I phoned home rarely during my time in Russia, email communication being much easier. At Christmas I had made a few calls to family and during one casually remarked to my dad that he should come and visit. The idea struck a chord and after four months of preparation and planning (the visa thing gets easier after you’ve done it a few times) he boarded a plane for Russia. We had booked his onward flight to Ulan Ude but, knowing how downright impossible independent travel can be in Russia, I took an overnight train across to meet him there.
As I walked across the tracks at Ulan Ude
station I was accosted by taxi drivers and, knowing the drill, quickly knocked
one down to a reasonable price. Still rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I watched
the wooden houses of Ulan Ude’s suburbs pass by as the wide old Volga saloon
chugged toward the airport. I had told my dad to stay put in the airport,
knowing that venturing beyond may make him a target for opportunistic officials
and that I should be able to meet him half an hour or so after his touchdown.
As I walked into the small concrete terminal a familiar voice shouted “James!”
and I turned to find my surprised face snapped by my father’s camera. Meeting
as planned was a great relief to us both as there had been much scope for our
careful planning to go awry. Our last contact had been via email the day before
his flight from Heathrow and here we were a day and a half later, him eight
timezones further east, making our rendez-vous exactly as planned. We taxied
back into town and asked about trains back to Chita, opting to spend a day
looking around Ulan Ude before taking a third-class sleeper overnight.
Having checked his luggage in at the
station, we crossed a huge footbridge across the many platforms and began our
ten-minute walk into the city. The temperature was probably around minus ten
but on this short stretch the wind howled down the street, biting through our
winter clothing. The southern Siberian winter seems perfectly tolerable if one
wears the right clothing, the air being relatively dry and wind a rarity.
However, when the wind does blow, things quickly become uncomfortable, and this
was one of those rare occasions. My dad understandably took this to be the norm
and no doubt feared the worst for his two-week stay.
We spent an interesting few hours looking
around Ulan Ude, my father marvelling at this strange new world and, to my
relief, seeming to view the whole experience as an adventure just as I did. We
lunched in a traditional Russian stolovaya canteen, being told off for
not placing our outer clothing in the wardrobe immediately upon entry. My dad
delighted in paying around forty pence for a pint of tasty local beer. We
looked around Ulan Ude’s small museum, housed in a well-preserved wooden house,
and made ourselves popular by donating a few British coins to their collection
of international currency. Pounds and pence were absent among the old Soviet
coins, dollars, Asian coins and mixed shrapnel so we left a handful of the
small change I had asked my dad to bring with him as gifts. In Russia, a
collection of British coins is ideal for a visitor to distribute in return for
the hospitality that comes as standard, as are postcards, and any photos
depicting run-of-the-mill British life will be viewed with enthusiasm.
We photographed each other in front of the
largest bust of Lenin in the world and in front of the huge war memorial that
forms the centrepiece of a major avenue which runs along a hill overlooking the
city centre. We then stumbled across a sight which fascinated my father: a huge, abandoned ferris wheel sitting
rusting in an overgrown public park. Clearly out of service for some time, its
carriages fallen or falling, the wheel was not cordoned off and could be
accessed by anybody who took an interest, not that anybody did. Working as he
does for a council in England where public safety is paramount, my father was
gobsmacked by the presence of this decaying hulk in the middle of the city and
took a handful of artistic snaps. Indeed, during his visit I was to spend a lot
of time waiting for him to photograph sights that to me had become mundane, but
that to the first-time visitor (as I of course fairly recently had been) were
scarcely believable. Gaping holes in the road where manhole covers
presumably had once lain, and balconies
made of asbestos were among the subjects of his snapping.
The overnight train trip was quite an
experience for my dad too, him spending much of the night staring out of the
window at the passing yards and the mysterious characters who hopped on and off
at even the remotest of stops. As we neared Chita the train guards came through
checking documents and began to hassle him for not yet having registered with
the local immigration authorities. I knew full well that he was not obliged to
register until we reached Chita and argued, in my halting Russian, with such
confidence that the guard soon abandoned my dad as a potential source of cash
and proceeded to abuse two Chinese traders. This pair were frogmarched from the
carriage and as the train drew into Chita station, their Chinese friends
whipped round for a few roubles which were then no doubt proffered in exchange
for their kidnapped colleagues.
