Russia

Russia: My Evening in Cossack Krasnodar

The Cossack people were reveling in new found freedom and I was welcomed with open arms…

It was 1994 and I was working in Russia.

Boris Yeltsin was still running the country. At that time Putin was the First Deputy Mayor of St. Petersburg, working his way up the political ladder after retiring from the KGB as a lieutenant colonel. Of course I’d never heard of Putin at that time, but he would depose Yeltsin in 1999 in a peaceful handover. Peaceful as in an offer Yeltsin could not refuse.

Based in Moscow, my team’s work involved visiting many regional (oblast/krai) capitals across the Russian Federation. We discussed with the technology representatives of oblast governments the ways in which we could help them move forward as the Russian economy was being privatised.

Flying south

My colleague Mark and I had flown into Krasnodar from Moscow Sheremetyevo airport. At least the domestic airport there was half reasonable and not like the cattle sheds of Vnukovo and Domodedovo domestic airports which we’d used on other occasions.

But the Aeroflot flights were much the same. Bald tyres on the plane (Mark had a private pilot’s licence and was highly scathing — and worried). Passengers had chickens in cages and in-flight meals involved bidding for Mars bars and Sprite. The Russians were used to shortages but now in a new market economy prices were flexible. Very flexible. Negotiable. Even for Mars bars.

I’ll never forget being at a Moscow airport and asking a babushka behind a desk for flight information. Her reply: ‘Information one dollar’. Stuff that. But I couldn’t blame them really.

Anyway, the flight was about two and a half hours long and when we arrived in the afternoon in Krasnodar the weather was pleasant. I recollect seeing pony traps in the streets as we travelled to our hotel in a battered cab. Strangely, I have absolutely no recollection of the hotel although I do have a few good Russian hotel stories for the dinner table. But not that one.

Krasnodar

The city was established in 1793 as a fortress built by the Cossacks, and became a trading center for southern Russia. Krasnodar, formerly Yekaterinodar, is the largest city and the administrative centre of Krasnodar Krai, Russia.

The people there share genetic and cultural backgrounds with the people of Ukraine and the population of the city now stands at about 1 million people.

About 90 miles from the Black Sea, the city was severely damaged by the Germans in WWII and rebuilt as in Russian rebuilt. Ghastly.

In 2012, Forbes named Krasnodar the best city for business in Russia. By 2012, things must certainly progressed since my visit years before.

Near to Krasnodar, Putin built the Kerch Bridge linking the region to the Crimea just three miles across the strait at its narrowest.

Also known as the Crimean Bridge it’s a very juicy target for Ukrainian Harpoon missiles and Russia has recently strengthened its anti-missile defences in the Kerch Strait.

Our visit

Mark and I were there for a couple of days and had a series of meetings which basically involved project plans. I can’t go into detail here but as was typical with many of these visits we were treated in three different ways, depending on the individuals we met:

• Disdainfully. ‘We don’t need Westerners to tell us how to do things’
• Royally. ‘Welcome, come to eat with us tonight’. And drink.
• Professionally

My spoken Russian was poor, Mark’s was even worse. We were learners, receiving weekly Russian lessons in Moscow; we had no translator with us, just dictionaries. Our contact — the technical manager who I’ll call Sergei — spoke poor English, better than our Russian but not by much.

During a coffee break (don’t mention the coffee) we discovered that my spoken Spanish (learned the hard way) was about on a par with Sergei’s which he’d learned in high school. We managed. Our technical discussions revolved around Microsoft Project Gantt charts (graphical depictions of project schedules and resources). A kind of universal language. Plus almost Castillian Spanish.

Supper

On this occasion, we were invited to dinner. Sergei was a bachelor but he’d told some friends about us and we all were invited to their apartment.

The supper was set. We met Sergei at our hotel. It was a short walk to the apartment. Third floor I think. I don’t recall an elevator.

One room plus a bathroom, the whole apartment area about 4 metres by 4 metres. Clean and well looked after.

The couple were very pleasant. Thirty-ish in age. Not overweight (obesity was a rarity in Russia in those days and mostly confined to the governing classes). She had dyed-blonde hair and a white-ish satin-ish short-ish dress. He was regularly dressed, that’s all I remember. Clearly they’d put on their best.

She was inviting and getting my attention, sitting very close to me at the table. Legs rubbing. I was not comfortable, not that I was worried about a honey-trap as I had no secrets worth a damn, or a screw.

The five of us and a flask of vodka. A flask of vodka has no stopper. It must be emptied at the session. Then there was another (well, there were five of us, right?)

I don’t remember a lot more about the meal — we had zukuski for sure but I don’t recall the main course. There might have been ice cream — a Russian staple even in winter. Cheap calories for the proletariat.

Awe

The couple were clearly in awe of Mark and I.

Natasha (the wife) had some high school English so communication was easier with a mixture of Russian, Spanish and English. We ate, drank and chatted, ‘stiltily’. As the vodka took hold and we all relaxed, they started to open up about their lives.

‘Two years ago we would have been shot for inviting you into our apartment’.

That was really sobering, listening to these people explain about the fear that they had lived with all their lives (and now in 2022 being re-imposed).

When the vodka was exhausted, Natasha went across the room to a cabinet and returned with a pickle jar. But it wasn’t pickles. It was peach brandy complete with peaches.

‘My grandmother made this many years ago. I have been keeping it for a special occasion and tonight I will open it’.

Despite our protestations she opened the rubber-sealed jar.

And so we polished off Natasha’s grandmother’s 40 years old peach brandy.

Yevgeni, the husband, worked for a utility company and they very much wanted to emigrate to the UK. That was the push.

After the brandy, it was time to for Mark and I to head back to our hotel. They insisted on walking with us and Natasha held on to my arm as we walked. She was close, very close, very keen on something. I didn’t want to find out more. At the hotel she kissed me. Her husband wasn’t bothered. Realpolitik I guess.

I was glad to get to my room in one piece.

At supper I’d scribbled an address for Yevgeni and a year or so later I received a letter (in reasonable English) asking if I could help him come to England. Rightly or wrongly, I ignored the letter. I just didn’t want to get involved.

Do I feel guilty?

Maybe about the peach brandy, but otherwise, no. They would have enjoyed telling all their friends about the Westerners who been to dinner at their apartment.

Or would they?

Where are these Cossacks now, what are they thinking about Putin’s new Russian superstate?

I hope that they did realise their dream of living in ‘the West’.

About me: If you follow me I guarantee variety in your inbox with some peculiar perspectives! I write on a wide range of topics including humor, tech, space, geopolitics and travel, together with daily news events and the minutiae of my daily life living on a boat. Yes, I really do live on a boat (some readers don’t believe that). I also write about…

…contradictions and fear in Russia

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