I haven’t written for a while, I guess I should tell you about my trip to Severobaikalsk, because it was interesting. If you want to read about it, that is. I can’t tell if you skipped ahead or not. It’s pretty long, I wrote it out on my computer and then just copied and pasted it here, but:
We left on the 3rd of October, very late at night. When I was riding the bus from my apartment to the coordinator’s apartment I realized that I hadn’t been out at night yet, and Irkutsk in the dark seemed more like a normal city, if that makes any sense. Our seats on the train were in a platzkart, which means little compartments of 6 beds, four on one side of the aisle and 2 on the other. Our compartment-mates got on at a station about a half an hour from Irkutsk, and they woke me up. It was a relatively young grandma with her granddaughter, and since I was sleeping by the window facing the platform, it was my job to hold the curtains open while they waved goodbye. Not that I minded, I hadn’t gone to sleep, but there was something sort of demonic about the little girl, she was probably about 2 and a half and kept blowing raspberries and giving people the fig, and I felt bad because I didn’t like her very much. I think two year olds should be mischievous but not demonic.
Everyone went to sleep, and like always, I slept well, until the little girl woke up very early and then I just laid in bed for about an hour. Outside the window it was cloudy and filled with empty Siberian forests. There aren’t any walls or anything between compartments, its just one long aisle through the whole wagon, and people were moving around to brush their teeth or get some hot water (free!) for tea and instant noodles/kasha. I finally decided to actually get up when one of the young boys from the next compartment who I later found out were related to the grandma sat on my feet. I read Anna Karenina in English, looked out the window, and ate a lot of snacks that other host moms had given their students. I was supposed to ask my host mom, but I forgot. But it was fine, because there was enough food for about 20 people, although there were only 7 of us.
Later in the evening we started talking to the Russians around us, and that was nice. The two boys, Ruslan and Denis, were very talkative and told us about fishing, pop music, etc., and we talked about the Beatles and politics with the grandma. She was very sociable as well. I haven’t really enjoyed talking about politics with Russians so far, because although they will say immediately that “people should live peacefully,” which I agree with, and point out their disagreement of the Iraq war, it never occurs to them that their government might also from time to time engage in not entirely necessary conflicts. However, everyone I have met has come to a mutual consensus about the Beatles: they are awesome!
The train ride was 35 hours long but not that bad, just a little groggy, and we arrived in the city of Severobaikalsk in the morning. A little background history: the Soviets built Severobaikalsk along with the BAM railroad that connects Eastern Siberia with the rest of the rail system. It was one of the last “great projects,” and Estonians, Georgians, Russians, and Ukrainians all labored to build this railroad in a not very hospitable place. Severobaikalsk as a city is 10 years older than myself, and it shows. Every building is a big tower block, and the main street is named “60th anniversary of the USSR,” which is a little sad, because it doesn’t exist anymore. The railroad station is very creatively shaped like a ship, or the abstract interpretation of a ship. Our guide, Marina, informed us that most people here are involved with the railway and that no new industries are advised for the city. It seemed like it wasn’t a dying city, but it wasn’t a growing city at all. We didn’t really spend much time in it, anyway.
We stayed in a nice guest house whose owner was from Moldova and cooked us a nice breakfast and dinner every day, and during the day we usually went on a nice hike around the lake. The first day we followed a trail along the cliffs on the northernmost part of the lake, and it really felt like we were on the sea, minus the salty smell. There is a tree here called the listvennitsa which looks just like a spruce tree but all the same it sheds its needle-leaves in the winter, and in this time of year they are all a very bright shade of yellow, and I enjoyed walking among them immensely.
Besides nature walks we also bathed in not one but two hot springs. The first was in a city with the ridiculous name of Goudzhekit, which is not Russian but from the local people, the Yeleni. There we got dressed into our ridiculous American swimsuits and went out to the springs, which were pumped into two pools: one pleasantly hot, like a hot tub, and the other painfully hot. I thought the hot one was just cooling off for later in the day until an old Russian who looked like the human version of wolf calmly lowered himself into the scalding pool and stayed in there for about two minutes. From time to time I dipped just my legs in that pool and it was always painful. Finally, determined to prove that I was not just another wimpy westerner, I tried to immerse myself in the hot pool. But it was still quite scalding and I had to give up. But I couldn’t give up, not when I saw that slight smirk on the face of the wolf-man, and after 5 more minutes I tried and succeeded! The trick is to stay absolutely still—after a while, it only hurts when you move your arms and legs, but when you decide to get out, it is really painful. I was probably more proud of my time in the hot pool than my graduation from high school. I still am.
