Golden Shaft.
Dear Pam, I will begin with the first day or two. The British contingent met at Heathrow and flew out, I’d met most of them, a few months previously, at our interview. Ben, Tina (Malaysian) Cressida and two new females who were sent to the Altai foothills, near Barnaul (more of which anon). The night of our arrival there was a party, I met my co worker, Amy from Colorado (or Michigan). She thought I’d be female.
“Ciara?” Nope, I am a male, now try Ciaran. Valeri bought her a fart cushion, this didn’t go down well with her. Most of us headed to a nightclub with expensive prices for booze.
As dawn broke we headed back, I slept an hour and awoke with a massive hangover. Valeri escorted us to the train and 25 hours later we arrived. I forget the name of the girl they sent to take us via taxi to “Golden Shaft”, she was disappointed, hoping that Amy would be an American Barbie Doll version of herself and that I’d be twenty years younger. Weeks later, Amy and I sang “It’s a Barbie world” by “Aqua” on the beach. Belarussians don’t get satire.
My accommodation was in Corpus (Block) 4, a single room. Atypical, as all others shared. I had the initial three weeks being confined to camp. Technically, at any rate, as my local visa wasn’t processed (nor Amy’s). We both realized that our pairing was not great, but after the froideur of the vozhatis we actually began hanging out most of the time and eventually became pals. Most vozhati either ignored us, disliked us, or were indifferent. The exception in my case was Filipovskaya who spoke some French. As time wore on I found out she merely wanted me to buy her things.
I shall now address the TLB phenomenon. Temporary Local Boyfriend (or Girlfriend, but it was top heavy with females). Upon arrival the Belarussians decided to pair off with one of their colleagues, or a passing local. Filipovskaya made a brief trip to my room after lights out, then pretended that Marina Vladimirovna was on patrol, and rushed out.
One night Amy and I saw the vozhati head off. A disco to which we were not invited. I don’t know about America, but in Britain that is pretty damned hostile. The main reason we were there was to look after the kids. 90% lovely and 10% vile. After a week or so, Tanya adopted me. An orphan - that is to say her Mum was dead and her Dad an alcoholic who couldn’t cope - she and her older sister Lyudmilla, along with their brother, were spending three weeks at the camp. Tanya was five and literally clamped herself to my legs. Only being picked up and cuddled, or having me hold her hand, would placate her. Should another kid do that, she would shove them away. When kids asked how old I was she’d yell “Sorok. He is forty and this one is mine!” One lunchtime Iryna Nikolaevna, who had been paying me some attention in the lingering looks department asked “Is she one of yours?” winking. That night Iryna stayed longer in my room than Filipovskaya ever did. Next morning I was given a page from Iryna’s notebook.
My “crazy” boyfriend. I had to fill out - name, date of birth, ethnicity, favourite foods, etc. Iryna’s pal was Lyudmilla Edvardovna (alias Sexy Jaguar) and her room mate Lida (more of whom later). We would sit by the fountain - it had a legushka motif. The routine was assembly for vozhati at 7 am with Marina Vladimirovna yelling at everyone. I gave up after a few mornings. Breakfast was inedible. On to the beach, Amy and I were life guards. March back at Noon and after lunch (the only meal I had) “tikhni chasov” but I usually went into the village and either bought booze and snacks for the evening at the “Magnet” store, or placed an international call at the post office, to the folks back home. Dinner was lousy, I managed to drop twenty pounds, hell of a suntan though, as the beach was pretty much the sole amenity, as we found out when it rained. One girl tried describing her dog. Which breed? You know - Swimpig. Once I tried watching one of the 2002 world cup matches on TV.
The 4th of July rolled around and Chemadanov got Amy out of the shower to wish her a “Happy 4th July”. Nearest I had to a national holiday was 12th July. The Camp Russia folk had gone on about bringing a flag from home and presents, I bought the “red hand of Ulster” one. Valeri showed up at this time (it was the camps fiftieth anniversary) to see how we had settled in (badly). Amy was upset and I was annoyed, why have foreigners there if the camp didn’t want us?
After three weeks I was given a day off, by now, Iryna and I were an item. We spent the day in Tuapse, where they had internet. (I discovered they had it at the camp but Chemmy baby didn’t want us using it. We had begged for five minutes each per week. Amy gave me her parents e-mail and I sent an “all is well” quickie. It wasn’t, but hey). The other excursion (once Iryna had gone back to Minsk) was Sochi, with Pouty MacPoutface and Lida. In the taxi I’d asked about the drivers opinion on Putin. He glared at me and muttered at the girls. “All westerners are spies”. Then he asked me what car I drove. I said that I couldn’t afford one. He exploded. “All westerners have cars, all of them are wealthy”. FFS.
Iryna’s last day and I took my “svobodni dyen” (I was owed several). Marina Vladimirovna hated this. I shrugged my shoulders, then said I was on sick leave.
Lida took ill one day and went to the medics. She was small, petite and young looking. “Dyetska, what is the matter?” the matron cooed. Lida explained she was ill, and the matron said “Your vozhati ought to have brought you”. Pause “But I am the vozhati” Roar from Matron “Get back to work, slacker!”
