The Atheist's Guide to Christmas

The bags hovered almost motionless in the air, turning fluidly. Her heels, trailing lines of powdered snow, flicked up and joined the shopping in the space in front of her. Her lipsticked mouth emitted a shrill screech and then she landed with a dull thud on her back. A blonde lady in white furs trotted over in her heels and looked into the well-being of the fallen maiden. The victim muttered nonchalantly and accepted an arm up. They giggled. I sniggered and smiled. The tumbler picked up her bags of expensive clothing and walked away as if nothing had happened.

The ice had come to Moscow. People slipped and skidded and glided around the streets while icicles dripped menacingly from branches.

Then the snow arrived. Days of fluffy white falling from the sky. Due to the perpetual minus numbers the snow rarely melts. Near the roads it dirties and produces what essentially resembles chocolate ice cream. Away from the roads it either stays virgin or just gets shifted around by the footfalls of people and dogs; never melting.

In England the snow is wet. You walk around outside and you get wet feet and trousers. Here you walk around and get covered in snow, but it might as well be flour. It clings to you. But outside you are a walking bauble of minus figures. It brushes off like cold dandruff. Only by the roads do you find the 'slyakat', slush. Some underpasses, warmed by the rumbling of cars overhead and the constant stream of stomping boots, are muddy and wet. I hoik up my trousers like some Victorian damsel and gingerly step-stone the drier sections.

Then the snow combines with the ice. Snow falls on ice. Snow becomes ice and forms a dense pack layer onto which more snow falls. Yet to buy appropriate footwear, my day-to-day strolls have become more exciting. The positive aspect is that now my thighs are stronger and my balance is exceptional. A negative aspect is that I am more paranoid of imminent banana skin style falls.

To go into every detail of the last few weeks would be at once boring and lengthy so I'll just feed it to you in a snapshot paragraph:

a falconer on the metro casually holding two birds on his arm to the disinterest of the Russians; a metro train full of art instead of chairs; my housemate Richard playing guitar with his band (Zheka and the Flying Nuns) in the posh Bar Strelka; taking part in a 'bodyshot' with two barmaids in the Coyote Ugly Bar; receiving a 300 rouble (£6) fine in said bar for breaking a glass; hosting a little chilled out house party at my flat where the Spaniards and Russians got much drunker and sillier than I did; had a deep metaphysical conversation with my Orthodox student about the existence of God; skidding and sliding about on the frozen ponds near my flat at 5 o'clock in the morning; admiring the decorations and Christmas pomp in every cafe, company, kiosk and shop in a country that doesn't really have Christmas; smiling at the people ice skating on Red Square; looking for 'Russian' presents for people that aren't bottles of vodka or Matrioshka dolls; spending a day showing round a lovely English girl, Marina, who had just finished her stint in Voronezh; revisiting my favourite sights in Moscow now bathed in snow; finding somewhere to play badminton and, finally, managing to avoid the airport chaos and get home in time for Christmas!

* * * *

'Ooh, isn't that clever! I never thought I'd be able to do this. To talk to her all the way over there in Canada, while I'm sat here. It's amazing. Hello Kath!'

Grandma peered further into the computer. My cousin turned to me,

'This would make a great advert for Skype'

As the matriarchs stumbled and squawked through the technological wonder of Skype, the rest of the family Darracott drank and ate and made merry. I have been full, stomachly speaking, for the last three days. Presents have been opened, alcohol has been drunk, turkeys have been scoffed, vegetable patches have been dominated and wrapping paper has been obliterated. Christmas has come and is here. It doesn't quite have the same zing as last year but this may been due to the fact that Moscow was very festive and white before I left and I am now holidaying in a country that is also rather festive and white. Madrid was far less festive and was dry and colourful with ice blue skies.

I am currently wallowing in that strange post-Xmas limbo. Half nothing to do, half really busy. I have piles of books from Santa Claus waiting to be read - my gaze turns to last year's still waiting selection - alongside small troves of chocolates, nibbles, scents and miscellany. I intend to see how much I can 'get through' before, in four days, I must again fly away. For my relatives I brought back caviar, black bread, Peter the Great tea, honey, dried squid, dried sausages, communist propaganda art, chocolates, a Father Frost statue and Russian woollen socks. I think I did well given that the alcoholic potato juice and reductive ever-miniaturising doll women were out of the question.

Christmas. In Russia it's a time for quiet, personal prayer. In England it's, technically, a time for paying your respects to the baby Jesus - who's birthday wasn't even on the 25th. For me, a 'massive atheist', it is/was/will be a time to meet friends and family and to exchange gifts. Jesus plays no part. Today is Boxing Day and I'll soon have to burst into the New Year Russian style before plodding through another 360 days until the next Christmas. I just hope that in 2011 it doesn't start kicking off in September as usual. I like to savour the build up. No mince pies or festive songs until December.

