This is a short story of the strangest thing I've ever seen. Parts of this tale may be false as I was in such a state of confusion at the time that the details are a bit hazy.
First a very small amount of context. I was driving a car from London to Mongolia, my Fiat Panda rolled in to Kiev on the 14th of July 2008. I was growing a moustache. That's all the context you're getting, you'll have to imagine my stench yourself (Fun huh? Of course it is!).
Our band of weary travellers entered the city of Kiev with very low morale. We had spent the previous night camped by a lake just outside the city that had an extraordinary amount of used condoms lying around. It could well have been a popular dogging spot, or maybe a condom recycling plant, I have little idea.
As we followed signs for the centre of town, we began to look for somewhere to eat. With a very limited grasp on the Cyrillic alphabet this was proving to be quite difficult. Wait! What's this on the horizon? It looks like the indistinct concrete of a shopping mall! We're saved! (This has been dramatised somewhat, the actual exchange was probably more like, 'Is that a shopping centre?', 'yes, we should eat', 'yes, we probably should'.)
We parked up in the spacious car park. The car park attendants where wearing blue camouflage, when they weren't blending in to the grey concrete surroundings they looked pretty good.
At first this mall seemed to be identical to every other one in the world. For such a bland format it's certainly very popular, much like water. But then we came across something very strange indeed, a red carpet leading in to a fountain. It was roped off and guarded by some handsome men in tuxedos, there was a crowd gathering around. How exciting! We had wandered in to a shopping mall and were going to be treated to a celebrity appearance while we were there. But why was this celebrity going to wander down the red carpet and in to a fountain? Perhaps they were a swimmer, yes that's it, it must be a famous swimmer. The famous swimmer was going to walk around the corner and then splash about in the small fountain.
We waited, the excitement was building. Then a tinny fan fare rang through the mall, the show was about to begin, some yelped with excitement, I was sporting my stern, curious face. The famous swimmer was about to be unveiled.
This is were the details get a little bit hazy as confusion and shock left me disorientated, and alone, I was so alone. Instead of the human we were expecting to take to the red carpet, a raft of ducks waddled around the corner, marched down the red carpet and in to the fountain. The crowd were delighted, the smart security guards were non nonplussed, they'd seen it all before, I was speechless.
Here is photographic some photographic evidence. The grand piano you can see here was being played by a giant stuffed bear.
I've never been the same since this day.
