The triumphs and tumbles of Jonny Manchesterskii.

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When I found my way back to the office after ten days away - more tired than ever, and chastened as opposed to refreshed - there wasn't a heap of papers waiting for me on my desk as I had feared, but instead an important-looking, dark yellow and sky blue bordered cardboard work permit. I am now an official Ukraine resident; some acceptance, perhaps, by the country that is trying so hard to make me hate it.

I knew that this week was going to be easier to digest than the two before it; I could get back to spending time with good people and appreciating the fascinating parts of this deeply complicated country. It was never my intention to seek out the ugly side, nor labour on it.

I am now a professional Editor/Translator - which is generous, as in the two months since I came to work at the firm the only things I've actually been made to translate is one article, which I grappled with for the best part of a week, and the mottos on the key-rings which the boss brought his secretaries from a trip to London.

But if I am to have more complicated work thrown at me then my remaining brain cells are up for a challenge: compared to the panic and permutations filling my fragile head lately, a cold morning hunched over The Law of Ukraine “On Amendments to the Land Code of Ukraine Regarding Prohibition of Agricultural Land Sale Prior to Adoption of Respective Legislative Acts" for a farm within the Velykobagachanskyy District State Administration of Poltava oblast', beside a row of empty espresso cups was bliss. Volodya also presented me with a nickname - Jonny Manchesterskii - commemorating the dilemma of who I should support before last month's football match.

New surroundings

Ana finding a flat for us to live in was even better news. Wonderful news, in fact. It is just to the north of the centre in an attractive and busy district, seven minutes along an icy path to the metro, in a clean apartment block tucked behind half a dozen very tall pine trees. We share a corridor not with some of the Nataliya Petrovnas of this world but with a young Chinese couple who work at their embassy and an old couple who come out in their pajamas to grumble when we don't close the hall door. In relation to my salary it is ludicrously expensive - but after the fortnight that Ana and myself have dealt with, what price a bit of peace of mind? We're worth it.

We knew we were at home as soon as the landlady opened the door. We brought along my workmate Andrei, a talented and talkative law student, to look over the contract before Ana signed it; but his only meaningful contribution was falling through the balcony door and into the kitchen, as we were discussing the damage deposit.

The small kitchen is clean and comfortable, with the balcony looking toward the neighbourhood at one end and a 'Minsk' refrigerator standing quietly at the other. It is painted a warm orange and the panels (all new) are soft grey. It feels sociable and European, with only a bright, plastic tablecloth with a yellow sunflower pattern and the eight Kandinsky-inspired little teacups which Nadezhda Vasilievna gave us providing some Soviet kitsch. Lest we forget the first rule of Ukrainian hospitality the cupboards are already stocked with three different types of tea and an armful of biscuits. Now all we need is some friends in time for our New Year party. There is an 'L' shaped wooden bench in the corner, which will become the 2am sachet-cappuccino drinking and diary-writing venue that I always wanted Ukraine to give me but have only just found.

I have a soft spot for the living room, too. Once the sofa is un-fastened into a bed there is barely any room to move, but a window with the same attractive view of the snowy pine trees and marshrutka-filled street makes up an entire wall, so we are always looking out, not in. The room has more than enough wooden cupboards for all of our clothes, which also add a touch of macho to a space dominated by Ana's pink flowery duvet. We have an old telephone where you have to run your finger in a circle to dial a number.

The television boasts a hundred channels - ninety-six showing programmes rejected by the rest of Europe and dubbed into Ukrainian by actors, who sound thoroughly bored by what is taking place, a sports channel specialising in Dutch football for me, an entertainment channel which is home to celebrity ice-dancing for Ana, and one Ukrainian and one international music channel which we both switch on the moment we hang our coats up in the hall. My bed - according to the list which I made a while ago of places where I have slept during my travels - is in the same league in terms of comfort as the internet-cafe floor in Moscow and the bathtub. The large window, although a great idea in the daytime, makes me freeze during the night. The Russian language has a verb for "to wake up in the morning feeling ok and having had enough rest", and I am beginning to realise why they cherish the feeling so much.

If my bed isn't one of the more welcoming of all the places in which I've stayed, then the bathroom is easily the best. There is always hot, clean water, which I'm sure I'll be spending half an hour underneath each morning once the temperature falls even lower. I don't even mind the pink tiles, as it is a very welcoming place to brush your teeth. Even its' faults are charming: there is no sink but a washing machine under the mirror instead, which now stores shaving gel and shampoo when not in use. And it isn't hard to remember that the hot tap runs cold and the cold tap runs hot; it always makes me smile that in a country where non-English speaking plumbers have a 50%!c(MISSING)hance of installing them correctly, they always get it wrong.

