Dear Yoko,

Many thanks for keeping in touch; we are truly happy that you and your family are doing fine. Unfortunately, you didn’t write your address, but I hope that every postman in England knows the village where the Japanese family has just settled in.

I’m so sorry for not replying you for a long time - we moved in a new fashionable house a few months ago, so all the family is terribly busy now. The real estate agent advised us to paper the walls as soon as possible not to let the building fall down to pieces like a house of cards.

You write that you are slowly getting used to the new country. I can understand it! Last Christmas I bought a splendid pair of shoes on sales for 50 rubles, and it took me half a year to fit in!

My Dad has changed has job. I dunno exactly what he does now, but I guess he’s a plumber because mummy says that he lets the money down the drain.

Our decrepit grandfather feels well. Last Friday evening he got out to the corridor for a minute to check the mailbox and couldn’t find the way back. We found him sweetly sleeping on the rug at the neighbor’s door next morning. The number of our flat is “1”.

My elder brother, Alex, who, I say it as a great secret, is head over heels in love with you, is very happy to have your birthday party photos you sent to us. He carries them everywhere with him, even while sleeping or having a shower. Unfortunately, last week all photos were completely damaged when he had a X-ray test before departing to Afghanistan with Special Force Troops.

In your last letter you mention that your mum has entered the Women Club and goes to the theater alone at nights. Frequently my mother returns home happily at dawns. Maybe she goes to the theater too. I’ll ask her about it tomorrow morning.

Since entering the biology faculty at Syktyvkar State University, my younger sister Kate brings home heaps of beatles, frogs, worms and other shit to prepare. Last Monday our neighbor Valja came to us diligently searching for her lovely cow Mashka. Thanks God the enormous butt of my sister covered the glass door of our freezer bursting with beef.

Do you remember how amusingly you played with our jolly terrier Stepan? Last weekend he ate all food prepared for a fifty-person party in occasion of my father’s 50^th anniversary when I turned away for a second. What goddamned the European Union is, that has put the moratorium on the death punishment!

Anyway, Yoko thanks for the invitation to visit you - we accept it with pleasure and already booked the tickets on the ocean liner to Britain. Its name is “Titanic”.

Hope to see you soon. Send our love to your Mum and Dad.

Yours,

Vladimir

P.S. I write this letter as slow as I can, so that your mummy, who has just started studying English, can easily read it.