Catching up with Red Exile

[the layout of this post goes oddly here and there: I have laboured unsuccessfuly to correct it; sorry]

The most irritating news is that - somewhat predictably I suppose - the property developer doing our new Moscow office has predicted delays; to 10th June (90%) or 14th (100% certain to be ready he says). But our existing lease expires 31st May. So we had a meeting Friday evening. Fortunately we have a contingency plan in place for a temporary home: all at the developer's expense I hasten to add.

Oh, and our Russian bank - a new one which is not impressing me (so watch it Raiffeisen or I will switch our accounts from you!) has been a real pain in the ass. It is an issue of the 'hard currency passport' (yes, everything foreign needs something like a visa here) concerning a large transfer. Now lawyers and finance people in three, no, actually four, countries are beavering to sort it out.

In Russia your corporate bank is not your Friend or business partner: they are the devil! Actually, Raiffeisen Bank in Russia for a while - when I first moved here - set the benchmark of excellence, but I think their service and approach has really declined since they gobbled up Impex Bank. In Russia, it might be branded Austrian, but the middle management and service culture seems to me to have become distinctly Soviet. We were looking to pool our accounts in all the 19 countries of our region with them - I am pushing to ditch them in mine. Right now, I loathe them.

These two events - property and cunty bank - all occured after 5pm on Friday. Exhausted - a hugely busy week and two overnight train journeys in three days (and, like, 11 hours sleep in 72 hours) mean't I got home about 8pm, sank a large Bombay Saphire & Schweppes and went straight to bed - a glorious 11 hours asleep...

So, to catch up with all my news, here's some more annotated updates from my facebook account:

Today

Red Exile says it's nice to wake up in his own bed, which is rare enough these days, especially then to realise it's Saturday.
7:54am meaning only that this week I've woken up on trains and in the 'apartment suite' in our Kyiv facility and, in recent weeks, have travelled a lot. Nothing, alas, more mischievous...


Yesterday

Red Exile is back in the irresistible, terrible, magnificent, pulsing dark heart that is Moscow: where the weather is ghastly.
9:00am


May 22

Exile had a great evening in Kyiv; which really has everything in a city one could wish for. The weather is also lovely.
12:00pm I took the overnight train back again. Luckily it was the flag-ship train, so the 1st class sleeper compartments were top-notch...

Red Exile is actually watching 'the' game & really enjoying it; in the way an ingenue 1st watches a Verdi opera; wide-eyed, without partiality and for the sort of poetry of it. But I thought Mr Ronaldo splendid.
12:30am


May 21

Exile wonders why, if the football match in Moscow doesn't start until 22.45 local time, all the expats going to it are leaving their offices now. It's only Luzhniki!
3:55pm

Red Exile does not feel fresh as a daisy; couldn't sleep as his train rattled and lurched across Russia & into Ukraine.
8:20am


May 20

Red Exile is on way to Kyiv tonight - overnight train (fast one with buffet). Means a dawn appointment with Russian border guards followed by Ukrainian ones.
11:01pm

Red Exile Red Exile enjoys hot humid nights; but they're better naked in the pool; as in my Guadeloupe days. A lifetime ago I lived that.
9:21pm It was my pool, my privilege to swim naked in it at midnight...

Red Exile says Russia's stonking victory over Canada in the hockey Worlds means, if Chelski win Wednesday, that's 3 great sporting triumphs for Russian sentiment in a row.
12:31am Opinions differ amongst my Moscow staffers as to whether they are pro- or anti- Abramovich and hence whether to be pro- or anti-Chelski in fact


May 18

Red Exile sees that 'tree-sperm' season is upon us again in Moscow and the streets full of the snow-storm of germinating stuff. What's is called? Puchre?
1:18pm


May 17

Red Exile said: "and...in an instant...his weekend evaporated...".
7:10pm I had to work the weekend - a crisis management assignment came up.

Red Exile has just realised he has no opera or ballet tickets booked for anything. A sort of panic has overcome him...
2:58pm Situation now rectified! Tonight I am going (for only the second time) to see the Bolshoi dance ' The Golden Age -music by Shostakovitch and choreographed by Yuri Grigorovich


Red Exile is surprised to discover that his Asus has been buggered and so he has no mobile connectivity. Hopefully it is just the usual shoddy Russian SIM card problem.
12:25am It was a SIM card problem - Russian mobile operators seems prone to them


May 14

Red Exile is still in idyllic rural Hungary and this morning will opine on web 2.0: "content may have been king but now aggregation is God".
10:05am


May 13

Red Exile is in a particularly rural part of Hungary, just an hour's drive out of Budapest. Horses are nesting, or whatever they do, outside my window.
12:30pm


May 12

Red Exile has always been fond of Budapest. In 2003 it was on his 'list' with Beirut, Rome & Istanbul. But now 4 years in Moscow; LOL.
11:07pm

Red Exile is landed in Budapest, where everyone is enjoying a public holiday and, by now, very *relaxed*.
6:49pm No Valium? Red wine will suffice. Nasty 'crabbing' or cross-wind landing though.

Red Exile is depressed and anxious. He is about to fly to Budapest and has forgotten his in-flight Valium. Either reader will recall my absurd, but nonetheless serious, fear of flying. On trips longer than two hours I pop two Valium. Actually, I can see why people get addicted to Valium - fabulous stuff - but don't mix it with alcohol (apparently that's not good - but on flights to Kazakhstan? yeah right...)
2:22pm


May 11
Red Exile has his apartment to himself tonight for the first time in weeks, but only has one night to enjoy it.
3:15pm

May 9 - the Victory Day holiday, commemorating WWII

Red Exile Well the parade was later than it should be, and in the opposite direction from that expected, but the tanks and missiles were great big boys' toys. A tank driving up Tverskaya; and part (I was too close to get the whole thing in view!) of a Topol M ICBM, or RT-2UTTH, nuclear missile launcher (NATO IDENT: SS-27). LOL - to think that in Soviet times my photographing it would have been a serious crime.
12:39pm

That night I also took my mother to see the Bolshoi's superb production of Nabucco (4th viewing). Here an excerpt someone has ripped and put on YouTube (Elena Zelenskaya was singing the part of Abigaile that night too - it is great fun for a soprano - a baddy part for them for once to sing! But I think her Tosca is better and Irina Rubtsova the better Abigaile):

(PS: I see that this recording is from the old Bolshoi production though, not the current one! - which is visually much more stunning)

May 8

Red Exile thinks it funny that all the male expats are really excited that Russia's new long-range nukes are being paraded through the streets tomorrow. Smaller WWII ceremonies were also taking place around the city. This one was close by our office:

10:52am


May 7

Red Exile is pleased, thoroughly, to recommend Moscow fishmonger at La Marée (top of Petrovka) & thanks his mate Brian for the tip. Langoustine vivant (but not for long)!
6:55pm

Mother was making her annual visitation to Moscow. She cooked the live langoustine and wasn't the least bit screamish at dunking them in boiling water. We ate them with a mozzarella / pesto/tomato salad; quails' eggs and a Gavi-di-Gavi

Red Exile wonders how long it will take to remember to call Putin Prime Minister and not President; and congratulates Dmitri Medvedev, and Russia, on his special day. 10:05am It was inauguration day - no, I wasn't invited to the ceremony. Outrageous! LOL

Red Exile The RUS govt has just announced *visa-free* travel for Brit football fans for this bloody match: what!?!?! Madness. Are they importing fodder 4 Nashi to bully?12:24pm

We all expected there to be huge trouble with all the Brit football fans coming to Moscow - turns out it all went swimmingly. I was less concerned about Brit rioters, though, than they would be targeted by extreme Russian nationalists. But the Russian security forces had weeded them out most effectively and they were getting no-where near the supporters.