I have paid my dues to the Vinohradar and post-communist communal living and am ready for a bit of comfort. Living modestly as I wanted to means risking my health again in the forgotten streets of Kyiv, that after dark turn into a sort of violent stock exchange. Even if my skull and wallet can take one more plundering, I know Ana's nerves can't, and we walk with fear now wherever we go. I have realised that, travelling from my flat just north of the centre to my office in the Olimpiiskiy business complex in my new Dima Bilan-style sweater from a shop on Khreshchatik, eating chicken cutlets and rice each evening in Puzata Hata and applauding each Okean El'zy video which M-1 shows, that I am becoming extremely bourgeois - but it won't be this way forever, so I will make the most of it while it lasts.

Almost famous

As we left Jared and Joel's - within three weeks of meeting Joel he became my ex-flatmate - I bought a pair of grey, white and black indoor felt boots (called "valenki") from an old lady outside Livoberezhna metro. The last time I wore valenki was while Cossack-dancing down the stage at the finale of a Russian play, so they bring back very fond memories. They are also unbelievably warm, and along with the cinnamon tea and celebrity ice-dancing will form the template for how I am planning to spend my winter.

It is one of my many childish ambitions to appear on Ukrainian television. Some of my classmates sang and played the balalaika on a Russian breakfast programme in 2005 and my lack of talent cost me the gig. So my heart skipped a beat as we were walking along Khreshchatik after dinner last Thursday and into the eyeline of a middle-aged man with a microphone and a cameraman behind him. I heard "Do you have time to answer a question?"... but (to the dismay of my impatient ego) he chose another couple and we had to walk past. I would have been my fifteen minutes of fame at the end of my fifteen days of anguish, but it wasn't to be. It would also have been an opportunity to take either Jonny Manchesterskii or his Estonian twin, Joonas, for a test drive, and to find out whether my accent would stand up to the test of public scrutiny.

Pride before a fall

The weather can't decide whether to freeze us for good or to go easy on us until the New Year. One day is bitterly cold, the next a few degrees above freezing. It means that streets are covered in a slippery film of white, slowly melting ice. On the morning of my last commute from Jared and Joel's flat the vulitsya was particularly hazardous. I had to recall the technique for walking on ice, that hadn't been put into practice since my last winter in Russia; you have to sway slightly forward to keep your balance; keep your eyes trained on the patch in front of you and don't look up; brace your knees as if you are riding a horse; keep your toes pointing outwards, and take comic little steps a bit like a penguin. I was even overtaken by two old ladies carrying shopping bags - clearly I can't hide my foreign-ness under a woolly hat - but I decided it was better to take my time, traverse the path without falling over and be late for work but dry, than hurry, fall, and arrive at five to nine as a puddle-soaked mess.

Pride (and a good lunchtime story) were growing inside me as arrived at the office without even having lost my balance - and then vanished as I slipped on the freshly-mopped fourth floor and collapsed in a tidy heap in the corridor, within touching distance of the doorbell. So very close.

I added to my year's tally the next day when moving our bags from Jared's place to the new one. This time I felt my legs give way at the very same time as Ana was asking Jared "Why is it that British people say 'to fall over' but you say 'to fall down'?"

Ukraine's painful ironies are often worth smiling about.


Next diary: Where to put your underpants on the way to the Golden Gates.

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Photos

The city wakes up.
The view from my kitchen window at dawn, Kyiv.

St. Sophia's courtyard.
And the statue to Bohdan Khmelnytskiy. Kyiv.

Ukrainian winter: fur boots and documentaries.
Kyiv.

The view from my kitchen window.
Kyiv.

Reflections.
Kyiv.

.....and where we won't.
Kyiv.

"London for $163...."
"Register your flight online - for those of you who don't love queueing as much as the British do." Khreshchatik, Kyiv.

Rooftops in the snow.
On the roof of my office. Kyiv.

A snow-covered branch, from Jared and Joel's window.
Kyiv.

Trolleybus rush-hour.
Kyiv.

Comments

[Cat]

The new flat looks lovely. Take care. xx

[natasha]

great
Hi. this is the greatest of all your journals!!!! really good, and hope the next one will be even better. congratulations with finding a decent apartment. Well done Ana! You guys be happy there, you deserved it. Have a great winter in Ukraine!

[Jenia]

Walking Technique
Thank you for describing a technique of walking on a slippery road. I totally have to try it! and seems like I will need it today.

[iryna]

I love Kiev. I spent there 5 best years in my life. Now i live in Canada, not in the best province. It feels i lost something agter leaving my dear capital. Have fun guys at the New Year party, I wish I could come, but alas!