Nicole

Nicole is my dear friend, teacher and fellow Slav.

Some years ago I was intrigued to find that a course on The Arts and Cooking of Russia was being offered in a small village hall about 20 miles from me. Here in remote West Wales was this extraordinary person: born in Paris to Russian exiles and interned by the Nazis as a teenager, she then became a student at the Sorbonne and was awarded her doctorate on Living and Dining in Mediaeval France. She went on to teach in Canada and America and acquired British citizenship through her marriage to an eminent ethnomusicologist with whom she settled in rural Carmarthenshire. She has a stepson who is a well-known poet and an adopted son who is a Canadian Russian Orthodox priest and iconographer.
A widow now, and approaching 80, Nicole has been teaching continuously for over 50 years and believes it keeps her alive despite her poor health. It's very credible because she loves to be centre stage, and as is apparent from her mischievous expression, she has a vivacious personality. Lessons are a mixture of scholarly discourse upon the archaeology of Kievan Rus and her own recipes for a borscht, blini and kvass. From time to time she breaks into impromptu song to demonstrate a musical point. Her students quickly become familiar with her catch-phrases: 'So what's new?' as when describing the bills and billets-doux found written on birch-bark in the excavations of 14th century Novgorod, and 'Boiled sweet for you!' to the person who comes up with a correct answer or an intelligent comment. Occasionally the sweets do actually appear and at the end of every course Nicole organises this tea-party to which her students bring the results of the recipes she has shared. Making the kvass (a beverage brewed from fermented bread) is, however, always her prerogative.

After three years I ceased attending the classes as I felt I had been around the clock with them but I keep in touch with Nicole as she cherishes our shared heritage. I went along today to see her and to nibble a few blini in the village hall.