Red Exile wonders why my Lenovo x60 refuses to obey me today. Sighs: I want to go mac.. 11:33am

May 5

Red Exile say street closures for Friday's war parade rehearsal, and later metro closures, will make Moscow impossible this week. 10:11am

May 4

Red Exile exhales: "sublimi il diva; notte di passione e di gioia". Anna Netrebko concert; Moscow. Magnificent! 10:27pm

erm..yes, I can get a little over-excited in post-concert high. It was at the Moscow Grand Conservatoire, which is an amazing venue and only ten minutes walk from where I live. And that day I had dined before at Cantinetta Antinori, on their lovely garden terrace.

Red Exile has enjoyed the longest long lunch; and is going to diva Netrebko's concert. 4:43pm Anna Netrebko is my all-star-world favourite soprano right now. I have all her recordings (thanks to iTunes:

She was four month's pregnant for tonight's concert and was an absolute trooper and stunning to boot. She shared the stage with superb Romanian mezzo-sporano, Rixandra Donose and (s0-so) American tenor, Brad Cooper. Anna and Rixandra dueting in "Si, fuggire!...Ah crudel", from Bellini's Romeo & Juliet (oh yes, it is an opera too, not just a ballet) was excellent. Bellini is hugely tough to sing and sopranos use his music to showcase their voice.

Red Exile today is a 'working day' in Russia. I booked leave. Have now finished essential work and am going to have a la-la long lunch

In contrast to the UK, which pivots all public holidays to a Monday, in Russia the holidays fall where they are on the calendar, which means any day of the week. But, sensibly, the Government bunches them together. The French do this: they call it 'faire le pont" (to make the bridge) - but the French do it by adding in a day. At least they did on Guadeloupe when I lived there. In Russia, in a grasp at efficiency, they deduct a day from a nearby weekend. So: holiday is on a Thursday? Make Friday a holiday too, but work the following Sunday. It is not something I can ever get used to so I book a day's leave; but usually end up spend half of it handling essential emails and calls anyway, so wonder why I don't just give up and work it like everyone else...

Red Exile isn't dead - he's just been distracted...

So 'real life' has intervened in the last few weeks in the shape of punishing work schedule; quite a lot of travel; a friend (and her 46kg dog) temporarily moving in and - which has been very stressy - the search for new offices in Moscow.

of course there comes a point, blog-wise, where after a longish absence it almost becomes intimidating to do the 'here's what I've been doing' catch-up post. I have got over this, however, by just dumping highlights from my facebook account. So here we go (with more shockingly bad photography from my handheld PDA), the recent past:

Yesterday

Red Exile is spending another public holiday in the office; surprised how humid it is outside, which is early in the season.
1:43pm
May 1
I was in Prague on business
Red Exile says: "If I should die think only this of me"... I like Shiraz with my chocolate course.
12:25am
April 30

Red Exile is watching the night twinkle on the Danube; a glass of bubbles to hand; a violin being played in the background.
10:40pm

Red Exile says "OK, so there is some football match coming up in Moscow? No, I don't have tickets and I gather the street price is edging towards Euros 1,000" - crazy! Since 'Chelski' has now won a place in this match, I am told the price is now Euros 4,500 for non-VIP tickets.
3:34pm

Red Exile does not have a PhD in applied sciences and therefore is struggling to work the shower in his hotel bedroom. Which was the Four Seasons - which is superb - and it's restaurant, Allegro, quite unbelievably good (and the holder of Prague's first and only Michelin star)
9:09am
Red Exile I have a table with a view; a pigeon breast; a 1/2 bottle of Côte Rotie: I love life, Prague & everything…
10:53pm

Red Exile is now over a bumpy flight - and normal, smiley service is resumed. We thank you for your patience in this temporary service difficulty.
9:39pm

Red Exile I have *never* thought of the Czechs as other than opportunists and wasters and, 30 minutes in, 4 yrs l8r, I see I was right! I am inclined to be in a very bad mood after landing - partly angry at myself for having been so scared 'up there', which is silly, and partly (justifiably) because Czech immigration, clearing flights in from China and Russia, didn't open the EU Citizens line; until people like me pointed out how crazy it was that we'd have to queue with all the non-EU citizens being admitted with visas. Also, the taxi system sucks.
8:18pm

Red Exile says the plane is what? Late?!? Arrgh!
5:24pm

Red Exile Has now had Aeroflot baked goods and a drink so calmer, checked in and now only to ponder age of plane about to fly...
4:30pm

Red Exile says my life is *so stressful* it is no wonder I have high blood pressure and the heart of an 80 yr old. *Made plane just on time*.
4:16pm

Red Exile hopes everyone enjoys Thursday's neo-cold war parade - cos rehearsals for it have screwed Moscow traffic even more than usual & I am l8 4 plane. The parade is 9th May actually. That didn't make the traffic less sucky.
3:02pm

Red Exile notes that one of his two female house guests is on heat. The 46kg, 4-legged one. Words cannot express... They're moving on Monday. When my mother arrives... I don't get my apartment to myself for another two weeks...
10:19am
April 28

Red Exile is off to a business lunch in brilliant sunshine.
12:00pm

Red Exile added a new photo to New offices - bought 'off-plan': what can go wrong? OK, so the building is still a 'work in progress' in a completely gutted, exterior cladding yet to be junked and re-done and completely needs rewiring and plumbing kind-of-way. But the developer *promises* me it will be ready for entry June 1st. This is good: our current lease expires 31st May.
11:46am

Red Exile Madama Butterfly / Stanislavski etc: tonight Irina Arkad'eva was *a goddess*. Act 2 finale a weepy *triumph*!
10:15pm

Red Exile is @ v. gd performance of Madama Butterfly, fuelling up before original 2hr version of Act2.
8:08pm

Red Exile is at the opera, Madama Butterfly, eyeing chandeliers warily... see April 18th for the last comment to make sense.
6:37pm

Red Exile has discovered of himself that the pathology of his fear of flying is fear of heights. He discovered this in the glass lift of Moscow's uber-elitny Lotte Plaza.
5:30pm

Red Exile Apropos his new office space, a mantra: elitny. Designerny. Loftny. *Not Pafosny*. Pafosny? Think Paris Hilton, Donatella Versace, Las Vegas and anything by Dolce & Gabbana. yes, that's right 'gay' (in the sense US highschoolers use the term) and achingly vulgar.
2:24pm

Red Exile has signed an office lease!! Designer space; central & official. Yay!

