Affair... Dubai

“How can I be reasonable? To me our love was everything and you were my whole life. It is not very pleasant to realize that to you it was only an episode.”

W. Somerset Maugham, The Painted Veil

Cities... Most cities are like men. You arrive, you wander, you observe, and you flirt. You listen, you smell, you taste, and you dream. Then you fall in love, or reject it, or become friends, or have an affair. I cannot love a city. I enjoy the affair: getting fascinated, feeling intoxicated, experiencing infinite emotions while you are together and pleasant sadness when leaving the city. Cities in Kazakhstan and post-Soviet countries are like women. Some are like mothers. They are strong and loving one day, and weak and challenging another. They are full of laughs and tears. They love you unconditionally and teach you life lessons. You cling to them and at the same time you want to run away from them. You love them unconditionally too.

My affair with Dubai was from 1993 to 1999. Dubai was alluring and irresistible. Every time I went back to Alma-Ata, it would pull me back just like an ex-lover.

I first visited Dubai in March 1993 during my “honeymoon”. The trip with my best friend Laura (my husband was not there) began a few days after my wedding. It was a business trip as there was no such thing as honeymoons in Kazakhstan in 1993. I was three months pregnant, excited and we were loaded with cash. Our plan was to buy the electronic goods in tax-free Dubai, bring them back to Alma-Ata and resell them with a profit. There was a demand for consumer goods and cash surplus in hands of the public in Kazakhstan.

Dubai met us with sunshine, happy faces, good roads, abundance of everything and unknown smells from cafes and restaurants. It was my first trip abroad. Our hotel was in Deira, one of the oldest parts of Dubai. Back then, Deira was a prime location for tourists from Kazakhstan and post-Soviet countries as it was home for many souks, markets and shops. We quickly checked into the hotel and decided to visit a beach before a dinner with nice guys (when you are young, you always meet guys) we met on the plane. Laura and I jumped in a taxi and told the driver to take us to any beach. We were ignorant then, not the closed-minded way, but just uniformed. On our first day in Dubai, we thought that all the people there were Arabs and considered Indian people Arabs. The taxi driver took us to the Jumeirah Beach Park, the first public beach park in the residential area of Jumeirah with golden sand, palm trees and green spaces. The warm water of the Arabian (Persian) Gulf was so luring that we didn't pay any attention to people on the beach. We dropped our towels, bags and clothes on the sand and ran into the warm water. When we got out of the water, we noticed few Indian men walking in our direction. They kept their distance from us. Smiling suspiciously, they started taking pictures of each other and used us as a background. There were more men getting around us and taking pictures. They multiplied like flies. Luckily, they were all fully dressed. For a few minutes we almost felt like swimwear models. Then we realized that the situation was getting out of control: we were attracting more and more men. We ignored the fact that our swimwear was wet, quickly dressed and got a taxi back to our hotel. Unfortunately for us, the taxi driver fell in love with Laura in 5 seconds. During the drive he begged to her to go to a photo studio and take a picture with him. Laura politely rejected him. When we got to Deira, the driver didn’t take us directly to our hotel. He was not a man who would take “no” for an answer. The driver decided to drive us around on the streets of Deira till Laura would agree to go to the photo studio with him. When he looped around the same street for the fifth time, annoyed Laura gave up. The taxi stopped in front of the photo studio and they went inside. I refused to leave the taxi and told the driver that I would drive it away if they stayed inside more than 7 minutes. After the photo shoot we got back to the hotel in 2 minutes. It was time for dinner.

The streets in Deira were bustling with shops, cafes, tourists and many-many smiley men from India, Egypt, Sri Lanka, Ethiopia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Iran and other countries. Every fifth guy was trying to touch us. The streets were too crowded. The guys from Alma-Ata explained us that it was Friday and everybody was off work as Friday is a weekend in many predominantly Muslim countries. That evening we learned that Dubai is very multicultural due to many foreign workers. We spotted few native Emiratis that night. They looked magnificent in their white “kanduras” (men wear) and black “abayas” (women wear). We also learned that the “locals” were a minority in Dubai.

