The Last Man in Russia: The Struggle to Save a Dying Nation (32 page)

felt a little too hot, to hold my

fingers against the ice on the

windowpane. I could melt through it

and leave little clear circles, then

watch the crystals crawl over them

once more.

The platform of the Yaroslavl

station in Moscow had been hard-

pressed snow and dirt. A man stood

selling power tools. He had a heap

of drills around his feet, and a cattle

prod in his hand that he crackled at

me as I walked past. On the opposite

platform

stood

a

train

with

destination boards proclaiming Ulan

Bator and Beijing in three languages.

It pulled out five minutes before us.

In a few days’ time, we would be

thousands of miles apart.

Just before our departure, a man

came swinging down the train

flogging

knock-off

phones. A

woman, one of my neighbours,

asked what he had.

‘Are you going to buy,’ he asked

aggressively. She hesitated. ‘Then

what’s the sense in showing them to

you?’

The woman looked around at us

in surprise at his sales technique, and

we shrugged and grunted and

introduced ourselves. On the top

bunk opposite me was Andrei, a

snub-nosed woodsman in a vest – ‘I

am a driver, a sawyer and a boss.

See, that’s four jobs’ – with strong

opinions, particularly about people

from Chechnya – ‘They should all

be killed, they don’t work and see

how much money we give them.’

Just a couple of weeks before, a

suicide bomber had attacked one of

Moscow’s

main

international

airports, killing thirty-seven people.

H i s sister had passed through the

airport ten minutes previously, he

said, so that may have been the

source of his strong feelings,

although the suicide bomber had not

in fact been from Chechnya.

Beneath Andrei was a sulky-

looking girl who spoke on the phone

for most of the first evening, and

slept for most of the next day.

Opposite her, and directly beneath

me, was Yekaterina, a pretty girl

from Vorkuta who listened to

everyone’s conversations and smiled

without saying much.

Most of the conversation over

the next day was driven by our

neighbours on the other side of the

aisle. They were a mother and

daughter from Ukhta. The mother –

her name was Angelina – had

learned English a long time ago and

was delighted to show off to the

carriage

by

holding

exclusive

conversations with me about Prince

Charles. I spoke to her in Welsh for

a while when she asked me what this

place Wales was that he was prince

of. She then happily explained to our

neighbours

that

she

had

not

understood a word. They had not

understood a word of the exchange

that led up to it, so probably did not

realize I had been speaking in a

different language at all, but she did

not let this undermine her triumph.

Angelina’s grandfather was in

the gulag in the early days. He was a

Ukrainian convicted in the 1930s,

during the wave of collectivization

that submerged Father Dmitry’s

family along with millions of others.

He was released after the war but not

given permission to return home.

His daughter – Angelina’s mother –

came to join him, aged just sixteen,

in 1946 and ended up marrying a

Latvian and staying in the north.

‘They always wanted to leave but

stayed. It’s hard to leave when your

house is here, your children. They

say that it was fun at first because

there were so many young people,

so many intellectuals. It’s not like

that now of course,’ she said.

Angelina

switched

back

to

Russian to include her daughter,

Olya, and the others and for a long

time they all discussed life in the

north. They were relatively well off,

but Olya and her husband had

stopped at just one child.

‘A two-room flat costs 2.5

million roubles,’ she said. I did a

quick calculation in my head. That is

around £50,000. ‘And a new-build

is even more. How can you afford to

have a second child? This is the

problem. We would need more

living space before thinking about

another child.’

Angelina moved on to an

account of a holiday she had taken in

Jerusalem, with side pilgrimages to

the Holy Places in Bethlehem and

Nazareth. Olya was not listening,

however. She was still mulling over

living standards for young families.

‘You are lucky to have been

born in Britain,’ she whispered while

her mother was talking, so only I

could hear.

Up in my bunk I lay on my side,

with my hand under my head, and

watched the forest rattle by. As the

trees receded into the distance, the

partition one and a half metres away,

against which Andrei was sleeping,

seemed to rush towards me at

astonishing speed. It made me feel a

bit sick so I rolled on to my front to

look out directly into the trees. The

snow closed off any view beyond

the first or second trunk. Every

branch was laden with snow. Every

twig was laden with snow. Every

crosspiece on every telegraph pole

was laden with snow. The tops of

the poles wore a little white wig. The

houses in the abandoned villages

were huddled under the weight on

their roofs, their windows dark and

their paths uncleared. Their fences

were just a few inches of black spike

sticking out of the drifts, and the

mammals that had left loping tracks

on the snow’s crust passed over

them as if they were not there. The

branches of birch trees sloped up,

and the branches of fir trees sloped

down.

