If I could make one definitive contribution to Russian culture (apart, that is, from getting those clueless types with Brezhnev eyebrows who manage National Hotel to understand why they, like the Plaza in New York, can, and should put a portrait of enfant terrible par excellence, Eloise in their lobby) it would be this: the art of truly thoughtful gift giving. Don’t get me wrong: Russians are far from stingy when it comes to An Occasion. They pull out all the stops: combining expansive Slavic gesture with conspicuous financial outay: an acerbic Maxine card and a poke on Facebook are not going to cut it with this crowd. But, and I am no doubt an ungrateful wretch, as I dug myself out of the debris from a recent birthday party, I was surrounded with irrefutable evidence that, in Russia, gift giving is often more about the giver than the give-ee. “Do you mind, “ asked HRH (a.k.a. my Handsome or Horrible Russian Husband) awkwardly, “if my parents give you a few more of those…um…terrace…ornaments?” My heart sank. My Russian in-laws are very nice, but their style is Gothic Disney Clutter, which they insist on imposing on my Danish modern surfaces, including our elegantly landscaped roof garden. Last summer, they presented us with a plastic (read indestructible) statuette of Happy from Disney’s “Snow White” holding a “Welcome!” sign. This wasn’t the look I was aiming for; and I wasn’t at all sure I could stomach the idea of Bambi joining him. “What I would really like,” I said firmly, because the direct appeal has occasionally worked, “is a Jo Malone Lime Basil & Mandarin scented candle, which they can pick up at GUM.” Alas, no. A jolly hedgehog and a set of survive-a-nuclear-holocaust plastic mushrooms joined Happy on the terrace: adding to the staggeringly scary number of unwanted objets never to be thrown away, lest we offend. Like the two-tiered Romanov Imperial Crown vodka decanter HRH got for his 39th birthday, or the cobalt blue champagne flutes with the double-headed eagle crest of Russia etched in gold, which, knowing the donor as I do, were not meant as an ironic gesture. At all. (Think I'm kidding?) And then, Dear God, there are the flowers. Take all the flowers you get on your birthday, divide them by 52, and you could enjoy tasteful fresh flowers year round. If you got the monetary equivalent, you’d have the down payment for a small house in Connecticut But it seems churlish to say “In lieu of flowers…” on a birthday invitation somehow, and so you are left with stiff blocks of garishly colored, heart-stoppingly expensive Dutch flowers, suffocating under multiple layers of plastic wrap, which will last about 48 hours, provided you take the trouble to pry the flowers out of the chicken wire swathed in ubiquitous orange crepe paper. As I struggled with the overwhelming pollen count from my 31 bouquets and loaded the dishwasher for the eighth time, I took comfort in the present my foreign friends cooked up this year. They enjoy what I do with a bag of groceries and are good at picking up clues. One, let’s call him The Good Listener, listened hard as I moaned about not being able to find a WEBER grill: the small “Q” model, which would suit the décor, and could be easily stored at the end of Russia’s three and a half week grilling window. The Good Listener shot an e-mail off to The Savvy Facilitator, who got busy, and then approached Ten Other Generous Soulsfor a general whip round presenting me with something I wanted, you could argue I needed, and which I truly love. Says who? ------------------------------------------------------------------ Author's Notes: Photos by Jennifer Eremeeva An abridged version of this article was first published in Russia Beyond the Headlines on September 8, 2009 entitled Charting the Terrain Of a Foreign Gift Culture. P.S. There were those who found it not at all funny, and refused to publish any more of my stuff in the UK edition. It broke my heart. Seriously. Even a scholarly work on my all-time favorite Tsarina Marie Fyodorovna didn't make it in. Even when I spelled "favorite" as "favourite." It was a no go. You can do something about this by e mailing them and asking why on earth they don't publish that very funny American in the UK edition. Pretend to be British. Thank you!
The Russians, you could tell, were baffled, if not slightly nauseated to watch me coo over the sleek metal lines of what appeared to be a device for food preparation. They exchanged mortified glances, coughed discreetly, and more than one pair of eyes rolled heavenwards. HRH once told me, “In Russia, kitchen appliances are not gifts, they are kitchen appliances.”
--------------------------------- Dear Reader: Thank you so much for your interest in this column. I sincerely appreciate it, as I do your feedback, which you can leave by clicking on the comment button below. Tell me, have you ever got something for your birthday you could not stand? What was it, and who gave it to you? How did you dispose of it?
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