PART THREE
I have more to say about shops in Russia. They are very hard to find. We went into another supermarket on our travels, I can’t remember where exactly. It had the usual rows of empty shelves but on one was fresh meat. I was interested to see what it was. They were whole, fairly small animals but because the heads and feet had been cut off it was difficult to see what kind of animals they were. I thought at first they were rabbits, but was told they were chickens. I was bewildered – I’ve seen loads of plucked chickens but none that looked like these. There was the usual “keel” down the front of the chest like a rabbit but no fat “breast” either side which you would expect to see in a chicken. When I looked more closely I could see that there were little wings, rather than the forelegs of a rabbit and yes, they were indeed chickens. I felt really sorry for them. They couldn’t have had much of a life, and then the were killed. Very sad. Back to Russiano shops: I’ve already written about the double queue for bread: one to buy a ticket and then another one to exchange the ticket for the loaf. We also went into a kind of department store in Moscow which worked on a similar principle. It was quite a large affair with lots of stuff on display but not for sale directly. The merchandise was rather like what we used to see in cheap mail order catalogues and not the slightest bit enticing. You could look in vain for anything to buy to take home as a gift from Russia. I did eventually manage to queue for a ticket which I eventually exchanged for a kind of Russian Hat that was sort of the right shape but made of fake fur. I managed to get it back home in one piece eventually and gave it to a friend if mine who wore it for a bit and then made the mistake of trying to get it cleaned whereupon it completely fell to bits. Some things were also was for sale in the streets. One day (this might have been in Lithuania) there appeared a motorised beer wagon which stopped in the street and began selling beer out of the rear door. People, obviously expecting this vehicle, appeared from all directions, carrying various vessels: big glass jars that had been used for bottling fruit, jugs and the like, which were filled with beer and swiftly drunk on the spot. Quite a little crowd knocking back this beer as if their life depended on it. I suppose it made a change from vodka. On one occasion in Moscow I saw an old woman selling hotdogs in the middle of the road from of a sort from a wheeled “cooker”, but the most amazing example was at the top of an escalator coming up from the underground Metro. A middle aged woman was selling chocolate eclairs from a trestle table she had set up. You can’t imagine how excited I was to see them. We had spent a long time on a diet of home-pickled gherkins and these chocolate eclairs were the first glimpse of deliciousness I’d seen in a long time. Sadly I hadn’t yet learned the Russian trick of always carrying a plastic bag around with me, but the vendor managed to find me a piece of cardboard and I was able to balance my purchase of half a dozen of these glorious eclairs for our little party and made my way to where we were staying. Tucking into them was disappointing, to say the least. They turned out to be fake chocolate eclairs, made out of stuff that wasn’t food. What they were made out of was difficult to say: possibly sawdust, wallpaper paste, paint? Who knows? Beautifully made but for decorative purposes only. On the subject of food: we were in Moscow, Phil, Fred, Henk and myself with a young man called Alex who was putting up Fred. It was during the day and we asked him if he knew anywhere we could go for a meal. He said there were lots of places and it would depend on how much we wanted to pay. We said we didn’t want to pay too much as we were on a pretty limited budget and he replied that he knew just the place. So we set off to walk there. I can’t tell you exactly how far we walked, but we walked and walked and walked – it seemed like miles, which it probably was. Eventually we arrived at a small kind of café where they were serving ravioli. Only ravioli. There was nowhere in this kind of café where you could sit down. There were no chairs. People were standing around with their plates in one hand and their forks in the other, eating ravioli. The truth was this was not what we had in mind. We understood that this venue wasn’t going to cost us a fortune but tried to explain to Alex that we didn’t realise we wouldn’t be able to sit down. Well, he seemed quite annoyed that we hadn’t specified we needed chairs but eventually we set off again to another place where he said we would be able to sit. Another huge hike and an hour or so later we eventually arrived at venue two. Now this place was a real eye opener. It was a worker’s canteen, but a worker’s canteen like you couldn’t imagine. For a start it was the most magnificent building constructed entirely from marble. There was an elegant marble staircase that led up to a cloakroom where a pretty Hat Check girl in a sort of uniform took our coats. The staircase went up to a huge splendid marble hall with rows of tables and chairs. It was self-service from a long marble counter where we were presented with a choice of three different meals served up by staff dressed as chefs, which we carried to a table on individual trays. The meals were great. We loved it and when we worked out what it had cost us it was a trivial amount, something like £1 each. A worker’s canteen for Russian workers. Superb! It couldn’t have been nicer. Oh wait a minute – it would have been a whole lot nicer if we hadn’t had to trek half-way to the Ural mountains and back to get there. Incidentally, this particular day was the day when I had been nearer to death than any day before or since. It happened during this long track back and forth in Moscow: I was trudging along, head down behind Alex, following him like a tired but faithful old dog. Where he went I followed. If he turned to the right, I turned to the right. If he turned left, I turned left. If he crossed the road, I crossed the road. Half way across he broke into a sudden sprint, I broke into a sudden sprint. Looking to my left where the traffic was coming from I realised he had misjudged the situation and had started crossing the road at the wrong time. A huge coach was fast bearing down on me. Alex, being ahead of me a little was going to reach the other side of the road safely, But was I? Fortunately terror came to my aid and I put on a spurt of speed and ran faster than I had ever run in my life. I swear the coach missed me by a millimetre. I managed to avoid being killed by the skin of my teeth. Phil said afterwards that he knew for sure he was going to watch me die. He, Fred and Henk had realised Alex had misjudged the situation and remained on the curb, but I had been just following doggedly and hadn’t checked for myself. I think I learned a valuable lesson that day: always look both ways before crossing the road. I thought I knew that before – I certainly knew it afterwards.