I put in the earphones of my

iPod and listened to the memoirs of

Keith Richards, guitarist of the

Rolling Stones, which I had brought

for just such a long journey as this

one. With my blanket tucked around

my ears, and the snow glistening

outside, I drifted off to sleep while

he was driving through Morocco

and getting stoned with Anita

Pallenberg in the sunshine.

The whole of the next day I was

on the train. Without the little

kilometre markers of concrete and

metal to look at – they were covered

in snow – the main objects of

interest were the occasional station

buildings which we hurtled past

without

stopping.

The

station

managers – women in their late

teens, mostly, swaddled in furs like

fresh-faced beavers – stood outside

the buildings holding up little white

lollipops of plastic. Otherwise, there

was forest. When night fell it looked

like a negative photograph. The sky

was black, and the trees were white.

The next morning a sudden

worry I had missed my stop jerked

me awake. I had a crick in my right

shoulder and winced as I craned

around to look out the window. The

sun was a pure yellow, like a lemon

pip, rising above the bleakest

landscape and sending delicate

fingers towards us, reaching between

the blue shadows and under the sky.

Beyond the sun were the pale lumps

of the Ural Mountains. Nearer, the

snow was sculpted into smooth

shapes by the wind. We passed

through the village of Ugolny – Coal

Town – without stopping. It was all

ruins, with no people and no tracks

except those of a mammal of some

kind, perhaps a fox.

Ahead of us, a haze in the clear

sky traced back to a tall chimney

spewing a dark stain of smoke for

miles and miles. We pulled into Inta

through blocks full of shattered

buildings and empty windows. I

pulled on my jumper and my down-

filled

jacket

–

of

a

brand

recommended by a mountaineer

friend because it kept him warm on

top of the Andes – then my gloves,

which were in two parts. The inner

stayed behind if I wanted to take the

outer layer off to use my camera.

Last came my hat.

I was ready for the cold, I

thought, but I was wrong. Minus 34

degrees centigrade caught at my

throat like sandpaper and at my

thighs like a bucket of iced water.

Nikolai Andreyevich had come to

meet me. He was smiling under a

peaked cap, but I was coughing in

the cold and had to wait to return his

greeting.

He had a taxi waiting. The road

was sheet ice where it was not beaten

snow, and we roared towards town

at 120 kilometres an hour. For some

reason, Nikolai Andreyevich had

decided we should deny I was

British.

Perhaps

he

liked

the

pretence,

or

perhaps

he

was

concerned that my presence here

would attract unwelcome questions.

I was, he told the taxi driver with

studied

nonchalance,

‘from

Moscow’. I was not to speak more

than I had to in case my accent

betrayed the lie, but in any case the

headlong journey was so terrifying I

did not much want to say anything.

I had friends here now, so had

no need to stay in the Northern Girl

hotel and argue over how much they

would overcharge me for a sagging

single bed. Nikolai Andreyevich had

persuaded a woman called Galya,

whose hair was carefully dyed but

resembled a squashed magpie, to

rent me her flat. I was delighted to

get into the warmth and to drink a

cup of tea.

Her flat was decorated with icons

and with calendars celebrating the

various branches of the Russian

armed forces. In the living room was

a flashing picture of Jesus that I

unplugged as soon as I was alone.

After a shower, I approached getting

dressed strategically: two pairs of

socks, underpants, long underpants,

trousers, T-shirt, jumper. My coat,

gloves, hat and scarf would come

after

another

cup

of

Galya’s

revolting purple tea.

As we sat in the kitchen, Nikolai

Andreyevich lectured Galya about

Schopenhauer, then moved on to

lecturing her about coal, engineers

and other topics. She initially

mistook

the

lectures

for

a

conversation and tried to make

comments, but soon learned not to. I

ate biscuits, then left to find some

lunch, while Nikolai Andreyevich

went off on business.

Lunch was not a success. My

first attempt, in a café round the

corner called Ugolyok, failed when a

waitress told me it was full. I could

see that only one of the dozen tables

was occupied but she insisted, with

the certainty of a true believer,

against all available evidence, that

there was not a single empty chair.

My second attempt, at the

Barakuda, Inta’s other café, started

little better. The only dishes on offer

were various wizened bits of meat. I

asked the blank-eyed waitress if they

could fry me some eggs. She said

no. I asked about an omelette. No

again. I asked about boiled eggs,

suggesting I would be happy to pay

250 roubles – £5 – for two, which is

a

pretty

reasonable

price

by

anyone’s standards. No. How about

scrambled eggs?

The waitress, who had the

wattled neck and initiative of a

tortoise, but none of the charm,

refused, pointing out that she had no

way to enter 250 roubles into the

cash register if it did not refer to a