Chapter 10: Once More Unto the East

From the city of the 'Father of Capitalism'......

Having turned thirty, part of me thought it was time to stop living a relatively easy, if pointless, life in Siberia and to return to the UK to start a proper career. Getting a Masters degree in International Development before my life in Siberia had been one thing but finding a job in that field- indeed, even getting a refusal letter- proved impossible and so I ended up applying for a scholarship to study Russian at Glasgow University. After all, I viewed my long-term future as somehow tied to Russia, even if I did not know how, and learning the language grammatically- instead of in parrot fashion- whilst living the student lifestyle for another year at the taxpayer's expense, seemed appealing.

At that point- summer 2006- Russia was flexing its diplomatic muscles as the Kremlin began to use oil and gas exports as a political lever and high energy prices began to line Moscow's coffers, if not to benefit the Russian population at large. At the same time, the influx of Polish migrant workers into Britain was causing Daily Mail readers to frown disapprovingly, and the Bush administration was banging its Arabaphobic drum. The UK government opted to set up 'Centres of Excellence' whose object was to produce specialists capable of understanding the languages, culture and politics of these strange, emergent lands¹. As it turned out, I spent the year in Glasgow wondering why the students and academic were sitting here in the Scottish rain- myself included- when actually going and living in Russia, rather than speculating from afar, would surely have been more productive. Of course, the Kremlin- ever vigilant against the nefarious influence of the neo-imperialist West- would never permit a whole UK-sponsored 'Centre of Excellence' to function on its own soil, but I personally spent my time feeling- and perhaps too often, complaining- that I would have learned much more about Russian society and language had I simply stayed in Chita.

In summer 2007 the university gave me, along with two other young Brits, the chance to journey to Ulyanovsk- birthplace of Lenin, on the Volga in European Russia- to study the language for a month. Quite what old Vladimir would have made of the fact that my scholarship was named for Adam Smith, Glasgow's own 'Father of Capitalism', I do not know: modern Russia's bandit capitalism has probably had him spinning in his mausoleum multiple times already. Keen to visit my friends in Chita again, I extended my dissertation research topic- 'The Effects of Globalisation Upon Young People in Russia'- to cover interviews in both Ulyanovsk and Chita. I was Siberia-bound again.

…...to the birthplace of Lenin

My travelling companions Chris and Jack had never visited Russia before, and found the day we spent in Moscow upon arrival every bit as fascinating as I did. Our brief time in the Russian capital was made all the more enjoyable by our lovely guides Natasha and her cousin Yuliya (of whom more later). Natasha had been detailed to meet us at the airport and seemed very relieved that I could at least greet her in Russian. She promptly piled us into a saloon car for a breakneck ride through rush-hour traffic which provided a shocking introduction to Russian driving habits for Jack and Chris.

That evening, Natasha introduced us to her cousin Yuliya outside the famous 'Resurrection Gate' of Red Square (what more romantic a location for a first acquaintance?) and off we all went to spend an enjoyable evening casually strolling around a Moscow city centre whose grandeur absolutely defies the morbid darkness of its suburbs and clearly shows why most provincial Russians declare the capital 'a different world' which greedily swallows their tax payments without recompense. At one point, as we marvelled at the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, reconstructed gloriously on the banks of the Moscow River on its original site (the commies had replaced the old church with the world's largest open-air swimming pool), I realised that the time was 1am and here we were- a group of foreign tourists- wandering safely around the Russian capital. Thankfully, the 'dokumenti!'-barking, bribe-hungry police seemed no longer to target Western tourists with their former avarice, and indeed seemed to be keeping the city centre a safe place for all those dollar-laden foreigners to spend their cash.

The following day, after my first sleep in over fifty hours and a boat trip along the Moscow River in which I donned a sun hat made from a handkerchief tied at all four corners in a nod to great British tourist tradition, Natasha and Yuliya helped us stock up for the train journey to Ulyanovsk and we bade a fond goodbye. The sixteen-hour hop to the city named for Lenin² was made very tolerable by beer-fuelled camaraderie, and we arrived in Ulyanovsk to be greeted by Dasha, Nastya and Polina- three genial students detailed by Ulyanovsk State University to look after us three wet-behind-the-ears foreigners and, it turned out, not to use their basic English for communication but to drum Russian into us at every opportunity.