I leave you now with the words of Walter Scott:

Twas Christmas broach'd the mightiest ale;
'Twas Christmas told the merriest tale;
A Christmas gambol oft could cheer
The poor man's heart through half the year.

To all of you I wish a very Merry Christmas and a frankly sublime New Year!

Farewell for 2010.

The sun, it's frozen!

My nose hurts, my ears hurt, my toes are going numb and my lungs are shocked at the behaviour of what's coming in. It's been getting colder, ok, that's fine, but a couple of days ago it really dropped. From -7 to -15. Today, as I write this, it's -25. My body and my wardrobe are throwing me silent looks of 'what the hell man!'

I'm seriously under-prepared, materially and facially. Last night I had Miguel and Sara over for dinner. I cooked a cockle-warming pork/beer/apple stew thing with mushrooms and onions, a potato salad with bacon, peas and hard-boiled egg and some of that grechka. They arrived at about 8:20. Miguel rang me from downstairs. I could hear the discomfort in his voice. They bundled into my flat in Arctic clothing.

'Jesus Christ, it's -19 outside. The wine's basically frozen.' He removed his face protector 'This coat? 300 euros. It's what they use on the polar expeditions'

I had a few jumpers and a coat, some thin gloves from H&M, no boots, and a woolly hat. Shopping was a necessity now that I knew what I was up against. Cold, exciting pain. It's quite thrilling, and a little scary, when you breathe deep as you leave your flat and flood your lungs with subzero air, the little thermometer on the metro station showing you minus too much. After a couple of minutes you really feel it. When the wind flies in it makes the eyes water, the face burn and the lips dry out. Should you remove your glove to send a text you have about 15 seconds before it stings. People walk about with ruddy faces, mine ruddier still. Your nose drips and you pull your collar up to hide your bare cheeks. You swear to yourself in amazement.

Winter is like this though. It yo-yos about. If I tell you the BBC forecast for this week at the time of writing it goes as follows:

Wednesday: Clear, -25

Thursday: Clear, -15

Friday: Partly sunny, -11

Saturday: Snow, -3

It's all over the shop. The weather has been more variable this autumn/winter that anything I've experienced in the UK. It seems to do what it likes. And what it likes seems to be joyous punishment punctured by more tender respites. I never thought I would get into the mindset of 'oh good -7, it's warm today'.

I'm still toying with what's worse, the massive heat - 35 degrees and higher - of central and southern Spain, or the minus 15s and below of Russia. One tires you out and, depending on activity, offers a sweat coverage and stops you wanting to do anything. The other hurts and is dangerous and stops you actually doing anything. I still can't decide. They are both as awesome and terrible as each other.

The heat of Spain carried with it women in few clothes, people relaxing outside in cafes and parks and the possibility of a tan.

The cold of Moscow carries with it romance and excitement, cosiness inside cafes, and snow making the world look perfect.

I'll mull it over.

Speaking of mull...ed wine. It's the 1st of December and Christmas/New Year is on its way. Twinkling lights, tinsel, snowflakes and Christmas trees have started popping up in the foyers of offices and in the windows of shops and eateries. This is where Russia does well. Summer isn't Russia. Russia nails that snowy, Christmassy, festive feeling like nowhere else. I plan to buy an artificial tree and deck its branchy halls with all manner of shiny snakes and sparkling baubles, with or without the approval of Richard. We have yet to plunge the metaphysical and severely existential depths of the question: 'Do you like Christmas?'. He may be a Scrooge or he may be like me, a child refusing to grow up.

I love Christmas, deal with it. If you don't, shut up. My same answer to the similar Coldplay question...

It's just a shame that at the moment there's no white carpet outside. The mercury dropped but the snow has yet to. Bring on Friday.

Last Saturday I hosted a small gathering at my house. A few Spaniards and a few Russians. We drank, snacked and listened to music for a few hours. It was relaxed and cosy, just what they wanted. The majority had been to a concert the night before and didn't really want to party hard. At about 2:30am Jose looked at his watched with a concerned face.

'If we are going to go out, we need to go out soon'

The majority then left in a cavalcade of taxis. Some military operation. And four of us were left: Fernando, Chema (Jose Maria), Dmitry and myself. We decided to go to a club called Crisis. It was only a 15minute walk away, and it was a fairly tolerable -7 outside. I suggested walking there.

'No, a taxi man! It's so cold' was the response...from the Russian! I was shocked, but not bothered. We piled into the taxi, teeth chattering. Within a couple of minutes we were in a traffic jam. A big one. It was 3:00am and we were in a bloody traffic jam... 'That's Russia' I suppose. We wasted about 10 minutes in the taxi before I suggested we walked. The consensus was 'ok'.

'Next time we listen to you' they laughed

A further 15 minutes and we arrived at the club. Content, but frozen.

'How many are you?' said the bouncer

'Just us four'

'No, you can't come in'

And that was that.

