Dancing at Teatralna

Every Saturday night, just before seven in the evening, you will find a bunch of fifty or so senior citizens hanging around the underground concourse at the entry to Teatralna metro station in Kiev.

They are watching a group of five or six musicians - accordion, saxophones, tambourines - assemble in front of a baked-potato joint. At seven prompt, the band strikes up and the dancing begins. 'Why do you come here?' I ask an old lady (actually perhaps not much older than myself - or maybe even younger), partnering a similar cheerful biddy. 'Oh, it's just fun - and it doesn't cost anything. We're here every week' comes the reply. At eight o'clock the band packs up and five minutes later the concourse is empty.

Ostorózhno, skól’zko!!

The first Russian phrase I recall hearing after I landed in a freezing Kaliningrad almost exactly seventeen years ago was "Ostorózhno, skól’zko!" (“watch out, it’s slippery”). The sound of the words is perfect, almost onomatopoeic, with the tiniest hint of a ‘w’ before the first ‘o’ in ‘skol’zko’ subtly suggesting sliding and slithering. It was highly appropriate on the pavements of that provincial Russian town so long ago, but the pavements of today’s Ukrainian capital are no better in icy weather – especially after a brief thaw which was followed by a re-freeze. Ironically in these conditions the worst parts are those which have been smartly repaved in modern tiles on which ice is not always visible and which do not even offer the tenuous hold offered by the pitted sidewalk tarmac elsewhere.

Here and there one sees the desultory scattering of a few handfuls of sand, or a lone fellow wielding an icebreaker, but these are of little avail in the general chaos. Most Kievians are resigned to trudging on regardless. Foolishly I attempted to walk to work in these conditions, a stroll which normally takes me half an hour, but on this occasion nearly double that. Two tumbles in swift succession, and three very near misses, have left me with aching bones and a black eye.

As I was scrabbling foolishly around on the ice trying to right myself, there stole into my mind a classic exchange from the Goon Show, in which Seagoon and co. are attempting to steal Napoleon’s piano but can’t get it through the door. After some sound effects of frantic sawing, Seagoon announces ‘There, I’ve cut off all four legs’. Grittpype-Thynne asks ‘But Neddy, doesn’t a grand piano have only three legs?’, at which Eccles announces ‘Hey, I keep falling over!’ I know just how he feels.

Kiev for Nudniks, no. 486: On the Buses (2)

Now you can travel like a native on Kiev’s trolleybuses (see previous post) the company of hoi polloi may begin to pall, and you may set your sights on the more exclusive marshrutni bus, where the fare is a heady 2 grivnias (or maybe even 2 grivnias 50 kopecks). But before you graduate to this cynosure of public transport, it is essential for you to acquaint yourself with its very particular ethos.

The marshrutni (accent on the ‘u’), whose name derives I suppose from the French marche-route, is typically a twenty-seater minibus, with a standing capacity that seems to extend to about 200 or so. Typically the marshrutniye follow the same routes, and bear the same numbers in their windows, as the municipal bus lines, although there are some hybrid, and some original, routes, on offer as well. Unlike municipal buses, however, they can stop (in theory) at request in-between formal bus-stops.

The marshrutni driver (these buses operate without conductors) is a very particular breed. It is a point of honour for him never to address any conversation with passengers, or even to engage in eye-contact if this is avoidable. At all times he will stare resolutely forward, even when raking in the cash (an action normally undertaken whilst shooting a red traffic-light) which is deposited on the tatty piece of carpet covering the rump of the raised moulding on his right, (which separates him from the single passenger seat ahead of the bus’s front entrance).

Do not on entering the marshrutni make the callow mistake of immediately presenting the cash for your fare, or, even worse, offering the driver a large note and asking for change. This immediately marks you out as a bumpkin or foreigner. The correct procedure is to get as far back in the bus as possible and wait until it is well under way, and then, assembling the fare in as many small coins as possible, hand it, without a word, to the person in front of you, who will in turn pass it down until it lands on the mat. Don’t expect a ticket in return by the way; the marshrutni driver relies on the integrity and the community spirit of his passengers, and vice versa. Of course you must also similarly expect to effect the transit of the fares of others. This is not always so simple. The lady behind you may thrust a 10 grivnia note at you with the word ‘Tri’ (three). You communicate the note and the word to the passenger ahead of you; presently, 4 grivnia (or 2 grivnia 50, as appropriate) will make its way back to you to hand on to the lady.

