Moscow Archives | James Alexander-Sinclair

I am going to Moscow and, as always, my journey starts with an “aromatic roll”. Alas this is not nearly as saucy as it sounds but an offering from the Aeroflot bread basket. The menu also offers us millet porridge with pumpkin- on this occasion I respectfully decline in favour of a pickled artichoke.

When I first started gardening many years ago I rather assumed that I would spend my time pootling around South London planting things, paving other things and putting up fences to separate yet more things from each other. International travel was not really on the cards but, through the vagaries of fortune I find myself on an aeroplane heading to Moscow again being served a small dish of warmed almonds. In a couple of weeks I go to China and the week after that Luxembourg- this last may not conjure up images of unconquered wild landscapes but it is overseas – then in early autumn I go to America. Not quite sure how that happened but I am very grateful for the chances given even though I am not a very adventurous traveller (I get very self conscious about not being able to make myself understood) and always think that the best thing about going anywhere is coming home again.

I arrive at the enormous President Hotel. This was built during the Soviet era in order to entertain visiting dignitaries and consists of generally unatmospheric vast halls, marble staircases, huge sofas, marquetry floors, capacious conference rooms and magnificent views along the Moscow river to Gorky Psrk and the university one way and towards the Kremlin and the Church of Christ the Saviour the other way. This last has an interesting history in that it was blown up in the 1930s to discourage religion amongst the workers. If then served s term as a public swimming pool before being built again post- glasnost. It’s domes gleam with gold leaf like shiny Ferrrro Rocher.

The evening is perfect and the sun streams into my room so I wander off for a walk by the river. It is busy with Moscow youth sitting, strolling, snogging, sambaing, doing yoga and beetling around at high speed on electric scooters. At one point I narrowly avoid being flattened by a flotilla of about fifty rollerbladers – there is a track along the embankment that is made of extra smooth tarmac that makes it perfect.

I am almost tempted but then realise that I am quite old and lack both the energy and pliability. instead I return to the hotel for takeaway dumplings that are delivered through a very complicated network of communication. I text Nina in Malvern, she WhatsApps her neice Anna in Moscow who contacts the restaurant and then tells Nina who then tells me when to go and collect it from the gate. Complicated but delicious.

The hotel is bristling with Chechens. They are all muscly and have identical beards. They hang around in huddles smoking and listening to concealed earpieces. This is because the President of Chechnya is in residence. He is a most unpleasant fellow called Ramzan Kadyrov. I try and steer clear of all of them.

I am here, as always at this time of the year, to judge at the Moscow Flower Show. It is my eighth year and spend the first day trying very hard to stay in control of the International Jury. This consists of seven formidable Russian women, one distinguished Russian professor and an Italian architect who teaches at the University of Kazan (a hugely oil rich college with 240,000 students). Franco spends most of the time conforming to national stereotype by wandering off during deliberations to give his card to any and every woman he sees. He is entirely shameless about this proclaiming it his duty as an Italian. The Russians argue animatedly about everything and I have to shout a lot to try and keep things on track. There are thirty five exhibits to judge by 9:00 on day one we have managed 25 and I am quite exhausted.

We then have a massive fashion show from a very famous Russian designer called Yudashkin after which I dance to a very spirited performance from Baccara. For those who do not remember these are the Spanish duo responsible for “Yessir, I can boogie”. They do their thing in front of a modest audience of which I am the only man dancing. There are others watching but their sense of dignity is obviously finer tuned than mine.

Day two involves more judging followed by the Ceremony of Solemn Awarding where I stand up on stage and dish out medals to all. Lots of loud music, whooping and warm embraces (Franco makes sure he is in the right place for this part of the ceremony). I then give feedback, eat cherries and cabbage pies before sloping off to bed.

Day three is different in that Celestria has come over for her first visit to Russia and we are going to be tourists. We try to do Red Square but it is chock full of soldiers – there are bands and the Red Army choir but the public are kept quite a long way away and we must squint to see the magnificent hats and perfect goose step marching. Instead we got to a very groovy art warehouse set up for an immersive experience There are bean bags and headphones and it is so immersive that I fall asleep.

Later we go to the opera – The Magic Flute at a place called the Helikon. The story is, and always has been, complete nonsense with a load of bollocks about trials and sun gods and suchlike. Franco insisted on telling me that it was all about freemasonry – in a very loud voice. The production is quite a weird one with lots of people dressed as transformers, others dressed as those stormtroopers from Star Wars and the rest of the cast wearing quite a lot of latex. Papageno has inflatable bird wings velcroed to his limbs, there are three dominatrices in latex headdresses and the heroine, Pamina, appears with bulging pink balloons covering her torso. It is all a strange cross between child friendly and quite pervy.
Music is good though.

Final day it rains so we scoot around amidst the showers looking at the whole gamut of Russian art from icons to post perestroika. Fabulous stuff, all of it. Russian noblemen, country dachas and birch forests moving on to loads of muscular industrial types proclaiming the glory of the worker, then massive portraits of Stalin, suprematism, abstracts and lots of glimpses into people’s lives. We then go on a boat trip up the river – the greyness of the weather tends to take the glamour from the city and this in a city that, in many parts, did not have much to begin with.

I love Moscow, I love its general craziness and brashness, I love my occasional visits winter and summer but I am too much of a lightweight to live here.