So much for plan A. We had no plan B, but a sort of plan A(i) presented itself to us in the form of a girl seeing off her friend outside. She overheard us talking and decided to first try and get us in, a lame idea that didn't work, and then give us directions to another bar. She was a little drunk and tired and her directions were 'go straight and then left'. This didn't inspire much confidence. She was then joined by the other friend she was with who had been inside collecting the coats. We then all left together in search of 'Papa's Place'.

It was -9 and a thin layer of snow had dusted the promenade and pond that ran from Prokovka street to the Chistiy Prudi (Clean Ponds) area. I was walking with the friend, a Belorussian called Olga. It turned out she was studying Japanese and English. We chatted for a while and both came to the conclusion that at this point, about 4:00am in the morning, we didn't want to drink alcohol. It would be tea. On reaching the bar our plan didn't sit well with the boys who went straight downstairs to the dance floor. I drank tea with the two girls. The other girl, Irene, studied Urdu and Uzbek. Earl Grey and pizza. The boys later returned.

'Well this place is shit' said Dima

'I'll not be coming back here' added Chema

'What's the problem?' I asked 'Is it a sausage factory?'

'Yes, basically' he replied.

At around 5:00am we started to finish up. The evening was essentially another failure. But it was enjoyable in its own way. I walked home as slow snow fell like glitter and landed silently on the streets and cars. In the dark, but lit by the street lights, everything glinted and sparkled. It was, to definitely sound cheesy, magical. The soporific effects of both the atmospheric scene around me and the slight tang of still present alcohol allowed me to ignore the fact that I was strolling through -1o without a hat.

Off to the shops I think.

[Edit: -21 is absurd]

The more berries on the tree now, the colder the winter will be...

Finally the thermometers are flirting with minuses. A tantalising two-day crust of snow/ice lies over everything as small numbers flicker below zero. 'It'll be -12 one day' says one person, '-20' says another. I can't believe it could drop so suddenly. My students have started advising me to buy thermal underwear. I guess it could. One day searing, clean wind shears through everything and whips through doorways, the next all is still and smells sit chilled on the unmoving, unshifting air. Dressing appropriately is so to become an 'issue'.

At the end of a very long week two things happened. The first was a failed-karaoke Friday evening and the second was a Saturday circus.

We started our night in the usual way. Everyone brings something to the flat. Vodka, juices, crisps, pickles, olives, sweets, whatever. Laid out. Music on. Guests arriving. Typical 'Spanish party'. In drips and drabs Spanish and Russian people piled into Alvaro and Manuel's palatial kitchen and calls of 'vodka and orange' lifted over The Kooks or whichever band was playing in the background. The windows started to steam up so one was opened allowing an icy sliver of wind to enter and readdress the balance. 'Shot! Chupito! Rumka!' Everyone groaned a little at the inevitable arrival of the little glasses filled to the brim with ice-cold vodka. Gagging sounds and 'urghs!', followed by pickles or sweets, was the denouement to the party. Eyes met and shared the same 'why do we always do this' glance.

The plan was to go to a private karaoke where hire out a booth with a machine. Personal embarrassment is only witnessed by your friends and not the spiteful, judging general public. The place where we wanted to patronize; as in visit, not tap on the door and say 'you are a good club aren't you', was closed. We then visited Zhiguli - part ground-level, cheap cafe, part snazzy, enormous underground club. We shuffled into the warmth. Manuel and I popped to the gleaming, mirrored toilets. We joked about having more luck with gyrating Russian girls than with singing songs anyway, zipped up and went back into the empty hall. The others had gone on ahead. We paid the 600 rouble (12 pound) entrance fee and went down.

A low-level but expansive, heaving, green-lit room lay before us. It was filled with classily-dressed men and women and provided excellent areas for both dancing, bar-standing and sitting. We pushed past groups of friends, women caressing each other for the enjoyment of their boyfriends, young bucks dancing awfully in front of uninterested girls, people shouting over the music to be heard by the barman and looked for our friends. Within a couple of minutes it became clear that they in fact hadn't come down and, not realising we were in the loos, had gone outside. Oh how we laughed and enjoyed ourselves for a while, toying with the dilemma of either sacking it and finding the others or trying to make the most of our 600 roubles. It was then we started to notice that the average age of the patrons was at least 30 and the average salary was probably astronomical. We shouldn't be here. We left, sat at a bus stop, waved on taxis, waited for the others to text us - for they were still searching for a new place - and then both decided to call it a night.

A Russian has since told us 'if you go out in Moscow, you need to plan. Plan A, B and C'

Saturday was far more successful.

