Chapter 2: Finally, Chita
As the train approached Chita it swung past Lake Kenon, on the city’s edge. Fishermen were scattered around the expanse of ice, the lake’s backdrop of Soviet apartment blocks and smoke-belching power station giving way to suburbs of more Soviet apartment blocks and tumbledown pre-revolutionary wooden houses. The city seemed like a fairly typical Russian town, though perhaps a little dirtier than Novosibirsk or Irkutsk due to the relative absence of snow. Chita has a dry climate and, due to the plentiful ice, tends to look off-white during the colder months though (as her inhabitants often moan) it lacks the romance associated with established notions of the deep snow of the Russian winter[1].
Finally, my four and a half day journey from Moscow drew to an end as we pulled into Chita’s busy station. I grabbed my luggage and joined the alighting throng. As I fought to manoeuvre my case past a combination of train door and babushka, my frustration led me to exclaim “Shit!” Straight away, an American voice immediately responded, “James, I presume?” I have never been quite sure whether I was given away by my obviously foreign appearance (Russians don’t wear trainers in mid-winter, for starters) or the loud English profanity that was my first word in Chita. Warm greetings were offered by the tall, deer stalker-hatted owner of the American voice, Michael Shipley, and by boss-to-be, Elena Bukina (known to all by the formal ‘Elena Ivanovna’), kitted out in elegant light blue fur. It was truly a relief to encounter my first genuinely friendly faces in Russia.
As Michael drove us
to my flat, I was encouraged to see that the centre of Chita is in fact quite
colourful. Having expected only the concrete monotony typical of ex-communist
‘Workers’ Paradises’, the colourful pendants and tiling of Lenin Square,
adorned with impressive ice sculptures I thought existed only in Japan, were a
welcome surprise. The huge Orthodox Cathedral nearing its completion also added
colour to the city’s central district.
I had not been sure
of what to expect of the accommodation provided by the university, but had
decided I would be happy so long as I had my own clean bathroom. To my delight
(and, it has to be said, Michael’s surprise) I was shown to a brand new
apartment with a brand new TV and furniture, into which a fridge freezer was
being installed that very minute. ‘Welcome to Chita, James!’ read a colourful
hand-made poster on the wall. Waiting for me was Valentina Kuprianovna
Potaenko, an employee of the university whom I came to know as ‘My Russian
Grandmother’. In her typically caring and helpful manner she made tea and
(open) sandwiches as I attempted to express my genuine thankfulness through my
tiredness. Around sixty years old, Valentina was possessed of incredible energy
and I would often encounter her as she rushed from one appointment to another,
though she would usually make time to fuss over me and make sure all was okay.
She spoke reasonable English but was keen to force me to speak Russian and often
invited me for tea in her office during which we would sit and eat cakes and
she would patiently repeat herself until I got the gist of what she was talking
about. Valentina had grown up in Chita, the daughter of a lifetime railway
worker, and had taught Chinese for a living. The break in diplomatic relations
between Moscow and Beijing during the sixties and seventies had closed the
border and curtailed her trade, but the current flurry of contacts with Chinese
students and universities was keeping Valentina on her toes.
Meanwhile, a woman
with bright red hair wandered into my kitchen. I wondered who she was until she
spoke; it was Elena Ivanovna, barely recognisable having taken off her fur hat.
I was to have a superb working relationship with my future boss, a thoughtful
woman who was delighted to have a native English speaker to teach her students
and went to great lengths to help me enjoy my time in Chita.
As my kind welcoming
committee departed to leave me to sleep, I reflected that things had very
definitely taken a turn for the better.
The centrepiece of Chita is Lenin Square, at the centre of which stands a tall statue of the Soviet Union’s favourite founding father. One simply does not find monuments to Stalin, even if some older Russians still profess admiration, but it seems Russians’ view of Lenin ranges from indifference to grateful acknowledgment that he at least played a major part in ending the oppressive system of Tsarist rule. I was told not to stand too near the statue as it is structurally unsound and may fall over soon. One of the square’s numerous pigeons would often nest on his lofty pate. The square consists of pastel-coloured tiled walks lined by benches which are packed solid during summer but deserted for most of the year. The tiles feature Chinese characters and were apparently laid by Chinese workers during the square’s renovation during the 1990s. It is actually a pleasantly colourful place, flags fluttering and brightly painted large civic buildings lining its edges. A large fountain provides a summer focus and a modern toilet block is the latest addition, though to pay five roubles (ten pence) to squat over a hole in the ground seems like poor value. In early winter the city invests in ice sculptures, built by Chinese firms, a beautiful ice castle of around three metres’ height being lit colourfully by night. Children and adults alike slide joyously down its flanks, even as the temperature plunges below –25C.
Central Chita is built on a slope down
towards the confluence of the Ingoda and Chitinka rivers. This is the point at
which the first Russian settlers founded the city in 1653. Just above the
Chitinka river stands the impressive classical white railway station, dating
from the pre-revolutionary coming of the Trans-Siberian railway. A Soviet tower
stands above the station, displaying the temperature and the time in Moscow.