7:30pm


Red Exile is so-near-and-yet-so-far. Do we have a lease deal or not?!?!
3:42pm


Red Exile was feeling wildly exuberant; but is now back under control to face the day's trials.
9:34am
April 24

Red Exile is an idiot! Left ballet ticket @home! So sulking shopped at Tsum & now @Cafe Bar-boy... which is what one of the girls I know Christened café des artistes - the name just stuck somehow

7:46pm

Red Exile is off to the ballet tonight. German State Rhine company. Stravinsky. Rites of Spring. A dose of sanity and love in my fraught life.
5:18pm

Red Exile "To the FSB senior officer whose convoy cut me up today but then whose car was pranged by his own follow vehicle not breaking fast enough: hah! Tosser LOL". This was really too funny to watch. Made my morning actually...
10:34am
April 23

Red Exile actually dares hope there *might* be a glimmer of hope. On the property side of things...
11:11pm

Red Exile has had, in truth, a $*#@ing shite day; and sometimes feels all the burden is on him as (some) just swish about... no doubt his default inner cheeriness will be back o/night. I was stressed, just leaving the office, over-worked and miserable. It happens...
9:29pm

Red Exile just came up with a strategy "find a 30-something woman, make her pretty and let's get her to cry on television" and is concerned that he doesn't feel cheap. It was a good strategy. And I am not cheap... 400 Euros an hour baby!
12:04pm
April 22

I was in Warsaw -I am not hugely fond of Warsaw...
Red Exile has too much work to do and no time to do it.
11:22pm

Red Exile has turned down the chance to eat escalope of crocodile. No kidding - it's available at the Intercontinental Hotel Tower's Mexican restaurant (don't ask!). The public space is crappy in this hotel, but the rooms are great and the view always good (well as good as a view over Warsaw can ever be).
2:58pm


Red Exile says: "well *hello!* Aeroflot you sexy thang!". They're flying brand-new A320-200s into CEE. Eat me, BA!
9:41pm

Red Exile knows he has lived in Russia too long: he finds the baked goods in the Aeroflot business lounge quite irresistibly alluring.
5:31pm

Red Exile setting of for the traditional traffic jam to Sheremetyevo airport, to fly Aeroflot to Warsaw. Ah the glamour of it all...
2:54pm

Red Exile has narrowly missed *death* at the ballet. An 8-cm diameter crystal fell from the great central chandelier and missed my head by inches before smashing on ground in 100s pieces. Felt cold draft of death did we. This really happened and the lump of crystal missed my head by less than 30 cms
8:06pm

Red Exile is off to the Stanislaski-Nemirovich-Danchenko tonight 2 them dance Romeo & Juliet.
5:26pm
April 18

Red Exile wonders if the 'rock song' whose chorus is "are you off your meds?: is Placebo. He laughs & luvs it. It is and I downloaded it from iTunes.
11:40pm

Red Exile is off to dinner with a mate from 'the small island'...as I now refer to the Britain
7:03pm

Red Exile has just used his best BBC voice to voice-over a TNK-BP corporate video. This is the second time I have done this (just to help them out for a favour - because it is crazy expensive for them to have it done in London and any old Brit RP voice will do - and because, in more weighty and feesome matters, they are also a client)
10:43am
April 15

I was travelling in Ukraine
Red Exile sees this new overnight train comes with anti-terrorism advice. In the event security forces are going to storm your Chechen terrorists "run-like-f*ck in other direction" seems to be the ambivalent advice. On the new trains there is a poster by the loos with safety advice. This include in cute little pictures what to do if security forces are storming your high-jacked train. And, yes, run in the opposite direction is the helpful guidance they proffer...
6:38am

Red Exile is witnessing drama @ border; 2 men arrested & dragged off train by Ukrainian troops. Unpaid parking tickets? Very exciting and the full-on paramilitary performance...
12:44am
April 14

Red Exile and his friend, Johnny Walker, are at the Russian border - for processing. LOL
11:50pm

Red Exile has had his day ruined - 'new' landlord informs him he has been gazumped on new space. So back to Square one and now 5 weeks to Moscow office is homeless... This was a low moment
7:32pm


Red Exile is having a very good day commercially and meteorologically: it is a gorgeous sunny day in Kyiv; the sky is almost ridiculously blue.
2:13pm


Red Exile now has a very deep and abiding love of Ukraine; its tragic and compelling history - the more you get to know it the less like Russia it is.

You learn a lot about Ukraine in the long drive between Kyiv and Lviv and back - abandoned villages and the wrecks of old collective farms testifying to the waste of Collectivised farming, it's failure and - actually - the enormous post-Soviet decline in Ukrainian agricultural output. Land reform is desperately needed to modernise and rejuvenate Ukrainian agriculture.

At the same time, as you drive past vast, pompous - but now sadly forlorn - Soviet-era memorials to WWII (more to bludgeon home a message of loyalty to the Ukrainians than a message of celebration) you realise how awful it must have been to be Ukrainian and part of the USSR. Wondering around Lviv today it is almost impossible to imagine that this bright, smiley, European city was once Soviet. It is totally unlike anything in Russia.
1:02am
April 13

Red Exile is about to have a hearty lunch of Turkey liver; veal, sour cream & dumplings & all trimmings. It is not cuisine minceur, but do eat at café Amadeus.
1:45pm
April 12

Red Exile is enjoying his birthday in Lviv, in which the whole history of Middle Europe can be seen. The ebb and flow of empires; the heterogeneous sweep of its European architecture; but still defiantly European (Renaissance, Baroque, Neo-classical, Art Nouveau...)
8:28pm
April 11


Red Exile is enjoying cafe society in Lviv; which is charming. Drinking champagne, sitting outside at the Vienna Café where people-watching is great fun
11:30pm

Red Exile is leaving lunchtime for the 5hr roadtrip to Lviv. The guy driving asks "do you want 'fast' or 'safe'?" - what the heck: fast! LOL.
12:30pm
April 10

Red Exile is having a fascinating day in Kyiv.
6:10pm

Red Exile s at the UKR border post, on the train, watching a beautiful sunrise. He is now though hungry & *very* thirsty!
6:29am
April 9

Red Exile Has just realized that as he is on tne slow-overnight 'express' - 13hrs - inexplicably it has neither restaurant nor bar. Nightmare!! This is the second time I have done this! memo-to-self: only Train #1 (Moscow-Kyiv) and Train #2 (Kyiv Moscow) have buffet cars. The others *don't*
9:54pm

Red Exile en route to Kyiv & then Lviv.
8:40pm

Red Exile is somewhere between despair (back to office property square 1) and elation (deal done). Only in Moscow do we live by these 2 emotional gears and no others. That last sentence, BTW, is probably the truest thing I have ever written about life in Moscow.
12:20pm
April 8

Red Exile did have to smile as he was cut up this morning by a rickety old Lada with *diplomatic plates*.
10:04am
April 7

Red Exile has had just the most sublime & wonderful night at the ballet; even if his body won't fly dream a soul can. Sometimes good performances make my purple-prose-restraint short-circuit.
10:26pm

Red Exile wonders what you say to a week that is pretty-much ruined before it has begun... hello? Property-related - a great development I was hoping to take was snaffled up - even though I had agreed terms with the developer - by a Russian bank.
10:15am
April 6

Red Exile woke up this morning dreaming about the future of capitalism. Last night he tried to dream about Tuscany. Oh well...
5:30pm
April 4

Red Exile is back to the drawing board: 8 weeks and counting to find new offices - or else it is hot desking in my front room! Another potential site fell-through (because this one was pretty far from a metro station and, in any case, I just learned that this particular station is about to close for a year's remont; which ruled the property out completely.
5:45pm
April 3

So there you have it. Normal service will now hopefully be resumed...