We pulled into Chita at around 7am, the temperature
around –15C but the wind becalmed and the city quiet as the new day began. Both
completely knackered, I guided us into a marshrutka and we crashed out
in my flat for a few hours before tackling the next task: registering with
OVIR, the local immigration authority. My universities had kindly registered me
when necessary but I had been to the OVIR building before and witnessed the
misery therein. Two doors greeted the visitor, each marked in Russian, one for
Russians and one for foreigners. Go through the latter and one would find a
long line of frustrated Tajiks, Uzbeks, Chinese and Azeris being ignored or
abused by OVIR officials, though (as with the police) I as a Westerner was
treated respectfully, once my origins had been established. Fortunately for us
the ever-helpful Karina from my university offered to register my father at
OVIR. This meant taking his passport and visa for a few days, so we photocopied
the documents in case stopped by police in the street. Chita police have a
reputation for document-checking people who look Asian yet leave (ethnic)
Russians alone. As I spent most of my time trying to look like a Russian
(though I would never sound like one) I had only been checked once. This was
when walking between tower blocks in the city centre on a winter night, three
or four figures springing from the shadows and demanding “Dokumenti!” I
politely asked who they were, they flashed their police ID, I produced a
photocopy of my passport, they realised I was not the local crim they were
obviously lying in wait for and after some pleasant banter I was sent on my
way. For a Westerner, the dokumenti!-lite attitude of the local
militia was a decided advantage over the apparent hassles of Moscow life. Karina
apologetically informed us that, as ever, immigration regulations had recently
been changed and that foreign tourists now had to pay a fee for every day they
spent in Russia. Fearing the worst, we asked how much. A rouble per day, she
said- a total in excess of twenty pence for my father’s visit. The problem, she
said, was that if my father was to stay a day more or less than that paid for,
serious bureaucratic persecution would ensue. We calculated the days with great
care and coughed up.
My dad and I wandered around Chita, he
apparently considering the city neater and more prosperous than sprawling Ulan
Ude. I reflected that Chita had indeed seemed to move forward noticeably during
my time in the city, whereas Ulan Ude had changed little since my first visit a
few months earlier. My father needed to change money and I convinced him that
the best rates were to be had from the Russian traders in the open-air ‘Old
Market’. Two hardy looking, raggedly dressed middle-aged women were delighted
to accept fifty-dollar bills and rummaged through a drawer absolutely stuffed
with roubles from a battered old wooden stall among traders hawking socks,
shoes and pirate DVDs. The sight of this enormous wad of cash seemed
incongruous, not to mention dangerous for the money changers as a target for
thieves, but one can be sure that protective heavies were not far away, keeping
an eye on things. My dad commented that there was no way he could know what
most of the buildings were; being unable to read Cyrillic signs, most shops,
offices and cafes are simply hidden behind double doors and advertising
products in windows has not yet caught on- as soon as it does, you can bet some
of the locals will hastily catch onto the idea of ram-raiding. He also pointed
out that my manners had become alarmingly Russified- I failed to hold open
doors for people having long given up on this as Russians never do it or thank
you for it- and quite correctly told me not to lose sight of the finer points
of well-mannered behaviour when I returned to England.
The day after my dad’s arrival I had to
spend the morning teaching and so set him loose in the city centre with
instructions to meet by Lenin in the square at midday. It so happened that that
morning the snow returned. Chita being dry, the snow tends to fall only a
handful of times during winter yet remains on the ground as temperatures do not
rise above zero to prompt a thaw. This was an unseasonably cold snap for April
and the station clock informed me that as we met at midday, the mercury read
around –20C. Fortunately my dad had heeded my advice about togging up carefully
and seemed delighted that he was seeing snow and such low temperatures- part of
the Siberian experience he had anticipated.
We had been invited to go cross-country
skiing in the hills around the city by a friend of mine named Nikolai
Ivanovich. During my first couple of months in Chita he had taken me skiing and
had put me to shame as we walked for a couple of hours up the snowbound hills,
him sprightly and me flagging, to a shack where we hired skis from a couple of
workmen warming their hands on a wood-fuelled stove. I would guess that this
most venerable of Russian gentlemen is around sixty years old but having skied
cross-country for his whole life, Nikolai’s fitness was something to behold. I
had never skied before coming to Russia but was delighted to find that
cross-country skiing is quite straightforward and most enjoyable. I had been
only a couple of times since, notably in the company of my Uzbek friend Ibragim
who came straight from work and skied in a suit and tie. My dad, similarly
inexperienced on skis, wanted to give it a go so we took a Volga taxi to the
foot of the hills but discovered the road impenetrable to all but 4x4 vehicles,
such was the snowfall. We walked for an hour or so up to the ski centre, the
shack long gone to be replaced by a large wooden cabin built in traditional
Russian style without nails- a sign of Chita’s progress and the development of
a nascent leisure industry, indeed. We had missed our rendez-vous with Nikolai
by some time but hired skis (a pound per hour) and soon found him gliding
around on the pristine snow outside. For a couple of hours we traversed the
silent forest, Nikolai patiently waiting as his British guests found their
feet. After a while we encountered the first semblance of a slope and, having
not yet fallen over, I decided to follow Nikolai down. My dad gleefully took a
series of action shots as I went from gliding stiffly, to wobbling
precariously, to falling arse over tit and ending up in an unsightly heap at
the bottom of the small incline. No damage done, we enjoyed the peace and
beauty of the same forest in which I had eaten barbecued shashlik kebabs
with friends in the blazing heat of summer only a few months earlier.