I am listening to I need a Man by the Eurythmics. The headline picture is of Space Power Construction by Lyubov Popova

The Kremlin from Zaradye Park. Also the Cranelin…

“Hullo my name is Olga and I would very much like to know what you would like to eat” so says the very attractive air hostess who is currently kneeling at my side. I am having a feesh starter and a feeesh main course. She is slightly disappointed by this choice and allows a flicker of sadness to dart across her large brown eyes. I think she thought better of me and wanted me to go for the Pastrami beef and cabbage stew or perhaps the celery served with mole sauce (don’t ask me, I don’t know either). Olga leaves me to go and kneel by a large Russian who will probably order raw bear before returning to ask if I would like “kek”. Of course I want “kek”: I am a man who has never ever knowingly refused “kek”. Especially when the” kek in question is actually a pudding. If you are really interested it is a sort of Tiramisu but more slavic.

All this means, of course, that I am subjecting you to yet another blog about Russia as I am swanning off to Moscow. There have been rather a lot over the past few years – more rambling travelogues than proper sound blogs about horticulture.

I am flying with Aeroflot which is much better than its reputation. I like the idea of flying much more than I like the reality- especially on the few occasions when I am allowed to travel Business class ( or Biznis Glarrs as Olga puts it). The promise of an an executive lounge with its comfy armchairs and free food is quite alluring but the reality is all a bit squalid. The food may be free but is not terribly appetising. The Moscow airport biznis lounge really is pretty rough – and very crowded although not ass bad as Riop de Janeiro which is a corridor – or was when I was there.

We arrive to -7 temperatures and falling snow,in contrast it is very warm in the immigration hall where I stand for over an hour waiting to have my passport stamped by a grumpy teenager. On the couple of occasions when I have visited Russia in winter I get excited by the idea of large snowdrifts but the reality is that they are so efficient at dealing with snowfall that it is all tidied away very quickly by troops of sturdy workers shipped in from various parts of the former USSR. The other problem is that the sky is almost always a dingy grey – in New York it can be cold but the sky is usually an amazing blue once the snowfall has passed.

I leave the airport eventually and then it is high speed though the snow towards the city. I feel like a modern version of Helene Kuragina from War and Peace except that instead of a troika I have a minivan and I am neither young, nubile nor rumoured to be sleeping with my brother.

View towards the Moscow River and what may be a power station (but may easily be something else completely) from Zaradye Park.

It is a very brief visit – basically only one day – in order to speak at a seminar in the Zaryadye Park. This is Moscow’s newest park which was opened in September after a build that only lasted two years. It is undoubtedly, a very exciting place with rolling buildings, nicely done steps and hills and great views of both the Kremlin and the river. The fact that it is covered in snow makes it difficult to fully appreciate the finer points of horticulture but I look forward to seeing it in the summer. There is also a very James Bondian underground car park.

The underground car park beneath the park.

The agenda for the seminar was forwarded to me last night – I was supposed to be speaking once then is was changed to four times back to two, then three. The final agenda was given to me at 10:30 with me speaking twice the first time at 11:00. I think it is what we call taking it to the wire. Russians may be frustratingly inefficient at times but they do it very charmingly which goes a long way. It was fine, audience appreciative – in spite of the travails and challenges of simultaneous translation: jokes tend to get lost when passed through an interpreter so I try to go for an emotional response instead – Russians are a soft and sentimental lot and respond well to gardening as a power for good.

A red church – because I was desperate to find something that was not grey.

Once done we are whisked* off for a very special treat – to a preview at the Bolshoi of a new ballet about the life of Rudolph Nureyev. This was supposed to be premiered in July but was postponed because the material was considered too homoerotic for Russian law and sensibility. Also the director was chucked in chokey for alleged financial irregularities. So this was the first chance anybody had had to see it and it was truly amazing. A mixture of classical and modern- transvestites doing arabesques, choirs, some very elderly dancers executing elegant plies at a recreation of the auction of Nureyev’s belongings and the dancer playing Rudi himself cavorting around in a fur coat and small pink posing pouch.

The President of the Moscow Flower Show (Karina Lazareva), the wife of the Deputy Mayor of Moscow (who has unbelievably soft hands), an old bloke in a striped tie, Ruzanna Manasyan (Organiser of the MFS) and Princess Marie Sol de la Tour d’Auvergne posing in the foyer of the Bolshoi theatre

For the curtain call there must have been at least 300 people on the Bolshoi’s vast stage. Every so often in life one experiences something unique, moving and extraordinary- this was one of those moments.

That was a very short trip, am back home in plenty of time for the Strictly semi final.

I am listening to Lee Hazelwood and Nancy Sinatra singing Paris Summer. The picture is of the Bolshoi.

*By saying ‘whisked’ I do not exaggerate- the traffic was choc a bloc at one point so our driver drove at high speed on the wrong side of the road. It was quite alarming. He was then flagged down by a policeman, got out of the car, got into the police car, notes were handed over and we carried on our merry way.

Below me are the lights of Moscow. I know this is a totally rubbishy photograph but it has a sort of surreal charm and is the best I could do – actually it is an example of our age when we take far too many photographs of things that really do not deserve to be photographed. There is the amazing statistic that we take more photographs every day (or is it every hour?) than were ever taken in the whole history of photography before the digital age. Every so often I sit down and spend an hour or so deleting photographs but still have 32,000 on my telephone. I reckon about 1,000 are precious or interesting, the others are just resting.

