Vodka & mutton

vereniki!

Our friendship with Andrey began over coffee and zinger burgers. He was in the same boat as us, waiting for a visa for China. He’d seen our antics in the queue at the Chinese embassy – blue lips, dancing-to-keep-warm and our utter bewilderment at being spoken to in Russian – and took pity on us.

Within three days of meeting Andrey and his wife Anna, we were sleeping on their lounge room floor, waking up to pancakes and rice pudding, playing games of chess with their sons, accompanying the family on shopping excursions to the bazaar, fishing in the river and swapping banter in broken Russian and English late into the night. Anna was keen to brush up on her ‘modal verbs’, and thankfully Sam was able to oblige – 5 years of teaching English in China pays off!

There were no limits to the lengths Anna and Andrey would go to help us: we needed to find new accommodation – no worries; visit to train station to collect tickets – too easy; finding a ride across the border from Almaty to China in five days time – piece of cake. “All you need to say,” Andrey intoned slowly and clearly, unable to hide his amusement at our English reservedness, “is ‘Andrey, please help me’.”

Together, Andrey and Anna devised a rigorous regime of cooking and eating, encompassing all their most beloved national dishes, to keep our minds and bellies distracted from the tedium of waiting for visas. Seven days later, we all agree that we’ve had a wonderful time, and that we need to go on a diet!