I introduced my father to a few old friends,
spending an enjoyable evening with Martin and Michael playing pool during which
he reflected that, with cheap beer, plenty of beautiful women and a relaxed
lifestyle, he was beginning to see some of the appeal of life in Chita. Locals
would be keen to speak to us and many informed us that they had simply never
spoken to Westerners before- something I had become used to but that surprised
my dad a little, and a good indication of Chita’s relative isolation. One
oldish woman on a trolleybus took exception to our speaking English together,
managing to string together the English words “You in Russia. Speak Russian”-
sadly parochial behaviour but of course tragically prevalent among British
people who resent not understanding every word immigrants or foreign visitors
say to one another. Gufi hit it off straight away with my father, inviting him
to visit his Tajik homeland. My dad had never heard of Tajikistan but
enthusiastically accepted and still plans to visit, should Gufi’s planned
marriage come to pass.
One day I had to keep an appointment to
speak at a conference regarding the ‘Cultural Health of Zabaikalye’s Youth’,
reading a paper on problems faced by young people in Britain. The brochure
comically listed me as a representative of the ‘University of Chesterfield’.
Anybody who knows my hometown will realise how farcical a notion this is. My
dad patiently attended, reflecting that at conferences in the UK each
presentation would be followed by a break in order to revive flagging attention
spans, whereas in Russia one has to sit through interminable speeches without
breaks and by the afternoon everybody has either fainted, fallen asleep or
starved to death. The next day I was invited to collect a gift as thanks for my
participation but as I was teaching I sent my father along alone and he spent a
few confused hours watching ceaseless speeches of thanks, of which he
understood not a word, and performances by local dancers before striding
briefly onstage to accept my gift. Nobody seemed to have noticed that I had
apparently aged twenty-five years in a day.
The highlight of his visit came when we
accepted Inna and Artur’s invitation to take a banya- Russian bath- at
Lake Araxlei, a beauty spot[1]
a hundred or so kilometres to the north of Chita. We stocked up at a local
supermarket and drove along the crumbling roads, past a Saturday used car
market in the northern suburb of Severniy and toward a traffic police
checkpoint on the city’s edge. These checkpoints are apparently common on major
routes in and out of Russian cities. Here, car documents are checked though as
the officers are armed with machine guns I dread to imagine what happens if the
docs are not in order. As we approached, for the only time I ever saw, Artur
and Inna donned seatbelts. Once waved through, they took them off again. We
passed a roadside Buddhist monument at which travellers throw coins for luck,
and forged on to Araxlei where we were welcomed by a sign depicting a beach
complete with sunshine and sunbathers. The lake is apparently packed with
summer swimmers during July and August but in mid-April the snow was still
piled high around and the lake frozen absolutely solid. We pulled up to the
gate of a deserted compound, above which hung two signs, one reading ‘Welcome’
and the other depicting a vigilant armed guard with binoculars and machine gun.
We waited whilst Artur disappeared inside, Inna explaining that we were
visiting a special military banya. Eventually we were admitted but
though we had booked in, we had to wait a couple of hours as an unidentified
military bigwig had apparently decided to visit unannounced. Of course, this
being Russia, such individuals can do as they please and we had to wait,
contenting ourselves with a pre-banya picnic among partiers from a local
firm who had evidently come to get leathered and observing two young chaps
running naked from another bath-house to jump into a hole in the lake. This prorub,
as the hole is known, had been dug at the shore through around a metre of
ice and, Artur assured us, was a vital part of the banya experience.
