Midnight in Siberia: A Train Journey into the Heart of Russia (29 page)

“Right—or maybe national park?”

Sergei and the driver discuss.

“He doesn’t know about it.”

“It’s supposed to be a very popular park.”

“Da, da, Stolby Park!” the driver says.

“Yes.” We may be getting somewhere.

Lots more animated discussion in Russian in the front seat.

Rose is smiling, not having experienced the joy of Russian chaos for a while.

“David, he says maybe it’s closed. Maybe you’d like to see the hydroelectric dam instead. It’s very interesting.”

“Okay, tell him we appreciate his advice. We’ll think about it.”

He drops us at a hotel, where we leave our belongings and inquire at the front desk about Stolby Park. She says of course, any cab driver will know how to take you there. You can take the “air vehicle” (which I interpret as a gondola) or walk seven kilometers, no problem.

Great. We find a taxi.

Sergei asks the driver—another Sergei—if he can take us to the gondola.

There’s a lot of discussion.

“You missed this, right, Rose?”

“Uh-huh.”

“David,” Sergei says. “Sergei says it’s not quite a gondola, it’s more of a lift?”

“Like a ski lift?”

“Yes.”

With no ski equipment handy, and not enthusiastic about walking seven kilometers in the cold, Rose hatches an idea. “Could we ask Sergei if he could drive us as close to Stolby as possible, so we can have a look?”

Sergei asks Sergei.

“He says he thinks you might like to drive to see the hydroelectric dam instead.”

Oh, man.

“Could we stop at Stolby first on the way to the dam?”

This seems like a plan, and Sergei pulls out of the hotel parking lot, drives maybe ten minutes, and pulls over. He rolls down a window and calls over to a police officer. They begin speaking, and Sergei gives us a play-by-play of the conversation.

“He’s asking if the road to Stolby is open. . . . No, nope. ‘Remont,’ it’s under construction.”

Sergei the driver rolls up his window. “Okay, plan” he says, then unloads a mouthful in Russian to Sergei.

“David, he suggests we go to an overlook to see a view of the area, then we go to the hydroelectric dam, which he says is very interesting, then we come back.”

Rose and I are officially ready to let go of Stolby.

“Sounds good!”

Russia being Russia, the chaotic confusion suddenly turns serene and enjoyable. Sergei pulls over at a scenic overlook where the parking lot is full of limousines—wedding parties. Rose is overjoyed—more pictures for her wedding dress blog.

Sergei, Rose, and I hike out to a spot overlooking a stunning valley. There is a platform surrounded by red metal fencing, and I snap some of my favorite photos from the trip—wedding couples posing, the mountains and valley behind them, with wind blowing through the brides’ veils—the red from the railing, the white from the dresses, the black from the tuxedos are gorgeous in front of the natural backdrop.

“Yeshcho raz, yeshcho raz [Another time, another time]!” one groom keeps yelling to the photographer, urging him to snap more shots of his bride. This scene—newlyweds surrounded by their families and friends, laughing and celebrating—makes all the bad thoughts I was having about Russia melt away. Rose is feeling the same.

“I can’t believe we’re in Russia,” she says. “Feels like somewhere else.”

“I know,” I say, as we walk back toward the car. “But it makes me angry. This all feels so free and hang-loose. And then I think about what people here are sometimes up against.”

I think about the beating of Oleg Kashin, the trouble Nadezhda goes through, the call to Olga’s family from the FSB. Why can’t everyone just let people in this country
alone
? This is still on my mind when we return to the car, and begin driving toward the well-hyped hydroelectric dam.

Sergei, our driver, is in his forties, a pleasant, stocky guy with brown hair who seems eager to chat. He talks to himself while driving. “Spasibo, spasibo,” he says when other drivers let him into a lane. “Oh, yolki palki!” he says whenever we go over a bump.

I tell Sergei how I was struck by the free spirit and joy I witnessed at that overlook.

“Sure, a person feels free if he has means,” Sergei our driver says. “When a person gets up in the morning, what does he think about? His job and making money for his family. Today people don’t feel secure that they can do that. Compare this life to socialism. Our old life was comparable to what countries like Sweden and Finland have today. But here? Bureaucrats are the only people who live good lives, and they don’t care about common people.”