On a snowy evening we met at the Universitet stop, with the campus skyscraper building looming over the trees like some shrouded, melodramatic vampire, and entered the large, permanent, Bolshoi Moskovskii Gosudarstvenii Tsirk, Grand Moscow State Circus. In the entrance hall/ring people handed coats in, bought nuts, popcorn or candy floss or had their photos taken with doped up Arctic foxes or expertly well-behaved rabbits and cats. At one point an unwilling fox made a scurrying run for it through the legs of circus goers and shot off round like some furry particle in the Hadron Collider. The photographer had clearly seen it all before, gave the girl a bunny, finished his photo, and walked off after the little vulpine escapist.

The show, based around the theme of a train passing through various stations, where all the different acts took place, was at once wonderful and entertaining but also depressing and vile.

The good: acrobats, laser shows, UV dancing and rope work, balancing acts, some sub-standard but endearing clowns and the legions of squealing and laughing kids.

The bad: the animals. Well, the dogs and sea lions were fine. They were doing simple, classic routines. The dogs ran around and jumped over things Crufts style and the sea lions balanced balls whilst receiving constant strokes and treats. The show had a more unpleasant taste, made worse by the heat and lack of leg-room in the stalls, when the dressed-up monkeys, subservient bears and lions drugged up to their eyeballs came out. The bears were running on their hind legs, doing forward rolls, and driving motorbikes. The lions did simple tricks, but could barely move about, and roared and protested feebly, such was the level of chemicals no doubt coursing through their bloodstream. Oh, prod that lion will you he's not getting off his pedestal quick enough. I hoped one of the beasts would remember what he was, a king, an apex predator, and would remove the face of the dancing, twirling, stick-wielding dandy who tormented them. They didn't.

The show ended with a birthday cake exploding into confetti, it was the 70th birthday. As great and terrible it was, it was Russian. That was the most important thing. As we walked back to the metro, the icy snow stabbing at our eyes, my mind wandered into the lion enclosure and opened the latch and left a photo of the tamer with a steak stapled to it.

My mouthwash contains hydrolysed silk! feat. cynicism

"If you are planning to spend this winter in Moscow be ready to survive in -30, to walk on ice only and to get acquainted with our special 'metro smell'"

The subzero temperatures and ice are holding off for the moment, but the Muscovite cologne is beginning to waft off people. This week has been pretty miserable in some ways.

In the morning maybe my cup of coffee and bowl of hot kasha (porridge) with honey sit smoking in the half-light as the sun struggles to throw light behind the blanket of clouds. My gluey eyes moan at me as I continue to prevent them from closing again and I sit, flumped in my little wooden chair in front of my searingly bright laptop screen. My wind-up internet connection delivers me my emails and some news and I double slap my cheeks, 'wake up!'. I try and kick start my head by reading some Dawkins or some Tolstoy. I huff and puff at my sloth and put on my sports kit, along with the little zip up jumper I bought to deal with the plummeting degrees. Although they aren't plummeting as Moscow is experiencing a warm front. 10-14 degrees during the day. I sweat in my little jumper, ignoring the occasional car horn and constant confused/bemused staring faces as I run down the grey, overcast streets and along the steel-coloured Yauza that feeds off the Moscow river. Side-step dirty puddles and crush deflated, wet browns and oranges; flesh that has fallen from the autumn trees.

In the afternoon maybe I boil some grechka (buckwheat), fry some chopped vegetables - tomatoes, mushrooms and pickled odds and ends - and throw in some adzhika (spiced tomato sauce) and some smetana (sour cream). I'm full. I trudge out into the muggy air, busy with spitted rain and hurled bricks of wind. I find the local babushka and her stand just outside the forecourt of my flat. I buy some musky freshly made cheese, 'from the cows walking around in the field this morning', and a little bottle of some home-made green spicy herb sauce that she makes, 'ochen vskusna, ochen vskusna!' (very tasty, very tasty). A hearty smile shifts her moustache as she warbles away at me in exuberant Russian. 'You're not from here are you?' she giggles 'I heard your accent and thought 'that's not a Russian accent'. Well, we'll talk again soon'. It's 4 o'clock and the world has been dim all day. When will I wake up?

In the evening maybe I slink into my suit or some other fairly smart looking clothing and suffer on the metro, inhaling the pungent, heady bodily aromas (that I can almost taste) of the unwashed rush-hour traffic heading home as I head to a class. The sky has turned black and the roads are clogged with twinkling headlamps and horns. I feign interest in the lives of my students for two hours as they fumble their way through the English language to tell me about something neither of us really care about. Groggy, I jostle back through the city and nearly collapse in on myself. Little glimpses of beautiful metro stations flicker through the train windows. At Kurskaya I descend into the foetid sauna of my little local supermarket and buy a large bottle of Baltika beer and some necessities. I choose the cashier who I know won't badger me for lower denominations, rouble coins. She'll take the note and let me be. Plastic bag, underpass, babushka gone, key-lift-key, back on my little wooden chair. Maybe I have a last cup of something hot and hang my head as my eyes burn with an unearned tiredness.