The other hot springs were on the other side of the lake and rode on a little skipper for about 3 hours to get there, to the little resort of Hakusi. The boat ride was pleasant, just to be on the open water, but Hakusi was even more pleasant. In the summer I guess it is quite popular, because we walked by little stores, cabins, a rec center, etc, all made of wood and colorfully painted, with lots of “Nature is our soul—don’t litter!” signs, but there was not a soul there besides us and the captain of our boat. The hot springs there were a lot simpler, just a wooden structure built over literally a hot spring, and there was also water that I was supposed to drink and another well of water that I was supposed to put in my eyes, and of course I did so, and I think my eyes have been doing well since then.
There was one strange thing about Hakusi, although nobody else in our group thinks its strange. On the beach in front of the resort there is a big sign that says “WELCOME!» in English and in Russian, and a bunch of wooden arrows that point to various Russian cities with the distance painted on them. Fine, that's very cute and appropriate. But then a few more feet away from the lake there is a little sign that says: «Square of Hope…». And the Square of Hope, or Hope Square, made me very sad, because it was a strip of sand with 4 tires and a little flower mosaic from the city of Bratsk. The tires were sloppily and garishly painted with pink and white paint and some of them were filled with dead flowers. The other 4/5 of the «square» was just sand, and it wasn't organized in any way. These questions immediately came to mind: why would the Russians build a square of Hope here, way out in the middle of nowhere? Furthermore, why would they make such a depressing square? I don't know. They certainly weren't being cynical. I think it’s a Soviet thing: Americans would never address a group of strangers as «Dear friends!» and wouldn't name a little grocery store «Friendship,» «Spring,» or «Summer.» Doesn't anybody else think this is strange, or is just me? Not that I don't like it. I
like it when Russians say «Dear friends,» or how they give out «prizes» to everyone who gives a presentation, even if it is mandatory and they are university students.
ANYWAY
The big highlight of our trip was the (former) village of Pereval. We took our usual minibus with our friendly driver Sergei, who unfortunately tunes his radio to the worst station in Severbaikalsk, to the nearby village of Kholodnoye. There we met our driver Volodya, who was going to take us to Pereval in his truck. Liza had already told us that the road was too rough for our minibus, but Volodya's truck was a military truck, with giant wheels and a diesel engine and so on. We sat in the back with a tarp roof, like soldiers, and drove down a dirt road. «This isn't bad at all.» I thought. «Sergei could have driven down this.» Then, after 5 minutes, the truck turned sharply to the left and we drove down into what I thought was ditch, but it turned out to be the road. We bounced all over the truck and had to hold onto the metal bars supporting the tarp-roof of the car, and it was fun for about 15 minutes but then it just got hard to think about anything and too loud to talk to each other. We stopped after about half an hour at a place that the local people considered holy, which was a beautiful hill of boulders covered with a few inches of snow, and continued on. The next hour and a half was extremely uncomfortable because quite frankly I had to use the bathroom and all the shaking and bouncing around was not pleasant, and I was about to ask Liza to knock on the window to ask Volodya to stop when a sleeping bag flew out of the back of the truck and when we got out to get it, it turned out that just about everybody else had to use the bathroom too, but didn't want to say it.
The last hour went by quicker, and we crossed several rivers. Every time the water splashed on the engine this sort of steam-fumes rose up into the back of the truck, but it was not as bad as it sounds. Nonetheless we were happy to arrive in Pereval, which, true to its name, is located in a broad valley between two mountain ranges. It reminded me a lot of Hatcher's Pass in Alaska, and was beautiful in a desolate way. There was a few scientific buildings from an old mining camp and a little wooden house where we stayed, run by Boris Gerasimovich. Boris was about 60 years old, had messy white hair and leathery, dark skin that comes about by living in a mountain pass for 18 years and not once coming down. Our plans, whatever they were, did not work out so we went on a walk around the place. The old village of Pereval was located up the hill, and it was quite strange to walk around all these smashed and twisted remains of little houses, which still had dolls and empty packets of condensed milk and newspapers from 1989, when everybody had to leave because the Soviet Union was going to hell. I found a little plastic model of a deer, which I kept because the local people principally hunt and raise deer and it seemed appropriate to me.
