MANITA

Manita is our Russian guide. She is waiting for us at the Crimea's airport in Simferopol as our party of five comes through the exit gate. Our arrival in the country has been remarkably free of palaver - passports sternly but briskly inspected; planes on time; luggage intact. It is late but we are in high spirits. She is tiny and barely comes up to our driver Sasha's mid-riff. She is neatly but modestly dressed, her red scarf the only sign of colour. I guess she is about fifty and could be lifted by a small child with ease. The top of her head is quite flat and she has a full thatch of dark hair which has been dyed a purple shade of auburn at its front. It is all gathered together in a neat bow at the back. What was I expecting? A short and chubby baboushka? A tall Slav? A Russian doll? She is none of these things. She has calm and appraising eyes that are emphasised rather than hidden by their heavy lids. The folding skin below hints of sadness and endurance. She smiles without showing her teeth and offers her small hand. It is perfectly manicured and unadorned but has a slight roughness of toil long ago. "Welcome to the Crimea" she says in a voice with that purring sound that is pure cat-nip to certain men. "Hello, I'm Jonathan" I say. "That's Yadomir...in Russian", I add redundantly. She holds my gaze. Her expression is not unkind. Do you want a gold star it seems to say? I wonder what is the Russian word for "buffoon".

We are on a tight schedule with a lot to see. Sash has been given his instructions but we barely seem to be making progress through the early morning traffic. Sevastopol is massive - over half-a-million live around its enormous and glistening harbour. It is the home base of the Russian Black Sea Fleet and the Naval Officers' Academy. There is the "Moscow", just returned from firing cruise missiles off the coast of Syria. Sash has pulled up to a junction. The exaggerated bobbing of his head as he looks left and right suggests great caution laid on for our benefit. He pulls out with a  scrunching of gears. A car swerves past behind us, its horn giving out a long angry blare. Manita remarks shortly and Sash nods. He is on the naughty step. The next day our driver is Igor. He is thick set and has cunning little eyes set in a chunky face. He gives us a sceptical smirk of greeting. Who are these jokers, his expression seems to ask? O well, it's all in a day's work. Like Sash, he too is a gear cruncher and frustrated rally car driver. Manita has to draw attention again to what passes for the highway code in these parts. Igor makes some remark which brooks no contradiction out of the corner of his mouth. Look lady, I'm in charge of the wagon OK? Manita considers this for a while. When Igor is next addressed her tone is different and he is soon eating out of her hand. The driving improves too. 

We are standing outside a large circular building on a hill-side. Below us in a great arc are the hills and valleys about Balaklava. The autumn sun beats down pleasantly. Manita knows the museum guide and she chats cordially. The building is empty of visitors but its guardian is enjoying her little moment of official power to delay things. Manita continues to gossip but she has the instincts of a shepherdess and her eyes dart about for any sign that we, her little flock, might be wandering off. Ah. We can go in. The museum contains a panorama of the German siege of Sevastopol. The art of "socialist realism", once so kitsch, is now a big deal she says. The picture is indeed impressive. It depicts a Russian assault on a heavily defended enemy position. There is the chaos of hand-to-hand fighting: stern looking Russians are laying about them with bayonet and grenade; a German cowers in his trench, his face a rictus of fear and hate. We already know the siege was one of the bloodiest of the Second World War and need no further prompting to stand in a moment of respectful silence.

Manita has an instinct for what we know, what we think we know and what perhaps we ought to know. She has the impressive grasp of the autodidact but wisely intuits that our limited attention span would be better directed towards greater understanding rather than incremental information. Like her neat and economical movements, her remarks are short and to the point. She is married to an ex-Soviet naval officer who spent most of his career in the Far Eastern Fleet in Vladivostock. He was a nuclear engineer, she says. They married in 1982, four years after he graduated from the academy; she is six years younger and was a teenager really, when she accepted her man and was wedded to the Soviet navy. They came back to the Crimea in 1991 when the USSR was falling apart. You'll have to join the Ukrainian navy said his bosses. Sod that: I'll retire, was his reply. Gorbachev was a traitor, she says evenly.