Some American friends spent months believing that the clock was simply running
six hours slow before I pointed out that Moscow time is shown because the whole
Russian railway system runs, of necessity given the number of timezones
traversed, on capital time. In front of the station is a large concourse of car
and bus parking places, and beyond this a huge and impressive Orthodox
cathedral. Built during the early years of this millennium on the site of an
old Soviet stadium, the cathedral gleams with gold onion domes and garish sky
blue walls. The homeless beggars standing at the gates illustrate the peculiar
spending priorities of modern Russia- there is evidently money in religion even
in this previously most atheistic of countries.
Standing a block uphill from the cathedral
is a huge yellow building which always seems immaculately maintained.
Unsurprisingly, this is a military structure and reputedly was formerly a
centre of some importance to the Soviet nuclear weapons programme. This
regional military headquarters is the western side of Lenin Square. Chita was a
closed city for most of the Soviet period, with foreigners strictly forbidden.
Its location near to the Chinese border rendered it an important military
centre and the city apparently featured highly on the list of US would-be
targets owing to its stockpile of nuclear weaponry. Today, soldiers are a
frequent sight on the city’s streets and guards hide in entrances to unmarked
military buildings all over Chita. Along the southern edge of the square stand
the modern-looking Hotel Zabaikalye and the railway institute, the latter’s
good state of repair and annual paint job symbolising the profitability of
Russia’s state rail monopoly. The old wooden post office and the green city
hall form the eastern edge and the imposing regional duma (parliament)
dominates the square from the north. A typical grey concrete Soviet edifice,
its lower floors are hidden by well-maintained trees lining a clean, modern
pavement that contrasts starkly with every other pavement in the city. Atop the
regional government building’s eight storeys flutter the flags of the Russian
Federation and the red, green and yellow flag of the Chita oblast (region).
Looking back downhill towards the station and across the river one sees a
pleasant backdrop of high wooded hills, the odd stone outcrop poking toward the
horizon.
Venture
along the streets around Lenin Square and you will find reasonably busy
commercial areas, modern shopfronts shining beneath Stalin and Khruschev-era
blocks. The Old Market trades outdoors in all weathers, Russians selling
everything from hats and CDs to electricity generators and spanners, but the
real bustle takes place in the nearby Chinese market. Known locally as the Kitaika,
this outdoor trading hive is overloaded with cheap clothes, carpets,
electrical devices and individual Chinese wandering around offering to engrave
glass into any design the customer desires. The constant haggling with
customers and shouted discussions in babbling Chinese produce a more lively
atmosphere than the more sombre Old Market. There are two indoor market halls
attached to the outdoor Kitaika, the top floor of one boasting a
wonderful café in which cheap and delicious Chinese food is served with a
smile. Be careful not to buy the pigs’ ears, though. The other hall is
dominated by meat vendors, the sight of a whole pig’s head and a stall full of
trotters suggesting how things were in Britain before our society began to buy
its meat in neat packages from out-of-town supermarkets.
Following
Lenin Street north from the square, one encounters the huge Filarmonia
concert hall, beside which stands the square of the Fighters for Soviet Power
in the Transbaikal Region. This is a drab expanse of concrete above which
towers a monument of three workers/soldiers, faces stoic and weapons pointed
skywards in true Socialist Realist style. Following Lenin Street in the
opposite direction one finds the Officers’ Club, an imposing colonnaded
Stalin-era structure behind which stands a park complete with a row of World
War Two military hardware. A lovingly maintained monument to those fallen in
Afghanistan stands beside an oddly vandalised Great Patriotic War memorial. In
summer families walk, children play on dangerous-looking fairground equipment
and students mill around drinking but for most of the year the park stands
desolate and empty beneath snow and ice. The first time I went there the
temperature was around –20C and I walked from one end to the other, expecting
to be able to exit at the other end and find a shop into which I could walk to
warm up. I discovered that all exits were padlocked and the only way out was the
way I came in, meaning another ten minutes’ walk- uncomfortable in Siberian
winter when not anticipated. Beside the Officers’ Club stands a beautiful
nineteenth-century merchant’s house, now painted in pleasant salmon pink, its
purpose unannounced to the outside world but well known to the locals as the
headquarters of the FSB (Federal Service for Security), known for many years as
the KGB. I was once admonished by a friend for saying the word “FSB” too loudly
as we passed the building, which is surely among the best maintained in the
city. Opposite stands the Udokan cinema, constructed in what must have
been futuristic style during Soviet times with a large glass frontage and
coloured socialist-realist murals. At the rear of the cinema building stands one
of the city’s two pizzerias, a favoured haunt of wealthier youngsters and
completely Westernised in appearance if not in service.
Further along Lenin
Street is the Pushkin Library, a once-grand institute now fading but topped
sometime during the Soviet period with a prominent wedge-shape of modern glass.
I became a frequent visitor to the Foreign Department, headed by the delightful
Julia Nikolaevna. An ageing woman of elegant frailty, she was renowned across
the city for her kindness and helpfulness to students. As a young woman her
dream had been to work on the construction of the Baikal-Amur Mainline, a huge
Soviet construction project which eventually cost an estimated fourteen billion
dollars. Built from the 1930s onwards, the BAM was declared operational in 1984
but later declared fully complete in 1991. Julia Nikolaevna had fulfilled her
dream by teaching English to the railway workers, no doubt making her
contribution to the building of socialism whilst living in primitive temporary
settlements. I would always be welcomed warmly to her library, asked with
motherly concern how I was and sweets dropped discreetly on my desk as I sat
reading. When pushed, she admitted that she had much preferred life during the
Soviet era. Society had a uniting idea, then, she explained, and even if the
idea was ultimately false, at least people cared for the idea and for each
other. I argued that surely, nowadays, Russians had better opportunities,
especially if they wished to travel. “Yes- if you have the money”, she
responded wisely. Whenever I had finished reading a book in English, I would
give it to the library, given that they had no source of modern books in
foreign languages and that I had not the luggage space to cart the books back
to Britain. On each occasion she professed absolute delight and insisted I
write a dedication in the book. She would regularly present me with boxes of
chocolates and on my leaving Chita sent a present to my mother. A wonderful
woman.
