Friends Among Strangers

‘Quiet! The Russian is back. Don’t make a sound!’

Masha has probably one of the ‘worst’ Russian accents I’ve ever heard. She makes absolutely zero effort to conceal the rolling ‘r’s and the pronounced consonants that give her speech a Borat-sounding quality and immediately give away her Moscow upbringing.

When I first moved to the UK, almost exactly five years ago, in an era we now call ‘pre-COVID,’ I lived in North Greenwich — near the famous Greenwich Observatory, where, according to the Brits, time begins.

It always amazes me how self-centric nations can be. The maps Europeans use today have London at the centre because the British colonized — sorry, discovered — most places. The world map in Russia features Russia taking up half of the planet, with tiny Europeans neighbouring on the left, an almost invisible strip of Japan on the right, and the US on the sidelines of existence.

When I studied in California, the world map was, of course, centred on the North American continent, and in Australia, the whole world — at least according to us, Europeans — is upside down. This is what Europeans refer to when they arrogantly call Australia ‘down under.’

In North Greenwich, we lived in a one-bedroom apartment by the river with a spectacular view of the Thames. The sunrise from the balcony was otherworldly. It was a big step up from the rented shoebox of a flat in Moscow, where the view was of a local cemetery, and the landlord came knocking every month with her entire family present, demanding that I pay her in cash.