City apartments and residential areas in Russia look more like Beirut that anywhere else. The buildings are tall and rectangular and are constructed from large concrete block or really big red bricks. The block work, while mostly straight enough to keep a building up, was obviously constructed haphazardly. It is not unusual to see a brick wall, which should be the flat face of a building, full of small twists and turns. Build a wall out of empty boxes with your eyes closed, and you’re not too far away from pre-1991 Russian construction. The main courtyards of these buildings are mostly large concrete slabs that also appear to overlap and have big spaces in between for you to fall into. Everything seems thrown together.
To enter the building we had to pass through a large armoured door, plated with thick steel panels that could only be opened with a magnetic key or the combination to the keypad on the side. Once inside we walked up four flights of the most badly-laid concrete steps in the whole world to reach Nastya’s steel front door. I stepped inside the narrow hallway, made narrower by a huge brown wardrobe on the left, and removed my shoes, which immediately let out foot-smell. I was worried for a second that Nastya’s parents’ first impression of me would be pongy feet; I didn’t have time to worry. With Nastya and Olga behind me, jostling for space to take off their shoes and coats, I was quickly pushed into the middle of the hallway. The whole place seemed yellowish, like white walls after someone has smoked for a hundred years; and there was a strong whiff of feet other than my own. As I kicked my shoes gently to the side of the hall I saw huge piles of boots that had been shoved haphazardly into the bottom of the wardrobe as both a quick tidy up and a way to mask their scent.
Raising my gaze from the floor I was faced with two shadowy figures, Nastya’s parents. I had no idea what to say. I couldn’t even force out a hello. Our eyes were locked together. Their inquisitive glare troubled me before their eyes began to smile. We were greeted in Russian and herded into the small kitchen at the end of the hall, where Nastya’s mum, Nataliya Petrovna, had prepared some deer meat and herbal tea.
Although the short version of her mother’s name was Natasha, I had been cautioned by Nastya to always refer to her as Nataliya Petrovna, as a sign of respect. Everyone spoke in Russian, which of course I didn’t understand, though thankfully this didn’t last for too long. Nastya’s parents simply wanted to have a good look at me. Which they did – a good long look. Though the kitchen table was slightly bigger than the one on the train we were all struggling for space – the kitchen itself was not much bigger than our train compartment had been. We were hungry; very hungry. Nastya had asked her mother to cook something for when we arrived, and I had visions of a large meal, with sauces and various vegetables. I don’t know why I imagined it would be like that. Wishful thinking probably. I was so hungry I thought I could have eaten anything, but that wasn’t true. When two half-cooked meatballs of nondescript meat were placed before me, I could have cried. I cut one in half and put some in my mouth, as did Nastya. They were cold on the inside. Out of politeness I kept eating, washing down each mouthful with tea. When I had managed to make the first one disappear Nastya told me that her mother confessed to rushing the food and we didn’t have to finish if we didn’t want to. I left the other ball on the plate. After giving me one final look over, the parents left, taking Olga with them, and we were free to sleep off our travel weariness.
I spent the following morning familiarising myself with the apartment. Normally it would have been inhabited by Nataliya Petrovna’s eighty-seven-year-old mother, Baba Ira, but she was in hospital following an infection caused by an ingrowing toenail. Nastya’s parents had gone to stay at their dacha on the west of the city to allow Nastya and myself the freedom to walk around the apartment half-dressed, which we did most of the time because it was impossible to turn down the heating. As that day was Sunday, and there was nowhere Nastya could really think of taking me that would be open, we organised our papers ready to take to the wedding court the next day.
Before going to the wedding office on the Monday morning we had to obtain my registration paper. This is a separate document from the immigration card that was given to me at the airport. Your registration paper must be applied for at a post office or local immigration office (UFMS) in whatever city you visit, and must be obtained within seven days of arrival in any city that you plan to stay at for more than a week. Leaving the apartment to walk to the post office I felt acutely aware of how vulnerable I was being a pre-registered Westerner. Even though I still had six days left to obtain this document I knew that if I was stopped by the militia on our short journey there was a risk I could be asked to hand over all the money I had.
From the outside it was impossible to tell the building housed an office at all, as many shops in suburban areas and offices in Russia all look very much alike. The queue inside the post office was horrendous: rows of babushkas waiting to pick up their pension money. When it was our turn, we were informed that they would need a photocopy of my passport, immigration card and Nastya’s residential permit. We copied these at a building not far away. Back in the post office Nastya had to fill in two copies of the same form, which were are as long and complex as my visa application, except the boxes to write in were tiny and only perfectly handwritten block capitals were accepted. Many mistakes and many forms later, we finally had it right and so queued one more time to hand everything in and pay the few hundred rouble fee (equivalent of a few pounds). I was now a completely legal resident of Krasnoyarsk city for a month. Should the militia try to squeeze money out of me, I now had the power to threaten them with a harassment investigation by the British Embassy. Still, I felt uneasy whenever I walked past them or if they drove past us. This was their country and they had the ability to arrest me, deport me or make me disappear entirely if they felt like it; having an embassy two thousand miles away in Moscow wasn’t actually much of a comfort.
Opposite the post office we caught the 91 bus, which took half an hour to reach the city centre. Bus journeys in Krasnoyarsk are not a pleasant experience. Most vehicles are old second-hand machines from Germany, Korea or China, and still have emergency exit signs in the language of their native country. The interiors are spent from about fifty years of use and there are never enough seats. There are no ticket machines either. Instead, a painfully thin girl or large middle-aged woman walks up and down the bus collecting thirteen roubles off every new passenger. As the bus moves at speed and weaves all over the road to avoid potholes, it’s appreciated if you have the correct change ready, which I didn’t. Nastya paid the twenty-six roubles and the collection girl tore two tickets off the reel in her hand and passed them to me, while giving me a very sour look. In Russia it is still frowned upon to let your woman pay on the buses or at restaurants. In a land where women are raised to cook while the men are raised to either hunt or go to work, equality is a word very little used.
Stood on the practically seat-less bus to Pushkin Square, I noticed how nearly every vehicle except for the buses had blacked out windows, some even with blacked-out windscreens. It seemed as though people did whatever they could to remain unseen. I later learned that it was illegal to have the front windows of a car darkened and that the militia did stop vehicles regularly forcing the drivers to scrape off the darkening plastic cover there and then.
The wedding court was yet another building that could have been anything. The reception was unmanned so we had to go through to the back office to register, which was really simple. As fortune would have it, not only was getting married really cheap, but they had a space on the Friday of that week; no bribery was needed. We booked our wedding for 10.30 a.m. on Friday the 8th April. It was just four days away and we felt relieved. The rest of the week was filled with shopping. We needed two things – wedding rings and new boots. The rings were an easy affair as Nastya much preferred silver to gold. The rings Nastya chose were basic and cost the equivalent of £12 each. The boots were a much more complex affair. Russians are crazy about boots and like to have a new pair for all special occasions. We went to a large complex that sold only boots; millions of them, boots in every shape and size. I don’t remember how long we spent there but I do remember being a bit short-tempered after the fiftieth pair tried were still no good. Nastya finally decided on a pair from a high street store towards the end of the day, more through desperation than for love of the actual boots. I bought a pair of black shoes in the morning, from the first men’s shoe shop we entered, and took all of ten minutes to choose them, which is a pretty long time for me.