Chapter 6: From the knocking shop to the zoo

 

The Hotel Turist

 

Andrei, the head of the International Department at my university, met me in a taxi at the station. My flat was not yet ready- surprise, surprise- and the university had paid for me to stay at a hotel until the Tajik renovators had completed their work. There are three or four hotels in Chita, the most upmarket being the large Zabaikalye (‘TransBaikal’) on the main square. The Hotel Turist was reasonably central and took most of its trade from Chinese traders bringing cheap produce across the border to flog in Chita’s outdoor markets. My room seemed reasonable at first glance and I was thankful to have somewhere to settle down for a while. It soon became apparent that though the room had been renovated to a reasonable standard a year or three before, no repair work had been done since. The toilet seat fell off, the hot water rarely worked, the window let in a draught, the phone socket had probably never been connected and the bed was harder than granite. Indeed, I injured my knee whilst sleeping one night, unused to the rock-hard surface, and did not recover until leaving the hotel a month or so later. However, I was on the best floor- a quick glance at the unrenovated floor below made me realise that things could have been worse.

 

In general, I found living at the hotel tolerable for a while, spending most of my time elsewhere anyhow. The worst thing was undoubtedly that the hotel functioned as a de facto knocking shop. If the traders weren’t shouting at each other during the middle of the night (seeming to have no concept of others’ need to sleep) or wandering the corridors in their longjohns (the least flattering of garments) they were loudly at it with prostitutes. One evening I answered a knock on my door to be faced with a smelly, hairy old man behind whom stood a perfectly normal-looking, beautiful young woman. He asked me a question in Russian, the gist of which I grasped, and then he realised I was foreign so asked in halting English “You want night girl?” Disgusted, I refused, and told him not to come back again. The hotel staff also accosted me on a couple of occasions to ask if I wanted a girl sent to my room, to which I haughtily responded “No! I’m an Englishman” before sticking my nose in the air and flouncing off.

 

My first lessons at the university (known locally as ‘Politen’) were much easier than they had been at my old institute (known locally as the ‘Ped’), given that I now had a little experience, but the students were clearly not the same friendly, motivated bunch I had enjoyed teaching at my old institute. This would continually frustrate me throughout the year. Whereas Ped students tended to come from less affluent families and to have made it into university by working hard to pass selection exams, Politen’s lot generally hailed from better-off families and many of them seemed not to care about their studies. Their English was good, however, so they must have done some work somewhere along the line. In each class were a couple of excellent scholars with whom communication was a pleasure but they obviously felt bound not to show up their less motivated classmates by trying too hard. As a novice teacher I had yet to learn how to deal with this, but as time went on I picked up a trick or two- for example, if I spotted a student preparing for another class during my lessons I would simply, wordlessly confiscate the work they were doing until the end of the period.

 

My timetable only forced me to work for around four or five lessons per week. These lasting one and a half hours each, the lifestyle enabled me the time I had craved for years whilst working full-time in England. Russian degrees take five years of study and I taught the second, third and fourth-year students, by far the best of these groups being the third years. They were generally motivated, bright, friendly and eager to learn what they could from me. They were also quite an open bunch, one particular conversation about corruption being memorable. Unlike the Ped language faculty, which had a whiter-than-white reputation, it was well-known around Chita that at Politen, as in most Russian institutes, cash could buy grades. Nobody ever tried to approach me in this way but my opinions merely fed upwards to superiors who awarded marks to students, and it was at the higher levels that bungs were apparently taken regularly. The third year students resented this practice every bit as much as I did but when the discussion turned to entry criteria for the university, they seemed to consider paying unofficial tariffs to gain entry to be an acceptable norm. The parallel between paying for admission and paying for grades seemed to escape them, indicating how ingrained into modern Russian academia this practice had become. A similarly resigned attitude toward corruption was displayed by a friend who told me that her home town had knowingly re-elected a corrupt mayoress, because all of the opposition candidates were sure to be corrupt too and at least the townspeople know who she was. Chita’s medical institute was also renowned as a place where grades could be purchased. I have no desire to undergo brain surgery in future but if I do, I hope it is not performed by a graduate of Chita Medical Academy.

 

As late summer turned to autumn and the trees adorning the hilly backdrop to the city turned beautiful yellows and reds, I enjoyed walking around the city and renewing acquaintances. Many were naturally surprised to see me again, baffled as to why an Englishman would choose to come to Siberia twice, let alone once.

