Moscow's Other Sun

It was nice and grey outside, and I knew it was time to get up to catch the grayness before the pitch black darkness set in. I pushed my body up against last night’s vodka. How did the Russians do this every day?
My first two days in Moscow were miserable, though I never would have admitted this to anyone before, in fear of hearing the much dreaded ‘told you so’. A moment of wild inspiration while staring at the ‘M’ list of the drop down menu found me booking the flight to Moscow in December instead of diving in Marsa Alam, Egypt as planned.
As it happened, Moscow was terminally dark, and the cold did not come from the atmosphere as much as it seemed to be radiating from the English language hating locals. That was my view back when I was a stupid tourist, before chasing an unsuspecting pedestrian with a phrasebook in a final act of despair and was then granted the key to city; The Russians will do anything for you if you try to speak Russian, no matter how abominably.
I ran back to the hostel, excitedly looking for Artem, the love of my trip, with my new phrasebook and from there on, a different kind of sun shone through the city. For, I wooed him with my attempts to speak Russian and he wooed me back with the most precious thing one can be wooed with across the spectrum of the animal kingdom; food.
Discovering salmon humpback caviar was literally a shining moment. The miniature orange glowing sphere gravitated towards my palate where it exploded with the power of a thousand suns. Serotonin levels in my brain shot up and the neurotransmitters didn’t know what to do with all those signals, and so I giggled and blushed.
It made sense now; they don’t need the sun because they have it packed off in jars.
Color and warmth were restored to my body ,and my brain which was about to perish in defeat to the cold and the loneliness. Except it was never cold nor lonely again. All you need is a phrasebook, a bottle of vodka and a jar of caviar, and best friends will show up everywhere.
I realized that this is how they survived. Caviar and salted fish are packed with happiness inducing substances such as omega-3s and B vitamins, and well… we all know about the vodka, no secret there.
Artem presented me with salted fish they call Saladino (the like of which I never tasted anywhere, and I come from the Mediterranean), caviar and vodka, like a courting Albatross ; a man who knows how to court a woman and to survive the cold Muscovite winter.