The half-light, the never-day, the rain, the colourless world around me at the moment is getting to me. Not emotionally, but physically. I'm tired all the time. I keep wanting to sleep but in my head I think 'no, I'll make the most of the day' and I end up making a compromise by just staring inanely at facebook or nearly nodding off trying to read Anna Karenina.

This isn't the case every day. Last Friday the sun broke through for a few measly hours. I had a day off and spent it wandering alone around Kolomenskoye; a perfect UNESCO park of wooden cathedrals, tended lawns, chapels and sweeping vistas. And then on Sunday a long walk to the red and white birthday cake churches, towers and turrets of the Novodevichy Convent. Now my favourite places in the city.

Bar the metro I'm looking forward to the other part of my Russian's predilection. Bring on the -30 and the ice. I'm tired of this irritating weather pretending to be English but succeeding only in ruining my free time and making the city look unhappy.

I am happy though.

A quick word on roads

'Is this legal?'

'Well...mm...yeah'

It wasn't.

Traffic in Moscow is legendary. It's a mess and the new Mayor, Sobyanin, has taken it as one of his three leading stances on his 'to do' list; as well as corruption and red tape. There are many reasons for the problems:

1. Upwards of 15 million people live here

2. The concentric ring road layout doesn't lend itself particularly well to the numbers

3. There is limited light-based control on the smaller roads

4. Russians will park their cars wherever they want - there are no double or single yellows here - and this causes bottlenecks.

5. Russians can't drive for toffee or any other sugar-based chewy substitute.

Being a metro user/walker I hadn't really seen the problems first hand. My classes started and ended either before or after rush hour and occasional late night taxis took me home when the roads were fairly empty or I was sufficiently blistered not to notice, or care to notice, the numbers of other road users. After finishing teaching a home-class my child student's mother decided to drive me a little into the city so I wouldn't have to sit on the metro for 40 minutes. Moscow's rush hour made sure it would take me longer.

We left her flat and got into the big, shiny 4x4,

'You must have big car in Moscow' she laughed.

Flats in Russia are usually strewn in large no man's land areas between roads. There is rarely any order to their placing and it can be near impossible to find 'number 5 Novgorodskaya street' when the number is just an arbitrary label for the sake of postage. You can find yourself walking through an expansive rabbit warren trying in vain to find the correct building. It is utterly disorientating. The same problem faced us on leaving the area. There was no easy way out. All the little roads that filtered out onto the road were jammed up because of the traffic.

'Probka, probka, probka' she muttered to herself. Traffic, traffic, traffic.

We were trying to get onto a small lane that lead up to a messy t-junction where we could eventually make our way to the main road.

'Like I said earlier, don't worry, I'm a magician'

She hauled the big, shiny off-roader off-road and onto the pavement. We trundled up to the t-junction past the waiting cars, making sure not to hit any pedestrians. I laughed in disbelief,

'Is this legal?'

'Well...mm...yeah'

It wasn't.

We muscled into the queue at the t-junction and slowly barged forward. There was no order. No etiquette. Just cars, everywhere. Horns shouting, lights flashing. There was a small flat-bed truck stopped all over a pedestrian crossing, trying to turn. Some cars were managing to get through the barricade, like metallic fishes flitting through some LED coral. My driver just continued to push our black behemoth through.

'Everyone drives as if they are correct'

It worked though.

'Why don't they put in traffic lights?' I asked

'I asked a traffic policeman that once. He said "we don't know how to"!'

More traffic later and I got home a lot nearer to bed time than I had planned but was pleased to have had a taste of the madness.

I'm glad Moscow has a metro.

The force is strong with this one...oh no, he's drunk

'Luke...like Skywalker!?'

'Obi Wan Kenobi!!!'

'Can we play hide and seek?'

'Is this a lesson or just colouring in....?'

'Ok guys, calm down please. Do you want a black mark? No? Ok, let's carry on...what am I wearing?'

That was the shambles that constituted one of last Friday's four classes with primary school kids in the middle of nowhere out in the West of the city. Richard had flu-like symptoms and had already infected his two children by accident. 28 minutes later style they were running around like snotty zombies. He decided it was best not to infect a private school.

Text to Richard: 'So that was one of my circles of hell'

Text back: 'God bless you my son'

After the first class I got into the swing of things. The kids were calmer and I was more in control. By the fourth class I was masterly teaching 'I am wearing a blue jumper' with a combination of clear BBC enunciation and 'look at me I'm such a funny clown' physical comedy. Shattered and ruddy-faced I returned home. A tiring end to a windy, rainy - there was devastating flooding in the Krasnodar region of Russia near the Black Sea killing 14 - second week in the capital. The Moscow zoo was drenched, the animals soggy and the only solar solace came for 10 minutes one day as I walked along a street with framed pieces of artwork on the walls; notable that, although graffiti is ever present, these paintings remained untouched.

* * * *

My hands were freezing in my pockets. I only had a little black jacket on over my cardigan and the Muscovite winds were razor sharp.

