Free Sunbathing in Siberia by M. A. Oliver-Semenov Page B

when war broke out. He volunteered for the war effort and was sent by train to Moscow. However he never made it to Moscow. Halfway through the journey the train stopped for supplies and Pyotr got off to beg some hot water somewhere nearby. The train then departed leaving him behind. This was classed as treachery. As punishment he was sent to the front line as part of the strafnoi battalion. His job was a suicide mission: advance, advance, advance and never turn back. The NKVD he had so devoutly admired were now fifty paces behind him all the way, with machine guns at his back. Pyotr was not expected to survive, but was saved by the severely cold winter of 1941. He got frostbitten on several of his toes. Once these were amputated he was classed as an invalid and sent back to Yekaterinburg, where he continued his studies in university and met his future wife, Iraida Furtaeva (Ira). Nine years later Iraida gave birth to a daughter, Nataliya Petrovna Karbovskaya, my mother-in-law.

Aeroflot Flight SU0241. April 16 th 2011. Moscow – London
    After a long and tearful goodbye I was once again alone and lonely on a plane full of Russians. Before my adventure I had made plans for one trip, and one trip only, as if I was going on some holiday that also included a wedding. The fact was that the wedding had been my own, and as a married man I had to get my head out of the clouds and think seriously about where life was heading and what I needed to do.
    As the plane ascended into the sky, and I looked down on Moscow, it became clear that I had not only married a woman, but an entire country. My life, as I had known it, would never be the same again, which was both a good and a bad thing. There were countless things I would miss in the UK: people, places, foods and so on but it was too late to turn back the clock. I didn’t want to anyway. I was now half-Welsh, half-Russian. Nastya would be waiting for me as she had done ever since Paris. It broke my heart to think of the way she had cried in Moscow. To think of all the nights we would have to spend apart; but it couldn’t be helped. My visa had expired. And although I hated the thought of it, I had to go back to go forward.
    After hoovering up the contents of my inflight meal, and washing it all down with weak aeroplane coffee, I reclined my seat and relaxed. I loathed leaving Nastya behind but at the same time I was relieved to be back in control of myself again. I couldn’t wait to get back to the UK and tell my friends all I’d seen, and I’d seen a lot. It felt like such relief to be on my own, to be moving away from Russia, which was no surprise considering what had happened the night before.

    Moscow, Fridge Magnets, and Tactical Nuclear Weapons
    We arrived in the early morning at Moscow Domededovo Airport, which is south and some considerable distance away from Moscow. To get to the city we bundled ourselves into the back of a minivan along with several other travellers. This is quite normal – taxis are expensive and buses can take a long time to wait for, a bus-taxi cross is the cheaper option because it can carry about ten people, and it runs much faster than the bus service. We were dropped off at the nearest Moscow metro station an hour later. Before we caught the metro to our hostel, I wanted to stand in the street and smoke a cigarette, a Russian cigarette. I wanted to capture the moment, and there is no better way I know of than to stand still and smoke. Moscow looked practically European compared to Krasnoyarsk. The roads were already busy with people on their way to work and the sun was shining against the office blocks; it made me feel like I was back in Paris for a moment.
    When we reached our hostel some three hours later, we were both shattered, having travelled through the night, so we bunked down and fell fast asleep. When we awoke it was early evening. The opportunity to see the Tsaritsyno palace had passed us by. There was only enough