 

Around this time I also recall witnessing a man on the roof of his wooden hut near the hotel, frantically chucking buckets of water over a spreading blaze. As the smoke billowed and a crowd of people gathered, it was clear he was fighting a losing battle. The fire brigade turned up after ten minutes or so, climbed up and immediately began tearing his roof to shreds- no messing. The man looked on forlornly as his old house was destroyed in seconds by the city firemen, bits of wood being hurled down into his muddy yard and gallons of water being hosed into the gaping hole where his roof had once stood. The need to stop the fire spreading to other nearby wooden huts was obvious, and the firemen quite sensibly trashed the hut in moments in order to prevent the district going up in smoke.

 

As autumn progressed the weather of course became chillier and the days drew in, though not to the same noticeable extent as they do in Britain. Given that Chita is on the same latitude as Milton Keynes, one would think that sunrise and sunset times would be similar. In fact, dawn and dusk both came later than in Blighty, which suited a late riser like me well. I can only reason that this is due to Chita’s westerly position within its timezone.

 

Each morning I would go down for my pre-paid breakfast in the hotel restaurant, being offered a choice of two dishes by the beautiful waitresses, one of which was always buckwheat and sausage. Having chanced the alternative a couple of times, I accepted that buckwheat and sausage was the safe option and ended up eating it every morning before queuing outside for my marshrutka taxi bus. If I had the misfortune of having to lecture at 8.30am, I would arrive to find the corridors heaving with students standing (there was nowhere to sit) waiting for my boss’s son to turn up and unlock the metal doors on my faculty floor. American politics was the subject I was to teach, and knowing little of the US Constitution or US government, I spent many an evening trawling through information printed from the web in order to actually learn something I could impart. Failing this, a game of Scrabble was always an alternative the students would opt for with fervour[1].

 

Then it was back to the hotel to say hello to the Chinese traders again.

 

The Chinese Question

 

The Russians resent the increasing presence of Chinese workers in their cities, and indeed it seems that, quite apart from the numerous traders, every construction worker around Chita is Chinese. This is apparently because Russians simply refuse to work for the low wages on offer in the building sector, but to spend a few months working black market in Russia is economically worthwhile to many Chinese. They live on-site in breeze block huts with a single bath house at the end, toiling from dawn until dusk in all weathers and only venturing beyond the site in groups to ensure their safety against resentful locals. These chaps work exceptionally hard- to find a Russian willing to work under such conditions would be all but impossible. Meanwhile, the Russians view China as a place to spend a day or two picking up cheap armfuls of electronics- the northern Chinese town of Manzhouli apparently resembles a large bazaar adorned with Russian signs and swamped with Russian shoppers.

 

Many Zabaikalians told me that China was planning to invade their territory and take it for herself, greedily coveting the abundant natural resources of Siberia[2]. It is surely true that China needs wood as it does other resources to fuel its continued economic expansion. However, the northern areas of China which border Russia have nowhere near the population density of central China and I found it hard to accept Russian claims that China needed Russian territory simply as lebensraum[3]. Perhaps this was due to my spoiled upbringing as a citizen of the territorially-stable EU, in which military considerations are not quite so prominent an aspect of diplomacy. Even educated Russians would tell me they had seen maps of China in which Zabaikalye had been coloured as Chinese territory, and the Chinese threat was seen as justification for the continued high-visibility presence of the bloated military machine in the Chita region.

 

In my own view, China has no need to engage in military aggression against Russia. By simply continuing the current pattern of moving Chinese traders into Russia, the Chinese population will increase steadily as the Russian population declines. Low birth rates and low life expectancy are causing Russia to lose 700,000 people per year and though loosening restrictions on economically-productive immigrants seems a logical answer, Russians are a chauvinistic bunch and would not accept such a policy. There are already rumblings of Chinese populations seeking political representation in parts of Siberia. Even if southern Siberia remains politically a part of Russia, one can be sure that its population and culture will be increasingly Sinified over coming years. The simple, paradoxical fact that the Chinese appear to understand capitalism whereas the Russians do not should contribute to this dynamic. A wander around the markets of Chita illustrates this: Chinese traders approach in a friendly way and ask if you would like to buy something whereas Russian traders keep a stony distance until approached by a customer. China today combines political communism with economic capitalism. Russia today combines political (‘managed’) democracy with a gangsterish emerging free market in which true competition has yet to take root and the customer is too often seen as an annoyance rather than an opportunity.

 

The system of sovereign states as we know it will face challenges as globalisation transforms politics across the globe. Even so, one can bet that Moscow will fight tooth and nail to preserve Russia’s territorial integrity. It seems that economics and demographics will force Russians to learn to live peacefully alongside the Chinese in Siberia in future.

