Good day,
(Before I continue, here is a small tale to amuse you. I just spent 4 hours in an internet cafe writng the majority of this post. The whole thing then suddenly disappeared before my eyes, despite having saved it many times. Despite desperate searching, it was nowhere to be found. Resisting the urge to stand up and yell expletives, I stormed out of the cafe, angrily consumed some coffee and cake, and tried to imagine myself as a persecuted author, a lifetime's work in manuscripts destroyed by vengeful forces of Stalin, preparing to begin again in some blackened attic lit by half a candle-wick. As it turns out, this is not far from where I am now - shoving some smoking teenagers out of the way of the entrance, I entered what can only be described as a dark cavern (inexpicably there are no lights), and, preparing to begin the long process all over again, i logged on to discover - oh joy! oh, jubilant day, halloo-halay and all that, there it all was, saved after all. Bloody computers! Which makes me realise how much it matters to me to record. In fact, i'd say it was verging on compulsive..
So...
I'm in Tomsk, the self-styled 'Oxford of Siberia', a pleasant green and leafy university town. You'll notice, should you decide to peruse a map, that none of the places I've stopped at are actually on the trans-siberian railway itself. That would be far too easy...Suzdal, which I've told you about already, is a little way north of Vladmir, which itself is 190km from Moscow. Getting to Sudzal and back then involves a small bus, which I took with the help with the help of the aformentioned old ladies and some friendly bikers (there were a lot of these around, to balance the chintziness out i suppose). "Don't worry be happy' he said, obviously the only english phrase he knew. But good advice!
Monday was one of those perfect travelling days where each part rolls nicely into the next, without much fuss, but full of interesting and unexpected happenings..I wandered out of the hostel in a lesiurely manner, feeling happy and well slept (it's amazing how much difference this make to your mood!), just meeting the bus as it arrived, and landing in Vladmir in time for lunch. There is a very efficient left-luggage system in place at Russian train stations, which makes it easy, if you have a few hours to kill, to dump your stuff and have a wander.
Actually, many things about the russian train system are remarkably efficient, if you can just work them out. (Ah, the wonders of a state run - ie. non-privatised train netowrk!) For example, all the trains run run pretty much exactly on time. This is because the train managers get a bonus for not being late. And they create very generous schedule, which may involve lengthy stops for no apparent reason. And at the stations, there's none of this measly panicky 30 seconds to grab your stuff from an overcrowded luggage rack and fling yourself out aaaaaghh thing. You get a nice 15-20 minutes to stretch your legs, buy refreshments / gaze at scenery/ chainsmoke, depending on preference. Once inside the train, you are allotted your own bunk. This may be either the top or the bottom, both of which have advantages and disadvantages, The bottom converts into a seat/ table by day; personally I prefer the top: although it's a bit cramped and even getting up there involves the athleticism of an olympic gymnast (not to mention getting your rucksack onto the rack above!), it's your own little space that you can hang out in and you get to sit on the bottom during the day - so you effectively have 1 1/2 places! I've recently taken to travelling Platskartney (3rd class) whenever possible. This, apart from being gratifyingly cheaper, has several merits: It's in an open carriage, a bit like a giant dormitory, so you have loads more people to observe, interact with etc - and it lessons the chance of being stuck in a cramped 4 berth compartment with 3 smelly drunk snoring russian men - something that hasn't happened yet but i have a deep dread of! It's a bit like a blind date, every time you go into a compartment, wondering who your travelmates will be..
You are given a sort of standard issue-starched set of sheets, although i revel in my lovely blue silk liner, that i may sleep in forever from now on, by the Provodnitsa, or carriage attendant, who patrols the carriage with an eagle eye, and fulfils every role from ticket collection to providing hot water to cleaning the toilets. These are usually women, with universally terrifying hairstyles (it seems to be the fashion to use as may different coloured dyes as possible) and equally scary eyebrows...think cruella de ville..although they are sometimes men. Its seems laughable that anyone could succeed in stealing anything with these formidable creature around, you're far more likely to get your rucksack nicked off the oxford - london train, methinks..
