Can you believe it? It was last year when we last spoke. How time flies. I hope you had a lovely Christmas with family and friends and you are looking forward to the coming year.
Last year sounds like a long time ago, doesn’t it? I was regaling you with the story of a holiday my wife Jan and I had over Christmas and New Year in China and Russia. We got onto the fantastic Christmas day lunch which we had at beautiful Lake Baikal where the singing and dancing continued well into the night.
Not to mention the food and the liquid refreshments which were, I don’t mind telling you, never-ending. But we survived. That’s the main thing. The next couple of days, we toured the city of Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia, which is huge, I surprisingly found out.
The main source of wealth there comes from mining and agriculture. I couldn’t help but notice all the cars that people were driving around, four-wheel drives and trucks and so on – none of them would have been more than four years old. Apparently, this is due to the wealth of the inhabitants. Quite interesting. When we arrived, there were no old bombs being driven around at all.
The main square was huge. There was a huge statue of the man responsible for setting up this country, Genghis Khan. He certainly looked every bit the ruthless warrior that we’d all read about in the history books.
After my wife had exhausted all the shopping opportunities (and there were plenty), we set off out of the city onto the vast plains to have lunch with a Mongol farmer and herder along with his extensive family of three sons and four daughters.
Two of the sons live in the city and they drove out to have lunch with us in the latest Range Rover Discoveries. Very chic.
Plus, out there, was all of his livestock, which he moves around the countryside depending on the weather and the food supply. There were sheep, goats, cattle, horses and one camel. Extraordinary.
We were treated to a display of their horse-riding skills, which were very impressive. The horses were smaller than what I’d been used to seeing, but very strong and fast and obviously did the job.
We had lunch with the family in the huge tent that they live in out in the middle of nowhere, known as a ‘ger’. There were lounges, tables and chairs, rugs and animal skins all over the place, and a large wood-burning stove right in the centre, which of course handled all the cooking and kept the living and sleeping areas warm, because it does get a tad chilly. The temperature when we were there was minus 20°C, which, strange to say, didn’t feel that cold out on the plain. It was a lovely sunny day, of course, but when we got back into the concrete and tall buildings of the city, you certainly did feel cold; it was absolutely freezing. It’s like being in two different worlds.
Anyway, it was quite a day, and one we will never forget. There was more excitement to come with New Year’s Eve in Red Square in Moscow. The night started with a dinner put on by the hotel for about 20 guests.
It started with the usual fare, chicken and beef and turkey and all the vegetables you’d expect along with copious amounts of red and white wine to accompany the four courses.
What we didn’t expect was the tradition that each guest had to stand up and provide a toast to the new year and then throw down a shot of vodka. Now that doesn’t sound like a lot, just a shot, but when you multiply it by 20, the number of people that were there, I can assure you it can cause your eyes to glaze over a little. Anyway, it was a lovely dinner with some lovely people and then it was time to walk down to Red Square just a short distance away. But the roads were all covered in snow and ice, making it quite treacherous, especially with a year’s worth of vodka on board.
I was absolutely astounded by the number of police and fully armed soldiers that were on the streets. It was quite unnerving, but in another way, reassuring, feeling safe. We made it to the entrance to Red Square, which had been completely barricaded with only a couple of entrances open. Everyone had to go through and be searched by the guards to see if you were carrying any alcohol which was against the law, an absolute no-no for these celebrations.
People trying to smuggle drink in by mixing with Coke and they didn’t realise the guards were going to open the bottles they were carrying and sniff the contents, which saw most of it just poured out onto the ground before they would let you into Red Square.
Now I was warned this might happen, so I had plan A. I got a large bottle of mineral water, tipped out about half of it, topped it up with vodka and resealed it Just in case we needed a refreshment to toast in the new year. A good idea I thought until I saw what the guards were doing. I came to the realisation this wasn’t going to work.
So to plan B. I had brought a lot of koala bears with me from Australia, thinking it would be nice to give them away to people we met during our trip.
With the dubious thinking of a game show host, I had some in my pockets, and as we came up to the checkpoints, I gave the guards these little furry koalas that you could attach to the lapel on their uniform, which seemed to delight them all and we went straight through – vodka and all – no problems, so at least I did something of some significance.
I reckon that’s probably enough confessions for this month so I’ll resume the rest of our Russian adventure when we talk again.
Stay safe, cheers Burgo.