Gun Story 3: Moscow

I was visiting my friend Dan in Moscow in July 2004. This is us leaving a trendy club in the wee hours of the morning...

We decided that Nadia should come home with us; Dan had put another bottle of champagne in to chill that we had not managed to get to before dinner. Dan waved down a car (as you do in Moscow; no one bothers with taxis). We got in and Dan was chatting away (in Russian) with the driver who turned out to be Georgian. He was very friendly and Dan seemed to be enjoying the conversation very much because when we arrived back at the flat Dan invited the driver up to have champagne with us. I do not remember if we ever learned his name so I shall call him “the Georgian”. We could not all fit into the lift in Dan’s building. I think Nadia and I took the lift while Dan and the Georgian walked up four flights of stairs. We got in and put the Georgian on the couch. Dan opened the bottle of champagne for me and Nadia but the Georgian declined because he was driving. Dan drank whisky. We had not been sitting there for long when the Georgian apologised for removing his gun from its holster and placing it on the table. It had been digging into his hip, he explained. I remember being surprised but not really worried that we had a strange Georgian man with a gun in the flat. We carried on drinking and chatting. The Georgian asked if he could smoke. I imagined that Dan was about to say ‘no’ so I suggested that he make an exception on this occasion. So now we had a smoking Georgian on the couch, a gun on the dining table, an open bottle of champagne that was not being drunk and Nadia asleep on the armchair in the corner. The Georgian just stayed and stayed and stayed and Dan was very reluctant to ask him to leave so he asked me to do something about it. I must have simply announced that I was very tired and that I would have to go to bed soon, I pointed out that Nadia was already sleeping, I told Dan that he should go to bed too and I may or may not have asked the Georgian if he was not tired as well. It seemed to take a long time from that point to when the Georgian finally left. He wanted to take Nadia with him, said he would be happy to drive her home, but Dan and I felt a lot more comfortable keeping Nadia with us. The Georgian finally left, gun in holster under jacket. Dan and I put Nadia to bed in my room and then we went to sleep as well.