Week in review: St Petersburg; Russia Today and Roman Abramovich

On Monday night I took, for the first time, the newish Grand Express train to St Petersburg. A first-class-only service, it underlines that, for the best in business class train travel, Russia is streets ahead of the rest of the world. It offers suites (with their own shower and bathroom) and even the more modest premium cabins (which I took) have their own washbasins, 50% larger than normal and very comfortable beds and satellite TV: and superb waiter-to-cabin service.

For St Pete’s I had packed the full furs, guessing the weather could be inclement. And, boy, was it? Perhaps the worse weather I have experienced in four years of living in Russia swiftly descended on Tuesday afternoon. Visiting a client located in Arsenalnaya I thought it might be a pleasant hour or so’s walk back to Winter Palace Square (close to where my hotel was located). So I am strolling along the Neva when suddenly this extraordinary wind sweeps down from the Gulf of Finland and – despite the knee-length black leather, fur-lined coat (with the luxuriant mink collar and matching mink hat) it feels like the talons of an Arabian falcon are slicing through my bones.

So I turn right and, fortuitously, am right by Finlyansky Station (the setting for so many Cold War tales, both fictional and very real). I negotiate a sensible taxi fare to Winter Palace Square and, as I arrive, so do the depths of mid-winter. The snow starts to fall horizontally…

Having missed lunch – and knowing I had an evening at the opera – I took High Tea and watched the snow fall and fall: about 12cms in just 4 hours. And, indeed, as I left the opera later that night, the weather was staggeringly bad.

My guest for business lunch the next day – in response to “please suggest somewhere where they can cook” – took me to the newish Terrassa restaurant. It was quite superb and almost as good as the best elitny restaurants in Moscow. Lunch was, of course, ‘dry’, but had it not been, I think it would have been almost as expensive as Moscow too. I had taken half day’s leave and spent it in annual pilgrimage to the Hermitage. Having Russian residency meant I was allowed to buy a ticket for just 100 RUR, which was very pleasing.

Lots of the rooms are closed for restorations until spring (Mid-April), but I really go for the Renaissance and Baroque Italian collection; including some excellent Titians and a favourite Bronzino. The Palace does have, BTW, a superb collection of Van Dycks; including several bought after the English Royal Collection was broken up after our civil war, which ended up in the Romanov collections.

Blogging was mostly absent this week, as it was rather busier even than usual. Saturday morning a car from the station comes to take me to Russia Today, where they wanted me to do a studio interview on British investment in Russia. The entrance to Russia Today is located in the vast RIA Novosti complex (just by the dustbins actually, which I think is surely a political sideswipe at the state media TV outlet employing so many foreigners).

Actually, I was crap. No, really, I was. I have done, in various countries, over a hundred bits of telly and radio and this was my worst ever. I have since seen the tape and, while not a train wreck, as such, it is just too ragged a performance; my ‘punch points’ were off and in one sentence I seem to lose the ability to conjugate in my first language. It is not what Exile promises broadcasters: to give great headline. On the other hand, I keep my answers within a nicely sound-bitey 15 seconds each or so. But, most unforgiveably of all, I am dull.

Being driven home, I pondered having Driver drop me off for lunch in Kamergersky. Thank God I didn’t!! Before my interview I went into make-up and, as they do things with my hair (a gallon of lacquer) and stick on some slap, I am distracted by the producer’s briefing. And although you can’t see this on the tape – no I am not giving you the link! – when I later walk in my apartment, having been driven back, I catch myself in the mirror. I am ORANGE. Orange I tell you, with the hair swept en bouffant like a Soviet '80s crooner. I look like a paedophile from Paphos. If I had walked into Café Des Artistes like that I would never have heard the end of it!

Having scrubbed my face, I switched on a new opera CD I have (Anna Netrebko arias); pour a glass of Montrachet; kick off the Guccis and try, just try, to clear myself of a most unsettling feeling of ineptitude and ennui.

Back at the office on Monday, I shall, Stalin-like, issue a приказ to staff and have this TV appearance declared un-history; never to be referred to again…

Saturday evening, I took a dearly beloved friend to Nedal’nij Vostok; where the selection of crustacea on offer is prepared in some of the finest ways available in the world. While there, the vast room is suddenly overcome by a nearly static charge of excitement. A moment later and I see Roman Abramovich walk past my table. Two noteworthy things.

The first is he really does have the most startlingly clear blue eyes, lit like lamps; and I can see why women, caught in their ice-blue gaze, are entranced by him. Secondly, he was body-guard free. If you hang out in Moscow’s elitny restaurants, you will see plenty of household name billionaires, but I like the fact that Abramovich doesn’t ponce about with heavy personal security, inside. Outside, as I was later to discover, it is rather different. Abramovich doesn’t go for flash cars, but the huge Chrysler limo, flanked by four 4x4s was clearly his. The nest of antennae on them, each bulging with OMON, clearly gave it away. He is entitled to OMON protection, of course, as regional Governor of Chukotka.

Tonight, I expected to see Nabucco at the Bolshoi, but discovered at home I should have been there Saturday night. Not a great end to an otherwise diverting week.

Upgradeski – the art of business class travel in Russia

Written in the business lounge at Moscow Sheremetyevo Terminal 1c (no wifi provided!) but posted from Kyiv

As either reader might recall I don’t much like flying. Terrified wouldn’t be a wholly inappropriate word; which makes one wonder why I have chosen the job I have. Anyway…

This morning I flew to Kyiv (the overnight train wasn’t an option this time, as I had a date at the Bolshoi last night). Being driven out to the airport, the weather deteriorated and I began to get that shuddering yawning that only comes, oddly, when I am very nervous.

The airline I am flying, while using Boeings, uses old ones. Old. Using my handy databank on my PDA, I will verify that the actual plane is between 25 and 30 years old (which is typical for the airline I am flying, for this route): they even still fly one which is now 33 years old.

Since this flight is only 100 minutes airborne we always buy economy class. But I decide to upgrade, at personal expense, to business. There are two reasons of logic for this:

- being personally convinced I will one day die in a plane crash, I would prefer to do it in business class (at least you’ll have more comfort for the last moments before the cleansing, ending bath of fire and the eviscerating shards of metal…)
- And the survival rates in business class are poor. In the event of a serious incident you will die, but it will at least be quick. Behind the curtain is the possibility of agonizing survival; or not quite.

So I arrive at the airport and go to the ticket desk to upgrade.