He graduated from a university in Krasnoyarsk and became head of a transportation company. But his job evaporated during the recent economic crisis. “So I decided why not work as a taxi driver? I have to support my family—my wife and seventeen-year-old daughter.”

I point out that many people in the United States lost jobs and struggled through the economic crisis, and Sergei doesn’t deny that. But his wish for socialism as the solution fascinates me. He doesn’t want a less intrusive government—in fact, he wants government to be more involved, just more responsive to the needs of the people.

“You know, we had our chance in perestroika. The setup of our society changed. That was our moment to develop some kind of democracy. Instead our economy was converted in a way that just put bribes in the hands of officials—right into their pockets.”

Bribes are a way of life, he says. If you’re recovering from surgery in the hospital and want your bedsheets changed? Bribe. Want an appointment with your kids’ teacher? Bribe. Need your car inspected sooner? Bribe. Want the paperwork to open a new business actually processed by the local authorities? Bribe.

“They began a new society, just not with the right people,” Sergei says. “We need to start from scratch. Putin lost his moment to establish a national idea. The idea was going to be to fight corruption.”

“So now you’re looking for a new national idea?”

“Who’s looking for it?” Sergei says, throwing his hands up—briefly—before returning them to the wheel. “We won’t be able to get out of this. We have a cancer.”

We have a cancer.

I’m now really into this conversation. Sergei seems tired, but is dutifully translating for me, which I appreciate, especially after I told him I wanted to avoid any deep interviews for a day or two. Rose—victimized by jet lag—is asleep on my shoulder.

“So you want your daughter to leave this country because you think there’s a cancer?”

“Yeah, she says no way she is going to live here. We are trying to get her to study in Prague. She can’t see herself in Russia. She can see what is happening.”

“Sergei, why is this resignation so deep—why can’t there be another revolution, some kind of change?”

He takes a long pause.

“Don’t you forget—it’s not like Putin taught economics or something. He was a spy. He was taught to handle spies in other countries. You don’t play chess with him. Groups who tried to organize in this country—many of them are now behind bars.”

And so the path of our winding conversations takes us here—fear.

We drive down a long hill, make a turn, and there it is—the hydroelectric dam. I’ll admit it’s damn impressive. A hulking structure not unlike Hoover Dam in Nevada. Rose wakes up, and we all trudge outside for a few photos. Then we are back in the car, heading back to the city.

“Sergei, it was hard for me to see all those wedding parties having such fun, feeling so free, and then be talking to you about the difficult situation in the country.”

“Yes, it’s complicated. We have a saying, actually. Have a drink in the morning, and the whole day ahead of you can be free. Have something to drink in the morning, and the whole day can feel like a holiday.”

“Drinking helps you forget reality?”

“I am just saying everything is brighter colors for a person when he is drunk.”

Sergei takes us for a drive around his city, then drops us off at a restaurant so we can grab dinner before our evening train.

We pay Sergei for his services. Then I ask if I can write down his last name for the book. He stiffens up, and declines.

“You never know what tomorrow will bring,” he says.

I say thanks anyway, and we start to get out of the car. But then Sergei says something else.

“Chort poberi [Oh damn]!”

He pauses.

“Sergei Komarov,” he says. “Let the world know me.”

Let the world know me.

Those words carry power. The power of a man who, before my eyes, overcame fear.

Sergei Komarov felt an instinctive reaction—fear—that many Russians feel every day at different moments. And he decided to take the risk.

He decided to play chess this time.

18
•
TAISIYA

S
ERGEI,
R
OSE, AND
I board train No. 44 in Krasnoyarsk just after 1:00 a.m.

It is packed full, but thankfully with a more balanced male-female ratio than our last train. We have a twenty-one-hour ride to Irkutsk, the gateway to Russia’s romantic Lake Baikal.

Many passengers are asleep, so the three of us are as quiet and unobtrusive as possible, trying not to bang our roll-aboards and backpacks into anyone’s feet. All our efforts are spoiled when a mousy little blond
provodnik
decides to come yell at us.