So..Vladmir, I, determined to brave the horrors of a russian menu (which take about half an hour wiht a dictionary to work out) headed to a cafe for lunch. On the only occupied table next to me, sat a somewhat large russian woman, eating potato and mince, alone. She had a hardly-drunk bottle of red wine in front of her. She called me over and insisted I sit with her. I had a nasty feeling I knew what was coming next...to be honest i really didnt fancy half a bottle of bad wine in the middle of the day, but what to do? She couldn't speak any english, but didnt seem that bothered. This was my first encounter with Russian drinking etiquette. It's complicated. It seemed that what was required was that she pour me a glass: we said cheers (in russian of course) and then, without putting my glass down, I had to down it before she would drink heres. And she would pour me another and so on. After 3 glasses, I decided enough was enough, and at risk of causing offence, refused politely to drink any more. Ignoring my pleas, she poured me another, which i was forced to leave undrunk on the table, and staggered happily up the hill to see the beautiful Annunciation Cathedral, congratulating myself on being a girl who could hold her drink...
There was something a bit sad though about her lonely drinking...People do really drink a lot here, though it's almost always a social thing..In the evening, everybody has a bottle of beer in their hand as they walk around. It's just what you do. Interestingly though, despite its reputation as russia's 'drink' , drinking vodka seems to be kind of frowned upon. When i asked the Siberian art students if they liked it, they looked a bit shocked and told me it was very bad...it may be something to do with the amount of dodgy stuff around - an extraordinary number of Russians die every year from drinking 'bad' vodka. However, although drinking (and eating) had always been done to excess as celebration - 'it was the test of a 'true Russian' to be able to drink vodka by the bucketful' (Figes), traditionally, the orthodox calendar had an amazing 200 fasting days in which drinking alcohol was prohibited. Figes suggests that this 'frequent alternation ..perhaps bore some relationship to the people's character and history: long bouts of humility and patience interspersed with bouts of joyous freedom and violent release.' it also used to be a lot harder/ more expensive to get hold of alcohol, until the 1775 reform of local government which transferred power from the police to gentry magistrates, allowing business to boom, whether legally or illegally. So drinking that had been set in a pattern of scarcity (ie,. drinking to excess whenever possible) carried on. At the beginning of the 20th century, vodka was actually banned, but this led to many deaths due to the manufacture of illegal moonshines...and the loss of tax revenue (the state got at least a quather of its total revenues this way) was a factor in the downfall of the the regime in 1917. What is the lesson in this? I'm not quite sure...
So...The next train took me to Nizhny Novgorod, where I psent another couple of hours in the gorgeous evening sunshine (not that I'm trying to rub it in or anything, you poor soaked british souls) looking out across the might Volga river which cuts the town in two. Nizhny, or Gorky as it was renamed in Soviet times after the playwright, is famnous for being home of said writer, and also the place where the physicist Sakharov was exiled. He was involved in developing the Soviet Union's first hydrogen bomb, but later bacame opoposed to the regime, for which he was persecuted - in 1975 he was awarded the Nobel peace prize, but was too frightened to collect it. Back to Gorky - he's a fascinating figure. After fleeing to Italy, in 1921, he couldn't stand the life of an exile, and disillsuioned with the increasing power of the fascists, he was tempted back in 1931, convincing himself that things would be better. Hailed as the 'model' of Soviet literature, and with 'impeccably proletarian roots', he was showered with accolades, but sat in some sort of uneasy halfway house where he tried to use his influence to help writers under persecution. Any more insights welcomed..