After a while we were shown to our
bath-house, a neat wooden cabin on the lake shore consisting of four rooms: one
in which to sit and eat, one in which to change and douse oneself with
pine-scented lake water from buckets, another warmer room in which to relax if
necessary and finally the banya itself. Resembling a sauna with its
tiered wooden benches, the heat source was a large stove heating hot rocks onto
which water is poured to increase the steam and temperature within. The idea is
to sit in the banya until your eyes feel as if they may burst, beat each
other with oak branches in order to aid circulation and then jump into the ice
hole in the lake before rushing back into the banya to warm up and begin
the cycle again. This is actually much more pleasant than it sounds. Inna
declined to join us three chaps and we had a merry time whacking each other
with bits of trees before the dreaded moment finally came. My dad had cried off
ice-hole duty, fearful that the shock may stop his heart, but I was not to be
denied and tore straight out of the bath-house, down the snowy slope and jumped
straight into the hole. As expected, it was quite a shock and during the couple
of seconds in which I scrambled for the edge of the hole my panicked brain
thought of nothing more than doggy-paddling for safety. However, the water
temperature was apparently around four degrees Celsius and so thus a good
fifteen or so above the outside air temperature. As I towelled off and ran
gingerly back toward the bath-house my father informed me that he had been too
slow to photograph this significant moment of my life. Thus it was that ten
minutes later I found myself repeating the whole daft shenanigan, my dad
snapping me as I mouthed English obscenities, Artur in stitches behind me.
After a couple of hours sweating cobs and drinking beer to replace lost fluids-
as custom dictates- we lobbed bucketfuls of sweet-smelling lake water over our
heads and revelled in the post-banya feeling Russians describe as “like
a newborn baby again”. A tremendous day in which I felt I had shown my father a
little of why Siberia held such appeal for me, spent as it was in the
hospitable company of friends who had taken me under their wing from the very
start of my time in their town.
The next day saw an excursion to Aginsk, a
small town two hundred or so kilometres to the south of Chita and the centre of
the Buryat Autonomous Region. Set up during Soviet times as a homeland for the
Buryat people of Zabaikalye, this area is administratively separate from Chita
region and receives its funds directly from Moscow. I knew a girl named Ann who
worked in Aginsk as an interpreter for a Chinese building firm and she invited
us to take a tour of the town and its Buddhist temple, one of the few permitted
to remain intact during the Soviet period. My father and I hopped into a marshrutka
which waited an age until full, before heading south into the wooded hills
beyond Chita and along the Ingoda valley. We passed through small villages of
tumbledown wooden houses in which the hardship of winter life could barely be
imagined. In Britain, the word ‘village’ evokes images of living in a quaint
settlement within reach of the amenities of nearby towns yet in Russia, the
same word evokes thoughts of remoteness, hardship, prohibitive distance from
modern convenience and, alas, often of alcoholism. However, as we passed from
Chita region into the Buryat Autonomous Region the improvement in housing was
immediately apparent- the direct funding was obviously having a positive
effect, with wooden fences standing in straight lines rather than lying in
heaps around the crumbling houses they once guarded.
Aginsk town lies on a plain and the wind was
immediately apparent: the winter climate apparently thus feels much harsher
than in Chita city. Ann met us and took us on a tour of the gleaming new
buildings her company’s Chinese workers had constructed. A new cathedral also
stood shining among the town’s neat streets. I asked why Aginsk seemed so much
more prosperous than Chita and was informed that in this small district taxes
were lower than in Chita region, hence an influx of Chinese firms from across
the border that lay 300 kilometres or so away. We were taken for a delightful
Chinese meal at a hotel overlooking the town before moving on to the Buddhist
temple. Within orderly walls lay well-kept wooden houses in which male monks
lived, surrounding a large and brightly-painted temple with golden pagoda-style
roofs. Large, colourful wooden prayer-wheels and white shrines adorned with
gold Buddhist symbols and eastern script stood alongside vivid statues of
elephants and mythical creatures. I remarked that I felt as if I were not in
Russia- not a comment that can be made about many places I had been in Russia-
and Ann responded simply “It’s a different culture”. The Russian population is
85% ethnically Russian, the remainder a diverse patchwork of ethnicities[2].
I had been in Russia for well over a year yet, even though there was a
significant Buryat presence in the Chita region, had encountered few places
where Russification had not taken hold. In this small island of Buddhist custom
was a tangible link to the Mongolian temples I had visited in that neighbouring
country, 150-odd kilometres away to the south.
Before my father left we caused a minor
incident in a supermarket. Artur owned a small business producing snacks, the
packaging featuring a photo of his two daughters. Encountering a trolley full
of these snacks, my dad whipped out his camera and took a shot, the flash
causing consternation among the confused assistants. As we left a manager came
over to brusquely enquire what we had been playing at, but as I opened my mouth
to offer an explanation in bad Russian he twigged that we were strange
foreigners whose behaviour could not be accounted for, and left it at that.