Sad smile and shrug; says he: “it is impossible. Komputers all no work today. You pay cash?”

Gentle frown before helpful smile, says I: “Gosh. How unfortunate. Yes I pay cash”

Eager school-boy frown, I continue: “Perhaps if I pay cash you can sort out all the paperwork when your computers work again?”

Light-bulb moment: “yes, that might work. You come with me”

We set off and find an official who may be Airline or maybe State but, as is often the case in Russia, is probably a bit of both. I am a друг (friend) apparently. That’s nice.

A sum is ventured (“the official fee of course”) and a small cash transaction occurs discreetly, elegantly: it is what passports are for.


Holding my passport and new ticket (“sorry, mister, no receipt possible; Komputers all no work”), 10 minutes later, this official (partly Airline, partly State) walks me through customs; with much shaking of hands. I am asked no troubling questions.

I am led to check-in and am checked in immediately, ahead of everyone else (mercifully, at this moment all the Komputers seem to have begun to operate again!). I say goodbye to my friend and settle into this lounge, after being assisted through Immigration. I look at my ticket and boarding pass. I am now, it seems, a government official with a VIP pass.

This being me, a thought crosses my mind. If something does occur, and they’re identifying my body, they’ll wonder why, with my British passport and my un-Russian name, I was on seemingly on Russian state business.

That is how conspiracy theories start.

Postscript: Plane registration UR-BVY is, in fact, just 6 weeks short of its 26th birthday.

Awaiting the grim certainty of revenge

(The Cartoon above – and elsewhere in this post – is from the Opinion page of the London Daily Telegraph. This is from 14th February; spoofing a movie poster seen in London right now).

Tonight, with gunshots into the air, Kosovo declared independence. I wish this pseudo-State, or its people, no harm. But I do not welcome it. As I have said before, I supported maintaining the territorial integrity of Serbia. As I type this there is sporadic, maybe even half-hearted, rioting outside the US Embassy in Belgrade.

Of more consequence will be Moscow’s response. On the face of it, this is a major (and personal) foreign policy failure for President Vladimir Putin, some will say. Personally, I think that harsh: the die was cast in the last, chaotic months of the Yeltsin misrule. By the time VVP had established internal order in Russia, the Russian state was far too behind, with too few moves, to succeed in the Balkan game.

But there will be a response from Moscow, all the same. Just weeks from the electoral coronation of his handpicked replacement, President Putin, will take deeply, red-mistly, personally the West’s united ignoring of Russia’s voice. If only for his personal sense of dignity, the Russian President will demand a price is paid. Recognizing the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia – and thus fracturing Georgia – is just the start of it. Personally, I think it gives more impetus to create a second USSR, starting with the integration of Belarus and Russia; and the incorporation of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

The grandstanding President Saakashvili of Georgia – never knowingly under-exposed on CNN this one – will mewl and howl over the airwaves; but in truth no-one will take a single meaningful step to stop Russia if it does this. Who would be so stupid? OK, so the Harry Potter of global diplomacy might be; this would not surprise me. I suspect things will be become clearer in March. Revenge being a dish best served cold and all that…

Can anyone tell me what was up in central Moscow this weekend? After four years here I am used to random deployments of troops, but there were just so many in town this weekend. Taking the Tverskaya underpass from the Actor’s Gallery to home, there were about 50 Militia conscripts herded under here, soaking up the warmth. In their super-padded blue jackets, these boys (who all looked about twelve), momentarily appeared to be the hybrid offspring of a teletubbie and a smurf. However, around the corner from my street were two truck-loads of OMON. Now these dead-eyed, muvver-fukkers get my repect. I have no doubt they would disembowel their firstborn, if so ordered by the Chekists.

It has been a weekend when I am very conscious of the few ‘touching points’ between Russia and the west right now. There are few certainties to hold on to and I sense something nasty coming our (expat) way. At the top of my blog, it says my life is a ‘slalom’ between the politics of east and west. And this is increasingly true.

While they all pretend to be too sophisticated to be duped by it, the slow drip-drip of state media poison has noticeably changed the way my staff relate to the idea of the west (other than a place to shop and vacation; which they all do with enthusiasm).

Just a week ago, one young staffer emailed the office an offhand comment about ‘western companies raping Russia’ – this from a lad whose salary, all paid 'white', with health insurance etc, has more than tripled in three years. We’re the firms raping Russia? ‘Cos all those oligarchs have done so much for the well-being of their fellow-citizens…

Next time I get a lesson in Russian patriotism from him I must remember to ask when he is planning to fulfill his conscription duty…

Then, a couple of nights ago one of my senior staffers emailed me (about UK-Russian relations): “Give me a break! We've always been enemies and will remain enemies. Even Americans are much closer to us than Brits.”


To which I felt the need to reply:
"Oh. Fuck off dearest mate [he's one of the few staffers I would call a mate and he knows I swear at him with English Middle-class, fruity affection].

"That’s balls, as even the briefest consideration would remind you, it was the USA that murdered the USSR in the Afghan war. The UK just provided tea and crumpets for that dispute.

"Like most Russians, you are still beguiled to think that Britain is your enemy because you have read too much ‘Great Game’ nonsense (and the televised novels of Boris Akunin).

"That said, like the Roman Empire, both Russia and the USA are two ‘empires’ whose sole raison d'être has been that the state serves a primarily military-elite. You are right: the USA and the post-USSR are the same: and as D H Lawrence (a good socialist, and anti-communist and hero of mine) once so memorably put it: “between the two blades of that pair of scissors, we shall all be cut to bits”.

A political friend in London – reading over this exchange -sagely reminded me of what Lord Palmerston said: “Nations have no permanent friends or allies, they only have permanent interests.”

The anti-western, default thinking of Generation Putin is becoming more deeply entrenched and is not going to go away. Those western governments and analysts who think the risks of a sabre-rattling bear reduce with Putin exit stage left? Completely misreading, they are, the changes in Russian society.

To cheer myself up, though, I have spent the afternoon downloading, from iTunes, digitally re-mastered arias by some of the great, now sadly dead, sopranos. And in my head is a civilized, safe place, where no-one can get me.

Expat postcard: moody crustacea, bootboy rebels and guns

I am in a strop with Arkady Novikov: Moscow’s eponymous Restauranteur. Knowingly or not I kind of live in his elitny eateries, for both business and pleasure. Last night I was having a crab-fest at Nedal'nij Vostok – Kamchatka crab at its best – with a tiny splurge of Beluga which, if not ecologically-PC, was damned fine. Life in Moscow without Novikov restaurants would be much less onctueuse.

Nedal'nij Vostok is cuisine-butch. Go for one of the tables near the central, open-plan kitchen and watch the kitchen floor-show. Watching a live lobster being sashimied is a curious experience. The chef took one lobster after another, lovingly stroked each down the back of its shell with the blunt side of the knife, before dispatching it, Roman-style, tip of the knife’s blade quickly through the thorax. Then he sliced the still-moving lobster in half, from jaw to tip of the tail. After being bisected, the legs still move for quite a while. My fellow diners were horrified, but I was fascinated, and vaguely recall its movements are more reflexive than brain-driven. Aesthetically this is gunk-free slaughter.