This is quite common, that the names of towns have been changed during soviet times, and although officially changed back, they remain the same on train timetables...So there you are, clutching your hard-won ticket, having struggled to decipher the russian lettering, discover that instead of 'Yekaterinburg' as you had expected, it says 'Sverdlovsk'. After a small panic, you realise, they are in fact, the same thing, one being the soviet - era name. The other confusing thing about travelling by train in Russia (as if there weren't enough!) is the times. Russia has no less than 11 time zones (yes, it's really, really big), which means that, in order for everyone to know what's going on, all trains run to Moscow time. So when looking at your ticket, you must work out the difference between local time and moscow time for your departure and arrival towns...which becomes complicated when you are trying to ascertain at what time in which time zone the left-luggage office closes. To an attendant who doesn't speak any english. If there is one thing I would say to anybody wanting to travel in Russia, it's this: Speak Russian It really will make your life much easier. For example, you can book train tickets online, thus saving all the hassle of not being understood at the ticket office, but only if you can understand the russian website. How ironic. You could of course do it through a tourist agency. but a prefer my commission-free queuing. It would feel a bit like cheating otherwise. I also like the aspect of chance...will they have tickets ort will i be stuch here forever until my visa runs out abd i am thrown in jail by the russian police. Dn't get me wrong, I'm not existing in a state of permanent chilled-ness, but i also sort of enjoy the anxiety...
The othere thing about speaking the language, which I do think is essential if you spent any proper length of time somewhere, is that of course you get much more insight into somewhere through actually being able to have proper conversations. You start to long for them I met my first english-speaking foreigner for a week this morning and i alsmost fell over my tongue so eager was I to talk. Howveer i beleive it's good for everybody british, the lazy language capitalists of the world, to experience being misunderstood. Then you know how everybody else feels.
However this wasn't a problem on monday evening (still on monday! must hurry this along a little!) in my night train, as it turned out the daughter of the family in the bunks next to me, a glamorous 16 year old called angela, spoke perfect english with an american accent. She helped with with those awkward questions i hadn't quite worked out the answer to (like, how so you turn the tap on in the toilet, exactly? The answer, should you ever find yourself in this situation, is that you have to push it up from underneath. It's really not very obvious..), got her uncle to make my bed for me, and acting as a translator for her mother, who wanted to know about the type of teaching given to children with learning difficulties in britain. It was all quite bizarre at 11pm..
The next morning I landed up in Kazan. (This is an alternate route for the first part of the trans-siberian, going further south), and after the ticket-buying debacle described in my last blog, was escorted to my hotel by a kindly girl who worked in tourism, who ahad observed my ticket-buying woes.. Yes, a hotel! with my own little room with - get this- no other people in it! And for the same price as a dingy overcrowded hostel bed (for your information, should you plan anything similar, my accomodation costs have remained fairly constant at 10-12 pounds a night. This is really the cheapest you can get. I anticipate a price drop soon though, at least i hope so as the old roubles are dribbling away..). I merrily threw my rucksack contents all over the room and went out to explore.
Kazan is the capital of Tatarstan. I'm still a little confused about its political status- from what I understand, it became the capital of the Tatar autonomous republic in soviet times, and in 1990 declared autonomy from Russia, though is unlikely to gain independence as nearly half the population is Russian. Tatarstan was the the home of the Tatars - that nomadic tribe that paticularly revelled in the general wreaking of havoc. Being there feels in some ways more like central asia than russia: faces are darker colours, hair is straighter and blacker, brows are flatter. There are spires of mosques and women in veils. St. Basil's cathedral in Moscow was built to celebrate the capture of Kazan in 1552 (which, by the way, is brilliant. you have to see it, if you can. It's completely ridiculous in an utterly wonderful way), which must have been quite a feat. Kazan occupies an excellent tactical position..flanked by two broad rivers, the Kazanka and the Volga, which give it a port-like atmosphere (there is even a beach), the white-stone kremlin is high above them, and you imagine standing looking out as the hordes of Ivan the Terrible advanced.. Inside the kremlin there is both an Annunciation Cathedral, in the style of the one in the Moscow kremlin, and a stunning bright blue-roofed mosque, which was built relatively recently, in the place of the one destroyed by those hordes. I guess this is reflective of the city's dual identities..
