Katya

Katya is my first Moscovite friend. She was the assigned translator to me and Mom back in February. Here we are, both wearing our tres chic fur jackets in the fancy art-deco lobby of the Moscow Hilton, based in one of Stalin's three skyscrapers.

I met up with Kate again when I returned to Moscow for my medical in May. She's all of 23 and feels like a little sister to me--though of course she's old enough to be my very own daughter. Her Mom, a furrier, is the same exact age as me. Here we are in one of the small concert halls at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory.

Katya met her fiancee Valentin at a karaoke bar two years ago. Both were fanatics, clubbing five nights out of seven, she belting out Gloria Gaynor's I Will Survive and he preferring despairing songs about lost love and lost men who waste their lives away in prison. After recently landing a full-time job, Katya quickly (and literally) tired of late-night karaoke sprees. Valentin remains hooked and insists on staying out all hours, singing his sad songs. Karaoke, Kate told me in May, the passion that brought the two together, is now a source of palpable tension in her and Valentin's engagement. They plan to marry later this summer.