Next morning, we took a taxi and asked a driver to take us to the best beach (not public) in Dubai. The driver took us to the Chicago Beach Hotel, the first resort hotel in Dubai. The Chicago Beach Hotel was demolished in 1997 to make way for the Jumeirah Beach Hotel and the offshore Burj Al Arab. The hotel was far out of town, but it had an exclusive beach, amazing leisure facilities, bars and dining outlets, and excellent service. We were in paradise. After 3 hours on the beach, Laura and I decided to have a late lunch at the beach restaurant. On our way to the change room, we passed a group of young and good looking Americans. One of the guys touched my hand (touching followed us in Dubai). I stopped for a minute to look at him. The guy was handsome and confident. Sun-kissed body, mesmerizing blue eyes, captivating lips and golden-coloured hair. “Hi” he said. “Hello” I replied and quickly walked away despite a sudden desire to learn more about him. Laura and I were placed at a table by the window. The guy was still there smiling at me. My eyes kept flicking at him. No matter how romantic it was, I remembered that I married my amazing husband few days ago and was pregnant. We left the restaurant and the hotel and took a taxi back to not-so-romantic Deira.

I don’t remember his face, but I remember my feelings. They can be best described by a quote from the movie “Changing Lanes”. Please replace “girl” with “boy” and completely ignore the last sentence. Gavin Banek, played by Ben Affleck, said: “It's like you go to the beach. You go down to the water. It's a little cold. You're not sure you want to go in. There's a pretty girl standing next to you. She doesn't want to go in either. She sees you, and you know that if you just asked her name, you would leave with her. Forget your life, whoever you came with, and leave the beach with her. And after that day, you remember. Not every day, every week... she comes back to you. It's the memory of another life you could have had. Today is that girl.”

Dubai seduced us slowly over the next few days: meeting new people, visiting new hotels and restaurants, shopping in Bur Dubai and Deira, a trip to Abu Dhabi and many little surprises and pleasures. Magic.

There were many more trips to Dubai and every time I would see it from a different perspective. It never disappointed me, even when I spent 7 hours in the Sharjah jail in 1995. Dubai introduced me to an amazing woman named Victoria in 1994. We became friends immediately. She was caring, adventurous and funny. We had the same sense of humour and passion for a fast-paced life. Dubai amused us day and night and one day I may write my “One Thousand and One Nights of Dubai”.

At the end of 20th century my husband, our son and I moved to Canada. I forgot about Dubai and started an affair with Toronto.

I visited Dubai again in 2004. It was still familiar and caring, but it wasn’t irresistible anymore. I could see its flaws. We didn't excite each other. We both moved on in our lives.

After 12 years, my ex-lover (and my eccentric and funny university friends Gulnara and Aizhan) attracts me again. I will visit Dubai in 4 weeks. The city is posh and powerful now. Will there be a new sophisticated spark between us?!

1992

This story happened in 1992, one year after the USSR suddenly ceased to exist. It was an exciting year. The dissolution of the Soviet Union brought turbulence and freedom, uncertainty and opportunity, vacuum and creativity. Every day brought something new and unknown. It was an avalanche of the unknown: nothing stayed the same and everything changed and evolved. Remember what the Queen of Hearts told Alice in “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass”? She said, “My dear, here we must run as fast as we can, just to stay in place. And if you wish to go anywhere you must run twice as fast as that.” That was our life then.

I am writing the story as I interpreted it 24 years ago. It may be different from how others saw it, however I am writing it with no filters of time.

In the fall of 1992, I lived in Alma-Ata with my soon-to-be husband. Earlier that year my three friends and I created and registered a partnership. We took out a loan at a bank with 20% interest rate and 20% third-party share and started our small business. Small and not-so-small businesses were booming in the time of transition from a centralized government planned economy to a market-based economy. It was easy to make money in the environment of rapidly growing prices and exchange rates.

We worked smart, partied hard, and flew to Moscow to buy clothes and eat at McDonalds.

This story happened on a sunny fall day. I don't remember how the day started, but I remember that I, my friend Laura and our other friend went for dinner to one of the many popular restaurants in Alma-Ata. Our favourite drink then was “Soviet Champagne” (“Sovetskoye Shampanskoye”). It was a generic brand of sparkling wine made from a blend of Aligote and Chardonnay grapes. Sometime during the dinner and between the glasses of champagne we saw two guys few tables away from our table. We knew them pretty well as they were husbands of our university friends who lived in another city. We waved to each other. They sent us a bottle of champagne. We thanked them and continued to enjoy the food and drinks. After the dinner we briefly chatted outside of the restaurant, and they invited us to their hotel to have more champagne and catch up on our lives. Since we didn't have any plans for the rest of the evening and since my soon-to-be husband was in Moscow, we decided to accept their offer. Five of us went to the hotel “Otrat”, a famous place amongst foreign visitors and local spivs (fartsovshchiks).