The Maxim Gorky battery to the south of the City is a famous landmark of the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945. It is a shrine really. Here the defenders held out for weeks against the surrounding Germans. When the water ran out, the survivors of the garrison of 300 lived off Crimean champagne that had been hidden in vast underground bunkers. Wounds were soused and weapons cleaned in vintage bubbly. The Germans winkled most of them out with gas and flamethrowers and shot them on the spot. A few escaped through the sewers. A young lieutenant got back to the Soviet lines and was executed. He was already deemed to have "surrendered" and was thus likely a spy. We are visibly appalled. Manita gives a small shrug. Her tale has been told in a flat tone without drama. It was an existential fight to the death. 

The Soviets system was far more inventive than we give it credit. Do you know, asks Manita, that "they" invented the diaper? Yes, it's true she says, anticipating my dubious teasing. This nugget is so left-of-field, that it just has to be right. They were designed for Gagarin, the first man in space. He did not want pipes attached to his parts so they invented a nappy in which he could pee to his heart's content. Later, we see the great man himself  included in a group photograph at the formerly secret submarine base at Balaklava. He is in the company of Khrushchev, the General Secretary and is surrounded by cheerful workers and sailors. The photographer knows his stuff - Gagarin might be the hero of the hour, but the state pays the photographer's wages. The leader of the USSR is the focus of the frame. Did not the cosmonaut die of alcohol poisoning I cheekily ask? For once, Manita is genuinely shocked. Do you know that he always carried a double-bottomed vodka glass? Everyone wanted to be his friend and ply him with drink. But for this little bit of kit he would have been permanently plastered.

We are a happy group with a good dynamic. We laugh a lot when the setting does not require respectful or thoughtful silence. Manita is becoming accustomed to our antics and often conceals a smile behind her hand. She is not, I am beginning to see, naturally reserved but has been brought up in the useful life skill of self - editing, albeit for the wrong reason. She is also surprisingly tactile. Bruce is visibly ailing and says little but he gamely keeps up and always has a cheerful smile: she helps him into our mini-bus and strokes his hand solicitously and gently at appropriate moments. She deals with my tom-foolery with a small shove. Later in the trip, I ask her whom are her heroes. She is far too smart to toe a party line in this company and answers by identifying one who is not. Zhukov, the great WW2 Soviet marshal of western text books is given short shrift. He was a dangerous peasant who was utterly careless with his men's lives. General Rokossovsky was caught up in Stalin's purges before the war. He was arrested, his teeth were smashed out and all his fingers broken. But when the Germans attacked, he was badly needed and recalled. "Where the hell have you been?" joshed Stalin, The Soldiers' Friend, as he gave him a playful punch on his remaining uninjured limb. But for him and those few like him who had survived the era of the show trials, it would have been curtains in 1942 she says.

Manita has taken us to the public cemetery on the heights above Sevastopol. For once the sky is grey and sad. Everywhere there are enormous floral tributes, even on the most ancient graves. Fake and real flora seem to burst out in a new spring although it is already mid-autumn. We are led past the imposing statue of Totleben, the engineering genius whose fortifications around the harbour frustrated the allies for over a year during the Crimean War. Manita shows us a dark granite gravestone. There are weird grotesque shapes and contorted figures. It looks like a work of the school of Dada. But amidst the chaos is the unmistakeable outline of a submarine and sixteen names are engraved on the tomb. It is dedicated to the sailors from the city who died aboard the nuclear submarine Kursk when she sank in the Barents Sea in the summer of 2000. It was a terrible accident, distinguished by the futile attempts at rescue and all aboard her perished horribly. Manita seems quietly moved and lays a hand on the cold stone - perhaps she and her sub-mariner husband knew some of those who died. Such accidents were common then she says simply.

It is early evening and we are on the last item of our agenda, the Armoured Train. Do you know quizzes Manita, why the words "train station" are "baksal" in Russian? I confess I do not. The Tsar sent a delegation to London to find out about the new-fangled horseless carriage. He'll want one of those, they all agreed. Where did they view this amazing thing before the age of industrial espionage and a reluctance to share?  Um. Vauxhall? She gives a little clap. The monstrosity in front of us now is in a small siding. It is a public monument  but  has seen better days. An old man prods at some litter near its engine and a small weed is beginning to break free from the gun turret. I read out the Cyrillic motto on its side. "Death to fascists" it proclaims. Manita winces: you pronounced it like a Pole, she says. Railways do not seem to be associated with much happiness in Russian literature. I say the train reminds me of the scene in Pasternak's "Doctor Zhivago" where the Bolshevik Strelnikov is laying waste about his reinforced steel carriages in the bleak and frozen Urals. I get another wince: she is thinking of David Lean's production values in the eponymous  film. Can you imagine? An Egyptian as Zhivago and an English woman as Lara Antipova: the gorgeous but ill-fated Russian lovers. She gives a mirthless laugh. 

