New Year's Eve and A Wedding

5... 4... 3... 2... 1... S Novym Godom! Its actually still the 9th of March but we are in Purga, a bar in St Petersburg that celebrates New Year, Russian style, every evening. This involves, predicatably, lots of drinking, but also dancing, a comedy film called Sweet Irony, lots of special Soviet songs, a speech from the Russian leader and a fairytale grandmother. There are other things going on in this particular bar on this particular evening that are apparently not so traditional. For example, many of the men are wearing bras and the grandma is actually a transvestite and has been dancing suggestively with me all evening, culminating in a fumble on the stage that I thankfully extricate myself from before too much damage is done. I know this is not traditional because I have Natasha here with me. She lives in St Petersburg but is originally from Vladivostok, on the Eastern end of the Trans-Siberian. We met in the Mod Club, the local indie kid hang out attached to Achtung Baby!, in the early hours of International Women's Day and have got on famously ever since, in spite of my previous convictions that I would remain professional and detached.

The bride and groom are decked out in matching white and both are looking radiant. Admittedly, its white paper, but it is fetching nontheless. The celebrant is the same transvestite from earlier, though now decked out in a mini-skirt and blonde wig. It takes a matter of minutes before the pair have tied the knot and their future happiness is sealed. The best man and maid of honour stand with them and pose for photographs. It is impressive that a bar would take the challenge of having not one but two themes, running back to back, every night of the year. Perhaps as a reaction against the scarcity and predictability of Soviet entertainment establishments, many themed restaurants and bars are dotted around the city. One that we had previously sampled was the Spy Cafe. The barking cyborg dog at the door and the waiters in prison uniforms and chains led us to believe that the food would be similarly tasteless but against all the odds it was actually excellent. Back at Purga the newlyweds seem keen to get their honeymoon underway, so we bid everyone goodnight and head out back along the canal.