We spent the first hour at the bar. Then the guys offered us to go to their room so that they could play guitar and we would all sing our favourite songs from the university years. The singing session was a blast, where we were transformed back to the 80s and felt happy and comfortable. Then one of them, the leader, let's call him Kanat, went nuts. He asked everyone except for Laura to leave the room. The other guy and our friend left, but I refused to leave the room without Laura. Kanat locked the room and would not let us out. Laura and I tried to make our way to the door, but Kanat pushed us so hard that I hit a dresser with my head. I guess my brain hit my skull as I saw so many stars. Magical…, almost. It was second time in life when I saw stars. First time it happened when I was bonked on the head while trying to help my friend to get rid of a drunk guy. When the stars disappeared, I remembered that if something had already happened to you twice, it is likely to happen again. Seeing stars is exciting, but not at the expense of my brain. So I decided that next time I see stars, they would be in the sky. Anyway the stars worked their magic and transformed me into a mean and scary person. I told Kanat in my calm deep voice “You. Are. So. Dead! You won't be able to visit Alma-Аta ever in your life.” I then mentioned two popular gang leaders in the city Black Almaz and Red Almaz and how they would come and destroy him. That worked. Kanat let us out, but he didn't say that he was sorry. Outside of his door, Laura and I decided that he should apologize, or we wouldn't be satisfied. We shouted and banged on the door, but Kanat never opened it. He didn't even apologize from behind the door. So we came up with a revenge plan: money (we pay) - person (act on our behalf) - justice (apology from Kanat).

We took a taxi and went to my apartment. Let me tell you more about the apartment buildings in Alma-Ata in the 90s. An apartment building with 5 floors or less didn't have elevators and had multiple entrances. We didn't care about the absence of the elevators, but we cared a lot about the entrances and stairs. They were straight out of horror movies. The stairs were poorly lit; some with lights only on every other floor or with no lights at all. Nobody cared to replace the broken lights. My building was fine, we had lights on each floor and good neighbours. The dark entrances were the scariest. Every time I entered a dark building when visiting some of my friends, I would experience an unavoidable ancestral fear. I would ask God to protect me and run quickly upstairs till I get to the right floor. I also prayed that my friend would open the door really quickly. It had never occurred to me to carry a flashlight, but we probably never had them. The apartment doors were another story. They were made of solid wood covered first by a metal plate and then by an attractive wood veneer. Some apartments had the vault doors. It was an interesting time.

When Laura and I got inside, I found my soon-to-be husband asleep. There were presents and a bottle of champagne that he had brought from Moscow. I tried to wake him up but didn’t succeed. With no man by our side, we decided to take $2,000, some kitchen knives and go back to the hotel and find a Kazakh Robin Hood “Kisa” who would make Kanat apologize to us. I put $1,000 in both of my black over the knee boots. It was a lot of money then and we didn’t want to lose it or accidently expose it. We quickly got back to “Otrat” and asked the security guards if Kisa was at a casino. They told us that he should arrive around midnight. We had almost an hour to wait. I’m not sure why we didn’t go to the bar, but we probably didn’t want to miss Kisa’s arrival. So, we stayed with the security guards and told them our story. We believed that they would feel sorry for us, but they didn’t. One of them called militsiya (soviet term for police) and reported that there were two “night butterflies” (local term for prostitutes) disturbing them and not letting them work. We quickly realized that they were talking about us. I assured Laura that police would take a good care of us, but we should get rid of the knives. We ran to the nearest washroom, but all the stalls were locked. We threw the knives over the doors and returned to the security guards. We were greeted by two police officers who said that we need to go with them to a police station so they can check our identities to make sure that we are not prostitutes. We tried to tell them that first they should take care of Kanat. The police totally ignored us and took us to the station.