The five days have passed. I have grown to feel a strong sense of respect and affinity for our quietly purposeful and enigmatic guide.  At another time and place my awe would have likely turned into love. Would a Russian of the pre-revolutionary world have recognised her as one of the intelligentsia? In fact she seems far bigger than that: she has a deep intelligence and sensibility rooted in quiet patriotism. The fads of cultural and political fashion would interest but not ensnare her: she would surely confuse the ersatz intellectuals who dominate our own discourse in the West today. Our society has been thoroughly overpowered in its public spaces by a mood of cultural elitism that is growing in inverse proportion to moral uncertainty and decline. In our foolish sophistication we have allowed ourselves to be directed by  judges who declare we live in a non-judgemental world. There are no absolute truths anymore, just the self, utility and greed. Who are we to continue casting stones at the Russians? Throw away they say. We are the Crimea. We are Mother Russia. You can no longer hurt us.

CRIMEA

Nellie Kim is coming down the aisle towards me. Our collective memory is of Olga Korbut and Nadia Comaneci; but it was Nellie, a gorgeous Tajik, who melted hearts and turned grown men to mush at the Montreal Olympics of 1976. My parents were in love with her: Nellie doing her balletic stuff on the gymnastic mat for a perfect 10 was the first thing we ever recorded on television. Her face in all its phases adorned my cubicle at school. Now, Nellie is handing me a sandwich on the S7 flight from Moscow to Simferopol. I am trying to pretend to myself that she has favoured me with a tiny and knowing smirk. But no; she is definitely not smiling. She presents me with a choice - chicken or cheese? I mumble something inconclusive and the latter option is deftly plonked on my tray. Later as she collects the remains I thank her with over- effusive repetition of my single Russian phrase. Nellie smiles in that way we do when trying to humour the deranged; but the corners of her mouth have definitely turned in the right direction. In that instant, I know that I am going to love Russia.

Manita meets the five of us at the airport. She is tiny and has calm and appraising eyes with a hint of wariness. Or is that just a look of natural reserve as we pile on our relieved words of greeting? I observe that her movements are very economical. Next to her is Alexander, or "Sash", our driver. He is bald and in his fifties but looks trim in his white tee-shirt with gold chain around his neck. In contrast to our guide, he swings his arm into the handshake as if we are all long-time pals and his fist nearly takes her out en-route. But she has a boxer's instincts and moves her head without losing eye contact with us. The journey to Sevastopol takes a while and the mini-bus is uncomfortable, but our spirits are good; we have arrived. It is too dark to see outside and we all sink into a quiet reverie. Edward and Manita later murmur together about the plans for the week. 

Sevastopol was smashed flat by the German siege of 1941-1942. Care has mostly been taken in the gradual restoration of the city centre and we are accommodated in an imposing and whitewashed building with high colonnades, in the style of the 19th Century, on the harbour's edge. The mixed staff are young, attractive and courteous. It is late and they have been patiently waiting. Despite paying the minimum tariff, an effort is immediately made to try to secure an upgrade to a superior room at the same rate. To my shame, I see we have embarrassed them with this needless chutzpah. Their consternation is completed by the knowledge that they are going to have to ask us to pay up front for the rooms we have already booked. We have only just landed but are already trying to expand. Why must we behave with so little dignity? 

My room is small but immaculate. A broken roof above a Ukrainian restaurant is my view from the window but the water is hot and the bed comfortable. It is still very warm  and the trees full of green leaf. The harbour really is magnificent; it sparkles grandly in the early morning sun. Commuter boats and warships cross our vision and the pavements rapidly fill with those on the way to work, earpieces attached and coffee in hand. We drive out towards the hills above Balaklava. Manita takes us to the exact and panoramic spot where Lord Raglan observed the Russian assault and issued the orders which condemned the Light Brigade to destruction. He saw too much, his subordinates too little. She tells us that there are many theories about this epic British cock-up. But looking at the ground from our privileged vantage point, it is not too difficult to see what happened.

