Vodka freezes at a temperature far lower than water. It is sold in Russia's bars not by its volume, but by its weight. We take charge of a conical flask containing 500 grams, lashing it into small tumblers and making speeches. We raise the glasses; we down the drink. The restaurant is warm and serves Georgian food, and we devour tangy walnut paste wrapped in thinly sliced aubergine, writes John Fleming
In the background, there's a young guy with a bad haircut, sleeping like an elder: his head is thrown back, the face a washed-out, dish-cloth grey for all of his 20 years. We make toasts to our own ruddy-faced, rude health. The conical flask looks depleted. It's time to get some more.
Earlier that day, my eyes snap open against the cold glass of a train window. It's 11 am and flecks of snow are falling. Log-cabin dachas cluster in little hamlets, their hues of painted green showing through the frost cladding of a fresh fall. We are four hours and 250km north of Moscow. The next stop is our destination: Yaroslavl, a town of 650,000 people that sits at the confluence of the rivers Volga and Kotorosl. On its outskirts, a long petrochemical plant pollutes.
This town on Moscow's "golden ring" has the oldest theatre in Russia - the Volkov, built in 1750. It also lays claim to cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova: born in a nearby village, she attended school in Yaroslavl and went on to become the first woman to flounder in space.
An elderly Earth-bound woman drove a shoddy tram in from the train station. We checked into an ugly and empty hotel, before making our way on foot towards the River Kotorosl, where men sat on the ice like domino dots cast carelessly. They drilled holes through the frozen surface of the river and tugged from time to time on fishing lines.
Have you ever walked on water? The first time on ice is magnificent. There was a resounding chalky depth-charge underfoot as the compacted layers of coagulated cold flow reminded us of the precariousness of the path. Like everywhere, Yaroslavl wears snow well. While the temperature was not much below zero, I had back-up access to an XXL coat. It had been borrowed via a brother who knew someone who had access to the wardrobe of one of the stoutest men back in Ireland.
During a Polish occupation of Moscow in 1612, Yaroslav served briefly as Russia's stand-in capital. It has beautiful onion-domed churches, some in states of complete neglect. As darkness falls to highlight the picket-fence-white snow, we come upon an impromptu icy slide only two feet wide but maybe 250 yards long.
A helter-skelter of innocent adventure, it slopes down an inclined path that leads directly to the banks of the Volga. Two fur-coated women laugh and rustle a plastic bag containing a large bottle. Their hero is one of their husbands, a man in his 50s wearing a fur hat and swigging the national drink. Like something out of a P.W. Pabst movie spliced with the works of a Soviet Benny Hill, he is all shaky arms and spine as he hurtles down the ice path, speeded up, fearless on his feet. He will repeat this stunt over and over - even with his open bottle of vodka in his hands. Each time, he cheats the smashing of his jaw, teeth, spine, arms and legs. As children join on faltering sleighs and scorch close to the edge of a dangerous drop, this hilarious, ad hoc piste is a pyrotechnic display of fun and foolhardiness.
Resident friends say this scene is far from surprising: Russian males live their lives as though their sole purpose is to die as young as possible. With an average life-expectancy of just 59, many make a reasonable fist of attaining this goal, employing drink, cigarettes and careless driving for the purpose. See those beautiful women strolling through the streets? See their arms linked with men who are the worse for wear, somehow beaten, broken, bruised?
Back in the Georgian restaurant, the sleeping Russian rag doll topples from the stool. On the way down, his skull strikes the table. His left eye and temple meatily hammer the corner and the sound is stomach-churning. Staff struggle to pull him out from under the table. No movement. It takes three just to get him out from under its legs, but his own limbs are lifeless. He seems to be gone. Five people now attend to him, slapping him about the face to try to bring him back from deep, unconscious, alcoholic permafrost. He is carried off out towards the beautiful cold outside, for all the world a Saturday night corpse.
Later that night, we take turns to kick a plastic bottle along the snow ahead of us, shocked by the scene in the bar. But there had been a happy twist: we saw the fallen Russian regain consciousness and take once more to his feet - if only to threaten to punch anyone forcing him into the ambulance that had arrived. For, like him, the night was still young.
The snow glows; the stars lurk above as perpetual ghosts of Sputnik. Our orbit takes us to a late-night kiosk 15 minutes away, and we lose the plastic bottle when someone kicks it clumsily down a Yaroslavl drain.