I offered to accompany my dad on the train
back to Ulan Ude, but he accepted the challenge of travelling alone and
thankfully made it back to Britain with no major mishaps. He did, alas, fall
ill for a week or two after returning, due no doubt to the assault on the
immune system that is Russian train travel. However, I am glad to report that
he seemed to find Siberia every bit as fascinating as I always had done. He had
no desire to follow my example and live in Chita, but at least now one member
of my family was beginning to understand just why it was I chose to live in
this strange land.
My father, in common with summer’s American
missionaries, had considered Chita refreshingly cheap yet, being a tightwad
myself, upon first arrival I had been disappointed to find that Siberia was not
in fact cheaper than some of the eastern European countries I had previously
visited.
The Russian economy, following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, was transformed overnight from the command model to one theoretically operating along the lines of free market enterprise. Fifteen years later, this transition was still very much in progress, and its signs clearly in evidence. The undoing of the old communist system was essentially economic: Gorbachev realised the command system was unsustainable and unleashed reforms whose momentum went far beyond his control. Politically, the ends of equality trumpeted by Karl Marx may have been largely met for the masses, but economically, things had stagnated. Whereas the progress of the Stalin era had been built on ideological fervour and coercion, by the late eighties the absence of incentives for individuals to actually work and the sheer impossibility of accurately planning resource allocation across such a huge territory, not to mention the burdens of the arms race and the computer age, had brought the Soviet economy to its knees. A great paradox of the Soviet model was of course that for property to be held by the people, it had to be held by the state that claimed to represent them. Hence, a privileged elite developed and, as the saying rightly says, “Power corrupts: absolute power corrupts absolutely”. Even the most committed of communists found the material privileges of party rank hard to resist.
Naturally, capitalism has exacerbated differences between rich and poor. Nowadays pensioners struggle to afford medicines, numerous homeless wander the streets and a newly-qualified teacher’s salary will not even pay for the rent of a room, yet at the same time the rich have often been able (via honest enterprise, via exploitation of imperfections in the nascent free market or perhaps by less honest means) to accumulate fabulous personal wealth. This often leads to a greater resentment of the rich than may be evident in longer-established capitalist societies: as one Russian told me, “Here, the richer you are, the less you sleep”.
As a foreign teacher I earned around 110 pounds per month- reputedly the local average salary, though many people had to hold down two jobs to reach this figure. I was provided with a flat, all bills paid, yet my Russian colleagues earned as little as forty pounds per month, rising to around three hundred per month for heads of department. I knew this because each month as salaries were paid, I had to sign a list on which the salary of every teacher was openly printed. Russians do not share the same secrecy as British people when it comes to disclosing earnings, and questions about what I received when working in Britain were asked without hesitation. I tried to respond modestly by quoting the average salary in the UK and explaining that we pay more than the Russians’ thirteen percent flat income tax, but to the average Russian even this (UK average) figure is beyond imagination.
To this day, certain aspects of the economics of Chita escape me: supply and demand conspire to produce a system in which the average salary is less than a tenth of that in Britain, yet food retails at around two thirds of UK prices and the cost of electronic goods is roughly equivalent. The quality of goods in Russia is generally noticeably lower than that in Europe and whereas Chinese imports to the EU will usually meet certain minimum standards, Russians buy cheap Chinese products in the full expectation that they will soon fall apart. The clothes on offer in the Chinese market look decent enough but have evidently been shovelled the way of the Russian market as other countries would not tolerate such shoddy imports. Thus, even the poorest Russians can seem reasonably well-dressed but they know that within a few months their outfits will have to be replaced. Clothes are often labelled ‘Turkish’ as this is seen in Siberia as a guarantee of quality.
Some commodities are of course much cheaper in Russia, cigarettes, beer and vodka (readily available from the numerous kiosks lining the city streets) among them. The destructive effects of the latter are sometimes apparent on the city’s streets: Gorbachev apparently attempted to ban vodka but had to rescind the policy when people rapidly began poisoning themselves with home-made alcohol and eau de cologne. However, my fears that vodka would be pushed at me at every opportunity were greatly overblown and many Russians steer well clear of overdoing the booze[3].
In a typically self-defeating piece of Russian legislation, foreigners are discouraged from offering their services to the betterment of the economy by being walloped with a thirty percent tax for the first six months of the calendar year in which they work. Thus, turning up in September is a bad idea for a foreign teacher as they will pay this punitive rate until the end of the year, then find that the tax clock is effectively reset and that they will continue to pay through the nose until the end of June, at which time the academic year is over and their contract will have ended.