I was taken to the flat of my designated host, a sickly-looking chap in his mid-twenties named Serge. He showed me a space which he had cleared in his spare room and then tried to talk to me about social science in Russian. Ask me whether I like living in Russia, if I like Russian girls, if I drink vodka or any of the usual barrage of questions and my Russian vocab usually holds up reasonably well. Ask me to discuss sociology and I simply do not have the words. Serge seemed keen to demonstrate his knowledge of various academic subjects but I sat confused, perhaps harshly reflecting that a truer demonstration of his intellect would have been to simplify his language when it became clear that I had bugger all idea of what he was talking about.

Out I went to meet Chris, Jack and our amiable trio of chaperones, and not looking forward to living among Serge's old bits of weightlifting equipment (and his cat's litter) in his spare room. As I greeted Jack, he seemed very unsettled and explained that, though his host family were lovely and had given him a large, pleasant room, they also had a large dalmatian which, to be blunt, scared Jack witless. I jumped at the chance to swap hosts and found myself living with Ignat- a friendly chap of my own age, his straight-talking mother Natalia and his aged yet energetic grandmother Tatiana Petrovna. And an enormous dalmatian. Above the flat's door was a plaque inscribed something like 'Here Lives a Hero of the Great Patriotic War'. Tatiana Petrovna, though in her 80s and physically frail, was nonetheless formidable. A former teacher, she seemed to possess a no-nonsense strength of character which was no doubt forged when living through the horrendous Siege of Leningrad³. Whilst she often seemed to view me as something of a simpleton, and I could see exactly why- I was a coddled Western kid who barely spoke Russian- she would sometimes tell me stories of how she was involved in supply convoys bringing relief to the city as they raced across frozen Lake Ladoga under German bombardment. I listened attentively and with genuine respect. I am often guilty of questioning modern Russia's pre-occupation with the Second World War but here was one of millions who had faced genuine horror and hardship, yet been involved in a monumental Soviet fightback against the German invasion. Tatiana Petrovna would also show me blurred sepia family portraits from the Khrushchev era, she a young woman proudly cradling the young Natalia. “A golden era” she would pronounce, leading me to speculate whether indeed almost everyone views their own youth as a 'golden' period in their lives. Her daughter had inherited her direct manner, which would sometimes intimidate during first encounters, but which I came to appreciate as making communication a whole lot more straightforward.

My British gifts- a home-made cake from my mother especially- were very gratefully received and I presented Ignat with a bottle of whisky as a token from Scotland. I returned home one evening to find him sitting with a friend, enthusiastically glugging the whisky neat in large shots between mouthfuls of salted cucumber- the way in which the Russians often drink vodka. Accepting his warm offer to join the party, I tried to explain that whisky is usually drunk slowly, its taste savoured on the tongue. My advice fell on deaf ears.

Meanwhile Chris, a very down-to-earth Glaswegian lad, was settling in well with his host family, a beautiful 17-year-old girl and a typically fearsome yet kind babushka who at some point in the distant past had lost one of the lenses in her glasses and never bothered to replace it. The granddaughter would habitually walk around the flat in very tight hotpants whilst Chris, ever scrutinised by the babushka's single chaperoning lens, would try to avert his eyes from the temptation of ogling a girl only a couple of years his junior. On that first day in Ulyanovsk Chris, just finding his feet in Russian, asked me the meaning of the word 'yesho'. 'Again', or 'more', I translated, and his face cracked into a slightly embarrassed mask of realisation. Apparently his host babushka had prepared a wholesome and very large cauldron of soup to greet his arrival. Having watched him wolf down a first bowl she kindly asked 'Yesho?' which Chris mistook for the word 'horosho?', meaning 'good?'. For the next half hour or so he assented gratefully to every 'Yesho?', all the time wondering why the babushka was so keen for reassurance. She, meanwhile, must have been horrified by the arrival of this foreign glutton who threatened to eat her out of house and home, having consumed the whole cauldron of soup in his first sitting. Russians tend to eat heavy, sustaining breakfasts and Chris's host family would feed him all manner of unexpected treats each morning. On a typical day I would greet Chris, ask him what he had had for breakfast and he would respond with an appreciative “Beef stew” or “Liver and onions- really nice actually”. I preferred the lighter fare thoughtfully served up by my own host family.

