In April of 1979 the city of Sverdlovsk (now known by its original name of Yekaterinburg) in Russia's Urals Federal District was struck by a frightening anthrax epidemic. Official Soviet documents reported sixty-four human deaths resulting from the ingestion of tainted meat sold on the black market, but U.S. intelligence sources implied a different story, and the lack of documentation left unresolved questions. In her account of an investigation by a team of US scientists in 1992 - "Anthrax: The Investigation of a Deadly Outbreak" - Jeanne Guillemin addresses the mystery of what really happened during that tragic event in Sverdlovsk.
Anthrax is a virulent and deadly bacteria whose spores can remain in soil for as long as seventy years, killing grazing animals and putting humans in jeopardy of eating infected meat. Contemporary concern is more centred on anthrax as an airborne biological weapon whose inhaled spores can result in ninety percent mortality for those infected.
As part of a team of doctors and researchers, Jeanne Guillemin travelled to Russia in 1992 to determine the cause and extent of the epidemic. Her affecting narrative transforms a case of epidemiological investigation into a politically charged mystery. What helps here – and I must admit that I was worried that this hefty book might prove to be heavy going – is that Guillemin is an anthropologist, rather than a biologist. Her concern in the investigation is to talk to the survivors of the outbreak, to build up a picture of the movements of the victims and also their daily living in order to identify any patterns. Thus, through her interviews with residents of 1990s Yekaterinburg, we gain a fascinating insight into the lives of ordinary people from before and after “Perestroika”.
She also creates a vivid sense of immediacy and drama with her insider's account of the team's investigative work—the analysis of pathology photos and slides, meetings with political and public health officials, the retrieval of essential medical data—and candidly reveals the subjective side of science as she conducts interviews with afflicted families, visits sites, and interacts with those suspected of clouding the truth.
And indeed, there are many of the ‘old guard’ of the Communist era here who toe the official line of tainted meat as the source of the outbreak – rather than the more controversial possibility of an accidental emission from a nearby military compound (Compound 19). This despite, the seeming contradiction of then President Boris Yeltsin - who was party official of Sverdlovsk during the outbreak - awarding pensions to relatives of the victims in the 1990s.
Guillemin however, is even-handed in her accounts of these former Soviet scientists and their motives. As she says of one: “Burgasov is completely of the old Soviet order, an anachronism, an old bear hiding in the woods. Whether or not he really knew what was going on at Compound 19, he did not break rank…. When he... presented the official Soviet explanation of the outbreak, he probably believed everything he said.” Guillemin displays none of the potential arrogance she may have shown as a Western scientist coming to examine a bacterial disaster in a former Cold War enemy. Indeed, she is equally open in acknowledging both the lack on concrete understanding of anthrax in the West, and also the Western nations’ own frequent flagrant disregard of international law regarding biological weaponry research.
It is this scientific impartiality, coupled with her anthropologist’s focus on the human element of this outbreak, that makes this such a fascinating account. Whilst expounding on the necessary scientific detail of the outbreak – crucially the difference in symptoms between gastrointestinal (i.e. through tainted meat) and inhalatory (i.e. through airborne spores) - Guillemin is always concerned about the human and the social context of the outbreak: both in the 1970s and in the 1990s of the investigation. It is here that we get a sense of what life like for ordinary people (many victims were factory workers or small holders) in this major Russian city – both in the Soviet-era 1970s and the early 1990s of “Perestroika”.
Often the tale is of people living simple but harsh lives, and whose emotional pain at the loss of loves is balanced by a sense of impotence in the face of the government machine. Guillemin and her translator are often reduced to tears during these accounts.
Perhaps one of the most poignant elements of this book is a series of photos, taken from the graves of outbreak victims (it is traditional in Russia to add photos to gravestones), The black and white images of these individuals stare out from the page, one by one, frozen in time yet actively reminding us that this is no dry academic investigation. This is an attempt to find out who or what is responsible of over 60 deaths of individuals by a deadly virus, leaving a generation of bereaved relatives without answers. Guillemin proves an excellent narrator to guide us through this process: “I think of the 1979 anthrax outbreak as an obscenity, the deaths themselves brutal and unnecessary, the handling of them a ritual of degradation for the families and friends of these victims”.
