Molokanka

The year was 1994, and a rare confluence of fellowship money sent me on a plane to St. Petersburg, one time capital of Russia, for some extended language training to get me ready to teach that strange tongue and also to work on a paper to deliver in Kazan', out on the Volga, later that summer.

But anyhow, it was summer, and I was still single, and our teacher Natasha was quite charming and not evidently much older than me, so I applied my wiles to the task of charming her. And it all seemed to go well after a few class break time cigarettes and witty repartee. Turns out that despite her blonde hair she is from Baku, Azerbaijan, and is a molokanka, which is to say descended from an anarchic sect banished to the outskirts of the empire back in the day.

So she agrees to meet me one Sunday afternoon to go park strolling and coffee sipping and the like, and then she shows up with a friend (a total sneak). And we galavant about, getting further acquainted, and then we stop on some park bench to smoke and sip on something, and I whip out this cheap lighter, and I must have been fiddling with the gas control in my pocket because when I went to light Natasha's cigarette, it totally nicked her bangs and singed an eyebrow pretty good too. That nasty burning hair smell was everywhere.

All was not lost, but it was did not enhance anything.