Europe @ 2.4 km/h (5 page)

Some places enchant you by their names alone. To my ears, Archangelsk is right up there with Zanzibar, Samarkand and Ouagadougou. And in Archangelsk, especially along the riverbank, the sense of spaciousness and unmistakable civic pride cast their own spell, which goes a long way in offsetting my annoyance with the dodgy state of the roads and pavements I clunk along. Occasionally, someone will lurch in my direction and even shout raucously at me (but, thankfully, none carry staves). They must know I’m not Russian by my clothes, I guess. I cycle on, ignoring them and wondering if they take me for an American or a European. Public drunkenness is a national disgrace but, as I will learn soon enough, xenophobia can also be a potent brew.

64 km

Strike Solovetsky from the itinerary. The cost of two flights (Archangelsk-Solovetsky return) followed by one to Murmansk is prohibitive. From here it’s 31 hours to Murmansk aboard a train without toilet access. That would take me out of my rather generous comfort zone, so just this once I will have to fly rather than go overland. This one air ticket adds a whopping €191 (A$318) to my budget, but there is no alternative.

67 km

On an embankment overlooking Archangelsk’s riverine beach, I find Sobnil, 23, from the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. On hearing I’m from Australia, his ready smile broadens as he says, ‘Ricky Ponting’. He follows cricket as passionately at a distance as many do close up and controversy is still raging over the death of Pakistan’s coach, Bob Woolmer.

We exchange theories. ‘Heart attack,’ pronounces Sobnil with awesome certainty. When I express scepticism, he confides, ‘The Paks, they together shoot Woolmer’. He clicks a trigger finger. ‘Heart stops.’ Sobnil laughs the laugh of one who knows he has told a joke well — but now he turns serious.

‘Do you know what happened on this beach last December?’

‘A cricket friendly?’ I parry.

‘No. There was a knife fight.’

‘Who was in it?’ I ask, assuming he is speaking at second hand.

‘The Paks here — I was the only Indian — and the Syrians. All against the Russians. Six of us, one of them.’

‘And?’ I ask, but really I’m thinking, Why is he telling me this? Now he smiles the smile of revenge — collective, murderous revenge.

‘They are always attacking us whenever they find us alone. It had to stop. It stopped.’

71 km

Time to put my feet up and have a good outsider’s laugh at the Eurovision song contest. Now Eurovision is a hoot, the epitome of schmaltz — everything it’s mocked for being — but it is instructive in its way and by the end of the show I think I understand why Europe is full of Europeans who consider themselves Danes, Swedes, Russians, Spaniards … anyone but Europeans. Long before the closing credits it is clear that Marija Serifovic, from Serbia, singing ‘The Prayer Song’, will win — and why. The announcers, democratically spread round Europe’s capitals, pop up by live feed to reveal their compatriots’ choice.

‘Russia gives twelve points to … Belarus.’

‘Croatia gives twelve points to … Serbia.’

Hey, what’s happening here? The Slavs are voting as a bloc — or, to make a broader point, the voters’ Euro-vision seems to be myopically limited to their immediate neighbourhood. But wait, there’s something new.

‘Montenegro gives twelve points to … Serbia.’

‘Estonia gives its twelve points to Russia.’

It’s only three years since Montenegro and Serbia were on the brink of armed conflict and a fortnight ago, when I was in Tallinn, the Estonians were fighting pitched battles with ‘their’ Russian citizens. So what is this tactical voting all about? Could it be that Estonia
gives
Russia twelve points because it wants the Russians to know it will never give them anything else, anything of real worth? Or is this some musical variant of the Stockholm syndrome?

‘Sweden gives its twelve points to Finland.’

‘Finland gives twelve points to Sweden.’

And now for the real clincher — ‘Austria gives its twelve points to Serbia’.

What a pity about the timing. If only Eurovision had been around in 1914, that statement alone might have been enough to avert a world war. And if you think that’s flippant, you have no idea how seriously Eurovision is taken here. For three-quarters of an hour after the show — beamed live to 120 million viewers, or one in four of all Europeans — Russia’s studio audience earnestly discusses the pros and cons of this year’s event, the 52nd in the contest’s history, until at 2.15 am it’s time to go out partying (or, in the case of this old fogey, to sleep).