Ultimately - as Guillemin herself acknowledges – conclusions are reached, but there is no sense of victory here. From what pathological evidence remains from the KGB purge in the 1970s, and through triangulating the pattern of victims’ whereabouts with wind dispersal during the outbreak period, the evidence that an accidental outbreak of airborne anthrax virus from the military Compound 19 is the cause. Yet it is apparent that there is no official appetite to hold anyone to account for this – and it is notable that the one place that the scientists are unable to gain access to is Compound 19 itself. Even Yeltsin’s offer of pensions to victims’ families remain unpaid at the time of writing.
And so, a pyrrhic victory of sorts – although in publishing her account Guillemin at least gives voice to these victims. For the purposes of my journey, she also casts light on a little known, yet still contentious, part of the former Soviet Union.
Whilst normally I would describe my onward to journey to my next destination at this point, there is no need in this case; for I am already here, in Yekaterinburg. The next step of my trip is actually a journey across the vast expanses of Siberia, which will take me from the Western fringes of the Urals (commencing in Yekaterinburg) through to the Far Eastern outposts of Russia, courtesy of Colin Thubron’s acclaimed travelogue: “In Siberia”...
Friday, 18 February 2011
Thursday, 3 February 2011
Transnistria (again): Further Education from the ex-Siberian Community
I now find myself, for a second time, in the tiny – and contentious – state of Transnistria. So why, amongst the hundreds of other, larger and more established countries, am I gracing this place with a second visit? After all, this is a breakaway territory located mostly on a strip of land between the Dniester River and the eastern Moldovan border to Ukraine. And it is only recognised by two other states (themselves, of limited international recognition – Abkhazia and South Ossetia).
Well, the reason for this is twofold – firstly I was a little unsatisfied with my last visit there. Not that the book I read: "This is Radio PMR" was not enlightening and interesting, but it was primarily a photobook interspersed with individual interviews and as such I felt that I only scratched the surface of this complex - and contentious - nation in my last visit. Also, since my visit, a book has been published which presents a first-hand account of contemporary life there, by a native of Transnistria. This book, “Siberian Education” by Nicolai Lilin recounts his life in the criminal underworld of the city of Bender, and promises to be a very different perspective than my previous trip there.
However, before giving my account of this book I should add a caveat – in fact the caveat is that of the author himself. At the outset of the book he states that: “certain episodes are imaginative recreation, and those episodes are not intended to portray actual events.” This broad statement leaves us, as readers, with the dilemma of not knowing what IS fact or fiction in the following account… I can understand the complaints of certain reviewers that they cannot therefore, treat this book as a serious social commentary, however for the purposes of my trip I am satisfied. After all, most of the books I have chosen for countries are fiction, and even if this IS a wholly fictionalised account – it fits my criteria well in being by a native author and set within my timescale in an actual location in Transnistria (the city of Bender).
As far as the book itself goes, veracity aside, I found this to be an interesting and enjoyable read. Nicolai describes his upbringing in a close knit community of ex-Siberian criminals in the ‘Lower River’ area of the city of Bender; from his pre-teen (but still prolifically criminal) youth until his forced eviction from the city in his early 20s. This eviction is as a conscript in the Russian Army – sent to the frontlines of the Chechnyan conflict (a conflict which only merits a few pages here, but which has already been described – from the Chechnyan perspective – previously on my journey). The book’s cover informs us that Nicolai subsequently lived in Ireland before settling as an Italian citizen – although the circumstances of this are never covered in this book (and have added to the scepticism surrounding the validity of his account of his criminal past…)
Still, I found this to be a gritty and visceral account of criminal life in an enclave of Transnistria (and certainly an interesting counterpoint to the rather clinical accounts given in my previous visit via “This is Radio PMR”).
The timescales of this account run roughly from the 1980s to the late 1990s, and mainly focus on his teenage years as a fledgling ‘criminal’ (a term of honour in his community). Life in this criminal society is a strange mix of ancestral pride, social etiquette (the elderly must be respected, fellow criminals must be greeted in an elaborately formal manner etc) and extreme violence – especially against rival criminal communities, who are often seen as degenerate by the Siberians. Perhaps one depiction that typifies this almost schizophrenic society is Nicolai’s account of how the family weapons are kept within the religious shrines of the household. No irony is acknowledged here.
Similarly, Nicolai’s progression from boy to man is a mix of increased social responsibility (within his community) and increased criminal activity. He is given his first ‘pike’ (knife) by a respected Siberian criminal at the tender age of 12 – and promptly gains an elevated status amongst his peers as a result.