Each day we would spend the morning studying Russian- Chris and Jack often asked to sing children's songs. I was grateful to be spared this as the teachers concentrated on untangling my bizarrely twisted Russian grammar. We would then be met by Dasha, Nastya and Polina, who were keen to fulfil their brief of enhancing our cultural education by taking us around the city's museums, the largest of which is a brutal concrete block dwarfing the neatly-preserved house where Lenin was born. Overlooking the spectacularly-wide River Volga and its one usable road bridge (which hosts a spectacular traffic jam for most of the day), this monolith was built to mark the centenary of Lenin's birth, with the help of workers from other communist states of the late 1960s world such as Cuba and Vietnam. Chris and I, however, had discovered that we could buy beer at 50p a pint in the summer cafes overlooking the Volga and spent every day trying to drag our unwilling chaperones there, our offers of free beer doing nothing to convince them that another museum visit should not be on the day's agenda.

At times, my casual insistence that having lived in Chita for a year and a half already I could easily get around Ulyanovsk without supervision was met with scepticism by our three helpers. The very mention of Chita caused more than one citizen of Ulyanovsk- a quiet, pleasant sort of a town- to mutter the phrase 'criminal crossroads'. It seemed Chitago's infamy as a trading post for not-entirely-legit Chinese imports (not to mention illegal exports of Russian timber) was reasonably widespread. I inadvertently illustrated the crude habits I had picked up from Chita when riding with the girls in a 'marshrutka' taxi minibus one day. As is the Chita custom, I shouted 'Stop!' in Russian at the driver at the point where I wished to exit. He appeared not to hear me and continued driving. 'Stop!' I bellowed a second time, causing an impromptu emergency stop. I asked the girls why they were laughing at this, and they explained that here in civilised European Russia, the driver stops at the next bus stop when asked instead of just stopping in any old place, as they routinely do in Chita.

In Siberia, people had often spoken of the mysterious, pervasive yet somehow intangible reach of the local 'mafia'. In Ulyanovsk, any enquiry about the provenance of the local 'biznismeni' would be answered with “They have all gone legit” and an explanation as to how the former mafioso clans had by now become more than rich enough to operate on the right side of the law. Three weeks into my month in Lenin's native city, I was standing outside with Ignat as he let his dog soil the children's playground between the blocks. A convoy of three black 4x4s, windows tinted, pulled quickly up to the building where we lived, out jumped two muscular chaps, they quickly ran to the main entrance, picked up metal shields, ran back to the middle car, and at a run escorted inside a middle-aged, well-dressed man, shields held high above their heads. After I had finished gawping I asked an unmoved Ignat what it had all been about. “He's a prominent local biznesman who owns the fifth floor of my building. A few months ago a sniper took a shot at him from one of the nearby blocks” he casually explained. I reflected that I had been coming and going from that same door for three weeks without a second thought as to whether I may have been within the cross-hairs of a patiently waiting sniper.

The gentle tug-of-war over our daily cultural education/alcohol consumption routine continued and caused no real tension until the day that we trio of Brits announced that we wanted to visit the spectacular nearby city of Kazan, capital of the oil-rich Russian republic of Tatarstan, which had declared independence from Moscow in 1990. The Kremlin had opted to quell these ambitions by diplomatic means, wary of Tatarstan's resource wealth, whereas the Chechen declaration of independence the following year was hardly met with such a measured response. Even so, an independent land-locked Tatarstan, surrounded by a peeved Russian Federation, could hardly have fared well in the long term. The three girls, though not actually responsible for our safety, were gobsmacked at the recklessness of our apparently lunatic plan to take a four-hour bus ride, mess about in Kazan, and then hop on a bus back to Ulyanovsk. “Do you know Kazan? Have you ever been there?” blurted Dasha in exasperation. I tried to explain to her that if people only visited places they knew already, mankind would never have left the Great Rift Valley in Africa. More seriously, this was my first realisation that many Russians are simply very wary of travelling around what is a vast, usually empty country where a lack of local knowledge can prove a great hindrance or even a danger. We Westerners, spoiled by the comfort and safety of travel in Europe and the ease with which information can be gathered, seemed reckless to our hosts.