While some sneer at Eurovision’s vapidity, I think it’s been an education. On this model, Europe — far from being a ‘union’, as it likes to bill itself — is a framework for managing the tensions between neighbours with different temperaments, distinct histories and divergent views of their place in the world. This, at least, is a theory worth testing: before sleep overtakes me I come up with the notion that it might be revealing — as I proceed across the Continent — to ask the Europeans of each nation I pass through what they think of ‘the folks next door’.

Postscript. Sure, the voting system will have to change. For the song contest, if not the European Parliament. Only when the phone calls and SMSs are tallied without reference to nation states and ethnic blocs — the Continent’s favourite announced with a voice indivisible — will there really be one Europe. But, to quote Buddy Holly, that’ll be the day.

76 km

At another café around the corner from the Hotel Dvina — not the one where a ramp had been demolished, but one whose entrance consisted of a few steps so that willing hands had to be found to lift me into the establishment — Elena Kokanova had gathered members of her English class. An engaging group, they possessed one dimension I was eager to explore, their Russian perspective.

My core question to one and all — ‘What does Europe have that Russia doesn’t?’ — was cunningly disguised to see whether any of them would challenge the premise that Europe and Russia were two different places; that Russia was not, at its core, a European country. Here is a selection of their comments:

Grigory: ‘I think they are a little bit more tolerant to each other.’

Aliya, a very intense nineteen-year-old: ‘Russia is something apart. We don’t need anybody else. Our history is very deep, profound. I believe there is nothing in the history of my country which I am ashamed of.’ (She needs to learn more history, I muse, but there’s nothing wrong with her English.)

Irina: ‘In Europe, people take more care of their environment and are more careful of the place where they live.’

Grigory picked up on the environment theme: ‘We always think Russia is too big to spoil it all.’

Maria: ‘Tolerance, relative stability and common sense in the manner of dealing with things. All people are somehow involved in the running of their country.’

Contrary to what I had imagined, these classmates had first-hand experience of the Europe beyond their national borders. In a January 2008 email Elena, their teacher, would list some of the places they’d been: Finland, Turkey, Spain, Britain, Ukraine, Poland and Sweden.

And then, to flip the coin, I asked, ‘What does Russia have that Europe doesn’t?’

Anastasia: ‘I think they (in Europe) are impatient and they are not afraid of acting against the government. We are more patient.’

Katya (to my silent admiration): ‘I don’t like to judge people by their nationality because in every nation and in every country there are people ready to help. I don’t like stereotypes because they prevent us seeing the good in other people.’

After her charges had their say, Elena was prompted to make her own contribution ‘Yes, we are on one planet’ — she acknowledged Katya’s comment — ‘but maybe we Russians have something special: our Russian soul, our Russian spirit’.

Naturally, I asked her to define this will-o’-the-wisp. ‘Sometimes it’s very difficult to convey. We are friendly on the inside, and we are open on the outside — especially in the North.’

These responses gave me a valuable insight into Russians’ national self-image, which is at marked variance with the way outsiders view them. A love of secrecy rather than openness is part of the group portrait I, for one, had of Russians — but then that was partly based on official encounters, a few of them unpleasant, when I was here in Soviet times.

80 km

Day 16, May 16. As I push along the Severnaya Dvina Embankment above the swirling tide, I peer down at my faithful speedometer and read the answer to that question I’m still asking myself 2000 km into the journey, ‘What am I doing here in Europe?’ There it is on the luminous dial: I’m doing 2.4 km/h. Pathetic.

Sprawling for nearly a block along the embankment is a rusty-roofed edifice, the oldest in Archangelsk and originally a far-flung trading post. Built between 1668 and 1684, Gostiny Dvor has been called the world’s first shopping arcade (obviously by someone with a febrile imagination, but you get the idea) although it has long since been converted into a museum. In its barrel-vaulted foyer I meet another intriguing Russian character, Alexander Potapov. What work does he — or indeed anyone here apart from the ticket vendor and gallery attendants — do? Hard to say, but Alexander does have an impressive title: archaeological consultant. And he believes I’m on the right track by beginning my European researches in the North. Alexander confirms my belief that the Vikings’ role in the birth of Russia has been understated.

