This is not a joke this is true.

In 1993 I made my first trip to Moscow. It was to attend an Oil & Gas expo. There was myself and a colleague. We were booked into a hotel near the Arbatsky area called the Belgrad I, across the road was the Belgrad II. If they sounded like names of gulags then they were run on much the same lines.

We were both in rooms on the same corridor. It was January and my room had nice curtains with a nice big warm radiator below the sill. The curtains were closed, which I did not question as it was already 7 p.m. and dark outside.

My colleague came and knocked on my door. His problem was he had no curtains at all and there were house opposite. I jokingly suggested he turned out the lights before stripping off. He was adament, he wanted his privacy.

So we went down to the reception desk, an intimidating affair which we could only just see over...

'Excuse me..'
'dah what you want'
' I'm in room..'
'We know yor number'
'And my coll...'
'We know his room number too'
'Well I have curtains.....'
'And your friend has no curtains'
'So you know the problem?'
'Dah, but is no problem, look behind curtains, you have some no glass and, so you have curtains, friend has all glass, so no curtains!'

I went back to my room tried to open the curtains but they where tucked up onto the sill, behind them lead weights held them down against the Russian winter. True, 'some no glass' as panes were missing.

Welcome to Russia.