Tennyson's Valley of Death is surprisingly narrow - perhaps no more than half-a-mile across. All around are dusty hills rising towards mountains that reach out to Yalta and beyond on the southern coast. The Crimea is a pimple on the Globe, a small appendix on the vastness of Russia. But it is vital ground in every sense you can imagine and has been fought over many times. There is much ravaged beauty within our tranquil view. But amongst the sandstone and low scrub is earthy fertility too: peach trees, almond bushes, vines and pumpkins tease us from their soil. We have descended to a lower level and are looking at the line of poplars in the middle distance that mark the position of the astonished Russian gunners as the spittle and sweat flecked horses hurtled towards them. On and on rode the six hundred. In front of us now are vines attended by incurious Moldavian migrant workers. There are men in combat fatigues scanning the hazy horizon with binoculars. A buzzard wheels lazily overhead in the warm and static air. The vines are owned by the state. It is a collective farm and these grapes are too valuable to be unguarded. An enormous Russian supervisor covered in juice, sweat and dust marches towards us purposefully. Help yourself he says - they are used to middle aged and oddly dressed Brits who want to poke around what is, to them, unremarkable countryside. The grapes are indeed a gift to die for.  

The harbour at Balaklava draws us in with twists and turns. The British transformed its depths into an ugly and foul smelling cess-pool but now it is clear, cheerful and sparkling. The old and the new jostle together harmoniously and a few derelict buildings here-and-there complete rather than detract from a picture of charm. Cormorants sunbathe above the nets of an old fish farm near the inlet's mouth. Above us on the steep banks that surround the water are the ancient Genoese forts and the English road that was built, too late, to escape the stinking chaos below. Manita is leading us into the submarine base which the Soviets blasted from the unyielding granite on the harbour's western side. It is early on a working day, but already there is a large crowd composed of all ages. The base is nearly a kilometre in length and could accommodate eight vessels. Such was the secrecy, the sound of the explosions used to mine through the rock was muffled with vast quantities of rubber. Manita tells us that the Americans never detected this chilly subterranean bastion. There are lots of display boards and anyone who seemed to have had a hand in this massive Cold War edifice has their photograph on the wall. The faces stare out, proud and impassive. The other visuals are accompanied by a great deal of descriptive technical information. There is none of that matey banality that is used to make our own public history "accessible". The official guide takes a lot of questions which she answers at length. There are approving nods and one or two expressions of mild surprise. Manita's face allows a tiny signal of satisfaction. Do you see now? We are not just a bunch of brain-washed yokels.

We eat a simple but delicious lunch of borscht, chicken and pickles in a yard in Kadikoi. The high ceilinged canteen is densely decorated with Soviet era memorabilia: posters, small statues in heroic poses and an ancient gramophone, accompanied in its wooden case by a massive and incongruous ship's compass. The food and rich dark beer are absurdly cheap but the ladies who run the place are as fashionably turned out as their means allow. The big eyebrow is now "in" and great care has been taken over their topiary. They look pretty stunning and attend to us with modest smiles and calm efficiency. An older woman, perhaps their mother, checks us out and later sees us off with a cordial good-bye.

The Crimea endured a futile and amateurish assault by the British and their allies in 1854 and a thorough and murderous one by the Germans and theirs in 1941. With the First World War and the Russian Civil War added to the tally, there are homes  here that have been lost four times over within three generations. Thrice in 90 years its people have been on the receiving end of someone else's aggression. Our own culture is beginning to show a creeping admiration for the martial skill of the German aggressors; there are some men who think it is just dandy to put on a Nazi uniform for those stupid and lazy re-enactments at otherwise abandoned aerodromes on summer weekends. Von Manstein, who led the attack here, is lauded by aficionados as a military genius. Was he not therefore  a "good German"? His own Jewish genes were just dilute enough for him to be on the Nazi payroll rather than in a crematorium. He celebrated his good fortune by egging on the death squads that followed his destructive troops, who were in their turn happy to help out. Russian resilience remains feared while German depravity is slowly forgotten.

In 2014 Putin annexed the Crimea. Somehow in the carve up that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union the Crimea, in which the Russians were ethnically dominant, ended up in the Ukrainian basket. All seemed poised in an atmosphere of cautious toleration until some fools on either side of the continent got the bit between their teeth. Let's get the Ukraine to join NATO and the EU said these blunderers, within whom a sense of history was entirely lacking. What a great idea - we'll take our tank exercises and subsidies right up to the line the Germans reached in 1942, at the furthest extent of their invasion. Surely the Russians will wear that? Astonishingly, they did for a while and then the Ukrainians overplayed their hand.