Russia and Asia have a historically ambivalent relationship. Figes tells us helpfully that
'Culturally, there was a deep ambivalence, so that in addition to the usual Western stance of superiority towards the 'Orient', there was an extraordinary fascination and even in some wasy an affinity with it. [which apparently makes it an exception to Edward Said's theories of orientalism. Comments?? you know who you are!] Much of this was a natural consequence of living on the edge of the Asian steppe, torn between the counter-pulls of East and West. Thsi ambiguous geography was a source of profound insecurity..The Russians might define themselves as Europeans in relation to Asia, but they were 'Asiatics' in relation to the West.'
It must be confusing, being in two continents at once. If you'd asked me before this trip, where the border was, I wouldn't have had a clue. I can now tell you it's exactly 1794km west of moscow. I passed it a couple of days ago, all it's not until 2102km that Siberia officially begins. Apparently, there is a marker, but I didn't see anything. How odd that so much fuss is made about invented political borders between countries, whilst you can pass over a geological clash of continents without a murmur.
Russian society has gone through phases in its feeling towards Asia. In the eighteenth century, it was frowned upon. Figes describes it like this:
'In its defining myth, Russia had evolved as a Christian civilisation. Its culture was a product of the combined influence of Scandinavia and Byzantium. The national epic, which the Russians liekd to tell themselves, was the story of a struggle by the agriculturalists of the northern forest lands against the horsemen of the Asiatic steppe - the Avars and Khazars, Polovtsians and Mongols, Kazakhs, Kalymyks and all the other bow-and-arrow tribes that had raided Russia from the earliest times. This national myth had become so fundamental to the Russians' European self-idenity that even to suggest an Asiatic influence on Russia's culture was to invite charges of treason.'
In the war against the east, (which was seen as a religious war - as shown linguistically by, for example, the old word for foreigner, 'inoverets', which suggests a foreign religious faith, and the words for peasant (krestianin) and Christian (khristianin) are very similar.. If you think about the word 'Tatar' it's been used - in the west as well - to suggest someone or soemthing horrible, barbarous. It feels almost as though to call somebody one would be an insult. In fact, in the eighteenth century, in order to create a clear cultural divide between this perceived 'west' and 'east', any non-christian group - muslims, buddhist, shamanic or whatever - were lumped together under this one term - and what's more, it was deliberately mislpelt - Tartar -to make it like the greek word for hell (Tartarus). Russian atlases renamed 'Sibir' (Siberia) as the 'great Tatary).
Pushkin was one of the first to challenge this definition. In 1836, he wrote -
'It was Russia who contained this vast conquest within her vast expanses. The Tatars did not dare cross our western frontiers and so leave us in the rear..To this end, we were obliged to lead a completely separate existence which, while it left us Christians, almost made us complete strangers to the Christian world..The Tatar invasion is a sad and impressie history..Do you not discern something imposing in the situation of Russia, something that will strike the future historian? Do you think he will put us outside Europe?'
This 'sad and impressive history' Pushkin writes of, the 250 year occupation by the "Golden Horde' of Genghis Khan (or Chingiis Khan as he is correctly known - more about him later!) was a source of much shame for Russians. In reality, of course, the Mongols, though violent, were not the destructive barabarians who plunged the country into a 'dark age' , the role popularly ascribed to them - they had organizational systems in advance of the russians' own, Figes explains:
'The Mongols had sophisticated systems of administration and taxation, from which the Russian state would develop its own structures, and this is reflected in the Tatar origins of many words like dengi (money), tamozhna (customs) and kazna (treasury). Archeological excavations..showed that the Mongols had the capacity to develop large urban settlements with palaces and schools, well laid-out streets and hydraulic systems, craft workshops, and farms.'
