Love and the Doctor

It is half term already and it is Valentines Day today. Whilst there is not quite the hype of the USA or the commercialism of the UK, Valentine’s here seems to be bigger, being celebrated over a number of days with lots of parties and exuberant flower giving.

Aptly enough, this week I have re-discovered an old flame and suddenly we are getting on like a house of fire. She is complex and full of inconsistencies. She can be obtuse at times, and elegant at others. We've been friends and she's been my nemesis. And now she is taking over my life again, but in a way I'd forgotten was so gratifying.

It all started a long, long time ago in a classroom far, far away. I remember the actual day in Bristol Grammar School in form 4.3 as it was in old money (now Y8), when Dr Ransome and the German teacher and the Latin teacher came to deliver a PR lesson to inspire us to decide which extra modern (or indeed dead) language we would take for GCSE alongside French. The Doc’s charisma, humour and character pulled me in. I didn't like the sound of German and no one could convince me that a dead language was going to be any use. So, I thought, if I do Russian it might give me opportunities in life.  And from that single 'Sliding Doors' moment on, my life took a turn towards plastic matrioshka sets, smetana and black bread.

Twenty two years later I am writing this blog entry from my apartment in a renovated Soviet flat block in Almaty, surrounded by snow of the minus 20 variety and a Central Asian je ne sais quoi which is threatening to keep me here for another year. It was never a given that I'd come somewhere like this, in fact I strategically avoided going back to Russia after I finished my Russian degree at Birmingham uni, but some kind of passion was born in me during that time and which lay dormant until it began to nudge me towards working here 18 months ago. It has now finally surfaced properly and I can hardly describe. I am back in love with that complex, enigmatic, obtuse and elegant nemesis which is the Russian language. So much so, that I wonder if I ever loved it before, when I had to learn it to pass exams. Now, I want to learn it to live life better. And what a privilege that is.

Whenever I catch myself in bizarre interludes such as discussions entirely in Russian about the merits of marrying a Kazakh woman or the finer rules of goat polo, I quietly deflect for a moment and say to myself, "it's all Dr Ramsome's fault."

And it's nice to have someone to blame.