26/07/2022
Travel through Russia and Moscow.
Sister Liz reminded me of this one a couple of days ago. Sorry, but it doesn’t have a great wine content and it's a bit long. Must try and get some Georgian wines one day. I believe they are beautiful.
I was in a group sent to Moscow and Dnepropetrovsk (Now called Dnipro maybe because no-one could pronounce the original, or maybe it had too many communist origins). Our plan was to look at ways the Australian industry could work with the Russian Space industry. Sadly, it was a bit of a wasted effort because Australia had almost no Space industry and Russia had no Money. Ukraine had even less.
Despite the Russian’s fame as drinkers, the lack of money meant that they weren’t great at providing wine at dinners. But what you could get was cheap. I bought a bottle of something labelled Rasputin Vodka from one on the hundreds of stalls around railway stations. I very quickly understood how it got the name and donated the rest of it to one of our drivers. Somewhere along the line we did sample some very good Russian Champagne (they could call it that then; this must have been around 1993).
However, to return to the interesting part of the trip. It is quite frightening to be driven to an unknown railway station for a 20-hour train trip, with international airline luggage, through unpredictable Moscow traffic, by charming people, who make an art out of always being late.
It ended with a directionless run through many tunnels, and staircases, carrying enough luggage and slabs of beer to kill a fit camel, in a complex that makes Sydney’s Central look like a toy station. Not even time to admire the magnificent artwork in every Moscow station. Made it just in time and it took me more than an hour to recover, even with the assistance of a can of very warm Victoria Bitter.
I should explain that long distance Moscow trains are not all known for their catering facilities. It is wise to bring your own everything, including toilet paper. I think that they once provided toilet paper, but the smell of the trains made it curl up into a non-useable shape.
So, we embarked. With a large quantity of Vic Bitter, Georgian Wine, Vodka of various grades, cheeses, pig fat and salt (both to eat with the Vodka), and other delicacies. My memory of the last nineteen hours, or of the subsequent years for that matter, is not quite as clear as the first hour, so you will appreciate if the remaining description becomes a little disjointed.
Thanks to a nice man who designed rocket launch facilities, I discovered a very high-class Vodka, the name of which I cannot recall; something like silver hills, or silver seal. It was apparently the best quality. We shared the bottle between us on the train, after finishing the very nice Georgian wine and a case of Vic Bitter and eating lots of salted pig fat. The pig fat if you really want to know delays, but does not prevent, inebriation, so I was too far-gone the next day to know what effect it had on hangovers.
During the night I met a group of very friendly young Georgian chaps. I think that I might have played cards with them. They were so friendly that they even borrowed some US dollars from me, but I did not know it at the time, and they forgot to give it back.
I did wake up at around 4 am when the Ukrainian border guards tried to throw us off the train, because we lacked visas for Ukraine. They were not needed of course, but these chaps are very poorly paid, and Australians are usually good for a bribe. Not in this case, however. One of us had already lent all of his money to some friendly Georgian lads.
The Dnepropetrovsk factory was like one of those English walled cities with 40,000 workers turning out launch rockets, satellites, and tractors. We stayed in a hotel of sorts next to the factory that only took US dollars, which was very inconvenient for one member of the team. For breakfast we were required to drink almost frozen vodka, and almost every meal of the day consisted of chopped tomatoes and cucumbers, sometimes with a cold soup.
The return trip was rather more sober.
Sadly, the light-hearted tone of this note reflects a much happier time when the two countries worked together before the horrific invasion of Ukraine by Russia.