The essential role in this process is played, not by the driver, but by whichever passenger, as fate would have it, is situated immediately before the tatty carpet. He or she accepts the incoming notes with the advice of how many passengers they represent and counts out as necessary the change from whatever cash on the carpet is as yet unharvested by the driver. During a rush hour journey this temporary cashier can handle a goodly proportion of the GDP of Ukraine. For this reason the beginner, particularly if deficient in mental arithmetic, is advised to avoid finding him or herself at this strategic location.

A last point to note concerns requesting the bus to stop between standard halts. The normal process here is for a passenger to shout out and for the driver to pretend not to have heard. Other passengers then join in, not necessarily those who also want to get out - feel free to add your contribution, a mere ‘hey!’ will do if you cannot manage Ukrainian. When the volume of complaint reaches a certain decibel level, the driver will relent and deposit the requester. You can also, in theory, hail the marshrutni as it passes you at any point in the street, but in such cases the driver will tend to stop only if his bus is notably empty.

Enjoy!

Culture shock

Following Jonathan's very succesful recital on Wednesday (see post below - one member of the audience sweetly e-mailed me 'it was nice and wonderful. I got a lot of positive emotions') Friday's got off to a challenging start, with the enormous 'Concord' Sonata of Charles Ives and the terrifying Concerto for solo piano no.4 of Michael Finnissy. Introducing the concert I tried to prepare the audience for what to expect, telling them to look out for the hymns, rag-time and Beethoven in the Ives, and comparing the Finnissy to 'extreme sport' and commending its exhilaration (Russian word 'voozdushevlyayushchii', quite exhilarating in itself).

The Ives went like a dream -the roller-coaster of the Finnissy was not too much inhibited by my failure to turn page 12 in time (a moment of high drama which I hope has been captured in Yuriy's video of the event). It really is a shocking - in the sense of electrifying - piece - like the jazz pianist Cecil Taylor on speed. The audience more than rose to the occasion and gave Jonathan rapturous applause, (though there were a few quitters at the interval, including T. who gave the diplomatic excuse that she had to relieve her baby-sitter).

Those who stayed on, including the great Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov (on the right in the picture above, with Jonathan after the recital), were treated to a magnificent second half which included music by Silvestrov himself (two serenades for solo violin beautifully performed by Sonia Suldina and a piece for violin and piano in memory of Tchaikovsky), and the heroic Symphony for solo piano of Alkan, one of the peaks of 19th-century romantic pianism. The audience left only after demanding two encores (Scriabin and Revutsky) with standing ovations.

An amazing and memorable evening which was subsequently celebrated, to the accompaniment of a good deal of vodka, at the highly commended 'Bundesbar' in Lysenko Street, including toasts to the British Alkan Society, who helped with sponsorship for this mini-tour.

Incidentally the location of the recital, the House of Actors (left), is itself a remarkable building - formerly the Kenesa (synagogue) of the Kyiv Karaites (a Jewish sect originating from the Crimea, none of whom alas seem to be left in the capital).

After 100 years.....

In 1910 the young English composer Arnold Bax was in Russia when he encountered a beautiful Ukrainian girl, Natalia Karginska. Infatuated, he pursued her to Kyiv. The affair ended unhappily, but it did inspire him to write his first piano sonata. On Wednesday, after nearly a hundred years, this piece of British/Ukrainian music got its first performance in the city where it was composed. The idea was that of my friend, the gifted pianist Jonathan Powell, who when he heard I was coming out here asked whether it might be possible to arrange a recital. With the aid of local musical maven Yuriy Suldin we actually fixed up two concerts - the first one on Wednesday, when, apart from the Bax, (which turns out to be truly passionate and ends with the bells of Kiev pealing in all registers of the piano), Jonathan also played Rachmaninoff, Schubert, the Ukrainian composer (and teacher of Horowitz) Felix Blumenfeld, and works by the contemporary British composer John White and by Powell himself. The audience response on Wednesday was highly enthusiastic if slightly stunned!

Tomorrow's concert is even more challenging, including music by Ives, Alkan, Finissy and Konstantin Silvestrov. The Ives 'Concord Sonata' and the Alkan 'Symphony for solo piano' are two of the peaks of the romantic repertoire, enormously demanding in technique and interpretation. For the Silvestrov, Jonathan will be joined by members of the Ukrainian string quartet PostScriptum. Michael Finnissy's 'Concerto for solo piano no.4', which has been claimed as the most difficult piece ever written for the instrument, is the musical equivalent of 'extreme sport' ....It will be a test to see whether the audience and/or the piano survive. Or whether I do, as I wil be turning the pages.....

Some local inhabitants

 

Seen above the entrance to a courtyard in Yaroslaviv Val.