The suburbs of Chita are noticeably less pleasant than the centre of the city. Some consist of row upon row of Soviet blocks and are considered reasonable places to live, for example the district of MJK, built by enthusiastic young workers during the 60s and 70s. Others consist of row upon row of Soviet blocks and are inhabited by poorer families or considered dangerous due to the rumoured presence of numerous criminals and drug addicts. Ostrov (‘Island’), a district just across the river from the station, was a place I had been told to avoid, and I did not pay much heed until one night when climbing into a taxi there outside a Chinese restaurant with some student friends. The taxi driver, sitting in his cab, began arguing with a man who suddenly punched him through the open window. One of the students pulled us all straight out of the taxi and shoved us back into the restaurant. The driver piled out and the two men began grappling on the tarmac. Friends of each soon turned up and a shoving match ensued between twenty or so men until, after ten minutes or so, the militia finally pitched up and dispersed the whole bloody mess. Par for the course in Ostrov, some would say. Other suburbs were made up of ancient wooden houses, the inhabitants presumably too poor to afford a flat or not sufficiently politically connected to be allocated one. The district of Shkol Semnatsat (‘School 17’) is perhaps the most notorious of all Chita suburbs, the poverty giving its decaying blocks and huts an even more obviously run-down aspect than other districts. It is difficult for any Westerner not to lament how the people of a once-great superpower still often live in shacks with small outside wooden huts serving as toilets.
Venturing toward the eastern edge of the city one finds a ring road- not modern but in reasonable shape- and beyond that some reasonably high hills clad in the region’s ubiquitous birch and pine. In winter, only animal tracks break much of the virgin snow but in summer the woods are lit up by an explosion of beautiful purple rhododendron. To the south of Chita one passes through the former industrial villages of Antipikha and Peschanka, once apparently of military significance but now desolate, crumbling and in desperate need of an economic raison d’etre. Further south, the road winds through deserted hills along the course of the Ingoda river, towards Aginsk and the Buryat Autonomous Region, of which more later.
Travelling to the northwest of the city one encounters the suburbs of KSK and GRES, two of the larger settlements surrounding Chita. GRES is the Russian acronym for the name of the city’s smokestack power station, which perches on the less than picturesque shores of Lake Kenon and gives its name to the surrounding tower blocks. It belches a cloud of smoke into the otherwise clear and still air which is visible from much of the city. On the other side of the lake sits KSK, built as extensive tower block housing to accommodate workers at the huge textile factory after which the district is named. I was told that during Soviet times the plant was an important producer of school uniforms and its huge scale suggests that it must have had a significant role to play in the planned economy. However, perestroika soon put paid to all that and as the factory’s doors closed, so the people of KSK found themselves unemployed en masse. For much of the nineties KSK was apparently a local byword for economic desolation, though nowadays the district seems to be on the up again with modern shops and even the odd bar beginning to spring up along the busy central street.
During my first six months in Russia I lived in the centre of Chita, everything within convenient walking distance of my block. For much of my second stint I lived in the suburb of Sosnovy Bor, twenty minutes’ walk from Lenin Square but easily accessible by marshrutka (taxi bus)[2] or trolleybus. Sosnovy Bor has two parts, the southernmost and more distant from the centre a nightmarish jungle of rotting concrete Khruschev-era blocks. My own part of the district was not so bad, made up largely of old wooden houses in decent states of repair, though the roads on which they stand are unmade. The name of the suburb means ‘pine wood’ and there were indeed plentiful pines standing among air noticeably fresher than down in the city centre. The headquarters of Chita State University stands in Sosnovy Bor, a recent renovation nicely hiding the Soviet blandness betrayed by old photos of the building. Around the university, the village-style wooden houses range from the dilapidated to the modern, the latter hiding their prosperity behind plain metal fences but betrayed by the odd glimpse of a large satellite dish or a gleaming new Japanese car.
On my first day in Chita I was introduced to the staff of the institute and in one room spied an open back issue of The Guardian’s property section, open at a page headed ‘Chesterfield, Derbyshire’. I asked if they had pulled this from the pile because they knew Chesterfield was my hometown, and was met with blank stares. Apparently, by sheer coincidence, on my first day in my new job, thousands of miles from home, here was an English newspaper article detailing what the different areas of my hometown are like. I gleefully grabbed the paper as future lesson material, having not had the sense to bring photographs of Derbyshire to Russia with me.
I was also introduced to the Dean of the foreign languages faculty- my boss’s boss. She sat me down in her office (plush relative to the crumbling faculty building) and our one and only full conversation went roughly as follows:
Dean (in plummy English): “Do you write poetry?”