I digress, we were in (or rather above) Moscow as the sun sets into the flaming west. Why? well those of you who read this blog relatively regularly will know that for the past six years I have been involved with the Moscow Flower Show (there are Russia based blog posts here, here, here and, if you still have the stamina, here and here) and that time has come around once more so this is what happened….

Wednesday- I got back from Canada (see previous post) yesterday and less than twenty four hours later I am back in a taxi heading to Gatwick, this time in the company of the divine Nina Acton. I am not good company as my brain is a little coddled and slow acting. We eat hummus and get on a plane where I eat dubious chicken and watch Hell or High Water which stars Jeff Bridges and is remarkably good. Films for planes are sometimes difficult to choose as you want something that will divert but will not suffer from being watched on a small screen. Usually I go for light froth – I watched Bridget Jones’ Baby on the way to Canada. It was far too long:when I am elected to be ruler of the universe* my first act will be to pass a law insisting that no film should be longer than ninety minutes. If you can’t say what you need to in that time then you deserve to seven years penal servitude. The same may go for bloggers who do not stick to the point and ramble off about irrelevancies.

We land and get a taxi – eventually after a bit of a wait which allowed us the opportunity to enjoy some enthusiastic horn tooting ** – to a very large Soviet era hotel whose lobby is the size of a domestic aircraft hanger but with extra chandeliers. Bed is welcome.

Thursday – Judging Day. It appears that Nina has taken pity on me as the original plan was for me (and my International Jury) to judge seventy exhibits: gardens large and small, childrens’ gardens, art exhibits and trade stands. Nina will judge the latter and I will stick to gardens.

Judging gardens in Russia is a little different to judging at Chelsea. The criteria are a simplified version of the RHS criteria but the judges tend to wander off mid judging to make telephone calls, greet chums or take photographs of other gardens. I have to be quite fierce and bark at them occasionally but, being Russians, they are quite used to that and respond better to that than any English ‘Excuse me, sorry to bother you but would you mind? So kind, thank you so so much” sort of thing.
It is quite hot and we are interrupted by my having to go and make a speech about the year of ecology at the opening ceremony and then being whisked off to do an interview with Russian television – during my absence my panel wander off and give full marks to a garden that is far from perfect and a silver to one that is really very good. Cue more barking from me – and posing (this photograph is by Andrey Lysikov

Finally we finish at about 9.00 and mooch off and eat things in a largely empty but very beautiful restaurant. Russian restaurants have very comfortable seating – not for them small tables and upright chairs but squishy sofas and deep armchairs. Comfy but sometimes it makes access to the actual food a bit tricky.

Friday: I give a seminar on the trends at RHS shows which is always a bit difficult as they are looking for particular fashions and there aren’t any really so I talk about gardens generally in that strange staccato fashion that is necessary when being interpreted. When we come out the sky is an ominously brooding black which does not look good – a hurricane is forecast so the prize giving (or Solemn Rewarding as it is translated to me) is brought forward a few hours to avoid universal drenching. The problem with this is the medal cards are still being processed so there are gaps between categories. To fill the time we do communal dancing to a slightly dubious version of Super Trooper by ABBA – I dance on stage, they dance in the aisles.

Then the rain comes – it is quite spectacular and is accompanied by gales that whisk the puddles along the ground and rattle the trees. We remove ourselves from a tent and decamp to the rather more solid surrounding of the Museon where there are decent loos and proper coffee. Eventually it clears and I wander back to give feedback to as many gardens as possible – Russian designers love feedback. Almost without exception they take it well and enjoy the critique as they are eager to improve. When I first came here they were all badly planted with lots of gaps and plastic: the gardens are so much better now, although they still build them at the last moment.

We finish just after six and we are off for a treat – we have been given tickets to Il Trovatore at the Helikon Theatre. It has only been open for a couple of years and is in the old coach house of a large mansion once owned by the gloriously named E. Shakhovskaya-Glebova-Streshneva who put on all sorts of musical events in her home up until 1918. It was fabulous – although, like many operas, the story is a bit ridiculous and far fetched. A meeting with the organisers at about 11:30 finishes the day. They have stamina these Russians much more than us soft Brits who are used to being in bed by 10:15.

I fall into bed at about 1:00 with the pleasurable prospect of four hours sleep before the taxi arrives to take me to the airport. Except that this is Moscow and there is an all night rave going on just under my window which is joined in at 4:00 by what sounds like people dropping lengths of scaffolding onto a hard surface and then hitting them with hammers – listen carefully to the video below and you will understand.. Enthusiastically. Incidentally there is also an enormously long queue across the river of people waiting to see a particularly rare relic that is visiting from Italy. Russians are very pious.

Saturday:Airport is Saturday morning chaotic – imagine Luton in holiday season. We muddle through and I go to the executive lounge (which is very crowded) to eat free food of dubious quality and try not to sleep through the departure of my flight.

A short but, as always, eventful and entertaining trip. Next stop Hampton Court, Tatton Park and then no more travels for a while.

I am listening to Time of my Life by the Watson Twins. The main picture is of a baby rabbit in a show garden – eat your heart out Chelsea Flower Show.

*If Donald Trump can do it then I reckon that we all should get a go.

** Horn tooting is something that we British only do in extremis while other nations seem to rejoice in the practice. It seems to me to be remarkably pointless especially in a traffic jam as one has to assume that the people at the front are also trying to leave as soon as possible so horn tooting does not help. It is a futile gesture like appealing to the referee in football matches – he/she is never going to change their mind. Or indeed getting stroppy while receiving feedback at RHS Shows.

