i see dead people...

…on an almost daily basis here. and many of the dead people are not just dead, they never existed in the first place. when i go to a station, for example, i see anna karenina. when i see my landlady, i hear raskolnikov in my ear. when i hear a doctor, i listen to zhivago. this weekend was no different as i was invited to a dacha. the very word ‘dacha’ is so evocative of great fiction that i can scarcely believe they exist in real life, especially not in this century. nevertheless, they do, and the majority of russian families have a dacha somewhere in the country – ranging from a small shack, where they grow vegetables in the summer, to mansions on large estates the size of a european principality. the dacha i went to was somewhere in between – a wooden house deep inside a forest and perched on the banks of an ice-bound lake with a statue of lenin at the gates holding up a cheery hand in welcome. naturally, my hosts, being russian, were generosity itself and the table moaned under the weight of a muksun cooked in salt the size of small whale, enough lamb to put a shepherd out of work, plus any number of salads and accompanying dishes, my favourite being ‘herring in fur coats’. as wonderful as this fayre was, however, the highlight for me was simply sitting on a bench outside and catching the dacha vibe. i could all but see tolstoy pacing up and down, smoking a pipe and fretting over what to do with his peasants, while chekov emerged from the banya having decided what to do with uncle vanya. of course, that may have been the vodka.

the russians have no word for 'privacy'...

…but they make up for it with a whole lexicon for which english has no answer. here are a few i’ve come across, translated as best as i can (don’t try and pronounce these without asking your parents’ permission first):

иней – stalactitic snow. it is the russians, not the eskimoes, who have 50 different words for snow. this kind of snow is found at outdoor thermal pools in the middle of the forest – at least that’s where i saw it. it looks like frosted flakes of coconut in the shape of an icicle.

душевный – having a warm soul. there are a lot of words to do with ‘soul’ in russian. for example, they say ‘no soul’s in the room’ rather than ‘nobody’s in the room’. this makes them terribly frustrated with our apparently ‘cold and scientific language’. blah blah blah – tell it to shakespeare.

всухомятку – eating without drinking. this is a kind of crime in russia. if you do it, people will stare.

прощай – goodbye forever. the russians like things to be dramatic and this one means you will never ever ever see the other person again. ever.

утопленник – drowned man. this one is pretty sinister – how many drowned men do there have to be before you invent a special word for them? apparently there isn’t an equivalent word for a man who has died of radiation poisoning after going to a sushi bar. at least not yet.

недоперепить – to drink too much but not enough. you know when you’ve had too much alcohol but you don’t actually feel drunk? well, this is the verb for those special occasions. it is probably related to the previous word in some way.

смеркалось – it was getting dark. this one is way out there. you can only use it about the past and it is a complete sentence in itself to which you are not allowed to add anything else. needless to say, i use it every day.

there hasn't been a murder...

…but in order to prevent a death the police have cordoned off an area round my flat. winter in siberia can be a killer – if your car breaks down outside the city and no-one finds you in a couple of hours, you will probably die. however, spring is the real assassin. when the city starts to melt in the new season’s mawkish heat, it’s not just the putrid stench of tulips clogging your nose like poisonous gas you have to watch out for; it’s the small avalanches of snow tumbling off the rooftops too. there is at least 1.5 metres of snow on my balcony and when such thick compacted sheets slide off the roof in clumps 5-6 metres across, it can hurt you if it hits you. the icicles, on the other hand, hanging like crystal spears above the pavements, can actually kill you. they slice clean through car roofs when they fall from a tall enough building. when they hit a human head, the human will never eat blini again. each year several people here are killed in this way. they cordon off likely 'death-spots', such as the one near my flat, when they can, but they can’t shut the city down entirely, so when you go outside you play russian roulette with ice javelins. at least it takes your mind off the impending daffodil hell which will no doubt spew fetid fluorescent yellow cess all over the place sometime soon.