Writing my post yesterday reminded me of all the tales and mythology I heard from my Russian friends about shopping; or really, about all the stories I heard from people.

In my novel set in the Moscow of the mid 1990s, Rose Fleming, my protagonist learns a lot about the country through listening to tales told to her by her friends.

It was my experience that, in Russia, there is nothing prized more highly than a good story, and I decided to try to use a bit of that in my novel.  So I was very gratified when I read ‘Russian Talk: Culture and Conversation during Perestroika’ by Nancy Ries to see that there is some cultural authenticity to that impression.

Ries is an anthropologist; the hypothesis of her study was that Russian people may derive a great deal of their sense of identity out of the tales they tell about themselves, both individually and collectively.

I was not making a study, but I would often ask questions simply to hear my colleagues out do each other with the comedy or the tragedy of their stories.

Shopping was always a good subject to get them going; it wouldn’t take long for the idea of the hunt or the chase to be raised.  It was more than a metaphor in times of shortage the effort of finding food and then queuing to buy it in shops where often you had to wait in one queue to pay, before then waiting in another to actually get your hands on your purchase.

Everyone had a story of some extreme shopping adventure experienced by their Granny.  I remember one of my colleagues telling me her Granny had bought so much soap a couple of years before that they had it stored on the top of every cupboard in their flat.  It would likely last a lifetime, especially as since she bought it, much nicer things were available, so no-one wanted to use the glut.  They would however never throw it away, as you never knew when there would be another shortage.

I copied one story wholesale for my novel.  Sasha had participated in a school exchange programme and his family played host to a child from the  UK for a week.  For the six months leading up to the time of the exchange Sasha’s mother and grandmother had shopped tirelessly so that the flat was full of food for the week of the visit.

‘The British boy must have thought it was like ‘Alice in Wonderland’ in our flat.  There was food everywhere, every cupboard was stuffed, and yet outside in the street there was nothing to buy.  But he just ate everything while we watched.’

Everyone laughed, but I felt embarrassed for that British school boy who ever he was.  I didn’t have the experience of the terrible shortages in the early years of perestroika, but I understood something of the shopping struggle as well as the tremendous generosity of a Russian host.

I’ve probably spent more time than is healthy thinking about airports, or one airport in particular, in the last few months.  The opening chapter of my novel about Rose Fleming and her adventures in Moscow takes place in the arrivals hall at Sheremetyevo airport.

I’ve been very attached to it as a setting for the opening as it stands in as a metaphor for beginnings, a first impression of the country, and it presents Rose with a litany of challenges for which she is not well prepared.  But it has also been like a rod for my own back.

It was the first section of the novel I wrote, it was discussed in workshops while I did my Masters, I rewrote it for submission for marking, for an application for a mentor, based on her feedback and a couple of times since.  There are whole sections that I know off by heart, word for word.  Simply looking at it has, once or twice, reduced me to tears of frustration, as I know that it wasn’t working as well as it should.  When people who were trying to be helpful asked me ‘does the novel have to begin at the airport?’ I would barely manage to swallow a screaming ‘YES.’

All of the struggles Rose experiences happened to me  at Sheremetyevo, not all on the same occasion, as she has to endure.  I say that with the smug assurance of a person who passed through the hell-hole that it was in the 1990s probably a score of times; and then I start to wonder.  I have spent so many hours conjuring up the place in my memory that I am now wondering if I can tell the difference between what I remember really happening and what I have made up for the purposes of the novel.  Either way, in my pretentious moments I think it will reflect the truth of the experience(!).

Refuelling at Kathmandu airport

Airports are hideously fascinating places however you approach them; especially as the first experience of a country.  The things they have in common may out weigh their differences, but there are individual characteristics about each, and I always arrive with a mixture of dread and excited anticipation.

For a number of years I travelled a fair amount for work.  I made one trip to Brazil.  Before I went, the colleague who asked me to go said ‘I know you’ve travelled a lot, but be very careful in Sao Paulo.  Don’t walk anywhere by yourself.’

I like to think I’m pretty careful wherever I go, but, with the extra warning ringing in my ears, I had a disturbing dream on the flight.  It was commonplace for me to be met at the airport by a car sent by the office I was visiting; I would get into a car with a complete stranger, solely on the basis that he was at the airport with my name written on a piece of card.  In my in-flight dream the ‘real’ driver was lying unconscious by the rubbish bins, while the man who had left home there drove me off into the pre dawn chaos of Sao Paulo.

Cursing my over active imagination, I have never been so relieved to arrive unscathed at a hotel.