Sunday:
I am off on a trip…
Firstly, it involves a train from Banbury to Heathrow via Hayes and Harlington. Very simple in theory but, as is the way sometimes with the oft laid plans of mice and men, likely to gang aft agley. It is like dominos- one train is ten minutes late so you miss the next train by nine seconds (after a frantic rush across a bridge and a shove through an oncoming crowd ). This means being stranded on an empty platform at Hayes and Harlington for an hour before finally arriving at the airport.

I am going to Moscow to give a seminar nominally entitled Gardening across Continents with the aim to jazz up the world of Russian horticulture. More specifically to talk to them about show gardens, design and planting and also to talk about an exchange we have instigated at Malvern and about which I wrote in my last blog.

Monday:
It is an overnight flight- not long, only about 3.5 hours – in that it leaves at 10:30 (london time) and lands at 5.00 in the morning (Moscow time). I, however, am far to old and set in my ways for this sort of interruption to my routine. I go to the hotel and go straight to bed.

It is cold out there: about minus 10. This raises a few sartorial dilemmas: I emerged into the street all wrapped up like a bear in a duvet. Coats, hats, Horatio’s Garden Alpaca Socks (available here and a perfect Christmas Gift), gloves etc. I walk five steps and get into a car so hot that you could probably roast a duck in the glovebox. I then go to an equally hot office followed by a sweltering restaurant, another car and back to a hotel room where, in my absence, a diligent cleaner had cranked up the radiator. I flung open the window and welcomed as much icy air as possible. Tomorrow I will not be so thermally aware. The restaurant, by the way, was next to the Bolshoi Theatre and involved crab from Kamchatka (a species of red king crab that has a leg span of nearly six feet) and six different sorts of caviar.

Tuesday:

The reason why I am here: I tootle along to the auditorium of the Moscow Museum where there is a milling multitude of assorted interested parties. I am quite happy giving talks of an hour or so but today I am doing four talks of about one and a half hours each plus a two hour Q&A. It is quite tiring – there is a relay of simultaneous interpreters who do a sterling job trying to keep up with me: they change over every twenty minutes to prevent exhaustion. It is interesting as the audience each have a headset into which the interpreter drips a translation of what I am saying but, like an old fashioned transatlantic telephone call, five seconds after I have spoken which means that timing of jokes and frivolities can be a little tricky. You deliver a punchline, pause for reaction and then, just as you are about to give up, a small section of the audience – those who get the joke – laugh politely.

The main purpose of the day was to drum up some entries for the Malvern/Moscow exchange so many participants brought sketches and ideas which continue to flood in – it will be a good thing and you should all come to the RHS Malvern Spring Festival to see what happens.

I have no idea why there is a chicken on the lollipop stall

We retire to a Chinese restaurant where all the waitresses are dressed up as members of the Red Guard which seems like an odd thing to celebrate. They jazz up their khaki uniforms with very red lipstick. The food is delicious and we then troop off to Red Square where there is a bustling Christmas Market and a skating rink – which was sadly barred to us as it had been booked for some spiffy private party for Prada (I think). We posed for many photographs – for that is one of Russia’s favourite national activities and Valenkis (felt snow boots as worn, if I remember rightly, by Solzhenitsyn in “A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch”) were bought for me. The snow is light but the air is a strange dry cold which seems innocuous at first but then gives you a headache and seeps into the bones.
It is fun and I dance with a group of people dressed as Christmassy Cossacks.

Wednesday
And home again – first breakfast in the hotel, an early cab through the appalling Moscow traffic, second breakfast in the Aeroflot Executuve lounge (hmmm.) Third breakfast (strictly speaking an early lunch*) on the aeroplane as we fly through clear skies over miles and miles of snow dusted birch forest. Then an equally fabulous approach to Heathrow all along the river from the Thames barrier. Every landmark is clear and glinting in the sunshine – I can even pick out my mother’s flat.
Then four trains and home again.
The time difference may only be three hours but I feel as if I have been pushed slowly but steadily through a mangle .

I am listening to Slow Movin’ Outlaw by Waylon Jennings.

The picture is of the Bolshoi theatre.

*Russians have a very charming way of saying lunch. ‘Then we will have a lunch…” pronounced larrrnch. Sometimes it is a “friendly larrrnch”.

This may well be the shortest blog I have ever written.

It is not about President Trump. Nor is about the John Lewis advertisement, Christmas, Autumn leaves or kittens. I have not spared a thought for stewed fruit, the drawbacks of triple cooked chips or small kittens let loose in a wool shop.

Instead it is to draw your attention to the fact that I am giving a seminar in Moscow on 29th November. It will, I presume, be a bit chilly but with luck it will also be stuffed with happy Russian designers, nurseries, horticulturists and students. I also hope for a smattering of potential sponsors because it is all about preparing for next year’s Moscow Flower Show.

The show, which I have judged since its inauguration five years ago, is generally marvellous but needs a bit of a shove to get it to the next level. So two things will happen – I will do quite a lot of talking and looking at show gardens old and new to give inspiration and encouragement to the assembled masses.

Secondly we will talk about a very interesting new exchange programme where one design from a Russian designer will be chosen to be built at the RHS Malvern Spring Festival. The delightful folk in Malvern will give the lucky person a grant and will help in every way they can. The finished garden will take its place centre stage amongst the other gardens in early May.