'I'll be there in 20 minutes' bleeped the text from Anna.

We were supposed to be meeting at 11pm outside a cinema at the Arbat where the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival was being held.

'I'm going to go for a walk so I don't get cold' I responded

I paced up and down the length of the Arbat for 20mins before returning to wait outside the building again. I called Anna 'we'll be about 2 mins!'

15 minutes later Anna, Vacya, and two other Russians showed up. The tickets for the Advertising Festival were sold out. One of the unknown Russians, a tall, blonde girl, whipped out an iPhone and found a film that was about to start at a cinema further down the 'New' Arbat street.

We all but jogged to the other cinema complex and sat, hot and cold, on sleepy seats, with crowds of bawdy young Russians, in the dark and watched a frankly shit film. It was called '13' and it was dubbed. It wasn't a typical Saturday night.

We then, all 5 of us, crammed into Vacya's little car and bulleted round the Garden Ring road towards Kurskaya. Vacya chariot raced with a young, aggressive man in a Lada. They were both vying for the same lane.

'VACYA, STOP IT. LOOK AT THE ROAD!' screamed the girl

'It's not my fault, it's him!' Vacya retorted angrily, gesturing at the other driver, slamming on the brakes and swerving into another lane. I, without a seatbelt, gripped the headrests in front of me.

It wasn't a typical Saturday night.

I took Sunday more sedately and spent a couple of hours wandering around the Izmailovsky Park in the sunshine; famous both for its enormous market and having once been the Tsars' favourite city park. After that I pootled back into the centre on the metro and went round the History Museum on Red Square with some of the Spanish. My feet were falling to pieces. I went back home and died on my bed.

On the Monday I had a trial class at a new school.

'I think you're the man to teach kids' said Tony with a smile 'they liked you mate'

So, more kids. This time it was at the final stop of the grey line, in the north of the city. The middle of the middle of nowhere.

A rugged, old man with a limp was waiting for me outside the metro with a piece of A4 paper with 'L U K E' printed on it. He grunted something and gestured for me to follow him. We got into a minibus and drove in a small circuit for 5 minutes round to a little school hiding in the shadows of some large, grey flats. I put the unnecessary use of the minibus down to the probable irritation of his leg. This area was ugly.

Inside the little private school Russian kids and teachers were fluttering about. Limpy then shepherded me upstairs and left me with the director, Evgenia, who then showed me to the room where I would be teaching. It was all Russian and I had to focus hard to understand what was being said to me; advice, students, timings, 'do you want to use the computers? a ball to throw'. This time it was a breeze. The kids were calm and the hour sailed by.

They didn't know what Star Wars was.

From Madrid to Maidenhead to Moscow.

Friday.

And so begins my time, my story, in Russia. I knew that it was going to be a different experience from the year I spent in Madrid and I would be lying if I didn't have flashes of 'why didn't I just stay in Spain!' rushing through my head as I waited in the flabby, congealed mess of people trying to get through immigration at the Domodedovo airport. There were vague, abstract ideas of what a line should be but it was essentially a free-for-all. Combined with a two hour delayed flight, it was not the ideal start.

The young militsia cadets running my 'line' decided to leave. I was standing, with a flurry of confused Russians in a line that wasn't moving. Nobody left. This was our line dammit. They'd come back. They didn't come back. People, huffing and puffing, started to filter out into adjacent queues. I was pushed forward by the elbow by an energetic and bolshy little babushka.

'Go forward, that's it!'

I laughed a little breathy laugh

'Why are you laughing? Go on, go and get behind that man. Move up'

I laughed because the dominance of the babushka is legendary and here one was, not half an hour into my Russian experience, throwing her weight around as if she had more authority than just her age. Sensing that our immigration office people weren't coming back I too moved into another queue. Within 5 minutes I was through.

Slava, a bright, young Russian who works at my school met me with my name on a piece of A4 paper. I felt important. I napped in the taxi as we drove into the centre of the city where I was to be staying. Kurskaya was my area and I would be living with Richard, another teacher. On the seventh floor a dim little flat with its door open, a Scunthorpian bloke and a little kid were waiting for me.

'Come in, don't worry about your shoes. Do you want tea?'

I walked up to the little boy and behaved like any proper middle-class Englishman should. I thrust out my hand,

'Hello! Nice to meet you'.

He took it limply and then ran back to his father. Over my Early Grey I realised he was essentially Russian and didn't really speak English. I felt a prat but consoled myself as we made friends by looking at his new plastic toys.

My evening was then spent talking about my future job and settling into my room. I collapsed onto my bed and readied myself for the weekend.

Saturday.

In Richard's hands.

A little tour of the local area and a metro trip to Kievskaya.

Simcard, Rubles.

We met one of his friends/bandmates who was lucky enough to live in one of the Stalinist skyscrapers. I felt privileged to go in and up.