There is our law and "their" law, but there is just one law of the jungle. Why do we delude ourselves that our law, which we change all the time to accommodate our own moral ambiguities and ethical frailties, should be set in stone for "them"? Do we think we can shame "them" when we have so little shame ourselves? Now there are sanctions. You can't use our brand anymore said Starbucks. OK said the Russians. The next day there is an enormous picture of a green bath-time toy on the coffee shop by the quay in Sevastopol. "StarDucks" says the sign. The muffins and silly confections have gone to be replaced by delicious dumplings, strong black coffee and longer queues.

We are wandering down to the harbour at dusk. It has been another special day and we are looking forward to a beer and an evening meal. Manita has explained the subtlety of loyalties in the region. Do I sense that the Ukrainians are not exactly despised? It is generally understood that they were eager asset strippers during their brief period of stewardship in the Crimea. They took a wrong turn and blotted their copybook, big-time. Putin may be attracting protests on his birthday in Moscow, but to the Russians here he is a hero. We are discussing her insights as two small carnival floats  rapidly advance towards us. "Go early, go ugly" whispers Alastair behind us and we all laugh. The floats come to a halt and our route is blocked. Now they are in range we can see clearly that they are not just one, but two beautiful young women in their early twenties. They are "Flower Girls" and are dressed in unfeasibly wide and elaborately decorated bustle dresses. Each holds a carousel overflowing with dried posies. In perfect English, Victoria asks us if we would care to buy some. Simon, who retains the strong impulses of a charmer, counters with an offer of our company over a drink instead. The manner of his flirtation tells us he is  anticipating demurely fluttering eye-lids and a giggly refusal that will let us on our way. "Great" says bold Victoria. "Where to?" This is not the exotic Orient of the ingénue and these fine young ladies are motivated by the prospect of a transaction. They have flowers to clear by midnight. Natalya has quickly perceived that their schedule is not going to permit a lot of chit-chat with these portly looking Brits and she fires a burst in rapid Russian at her colleague. Another attempt is made to sell to us some of their stock. Simon does a little pantomime to show he is of slender means. They are not to be fooled and move off, giving pouts of disappointment. Maliciously, we egg poor Simon on. He chases them into the night and returns with two posies and 1,000 roubles lighter. Later, Manita tells us that this is a Crimean way of finding a husband.

Barkas is a western style restaurant by the water's edge. It is full of bull-necked businessmen with young families or entourages of colleagues. A lady is singing loudly but not unpleasantly and the place is  busy.  Our young waiter is called Andrei. He has heavily tattooed muscles, a scar on his upper lip and makes it pretty clear that serving at table is not his chosen vocation in life. What other languages do we speak, he demands? Alastair tries to appease him with an offer of French or Arabic. "Why don't you speak Russian?" he crossly but not unreasonably suggests. The house wine looks inviting and seems fairly priced. Perhaps Andrei could bring us a bottle? The request is waved aside. We should order this other bottle, which is 30 times more expensive. At this rate, the chance of a meal is looking remote and we are hungry. We split the difference and settle for a carafe of absurdly freezing Crimean red. Andrei brings our meal haphazardly and at a diminished level of his already vestigial charm. Our tip is nugatory. He is disdainful and we make a note to eat in local places from now on. We do not have another bad experience.

Should we be offended or even surprised by the attitudes that our waiter conveyed in his impertinence and resentment ? The Russian body and psyche have been bludgeoned and poisoned by years of military assault, economic inefficiency and cultural regression. Its soul has somehow endured but it is one conditioned by survival rather than hope. It has joined the capitalist and supposedly democratic West at the very moment when the benefit of these advantages are in decline and our public morality  is disfigured by egotism, sophistry and greed. Our conversations and newspapers are peppered with smug tales of Russian boorishness and corruption and of their rapaciousness in overheated markets. Apparently they are stealing our homes, only to leave them empty. It is a scandal. But who are we trying to kid? Are the Russians not imitating a culture that has already slipped its moorings? 