As a reciprocal arrangement one of the gardens from Malvern will be chosen to be built at the Moscow Flower Show (29th June – 9th July 2017). The equally delightful people in Moscow will also give a grant and turn somersaults to help a British designer exhibit at their show.

It will be an adventure for both parties.

So that is my intention. Why am I telling you this? because I want the word spread near and far so that we can have a seminar buzzing with ideas and excitement and you might just know a Russian designer who might like to attend.

The details are here – in Russian.

Likewise, one of you out there might fancy a bit of a jaunt to Moscow – a city which is indefatigably energetic. So if you fancy taking a garden there then the first thing you should do is apply for space at the RHS Malvern Spring Festival (11th-14th May 2017).

I am listening to Temenuschka Vesselinova playing a Mozart sonata.

The picture is of some cedar cones.

My goodness, two blogposts in under a month: it is quite like the good old days when people used to read blogs and the world was not completely swamped with words.

Anyway it is that time of year again when I skip off to Moscow to judge the Moscow Flower Show. This will be the fifth year and it is always interesting – the gardens are usually a bit of a mixed bag but never dull. This is my week

Sunday:
Hampton Court for a recce, watch Iceland lose to France then return to the Teddington Travelodge. This is worth a brief mention as it is basically a multi storey car park with rooms and if possible should be avoided. There was a postcard on the bed which said (and I précis this rather than quote verbatim) ‘Welcome to the British summertime. For your convenience we have drawn your curtains to keep out the heat of the day, we have also removed your duvet and left you with a single sheet. We suggest that you open your window at night when the temperatures cool”. This is, we assume, in lieu of air conditioning

Monday is judging which was all very jolly. Then lunch, then feedback then drive home and try not to sleep on the M40.

Tuesday :
Fly to Moscow. Aeroflot this time which has it air crew in very jaunty orange uniform: like a group of Slavic satsumas. I am eating mushroom risotto and fried almonds followed by a perfectly passable tiramisu
Clouds are funny things’ all soft and fluffy to look at but as soon as you go into one in an aeroplane they get all uppity and shake you about in a most alarming way. I had my knee firmly grasped by the very large man next to whom I was sitting on a flight from Glasgow the other day as we lurched through a crowd. I think he was very embarrassed.

Wednesday :
Began with Russian pancakes, boiled sausages and Brussels sprouts but, more importantly, it was judgment day.

Eccentrically the rest of the panel had already judged in my absence so I was mostly on my own and then added my marks to theirs. This resulted in some slightly odd decisions which I had to moderate. There are some okay gardens and a couple of shockers but this is a very young show which needs time to find its place. It would be even better if everybody thought about things a little earlier – some garden applications did not arrive until June – which is not something that we would tolerate at the RHS!

Obviously, as this is Russia, we have to have dignitaries and speeches and a full blown awards ceremony with fanfares and clapping. I signed all the medal certificates and then, after a moment for a swift change of suiting, I showed the deputy British ambassador round the show. He was rather captivated by the idea of gardens uniting countries etc etc and it gave him a rest from talking about the Chilcott report to inquisitive Russian journalists.
We also had the minister of culture who made a longish speech* about something. Then various other people popped onto the stage and talked about how amazing everything was and how grateful we all are etc etc. Russians love a speech even more so if it is made by a government apparatchik. Then I made a speech and dished out medals: this involved two girls – one dressed in a Russian flag and one in a Union Jack – who darted forward and gave each winner a bunch of roses, a bag contains a book and some tea, another bag containing more tea and an MFS pen tidy. My job was to give out a certificate and kiss people when appropriate ** then there were more speeches and more certificates to everybody involved. This included the show’s pet Orthodox priest who has an amazing beard and comes every year to bless us all. He made a speech and was rewarded not only with the tea and roses but a Bosch cordless screwdriver.
Dinner followed in a former chocolate factory with a great view of the river.

Thursday:
I woke up this morning to a bit of a bit of a judging rumpus which always adds a bit of a frisson to proceedings. Facebook was jumping with a certain amount of disgruntlement so I had to pour a lot of oil on a lot of waters – if there had been a cormorant in the vicinity it would have been in trouble. I think all was fine in the end – the problem was that we gave one Best in Show rather than rewarding a best in each category of which there are many – Show, Russian, Balcony, Urban, Art, Chic,Trade etc etc. For some a Gold Medal is not enough…

Having done this I tootled off to give a seminar to the assembled designers and interested parties about judging and show gardens and garden design in general. It was a long seminar with many questions.
I am now also the (apparently) only foreign member of Russia’s largest ecological society. Founded 90 odd years ago by Lenin’s wife they are responsible for planting about 5 billion trees and do work to improve the street planting in towns and cities all over Russia. I have a very smart badge.

Lunch was bortsch and dumplings followed by more feedback. Then a couple of interviews and time for a very swift change and off to a Ukrainian restaurant for dinner. This involved a particular national speciality called, I think, sala. Paper thin slices of pig fat wrapped around a sliver of raw garlic – it melts in the mouth but I am not sure that I am in a hurry to eat it again. This was not all there were, I hasten to add, many delicious things that were less piggy in particular little savoury pastries called Pirojock which I could eat all day if called upon so to do.

More interestingly the restaurant was on the second floor and, on the other side of a glass partition was a large cow – chewing the cud and regarding the assembled diners with a look of abject scorn – a goat, a vast rabbit, some peacocks, a couple of golden pheasants and a very sturdy woman in national costume. It was very weird.