Napoleon apparently once said 'Scratch a Russian and you will find a Tartar' (always good to be informed about the countries you're attempting to invade), and it is true that a lot of russians had mongol blood. This was especially apparent in the aristocracy - descendants of the 'golden horde' made up an important portion of the Moscow court, and at least two tsars were descended from them. You could say the behaviour of the Tsars was based upon that of the Khans
'they justified their new imperial status not just on the basis of their spiritual descent from Byzantium but also on the basis of their territorial inheritance from Genghis Khan' (Figes).
In fact, much of the 'invasion' was based upon the collaboration of the Russian princes with the khans. The food, clothing, symbols etc of Russia - in all of these you could find an asiatic root. The critic Stasov caused a storm of controversy, when, along with many other things, he claimed that the byliny, epic songs containing russia's folk tales and myths, were in fact derived from the Eastern (Hindu / Sanskrit / Buddhist) myths brought west by immigrants, merchants and soldiers from India, Mongolia and Persia. He poointed out that -
'If the byliny really did grow out of our native soil in ancient times, then, however much were later altered ..we should read in them about our Russian winters, our snow and frozen lakes..our Russian fields and meadows..our peasant huts..about our Russian hearth and the spiritual beliefs that surround it..about our belief in mermais, goblins, house spirits and various other superstitions of pagan Rus'..and what we see instead is the arid Asian steppe.'
Whether or not he was right, he was massively criticized for what was seen as an attack on the essence of Russian-ness. Kadinsky, in his studies of the Komi people, arrived at similar conclusions, which inspired a lot of his painting.
In the nineteenth century, howver, Asia becam e fashionable again to the point, Figes says , that 'many pure-bred Russian families invented legendary Tartar ancestors to make themselves appear more exotic' ! Dostoevsky was all for this idea - in 1881 he wrote
'We must cast aside our servile fear that Europe will call us Asiatic barbarians and say that we are more Asian than European..this mistaken view of ourselves..has cost us dearly,,and we have paid for it by the loss of of our spiritual independence..In Europe we were Tatars. whilst in Asia we can be Europeans.' It seems odd that he should seek to define the country through an identity other to what it was 'in', but do we not all do the same, to some extent? Travelling, in my experience, forces one into a much tighter niche than usual; the more 'foreign' the place, the more 'British' you appear by contrast. It can be fun, but also annoying - sometimes it would be be nice to slide into a sort of jellylike nationality-free form without being defined by 'foreigness'.
In the early 20th century, the 'Scythian poets' embraced this wild, passionate side of Russia - believing that the revolution would sweep away the old, 'dead', Europeanness; in Blok's famous poem, The Scythians', (1918), he wrote
'Yes, Russia is a Sphinx. Exulting, grieving,
And sweating blood, she cannot sate
Her eyes that gaze and gaze and gaze
At you with stone-lipped love and hate.'
A little later, the group of emigres known as the 'Eurasianists', with Stravinsky at their centre, feeling betrayed by both soviet Russia and the failure of the West to combat the Bolsheviks, viewed the future of Russia as being in Asia, a 'unique ('Turanian') culture on the Asian steppe.', in which they foresaw a future in which the power of the west would be detroyed to be replaced by that of the East. Based on some fairly tenuous/ doubtful ethnographic evidence, it nevertheless provided artistic inspiration for the exiled russians, and maybe they were onto something..just look at china..india,,etc now!
So, where was I..oh yes, anyway, whatever its historical significance, I liked Kazan a lot, it felt energetic, vibrant and young; lots of loud music and bright colours, even a whole wired-up band playing open-air in the main street one evening. Next was my longest journey yet, two trains over 2 1/2 days at the spectacularly inconvenient times of: 1. 2.15am, arriving ther next evening, 2. 2.30 am - but- and here's the catch - 2.30 moscow time, which meant 4.30am local time. So there I was, in Yekatinerinburg on a summer's eve with 8 hours to kill. What's a girl to do?
