So, we’ve moved into our new apartment in the centre of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, and all we are waiting for now is for the landlady to install a new wardrobe to replace the five pieces of chipboard hastily banged together in China and poorly veneered in tasteless\u00a0dark brown\u00a0plastic which she tried to hoodwink us into accepting as fit to do the same job.\u00a0 Plus I need to get my ADSL connection sorted out sharpish, but other than that we are pretty much there.<\/p>\n
Our apartment is on the eight floor of a nine storey block, which means we have the luxury of a lift.\u00a0 Unfortunately, the lift is tiny and jerks its way between the floors with a noise which sounds as though somebody has replaced the ball bearings with gravel for a laugh.\u00a0 More unfortunately, the lift stops working after 10pm, which is pretty much standard in Russian apartment blocks, presumably because the bloke you call when you find yourself stuck between the floors knocks off around that time.\u00a0 However, of the three occasions I have thus far had to clamber up the stairs, on two of them I was completely plastered and hence didn’t really notice the effort involved.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And most unfortunately of all, the lift – as with the\u00a0lower sections of the communal stairwell – stinks to high heaven.\u00a0 I think somebody died in the lift\u00a0a few months back\u00a0and spent the\u00a0time since\u00a0decomposing\u00a0gently until somebody hauled him out.\u00a0 But there is room to be grateful, and that is for the fact that unlike many Russian lifts in apartment blocks, only a few of the buttons have been melted beyond recognition and even these are perfectly useable.\u00a0 Many a lift have I got in to find all the buttons melted so you have no idea which one to press and half of them out of action altogether.\u00a0 One I remember in Moscow was so badly damaged you had to stick your fingers in the charred holes and poke around amongst the contacts.<\/p>\n
For there is a rather odd hobby amongst degenerate Russian youths which is\u00a0melting stuff in\u00a0lifts.\u00a0 Now I can understand that the exuberance of youth exacerbated by a bottle or five of vodka may lead a gang of said reprobates to torch a car, a rubbish bin, or even a warehouse.\u00a0 But I cannot for the life of me understand why the hell anyone would melt the controls of a lift when they are still inside the damned thing<\/em>.\u00a0 Reports abound that the life expectancy of a Russian male is depressingly low, and the figures are usually attributed to the harsh climate, abundance of vodka, and the\u00a0unwavering demands of their wives (okay, I made the last one up).\u00a0 But to my knowledge nobody has yet to consider the utter stupidity of some of their number in perhaps bringing this statistic to a level several notches lower than it\u00a0otherwise needs to be.\u00a0 Maybe one day someone will.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" So, we’ve moved into our new apartment in the centre of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, and all we are waiting for now is for the landlady to install a new wardrobe to replace the five pieces of chipboard hastily banged together in China … Continue reading