Friday
Home again, home again jiggetty jig via a certain amount of turbulence near Visby.

I am listening to Louise sin the Blue Moon by Alison Moorer.

*I have a very patient and diligent interpreter called Evgeny. He is a great pleasure to be with and is very good at his job. He also has an interesting mixture of pastimes. He looks very bland – which is his job as he is there to blend into the background – with a suit and tie but in his time off he has three cats, he reads an enormous amount, he goes to the gym and is a devotee of House dancing. He is a diamond.

** Russian social kissing involves three points of contact (right cheek, left cheek, right cheek again) so when you have thirty odd medals to give out and most of the awardees are women this takes quite a while and involves a lot of friction.

“In one minute I bring you cake.”

This is a phrase to lighten the heart of a chap. In this case it is uttered by a very slinky blonde air stewardess 30,000 feet above Poland en route to Moscow. It says a lot about my stage of life that the idea of cake is marginally more alluring than the stewardess.

I am travelling once again to the Moscow Flower Show this time with Transaero Airlines. This is not a company of which I had previously heard but they boast on their website of winning an award for Most Improved Airline so I must be grateful that I did not fly with them the first time I came to Russia. That was three years ago when I flew BA and had a full length bed in which to cavort. The next time was Aeroflot and not quite so luxurious. This time it is Transaero. My stock is obviously diminishing. However, as the flight is only 3.5 hours I reckon I can cope.

The in flight entertainment system is interesting. A screen flips down from the ceiling but it only has one channel showing a cartoon in Russian. The cartoon seems to involve handsome princes with improbably barrel chests; the ending will, not doubt, be happy but I am not sure that I have the patience to stick with it to the end. Instead I am going to read Raymond Chandler and watch Cat Ballou.

I have had lunch. Duck confit with something which is described on the menu as “coffee mustard jam” and a strange chicken thing with red potatoes which were very difficult to spear with the fork provided – I suppose that there must be a rule about blunt tines to avoid stabbings. Oddly the coffee-mustard jam was quite good – perhaps the fact that there appeared to be not a trace of coffee helped matters.

Arriving in Moscow is much the same as arriving in any airport anywhere except that the passport control people seem to look much harder at you than in other airports.

Day Two: Judging day at the Moscow Flower Show.
At Chelsea the judges usually assemble at about 6:30 to look over the notes and eat bacon sandwiches, we then sally forth and judge 17 gardens in time for lunch. In Russia things are a little different.
My schedule for today reads:
10:00 Judging commences
12:30 Official opening and press briefing.
13:30 Interviews
15:15 Break. return to hotel.
18:30 Gala evening (Cocktail dresses)
Which sounds perfectly manageable.
The reality is much more interesting.

10:00 A wander around getting my bearings and finding out a bit about the gardens. There are 31 of them so if we were to judge them all by 12:30 then we would get 4minutes on each garden which seems quite tight!
11:00 We are still waiting for one of the judges to turn up.
11:30 We start judging. There are lively discussions and lots of sparkiness. All good.
12:30 Official opening to the press. Judging is halted: we have managed five gardens, it is very hot. There are a number of speeches in Russian ( I have a delightful interpreter called Evgeny who whispers a translation in my ear) and then I suddenly hear my name being called so hurriedly rush onto the stage and add my speech to the growing heap of welcoming words.
13:30 I give interviews to various television stations, newspapers, websites and a magazine called Snob. My co-judges are similarly occupied.
14:15 One of my judges has to go to work so leaves. We carry on judging. Another judge has to go and give another interview so we are down to four.
15:15 Lunch is announced so we all trek off to the other end of the park for a very welcome break. It is still very hot. You may recall that this was the time designated for return to hotel, quick snooze, change and back for the gala.
16:00 Back to work. The missing judge has returned but we have now lost another one due to heatstroke.
19:00 Finally we finish judging. Medals are listed and allocated.
19:30 Gala (I am unchanged and not very cocktaily) in which various Muscovite glitterati wander around and we eat cold meats on skewers. Clive Boursnell (the photographer) and I have a cup of tea.
20:30 I may have made a speech but I cannot quite remember.
22:00 Taxi.

Day Three: Today I have done various things.
I have been rained upon.
I have helped to open the Flower Show to the public by sharing a podium with the Culture minister and the deputy mayor of Moscow.I made a speech.
I have given an interview to a journalist who was convinced that I was Prince Harry’s gardener. It seemed a shame to disabuse her.
I then went to Moscow’s 24 hour television channel where I gave an interview about urban greening to a shiny suited journalist called Ivan. We sat on opposite sofas in a huge studio. The conversation was very stilted as I would say something and wait for it to be translated for him, then he would say something and wait for it to be translated for me. It does not make for snappy repartee.
I had fish soup for lunch.
I made another speech and announced the winners of the medals – they were given out along with goody bags and huge bunches of Ecuadorian roses.
I then listened to more speeches.
I then made another, very short, speech.
I sat on a comfortable sofa and talked about museums and the restoration of imperial palaces.
I wandered around the show giving feedback.
I then danced with the show director to Mr Sandman.
I ate some rather delicious stuffed Russian buns. This is always a highlight – buns with spinach, buns with egg, buns with something obscure and buns with apple.
I drank some filthy pumpkin juice.
I went back to the hotel.