 

Don’t mention the media work, luvvy

 

One autumn day I received rather a confusing series of calls and messages from Inna and Artyom asking whether I wanted to film a TV advert. Artyom had recently featured in an advert for a local restaurant that was launching a German menu, dressed in lederhosen, speaking German and taking the name of ‘Gans’- the Russian pronunciation of ‘Hans’. Perhaps I was needed as an English country gent, or a lager lout. Piecing things together, it turned out that a beauty salon wanted to film me having a manicure. Details beyond this were sketchy, but I understood that they wanted me to say a few words in English, having met me a couple of weeks previously when I was taken there by Inna’s husband Artur to see their dermatologist about a scabby hand I had developed from handwashing my clothes. Male beauty treatments had never been my thing, and I wondered if the wrecked state of my nails had been a challenge the manicurist was eager to take on.

 

Anyhow, on the assigned day Artur gave me a lift to the beauty salon and in I wandered to find a TV crew setting up. I greeted the blank-faced staff with a cautious ‘Zdravstvuytye’ greeting, wondering what I was getting into and if there had been a mistake as they appeared not to be expecting me. To my immense relief, after that awkward initial second, picking up on my appalling accent, one of the girls piped up in fluent English and began to explain the scenario. I was to have a manicure, part of which would be filmed, say a few scripted words in English and the ad would appear on ‘Fsyo Obo Fsyom’ – a local half-hour advertising feature programme that went out three or four times per week. I had already featured briefly on local TV during a quick interview at a conference, during which I was craning to look up at my ludicrously tall interpreter. I had also been interviewed a couple of times for local papers but had learned caution when misquoted as saying that the Russian military were a bunch of drunks, when I had in fact said that there were many military holidays on which people liked to drink[4]. Wondering if this latest opportunity would open up a lucrative sideline as a guest English voice on local adverts, I willingly agreed, though it became clear that no payment would be forthcoming when the beauty therapist gleefully announced, “And you can have the manicure for free!” Wow.

 

The filming went smoothly and a couple of weeks later I settled down to see myself being manicured on Russian television. The scripted turn-to-camera and announcement of “I think it’s important for a man to have healthy and good-looking hands. That’s why I visit this beauty centre- The Philosophy of Beauty” seemed the height of cheese. However, irony does not have the same vice-like grip on society in Siberia as it does in Britain, and explaining this view to friends was difficult. The concept of ‘cheesy’ is actually very hard to express in other English words, let alone in Russian. Russian subtitles accompanied my words and I had been assured that having a manicure was not associated with homosexuality in this most homophobic of societies, though I later learned to the contrary. The advert stated that the salon treated ‘local and international guests’, as if I’d flown to Chita specifically to have my fingernails sawn and prodded. Alas, offers for further advertising work did not come flooding in, and there ended my Russian TV career. At least I got a free manicure out of it……..

 

The local media did come calling again during the depths of winter. An aspiring journo interviewed me, for radio, about my impressions of Chita. This was the first time I had attempted anything so bold or public in Russian, and it seemed to go smoothly as I answered the usual questions about why I was in Chita and what I liked and disliked. At the end I was coaxed into giving my impression of Russian girls, and my statement that they were very beautiful but treated Englishmen like toys, though true in my experience, was perhaps a slightly excessive generalisation. The promised tape of the interview was never forthcoming, but I drew great satisfaction during the following weeks from people telling me they had heard the interview…… and understood it! Progress indeed, I thought with smug satisfaction[5].

 

Learning the language

 

Before I went to Russia I had taken evening classes in the language for a couple of years. When I arrived in Moscow I could count to ten, say hello, read street signs, introduce myself and not much else. I hoped to pick up Russian by osmosis, reasoning that as I was immersed in the society I was bound to pick up some of the language over a few months. As it turned out, this was a flawed method. People would tell me to watch Russian TV but this proved absolutely no help- even to this day I can barely understand what they’re banging on about as the Russian spoken is so quick.

 

Initially I communicated only in English as my students were fluent and keen to communicate. One of the reasons I had chosen Chita in preference to St Petersburg or Moscow was that I wanted to avoid lazily sinking into ex-pat circles of Yanks and Tommies, and whilst I certainly gained plenty of first-hand experience of how Russians actually live, I usually spoke to them in English.

 

I found that the greatest improvements in my Russian came from playing football with non-English speaking locals, from chatting to curious people in bars and from chatting to Russian girlfriends. The latter arguably provided the greater incentive to improve communication. I was never afraid to try to speak Russian, and unlike most foreigners who say they are learning ‘Like a dog’- able to understand most things but not too hot on the speaking front- I found I was able to string together basic vocabulary to express ideas but was not too clever when it came to understanding what others said to me.

