I staggered back to Moscow, in need of somewhere warm and a room with glass in the windows. Outside, the lights in the Kremlin were on; in Red Square, the tourists and Stalin/Lenin/Marx lookalikes (with whom one can take a photo for a few Roubles) were heading home - as was I the following day. I lay back in my hotel room and and thought of my journey. I’d met scoundrels and psychopaths and those who were neither - those who were simply trying to survive the shortages of food, of warmth, of love. And there were those whose humanity shone brighter than moonlight on the Dnieper. Such wonders of humanity had rescued me and so willingly - so completely - that to this day I remain, by their example, rescued. I closed my eyes, saw again what was left of a gulag with all its misery bleeding white in the snow. This is what I saw; what I didn’t see - what they wouldn’t let me see - were the camps where the misery endures, where Putin reigns where Stalin once had done. I woke, warm. I thought of home and what I should take. Souvenirs.

The store was lit brightly in the early morning darkness. I thought a bottle of vodka would work; my wife and I could sip it together in memory of all the months apart. But could I find any ? I asked the woman on the check-out. She shrugged then indicated upward - as if perhaps to heaven. I climbed the stairs. It wasn’t heaven, except perhaps to someone whose battle with drink is lost. Over a thousand different kinds stood like brightly-liveried Russian soldiers. It was bewildering. Someone once said (I don’t know who) that too much choice is no choice at all.

But then I saw him at the end of the aisle, barrel-shaped and dressed in khaki. And that moustache, like a two-legged squid turned black with evil thought. If anyone knew vodka it was he. I watched and waited, the two of us locked in a new cold war. He selected a bottle, moved away; I chose the same. I stood behind him in the queue, attempting invisibility. He had killed so many and made so many disappear. He paused at the exit. If he looks back, I thought, and the thought remained unfinished. He half-turned and with a practiced gesture, removed his moustache. I watched him go. Morning arrived. It was time to go home. I picked up the bottle and stepped out into the new day. You never know, I thought. You never know when you’re going to need Stalin.