Some Afghan refugee children feel sorry for me on a trip to see The Nutcracker

The day my flatmate flies home for the winter break, I decide to cheer myself up by doing something Christmassy, so I go to the Bishkek Opera and Ballet Theatre to see The Nutcracker. 

I’m doing this partly in a spirit of nostalgia. I saw The Nutcracker when I was five years old, and it was the very first time I went to the theatre, travelling up from the suburbs to the South Bank. Twenty years later I still have vague memories of a tree laden with presents, and sparkling white dancers in the snowflake ballet. 

So I arrive at the theatre in a state of considerable excitement. Entering the red plush, white and gold interior, I am – not to put too fine a point on it – horrified to find I’m in the middle of a row of unaccompanied children, most of them crammed two to a seat. 

The Nutcracker begins

But as soon as the curtains draw back on the first scene of The Nutcracker and guests start to arrive onstage for the Christmas party, my seatmates are rapt and silent. In fact all the children in the audience, whether with friends or families or their class from school, are paying the utmost attention as the story unfolds in front of them. 

Even the group of teenage boys in baseball caps who vaulted over the wall into an empty box are silent, only moving when they crane to see the stage better. 

I notice the Central Asian influence on the sets and costumes with a mix of bright colours and patterns instead of muted Western tastefulness — but I also can’t help observing how worn the sets and costumes are (King Mouse’s head falls off at one point). 

Further proof that the theatre is an important social occasion comes in the intervals, which give my new companions the chance to satisfy their curiosity about the solitary female in their midst. 

Q&A session

The little girl next to me tries out her English, asking my name and age and how many children I have, but it’s the Afghan refugees in the row behind that really take pity on me. They are interested to hear I’m a journalist, assuming I’m in Central Asia “because of Afghanistan” but preoccupied with another question: “Are you alone?”

I explain that while I’m technically alone here, now, at the theatre, I’m not in fact alone in Kyrgyzstan. (I am alone, of course as my flatmate is away, but I don’t want to invite their pity any more than I already have.) 

“Why are you alone?”

“Because my friends don’t like the ballet,” I said, trying to come up with some explanation.

“But you are missing!”

“Missing what?”

“Because you are alone.”

“No, I’m not lonely – missing – I like to be alone.”

This doesn’t seem to have impressed the Afghans, who must be all of 12 years old, with solemn dark eyes and jet-black hair, because as the curtain starts to rise for the next scene there’s a tap on the shoulder, and:

“Those people over there are Americans! Why don’t you go and sit with them?”