Anyhow, we went to Kazan and had a great time. The city has apparently benefited from a direct World Bank funding programme, an innovation presumably designed to bypass any possibility of Moscow stealing its designated funds. The result is a beautifully restored, UNESCO-listed Kremlin complete with imposing, spanking new mosque and stadium and a spotless city centre which oozes an easy prosperity. Beyond this small enclave, Kazan is a sprawling dump with acute social problems, and a lesson in how even direct funding programmes can be spent only for the benefit of an elite. I also saw the most easterly McDonalds I have yet to see, its golden arches complemented by red and green stripes in apparent compromise with Tatarstan's Muslim traditions.

Safe and soundly back in Ulyanovsk, we Brits, walking one day in the market place, chanced upon the man whose family had shared our compartment on the train down from Moscow. “I knew I knew your face. I saw you advertising manicures on TV in Siberia when I lived there” he announced, to my incredulity. Small world, indeed. We also visited a local professional football match, before which Chris started to take a video of the scene with his phone camera. 'Boys, Boys, Boys', a 1980s hit by Europop sensation Sabrina, began to play over the stadium tannoy. “Sabrina- massive tits” I announced crudely. “I was taking that video to show my grandma” replied Chris, frustrated at my all-too-audible musings. In the middle of the match, with play in full swing, the tannoy trumpeted the arrival of the regional governor at the stadium. I can hardly imagine the same happening at Saltergate, Chesterfield, even if the Queen were to show up for a half-time pie.

Shortly afterwards, Ignat gathered a pleasant group and we piled into a convoy of cars to visit a dacha owned by the parents of brothers Misha and Pasha, at a village whose name translates disconcertingly as 'Place of the Mosquitoes'. During a pleasant day which I spent taking banya steam baths, drinking and losing to an eight-year-old in Russian word games, Pasha- a rotund and amiable chap in his mid-30s- had rather a forthright argument with an elderly nun who tired to stop him taking a dip in the pond of the village's small convent. She eventually trumped Pasha by telling him that he would be condemned to hell if he swam in her pond. After driving back into Ulyanovsk, Pasha parked up his pride and joy- a lovingly maintained 1970s Volga saloon- in one of the many overnight compounds that have sprung up across Russia. As I approached him to bid a grateful goodbye after a top day, I noticed a light flash across my eyes. He was pointing a laser-sighted gun directly at me. “Don't worry- it's not loaded” he laughed before passing it to his young daughter to play with.

Pasha's brother Misha, in his early 20s, lean and handsome yet strangely quiet, worked for the FSB- successor organisation to the KGB. Near my hosts' flat was an unmarked, bunker-like building bristling with listening antennae that Ignat had cheerfully informed me was an FSB listening post. One evening as I walked by with Misha I cheekily asked him what the building was. “I don't know” he replied, not altogether convincingly. More worryingly, Misha was pulled over for speeding by the traffic police one evening hen giving Chris a lift home. One flash of his credentials and Misha was waved deferentially on his way. The license of certain officials to drive like lunatics with impunity is surely part of the woeful litany of reasons why one is five times more likely to die on the road in Russia than in Britain⁴.

Towards the end of our month in Ulyanovsk I finally provided my host babushka with definitive proof that I am in fact an idiot. One evening Ignat and friends threw a surprise party with vodka galore, at the end of which I found myself standing in my bedroom doorway, slurring in Russian “No, I'm not drunk” to a disapproving Tatiana Petrovna. I then looked down and realised that I was wearing only a pair of boxer shorts.