Amy and I loved being told off by Chemmy baby, we got to stand in his (air conditioned) office, it was over 100F outside. Apparently the bar was “off limits” but I went anyway (the Khanti Mantsy incident). When the second lot arrived, we had some kids and their adult helpers from Nyagan, Khanti Mantsy region, Siberia, a three day train ride away. They had two divorced females, one brunette and one blonde. The brunette got off with one of the vozhati. He made the mistake of not locking his door. Marina Vladimirovna caught them, all along the corridor everyone could be hear “Vulgarni! Immoralni! Bez kulturni!” He was in tears (I found out later that a disciplinary note from Marina Vlad and he would be chucked out of university in Minsk). Easy for me to be blase. Anyway, camp slang “Khanti Mantsy” became a euphemism for loud sex.
At the time the Nyagan contingent arrived, so did the Kaliningrad one. One evening their entire corpus erupted with “Konig! Konig! Konig!” Marina Vladimorovna was far from impressed. I joined in chanting loudly. Das was sehr gut, ja.
At night, we had the disco. The final record was a smoochy, either Bryan Adams “Everything I do” or Eagles “Hotel California”. A couple of years later, I did security at a Bryan Adams concert in Belfast, then sent a live phone call of it to Iryna. We met up in 2005. Iryna was my last dance, but once Yuliya Ivanovna, a cute teenager, cut in.
As to the older kids at the camp, Amy dubbed one couple “Eminem and his girlfriend”. it was very cliquey in 2002. Popular kids ran the place. We had a concert party and everyone, all the vozhati, had to do a piece. Mine was “Back in the USSR” by the Beatles and Amy opted for “Ode to American feminism” which went down like a lead balloon. We also had the “Pussy, pussy, pussy” music from “Dusk ’til dawn”, Amy was fuming.
On a trip to Tuapse, I sent an e-mail trying to describe where I was “near the Chechen border”. Got a giggle from the Belarussians anyway. We had a picnic once, and the vozhati kept going on about not going off the path. Chechens? No, snakes, poisonous ones.
Two teenagers, Lyudmilla and Ksenia, both had a crush on me. Found out later that Ben had the same thing, along the coast at Anapr. I pulled Amy’s leg about Ben (he is cute, she confided). Towards the end of our time I drew her a medal “The Tuapse Star” for dealing with all the crap we had to put up with. There was an incident with a missing football and I was blamed, big deal. Near the end Amy and I were paid, she got more, the reason? I ate more than her. Or Chemmy baby saw it as free money.
One day on the beach, Z (basketball player, over six feet tall, rugged, handsome) and I were invited by a (very) drunk Russian to his beachside villa for “more vodka”. His girlfriend was there. He kept shouting “Pryatna grudni” and one really had to agree. After a few stakans of vodka he ranted about “Jews controlling everything”. Z and I made our excuses and quickly left.
Maga was the camp security guard. From Dagestan, unhappily married and with a gold tooth. He was rumoured to be banging Barbie, who had brought us in by taxi, and perhaps Filipovskaya. There was a paper shortage at the camp. Amy had one sheet of foolscap and gave it to me (to write to my ex fiancee in Belfast). It had “My pimp is ruining my life” written across it (Amy was bored one day, thanks Amy, way to go). The Belarussians couldn’t pronounce Ciaran so I became Kirill.
We counted off the days, as if it were a prison sentence and eventually got the train back to Moscow, we were last to arrive. The second group were there (Amy and I, along with others, opted for two full months, the second lot one month only). I asked where Cressida and the Australian girl were. Valeri told me they really wanted to stay but had to leave early. Nick (North Carolina) whispered “BS, they had a fight two days in and managed to last a couple of weeks before taking the plane home”. We had a debrief. Two English guys (whom I will dub Monkey and Spanker) along with Miss Henderson-Watson who had noisy sex on the first night with Monkey. Spanker thought it hilarious to say to Nick “We owned America” vaguely funny first time, far from on the 100th. I began to hang out with the Yanks. Except Meredith. America - never mind Trump, you must apologize for Meredith. Four feet eleven, about two hundred pounds and an ex ballerina (!). Her co worker was a Dutch female and the most miserable person I ever met. The Barnaul pair arrived - Scotty and an English girl, fluent in Russian. Scotty had been chased round the office by her boss, who saw her as a perk of the job.
Valeri asked us to rank the experience. Some had a great time (10 out of 10) I gave Golden Shaft 1 at most 2 out of 10. We recommended to Camp Russia that no foreigners should be sent to Golden Shaft the following year.
Finally, Amy, Nick, Meredith and I went to St Petersburg for a week. It was awesome. Amy and I spent our last couple of days in Moscow. Museums, antiques, culture, chocolate. We hit the Ismailovski market on the hottest day of the year, buying shapkas, then wandered along the Arbat. She accompanied me to the airport, it felt as if we were being unhandcuffed after two and a half months together in Russia.