 

Grammar is arguably the hardest aspect of learning Russian. In order to start learning Russian grammar I had to revisit English grammar to fill in some of the gaps in areas untouched by my school education. This proved useful in teaching English, of course. Grammatical cases- how a word changes according to its relation to other words in the sentence[6]- were a particular pain, there being only two in English but six in Russian. At least I wasn’t learning Hungarian, which has more than twenty-five cases. During autumn 2005 I started Russian lessons with a wonderful teacher who spoke no English but was keen to learn. She would hammer Russian grammar into me for an hour and I would teach basic English to her. This helped me tie together in actual sentences some of the Russian I’d picked up merely by speaking to people around Chita.

 

I learned several useful phrases with which to quieten unruly classes. Mild disorder could be tackled with a polite ‘Tisho’ – a gentle ‘Quiet please’ or ‘Tikho’- a slightly more forthright ‘Be quiet’. More abrupt but far more likely to get a class to belt up and pay attention (and raise a giggle) was ‘Za malchie’- ‘Shut your mouths!’ and I thankfully never had cause to resort to ‘Zat knis!’ which probably translates as ‘Shut the fuck up!’

 

Of course, I picked up some Russian slang. Unlike British English, Russian apparently has few regional variations but I’d bet one or two of the words I learned were Zabaikalye slang, for example the omnipresent ‘Cho?’ meaning ‘What?’. I found that even while speaking English I would use the odd Russian word as thinking of an English equivalent would take a fraction of a second too long. Words like BOMZ (tramp), alkash or nazhuralsa (alcoholic), marshrutka (taxi bus), SMS (text message), pokhmelia (hangover) and abshaga (student halls) peppered my conversation and text messages. The word abshaga is a slang usage of the longer obzhezhitye and was a word I learned early on, finding that my using it (in Russian or in the middle of an English sentence) would greatly amuse any listening locals.

 

I was amused, if not very surprised, to learn that there is no direct Russian equivalent for the English term ‘efficiency’. Russians would offer the word effektivny as an equivalent, but when I pointed out that dictionaries translate this as ‘effective’, they would claim that ‘effective’ and ‘efficient’ are the same anyway. I explained by example- the city power station was effective in that it produced enough power to heat most of Chita, but I would bet it was not efficient as it was an old smokestack burning fossil fuels galore. The concept of maximum output for minimum input was one that Russians did not seem to grasp well. I also never found anybody who could directly translate the word ‘fun’ into Russian, though most Russians seemed to have no problem with the concept. Another word that caused confusion both for myself and for any Russian trying to comprehend my babbling was ‘padruga’, meaning both girl and girlfriend- there is no distinction, though Russians seem able to pick up the precise meaning from intonation and context. I once walked with a girl friend (rather than a girlfriend) around the city and mentioned three or four locations where lived padrugas of mine. Her widening eyes suggested she thought I was some kind of lecherous lothario- my Russian intonation obviously needed work.

 

More mischievous Russians were always keen to teach me mat. Mat is a category of offensive swear words the severity of which can apparently barely be matched in English. At first I deliberately avoided learning any mat, wary that if I used it in the wrong context somebody may smash a bottle over my head. By the time I left Chita in summer 2006, however, I had picked up one or two thoroughly offensive terms, though by this time I was confident that I knew when and when not to use them. Naturally, the odd mat word spoken in the right context could raise a laugh from an unsuspecting Russian audience.

 

Nowadays I can have a conversation in Russian and confidently navigate the usual questions about where I come from, how I like Russia, whether I like Russian girls and so on. If the conversation veers into unknown territory I’m lost but, in every instance, the success of communication depends on how sympathetic and patient the listener is. A shop worker, for example, would usually dismiss me as an ignorant foreigner as soon as I uttered a single word of their language, yet when talking to somebody drinking in a bar who was keen to speak to the foreigner, conversations were generally much more productive. Interestingly, my students informed me that Russians tend to utter an average of around ninety words per minute whereas in English the average is around two hundred. I can only speculate that this must be due to Russian words being, on average, longer as the pace of speech itself does not seem to differ noticeably. It may explain why Russians take longer to get things done, too.

 

The English language is today the number one on the globe. I had not realised the extent of its dominance until studying with foreign students and of course I am grateful that by accident of birth I grew up speaking English. It seems that globalisation is spreading English into all corners of the globe and is seen as somehow cool in advertising. Russian advertising would often end with universally-known mobile phone company slogans in English or with dreadfully-concocted efforts by local advertisers. For some reason, the example that springs to mind is that used by a clothing shop named ‘Glance’, whose adverts on Chita TV would end with the strapline “They glance at you” accompanied by cheesy jazz music and sung in a strong Russian accent. Souped-up boy racer Ladas and Volgas would commonly sport spoiler slogans such as ‘Knight of the Night’ and ‘In God We Trust’ as they raced each other up and down deserted night-time streets.