Shopping

An inevitable consequence of the arrival of Mrs. S. is my realization of how incompetent I am at organising a household, even if I am the only inhabitant of same. Thus the weekend saw several swoops on the Kyiv TSUM ('Central Universal Store') as a consequence of which I now know the Ukrainian for 'clingfilm','adhesive hooks', 'cushion covers', etc. A lot of money went into the pockets of the ladies running stalls in the amazing Bessarabsky Market, who obviously treble their prices as soon as they see anyone from Western Europe approaching. But the smoked fish, raisin cheesecake, aubergine salad and sheep's cheese were all absolutely top quality, albeit a British Tradings Standards Officer might quail to see the conditions in which they are sold.

The stallholders of Kyiv are by the way up in arms against the City Mayor, who, in an attempt to get control of all the city's kiosks, has torn up existing lease agreements and attempted to raise rents tenfold. The excuse - one of the weakest I have ever heard from a politician (and I have heard many) - is that he wants the town cleaned up before the Football Championships of 2012. The reality is probably that this is a desperate attempt to beef up the City budget. Following stormy demonstrations, he appears to have backed down for the present.

One step beyond....

Malcolm Bradbury, in his all-too accurate spoof guidebook to the Warsaw pact countries of the 1980s,'Why Come to Slaka?' was perhaps the first to elaborate on the toxic potential of the national operas of Central and Eastern Europe. I have been caught before by these - notably by Paliashvili's 'Absalom and Eteri' in Tbilisi, some hours of excruciating tedium - but ever eager to explore repertoire unknown to me, and hoping that I might stumble on the exception to the rule, I went to Kyiv's excellent opera house to hear 'Zaporozhets za Dunayem' by Semyon Gulak-Artyemovsky (don't ask 'who he?' - I had never heard of him before and won't bother if I never do again). Problems start with the title, which means 'The Zaporozhye Cossack beyond the Danube' - the plot, such as it is, dealing with a Cossack settlement in the the late 18th century Ottoman Empire (i.e. on the 'wrong side' of the Danube), whence they had been driven by.....well, the opera doesn't explain what they were doing there. That's partly because its problems began when it was written in the 1860s, when the Tsar's censors didn't want any references to historic disputes with Turkey....you see, you're bored already, and I haven't even started on the opera itself. The only slightly interesting bit was a set of Cossack dances in Act II, and even those were not original I suspect but had been inserted in a desperate bid to keep the audience awake. Needless to say the locals loved it all. I hope I don't get deported for dissing it like this.

Fortunately the musical balance was redeemed by a performance the next day at the Philharmonia by a young Ukrainian string quartet, who go under the unusual name of 'Post Scriptum'. They have a wonderfully sweet tone, and gave the best live performance of Tchaikovsky's 1st Quartet I have ever heard, together with a passionate rendition of Schubert's 'Death and the Maiden' and an engaging account of Schumann's 3rd. I am hoping we may be able to get them to perform at the 2010 Levoca music festival.

Almost at home

This is the first long-term job abroad I have undertaken for seven or eight years, having spent most of the intervening period hanging around at home and pretending to be a student. Mrs. Smerus having had enough of this has sent me out to earn a living, pay for my daughter's wedding etc. - and quite right too I suppose. The first time I undertook such a mission was about 15 years ago, when I was posted to a curious place called Kaliningrad - in fact, I was the first Englishman to live there since the RAF had bomber it to smithereens in 1943, in the days when it was still called Koenigsberg. In those antique times, the internet was still a novelty - I had to explain to everyone carefully about e-mail. Now of course one has broadband almost wherever one goes. The immediate consequence I recognise is the absence of any feeling of isolation, which regularly attacked me in my Kaliningrad days. I can for example skype Mrs. S. and chat face-to-face for as long as we like, free of charge, or have BBC Radio 3 or Radio 4 playing in the background as I work or read. There is also the miracle (which in the present economic and eco-fascist climate may not be long-lasting) of cheap air-fares - one can even fly Luton-Kyiv return (no visa needed) for around £100 - so Mrs. S. can come out to sample the shampanskoye and the opera with me whenever she wishes. It's not much more stressful, in fact, (and a good deal more pleasant), than being posted to Birmingham.

By the way, the hryvnia is now 9 to the dollar and still falling........

An Eventful Walk

The Khreshchatyk, Kyiv's central thoroughfare, is about a mile and a half in length. You can judge the state of the Ukrainian economy by the fact that, when I walked along it last night, the offered exchange rate in the booths at the start was 8.30 hrivnia/dollar, while by the time I had reached the other end the booths were offering 8.75. If I had been nimble enough, there might even have been opportunities for backwardation, as we used to call it on the London Stock Exchange in my distant youth - i.e. buying dollars at one booth and selling them for an instant profit at another. The pound sterling of course is not as fragile....yet.