So why the strop with Novikov? My favourite deli in town, Globus Gourmet, has stopped accepting Novikov discount cards. Added to the fact that neo-Novikov joints, Vanil and Indus, have also stopped taking the cards, frankly I have to question why I shell out RUR 10,000 for it (10% off restaurant bills, 5% off shops, caterers and …er…a luxury florist). My card expires in April and I am not sure I shall bother to renew it.

The other day, after a breakfast meeting in (Novikov's) Vogue Café, I decided to drop into the Marriott Aurora Hotel to have my shoes cleaned by the boot-black there. Every two weeks or so I send my housekeeper to the Aurora’s boot-black, with all my boots and shoes (other than the ones I am wearing) to be cleaned. It is an indulgence of the essential, ordinary kind. Especially in a city whose streets are as filthy as Moscow’s in winter.

Incidentally I am nervous about the phrase boot-black: I hope it means ‘one who blackens boots’, rather than ‘the black person who cleans your boots’. The phrase being originally American, I am uncertain as to its proper etymology. But, anyway, bootblack is the phrase I use: shoe-shine boy sounds ridiculous after-all.

My capitalist-but-liberal sensitivity is enhanced by the fact that, in Kyiv, the rather ancient bootblack I prefer is, actually, black (remember seeing a non-white face in Kyiv is rare indeed). And fascinating.

Originally he was a Moscow-backed rebel leader fighting for the MPLA in Angola in the 1980s, but then he found himself in exile in the Moscow of the USSR. Somehow he ended up in Kyiv, with wife and child, just as the USSR collapsed and his Moscow-pension disappeared with the Great Struggle. So there he is today – half a planet a way from the home from which he is exiled and can never go back, his patron-state having disappeared – seemingly utterly forgotten. And now he cleans shoes at the Dnipro Hotel in Kyiv. He does an excellent job, BTW. Tip generously. His life story is well worth hearing.

PS: go the Dnipro hotel only for your shoes to be cleaned. It is an awful dive: more whorehouse than hotel; although very popular with regional government officials; Scandinavian engineers and – oddly – Italian importers. The restaurant is Soviet-era ghastly.

This week has proven very long, but somewhat typical of Moscow-business-season. I particularly enjoyed the 20.30 meeting (which went on until 23.45) close by the airport; at the office of a mini-oligarch. I counted 7 armed guards from entrance to boardroom: you don’t see as many armed guards as you used to in Moscow offices. The city is getting soft. Or more subtle.

In pursuit of further randomness

At 04.00 am the snow-plough that helpfully clears our streets of this weekend’s heavy fall slightly prangs the Lexus parked below my bedroom window: its owners sleep more heavily than me so I listen, sing-songly, to the car alarm for 24 minutes (2 ½ minutes of alarms, in nicely varying tones, followed by a thirty second interval of silence, before it starts all over again).

As the snow-plough withdrew, taking what I guess was a fender with it; it made a soothingly crunching sound…

So, 04.09 am, I find myself thinking about ruble re-valuation – apropos yesterday’s post – it comes to me that there is a very good reason for Russia to re-value.

The Ruble is storming in the forex markets; and structurally has lots of strength to come. Russia hates the US dollar ideologically and, given its last four years’ performance against the RUR, Russia hates it financially as well.

An OPEC-for-gas between Russia, Iran and Qatar (that gas-field with a flag) is looking more likely. But would they want to price gas in USD? They would not. If you had an OPEC-for-gas it would be their choice as to their pricing currency. The Euro is a possibility, but ideologically, the Euro is hardly more popular with either Russia or Iran.

Why not piece gas/MMbtu in Rubles? You revalue the Ruble – at, let’s say 1 RUR = US$4 – and then it makes a good reserve currency for gas. And Iran would love it. Qatar would not object. Ruminations on Russia had a pithy comment on why an OPEC-for-gas should not work; but since when did economics get in the way of ideology?

And why not change the reserve currency for oil? You see Venezuela complaining? (actually, I think China and Japan would, so scrap that). And friends in the Gulf tell me the Emirates and Saudi are sick of their currencies, pegged to oil prices of course and therefore to the USD, slip-sliding as well.

The Ruble as the reserve currency for hydro-carbons? Oh yes. Definitely a possibility. And a *huge* political win in Russia. Instant hero-status for a newly-minted President Medvedev: “Russia *is* the beating heart of the world economy” etc. Fab spin.

Separately, a great brokers’ note from RenCap today, on matters Ukrainian:

“The government has prepared a decree allowing customs and the tax service to countermand 'illegal' court rulings….

“The aim of the new measure is to reduce corruption in the judiciary, sending a message to bribers that the rulings for which they pay will not be enforced, and to judges that they will be held more accountable in future.

“Though the intention is laudable, we think any measure that allows court rulings to be ignored, no matter how exceptional the circumstances, is a fundamental threat to the rule of law and gravely misguided. Unless the government provides substantial clarifications as to how its idea will work, it risks sending the wrong signals to the investment community and electorate alike.”

Personal experience reminds me – having had a client on the shit-end of this stick – you can buy a Ukrainian Supreme for about $50k a decision. Remind me, why was the Orange revolution such a break with the past?

Democracy, with out an independent judiciary, is not progress at all. There is no democracy without rule of law. And there is, literally, more rule of law in Russia.

Blogging tonight in my usual haunt – memo to self: sort out home Wi-fi – I can barely hear myself think. There are only 11 people in the bar. Six of them, sitting together, are damn near shouting. Every other word is ‘f******’; they are drunk and being staggering sexist; indifferent to the fact that all the staff speak fluent English. These are braying, arrogant, appalling expats: 40 minutes in their company and I am coming round to Zhirinovsky’s POV.

PS: if you are about to do business with CB Richard Ellis in Moscow, tell them to have their boys learn how to behave when out in public (the downside, boys, of loud, drunken conversations is we know who you are!). Although illuminating to hear one of you say: “I won’t get out of bed for any deal worth less than 1,000 sqm to me”; which at current market rates I calculate is about $83,000. Tossers!

Three more random facts of life in Moscow

There’s an open-air pop concert on Pushkinskaya right now. Of course there is! After all, it is only minus 3 out there. I am blogging at the bar of Scandinavia: my internet router at home has died and I am taking advantage of their free (and fast) Wi-fi. While down the street, on Tverskaya, by the old Telegraph building, the regular rock band is holding its weekly impromptu concert; it draws a hardy but enthusiastic following which somehow manages to dance despite the lethal sheet black ice all over the sidewalk today.

Separately, rumors from two sources (one close to the CBR) reach me that, in April, the Central Bank will revalue the ruble. By 100 times! (this would be the eighth 'modern' Ruble.) This has been whispered before and April would make perfect timing. How better for President Medvedev to settle in and underline Russia’s roaring new strength than tell people ‘the new Ruble is worth US $4!’ (and would buy GBP £2). We’re talking new banknotes here, of course, rather than an excuse to place a big play on the forex markets.