Afterwords there wasn't much to do, so we started playing Spades in the cabin. Boris and our driver came in, a little oiled up and in better spirits, and taught us (sort of) how to play Durak, which is a very popular Russian card game. At dinner we ate rabbit soup and Boris proceeded to get pretty pickled. We had a guest at the table, a local hunter named Andrei who was about 45 years old, sort of looked like my Japanese relatives although he was Yeleni, and was very shy. Boris kept babbling and flirting with our group leader, and Andrei kept quiet and didn't laugh at Boris's mischieviousness. Once, when there was a pause, he said in his meek voice: «Well, we have guests from America. Tell me something about America.» We of course couldn't think of anything to say.
After dinner we of course played cards. The other Russians went into the next cabin, but Boris stayed with us. Earlier he had announced that I was going to get married to my group-mate Sarah next year in Pereval, and that Aubrey was going to be married to his son, although earlier he said that he would never allow his @!#$$% son to come to Pereval, so I'm not sure. The other students made sure to play Spades, a game he didn't and would not understand, and Sarah was knitting, so that, as the Russians say, it came to me to sit next to Boris.
I would like to say that there was sucessful cultural exchange, but that wouldn't be true. He asked Sarah about 20 times why she kept knitting, and either praised her, saying she would be a good wife for me, or scolded her, and asked me how old I was. When I told him, he apologized to me and explained that it is extremely offensive to ask someone how old they are. I said it was fine, but then two minutes later he asked me how old I was. Pretty soon after dinner he started swearing, but really materilsya, which is like a dialect of Russian, and of course I didn't understand him very well. He got frustrated with us, and thought that we didn't speak Russian at all, just because I couldn't understand him when he swore like a sailor.
I told him I was from Alaska, which I thought he would like, but he started swearing and I made out that he claimed he was born closer to Alaska…than I was(?), and that I wasn't from Alaska, but from outer space. I started to get pretty tired of him and eventually started reading Anna Karenina by the lantern, and he just sat there, drunk and slightly morose, making me feel guilty, but it was impossible to talk to him, especially since we were all completely sober. He wasn't a bad guy, but he wasn't a great guy either. I don't think it was completely a culture clash, aka upper middle class college student vs. russian man who has lived in a cabin for 18 years, because our driver, Volodya, was a hunter, not a very cosmopolitan guy, but the group all got along very well with him. We talked about Alaskan animals and hunting in general as a profession, and at the end of the trip I gave him my pack of cards from Alaska because he was so friendly. Also, I feel guilty writing this, but when he did his impression of a Yeleni accent, it sounded very similar to the accents of Alaska natives I used to hear in Anchorage, only he was speaking Russian, not English. From what I've seen in museums and such, the native people of Eastern Siberia have a lot still in common with Alaska natives, although they crossed the land bridge thousands of years ago.
The plane trip back was about an hour, we didn't have time for another 35 hours on the train. Interestingly enough—our old Soviet plane had more legroom than American ones. I guess that shows that Capitalism really is not in the interests of the people, especially tall ones like myself.
This week, briefly:
That weekend we went to the dacha again, and I helped them build the roof over the garage, overall a nice time there. Monday I had my one mainstream course, XXth century Siberian history, which I really like, and we even talked before class with real Russians(!), named Igor and _____. They seemed pretty friendly. Monday was also Patrick's birthday, and we for the first time went out at night to a Czech bar, where the writer of «Brave Soldier Svejk» supposedly lived for 2 years, which was fine, except I messed up on the taxi and paid too much.
On Friday we had a busy day: all the foreign students were supposed to give a presentation about their country, although I just gave one about Alaska, which went pretty well, I think. I got a little ceramic bell for an «award». The Koreans and the Chinese students, unfortunately, have a real tough time with Russian, it was sort of hard to understand them, and there were some Germans that speak pretty well. Afterwards everybody was supposed to drink tea together in the cafeteria, but this being Russia, the cafeteria was closed and all the teachers disappeared. The Koreans and Chinese also disappeared, but the Germans invited us to their room in the dorms and we spent a few hours talking with them, I am very glad we had the chance. Hopefully we will be seeing them more often, too.
Well that just about catches things up. If you read all this, you're a true friend. If you skimmed, you're probably a true friend as well. I mean, it was really long. And sort of haphazardly written.
