The Wild East

"Tamilla was being forced upon us more and more, along with two other women..."

Uzhgorod, Ukraine.
We emerged from the Hotel Svitanok and met our friends, Ukrainian Chris (due to a slightly similar appearance to Chris Wood, no offence meant), Fish, Marrianne and the unnamed Ukrainian girl who was Fish’s wife. We took some photos, partly because we wanted to remember them, but also we had ulterior motives: photographic evidence if things turned nasty. Shortly after we arrived, however, the girls disappeared to ‘get something warmer’. I was deeply suspicious of this working on the assumption that the girls had lured us into this and were not required to hang around if things got ugly.

We were taken down an alleyway past a prison. UC and to a lesser extent Fish began yelling at one of the guards walking along the walls. They asked him to show us his gun, which he did only too happily. I didn’t know whether we were being given ‘the alternative tour of Uzhgorod’ or whether they wanted to communicate with a friend inside.
Me and Taylor had our own form of communication; speaking with a strong scally Mancunian accent ensured that no foreigner, however good his English was, would be able to understand us! Using this, Mark communicated to me that he was carrying a knife (without a sheath!!) tooked into his trousers

We wandered over towards the river and the girls reappeared with tops. I felt much happier. Neither of the men spoke English (or even Ukrainian, only Russian) but my basic level of Russian allowed me to understand most of what they were saying.
Ukrainian Chris, definitely the more outgoing of the pair would spontaneously burst into song and dance routines. He was a big fan of ‘Kylee Min-ooog’ and thought she was ‘Super Dancer’. His feet lifted up off the ground nearly kicking me in the face as he showed us how he would be dancing tonight “Sue-pear dan-sing”. Marriane looked a bit embarrassed.
We wandered over to the nightclub, along the way UC kept trying to ask me something, eventually I understood: How many condoms did I have? I noticed his expression looked concerned. 'Oh-oh' he said, looking very worried 'Beeeeeg problem'

The nightclub turned out to be the Zarplatayya hotel. The ‘nightclub’ was actually a metal cage that was underground. It wasn’t advertised or even named. I wondered what the hell this place was.
A man in a black shirt extracted some money from UC and Fish. I tried to contribute for me and Taylor, but Marrianne prevented me saying that the guys would pay for us all. I felt a bit uncomfortable, especially when I didn’t know how much they had paid.

Downstairs it was smart and fairly empty. We sat round a large booth in a darkened corner. Our hosts all produced cigarettes and began smoking. A huge bottle of vodka was ordered the moment we stepped inside. Again, we weren’t allowed to pay. Shots were poured for everyone and downed.
We toasted to Ukraine, then to England, then to friendship. The girls matched us shot for shot. I could see Marriane puzzled at our strange Mancunian jargon.
The night was still young. I remember looking at my watch, it was still only 9.15 yet we’d already had 4 shots and a beer. I also remember feeling stone sober and knew it wouldn’t last long...

The place got busier, although just about all the guests were single women mostly over 30 and not particularly attractive.
I presumed the men that were present were pimps – just laike in Oradea (Romania) we were again inadvertantly drinking in a brothel.
Maybe there were no other places for the young of Uzhgorod to go. Brothels and Night-clubs seem to be the same thing! Maybe this was where everyone had been last night.
The girls stopped drinking toasts. A securtiy guard wandered over and began chatting. I made a half-hearted attempt to refuse another shot, but was immediately poured an extra generous one, this time to 'Ukrainian security'.

Around 10pm, when I could start to feel the vodka kicking into my system, we moved onto the dance-floor. Marrianne didn’t think we’d had enough to drink since we were not being extrovert enough on the dancefloor.
There were lots of women on the dancefloor. I didn’t want to look at them in case I got their unwavering attention for the whole night – the former USSR has the fastest spreading rate of STD transmission in the world, even if Africa has more cases per head.

We returned to the table. Sometime around this time ‘Tamilla’ was presented to us by one of the security guards. Tamilla was a large brown-haired Ukrainian women, late 30s and very ugly. Shot number 7 or 8 was consumed.
Taylor stayed at the table to ‘talk’ with Fish and to drink a little more Vodka.
Never, ever try and out-drink a Russian or Ukrainian, especially when they’re on vodka!!
I returned to the dancefloor to try and pull Marrianne, who was extremely good looking.