Me: “Erm… not really…. Sorry”
Dean: “Do you read poetry?”
Me: “Erm… no”
Dean: “Do you like poetry?”
Me: “Sorry, it’s not something I was ever into…..”
Clearly disappointed, she handed me an armful of magazines of poetry she had translated from Russian into English and sent me on my way. Her institute had invested all this time and effort in recruiting a foreign teacher, and not even thought to check if he was a poet. You just can’t get the staff.
The tour of the institute ended with a quick bite to eat in the canteen, staffed by a Buryat[3] woman who at first seemed not to like me but who one day, months later, decided that I was the business after I had helped her small son to play a game on one of the institute’s computers. Having done her family this small favour, I was served instantly and with a smile thereafter.
I had never taught before and my preparation consisted of reading a book about how to teach English as a foreign language whilst on the train. Two days after my arrival I was pitched straight into three lessons. I had known the approximate age of the students but had no idea of their level of English. I had visions of spending frustrating hours pointing at objects and mouthing “Book”, “Pen”, “Rubber chicken”. As I sauntered nervously into my first class, a dozen or so students in their early twenties stood promptly to attention. I told them to sit down and perched on the desk, later learning that Russian teachers always sit rigidly behind their desks and expect every student to stand respectfully as they enter the room. It was immediately evident that Russian universities are closer in style to English schools than to English universities. Also evident, to my relief, was that the students were well able to speak English.
I took names of students, my mispronunciation causing a few laughs, and asked each what they planned to do after graduation. Most simply said “I do not want to be a teacher”. Here I was in a pedagogical university, the function of which is to train teachers, yet owing to the appalling salaries (around forty quid per month after graduation) and low social status afforded teachers in Russia, this generation did not have teaching on their minds. I began to give a hastily-prepared speech about the UK, played a couple of games of hangman and generally muddled through until lunchtime and the end of my working day. One of the students later told me that I had spent the lesson speaking far too quickly, quietly, never venturing beyond the blackboard or my desk, but that they were nonetheless pleased to encounter a foreign face. The top buttons also fell off my shirt during the first lesson, the gaping open neck giving me the appearance of somebody trying just a little too hard to look casual.
My job was simply to converse with the students, encouraging them to communicate with a native speaker in English. They would copy my pronunciation, apparently happy that my accent was English rather than American, and were eager to learn the slang and modern English that their otherwise thorough textbooks did not convey. Most seemed to view Britain as an unattainable paradise of material wealth and wanted to visit though none wished to live outside Russia. They were surprised to hear me tell them of the many similarities between Russian and English life and eager to learn of more eccentric British customs such as chasing cheese down hills and cheering on Eddie ‘The Eagle’ Edwards precisely because he was useless. They found it hard to believe that people use ‘Poop Scoops’ in the UK, thinking I was winding them up.
Straight away I dispensed with the custom of students having to stand upon my entry, wanting to create an informal atmosphere more conducive to open communication. I was also free to dress as I wished, this being seen by the institute as a good way of exposing students to how Westerners actually looked in the flesh. Of course, my attire was not too different to the students’ own, though it certainly contrasted with the stuffy and formal wear favoured by most of the other teachers. On a couple of occasions my dress was arguably a little too outlandish, as one day I wore a V-neck T-shirt back to front for a whole day without realising, and another time my flies were apparently undone, though I never noticed. I soon learned that giving homework assignments was pointless as, given my less than strict attitude, the work would usually not be forthcoming. One particular girl did give me a wonderful paper on her free time activities, in which she wrote “I am a really good singer and I know shit loads of songs”. She was aware of the slightly inappropriate language but correctly assumed I would find it funny rather than improper- indeed, her grasp of English slang impressed me.
Cheap, pirate DVDs are freely available in Chita and a few of these have English language soundtracks. I was able to spend some lessons simply showing these films to my classes, a favourite being ‘Monty Python’s Life of Brian’. One girl had to leave the room, laughing so hard as she was at Michael Palin’s Roman centurion saying the name ‘Biggus Diccus’. Before each screening of this film I would warn students that the content was a little contentious and that they may leave if they wished to. Except, that is, on the one occasion I forgot to issue the warning and two girls stormed out halfway through, informing me that I was showing a blasphemous film on an Orthodox religious holiday. To be fair, neither held it against me- Russians rarely hold grudges.
My students were very keen to communicate outside class and many soon became valued friends. One gave me a Russian card for my phone- priceless in a society where land lines are scarce and email not yet popular. Invitations to social gatherings were frequent, and I discovered the Russian custom of not allowing an invited guest to pay for anything. Of course, I chipped in where I could, usually after arguing that I was a paid teacher and they were existing on practically nothing. To my delight I was also invited to Friday’s weekly drinking sessions- in winter sometimes conducted illicitly in a quiet classroom after hours- where the students would blow their monthly stipend of eight pounds per month. This measly gift from the government was no good for living, they reasoned, so they may as well blow it on a good session once per month. The dividing line between scholars and friends was blurred, for sure, but the university were pleased to see me settling in and agreed that there was arguably more value in my communicating with students outside class than in the more formal environment of the classroom. In fact, too often was the occasion that I would bring bottled water to a morning lesson, those in the know looking wryly on as I tried to rehydrate after a night on the booze.