There are seven of them - the 'Seven Sisters' - and they form an arc around the city centre. They are overblown, eccentric, spiky messes of statuary, spires, communist stars and vast haunches. Originally they were designed to surround one enormous, but never-built, building called the Palace of Soviets. It would have been the tallest building in the USSR, topped with a statue of Lenin. Its combined height would have been more than the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty put together. As far as I was concerned it was a shame it wasn't built. They remain beautiful, Gothic reminders of the once great potency of the soviets.

We had lunch by another Stalinist skyscraper, The Kudrinskaya block. It was the last of the skyscrapers and on its completion Krushchev commented how Stalin defended their construction:

'We've won the war and are recognised all over the world as the glorious victors. We must be ready for an influx of foreign visitors. What will happen if they walk around Moscow and find no skyscrapers? They will make unfavourable comparisons with capitalist cities.'

Fair enough Stalin, fair enough.

Sunday.

Another day of relative rest.

In the afternoon I met my boss, Tony, in Starbucks for a long coffee and a chat. He was a chirpy and laddish North Londoner and made me feel at ease quickly. We talked at length about the job itself and about what I could expect. I sweated. The heating was on maximum and even the waitresses were fanning themselves.

'Yeah, you can expect this in the winter'

Within a very short period of time my new boss and I were discussing the merits of Russian females and how it was absurd how attractive they were. Every time the cafe door opened yet another beauty walked in.

'Like I say mate, the only danger in Moscow is fighting off the women'

He told me about the phenomenon of reiderstvo, (corporate) raiding.

Essentially if one interested party wants to seize the business of another, it can. All it needs to do is first pay off some officials, police for example, to obtain some legal documents - company records, tax certificates, corporate seals etc - and then pay off some government bodies to help take ownership of the company. Lawyers and witnesses have even been bribed to say that the victimised party was definitely at a meeting where it was agreed that the ownership would be passed on to the interested party. And so the victim loses its assets and its company and is ruined.

Tony told me how he had a student once, a very rich man, who lost some of his businesses to a raiding scam. He then hired some heavies to go and get them back by whatever means necessary, which they did. However then the heavies, now aware of what the man had, decided to get something for themselves and the poor bloke was raided a second time, this time by the heavies!

'That's Russia you know. It's utterly safe and there's never any problems unless you're earning millions and someone doesn't like it'.

In the evening I met up with Miguel. He was one of my students in Madrid and his company had given him the option, along with some colleagues, to travel and live in Moscow for a year; to learn Russian and to get business experience. He accepted. I felt comfortable with him and was glad that I wouldn't lose the Spanish connection while I was here.

Monday.

I knew I would have a class in the evening: 18:00-20:00 teaching at SBERBANK, the largest bank in Russia, but I met Tony in the morning and then we drove to the office where I spent most of the day planning. I instantly made friends with the lively, young Russians who were working in the office. There was Slava again, prim in a shirt and blazer typing away at his computer. Near the door of the small room was Sasha, a lanky and at first shy, blonde, Russian guy who steadily opened up as the days passed. Perpendicular to the door was Anna. An attractive and funny Russian girl who would be the giver of timetables. They all had a dry and sarcastic sense of humour. When we printed my photo out for my propusk, entry pass, it was such a large picture that it took up the whole A4 page.

'Oh that's great. We can put it on the board and use it for darts' laughed Anna.

Slava then pinned it to the board.

The propusk system is a gleaming example of the stupidity and pointlessness of the Russian bureaucratic system. I had to go first to one office, the bureau of entry passes, hand the rosy-cheeked lady my passport and tell her the company where I was headed. A couple of minutes later she handed me a little white card. I then took this card to the entrance of my building where I could beep through a turnstile. I had to follow this process not only every morning but also at every point throughout the day when I left the office. If I wanted to go for lunch I dropped the card in a box, left, and had to get another one when I returned. It was a chore.

At 17:00 I went with Richard to the SBERBANK head office in the south of the city. A massive building all white cement and green windows, it was very attractive. We sat in the entrance hall with some other teachers who had arrived and waited for our students to come and get us. At five to the hour one of my students, Ilya, called me to see if I was here. I was. He came down, got me a propusk, 'maybe we can sort you out with a proper pass or something', and then took one of the 18 lifts up to the seventh floor.

'What a view!'

'I know. It's good. One day we can go up to the 25th. That's a good view'

I taught Marina and Ilya that day. It was a dream.

They work such long days they said they were just happy to relax.

Tuesday.

This morning I was supposed to have had an early morning class at 7:30 teaching some workers of SOVCOMFLOT, the largest, state-owned, merchant navy in the country. However, due to a metro closure along the circle line I was stranded in Moscow. It was dark, cold, early in the morning and due to some dicey directions from a man who probably just didn't want to be bothered by a stupid foreigner in a suit, I was completely lost. I didn't make my class.