‘Yes, the Russians came from the Vikings,’ he says matter-of-factly. ‘But before then there were “pre-Russians”, Varyagi troops, who came here during the period between 4000 and 3000 BC from what is now Germany, near Rostock. They came to Rostov-on-Don — that is the link between Rostock and Rostov, you see? — and later they came to occupy Scandinavia.’

This summary of Viking influence is one I find fascinating, and frankly at odds with some of my book learning. Potapov tells a plausible tale: trouble is, I have no way of knowing how much of his ‘history’ is backed up by evidence. Seeing that almost all the exhibits are exclusively in Russian leaves me almost clueless. I would love to have known more about a 1720-1721 map of Europe that indicates the land north of here was much more populated then than it is now, with town names jutting out like fish scales either side of the Dvina.

Alexander later introduces me to an icon restorer who (I can confirm from a return visit next day) is almost permanently drunk as a skunk, and who works and lives in a dungeon-like anteroom under the building. Scruffy Pyotr waves an apologetic hand in the direction of a dusty horsehair sofa occupying the corner of his dingy quarters. He often uses it as a bed, he tells me, but the only appearances this Orthodox bohemian seems to care for are those of his icons — and they are meticulous, magnificent.

81 km

A
BBC World News
item informs me that earlier this month Russia summarily closed the land border with Estonia, following the saga of the worker-hero statue. Only now do I realise how lucky I was to get through before such an event put the skids under all my plans.

82 km

Together with a Swede and a German living in this city, I have been invited to address 500 students at the Archangelsk State Technical University today, a rendezvous arranged through Elena Kokanova. (With no lift in sight, I’ m hauled upstairs to the fourth-floor auditorium by a human chain gang.) Dr Valentina Golysheva, an administrator who comes across every bit as pompous as her title, Associate Professor of Cross-cultural Communications, introduces us to the assembly. Andreas Edvardsson — polite, self-effacing and Swedish — says he found it ‘disturbing’ to visit America where people think it a virtue to ‘present yourself as better than you may really be’.

‘Swedes,’ he tells the students, ‘put ourselves down low, whatever we may think of ourselves.’ Even conceding that we are dealing in generalisations, I can see that such self-abnegation would irk a more open personality, who might associate the reticent Swede with a cold, unemotional visage.

Ludwig Waas, from Munich, who has been teaching German in Archangelsk for two years, selects two ‘typically German traits’: first, punctuality, ‘which I think is a good thing’; and, second, ‘being too exacting, too precise, which I think is a bad thing’. Elena’s class — who form a small but encouraging cheer squad for the Australian panellist — nod vigorously when I point out that these ‘good and bad’ characteristics can be seen as two sides of the same coin.

85 km

This menu item in an Archangelsk restaurant — ‘hearing under a vegetable’s fur coat’ — sounds more like a cryptic crossword clue than a fish dish.

Today’s flight, over the Arctic Circle from Archangelsk to Murmansk, will cover more than 800 km and deposit me further north than I have ever been.

90 km

The success of the European project — sometimes described as ‘ever closer union’ — would not be in everybody’s interests. Ivan, my taxi driver to the airport, tells a simple story whose poignancy is not lessened by the fact that anyone can see where it’s going before he reaches his conclusion.

Ivan’s English, you might say, is broken without being utterly beyond repair. Ten years ago a German friend of his, Bjorn, was living in Archangelsk. ‘He and this girl find, how to say, love,’ he tells me as we turn on to the airport road. ‘He leaves here and promises the girl to return. When he gets back to Germany his girl there, she take him away’ — at this point Ivan’s hands leave the wheel for one scary moment as he feels words will not be enough to convey the concept of brainwashing — ‘and she cleans his head. She says, “You never more go in Archangelsk”.’