Miss Druzhkina..? 18 9 4 (17) 25 2 1

Yeah, I was late going for my walk leaving home around 6pm to do my little shopping and take my daily swim when as I descended the steps from the Parish Church to one of the town's main streets, who should be coming against me but this very attractive young lady, clearly an out-of-towner... As she drew level we caught each other's eye and to my surprise exchanged a greeting, her's a simple "Hello", I  believe mine being in the local language.

Whereupon as we passed one another I half turned and asked her "Was that an English hello?" to which she herself half turned and responded how she didn't speak the local language and therefore chose English, when she further explained that she was Russian and when our conversation began to take off...

Where in Russia? I asked her. 

From Moscow, she responded

Then I explained how I used to visit Russia quite a lot in my job during the time when Leningrad was becoming St Petersburg again, which straight off threw her somewhat because in her young life this was quite a long time ago around 1989 – 1994, during the period it was my job to take our US agents there on a weekend trip between more serious meetings to do with our joint efforts to make them the best of our products for sale in the US market.   

She in turn told how she was on vacation here and how with her two daughters aged 8 and 7 she had driven to our capital Helsinki to leave her car there, and take the train first to Salo and then onward via Karjaa to our town on the coast. And how she had met up with sailing friends with the object of sailing back to Helsinki on the morrow...

I told her about how I like Russia and its culture and how as a young man after spending a year away from home I returned to England at the time my mother had hired a chimney sweep to clean her coal fire flue, and how when we got talking about literature he told me "I think you would like Dostoevsky” when I took his advice and read his "A Raw Youth" when I was taken by it so much I proceeded to read his whole catalogue, his "The Gambler" my second book before addressing the bigger works... To this she responded how when she returns to Moscow she must read his "A Raw Youth" 

Upon hearing that I was on my way to take my daily dip in the sea she related how she had recently been on holiday with her children swimming in the White Sea which she said was quite warm, when I was able to tell her I also had swam in the Arctic sea, off Norway, and how there it had been very cold sea indeed…

So our conversation continued exchanging first one tale from life’s experiences after another and each time I thought I should be continuing my journey some fresh story would come to mind when I would regale her afresh.

We talked about how her mother insisted she read one of Dostoevsky’s novels “Crime and Punishment” in order to instil in her the dangers of being too free and easy with the people one meets on one’s travels and how it took such a long time, her mother refusing to let her go out on her own until she had finished the book...

This got us talking about the US and New York when I also told her how in the USA one had to be careful just where one walked because in some places, as in my experience the time I visited Raleigh in South Carolina, and lost my way walking to a nearby restaurant when I asked directions from a crowd of young men just leaving a bar when they exclaimed to my enquiry “You can walk with us!”   

After about ½ h chatting I finally dragged myself away but not before exchanging F-book and Instagram addresses so let us see what happens next..?