 

Students were all well aware that a grasp of English would enhance their employment prospects and their chances of leaving Chita- most saw St Petersburg and Moscow as economic meccas and did not think working outside Russia either possible or desirable. Russian law places obstacles in their way- to obtain a job in a chosen city, one must be registered there. To register there, one must have an address in that city. Unless a Russian has friends or relatives in the city they wish to work in (thus giving them a temporary address and enabling registration as they look for work), this becomes something of a vicious circle, as few can buy property and most are reluctant to rent a flat without the security of a job beforehand.

 

Chita was seen as a backwater, devoid of opportunity, and whilst things have been moving forward in the city over recent years it is true that decent jobs for Russians who speak English are few and far between. My students were keen to learn modern English and slang from me, their through if dry textbooks having taught the brightest among them to speak in an accent not unlike the queen and with frequent use of expressions such as “Frankly speaking”, “I go in for sport” and “We had a quarrel” which are rarely heard in the UK nowadays. I steered clear of teaching obscene English slang, though it was sometimes requested, but found that expressions such as ‘tax dodger’, ‘tramp fuel’ and ‘throne’[7] were eagerly digested. Students aside, Chita’s inhabitants tended to speak only Russian and hearing me speaking English to friends in the street would often prompt gobsmacked gazes, as if I had just alighted from a spacecraft that had landed in Lenin Square. I vividly recall the absolutely stunned expression of a tiny old lady who emerged from a wooden hut near the city centre to ask me a question and, upon my responding that I did not speak Russian, staring at me in absolutely speechless wonder- it was a fair bet I was indeed the first person she had ever met who did not understand her language, her having grown up in such an isolated society.

 

Those Russians that studied English would often tell me that it was not too difficult a process, given that the grammar is straightforward relative to that of their own language and given the increasing appearance of English words in the Russian media and Russian vocabulary in general. Of course, the internet and the sheer productivity of American broadcasting are among the chief drivers of this penetration of Anglo terms into foreign languages, and some Russians are apparently as concerned as the French at what they see as the dilution of a proud and noble language. The US films and TV shows which fill Russian channels are, without exception, dubbed rather than subtitled (the voiceovers usually featuring one male and one female Russian voice, between them covering all characters). Scandinavian friends have suggested to me that their excellent grasp of English is aided by the preponderance of subtitled US films on their native television screens. Subtitling is apparently an easier and cheaper process than dubbing, but dubbing allows an easier replacement of dialogues which the authorities deem unsuitable for public consumption- something which would suit the Kremlin of Soviet times and the Kremlin of today alike.

 

British people are lazy when it comes to learning other languages, reasoning that as English is so widely spoken elsewhere, Johnny Foreigner can bally well learn how to speak our lingo. Throughout my education I had been aware that languages were my weak spot, and as such learning Russian was a challenge I was keen to conquer. Right now, I’m at base camp on that particular Everest, but it is a source of great satisfaction that I can now at least sit down for a chat with somebody in another tongue.

 

Drinking with Igor

 

Soon after settling into my new digs in the Hotel Turist, I went to play a Saturday afternoon game of football with friends I had not seen since my previous spell in Chita. We played for a couple of hours in the sweltering September heat, after which I intended to go home and change out of my sweaty old footballing garb. My friend Igor had other ideas, however, and he and two others dragged me to a nearby outside bar for a beer. Then another. Then another, and so on. He would buy another before I had drained my glass and insisted that he pay as I was a guest, so I made sure I supplied plenty of beer snacks as we sat and chatted. Igor was a thin, balding chap in his early thirties whom I had met whilst playing indoor football a few months earlier. He spoke no English and I had almost immediately put him on his guard by saying in poor Russian “I speak Russian badly”, which he misheard as “I think Russia is bad”, and his skinhead appearance and occasional racist remark made me suspect he may be some sort of extremist, but it quickly became obvious that first impressions were wrong for both of us and we became close friends. Somewhat incongruously, Igor worked in a toy shop by day. I was to meet his wife quite by chance one day when I walked into one of the small indoor arcades that house kiosks and asked the woman behind the counter for a phonecard. She gawped at me silently and I asked again but was met with silence. I blurted “Can you speak?” and turned to flounce away. The woman then broke her silence with “You’re an Englishman, aren’t you?” Staggered by this, I asked her how she knew. She informed me that she had seen me playing football on video with her husband Igor. She must have had a laugh at the footage as the only time I recall anyone videoing our games, I was hit square on in the head by a powerful shot and, though I managed not to fall over, was left spinning and reeling on my feet like some kind of weeble toy.