Chita has what is known as a ‘sharp continental climate’. The city is on the same longitude as Milton Keynes yet does not benefit from Britain’s proximity to the sea which keeps land relatively warm in winter and cool in summer. The Gulf Stream keeps the UK several degrees warmer than its northerly position deserves: Russians, of course, view Britain as a warm country and can barely believe that we perceive our own islands as being on the chilly side.
I arrived in Chita in January and temperatures were typically around –20 to –25C during the afternoons and significantly colder during mornings and the hours of darkness. Mid-January is the period known locally as the ‘Kreschenscky Frost’ when temperatures reach –40 to –45C during nights and barely rise above that level until the sun has been above the horizon for a good couple of hours. Each year the local media carries reports of those who have died during this coldest of snaps. During January 2005 in Chita a local journalist told me that the Frost claimed around fifteen lives, among them the usual array of drunk, homeless or drunk and homeless. Parents of newborns are understandably very protective during winter and to see a young parent carrying around a large bundle of clothing with a baby’s nose barely poking through is common. Grandmothers have free license to berate young mothers for not wrapping up their offspring in enough dead animals.
The thin nature of my outdoor western clothing caused some consternation and on my very first day in Chita my boss had sent me to market, two teachers of English kindly helping, to buy fur-lined boots and a fur-lined hat. I declined to buy a fur coat, as these are phenomenally expensive in comparison to local wages, ranging from around fifty quid for a cheap Chinese fake to upwards of a thousand pounds for top quality natural fur. I opted to wear a fleece underneath a (fake) fur-lined leather jacket and found this quite warm enough, though Russians would look at my attire with disapproval. Fur is central to life in Siberia and is indeed the main reason why Russian settlers first settled this inhospitable part of the world. They argue that one simply cannot survive a Siberian winter without it and whilst fur is undoubtedly warmer than most man-made materials, many Canadians seem to survive without it in a comparable climate.
Upon stepping out from the double doors of a warm building, the first breath of sharp cold air usually causes a cough but the lungs quickly adjust. For wearers of glasses the instant steaming-up effect of entering a building is a constant annoyance, as is the prompt defrosting of the contents of one’s nose. Kitting up before venturing out and disrobing once inside take time but of course are absolutely imperative and are aided by the welcome presence of free wardrobes in almost every building. As an ignorant foreigner many was the time I would walk into a public building and be collared for not heading straight to the wardrobe, coat and hat in hand.
Walking around Chita in the depths of winter I found that ten or twenty minutes’ walk outside was tolerable, but that punctuating this with regular ducking into shops in order to warm up before going on my way was essential. Russian shopkeepers ignore customers until spoken to anyway so none resented the presence of browsers clearly there just to take a few minutes’ respite from the Siberian winter.
In truth, the winter did not prove as uncomfortable as one may fear. Naturally, to wear many layers of heavy, warm clothing is crucial- you soon notice if you wander outside in winter having forgotten to don longjohns. However, as Chita is usually free of wind, the climate was comfortable. When the wind did whistle down the streets the cold would cut right through me, but these occasions were extremely rare. The region is apparently among the sunniest in the world, enjoying over three hundred days’ sun every year, and darkness comes later than in the UK. Locals would say that the winter sunlight, though not giving noticeable heat, was good for the soul. Having long thought the perpetual darkness the worst aspect of the British winter, I heartily agreed. I was warned early on that frostbite was a possibility, numb blue patches around the mouth and cheeks usually the first sign. I walked around with my scarf covering most of my face anyway but often indulged in the local habit of vigorously rubbing my nose with my glove to encourage circulation.
One of the most eerie and beautiful aspects of the winter was a phenomenon known locally as ini. A dictionary told me that the English term is ‘hoarfrost’, though I believe hoarfrost tends to collect around objects or on the ground. I had never come across ini before and was mesmerised to see what looked like little hundreds of tiny flakes of gold dancing in the still winter light, bringing to mind a cluster of golden fairies. At first sight I wondered if I was witnessing something unique but the Russians had seen it all before.
Spring and autumn are relatively brief in Zabaikalye (as the Transbaikal region is known in Russian), giving rise to the local view of there only being two seasons. Indeed, in early May a local lake was still thoroughly frozen yet I was assured that by July it would be warm enough for a leisurely swim and its shores packed with sunbathers. From June to September Chita is indeed generally warmer than the UK, long days of glorious sunshine reaching typical highs of around 35C. Locals would tell tales of even higher temperatures, proud as they are of the extreme range of temperatures in which they live. Forest fires are a perpetual problem during these hot, dry months and in 2002 had apparently reached such proportions that the city existed in a cloud of smoke for some weeks, the start of the short growing season delayed by the climatic chaos. Mosquitoes and abundant flies are the curses of the Siberian summer, as are disease-carrying ticks which inhabit the forests. Another interesting, if brief, summer event was a sandstorm which had apparently blown in from Mongolia. For one day the city centre was all but deserted as I wandered around fascinated by the fact that visibility was down to twenty metres or so, the sun blotted out all afternoon. For a day or two everything- railings, cars, Lenin, the lot- was covered in a fine film of sand. Russian friends told me that this type of storm happened once every fifteen years or so. I asked why they had all stayed indoors and, putting together the various responses, it was obvious that some had feared Armageddon. After all, this was a deeply superstitious land in which the media often twisted the truth. Memories of Soviet citizens innocently wandering the streets of cities surrounding Chernobyl in the deadly pollution cloud of 1986, despite governmental assurances that all was hunky dory, were clearly in some people’s minds.
