The Last Man in Russia: The Struggle to Save a Dying Nation (55 page)

ending, winter is ending,’ they sang,

and once again the horns blasted out

their glorious crescendo.

The night before, my tent had

been one of hundreds by the river in

a field noisy with music, laughter

and singing. Beneath all those

sounds though, from the other tents,

from all directions, had come the

muffled but unmistakable sounds of

young Russians getting busy making

a new generation.

Postscript

It was 28 June, the anniversary of

Father Dmitry’s death, and I went

looking for his grave in Moscow’s

Friday Cemetery.

I cut left and right, trending

downhill

along

paths

pushed

through the mass of granite. Graves

were piled together in vast numbers.

It looked impossible that there could

be room for as many people below

the ground as were commemorated

above it. Fifty-year-old graves were

wedged up against ones from last

week.

Close to the ragged wall that

separated the cemetery from, by the

sound of it, a major highway, a

crowd of fifty or so people were

already gathered. A young woman,

seeing my camera, showed me

through and pointed out Dudko’s

grave – 24 February 1922 to 28

June 2004. His life had coincided,

more or less, with that of the Soviet

Union.

Here was a mixed crowd: women

in headscarves, young and old; men

in open-necked shirts, some bearded,

most not. There was Father Mikhail

Dudko, Father Alexander and Father

Vladimir, all in the sweeping robes

of their office. They donned pectoral

crosses. Father Mikhail slipped a

golden cloth around his neck, and

the service began.

The light-blue fences placed

around

many

of

the

graves

interrupted

the

unity

of

the

congregation, which was forced to

cram itself in where it could. But the

Orthodox chant was glorious for all

that. Father Mikhail’s cracked voice

led the chant in a strained falsetto;

then the lovely many-level response

mingled itself with the wind in the

trees.

The Old Slavonic chanting had

its

usual

lulling

effect.

The

antiquated language made it easy to

concentrate on the purity of the

sound, not the meaning of the

sentences, rather like going to see the

opera in a language you do not

speak. Father Alexander took over

after a while, his nostrils were flared

slightly and his bushy beard did not

obscure the pure good looks that

Russian soldiers have in World War

Two newsreels.

‘Dear

fathers,

brothers

and

sisters. Today, we honour the

memory of Father Dmitry. Today,

we have made a pilgrimage to this

holy place where Father Dmitry, his

body is buried. His soul is always

with us, because he did a lot for us,

he strengthened us, he united us. Is

this not true? In the hardest

conditions

of

persecution,

he

supported us. And thanks be to God

that we are once more together,’ the

priest said, warming to his theme.

‘He was a true father, he worried

about his children. That’s how he

was, and this affected us also. He

gathered us in, and treated our

spiritual diseases. He had a particular

faith, a particular spirit. We honour

him with kind memories, bright

memories, we pray for him.’

A mutter of prayer passed

through the worshippers, whose

attention was completely fixed on

the priest. He passed the gold cloth

to Father Vladimir, and the chant

renewed itself. White incense smoke

swirled among the gravestones. The

crowd begged with their sweet

voices for forgiveness from God in

the manner that Russians have

prayed for centuries, ever since the

first king in long-ago Kiev adopted

the faith of the Greeks.

The wind sighed in the trees, and

the

sunlight

danced

on

the

gravestones. The horrible heat of the

day did not penetrate down here.

The chanting lulled me again as it

faded in and out. Today’s Moscow

might be a bustling city of banks and

billboards and Bentley showrooms,

but this felt like the Russia that had

endured for centuries before banks

were even thought of.

When the ceremony was over, a

small group of women came over to

quiz me gently on who I was and

what I was doing. I explained my

interest in Father Dmitry, and my

concern over the falling population,

and they began to tell me about how

they had met him and what he meant

for them and how much he had

cared about the dying Russian

nation.

‘When I first went to his house, I

was amazed, just by what it looked

like at first. There was this terrible

mess, but that was just on the

surface. His whole family, well, they

paid no attention to these domestic

things.

I

completely

did

not

understand. If you had something,

you had it; if not, not; for me it was

really strange. They lived in a sort of

non-material way. That was the first

thing,’ one woman called Ksenia

told me.

A second woman chipped in:

‘When you entered their family, you

entered a different world.’

Ksenia again: ‘That’s where it all

started.’

And

the

second

woman

interrupted: ‘It was like the earth

opened.’

Ksenia confirmed that: ‘Yes, it

opened, and I began to, I’m talking

about myself, I began to grow.

There were all these discussions, that

went deeper, deeper, deeper.’