Of course, ever trying to seek the underlying meaning of things – and you know you’ve been here too long when you do that about everything – I wonder whether such an announcement will be tied into a development about that much-heralded Federal Union of Russia and Belarus. And if that happens, then what will VVP plan to do then (new constitution, new career possibilities?)? Well, I'll stop theorizing there…but the next Belarus-Russian summit has just been announced so…

Anyway, finally, Friday we eventually had our staff ‘Old New Year’ party. I let the choice of venue / event / format down to the team (my job is just to pay the bill, after all and it is *their* night). In other countries, staff parties have tended to be of the dinner/dance variety. But my team – a quietly studious lot in the office (yeah, right) - like to party when they let their hair down.

Last year was a raucous affair in a Cuban dive off Taganskaya Ploshchad: with, I gather, the dedicated hard core partying until dawn, fuelled on absinthe, so I hear. Suggestions for this year included taking over a banya (an idea which I quietly, desperately, vetoed). They opted instead…for a karaoke extravaganza.

Oh well.

Actually it was huge fun. They had booked out the slightly Ottoman-looking ‘VIP’ lounge at the Jelsomino Café on Petrovka Ulitsa. Made famous by the fact it was ‘graced’ by Paris Hilton that extraordinary time when she was paid $2 million dollars to visit Moscow for Fashion Week. Completely sound-proofed from the public club, it is way cool and unambiguously ‘lounge-lizard’. When I did venture out public-side, for a toke on a sly fag, there were clearly some wannabe-boybanders out for a vocal warm-up.

It is the classic New Moscow yuppie night out (I am sure there is a better word for such a nomenclature, something more authentikny: does either reader know one?).

The evening featured:

- VIP room draped in silk everywhere
- Bottles of Irish whisky (my team are so cute they know how to get to my good side) – actually only in Moscow do I consider it perfectly normal to order whisky by the bottle; like those Saudis I used to know who holidayed in Lebanon when I was there. Obviously everyone was drinking whisky because there seemed to be three bottles on the bill. Martini Bianco seems to be the ladies’ weapon of choice
- Vast plates of sushi: actually the rice-green fish roe-eel thingy was disconcertingly tasty
- The singing. Oh yes the singing: the guys are all very talented at what they do but, boy! half of them could seemingly be entrants into ‘Russian Idol’ (dance moves included).
- Party games (yay). My guys love ‘em!

I like to think my 01.00 exit was still dignified. I did just once sit back and watch them have a ball and think “gosh, they are wonderful”. Four years ago there were just six of us (none too brilliant the crew I inherited and I out-placed and re-hired PDQ). Now we’re 30-odd. I have been running teams doing what we do for 12 years: and this lot, of all the teams in all the countries… well, when the time comes, I will miss them a lot.

Three random facts of life in Moscow

Visa hell. And although my bosses say ‘steer clear of all admin, refer it all to HQ’, I am sucked into it…

Not mine. New hires and the other expats. My Chief of Staff is complaining at the document load – and the cost – for six expats. The problem is magnified because we are changing from one legal entity to another – in the West this would be a quick paper-trail exercise: in Russia of course it means cancelling existing permits and visas and starting all over again. To compensate I have vetoed a Russian hire I would otherwise have done this side of summer. I am nothing if not budget-management boy…

We estimate it’ll cost about Euros 3,000+ in legal fees each for work permit renewal / initial grant; and about 3 person-days of admin for each one. The most painful, interestingly, is for a Lithuanian (but one well worth the hassle); and for a US hire who already has a work permit, but I have poached from a local competitor. So, again, the process starts from scratch. Oh, if only Russia had Green Cards…

In the light of HM’s Ambassador’s latest ‘up yours’ to Russia, one colleague – a dual-nat – I have told to switch her work permit / visa application from her UK to her Irish passport. And resolve not to hire more Brits. Apropos of which I curse myself for rejecting the chance I myself had to be a dual-nat: then to avoid the other country's national service. Ironically, I now think I would have been a much better person to have been in the services and wish I had done so. Strange huh?

Russo-UK relations are only going to get worse not better, so prudent risk management means reducing exposure to UK nationality staff where we can. Once again, I ponder that I could do my job just as well based in lovely Kyiv: it is time to give that move much more serious thought…

In passing, I no longer understand what the UK government is playing at with its approach to Russia – apparently ‘diplomacy’ is no longer a New Labour requisite for the FCO.

Having been fair summoned to my mother’s sixtieth birthday* party at the beginning of February, I have been searching for a cheap way home (ideally in and out the UK in three days). Nah…

[* I was an…er…unexpected present at university]

Searching for even economy fares to fly to the airport in the North – where our English house is – airlines want absurd amounts to do a Moscow-[via]-[Northern England]-[via]-Moscow flight (Air France wanted $3,000 – in economy????). And then the scheduling proved impossible. OK, I thought, fly to London and take the train for the weekend trip… um…no. UK rail does ‘engineering’ on Sundays so the usual 2 ½ trip would take…five hours. If only RZhD ran Britain’s railways…

It would have been a third of the total cost – and much better weather – if the party had been held at our French place. North Yorkshire? In February? Go figure.

So locking into a ludicrous schedule – into London Thursday night from Moscow; train ‘oop North’ Friday morning (in time for the sacred party, at which all my mother’s Slow friends will attend, but let’s not use the word gruesome); train to London Sunday, fly home Monday. Three days’ leave.

It will be interesting, though, to see which of my half-Step siblings turn up…

Tonight I was surfing the schedules of the Moscow opera and ballet companies I like. Q1 looks like the most tedious schedule I have ever witnessed. I trawl just four things to go to between now and the end of March. Four? In 2 ½ months?

It is not helped by the fact that I have now, it seems, seen everything – I mean *everything* - currently in repertoire at the Bolshoi. So I go for ‘favs’ amongst current productions: Tosca; Nabucco; In the Upper Room and Chaika. I am embarrassed to count how many times I have now seen the last two in Moscow. But – lame as this may sound – if I don’t see opera or ballet fairly regularly I honestly feel my soul starting to wither…

Good news, bad news...

Pleased to read in the Moscow Times today that Nashi (Russia site here) was for once on the opposite side to the authorities yesterday. Their picketing of the EU ‘Embassy’ (sic) in Moscow, now and then, is almost as irritating as when they harass HM’s Ambassador.



That said, the authorities normally cut Nashi a lot of slack; which makes me wonder when I read that dozens of them were detained for an illegal demonstration. Now that the State Duma elections are over – and any neo-Orange threats apparently safely put to bed, now is the time the Kremlin can focus on a calm transition between Presidencies. In other words, Nashi has kind of served its purpose for now.

A post-Soviet Komsomol was always going to have its attractions for the nostalgic. But, boy-scouts aside, Nashi as political shock-troops? I just wonder if there isn’t a sense that they need to be on a shorter leash. One can but hope…

…but then I saw this on the BBC so, perhaps then, reasonableness is not about to break out all around.

Admittedly the Americans and their bloody shield started it, but – groans – this is not a hugely helpful development.

Dmitry Rogozin is a ‘pick a fight’ politician and not someone inclined to improve Russo-NATO relations. He makes John Bolton look like Talleyrand.