It is the last day. The lady in the breakfast room is on duty again. She is immaculately turned out. Her individual uniform and the absence of a name badge while all others have theirs indicates that she is in charge. But she toils away with the rest. She has short white blonde hair and neat features. I guess she is about 30 years of age. As each day has passed she has shed a little more of her reserve and has been cordially attentive. Now she senses we are about to go. "I hope you have liked your time" she says. "I hope you will come back". She clasps her hands in front of her and gives a shy smile. She has a mouth of tiny and perfect white teeth, with the minutest of spaces between them. Her eyes shine with sincerity. I am filled by an overpowering urge to seize her and to kiss her. Firmly. On her mouth. Thank you so much I say. I really hope I will.

I am back home. There are some teenaged girls outside the supermarket, sitting on a bench. They are clearly in need of attention. "Do you want to see my butt-hole?" they chorus. The old man continues past them without a sign. Perhaps he is deaf; or maybe he has lost all his capacity to be shocked. A weekend paper is spread before me - the Life & Arts section. The cover is dominated by an article about black protest in American sport. The author's grasp of the US Civil Rights movement seems tenuous and his piece is distorted by an implausible commercial angle. But it's clear the facts are not really as important as is his desire to show that he personally is on the side of the angels. Inside is an article below a sententious by-line. "Citizen of nowhere" it says. It is a coolly detached piece about the absolute standards of the Michelin Star system in a relative and non-judgemental world. The writer is on to something and tentatively begins to follow his logic. But at the final fence he falls; he blames the erosion of standards on populism rather than the faux excellence of elitist agendas like those of Michelin, which he applauds. Over the page,  we are invited to admire Sandra Davis as she chomps her way through a £200 lunch . She and her journalist companion enjoy "Heritage" beetroot and "Torched" mackerel.  It is a menu that even Michelin would surely approve. Davis is one of London's leading divorce lawyers and at over £6oo an hour she should be. She is mysteriously important and enjoys parading her discretion. I am left none the wiser. I would love to line up all these people in front of Manita and the lady in the breakfast room in Sevastopol. We have put our trust in fools and have become foolish in our turn.

I  sigh and rub the back of my neck. The little keepsake that Manita has given to each of us lies on the table beside me. I have been back in my country a mere 24 hours and already I can feel the corners of my soul begin to curdle. Why am I getting so worked up?  Russia has endured more than silly girls and meretricious articles. In my family lies sanity and love. It is more than enough. I want to share this and I know I will go back.
 

MOTHER RUSSIA

I am sitting in a plane at 35,000 feet heading north. Skymap minutely unfolds on the tiny screen on the headrest in front of me. Words slowly pass by the wings of the plane: Samara and Kazan to the east; Kiev (just moving to the bottom of the screen now) to the west. I chomp at a sandwich filled with processed chicken wedged between two hard but not unpleasant slices of white bread. An older lady with big glasses and exploding hair compliments the stewardess on the coffee - maybe she remembers a time when it wasn't like that. I am feeling weirdly emotional about all this but as I have turned off the music download on my I-phone, that can't  be the reason. What am I doing here? Bruce Chatwin asked the same question but that was in a different time before the Wall came down when there were places  in the West that were exotic. It's all there on Google now. But back then Chatwin still had to pad things out a bit for his publisher with reflections on the French adventurer and poseur Andre Malraux, who did not seem to fit too easily into his meditations of encounters while on the road. I can feel a very small tear beginning to form - for Christ's sake get a grip of yourself. That guy on your right is not going to sense your connectedness, but he will think you are a nutter if you make any sound that he approximates to blubbing. He may even call the steward and have the plane touch down - does being an overwrought foreigner count as a health and safety violation in Russian airspace? That's better - I am back in controlled feeling mode. I cough in a gruff manner, just in case my neighbour was beginning to wonder.

What was I looking for? Manita has seen us off from the steps of the hotel in Sevastopol. There is the last minute negotiation with Sash about the fee to the airport in Simferopol. Why is Simon fretting about Sash taking the mick from us and a cut for himself? Doesn't he understand that Waitrose matured brie has had a metaphorical slice taken out by three or four unknown distributors before it ever reaches his sophisticated taste buds in London? Manita watches this little bit of theatre impassively. OK  - are we done? Now it's warm and genuinely expressed embraces  for all. She wraps her tiny arms around Bruce's frame and then strokes his hand. She has sensed from the start that he is ailing. But Bruce has said nothing and has gamely kept up over 5 days without a single murmur of discomfort or complaint. He knows he has had some good times, unlucky loves and botched operations - his face carries the bill. Her deft and gentle movements shows she understands - he is not being stoic, for he has lost that capacity. He just "is" and that has really got to her.

