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kittiwake'The sock is from the Hughesovka Museum Of Our Forefathers' Suffering. I used to be the principal curator. As you know, this museum charts the centuries of tyranny and oppression that caused that great Welsh Moses, John Hughes, to throw off the imperialist yoke and lead his people out of servitude to the promised land.'
'Is there really such a place as Hughesovka?'
'You ask such a thing of me?'
'We learned about it in school; they told us it was the only Welsh-speaking community east of the Greenwich meridian – it always struck me as improbable.'
'In our schools we found tales of Aberystwyth equally hard to credit.
A Welsh Russian named Uncle Vanya asks Louie and Calamity to find out what happened to a young girl called Gethsemane Walters, who disappeared from the town of Abercuawg near Aberystwyth over thirty years before, and pays their fee with one of Yuri Gagarin's socks! The investigation takes Louie and Calamity to the drowned village of Abercuawg which is now reappearing from under the reservoir due to a prolonged drought, and then to Hughesovka disguised as spinning-wheel salesmen, before they work out what happened to Gethsemane and to Uncle Vanya's daughter.
Much to my surprise, I found that Hughesovka (aka Yuzovka, later renamed Stalino and now called Donetsk) is a real place, although John Hughes was from Merthyr Tydfil not Aberystwyth and almost all the Welsh workers returned to Britain after the Russian Revolution.
Although quite sad in parts, this was much more fun than the previous book in the series, "Don't Cry For Me, Aberystwyth".
'Is there really such a place as Hughesovka?'
'You ask such a thing of me?'
'We learned about it in school; they told us it was the only Welsh-speaking community east of the Greenwich meridian – it always struck me as improbable.'
'In our schools we found tales of Aberystwyth equally hard to credit.
A Welsh Russian named Uncle Vanya asks Louie and Calamity to find out what happened to a young girl called Gethsemane Walters, who disappeared from the town of Abercuawg near Aberystwyth over thirty years before, and pays their fee with one of Yuri Gagarin's socks! The investigation takes Louie and Calamity to the drowned village of Abercuawg which is now reappearing from under the reservoir due to a prolonged drought, and then to Hughesovka disguised as spinning-wheel salesmen, before they work out what happened to Gethsemane and to Uncle Vanya's daughter.
Much to my surprise, I found that Hughesovka (aka Yuzovka, later renamed Stalino and now called Donetsk) is a real place, although John Hughes was from Merthyr Tydfil not Aberystwyth and almost all the Welsh workers returned to Britain after the Russian Revolution.
Although quite sad in parts, this was much more fun than the previous book in the series, "Don't Cry For Me, Aberystwyth".
