Snowy regrets - snezhoye sozhaleniye
To put the record straight, my childhood Christmas memories are non-existent, and the reason is simple: in the Soviet Union, where I grew up, we were not allowed to celebrate it. Instead of Jesus Christ's birthday we were supposed to celebrate Lenin's on 22 April.
This is not to say that I was entirely unaware of Christmas, for – from the age of 12 or 13 – I would clandestinely listen to the Queen's Christmas address on the BBC World Service purely for the purposes of language-learning. The reception was poor, and I had to keep the sound low not to be overheard by neighbours. I (or, more likely, my parents) could get into a serious trouble for tuning to hostile foreign broadcasts.
The Julian calendar marked the Russian Orthodox Christmas on 7 January. On that day, some daring believers (mostly little old ladies), closely followed by specially assigned KGB agents, flocked to the country's few token churches – those that were spared demolition during the rampant anti-religious campaign of the 1920s-30s. We knew it was Christmas when the Soviet TV, dull and politicised to the core, would suddenly broadcast overnight some really good movies, fashion shows or even a concert of an obscure Western pop group (like, for example, the Beatles). It was the only time of the year, with the possible exception of Easter, when late-night shows were permitted at theatres, and the country's most popular entertainers were out in force – all aimed at dissuading the people from attending Christmas liturgies.
Apart from those, Christmas remained a non-event and was totally overshadowed by the New Year – the only (relatively) de-politicised holiday we were permitted to have. On the New Year eve, the whole country – to the last person – would indulge in a bout of drinking and gluttony under festively decorated "New Year trees" (that was what we were supposed to call them), topped with papier-mâché red stars. Many used to save hard-to-obtain delicacies for the whole year to consume them all on the New Year night.
As a brainwashed Soviet child, I used to think that had the "American imperialists" decided to attack the glorious Soviet Union, there wouldn't have been a better time than during New Year celebrations when the whole nation was absolutely smashed.
It was on the 1980 New Year eve in Moscow that I experienced my life's coldest spell – minus 42 degrees centigrade. It was hard to stay outside for more than five minutes: one's eyes would start shedding uncontrollable salty tears that would freeze on the eyelids, blocking the vision. Scarves and shapkas (fur hats with ear-muffins) didn't help. The city was totally unprepared for such low temperature: in many blocks of flats, heating, gas and electricity came off – all at the same time – and on the New Year night, one could observe people making bonfires on their high-rise balconies (the only place where one could actually see something) trying to cook their festive meals. Metro stations were impossible to find – they were coated in huge clouds of thick vapour. It was OK in our flat though: we had a bit of gas in the kitchen, where we all, dressed in hats and winter coats, huddled together for the New Year feast.
I had my first "proper" Christmas at the age of 36, during the first year of my Australian exile. It goes without saying that it was green, and my first ever Christmas day was spent in a capacious hired Jacuzzi in a friend's backyard in a Melbourne suburb. We were sitting in the bubbling tub without clothes on, and drinks on a floating pad in the middle. After each shot we would dive under water to refresh ourselves.
Our Christmas-day bliss ended suddenly, when someone's mischievous child stealthily poured a whole bottle of shampoo into the spa, and the water in it started foaming like freshly uncorked champagne. We had to climb out dribbling like a bunch of Neptunes. Only then I realised that I had been sitting in the Jacuzzi with a wallet in my trouser pocket. It took the merciless Australian sun just a couple of minutes to burn its contents dry.
Profusely sweating Santas wandered up and down Melbourne streets, to one of which "snow" was being brought by a succession of huge refrigerator vans. Some topless young lads were tossing it onto the pavements with spades, and it would melt before even touching the ground. As a result, the street was soon covered with several inches of sticky slush. Female Scottish bagpipe-players, specially invited from Glasgow for this Christmas make-believe, were marching back and forth in the mud, mincing it dutifully with their boots.
I made up for the lack of snow on my first "real" Christmas precisely two years later – in Lapland (Finland). I went there with a formidable assignment – to interview Santa Claus for the Christmas issue of The European. Or rather the Santa Claus, for, as I was assured the day before in Helsinki, to where I flew from London by a Finnair plane, with an "Official Santa Claus Carrier" logo across the fuselage, the Finnish Santa was the only real one, whereas the other two, in Sweden and Greenland, were hoaxes.
To puzzle me even further, they told me that the "chief" Santa was away on a mission to Japan, and I would be able to see only his First Deputy(!). There was no better way of deconstructing a Christmas dream: dreams and deputies, even if first, normally do not fit together.
Reality proved even more prosaic: when I finally got to Rovaniemi, a town on the Arctic Circle and the official Santa Claus abode, it turned out that the First Deputy Santa was not available either! He was, allegedly, tied up with some demanding British visitors. So I had to be happy interviewing Santa Claus Number Three, who was drunk and whose English was limited to stuttering "v-very wonderful", "I am the only r-real Santa! and a somewhat tongue-tied hooliganic "ho-ho-ho!" – hardly enough for an interview. A Christmas fairy tale turned into a second deputy dream.
In the end, I did stumble upon a true Christmas dream in Rovaniemi – a dream that had nothing to do with the "r-real and only" Santa and all his tipsy deputies and elves. It was the snow, crunching soothingly under my boots and bringing back memories of my Ukrainian childhood. It was the wind blowing handfuls of snow-dust into my face. It was the blue moment that came fleetingly between night and day – neither light nor darkness but a bit of both. It was the melodious Finnish language, with endlessly doubling vowels and consonants – as if sounds themselves froze on the local's lips.
A gentle blizzard was keeping the flakes afloat and swirling in the air, as if they didn't feel like falling down, and when they finally didn't was with reluctance, almost a regret.
Regretful snowfalls. How many times I woke up to them in Russia and Ukraine. "Snezhnoye sozhaleniye" – a "snowy regret" – two words with a beautiful onomatopoeic alliteration in Russian. The alliteration of snowy semi-silence.
And although I am unlikely to see much snow on my first Irish Christmas this year, I'd love to hope that Christmas dream is alive and well in this country.
Happy Christmas, my dear readers! And may all your Christmas dreams come true!