I returned to the table to a very drunk Mark and an empty bottle of Vodka. Good God. Fish looked like he’d been drinking water the whole night.

Tamilla started talking at us in Russian. We were told that Tamilla would be going home with us.
Trying to explain that we weren’t even remotely interested didn’t seem to be getting us anywhere.
We bought everyone a beer and got another bottle of vodka. The price was 33HY around 4 quid, which seemed a bit on the expensive side, but we were getting 8 beers and a bottle of vodka. I felt much happier that we were even with the costs.

I suppose if I had been sober, I’d have been chronically paranoid at this stage, but I was just going to let whatever happen happen (except I drew the line at Tamilla coming home with us).

By around 11.30 I noted that we were half-way through the next bottle of vodka and I was starting to feel like I was on another planet. I vaguely remember falling over on the dance-floor at this stage. Me and Taylor were becoming more animated with our Manchester accents, it started to become a challenge to understand each other!
Taylor seemed more wary than me, he had been in a similar situation a couple of years earlier and had managed to evade the $300 bill. I did try and question the motives of Fish and UC...but after about 12/13 vodkas and 3 beers it was a struggle to remember which country I was in!

...More vodka, I don’t know why I didn’t switch to beer...I was noticing that Fish would accompany me to the toilet, even when he didn’t need to go. He would just stand at the opposite urinal not even preteanding to urinate!
Was it a coincidence that the toilets were also in the direction of the exit?! Sometime later the girls left, and Fish and UC could do some serious drinking!

Tamilla was being forced upon us more and more, along with two other women...sometime later I was coming out of the toilet and MT appeared. The Mancunian accent replaced by a calm comment: “Time to go”.
Without question I followed up the stairs. We attempted to walk soberly across the hotel foyer but had broken into a run before we had left the front door.
I can remember running across a yard following Taylor. There was really no need to do all this running, UC and Fish would never catch us, but still MT ran.

After about 5 mins of sprinting I was on the verge of collapse and had an almighty pain in my ribs. I had to sit down in the road...we started walking back to the hotel. I have no idea how we knew where we were going, I veered down a grass embankment at the side of the road into a bush to relieve myself.

I returned up the embankment and the next thing I knew was that a torch was being shone in my eyes and I had 3 moustached police officers around me...I looked round to see that MT was facing the other way, also with officers around him.
(I presume the police saw 2 very drunk foreign-looking men staggering along the road and thought, we can make some money/have a bit of fun here!!)

I think one of them spoke some English and asked us the name of our hotel. I was having difficulties trying to recall my own name and asked Taylor. He couldn't remember either. I randomly slurred “Hotel Yugoslavia” hoping that would be good enough...some laughing...where was this hotel? I selected a direction at random and pointed vaguely ahead of us.
Taylor, standing behind me, pointed in the exact opposite direction...just then a jeep with flashing blue lights pulled up, more police got out.

This was all getting rather silly, 10 Kalashnikov-wielding police and an armoured jeep just to arrest 2 drunk westerners (who hadn’t even done anything!!).
Next, Taylor’s voice squeaked out “not the handcuffs! They’re getting the handcuffs, Anton!”.
I remember seeing them fastened to Mark's wrists glinting in the torchlight.

I, expecting to be arrested, amble towards the jeep...Mark later tells me that they didn’t want us anywhere near their shiny jeep – we might be sick in it.
Apparently I lean towards Mark and say they want $100 from us (I have no recollection of this)...I try and act stupid (as if I’ve been doing anything else!!)...
I probably said loudly to Mark “I’ve got some money in my pocket, but they don’t know that!”.
Mark replies “Don’t tell them it’s in your pocket!” (almost like a scene from Dad’s Army – Don’t him your name, Pike)...the next thing I know I’m being searched.

They must have found our remaining money, 17HR a little over 2 quid, because it wasn’t there the next morning...we stagger home, each trying to steady the other...I think I fell into about 3 ditches...but somehow we get back...I can remember Mark opening the window and then it’s a blank...

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