I found that my salary covered living and entertainment, so long as I drank with friends instead of in the city’s expensive restaurants and nightclubs. The ingenuity with which Russian friends made do, borrowing, lending, growing, mending and sometimes taking from workplaces- apparently a common practice[4]- was a reflection of how capitalism had yet to offer many of its fruits to average Russian families.
Lack of trust in strangers among Russians appears to extend very firmly to lack of trust in politicians. Naturally, in Britain nobody is happy to pay between a third and a half of their income in tax, but there is a general belief that the money will be spent on schools, hospitals, roads etc rather than invested only in a distant capital or- as popular Russian perception often has it- put into a politician’s back pocket. Of course, the Chita population does enjoy such public services as public transportation, policing and (sporadic) rubbish collection but it appears to the visitor that in certain areas government provision is lacking where perhaps in Soviet times it may have been more readily given by Moscow or the local administration. Road maintenance, repairs to the city’s ubiquitous blocks of flats and general cleaning of the city’s dusty streets, for example, were apparently of a higher standard prior to 1992 and the end of communism.
Some older Russians long for the past certainties of the Soviet system, not just for its provision of such worker benefits as guaranteed employment or subsidised air travel, but often because of a strong belief that Soviet society enjoyed a more cohesive, socially responsible, collective ethos than does today’s increasingly more individualistic Russia. By contrast, many young Russians will state an appreciation of the opportunities and personal freedoms offered by their nascent democracy, though in Chita many realise that better economic prospects may be found in other, larger cities. Many young Russians, like their peers across the globe, profess complete lack of interest in political matters- an attitude which older Russians with their politicised Soviet educations sometimes attribute to the ‘spoiled’ and more materialistic upbringing of the younger generation.
Today, Russia’s economy is a transitional mix of elements of seventy years of command economics and, increasingly, of the free market economics promoted by globalisation. The population still find themselves bound to register wherever they live, and restrictions on immigration are draconian to the point of being self-defeating in a land where the Russian population is steadily declining. At the same time, high world prices for oil pour money into government coffers as never before. Fearful that spending this ‘Stabilisation Fund’ too quickly will only lead to inflation, Moscow has been cautious yet in regions such as Chita, many poorer members of society still feel that they will be the last to benefit from the abundant natural resources of their vast Motherland.
A reluctant return
My final journey back to England was typically eventful, and ended up taking around 48 hours. The basic plan was to fly from Chita to Moscow, hop onto an overnight sleeper into Estonia and catch a cheap flight from Tallinn back to London Stansted. Russian airlines have a bit of catching up to do before they approach the convenience of online booking and customer service offered by their Western counterparts, and though prices are cheap per mile flown- after all, Russia occupies one sixth of the land on Earth- there has not yet occurred a price revolution to bring ticket prices within the reach of the average worker. I saved a few quid by taking a cheap internal European Union flight rather than paying full whack from Moscow, but the journey turned out to be less straightforward than anticipated. The dreaded day on which I had to leave my adopted home finally arrived, and Inna and Artur kindly dropped me off at the city’s impressive Soviet-era airport. At least, the white-pillared terminal replete with Soviet red star is quite eye-catching, though the abandoned concrete hulk that adjoins it is not quite so picturesque[5]. My luggage allowance was 20kg and, even after some intense hand-luggage stuffing, I was still around 10kg over the limit. I refused the services of those who wrap suitcases in bin-liners, a common practice for Russian travellers afraid of light-fingered baggage handlers, reasoning that any would-be thief would deserve the layers of festering badly-handwashed underwear he would encounter. In the West, excess baggage is usually greeted with a polite reprimand and a discussion as to whether excess charges need to be paid. In Russia, the bag is weighed, the excess written on your ticket and you are gruffly instructed to go to the cashier and cough up. As I waited at the cashier’s desk I was tempted to alter the handwritten excess fee, but resisted the temptation in the fear it may cause an international diplomatic incident. After all, Putin likes to use fear of terrorism to justify his own internal controls- maybe any misdemeanour could be pounced upon as proof that (American stooge) Britain, shortly following its ‘Spy Rock’ scandal[6], was up to no good in Russia. I decided to behave and had to pay over twenty quid- a week’s wages- to get my suitcase onto the crate that was to take us to Moscow.