One of the most striking differences between Russian and English societies is the wide contrast between public and private behaviour often evident in Russia. Put simply, Russians are often much more likely to behave rudely and unsympathetically to strangers, yet will tend to extend hospitality, kindness and boundless generosity to friends and guests. I found that in Russia it was easy to cross this line between casual acquaintance and friend, people accepting me unquestioningly and going out of their way to make me welcome in Chita. My students Inna Makedonska and Artyom Rekunov and Valentina from the university, in particular, would do anything to help me settle. Artyom was a tall chap in his early twenties, popular with the ladies and ever keen to learn how others viewed his homeland. Inna was a touch older, tall and energetic with a young family, a tremendously motherly bearing and an open, sometimes feisty (yet always totally down-to-earth) Russo-Ukrainian character. If Valentina was my Russian Grandmother, Inna was my Russian mother. At the same time, the way in which people were so downright rude to each other in public- shop assistants included- took some getting used to. I would habitually hold doors open for others to pass through and become livid as they did not so much as nod an acknowledgement, but as time passed I began to accept that I was simply viewing things too much through a British cultural lens.
I found that, having not encountered Westerners before, many Russians viewed me as a perfectly accurate representation of the Western character. One friend became convinced that Englishmen never eat meat off the bone as I once declined her invitation to tear a strip of cheek off a sheep’s head she had prepared. Another girl had the habit of analysing my every word and gesture and reporting her interpretation to friends- I heard from others that she had been telling people I was deeply unhappy in Chita (this could not have been further from the truth) and another friend had heard from somebody that I was gay (again, untrue). Michael Shipley had warned me that Chinese Whispers often spread about these strange foreign types who choose Chita as their home. One student remarked that she was surprised to find me approachable, having met two snooty Englishmen on a train in China. I explained that there are sixty million British people, of all characters and types, and that I was just one of them. Chita region is twice the size of the UK and is home to one million people- when I explained that England has a population of forty five million, some students seemed to imagine that people have to trample over one another along crowded streets. Others seemed to view me as an unapproachable creature from another world- for example I once exited the institute to find that two young girls whom I did not know had been waiting two hours for me to finish working on a computer so as they could give me a present. Flattered, I explained that they should have simply walked up to me at the computer- they had seen I was there- to speak to me, as I was happy to communicate with students.
Western stereotypes have it that Russians are a stony-faced bunch, and indeed in public they can be. I would often walk around smiling to myself at some amusing thought, behaviour which I later learned is seen as evidence of mental infirmity among Russians. Smiling in official photos is forbidden by convention- Russians have to carry internal passports at all times, and I never saw a passport with a happy face inside. This flinty countenance is at least partly due, I’m sure, to a tradition of not wanting to stand out. There is a long Russian custom of collectivism, honed in isolated forest communities over hundreds of years and practiced as ideological orthodoxy for seventy more, and during past times flamboyant individuality may have led to unwelcome official attention. Of course, as the market economy dictates that people must compete to find their own successful path, individualism is notably becoming more the norm for the younger generations.
In private and amongst friends, Russians can be wonderfully open and have a tradition of hospitality which puts Britain to shame. Foreigners are readily welcomed to ‘kitchen table’ conversations, in Soviet times the place to air grievances to trusted friends. I often found that on visiting a Russian home I would be offered food and drink even if it was apparent that the host may not have the means to eat tomorrow. Guests are usually invited to view the family photo album, the smiling faces inside a further illustration of how private happiness can contrast with the sternness of official or public life. Russians love to take photos of each other, and sometimes seem not to understand why anyone would photograph a beautiful landscape if there are no people in the scene. Younger Russians almost always hold up their fingers in a Churchill-style victory ‘V’ gesture when being photographed, the gesture apparently symbolising ‘peace’.
As life began to find a semblance of a pattern, and I began my first romantic involvement by getting to know a girl who had simply walked up to me in the street and began talking to me in English, I found myself relishing the prospect of a few months in Chita. Particularly welcome was the opportunity to watch live Premiership football on the Russian sports channel, though the mispronunciation of player names such as ‘Waeyn Rrrrrroonyei’ could be a little grating[4]. I also had to get used to handwashing my clothes. Washing machines are the preserve of the more well-to-do in Chita and there are simply no launderettes. More than once I was directed to a place which locals believed was a launderette but was in fact a dry cleaning firm: to Russians there was no difference between the two. I had never hand-washed clothes before, other than when backpacking, when I had used a tube of handwash soap. I asked Valentina how I was to go about this mysterious task and she responded “All the things are in your flat”. I answered that I knew the necessary items were all provided but that I needed to know how to hand-wash. Slightly bemused, Valentina reiterated “All the things are in your flat”. Clearly, it did not compute with her that it was possible for a person not to know how to wash clothes by hand. I politely excused myself and emailed my mother for an idiots’ guide to handwashing. Her reply gave the necessary instruction but she had clearly had a good laugh with the women in her office at the mollycoddled impracticality of my generation. I spent the next few months devoting one evening per week to incompetently dousing my clothes in ice-cold water (the hot water was always suspiciously brown), wringing them endlessly and hanging them in a dripping mass around most of my flat. Somehow I had failed to realise that hot water cleans more effectively than cold.