On the phone to Tony:

'Don't worry about it. It's your first couple of days in the city, it happens to new teachers'

The rest of the day was planning again.

After work I went for a drink with Anna. We headed to Mollie's Irish Pub where the drinks were tasty but cost £5. I wrapped my coat around me and walked down to my metro stop past the behemoth Lubyanka building, where the FSB resides. At the Ploshad Revolutsii metro I passed the beautiful salmon-pink Epiphany Cathedral and headed back to Kurskaya.

Wednesday.

A slightly dull day this one. Due to missing my class on Tuesday I already had the rest of the week planned. I decided to go for a walk around the local area, over the inimitable Red Square; down Varvarka Street, lined with different coloured churches and temples; around the Kitay-gorod, where I got lost; and finally back up to the KGB, cough, ahem, sorry, silly me, it's not, I mean the FSB headquarters. It's so utterly different to the KGB and in no way behaves like that old, evil and pernicious government body I can't possible see how I got confused...

That evening, at 19:30, after everyone had left - except poor Zhenia, a serious, blonde Russian girl who had to stay behind - I taught Aleksei, a serious but sweet man who works for GAZPROMBANK. He was a family man and keen to have business classes. Whoopie for him that I'm a fully qualified business specialist myself...

After all these '...' I returned home and collapsed early onto my bed. I set three alarms and woke up several times in the night, paranoid that I would again miss my early morning class.

Thursday.

I didn't.

I arrived at SOVCOMFLOT with plenty of time and collected my thoughts in the lofty, empty, marbled atrium. The class was fine, Yuri and Tatiana. They didn't mind that I missed the previous one. They found it quite amusing. I walked out past model boats and pictures of oil tankers.

'I worked 20 years as a seaman' Yuri smiled.

SBERBANK in the evening. Ilya's impressively bad breath and Svetlana, a new girl. The far off lights of the Moscow State University skyscraper twinkled into existence as I made the trek back to the metro and passed some stray dogs howling to each other in that lupine way.

Friday.

I finally got my propusk. I no longer had to faff around at the bureau or ring Slava because the ladies behind the glass were denying me my plastic beeping card. No classes today though. I relaxed at home and tried, in vain, to tidy my room. I had a distinct lack of hangers to cope with a distinct glut of things to be hung. One week and my big bag was still lying on the floor. I was still pretending I was on holiday. It had started to feel like home. Only a little.

'Fancy a cup of tea?' asked Richard

Yes, it was starting to feel like home.

At 23:00 I met Miguel, his newly arrived girlfriend Sara, and a couple of Spanish guys and we headed to a Spanish house party near the Old Arbat street and its Stalinist skyscraper - The Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It was slightly grander than the FCO building in Whitehall. And I say that under a thick blanket of understatement.

Vodka and oranges, lots of Spanish, a Bulgarian girl who had lived in Reading and a night out in Moscow - Propaganda club. Gay-friendly, cheap, good-natured and with 'democratic face control', it was a fun evening. I got home at 3:30 after a walk back to sober up.

Saturday.

I taught Aleksei and then a little 11yr-old called Artyem. I was sleepy and feeling a little languid due to my performance the previous night. I got through it though. I even accidentally taught the boy thirty minutes longer than I needed to.

Home. Siesta for 3.5 hours.

Sunday.

This brings me up to the present.

In the morning sun I walked around my local area. I found monasteries and churches and lovely views of distant architectural peaks as well as ugly roads, grey, soviet blocks and men hocking globs of phlegm onto the street.

In the greying and very cold afternoon I walked around with Miguel and Sara. We visited, and went inside, the beautiful Cathedral of Christ the Saviour where a mass had started; down the river away from the Kremlin to find hidden coloured temples; along the bank to the 94 metre Peter the Great Monument - voted tenth ugliest building/monument in the world; past riverside clubs and chic bars and finally to their flat where we enjoyed a couple of beers and an Anglo-Iberian conversation.

In the somehow warmer evening I met with Anna and her friend Vacya for a drink, again at Mollie's and then went for a walk to see the lights of Red Square. It was a nice end to a very nice weekend. I felt like I was slowly getting to grips with Moscow.

Sure it wasn't as easy or immediate as Madrid. But then it was never going to be. I didn't - and still don't really - know anybody when I came and the city itself is 800km squared and 7th most populace in the world. Still this is one week of many.

I have time.

A change.

This is a first, tentative blog in order to give life to my new creature.

Quite the change from Slices of Sun, my last blog, that now only lives on in the sharing of the word 'sun' with this new venture and the few people who still care to read it.

I ripped myself away from Madrid and came home. Not being able to find a job in St. Petersburg I found one in Moscow teaching at the British Business Language Centre, right in the heart of the city.

I go there on the 8th of October.

I will 'start' this blog when I 'start' my temporary Russian life. In the meantime I will continuing to work hard at writing, finishing and then publishing my book, which is still without a name.

Do svidanya for now.