"Glory to the employees of the security organs of the Russian Federation!"

Tomorrow, November 10th, is the annual Militia Day in Moscow. One year, I recall, this involved the partial closure of the Garden Ring for the 'Militia Marathon', where State TV broadcast how fighting-fit the Moscow Militia is. hmm...

Who knows what fun this year will bring?

Just remember, on this day of the year it is polite to smile and say 'thank you' and 'sir' if they try to extract any bribe from you for a perceived sleight. Tomorrow is their day, so be generous!

Help (or an AK47) is just a phone-call away

One of the 'perks' of my job - but one you sort of hope you will never have to use -is access to the CIS protection service from MIG Security service. The idea is that you have them on short-dial on your phone, your 'crash' code pre-programed.

I have only used them...ahem...once or twice in three years. And today was, amusingly, the first time in ages. From Office #1 in Paveletskaya to my home near Patriasrshy Prudy is usually about 30 minutes by car (but only 15 minutes in the opposite direction, which is odd). Today I was taking a taxi, which journey usually begins with the usual hand-wringing about the Moscow traffic (yawn!).

But 45 minutes later, as we approached the MKAD - hello? - visions of being whisked off and ransomed swam before my eyes....well I am severely sleep-deprived at the moment, having been pushing myself crazily and just returned from a whistle-stop trip to Astana.

So I dialled my crash code. It's an impressive in-your-own-language service and, as I prepared to hand the phone over to the driver - "you are to explain exactly where you are driving right now and why; and If they are not happy, they will track us down and get us" (I never how how they do this, but apparently the nearest Militia car can come to the rescue).

I then remembered a friend of mine who has used this service once 'in anger', so-to-speak. Even in jam-packed Moscow, they sent two bullet-proofed cars, with AK47-wielding guys, to effect 'fast extraction'. Apparently it is a great way to impress the ladies.

This trip didn't come to that. But I certainly felt reassured; not least when I saw the driver look at me wearily and with some more respect after the call. He didn't dare over-charge me!

Afterwards I bought a new mink hat, in quiet, small celebration...well, it is getting way cold here right now.

A quick catch-up on the last three weeks

29th June – last flight?

By now you must have figured I have become very scared of flying. This is despite the fact that I estimate that I have easily done over 300 international flights since moving to Moscow in Spring 2004 and; in my lifetime? Easily over 1,000 (I was an ex-pat brat).

Anyway, something snapped when I took the afternoon AeroSvit from Kyiv to Moscow. We landed in the immediate prelude to a huge thunder storm. On landing the plane was wildly erratic and at less than 50 metres I would judge the engines roared and we did a go around. Having landed on the second attempt, and exiting the plane there was this huge downward gust of pressure – wind shear: the invisible plane killer.



Wind shear scares me silly out here: CIS airports almost never have, I’m told, wind shear radar on the ground and these twenty-five year old Boeings and the Soviet planes don’t have on-board wind shear detectors.

So, suddenly, dust and rubbish shot up into the end before a squal of blackness crossed across the runway. As we bussed into Terminal 1c you couldn't actually see terminal 2 – just straight across the runway – because visibility sank to nothing as a huge storm crack overhead and the heavens opened…

…and I have not been on a plane since. A whole month without flight (when I normally do three flights a week). I have to do something about this, because soon my bosses will notice…I recently asked my Chief of Staff to look into taking the Moscow-Budapest-Moscow train for a Board conference in September: madness! But might be kind of fun…there’s something sexy and glamorous about Eastern European train travel (well not if you’re not in first class, granted), which air travel these days can’t match (except on those long, epicurean and pampering transcontinental flights to the Middle East).

I have done three trips to Kyiv. Each by train. Train #1 out of Moscow (dep 23.20, arr. 08.30) and Train #2 out of Kyiv on the way back (dep. 20.17, arr. 06.39). I always book a twin-person carriage for myself and usually now take a small night-time picnic,

Customs and immigration out of Russia, in Souzemka, and Khoutir-Mikhailivskiy in Ukraine are a pain (the towns are 20 minutes apart and the Russian side is very slow, but at least they come on board to your carriage). They wake you up at around 1.00am back into Russia, but I get back to sleep afterwards; on the way in, the wake up is 4.00am (finishing around 5.00am) and so I watch dawn in Ukraine, not bothering to go back to sleep.

The Ukrainian side also now have PDAs (which is why they are faster than the Russians) so are able to do onboard registration on my entry (whereas the Russians have to alight from the train and call in my visa details for clearance).

6th July – weird things

I had been in Kyiv again (actually I have dropped by the office for a couple of days every week over the last month) and had a very interesting meeting with a future force in Ukrainian politics, now launching his own NGO: he’s a very high-powered local lawyer.

The Ambassador of a small Central European country and I share the same taste in whiskey…and bars. He’s become quite my regular drinking/talking global politics buddy. For some reason I think this very cool...

At 1.30am – waiting to enter Russia, I am awake on the train and a journalist friend calls from Doha, in Qatar. And we’re chatting – via satellites bouncing a signal Lord knows where – me being all George Smiley on my post-Soviet overnight train and yet, also, chatting to a mate at a party in the Middle East…

…who then worried me because he was heading out on a trip with Hezbollah into Southern Lebanon. Now this is a patch I know (and if you know Lebanon well, Hezbollah is all part of the scene) and I say: “Dude, down to Sidon, you’ll be fine, just stay north of Sidon” “er…” he replies, “I am going well South of Sidon”.

So we chat and I point out that while his employer might be an Arabic TV station, he’s a blonde English guy and the Hezbs in Southern Lebanon aren’t the diplomatic dandies in Beirut we know, but are ‘the real thing’ and might not welcome a Brit. That and the Israelis have been shooting at TV cars across the borderline (because sometimes Hezb pretends to be TV). So I was kind of worried for my friend…

We spoke a week later, he partying in Damascus – damn I love that City – and he clearly has some good war-stories: being shoved into a cell overnight with armed guards for instance: “but we got some great shots and broadcast live way farther South than the BBC or CNN would ever dare”…which is what passes for delivering understanding into global living rooms apparently.

8th July Spartak!

A one-night only special starring the Cuban ballet star Carlos Acosta. There is a good piece about this on Russia Today (LOL – that’s a sentence hardly ever used!).

Acosta was quite extraordinary and, as I was chatting with a friend afterwards in post-performance dinner at café des Artistes, sitting outside, we agreed it was one of the highlights of the Bolshoi this season…and then Acosta comes to the restaurant with a small entourage. He’s charming and has excellent English (he’s danced with the English National and the Royal). He’ll be guest-starring with the Bolshoi this Summer at Covent Garden in London. Mug or steal yourself a ticket if you’ll be in town…

Tonight – 22nd July – I am going to the Close of Season Gala Concert, with all the leading Bolshoi Ballet stars. It should be a wonderful night…but then no Bolshoi until October 5th…

…I must travel abroad – the summer ballets put on at the country estates outside Moscow are very bourgeois and ‘chocolate box-y’.

Now then, how to get from Moscow to London, without flying, by train…