Gandhi wants to re-introduce sterilisation program and continue his father's legacy (who, by the way, sterilised people on the sly without their knowledge!). I love how in India, population control has to be so fatal. What about condoms and pills? ("Oh but that is immoral because it will encourage sex!" Indeed and we're the second largest population on this planet through vegetative propogation, right?)
I'd like to see VG to be the first person who is sterilised. Doosron ko bolna bahut hi aasan hota hai...

2. Varun Gandhi wants to make military service compulsory to "unite" India. Usse accha hoga if he stopped making hate speeches against Muslims. I disagree with compulsory military service. I think it should be a choice otherwise people will start resenting it. Plus it will be a huge hole in the Govt's budget! Also, if caste and religious divides exist in society, expect to see them in full flare during military service where certain groups will be bullied and harassed. And again - why doesn't he do some military service first?

3. Varun Gandhi "vowed to protect local people from "anti-social" elements after three local girls were reportedly gang-raped." I feel alienated that I'm not one of the "local people" VG cares about. And I'm sorry but this is not the first time women have been raped in India. If VG reads the newspaper, he might have noticed that this is an everyday reality. How nice to want to root out "anti-social" elements (whatever that means!) before elections.

Aaa-cchhooo!

I don't like this one bit - Aaa-cchhooo! I hate missing Uni so close to exams (though some might argue that one is more productive that way) so I could sneeze all day into aromatic tissues that I picked up (Aaa-cchhooo!) from a well-timed sale at Paterson. What's the point of having them smell like (Aaa-cchhooo!) peach or apple or vanilla? It's not like I can sme-(Aaa-cchhooo!)-ll anything right now anyway, and it's not very nice to be reminded of temporary disabilities!

In the (Aaa-cchhooo!) midst of the deadly swine flu epidemic, I guess a regular flu is bittersweet at worst but this is the 3-(Aaa-cchhooo!)-rd time in 4 months that (Aaa-cchhooo!) my organism has been humbled by this lyctic bas-(Aaa-cchhooo!)-tard of a Rhinovirus! I used to have an immune system to die for! I almost never (Aaa-cchhooo!) fell sick - maximum a fever a year with a few throat-aches, usually (Aaa-cchhooo!) associated with the over-consumption of Coca-Cola or Baskin-Robbins' cookie dough (Aaa-cchhooo!) ice-cream. (They don't kid when they say that stuff isn't good for health!) But St. Pete's PMSing (Aaa-cchhooo!) weather conditions, false promises of a warm Spring day and living (Aaa-cchhooo!) next to the Gulf of Finland where the average wind-speed is 4m/sec (that's high, right?) have shattered this iron-curtain of an Indian immune system I used to be so proud of.

The only good thing is that I am (Aaa-cchhooo!) again accepting get-well-soon cards, flowers, chocolates, return-(Aaa-cchhooo!)-tickets to warm places etc. and you know where to find me ;)

Aaa-cchhooo!

Remembering London

As fanatical as I may be about Russia; as homesick as I may be for India; I will always say that there's no place like London! My only problem with the capital of the Old Empire was it's weather but clearly, that won't be an issue anymore. There is always something worse in life! Today, for instance, St. Pete was at -2 with 'heavy' snow. (Well, it definitely felt heavy for Spring!)

I went to London for the first time way back in 1997. This was the first time my 11 year old feet stepped on foreign soil and I was smitten by the idea of London. My Dad was studying at the LSE back then; and Mom, Arpita (my sis) and I had gone to spend a few months with him.

Arpita and I both enrolled into schools. Those were some of the best days of my life. I loved how school began at 9:30 and not at 8:00 like in India. Every morning, I walked her to school and read her a children's book in her school's library. I still remember, 'A Mother for Choco'(1) about a orphan chick who is looking for his mother and finally gets adopted by Mrs. Bear - that was our favourite book and I read it to her at least a dozen times.

I would then head to my own school - Sheringham Junior, where the day would start off with a casual chat with my class-teacher, Mr Robinson, a remarkable person. I loved how he made an effort to get to know everyone and how encouraging he was, which was such a contrast to how most teachers behaved in India. (Needless to say, those who didn't behave like this became very dear!)

Classes were always fun. In India, we read books, underlined all the points depending on which questions were posed at the end of the chapter and we went home, where we neatly wrote these answers out. London was so much more dynamic - we didn't just read the books but we watched videos and went to museums, we debated these questions and we went home, where we made colourful projects about what we had learnt - and this "what we had learnt" could have been anything we wanted. Moreover, as a geeky Indian, I loved being able to answer questions like 11 times 13 in 2 seconds, while the other students would still be staring at their notebooks. I bet they hated me for this! And they also made fun of me because they could never understand why I would always stand up to answer the questions. But nevertheless, they played with me and they were my friends. Those differences were never taken personally even if they were annoying. My classmates in India were never so kind...

Fast-forward to 27th September 2004: I landed at London Heathrow and this time because I was going to the LSE...

First time away from home is both exciting and scary to say the least. There were things that weren't so much fun - this was the first time I had to do my laundry - but there were things that made me feel like an adult instantly. This was the first time I could do things on my own terms. I could oversleep without Mom and Dad giving me a hard time for the rest of the week. I could go out whenever I wanted with whoever I wanted (Mom and Dad are still a bit strict though with time they too have grown up!) The London Underground completely eliminated by dependence on the need to be picked up and dropped off. Plus unlike New Delhi, London is very safe for women and I didn't ever have to worry about getting r*ped and murdered(2). And most importantly, this was the first time I had a debit card with my name on it. Being in control of my own £inances - even if that money came from a ridiculous 12.5% student loan that had to be paid back - was a big step for me! So in London, having dropped my chains, I was taking cautious steps and big leaps all at once...