Yekaterinburg has an interesting history - mostly violent - I walked past the spot where Tsar Nicholas II and his family were murdered in 1918 (now with the aptly entitled 'Church of the Blood' erected int ehri honour with apparently the world's most expensive icon). it's also known for the Mafia, who kiled a lot of people in the early 1990s (not something to think about too hard when walking alone at night), and Boris Yeltsin, a graduate of the university.
But what to do? The first step was obviously to imbibe plenty of caffeine, as i would have to be alert and awake until, well, nearly tomorrow. And then - of course- I went to see the late-night showing of Harry Potter (or 'Gary Potter', as it is pronounced in Russian!). It was dubbed into Russian, of course, but hey, I know the story anyway. (if you are are a reader of my earlier tales you'll know that harry potter and I have a certain synchronsity - during my trip to Ladakh i ended up reading the new edition in installments as a bedtime story to assorted Europeans, in my role as representative Brit! Anyway, I love it and I don't care, i've quoted you Dostoevsky, let's have some balance! What I want to know is, who's going to send me the new book to China??!). So that was fun, although buying a ticket posed certain problems - on enquiring about buying a ticket, i was told 'nyet'. I couldnt believe they'd all sold out at 11.45pm, so persevered- I've made a significant discovery that, if somebody doesn't understand what you want, they'll just keep saying 'no' (whilst frowning). The trick is to keep asking, annoyingly, until you are understood! It's the same with buying tickets..checking into hotels, whatever. As it turned out, there were exactly 6 people, including me at the show that night..
I also managed to walk back to the train station in the dark, without getting lost. (A big achievement for me. I have no sense of direction. As you may well know). I was so elated at my own efficiency and awakeness that I had a beer to celebrate, and immediately felt very sleepy... eventually crawling gratefully into my bunk as dawn was breaking. The sunrise was very beautiful,
About the train journey itself- well, to be honest, there's not much to tell. Actually, it was kind of boring, though I love sleeping on trains anyway (a sentiment obviously shared. I would say that at any one time, at least half the population of the train was snoozing. At other time after all can you be so enjoyabIy and justifiably indolent?) I was surrounded by young families and old ladies, who were very interested in their routines of eating, sleeping, putting on makeup (this is what women on trains seem to spend half their time doing, It's bizarre..And doing puzzle books, for hours. I can't understand it. Men on the other hand let it all hang out..quite literally in the case of large beer bellies. They all seem to wear as little as possible, which may be a good or a bad thing depending on age, looks, beer-bellied-ness etc ! Otherwise, bad tracksuits and moutstaches are apparently requisite) and so on. But not in talking to me, which was fair enough as i couldn't exactly talk to them! Anyway, there were no wild vodka-drinking parties (Or if there were I wasn't invited). And the landscape was a bit dull- endless deciduous forest and arable fields interspersed with the occasional river for a bit of excitement.
Gorky described it thus: that the landscape had
'the poisonous peculiarity of emptying a man, of sucking dry his desires. The peasant has only to go out past the bounds of his village and look at the emptiness around him to feel it creeping into his very soul ..Round about lie endless plains and in the centre of them, insignificant, tiny man abandoned on this dull earth for penal labour.'
There is a great word in Russian used to describe the kind of inertia brought on by this monotonous landscape - 'Oblomovshcshina' (try saying that 10 times before breakfast, it'll wake you up!) - from a story by Gonorachov, an apathy described as the scourge of Russia by Lenin. Chekhov travelled this route in 1890, and he commented of this stretch 'You'll be bored from the Urals to the Yenisey'. But more from him later, Also the story of the Volkonskys, surely one of the most interesting of siberia. and the rxraordinary history of the railway, and some wildlife.
But for now, goodbye, they're throwing me out..again!