We are standing in the Valley of Death. I am pretending to be an expert on Tennyson while gorging on a bunch of completely delicious Muscat grapes. The vines are guarded by some burly types in combat fatigues. After one mouthful, I understand why. But they are in a genial mood and have generously allowed us to pick some to enjoy under the autumn sun. We discuss why their Lordships Cardigan and Lucan were such chumps. There is a lot of banter and then the realisation that this emblematic episode in British military history with some 400 casualties was all over in about twenty minutes. Russian dead in the Great Patriotic War numbered nearly thirty million. Thirty million.

"Can you imagine?". Manita has asked this at various points and I am trying hard to do so. Why are these people in the Maxim Gorky military museum looking at us with faintly hostile looks? We don't seem to be obviously German and I have tried to be respectfully attentive although I have not understood a word that the lady has been saying. Manita does not want to steal the official guide's thunder and leaves her translation to the end. She has already incurred the lady's wrath by bravely pointing out that we are (or think we are) au courant with the history and so don't need the full chapter-and-verse on Soldier Voronov's heroic (and ever-so-slightly improbable) deeds against the fascists. We are here for the big picture. Pictures however, are not allowed. Unless you are a Russian, can you really, really understand the colossal impact of that unprovoked attack in 1941? This is not history just as great ritual but something that has been seared into their genes. 

There are many new churches amongst much scruffiness. Are the Russians getting religion again? Manita thinks not. God loves us all, but all must have free will - that is the deal. Yet  nearly thirty million is the heavy price of German free will and God will only regain their trust slowly: patriotism is the real faith here. We wander past a bar on the beautiful waterfront. There are young toughs milling around and naturally gorgeous young women pouting and feigning insouciance. Alastair is amusing us with a blue tale of his japes in the British Army. All-of-a-sudden, our loud laughter causes an older group to spring to their feet at a table. Uh-oh. We form a square but are assaulted with hugs and our faces are stroked. "Ya Scotlandiy" - and thus an ally against the fascists. We banter about the apparent power of our aftershave but in a few moments are quiet. It is an astonishing and rare feeling to be individually and collectively moved.

The harbour is full of ships from the Black Sea Fleet just back from the Levant. Around the floating and expensive vessels is much decay. Rusting wharves, dilapidated buildings and half-demolished boats being broken up fill the view behind the fluttering flags. But the water is clear and fish and jellyfish visible. The Russians do not discard what is obsolete, they merely re-cycle it. So many things look crummy but are in full working order. We cross the harbour from the Saint Michael Fortress on the evening commuter boat. It is 20p for 15 minutes of stunning views and peaceful reflection. It is still 18 degrees. There are some people bathing from the marble steps just below the memorial to the "Sunken Ships".  I realise that I am sitting in a vessel that carried Soviet marines under fire in the other direction in 1942. We are returning from a beautiful museum in the fortress, funded with private money, that we have had entirely to ourselves. Great reverence has been given to those exhibits showing Russia's attackers in 1854. Why? Do we commemorate our aggressors in such a respectful way? Our feet crunch back-and-forth across the wooden floors spread over 150 yards. Dad would really enjoy this. It has been a long day and I need to take a leak, badly. Amidst all this attention to detail, there genuinely appears to be no loo but I feel ashamed peeing by some ruins with the hazy city and glittering harbour spread before me.

There is a group of small children aged five or six. They are togged up in military outfits with stiff collars and shoulder boards. Yes, says Manita, military schools still exist. We are at the Malakoff redoubt, scene of some epic Russian resistance in 1855 and the teacher is trying to get the kids to focus on the plaque of Tolstoy who fought there as a young officer. They humour her and then charge off to play on the guns. One has a British inscription on it. There are a lot of squeals, giggles and yells with the little girls getting just as involved in the game as the boys. Edward and Bruce have arranged for us to see another WW2 battery, also named after Gorky. This one is still run by the Russian military and is definitely off-limits. But a ring has been kissed and Yuri, a senior naval officer, is on hand to welcome us. Briefly, we talk to the Admiral in Moscow who has laid it all on. "Have a great time", he says before hanging up.  The tour is left in the hands of a marine captain. Some younger soldiers idly stand around, their boredom palpable. Pictures of the truly massive guns are certainly allowed. Snap away, they say. But they are not going to let themselves be caught any other way again. 

