the Phlog

And even the Pahra turned to slush and slowed to a crawl, and we cram ourselves into the smallest kitchen in Russia, sipping dry, homemade wine between bites of cake layered with apples from the family gardens, while outside the little kitchen window it dripped a mix of snow and rain as insistent and sickly as a runny nose, and when that was over the fog moved in until even the berezka branches were only silhouettes and Podolsk turned dreamy. Tanya turns to me and says, “The weather is whispering: sit and drink.”

So we dig the vodka out of the freezer and grope into the murky, salted water of the massive jar for cucumbers left soaking a week, and smear murderous mustard called gorchitza over dark, heavy borodinsky. And Tanya is slapping slices of sala over everything: it sounds like hell but the Ukrainian national dish of peppered pig fat tastes as innocent as butter. For the taste of vodka is really the aftertaste that you share with something else, and that’s a Russian secret.

And there’s another one: the importance of the walk to get another bottle once the first is over in a series of shots, toasts (the third always to the parents), sliced pickled cucumber, meat and some form of grease. “The journey for another bottle of vodka is a very important part of the evening. Almost as important as drinking the vodka. So after you’re back the next session is a completely different one altogether. Or the journey might take so long or change the mood to such an extent that you might not even end up drinking the bottle you bought.”

But the fog has moved in so thick everything is disappearing, and we’re sinking into the slush and the snow towards the little supermarket, slipping over open ground and stopping under a berezka for a smoke – Tanya doesn’t walk while she smokes – and then we’re running across the road and into the puddles and back into the snow, and Tanya’s jeans rip down the middle and we’re laughing past the Ladas and the dull red buildings and the dog who wags his tail outside the supermarket, or magazine as the Russians say.

And that’s about all you can do in Podolsk now, because up ahead is the school and then there’re the two factories and then there’s the Pahra that snakes its way across the landscape, where the empress got her skirt wet and named the town after the lowest part of her dress, the podol.

www.pinaki.info | because the best stories are our own

&

Nikon Muscat Photo Workshops | pinaki.info on Facebook | & if you really insist, Twitter