“You come from a plane? Too much luggage! You must have a document to bring so much luggage!”

Sergei screams back at her in Russian. Then she walks away, grumbling to herself.

“What does she want, a bribe, Sergei?”

“Probably.”

“Should we pay something?”

“No.”

This is not the end of her.

As we are preparing our berths, a woman across the aisle from us is desperately looking for her lost pillow. This is no small thing. On a Russian train anything lost can be the responsibility of the
provodnik
. Once she takes your ticket and hands you a pillow and sheets, it is your responsibility to hand them back to her before you leave the train. Or
she
could be held responsible.

The
provodnik
is summoned and immediately zeroes in on us as possible culprits. She begins to tear into our unwieldy pile of luggage to see if a pillow happens to be buried somewhere. Not finding one, she yells at the woman and says she’ll just have to make do without one.

And as if she has not made our night unpleasant enough, around 3:00 a.m., I happen to be awake to see her pass through the aisle in the darkness and trip on someone’s bedsheet. She curses and immediately turns all the lights on in the train car, leaving the place illuminated for the rest of our sleeping hours. Well, at least she won’t trip again.

As the sun comes up I look across at Rose in the opposite upper berth. She’s awake and reading. Below me is Sergei, and below Rose is another passenger—a Central Asian man, sitting on his bed, looking out the window. The landscape has changed—less forest, more open landscape, shrubby, like the ranchlands of Texas. There are some distant mountains.

“Honey,” Rose says.

“Yeah.”

“I think we should talk to him.” She motions to the guy below. “If he is on his way to Russia for work, it could be really interesting. Don’t you think you need to talk about immigration in your book?”

“Why don’t you interview him? You can ask Sergei if he minds translating.”

Rose climbs down, chats with Sergei, and the two of them begin chatting. I’m listening intently from above, with my notepad.

“Where are you from?” Rose asks.

“Uzbekistan.”

He’s in black athletic pants and a black wool sweater with gray stripes. I would guess he’s in his forties, a peaceful, worn-down man with skin tough like leather and a thin mustache. In a rack above his berth are a pack of cigarettes, matches, and a tube of toothpaste.

“Where are you going?”

“Khabarovsk.” It’s a city in Russia’s Far East, the last big stop before Vladivostok.

“How long are you going to stay there?”

We may have reached the limits of his Russian.

“He doesn’t understand,” Sergei says.

“Does he speak just Uzbek?”

“Yes,” Sergei says.

“I’d like to see Uzbekistan sometime,” Rose says, to no avail. “Leave it to me to interview a person who doesn’t speak Russian or English.”

The four of us sit peacefully.

“Anyone want tea?” Sergei finally says.

Rose and I say yes, and Sergei makes a trip to the samovar.

“Do we have anything to go with tea?” Sergei says. I reach into a bag and pull out a chocolate cake we grabbed at some train station behind us. We motion to our seatmate that he is free to dig in. I begin to cut the cake with a spoon, and our friend pulls out a knife—a serious knife, a knife that’s a foot long and clearly designed not for food preparation but construction work, if not killing animals.

I thank him and chop the cake into perfect pieces.

We motion again for him to take a slice, and he holds up his empty teacup. The implication is clear: Who in their right Russian mind would consume cake—or do much of anything—with no
tea
?

I take it back. We all do share a language.

“Sergei, how is your family—Tania? Anton?”

“Really well. Thank you for asking, Rose.”

Sergei tells her about Anton’s hope for a military draft deferment so he can complete his residency program.

“Oh, Sergei. I’ll keep my fingers crossed for him. He worked so hard. When we were in Moscow, I feel like we never saw him sleep.”

Anton’s future is clearly weighing on Sergei’s mind. He tells me and Rose about his own military service—which was a close call. In Soviet times the requirement was two years, not just one. Sergei interviewed with a unit that was seeing call-ups to Afghanistan. It was 1981, and the Soviets were beginning an invasion that would end in failure and thousands of casualties.

“Some of the men from that unit were sent. Some said they would see fifty guys—then just five would be left.” Somehow Sergei was deployed instead to the Caucasus region as a Soviet border guard.