We are looking out through the dusty light from the high ground above the River Alma. A brand new ticket booth has been installed  for this memorial site but it is deserted. The only sign of life is a mongrel bitch, who wants to play. She is a puppy really,with beautiful brindle markings. A tinkling bell announces the arrival of an evening herd. The cows are accompanied by a mare who bosses on her foal when it lingers to graze. The shepherd is straight out of  central casting - mop of blond hair, wide face, high cheek bones and incurious eyes. It is hard to tell from these if he could ever be crafty. He is listening to "Hotel California" on his phone, his ear pressed to the speaker. The puppy yaps at an inquisitive calf which faces her down. I tell Manita that I have read "Master & Man", Tolstoy's charming tale of the folly of human greed and the neglect of the wisdom of animals. It is also very short and I feel a bit of a fool, as in trying to show off my great erudition I am really only exposing my shallow capacity for insight. Her favourite book is Bulgakov's "The Master & Margarita". Crikey. I know this to be a proper challenge, a tale of human coping with the Soviet Satan; in 2017  it is probably now well beyond our shrinking span of care or even attention. I tell her Solzhenitsyn had as little time for the prevailing morality of the West as he did for the Communist atheism of the East. She waves a dismissive and diminutive hand. Bulgakov stayed, although surrounded by the state that he feared but perhaps did not despise. Solzhenitsyn departed. Can you imagine?

We are enjoying Harscho and Crimean green soup on some rough benches in the woods. An immaculately turned out waiter is attending to us. The food is delicious - fresh herbs cover everything. An occasional stench wafts from some space behind us but we have had a good day and are in too excellent a frame of mind to be distracted. A man whispers into the ear of a bare-footed woman in a clearing near to us. She jumps, literally jumps up into the air. What has he told her? Then she embraces him. On the way back to town we pass the vagrants. These are not the well-presented and articulate beggars outside Edinburgh Station, some of whom claim to be ex-soldiers. This is proper dereliction - the men and women are smashed, stoned, filthy and mutilated. One is wearing a sailor's hat. Sasha drives on over the bumpy road as they stumble about in the dust behind us and the mood is gone.

Manita plays the speech that Molotov broadcast the day the Nazis attacked the Soviet Union. There is sombre music that was composed in that very moment. A shocked and shaken Stalin rallied himself later to address the nation. "Brothers & Sisters", he began. Only a very tiny fraction of the millions of Russian soldiers that the Germans took as prisoners-of-war were ever to return home alive: just three in every hundred. Can you imagine? If you stand in the centre of Russia and look outwards, what do you see? You are completely surrounded. Why are we such fools?

We turn away from the beach at the mouth of the Alma. A rusting pier is very slowly being reclaimed by the sluggish waves. It is going to be a long contest, but the sea will prevail in the end. There is a stagnant pond in which a beggar fishes, but no sign that the river is actually flowing into the ocean. A bent and ancient woman dressed in motley shuffles towards us and bares her two remaining teeth. Manita says she is a Tartar, a survivor of that Turkic and Muslim tribe that Stalin so ruthlessly cleared from the Crimea lest they defected to the enemy. From within the folds of her grubby gown she produces two perfectly formed, unblemished yellow and soft- cooked cobs of corn. We politely decline with those unnecessary and extravagant gestures of regret that we like to use when foreigners bare gifts in an unfamiliar manner. Alastair tries a few words of Arabic, some of which she catches. Only Manita's stillness saves the situation from complete embarrassment. The woman cheerfully withdraws.

It is time for goodbyes. What a pity we have not met Manita's husband, a naval officer who swept her off her feet and out to the Soviet far East in Kamchatka many years ago. It was a beautiful place, really beautiful, she tells us. What would he have made of us five? Would I like him? Not for the first time, our guide covers her mouth in that charmingly beguiling way and giggles. "He is very noisy" she says. A full laugh now. "Just like you" she says.

What am I doing here? The plane barely seems to be moving and there is very little sound. The birch and pine forests around Moscow are rushing to meet us. The passengers clap as the aircraft safely touches down and roars along the runway. It is not enough to see and hear, I really have to listen. Thirty million - can you imagine? Another tear. Good grief, man. Kazan, Samara, Sevastopol, Manita. One more drop. Were the Russians never wicked ? Does my state help or hinder my understanding? How far should you go to satisfy your curiosity? I am a citizen of my own country. I am already loved. Is that not enough?