 

On this particular evening, Lokomotiv Chita were due to play a home match at six and so we decided to drink until the game. Come six, merrily oiled, we rolled up at the stadium with Igor having stuffed a kit bag full of beer and placed it on my shoulder. Tickets for the match cost around 50 roubles- a pound- and after being ripped off by Chesterfield FC and English clubs in general for so long, I was happy to pay. The usual procedure was to buy a ticket from somebody at a table outside the ground and present it to the security people on the gate. They would rip the ticket in half and give back the stub. By keeping the same stub in pristine condition for the whole season and each week telling security that they had just nipped outside for something and were coming back in, certain friends were able to pay once for the first match and attend all the others for free. Igor’s approach was less subtle and more Russian- he knew somebody on the gate and that person let him in every time. This time, he wandered up to his friend, drunkenly announced “It’s our Englishman!” and swung me into the ground, security momentarily too bewildered to apprehend us or check my bag for forbidden booze. As at every match, armed soldiers paraded inside the ground despite the absence of away supporters. The distances in Russia, particularly in the case of Chita, are such that travelling fans are few and far between[8]. We drunk our way through the match, went for pozi and vodka in a nearby poznaya, and the rest is a blur. The last things I remember are being in a different district of the city, near Igor’s parents’ flat. I have no idea how we got there, but do remember repeatedly puking and falling over and being picked up by Igor. He then pushed me into the back seat of a Zhiguli (Lada) in which a couple had been sitting. I assume he knew them. He then pushed his way into the driver’s seat and began to fumble with the keys. Outrageously drunk as I was, I figured that going for a spin with Igor at the wheel was not sensible- he was in the same state as I was- so I jumped out, ran to a trolleybus stop and hopped on a trolleybus. Beyond that I recall nothing. I was afraid that Igor would confront me as to why I ran away from him, but at our next meeting it turned out that he was simply worried as to where I had ended up, as he could not remember anything past a certain point either.

 

The next day, hangover not too bad due to the previous evening’s repeated barfing, I responded to a text from a friend by reflecting that “Yesterday was a typical day in Russia for me- a simple game of football turned into a drunken marathon…..”

 

The Rotarakt Club

 

During my first stint in Chita I had become involved in a club of local young people named Rotarakt. Affiliated to the Rotary Club, which in Chita was made up largely of local wealthy businessmen[9], Rotarakt existed in theory to do charitable works for the needy around the city but in practice for us to meet up once a week, have a laugh, plan to do something and then find that due to some peculiarly Russian obstacle our plans could not be fulfilled. Upon my return to Chita I was welcomed back into the Rotarakt fold with open arms.

 

One notable Rotarakt success was their relationship with a local school for deaf children. Ranging from ages 5 to 17, kids would board at the school during term time and return to their families for the holidays. They frequently put on shows and were delighted when anybody from outside the school would attend. Rotarakt would be invited every time and it truly was a pleasure to roll up at the school (a reasonably well kitted-out place) and watch as the kids danced and performed sketches on stage. The beat of the dance music would be signalled rapidly to them by a teacher’s hand signals and they would perfectly execute their choreographed manoeuvres. This in itself was something to behold but the sheer joy they exuded whilst performing for an appreciative audience was one of the highlights of my time in Russia.

 

During December we organised and took part in a basketball tournament with the deaf children. This was the brainchild of Martin, an Australian who had moved to Chita to live with his Russian girlfriend and a Rotarakt member whose forthright tendency to say exactly what he felt could even make Russians cringe. During one of his first Rotarakt meetings he was asked what he thought of Chita, to which he pretty much responded “It’s a dump. You should sort it out. The drains are all fucked and because of that there’s sand all over the place”. The faces of those Russians who had understood his tirade dropped in astonishment, but they soon came to understand that beneath the bluster Martin was a thoroughly decent chap. For the basketball we split into four teams- Russia, Australia, the USA and England. When we arrived, the kids had prepared flags, face paints, T-shirts- the works, all in different national colours. The tournament was played extremely competitively but went well and it was at this point that, as I answered a phone call, one of the kids asked for my phone number. Over the next six months or so I would regularly communicate with the deaf children in pidgin Russian text messages, an exchange from which I’m sure we all drew a lot of pleasure.

 

Autumn shows, Christmas shows and Easter shows all passed by and the leaving performance for the oldest pupils happened to fall on my 30th birthday. I did not feel like celebrating this dreaded landmark too much but as we Rotarakt reps presented the leavers with gifts on stage, so I was collared, signed a speech by Oksana- a deaf girl who had the most wondrously warm character- and given a present of my own. For me, the day was made.

