Leningrad, 3rd January 1970
I had an excellent Christmas in Moscow. We couldn’t get a turkey unfortunately (the French girls thought it a bit ambitious, anyay), so we had really tasty coq au vin. To go with it: best Brussels sprouts and fried bacon from the Embassy, potatoes and sausage, not to mention the caviar (red and black) beforehand, champagne, and fruit to follow. The sprouts had been kept between the inner and outer window panes of my room and were so hard (it had been -30 outside) that you could bounce them off the floor like golf balls. Since I had got back late from trying to ring you up at the International Post Office in town, and the cooks had overslept anyway, and the Russian guests came late, we were somewhat behind on our timetable, but that made the rest of the day all the more fun. After a lot of black coffee, we went off to the Gorki Park of Culture, which is completely flooded along its paths to make one big skating rink. You can hire skates here but they are all of the type we use for figure skating, I think, with low uppers, so it’s rather like being thrown in at the deep end. Still, I was taken in hand by a little master-skater of about nine, who taught me the first steps, and although I didn’t get very far before going bow-legged or knock-kneed, I only fell once. Then it was straight by taxi to the Bolshoi. As it happened, this was the first night of their new production of Swan Lake, so it was something of a gala. We were very lucky to get tickets. I presume it was the prima ballerina dancing. This performance was the best I’ve seen at the Bolshoi. When we came out of the Metro at the University, all the trees were twinkling with ‘rime’, a special kind of hoarfrost.
I couldn’t find any more in George’s letters home about his 1895 Christmas in Russia, so decided to post an excerpt from a letter I wrote my parents from Russia in 1970 (I was based in Moscow, but spent New Year in Leningrad). I hadn’t read this letter since writing it! Although it’s not been been possible to verify whether Odette was danced on Christmas Day by Maya Plisetskaya, the Bolshoi’s prima ballerina assoluta, I think it was her. I saw her dance in Moscow many times and can visualise her arm movements even now.
A VERY HAPPY CHRISTMAS TO YOU ALL!
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A review by DAMIAN GRANT appears in the comments to Calderonia’s 7 September post.
A review by JOHN DEWEY appears on Amazon UK.
I don’t often comment — at least not under my real name — but I think your letter home proves without doubt that you have been hiding the fact that you are actually a descendant of GC:EG. The secret is now out!
But on to the important matter of sprouts. I am ridiculed by my family for taking the purchase of said cruciferous vegetable so seriously from the moment the first frost arrives and also for my refusal to serve them with bacon at Christmas dinner (a stand also taken by none other than Delia Smith). I was surprised to learn that the practice goes back as far as 1969. At least you make no mention of Yorkshire puddings.
I shall stop writing lest these musings lead to accusations of ‘Bah, humbug!’, but not before wishing you and the supporting cast of Calderonia a very happy Christmas and, as has now become traditional, a better new year.
Yours, Theobrassica