At the end of that month, Jack departed to visit friends in Germany whilst Chris found himself stranded in Amsterdam as the Glasgow Airport bombings delayed his flight. He was actually far from distressed by this, having used his new-found Russian skills to make the very close acquaintance of a Russian girl at his hotel. Meanwhile, as I waited several hours in Moscow for a connecting flight to Siberia, Yuliya- the stunning girl who had been one of our two guides upon our original arrival in Moscow- came to meet me. To do so she spent a good couple of hours on a bus and I was surprised and delighted by this gesture. As we sat, close together and getting to know and like each other very quickly, she asked me not to fly to Chita but to stay in Moscow for a month, and even asked me if I would like to visit her native Kazakhstan with her. I could not believe my luck. As the conversation continued, I asked where she lived. “Alone?” “No.” “With your parents?” “No.” Hesitation from me..... “With a boyfriend?” “No.” Relief. Then the realisation dawned. “With your husband?” The reply was hesitant..... “Yes”.

I boarded the flight for Siberia.

A sort of homecoming

Because I am tight and had time on my hands I flew to Irkutsk- formerly known as the 'Paris of Siberia'- and took an 18-hour train ride onwards to Chita, a cheaper option than flying directly between Moscow and Chita. Irkutsk airport was under heavy reconstruction as I arrived, and the arrivals terminal was literally a shed. I gathered my bags, took a bus to the railway station and hopped onto the next eastbound Trans-Siberian train.

Back in Chita, I was delighted to renew old acquaintances and to live for three weeks with my old friend Inna and her ever-welcoming family. Registering my visa in Chita proved hugely problematic. All foreigners must register their arrival in any new place within three working days of arrival and though my documents were in order according to every source of information I could find, the local Federal Migration 'Service' told me I had to leave town within a week. I can only speculate that they were making up their own rules in defiance of Russian law because Mikhail Khodorkovsky, ex-oil oligarch and formerly Russia's richest man who had dared to fund parties opposed to the Kremlin, was now imprisoned in Chita and the city was attracting unwanted attention from foreign journalists. Rumour had it that old MBK was incarcerated in the 'Isolator' a block or so away from my old teacher's flat- perhaps we had been neighbours for a while in 2006. The minor diplomatic impasse was resolved by my old friends at the Pedagogical University, who could not see what all the fuss was about and wrote a letter claiming I was helping them out with something or other. A posse of teachers and uni staff marched me down to the Federal Migration 'Service' office and I was registered in minutes.

Arguably the strangest episode of my short summer stint in Chita came when, one morning after a night spent drinking heavily at local Lake Araxley, the chap who had kindly driven the 100km or so to the lake had opted to carry own drinking the next day. In observation of a proud Russian tradition named zapoy he actually remained solidly drunk for the next week or so. Meanwhile, somebody needed to drive his car back into town, him lying comatose on the back seat. As the only sober member of the party, the task fell to me. I had no documents of any kind in a city where drivers are routinely stopped and shaken down for 'dokumenti'. I can barely imagine the shock any acquaintances may have felt had they seen me driving down Lenin Street, larger than life, especially had they been unaware I was back in town.

High energy prices had pushed the value of the rouble north and whereas my pound had fetched fifty roubles in 2006, a year later it was worth only forty, and what with Chita being generally more expensive than Ulyanovsk, I began to burn through a large chunk of my scholarship. Still, it was worth every penny to spend time chewing the cud with old friends. I even managed to conduct some dissertation research interviews, aided greatly by kind librarian Yuliya Nikolaevna, who would welcome me to her department, sit me down with tea and sweets, and go and collar some unsuspecting individual to give their views on how globalisation was affecting life in Chita. Eventually my research was to conclude that though young Russians aspire to Western standards of living, they do not aspire to Western 'standards of being'- that is, they have their own culture and are keen to hang on to it even while Western-style market economics takes an ever-firmer grip on Russian society.

I opted to spend the final week of my summer 2007 Russian jaunt in Moscow, getting to know the fine city centre all the better. All went reasonably well except the usual registration shenanigans: the youth hostel in which I stayed was ripping off tourists to the tune of fourteen quid a pop to complete a process that cost them nothing more than time. When I questioned this (in English) the hostel receptionist immediately phoned her boss and began to relate to him in Russian how this awkward foreigner was causing a 'scandal'. I waited patiently for her to put down the phone and then, to her shock, calmly continued our conversation in Russian. She was apologetic and in truth had not said anything too offensive, but that may well have been the last time she assumed her foreign guests spoke no Russian.

Back in Glasgow, I missed Russia more than ever.