 

Caged in the student zoo

 

Some time in November I was finally given the green light to move into my flat. It was situated in a grotty high-rise student halls building at the top of a hill on which sit the wooden dwellings of the Sosnovy Bor district. Walking between twin high brick buildings and in through the forbidding, messy entrance I feared the worst but to my delight, my flat was superb. True to their promises, the university had provided me with a beautiful living space, complete with double bed, TV and DVD, fully equipped kitchen and futuristic power shower. I could hardly believe I was in Russia, and expressed my thanks profusely. However, things rarely run smoothly in Russia and I soon encountered a problem…..

At the entrance to every Russian student hall sits a ‘vakhtor’- usually an old woman- whose duty is to keep tabs on who is going in and out and to empty the halls of unwelcome guests by curfew time. An email I wrote during January 2006 briefly explained my experiences with the vakhtors in my new flat…..
 
“My flat is lovely- renovated really nicely- it's in a
fairly grotty old student dorm building. As I live on
the ground floor they've put an alarm system in
(though they say installing a phone line is too
difficult). They employ two old women to take it in
turns sitting by the main entrance (they're called
'vakhtors' and are something like an extreme, Soviet
version of our university dorm porters). Their job is
to make life as miserable as possible for the
students, who MUST be in by 11pm or they get locked
outside in Arctic temperatures. At first, they
insisted on treating me in the same way but I told my
employer I'd rather go back to England than live like
a prisoner, so it was all sorted fairly quickly. I now
have the right to come and go as I please so I
regularly wake them at 4am to come rolling back in the
worse for wear. They now insist I sign in and out
every time I leave, so as they can activate the alarm
in my room, but I reckon it's so as the local FSB
(formerly known as the KGB) can keep tabs on my
movements. I try to sneak past them in the day but
they write down my movements anyway, and if they do
succeed in collaring me and making me sign then I sign
'FSB' instead of my own name. It's all good fun! The
vakhtors still wish they were living in the Soviet
Union. They probably think they still ARE living in
the Soviet Union, in fact, as they spend their whole
lives sitting in the entrance hall screaming at
students.”

 

 

I had had brushes with vakhtors in my previous accommodation- they were particularly unimpressed with my regularly waking them at 3 or 4 in the morning, drunk and sometimes with my young lady in tow, but knew I was a foreign teacher who did not understand much Russian and they had to be content with issuing the odd grumbling reprimand.

 

In my new teacher’s flat, things were a bit more extreme. On my first evening, I was visited by a welcoming committee of Inna, Artyom and another ex-student, Sveta. I nodded to the vakhtor- a woman whom I was to label ‘The Bulldog’ as, true to her job description, she would sit watching the halls entrance with a sour-faced expression before barking her reprimand at anybody encroaching upon her territory. I opened the huge metal prison-style gate next to the small cabin in which she sat and slept during her lengthy shifts. She did not react as I walked through toward my flat. Next thing I knew, there was an explosion as she spat a stream of irate Russian at Inna for daring to follow in my footsteps. My Russian guests had evidently seen this kind of behaviour before but it was unexpected, unreasonable and downright disgraceful to me. The vakhtor had not simply asked Inna who she was but had completely gone off on one without warning. A tense few minutes were spent explaining who I was, who they were and giving her enough documents for each of the guests to reassure her that….. well, I don’t really know why depositing an internal passport[10] at the vakhtor’s desk ensures that the guest will not wreck the place or steal anything by passing it out of the window, but dokumenti were most definitely needed! The time being around 9pm, she insisted my guests leave by 11pm and informed me via Inna that I was to be inside by 11pm every night or be locked out. One rule for everyone, student and teacher alike, she claimed. Knowing I could reason directly with this person no more than I could a nightclub bouncer, I resolved to take the matter up with my employer. Sure enough, at 11pm there was a knock on the door and a student dispatched by the vakhtor informed my guests they were to leave promptly.

 

To be fair to my boss, she understood my complaints at being treated like a prisoner and was able to quickly pass instructions to the vakhtors that I could come and go as I pleased, with whom I wished. Quite how many sealed and signed official documents it took to pass this instruction on to my fascist would-be captors I can only guess. It also later became clear that many teachers and families lived in my block and that, unlike students who were locked out at 11pm without mercy, they too could come and go like adults. One effect of this draconian arrangement was that students would frequently climb up the grill on my ground floor window to climb into the flat of the student above. This could be disconcerting when it awoke me, and I would often react by turning on my lights and hammering on the windows, a string of English invective as accompaniment. To be fair to one group, they were so amused by my constant use of the word ‘Fucking’ that they politely knocked on my window, explained what they were doing, had a chat and it all ended with a friendly handshake through the grill.