Day three
No speeches from me today which came as a bit of a relief to all concerned.
Gave out more feedback before being whisked off to the largest children’s hospital in Moscow to look at potential sites for gardens. It consists of a grid of early 20th century buildings surrounded by dour patches of grass and trees. I was photographed with the director who is delightful even though he looks a little intimidating.

Launch of a new variety of rose. More speeches.
It is French day at the show so the French trade attaché is being feted.
More time on the comfortable sofa this time with a very insistent client.
Off to Red Square and the Kremlin for a bit of touristing. Trundle around the metro a bit.

Day 4
It is raining. Hard. Lots of it.Proper old fashioned superpower rain.
I am going to the airport in the care of a taxi driver who is treating these monsoon conditions with disdain. As a result there is quite a lot of aquaplaning and nervous gripping of the upholstery.
We get there unscathed and return home. Quite knackered but in time for Hampton Court and to see my friend Ann-Marie Powell win a Gold Medal. Hurrah.

I am listening to Melancholy Polly by Alison Moorer. The picture is of a fountain in the Alexander Park by the Kremlin. You have to walk under these jets of water behind these enormously muscular horses bottoms. There has to be a metaphor in there somewhere.

I have, for the third year in a row, been to The Moscow Flower Show. This is my diary…

Day One and there has been judging in extreme heat. It may not have been exactly standard RHS Judging but judging all the same. The Russian system is roughly one of my own devising with the various categories adapted for the Slavic mentality. This year they took it one step further by never having all the judges in one place at one time. After judging there was Georgian food – something about which I have written in depth after previous visits. Suffice to say that cheese and meat are the main ingredients with the odd cleft cucumber and bunch of parsley. If you are a vegan then Georgia may not be the best place for you to spend time.

The gardens themselves are finished much better than in previous years and some of them are really good – considering the short time they have to build them and the vagaries of Russian landscapers. One designer complained that the landscapers had refused to dig holes for his posts and instead had sawn off the bottoms and nailed them to a plank. Not the sort of thing to which Crocus often resort.

At least one would have easily won a Gold Medal at Hampton Court. Easily. Unfortunately I forgot to take a photograph so cannot prove it to you.

Day Two was a day for visiting clients. I have two just outside Moscow. The first visit involved a fair bit of hard graft. “James” she said (although she pronounced it “Jems” which I find rather appealing) “I have two carloads of plants arriving this morning for you to set out”. By “cars” she meant “closely packed lorries”.

The process I employ for setting out plants is to look at the plan, look at the plants and then change my mind and this was not exception. The difference was that I was doing it while ten gardeners, a client, a landscape architect, a foreman, an enforcer, a driver, an architect, a landscape architect’s assistant, an interpreter and sundry builders watched. Now I quite like an audience but this was a bit much. No sooner had a plant been placed than scores of eager workers descended on the poor thing and it was planted in seconds. At one point I queried the position of a 4m high tree (which had been planted in October) -and before you could say Vladivostok it had been dug up and moved to a better position.

The second client was much easier and just wanted to show me what had been achieved. The plan had been adapted slightly but that is the Russian way – one cannot be precious. She then fed me cherry dumplings which, I can tell you, is one of the very best things I have ever eaten. I ate nine of them and could have had more but thought that might be pushing diplomatic relations. If Mark Diacono can replicate them then I am prepared to do most of those things he keeps begging me to do. Trafficy drive back to the city chatting to my very charming young interpreter who has, over the past couple of days, developed a bit of a taste for gardening.

Friday is seminar day. I am to deliver a talk about Britain in Bloom.
It is very disorientating giving a lecture through an interpreter. Jokes are pretty much impossible, spontaneity interrupted and any kind of nuance is not even worth considering. It is particularly difficult when the interpreter sounds as if he is reciting the Siberian telephone directory very slowly indeed.

I am followed by a chap called Jago Keen who talked about trees in cities and then by the Mayor of a small city founded by the Soviets to house factory workers. He is a remarkable fellow who has taken the idea of urban greening to a whole new level. Fifty percent of his townsfolk are involved. There are flowers everywhere, vegetables in other places and almost every weekend there is a garden party somewhere. All the local residents bring food and drink, there is then dancing and games. It is a cross between a village fete, a street party and a ceilidh. There are no cigarette butts in the streets, almost all the rubbish is recycled and there is a strict policy of planting five trees for every tree that is felled. Much of the audience has followed him, they are almost exclusively women many of whom boast a lot of gold teeth which leads me to suspect that the dentists as well as the Gardeners are doing okay in that particular corner of the country.

The day then lapsed into one of those gloriously eccentric Russian days in which the following happened
I gave a television interview to a pretty but supremely uninterested girl. The cameraman picked up the whole camera including tripod. At one point and moved it. I doubt that it will make the programme.
I ate pasta which sitting on a sofa.

Wrote out medal cards for every garden and certificates thanking every sponsor, media partner, visiting dignitary and interested party.
Gave a guided tour of the show to the British Ambassador – who was impressively bearded and accompanied by charming children.
Presented the aforementioned prizes one hour after the scheduled time. The audience had been patiently waiting in the slightly chilly Moscow evening.
There was loud fanfary music, more speeches, emotional thank yous, applause, plaques and the solemn presentation of gift bags containing tea by girls in interesting corporate uniforms. One lucky girl was given a chainsaw. And all through this there were photographs – hundreds of photographs. Russians love photographs and no event remains unpictured.
This took a while.