Another woman, with a drawn

middle-aged face, a few strands of

hair falling out of her headscarf,

stepped towards me. It was not easy

to approach because of the narrow

paths between the graves, but she

was determined. She wanted, she

said, to tell me her story.

She had been married, she said,

only a short time when her husband

began to drink. He drank vodka

every

day,

and

came

home

staggering and violent. All her

attempts to stop him had come to

nothing, and her life was horrible.

That was when she met Father

Dmitry.

‘I saw him, and, how to say, he

was like, he shone, he glowed with

light, you could shut your eyes and

see him; this was love, he glowed

with love. He was white-haired, his

hair was all like this,’ she said,

waving her hands around above her

head with a broad smile. She had

met him, she said, in the late 1980s

when Father Dmitry was holding

prayer meetings at which he made

lists of the people present and made

them promise not to drink. It was the

dam he erected against the vodka

engulfing the country and the misery

engulfing himself.

‘I want to tell you what

happened with me,’ she said. ‘So

listen. When I went to him, I wrote

down my question, and he used to

answer all the questions that we

wrote down. I used to go there, and

it became winter, and it was dark and

my son said he could not let me go

alone, and would come with me to

escort me. I said to him that he

needed to relax, that he was always

working, that he came home late,

that he could not come, but he said

he wanted to come with me. And he

started to come too, and I said to the

priest: “I don’t drink but my

husband drinks and I have come for

him. I want you to write him down

on your list.”’

Father Dmitry refused, saying

that her husband had to come

himself to pledge sobriety. She went

home and begged and begged her

husband, but he refused and refused.

‘Until one beautiful day I asked

him and he agreed. This was like a

miracle. We get to the train station,

he doesn’t turn back. We get to the

bus stop, he doesn’t turn back. He

gets to the library and he doesn’t

turn back,’ she said, her eyes

gleaming.

They had sat at the back of the

library where Father Dmitry held his

meetings, and she had gripped her

husband’s hand. He was distrustful

of the gathering, as if it was some

kind of cult.

‘He swore at everyone, using all

these swear words. Do you know

these words in Russian? Yes? Well,

he was using them all. The believers

understood it was not him speaking,

that evil was speaking. He swore, he

was swearing, and he said he could

not stand it. He said that he had had

it up to here. And I’m being quiet,

and not saying anything – let him

swear.’

Father Dmitry came up to her

husband and looked at him: ‘I will

give you five years. Five years. Five

years not to drink.’

Her husband said: ‘I can’t

survive.’

‘You will survive.’

‘I won’t survive.’

‘You will survive.’

‘Father,’ he said, ‘I will drink.’

‘No, you won’t.’

‘I have drunk for twenty years.

What have I not drunk? Anything

that burns I’ve drunk. I will drink.’

‘No, you won’t.’

She laughed a beautiful musical

laugh, and her face had dropped a

decade or more. She looked young:

‘The priest was like this, and my

husband was like that.’

Two times Father Dmitry said

with such certainty: ‘No, you

won’t.’

They went home, and her

husband calmed down and no more

was said about it.

‘Then the next day my husband

left to go to work, and to think that

my husband after twenty years could

come home from work sober. What

a thought. The time comes. It’s four,

five,

and

I’m

waiting,

and

everything’s shaking inside, could it

be possible? I wasn’t worried that he

would drink, of course he would

drink, he always drank, but that he

would go against God. This was

very important to me, it was like a

sin. I was thinking about how I had

forced him to commit a sin. Five

o’clock, six o’clock, seven o’clock.

And he appears,’ she paused for

dramatic effect, loving her story.

‘And I look at him. And he’s

sober. Sober!’

Her husband had told her an

incredible story: ‘The bus broke

down, we stopped on a bridge, the

lads ran off and bought some wine,

and said, “Seryoga, pour it out,” and

I said, “I do not drink.” And they

said, “What?” And I said, “I do not

drink. I went to a priest, and the

priest gave me five years of no

drinking.” They gave me a glass, but

I said no.’

The woman laughed with joy.

‘He said no. No! And he’s been

like this ever since. Ever since. It

was a miracle. It is a miracle. A

miracle. Father Dmitry saved him.

He wanted to save the whole Russian

people like that, one at a time. That

was what I wanted to say. God bless

you.’

Sources and Bibliography

For my demographic data I have

relied on the website of Russia’s

Federal Service of State Statistics

(
www.gks.ru)
,

which

publishes

figures at fascinating levels of detail.

I have used the monthly figures

(which tend to show a lower total),

rather than the census data, mainly

because they allowed me to follow

changes over small periods of time

in very specific places, which is

crucial to how I came up with my