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variety of different ways by my now mother-in-law Nataliya Petrovna; and contrary to what we think of the Russians in the West it wasn’t a boozy affair. Collectively we enjoyed two or three bottles of champagne before we called it a night. Nastya and I were left to put the dishes away and mop up the remnants of the large honey cake someone had bought instead of a wedding cake. There are a few customs in Russia when it comes to marriage, one being a large wedding pie that only the newlyweds can eat, and the one who devours the most is supposed to be the boss of the marriage from there on in. We didn’t observe this or any other custom. It’s not that we didn’t want a wedding pie, because I especially wanted one, it was simply that in the rush to get married, with all the worry about documents, stamps and registration papers, we forgot to think about any of the things we would have enjoyed after the wedding, like giant pies and parties.

    Dissolution of the Soviet Union
    Before deciding on my voyage to Krasnoyarsk, Nastya and I had discussed getting married in Copenhagen, because we wouldn’t have had to jump through hoops to obtain visas, and a company there offered an attractive wedding package for couples who lived in separate countries. At the last minute Nastya changed her mind, thinking it would be better for us to marry in her city so I could also get to know it a little, which would help us decide where we would spend our future. I had never heard of the city before. My knowledge of Russian geography was limited, as in I couldn’t have told you where Moscow was if my life depended on it. It was only after I landed that Nastya informed me that I was bang, smack in the middle of Siberia. When we had courted online and in Paris, all of our talk was about being together, being apart, and missing each other. Later we spoke of legal matters: visas and certificates. In all that time, I hadn’t actually given a thought to asking where Krasnoyarsk was, or even looking it up on the map; and consequently found myself in the most central part of Russia not really knowing where I was in the world. Which may sound a bit foolish, but after Nastya and I fell in love, I would have taken a flight anywhere as long as she was waiting for me there. There had been too many failed romantic affairs in my mid-twenties, where I hadn’t the guts to take a leap of faith. I’m not sure why that was, but I do know that with Nastya it felt easier to let go of who I was, or had been, and forget my possessions and my limited view of the world. Meeting Natsya had enabled me to break free of the internal restraints that had broken hearts, including my own, in the past.
    With the three weeks I had left on my visa, I was free to explore the city, learning all that I should have before I went there. For example, I never knew that Russia is divided into eighty-three different parts: two dozen republics, krais, oblasts, and autonomous okrugs. Though I can’t tell you what the difference is between a krai and an oblast. I’m not quite sure anyone can. Krasnoyarsk Krai is the biggest of the krais and covers about 13% of Russia’s total territory. It’s hard to really take in its size, though as a rough guide it is about one hundred times bigger than Wales, and slightly smaller than the moon.
    Krasnoyarsk Krai is divided again into forty-four different districts, many of which have long, unpronounceable names like Nizhneingashsky and Zaozyorny. Krasnoyarsk city is the administrative centre of Krasnoyarsk Krai and is itself divided into seven further districts: Kirovsky, Leninsky, Oktyabrsky, Sovetsky, Sverdlovsky, Tsentralny, and Zheleznodorozhny. We lived in Oktyabrsky. It’s a bit like one of those Russian matryoshka dolls that decrease in size when you pull their heads off, the seven city districts being at the centre. Oktyabrsky sits inside Krasnoyarsk city which sits in Krasnoyarsk Krai which sits in