One of the popular features at the show are a series of headless torsos made of flowers – people queue up to pose behind them. A variation on those cut outs through which you can poke your head at the seaside. Seemed like an unmissable opportunity.
There was then an extravagantly dressed buffet with cold meat, delicious cucumbers with very thin skins and a variation of the old pineapple and cheese on cocktail sticks thing but with gooseberries and raspberries .
I them spent a very jolly hour dancing to, among other things, Boney M with a collection of happy Russians and jolly French people. The Italians had bailed out earlier.

The evening had not yet ended.

The finale was a trip on the Metro: the Moscow underground is a serious deal. Built in ? the stations are as grand as ballrooms and as cavernous as a gilded pothole. The trains rumble through every minute or so and, at rush hour, are stuffed with fragrant Muscovites. At 11 PM it is almost empty and like riding through a cathedral.

Day four begins with a 5:30am taxi ride. The back of my taxi driver’s head is fascinating. He is slightly balding with short cropped hair but the skin on his head is rippled: like a little piece of sharpei grafted onto a kiwi fruit
He is driving very fast indeed.
Russians have a habit of saying “Good luck when they leave you in the same way that the German guard says it to Gordon Jackson in the great escape. Both the taxi driver and the pilot did it, maybe it is a transport thing.

Finally I am happily settled in the aeroplane being fussed over by a very flirtatious steward called Aleksander. There are no films on this flight so I guess that flirting is the alternative to inflight entertainment. Even though it is still very early.
The man across the aisle is sleeping loudly with his hand covering his crotch – I presume that he is probably having an interesting dream.

Home by lunchtime.

I am listening to Weary Blues by Madeleine Peyroux.

The picture is of a Moscow sunset.

My apologies.

I have not blogged and I should have done. To be honest I keep writing bits and then going away and coming back and rewriting it and then doing the same thing again etc etc etc. The post eventually looked like a pair of well darned combinations full of stuff that was more drivelly even than usual. The best blogs are, in my experience, the ones that are written fast and posted quickly.

So..

I have been to various places and done various things but am going to exercise my well documented powers of restraint (i) and am going to limit my comments to a few words about about Tatton Park.

I went to the first ever Tatton Flower Show fourteen years ago and have been there most years ever since. This year I was Chairman of Judges (which, I think you will agree, is ridiculously grown up) and gave a speech to a collection of assembled bigwigs. I have been there in baking heat and torrential rain but what I have never done until this year is visit the gardens of the real Tatton Park.

My goodness, that was a mistake.

Think of the hours I have wasted trying to find some merit in a rough Back to Back when I could have been listening to the water tumble in Joseph Paxton’s Fernery.

As well as gardens there was art. Lord Egerton (who used to own the joint until he handed it over to Cheshire County Council and the National Trust) was quite obsessed with flight so there is an exhibition of air-related art works.There was quite an exciting one where you stood in a shipping container to watch a film about a bloke in a flame retardant suit wandering around a flaming aeroplane.

And there was this which was amusing and beautiful in equal measure.

And the garden is great: blousy yew hedges, a Pineapple house, Edwardian terraces, some good plantings, a famous Japanese garden and some corking Begonias.

But the Fernery alone is worth the £5.50 toll on the M6 any day of the week.

I also remember promising you a bit of a rundown on the gardens in Moscow.

As to the gardens, they have quite a long way to go before they reach Chelsea standard but, seeing as most of them were put together in a few days and none of them have ever built a show garden before. There were three categories, gardens, balconies and nursery gardens. Most Muscovites are short of space and previously have only really been interested in growing food however, things are on the turn and decorative gardening is about to become extremely popular. This show and others like it will grow: of that I am pretty certain.

Unfortunately I seem to have forgotten to photograph many of the gardens which was a bit foolish but here are a few….

This garden was designed by the Gorky Park superintendent and was very pretty. Verbenas, the new Rosa Gorky Park (short, small flowered and pinky white). Pretty but a bit straightforward consisting of a cross within a circle.

Less straightforward, in fact a bit strange, but amusing. Pond well built, car interesting (originally made in Ukraine by communists), roses in good health. Amusing is an asset in a show garden.

I didn’t realise until the other day that some people (including the late Steve Jobs) have button phobias – Kompounophobia. So if you suffer from such a thing please look away now. I liked this garden: lots of colour and lightly entertaining. The purists would throw up their arms in horror at many of these gardens but, if you take them in the spirit in which they were intended and regard them as the first steps on an interesting exodus then they were pretty darn good.

Two things of mild interest…

I am extremely over excited by the Olympics. I find myself worrying about missing the semi-finals of the Archery or 50m Rifle Three Positions. I cheered and yelled at cyclists and jumped up and down about rowing. I found myself watching dressage (which I would normally consider very dull: it was rather beautiful – horses dancing) and basketball (which seemed a bit complicated sometimes but thrilling all the same.). I get frothily patriotic at times. I would even kiss Sebastian Coe if he asked nicely: although if given a choice I would prefer Jessica Ennis. Or Clare Balding.

I am oddly fond of those very small jars of jam you get in hotels. Usually enough for a couple of croissants. The size and feel of the jars is very appealing. I mention this as I spent the night in an odd hotel the other day and there were lots of them. Farrow and Ball sample pots have the same effect.

I am listening to Twenty-five years by St Etienne

The picture is of the massed ranks of Begonias at Tatton Park.

This blog took 23minutes 17seconds to write and publish. Outside my PB but shattering Lia Leendertz’s record by six weeks. At least.

(i) Previously unacknowledged