Since Laura was more sober, they started collecting information from her. As for me, I started acting weird and claiming my right for one phone call. Not sure if it was too much champagne or the fact that I had hit my head earlier, but my behaviour caused only troubles. The police kindly asked me few times to be quiet. They were ready to let us go as Laura’s dad was a military official and they found him in their system. I couldn't stop talking and they decided that we would benefit from spending few hours in a lock-up cell. There was a drunk guy in the next cell. He faked a heart attack non-stop for over an hour. Laura was exhausted and wanted to sleep on a bench. I didn't let her sleep as I was afraid that she would get lice in her hair. After two hours the police let us go. The morning was new and fresh. We were tired and confused, but happy to be free. We still had $2,000 in my over the knee boots and one kitchen knife in my apartment. We got a taxi and went home.

When I woke up, I told my soon-to-be husband our story. He was not surprised. He called his two friends, and they went to “Otrar” to find Kanat and talk to him. A receptionist informed them that Kanat checked out early morning and left hotel. Laura and I have never seen neither Kanat, nor his friend again. And we have never talked to their wives again. Life was too exciting to care about them.

In August I got sad news from Kazakhstan. Kisa died. After all he was the Robin Hood in our story. Who knows how our story would ended, if he was in “Otrat” that night.

Does alcohol make me fat? August discoveries

August was an amazing month. I learned a lot about myself.

Apparently, I looked like a young lady to my oral surgeon (at least he calls me so) and like a 55-year-old lady to a cashier at Shoppers Drug Mart.

My numerologist told me that I have a high level of consciousness, that in my previous life I was a magician on a demonic planet of Eden type, that I should cook without recipes, and I will be able to heal people in the future. Not sure what to do with this new knowledge, but I consider it as an invitation to grow. After all, I am a great admirer for all whimsical aspects of life.

I also learned that my iron level is super low. When my doctor informed me that my iron level is 8, I told her not to worry about it as I feel pretty energetic, and my hair and nails are fine. She probably wanted to say that I am nuts, but she did not. Instead, she said “The lower normal level is 15 and I would like to bring your level to 50.” I knew that I would not get to 50 with my current diet and agreed to take FeraMax capsules for 30 days. The doctor warned me of the annoying side effects of taking iron supplements, but I decided to ignore her warning with a hope that constipation, darkened stool and nausea would avoid me completely.

In August I also hit a new low or new high by going to work and then partying toothless (by toothless I mean without two upper front teeth). Amazing, right? I lost those teeth in a curling accident at the end of February. In August I was supposed to get implants. When the oral surgeon opened up my gums, he told me that I would get implants in two stages: first, a bone graft and then implants in 4-6 months. He then filled my upper jaw with many small pieces of sterilized human (former human) bone, stitched up my gums and gave me a prescription for antibiotics and Peridex (anti-gingivitis rinse that makes your tongue dark; darkness was following me in August). My gums looked like gums from a horror movie; still do. The next day I went to see my denturist to adjust my dental flipper so it would not squish all those new bone pieces in my gums. The denturist adjusted the flipper and told me that it fits perfectly, but I should take it out when I eat. Somehow, I was not convinced, and I wanted to order him “Cross your heart and swear by your practice that the flipper will not squish my bone graft.” Wishful thinking. That night I slept for 10 hours but woke up with a swollen upper lip. It was so bad that my husband called me Bart Simpson. The next morning my lip got much better, but I was still afraid to put the flipper on. My husband told me to channel Alex Ovechkin and go to work without the flipper. So I did. My colleagues were very supportive and encouraged me to join them for dinner after work. The dinner at Jamaican restaurant turned into drinks at a lovely bar. And few glasses of Pinot Gris turned me into brave and alluring Tooth Fairy. Being silly and illogical sometimes helps us keep an idyllic perspective on the things and life in general. 

When I woke up next morning, I felt 2-3 pounds heavier than the day before. “Does alcohol make me fat?” I asked, but there was no one home to say “No, it doesn't.”

On the last day of August my friend Dina introduced to foot reflexology. My masseur was a young and nice guy and Dina’s masseuse was not young, but nice lady. I was so impressed by the guy that I wanted to book him for a lymph drainage massage. When I asked the salon receptionist to book me with the guy, the receptionist and Dina’s masseuse laughed really hard and told me that it's done only by lady to lady. Dina’s masseuse offered her service and recommended acupressure before the lymph drainage massage. I agreed to her offer but booked my masseur for acupressure. They looked confused but could not resist my offer. I hope I did not remind them Mrs. Robinson from The Graduate.