The flight stopped briefly in Ekaterinburg and during the next leg to Moscow, I immediately noticed a draft from where the cabin panelling had caved in somewhat beneath my window. I tried not to think of depressurising as moisture hissed through this gap during takeoff, and settled down to watch the cabin crew undertake the (apparently usual) task of lifting their trolley over the lifting connections between the floor panels. I became colder as more air came through my gap, eventually asking the stewardess for a blanket and stuffing it down beneath the window. I don’t doubt that countless people had done the same, and that each time the gap became larger, but needs must. Moscow’s Domodedovo airport is quite a shock after having come from Siberia, with its mix of international passengers, foreign-language newspapers and bright, modern setting. It has toilets with seats, too. From there I had time to make my way into Moscow, find Leningrad Station and, for the first time, go to see Red Square. Carting heavy luggage up and down the busy staircases of Moscow’s ornate Metro is not easy, and finding Leningrad Station is a bit of a job given that there are no identifying signs to it from the street outside- it seems to be one of those places that is so well-known to the locals that pointing it out to anybody passing through has been overlooked. I left my luggage at the station, took the Metro to Red Square and spent an enjoyable couple of hours walking around, marveling at how small St Basil’s Cathedral actually is, imagining the governmental machinations going on just yards from where I stood, and eating a McDonald’s hamburger just to revel in the irony and triumph of globalisation represented by that chain’s presence on Red Square. The square itself is worth a look but, geared for tourists and being a national showpiece, of course it seemed a far cry from what I had come to think of as the reality of Russia. I made my way back to the station, bought a packet of cheap Russian fags for my brother as a present and splashed my last few roubles on a bottle of beer. Rearranging my bags prior to boarding the train, I dropped and smashed the bottle, cutting my hand as I rummaged around in the glass debris to retrieve the food I had also dropped. I was pleased to see that the train was actually Estonian rather than Russian, and the quality was indeed noticeably higher. I was shown to my compartment by the kindly attendant, and in there sat a respectable-looking middle-aged Russian couple. They seemed mildly perturbed by the sight of a sweaty, dirty foreigner hauling forty-odd kilos of luggage, smelling of beer and clutching a bleeding hand, but one plaster from the attendant later and all seemed well. In the early hours of the next morning, we crossed the Russia-Estonia border. In contrast to the lengthy delays and confusion accompanying the crossing from Russia into Mongolia some months earlier, this crossing went relatively smoothly, no doubt aided by the fact that most of the travellers were local regulars rather than bewildered backpackers. As we crossed the Narva river, I looked wistfully back at the imposing fortress of Ivangorod, and my last sight of Russia. I knew, however, that I would return one day. I spent my first few minutes back in EU territory watching rural Estonia pass by, thinking that its Russified appearance- clapped out old Russian cars and crumbling wooden houses- was no surprise given that the border area’s population is predominantly Russian. I went back to sleep and awoke to find myself in Tallinn, a city I had visited once previously and loved. The large number of stunning, slim women undoubtedly helped my appreciation but the city itself contains a charming and well-preserved old town with a mixed Scandinavian/Central European character. It may play host to a few too many organized Japanese and American tours, and apparently far too many British stag parties, but is still well worth a look. I checked in my bags at the station, chatting happily to the lovely young girl on the desk, and wandered around for a couple of hours, before retrieving my bags and hopping (or rather, lugging my way) on to the tram to the airport bus stop. It soon became clear that the airport bus would take a while, and I began to get a little edgy, but eventually it came and I figured that, the airport not seeming far on the map, I would still make my checkin comfortably. Unfortunately, I had not realised that the bus was to take a twisting and leisurely route around Tallinn’s suburbs, then having to wait for an inconsiderate driver to shift before pulling in at the terminal. I leapt off the bus and into the checkin queue with five minutes to spare. Alas, the people in front took their sweet time and as I presented my details I was told "That flight closed three minutes ago- please go to the travel desk to discuss your ticket". I went to said desk and had an argument with a Russian woman, mainly in English and partly in Russian, and told her that her refusal to compromise was typical of Russian business culture. In all honesty, I was wrong as it was the policy of the British airline that forced her to be strict. She said I could fly later that day for an extra 250 Euros, I asked her if I could sleep in the airport or on the grass outside, and then she let me fly the next day for no extra cost. Being used to Russia and long-distance telephone calls involving shuffling between cashier desks and sitting in booths shouting over the Chinese trader next door, I was relieved to learn that I could simply buy a phonecard and call Britain. This I did, rearranging my parents’ visit to Stansted to pick me up, and as my rage