General: Russia

On looking down at the white, mammoth body of Russia, I knew that I was visiting from Britain with love. Glancing up from ground level, my rapacious eyes hatched sights of intricate churches spawning multicoloured onions, brazen department blocks brandishing the influence of Stalin and neon flashing advertisements of a country longing and succeeding in being noticed.
In spite of ludicrous layers of wool and a bumpy figure that would intimidate even the Michelin man, I was bitten in minutes. Not only by minus fourteen degrees but the dark, beady eyes glancing suspiciously from the comfort of fur Ushankas.
This first bite of Moscow proved to be exquisite and was followed by a flavour of St Petersburg, alongside a rare taste of Russian cordiality in the form of a trusting tour guide, unique for his ability to include: “But that’s life, you know” in his every sentence.
As a vegetarian in Russia, a diet of vodka loomed ahead of me but beetroot salad and Borscht alongside prettily decorated cakes proved a welcoming accompaniment to the vodka. Aside from food, I was filled each day with sights unknown to the British eye; chandeliers hanging from polished metro ceilings, incongruous bears and tigers at the Moscow State Circus and snow deep enough to (nearly) lose the ubiquitous tour guide.
The language was soothing to the tongue but less so to the Russian’s ears. Yet my attempts did begin to thaw the icy cultural barriers, particularly while enduring the rickety overnight train ride between the two cultural capitals where an unsavoury man with gold teeth seemed to have mistaken my innocent gestures.
Where Moscow has been described feminine, St Petersburg was the man that I had been waiting to find, to invite me to the Mariinsky theatre and to provide me with an unforgettable night of Russian pleasure with a Folklore performance. With its Frozen Neva Riva dividing the islands of the city and one of the longest facades in Europe housing the military staff, Russia continued to warm me in places where the vodka could not. The new tour guide embodied the unpredictability of the Russian experience, with no traces of repeated phrases but stories of times of hardship (queuing for four hours outside an empty shelved shop) and the confession that her ‘other’ job was as a rocket scientist.
Whilst the snow may be covering Russia, I ventured under the blanket and discovered a true love.