 

I was able to use the communal halls phone to keep in contact with friends around the city but one day it ceased to work, and rather than invest in fixing it, the university simply removed this Soviet relic and left the building in a telecoms vacuum. Having a mobile phone, as did the majority of Chita’s inhabitants, this was not a major problem but I was delighted when, some weeks later, a workman knocked on my door unannounced and installed a brand new phone line in my flat. Alas, it did not work and repeated enquiries at the university over a period of months revealed that nobody had any idea who the workman was, why the line had been put in or whether it would ever work. The mystery was never solved, though friends have suggested that the workman may have been sent by the local security services- perhaps I was being listened to by the phone socket at the same time as the alarm system watched my movements.

 

For a while I was the only inhabitant of my corridor, sealed off from the student section of the building by a lockable door. After a month or so a neighbour moved in. Stas was a teacher from Yantai in eastern China who spoke impeccable English and fluent Russian. An intelligent and personable chap, like me he was fond of Russia but considered China much friendlier and more prosperous in comparison. ‘Stas’ was actually a Russified version of his Chinese name, adopted for the locals’ benefit. Perhaps I should have followed his example, but Russians rarely had problems with my name as they tended to be familiar with ‘James Bond’ films. Stas painted rather a rosy picture of China and was open about his being a member of the Chinese Communist Party, whom he assured me were now a pragmatic rather than dogmatic force for change in Chinese society. Alas, whereas my flat was a fully kitted-out oasis of Western-style luxury amidst the surrounding student squalor, the university had not seen fit to extend Stas the same courtesy. Perhaps I was mistaken but I took this to be another example of how Russians tended to venerate Western visitors but to look down upon Chinese and other Asian people. After all, Stas did a similar job to mine[11] yet he was forced to live in one room- the equivalent of my kitchen- with brown paper hung over the windows as curtains had not been provided. Stas came and went to and from his Chinese home city a few times during my stay in Chita, each time negotiating an arduous journey by land, sea and air to cover the couple of thousand kilometres involved. He was always great company, especially when we were joined by his good friend Ibragim, a diminutive and forever cheerful Uzbek with a cheeky smile which showed off his glinting gold tooth. I found Ibragim’s Russian much easier to understand than that of the natives, presumably thanks to his having a less pronounced accent, and passed many an evening toasting international friendship and sampling Uzbek and Chinese cuisine with my two generous friends.

 

The Bulldog disappeared sometime during the spring. I hope that my tendency to call her ‘fascist’ whilst talking to the International Department had nothing to do with this- after all, our minor problems were little more than a clash of cultures- but with her retirement, in this little place there passed into history an attitude to work that had been nurtured by the Soviet system and, for better or for worse, was now slowly dying out.

 


[1] I was embarrassed on one occasion when for some reason I told a second year student she could not use the word ‘tore’ in a Scrabble game. Perplexed, she reasoned “it is the past tense of tear”. Red-faced, I apologised for my moment of amnesia

[2] Chopping down trees illegally and hauling them to the Chinese border to sell for cash was apparently a popular black market activity, as was setting summer forest fires as a legal loophole rendered chopping down of wood from burnt areas a lawful occupation

[3] ‘Lebensraum’ was a German term used by the Nazis to describe lands annexed in the name of expanding German living space

[4] ‘Holidays’ were frequent during my stay in Chita, from the national spectacle of the May 9th ‘Victory Day’, though ‘International Women’s Day’ on March 8th and Easter to the more local ‘Day of the Town’ and obscure, local-company inspired ‘Day of Energy’. The common denominator seemed to be an excuse for a day of drunken revelling followed by a day off work. The town centre was best avoided on holiday evenings

[5] Until my next visit to the bank, which was always guaranteed to shoot down in flames any illusions that I may be able to live an everyday life without the need for help in translation.

 

[6] For example, the personal pronoun can be either ‘I’ or ‘me’ depending on its function in the sentence

[7] Respectively, ‘student’, ‘cheap alcoholic drink’ and ‘toilet’

[8] At one local derby against Blagoveschensk, 700 miles to the east, the away support had consisted of one wiry teenager who draped a large flag across the area normally occupied by the small but vociferous bunch of local teenage fanatics. His side lost 1-0. The local fanatics liked to call themselves ‘hooligans’ though the word did not seem to carry the same violent connotations as it does in the UK

[9] Wealthy local businessmen who at social gatherings seemed to throw money around in a manner that, given the wider social context of Chita, seemed somehow an obscene illustration of the size of the rich-poor gap. Nonetheless, they undoubtedly did valuable work in supporting local causes

[10] Russians must carry internal passports at all times, as a form of identification. They have a separate passport for foreign travel and find it hard to believe that there is no internal passport regime in the UK. Yet.

[11] I was actually listed as a ‘Professor’ by the university, a title not fitting my job or credentials but given as a means of enabling the payment of a higher wage than the forty to sixty pounds per month usually received by my Russian teaching peers