Read Online Sunbathing in Siberia by M. A. Oliver-Semenov - Free Book Online

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    To counter the poor standard of decoration, Nataliya Petrovna had hung pictures wherever she could, only none of the frames matched or seemed in keeping with the colour of the walls. Some pictures were even without frames and were simply pinned to the wall. There was also little evidence of personal possessions. Nobody seemed to own much of anything. Looking at other peoples apartments, it became clear that this was typical of most Russians. With the exception of a few fridge magnets and pictures on walls there is very little of anything in any apartment to give an indication as to who lives there. I got the impression that people primarily concerned themselves with objects that were of use. My mother would have cried. As the world’s most finicky and house-proud woman, she would have had a fit had she seen it. None of the furniture matched or the walls and curtains. It may sound silly, but as a twenty-eight-year-old man, who has lived in countless rented rooms, and has never really given much thought to furniture or wallpaper, it even jarred with me. Because my dad’s a builder we had had to suffer stacks of tools and various ‘might come in handy later’ bits-n-bobs, but still, my mother hoovered every day and would never let a guest enter if the house wasn’t perfect. I think I have inherited her genes. Either that or I have inherited my father’s; my father who is known for being a perfectionist in his building work, and therefore a real pain to work for. When laying new wooden floors my dad always insisted on using scrim cloths before varnishing. I remember speaking to a working eighty-four-year-old builder mate of my dad in one of the buildings they were fixing. When I had asked him about working for my dad, he said ‘Your dad uses scrim cloths. Scrim cloths to dust surfaces after they’ve been brushed with a duster. Nobody uses them anymore; even I never even used ’em when I was twenty.’ So as the son of Wales’s fussiest builder, and a hoover-crazy mother, Nastya’s parents’ apartment was a slight shock to the system.
    However, like the house I grew up in, all the cupboards above the doors, and the balcony leading off from the living room were filled with Boris’s things: spare car parts, old shoes with worn soles, and jars of ‘might come in handy one day’. In the living room, against the left wall, stood a large, brown laminated unit typical of the 1960s, that spanned the whole length. Through the glass panels I could see at least fifty books. Other sections without a glass front were filled with more of Boris’s gear and spare parts, and one glass-fronted section had its glass covered with silver foil to prevent anyone seeing the piles of spare machinery parts inside. I later learned this is something Nataliya Petrovna had forced Boris to do as she felt ashamed at guests seeing so many of Boris’s dirty tools. The only item that truly reflected Nataliya Petrovna’s personality was a large black Enisei piano that stood against the wall opposite from the one with the large brown unit. She’d had musical training and had come from relatively good beginnings.
    Towards the last two weeks of my visit, Nastya’s parents kept appearing unexpectedly and would often stay the night. They slept in the living room, which is where they had slept most nights since Baba Ira moved in roughly fifteen years earlier. This may sound strange to some people but it was something I was used to before coming to Russia. Growing up with three sisters in a two-bedroom house, my parents actually slept in the living room until their divorce. As a teenager, this was something that had annoyed me as I couldn’t stay up late and watch TV, or walk through the living room to the kitchen without waking up my parents. Similarly, in Krasnoyarsk, I couldn’t walk to the balcony at night for a smoke, which was the only place permitted; but it felt cosy,