When the requested writing materials appear, Yuri sets down his chopsticks again (not entirely reluctantly). Without a word, he takes the nearest pen and a piece of paper, and starts to write -- in Cyrillic, automatically. He doesn't get beyond the first few letters before he stops and frowns, and then quickly resumes writing. But no sooner has he finished writing the Moscow-area postal code than he moves his hand down the page and starts writing again, this time more slowly, in block English capital lettering.

'Here,' he says at last, and pushes the paper over to Katsudon. 'I don't know which'll work better. I've never sent anything home from outside the country. But they're the same thing.'

In an absolute worst-case scenario, Katsudon could probably get Viktor to double-check it. But it's not a very complicated address. Just a small place in an old block of flats, one amongst thousands in the great sprawl of the Moscow metropolis.