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Originally Posted by WillyHeckaslike
Your hosts must have been posh Phil to indulge you with vodka and caviar. Cabbage soup is a popular favourite among the lower echelons. Phaaaarp! The talk of Ruskies takes me back to my work place of the early 90's. We hosted a visit by some of them and I seem to recall that they brought with them a gift of a samovar for the head honcho which caused a bit of a stir. It was of a modern electric type and there was some concern about its compliance with British and EU safety standards. Some of the guys were tasked with checking it out but to this day I'm not sure if they found it to be fit for use as anything other than an ornament. Plus the head honcho was on vacation up north and the guests wished for the samovar to be presented during their visit.  |
What an experience and a fantastic gift as the samovar has a reputation for being ornate and collectable. The chap who took me to his home was a taxi driver assigned to look after me for the visit. He said he had saved $3,000 USD in the hope of using it to escape Russia and settle in the USA. The vodka he gave me was very strong and I had to be careful I did not drink too much. The company I was working for at the time had a policy of
"do not drink or smoke, do not bring the company into disrepute whilst in the presence of the patient, no profanity" and in fact after every trip, they would write to the patient and ask if the Doctor or nurse smoked or drank alcohol in the their presence. I remember doing an air ambulance from the Mediterranean with an anaesthetist as the patient we were flying back to the UK who had to be anaesthetised and put into a medically induced coma for the flight. The doctor did his job okay but on another Medi-Vac, he was sacked from smelling of drink. I gather he had been on a final warning.