The first cut is the deepest. And London is so dear because it is so many first cuts - first time abroad, first university, first love, first job, first apartment...

That’s probably why nostalgia is so unbearably powerful when it’s for London. The craving is so real that I can...

...see the traffic at the High Holborn crossing where I waited for 38 to go back to my hostel on Rosebery Avenue;
...smell the midnight hot-dogs and pizzas at Leicester Square and Tottenham Court Road;
...hear “The next stop is Canary Wharf” on the Jubilee Line;
...taste pineapple coolers at Ping Pong, the peri-peri sauce at Nandos, the strawberry cheesecake ice-cream at Haagen-Dazs;
...and feel the wind in my hair while crossing the Thames to get to the Lehman building on Bank Street

Coming to Russia made me realise how ‘Indian’ London really is. London has a huge Indian community so no one stared at me when I was out in the street. There are a gazillion Indian/Pakistani/Bangladeshi restaurants for the Brits love “curry” as much as we do. Diwali and Holi are celebrated with the same fervour as in India though not on the same scale. And I used to get invitations to Bollywood parties all the time. Therefore, Russia sometimes is twice as hard because not only do I miss London, I miss India more than I ever have!

Sometimes I wonder if it would have been better to settle for dominion status with our former colonisers so we could have been one big happy family! In any case, we Indians still think of England as our second Motherland and love her to death! Perhaps, a more accurate slogan during our Independence Struggle would have been, "Angrezon, Bharat chhodo...taki hum tumhare peeche aa sakein!" (“British, quit India...so we can follow you home!”)

PS - This post is dedicated to Medha, Dheer, Divya, Dhiren, Varun, Kanishk, Ali, Pallavi, Manyu, Herschel, Farhad, Neha, Ankit, Khushbu, Sasha, Sonia, Peter, Valerie, Sharmin, Chris and Kate. Without you, London wouldn't have been the same!

Notes:
1. A Mother for Choco: http://www.amazon.com/Mother-Choco-Paperstar-Keiko-Kasza/dp/0698113640#
2. This safety issue made me realise what kind of civil liberties I was missing at home and till date this is one of the biggest reasons against moving back to Delhi.

I'm bringing Lazy back...

Privet vsyem!

I know I have been ridiculously out-of-action. Not because things haven't been happening but because so much has been happening that...well...I have felt too tired to write about it and generally submitted to the voice of the lazy 'devil' Aanch that sits on my left shoulder...

So what now? Well, these are difficult economic times so we've had to regrettably fire her. And now, I, under the sound guidance of my halo-bearing 'angel' Aanch, am back at your service...

Here's what you've missed:

1. Temperatures continue to be in-tune with oil prices i.e. they're heading back up. Spring is slowly approaching. The cute-little flower buds and happy song-birds that they used to show in Bambi and Lion King to depict Spring still seem like a cruel joke but the days are getting longer, DST has ticked away, the Sun is becoming more than just a guest-star in my Bollywood life and the snow and ice are slowly melting to reveal the long-forgotten colours and textures of the mud and gravel underneath (along with the occasional unpleasantries of perfectly-preserved pre-Winter dog excrement...)

2. Dorota (my Polish flatmate) and I went to Murmansk, the largest city in the world north of the Arctic Circle. I have to say, while it felt great to be so far up-north (See satellite image: http://www.maplandia.com/russia/murmanskaya-oblast/kolskiy-rayon/murmansk/), the 20 hours we spent there sandwiched between 27 hours of train journey each way, were more than enough! The city is bigger than I expected but still small enough so we were able to walk a big chunk in around 4 hours. But among the Alyosha statue overlooking the Kola Inlet, the Museum of Regional Studies (Probably the № 1 employer of taxidermists in Murmansk), the red-brick Lighthouse and the rather stinky Aquarium, the highlight of my Murmansk trip was falling waist-deep in snow! Even though, at one point I was terrified - because even when Dorota tried to pull me out, there was no ground beneath my feet on which I could have pushed myself up and out and any attempt to this end only sank me deeper into the snow – without this incident, there would be little else worth remembering from Murmansk!

3. This is an uncomfortable time of the year for a brown girl in Saint-Petersburg. 20th April is Adolf Hitler’s birthday and whilst I really don’t care about Nazi-boy’s birthday, I do have to watch out for racial hatred in Europe’s skin-head capital. My Schengen won’t be ready in time, so my planned escape to Latvia is essentially turning itself into a self-imposed house-arrest to avoid getting beaten-up or stabbed. (Hmmm...every beautiful city has an ugly face!) From what I hear, sometimes even the Police turn a blind-eye to Neo-Nazi activities and it’s only the old, wobbly Babushkas who shout at these xenophobic trouble-makers. I guess, if you survived the Leningrad blockade, very little in life must scare you! Kind of makes you wonder why Supernanny wasn’t originally Russian instead...

That’s all for now. I must say that the ‘devil’ Aanch sabotaged me again. I sat down in front of the computer to write a cover letter for a job application but ended up doing this blog-entry instead. Oh well, just coz we fired her doesn’t mean she isn’t good at what she does...

Back to work now...