When I arrived in Chita, I was not the city’s only English visitor. Within a fortnight I had met Frank, a Buddhist monk from England who was visiting the city as part of a tour of Central Asia’s Buddhist sites. The Chita population is a mix of Russian and Buryat, the latter a Buddhist people of Mongolian descent. One or two of their religious monuments had survived communism and shamanism was still practiced in the region, hence Frank’s interest. A thin chap in his late fifties with a Manchester accent, Frank’s winter attire was an incongruous mix of artificial Western gore-tex coat and knee-length Russian felt boots. These valinki, as they are known, are traditional Siberian footwear but rarely seen on the streets nowadays, adding to Russians’ intrigue at his appearance. Frank had left the material world behind to enter a monastery in southern England before embarking on his grand tour and had wandered into my language institute one day to introduce himself. He spoke no Russian beyond the numbers one to five and when I asked him how he bought goods, he informed me that he would take the empty packaging to a shop and gesture until he was understood. I was surprised to find that I was not Chita’s only Englishman, and I was to discover that in addition to Frank, Michael and I, the city also boasted one Australian, one Canadian, a German family, one Frenchwoman and a Scot. Other Westerners would occasionally pass by but until the arrival of a couple more Americans in autumn 2005 we were the only Western figures among the city’s permanent population. During February Frank disappeared to Mongolia, planning to hire a horse and trap and ride and meditate his way around the rural areas. He resurfaced a few weeks later in Chita having got no further than a frustrating stint as an English teacher in Ulan Bator, and the last I heard he was in India somewhere, no doubt proving that communication can always transcend language barriers if one tries hard enough.
Chita’s population is around 360,000, a figure roughly comparable to Nottingham. In size, however, Chita occupies much less land than Nottingham as most of the city’s housing consists of high-rise flats. This gives rise to a small-town atmosphere in which everybody seems to know everybody else’s business, and Chita is indeed sometimes described by the locals as ‘a village’. Many still live in wooden housing constructed before the revolution, these dwellings tending to be small in order to facilitate heating via the stoves that form the centrepiece of each abode. Whole suburbs consist of these tumbledown shacks, their double-paned glass windows ornately framed by once-beautiful intricate wooden carvings. The constant thawing and freezing of the top layers of permafrost on which these wooden houses perch has caused many to sink into the ground. Some seem well cared for on the outside but many are in such a poor external state that one wonders if people live there. Locals assured me that whatever the state of a house, it was likely that somebody was inside, many of the worst being owned by pensioners lacking the energy and funds necessary to renovate their once-splendid homes. If one could take a typical Siberian wooden house, knock it into shape, transport it to the UK and plumb it in with a few modern conveniences, it would be considered a quaint and rustic joy. To Russians, these dwellings betray the poverty of their society and it seems that, in the eyes of the civic authorities, they could not be knocked down and replaced by new tower blocks quickly enough.
Flats are favoured
in Siberia as they are easier to heat than detached houses and were seen as an
answer to Russia’s chronic housing shortages during Soviet times. Lining the
central streets of Chita- Lenin Street (Ulitsa Lenina) and Amur Street (Ulitsa
Amurskaya)- are outwardly impressive Stalinki apartment blocks,
built during the rule of the USSR’s murderous dictator. These are each five
stories or so, usually painted a peeling dark yellow, and have appealingly
architraved small windows and balconies. They are apparently known for their
high ceilings, though this does not help on the heating front, and look
sturdily impressive from outside even if the locals tell tales of them being
dilapidated within. One or two of the Stalinki appear to have an
oriental flourish, apparently owing to the fact that most were constructed by
Japanese prisoners of war kept unlawfully in the USSR after 1945 and worked to
death. Monuments to these fallen Japanese in the suburb of Sosnovy Bor, where I
was later to live, provide a rare acknowledgment of their contribution.
Khruschevki are more
common- the flats hastily erected from prefabricated parts during the reign of
Nikita Khrushchev. These are functional blocks, usually five stories but
sometimes higher, built with no regard for external appearance as a quick
answer to accommodation shortages resulting from the ‘long rouble’ policy of
the time. Instead of exploiting Siberia’s mineral wealth by accusing people of
crimes and shipping them off in chains to the Gulag[5],
Khrushchev’s government tried to entice workers to move east by offering higher
wages and guaranteed housing. Khrushchev lasted in power until 1965 but the Khruschevki
style was de rigeur until the economic collapse of the late 1980s.
Most of Chita’s suburbs consist of these blocks, in varying states of repair.
Typically, the entrance to a Khruschevki block will be a
beaten-up wooden door in a rubbish-strewn entrance, though some of the more
upmarket blocks- which seem the same from a distance- on closer inspection have
a coded lock to ward away the itinerant. Working lifts are an absolute rarity,
and the state of the stairwells is usually a disgrace. However, upon entering a
flat one enters a different world. One of the ironies of communism’s legacy is
that any communal areas- stairwells, public squares, footpaths etc- are treated
with utter disrespect. Litter abounds despite the committed efforts of small
teams who voluntarily do their bit to clean up once each week on ‘Cheesti
Chetverg’ (Clean Thursday). A pastime whenever waiting for a bus would be
for me to look discreetly at a young man to see how long it would take him to
spit on the ground. I usually did not have to stare for more than ten seconds-
bus stops were not pleasant places to stand- I’d bet that a fair proportion of
the ice surrounding them in winter was solidified phlegm rather than snowfall.