abated, I realised that in fact I had another day to look around Tallinn. A city full of stag parties it may be, but Tallinn is a vibrant city with a beautifully preserved old town and friendly people speaking impeccable English whose treatment of strangers and understanding of tourism puts Russia to shame. In Estonia I saw a man painting a fence- something I could not recall ever seeing in Russia- and commented to a local that there were no bars covering the ground floor windows. She pointed to a block where there were a few bars, commenting that Russians lived there and “It shows how they think”. I feared I was encountering some of the anti-Russian sentiment that stems from the period of ‘Occupation’, as the Estonians call the Soviet period, but the woman informed me she had a Russian mother and loved Russia- she was simply (and quite correctly) commenting on a telling difference between the Russian and European mentalities. I also found that though Estonia had of course been part of the USSR, people in Tallinn seemed to regard Siberia in the same beyond-the-back-of-beyond way that Brits often tend to. The following morning, after a pleasant day spent exploring the Estonian capital and a night in a cheap but comfortable hostel, during which the only cock-up occurred when I absent-mindedly withdrew ten times more Estonian crowns than I needed, I returned to the airport. Very early. Taking my cases from the locker where I had stowed them, I proceeded to ditch all unnecessary weight. Of course, I had done this before leaving Chita but having witnessed the airline’s strict adherence to procedure, I did not feel like paying their five pound per kilo excess charge. Books and the odd item of clothing were left or binned. I also stuffed my backpack and laptop case with as many heavy items as I could fit, and donned a windcheater jacket I had bought in Mongolia. Over this I placed my thick, fur-lined leather jacket and to complete the effect, on top I wore my Siberian winter fur coat. Sweating profusely, physically massive due to my ridiculous attire and lugging deceptively heavy hand luggage which was bursting at the seams, I plonked my suitcase down at checkin. “22.6 kilograms, sir. I’m afraid that’s over the assigned weight limit of 20kg and this airline does have a strict policy on charging for excess baggage.” I may have looked relieved as I calculated that my suitcase now weighed over seven kilos less than when it left Chita, and that the charge would be around fifteen quid rather than the fifty it would otherwise have been. “Okay. I thought it weighed more than that. That’s why I’m wearing three winter coats”, I responded. “On this occasion, sir, I’m sure we can make an exception”, he smiled. I could have kissed him. On the basis of customer service alone, I was back in Europe! At Stansted the customs officer immediately pulled me aside for questioning. I can’t blame him as my volume of luggage, most of which I was carrying on my shoulders like a sweaty donkey or actually wearing, must have seemed suspect among the weekend Tallinn-hoppers. I explained that my luggage represented a year’s worth of living in Siberia, he checked through my case, told me off for bringing too many fags back with me, and let me go. The Russian chap next to me had been caught with his case crammed absolutely full of cheap Russian ciggies, and I’m sure my minor excess was not the kind of naughty behaviour that bothered HM Customs.
My mother later told me that I looked thin, drawn and generally unhealthy as I wheeled my overladen trolley through into Stansted arrivals, but I felt fine as I began the process of quickly refamiliarising myself with British life- anybody who has been away must know that “Oh yeah- I remember that” feeling of seeing such simple things as our blue road signs, a British TV soap or a chav. It had been an odyssey of a journey back from Chita, but then an easier journey would have hardly seemed fitting after the odyssey that was the experience of Siberia itself.
[1] ‘Beauty spot’ by local standards. In Britain, we would just consider it another lake, and not a very spectacular one at that if I’m honest
[2] Of course, ethnic stereotypes abound. The reindeer-herding Chukchi people of the Chukotka region (governor, Roman Abramovich), for instance, are often seen as somewhat backward and are the butt of such jokes as “What do you define as a Chukchi toilet? A box with two sticks in it- one to plant in the snow to hang your clothes on and the other to fight off wolves”. Just as unfair as Irish jokes, I am sure
[3] I did have one experience with samogon- village homebrew of around eighty percent proof- but declined a second glass when I realised that, whilst I could not feel any drunken effects, sweat was suddenly pouring from every pore of my body
[4] One good friend of mine, for example, benefited from a steady supply of army milk sent by her mother who worked in an army warehouse and struggled to make ends meet from her salary combined with the hundred pounds or so per month her husband made as a miner
[5] Abandoned buildings are a common sight all over Russia. With so much territory available, why knock down something unused if you can just build next to it?
[6] To the amusement of drunk Russians I would sometimes encounter in bars, British diplomats in Moscow had been accused of placing a radio transmitter, concealed in a fake rock, in a Moscow park. The incident, and its accompanying TV expose, had caused a stir in a country still obsessed with its Cold War mentality of looking out for spies in society’s midst, though I’d imagine the media profile of the accusations had been somewhat lower back in Blighty