In contrast, flats were often immaculate, people turning their private havens
into clean and welcoming retreats. Upon entering a Russian flat one must take
off outdoor shoes and will be offered tapachki- slippers that resemble
plastic sandals. I would gladly take off my shoes, seeing the sense in keeping
indoors free of the outside grime, but being culturally programmed to associate
slippers with old men and sandals with German tourists, I would try to avoid
wearing tapachki. Russians insisted I would catch a fatal disease from
the cold floors if I went around in stockinged feet, even though the floors
were perfectly warm. Knowing how strictly the tapachki principle was
applied, I was surprised to see students walking outside their accommodation
blocks, near piles of uncollected rubbish, in the tapachki they would
then wear indoors. I asked my own students how this could be- tapachki outdoors!-
but they merely pointed out that student quarters were so grotty that no
student cared much if they were treading dirt around inside.
Flats are always exceptionally warm throughout the winter, many apparently having furnaces in the basements. Others benefit from the city’s communal heating systems- enormous pipes running above ground down central streets clad in insulation and apparently carrying only hot water between the busy lanes of traffic. Hot water is of course one of life’s essentials during a Siberian winter, and the sight of the odd frozen block where the heating system had broken down confirmed this. Icicles dangled from balconies abandoned by families hastily shifted into alternative accommodation. The coldest time to inhabit a Siberian flat was actually during late spring, at which time the heating system is simply switched off. There appeared to be no graded settings for the heating systems- they were either on or off. Hot water is intermittent during the warmer months and one can ask ten different people when the hot water will come back on and receive ten different answers, all based on rumour and conjecture. The shrugging acceptance of this monumental inconvenience, explained away by the authorities as repair work, demonstrated how Russians had come to simply accept shoddy treatment from the authorities and not to expect any better. Time and again I reflected that if people do not expect things to improve, then a major driving force for improvement lays dormant.
Most affluent people in Chita- and there are a fair few- hide
their wealth within Khruschevki which look every bit the uninspiring
norm from without. Others inhabit what are known as the Elit blocks,
built of white brick by Chinese workers sometime over the past ten years and
appearing a cut above the Soviet norm, even if their layout, brickwork and
finishing suggests some Soviet traditions have prevailed. The building in which
I lived was considered Elit, but had apparently been started by Russian
construction workers a decade or so earlier before being abandoned. The first
storey lay open to the elements until the university employed a combination of
Chinese workers and volunteer students (their incentive being future
accommodation in the block) to finish the upper seven floors of the block.
The cream of the crop sometimes choose to live in detached
houses on the very edge of the city. These are rare, the cost of constructing
and heating an individual dwelling being far beyond the means of most Russians.
Having been inside one I can testify that the décor was opulent, though the
outer appearance of the finished house was still that of an unadorned brick
shell and the bathroom plumbing was still in the Soviet style of spaghetti-like
pipes protruding everywhere. Each detached house is guarded by a large and
aggressive dog.
At the other end of the scale, homeless people are visible on
the streets at all times of the year. In summer they seem to sleep wherever
they fall but for much of the year they find refuge in tower block basements or
in the underground parts of the city’s hot water system. The homeless are known
as the BOMZ, after a Russian acronym meaning ‘Person of no fixed abode’, and
can frequently be glimpsed disappearing into manhole covers beside large
heating pipes during winter. The overflowing rubbish bins that are one of the
Chita’s more unwelcome aspects provide meagre pickings for some BOMZ, and some
apparently live permanently at the civic dump. Stories abound that the packs of
stray dogs wandering around the city provide a steady source of BOMZ nutrition.
In my building the emergency exit was locked, a sign telling the residents to
walk down three floors to the entrance to request a key in the event of a fire.
Asking why this typically self-defeating Russian policy was in place, I was
informed that if the emergency exits were left open, they would quickly be
inhabited by BOMZ. Why emergency doors that open only from the inside were not
an option, I could never find out.
[1] Besides which, snow performs the useful function of covering up the piles of rubbish that seem to lay uncleared in many Russian cities
[2] A marshrutka is a taxi-bus resembling a Transit van with seats in the back, which follow set numbered routes around Russian cities and can be flagged down or asked to stop anywhere. The fee is always fixed and is waived if the marshrutka breaks down. The drivers tend to smoke like chimneys despite the ‘No Smoking’ signs prominently displayed
[3] The Buryat people are an Asiatic group descended from the tribes of northern Mongolia and are the largest ethnic minority in Chita. They have their own language and seem to mix in their own groups rather than among Russians, but their lifestyle is notably Russified and all speak Russian fluently. My female Buryat students were among the most conscientious, my male Buryat students sadly the opposite
[4] I had hoped to enjoy watching the Russian Premier League but gave up after a couple of games, their favoured style involving ten seconds of play, players faking injury for five minutes before the next ten seconds’ play, a suspicious number of 1-0 wins for home teams and a general approach which made me realise just how spoiled we are for football in the UK, no matter how obscenely overpaid our players
[5] Gulag is the Russian acronym for the prison camp administration set up (and kept very busy) during the Soviet period