Another element of Nicolai’s rite of passage is his first criminal conviction and incarceration in a juvenile prison. Here, divorced from the ‘Low River’ society, Nicolai has a degree of protection through fellow ‘Siberians’ but is nevertheless constantly in close proximity with other gangs. The atrocities carried out by these other gangs within the confines of the prison (including a particularly disturbing account of a prolonged gang-rape) are both nightmarish and, if one is honest, take one back to the author’s caveat that certain “episodes are not intended to portray actual events”.
Another important element of criminal society that Nicolai encounters whilst in prison is the socially-important culture of tattoos. Apparently tattoos play an important role in the criminal subculture - both in telling the story of a criminal’s life and enhancing his reputation as a result. Given this pivotal importance, skilled tattooists are also highly regarded within the criminal fraternity and enjoy an almost shaman-like status.
Nicolai determines to become a tattooist, and succeeds, and this is largely portrayed as a step on the road, in his life, to his escape from a criminal community that he portrays as both potentially fatal and in terminal decline. Certainly in recent interviews he has stated that the Siberian criminal society that he depicts in this work no longer exists – which seems odd given the tight-knit structure that he portrays as existing only a decade or so ago.
Another event that – more forcibly – extracts him from his criminal surroundings is his conscription (a virtual kidnapping by the authorities) into the Russian army to fight rebels in Chechnya. Most of Nicolai’s graphic account of his time in the army fighting the rebels (or “saboteurs” as he refers to them) comes, a little confusingly, in a chapter at the start of the book, and provides an interesting alternative perspective to that provided by Chechnyan surgeon Khassan Baiev in the earlier Chechnyan book “The Oath”.
Upon his enforced conscription the book abruptly ends, leaving us hanging as to the story of Nicolai’s time in Chechnya and subsequent escape to his current life as an Italian citizen. Perhaps this is intentional and another book is in the offing.
If my account seems a little cynical, I would say that that is inevitable. His opening caveat, along with a lack of explanation of how Nicolai came to be accepted as an Italian citizen despite his long criminal record – as well as his convenient attestation that the Siberian criminal community that he describes no longer exists – all make me question the amount of fact over fiction here. That said, taken at face value, I found the book to be pretty well written and an interesting account of criminal social mores in a post-Soviet Mafia-like community (and certainly, there is no denying that these Mafia-type gangs are thriving in the post-Soviet region, as previous books on my travels have shown).
As I mentioned in my last blog: there are no civilian flights into or out of Transnistria, so I retrace my inward journey from Bender to Chisinau via a Marshrutka. I have my exit papers so no issues at border control.
The next step of my journey returns me to Russia, specifically to Yekaterinburg, a large industrial city in the Urals Federal District, some 900 miles east of Moscow. To get there from Chisinau I take a 4.00pm flight on Siberian airlines from Chisinau’s International Airport. This takes me to Domodedovo airport in Moscow 2 hours later. Fortunately this is one of Moscow’s more salubrious airports: there are a lot of amenities including a clean lobby, secure waiting area, good cafes and restaurants, and a business centre. Author’s note: a few days after writing this description, on 24th January 2011, a suicide bomber detonated a 7kg explosive device at the airport, killing 35 people and injuring 110. Early news reports stated that “Militant groups from the North Caucasus are suspected of planning the attack.” (BBC News). This is a grim reminder that the conflicts and dangers described in some of the books on my journey have a very real impact upon the lives of ordinary people, and demonstrates how, in virtually the whole of this planet, ‘peace’ is an aspiration rather than an actuality…
At 10.00pm I take another flight directly to Yekaterinburg (flight announcements refer to it as Ekaterinburg/Sverdlovsk) which touches down at 02.10am (although this is largely due to time difference – the actual flight is just 2 hours 10 minutes). The price? £242 one-way, including taxes etc. Not bad for such a vast distance…
Thus begins my latest excursion – with “Anthrax: The Investigation of a Deadly Outbreak”, an account by anthropologist Jeanne Guillemin of her visit to Yekaterinburg in 1992 with a team of US scientists to investigate the causes of a deadly outbreak of anthrax there back in 1979; at the height of the Cold War…
Well, the reason for this is twofold – firstly I was a little unsatisfied with my last visit there. Not that the book I read: "This is Radio PMR" was not enlightening and interesting, but it was primarily a photobook interspersed with individual interviews and as such I felt that I only scratched the surface of this complex - and contentious - nation in my last visit. Also, since my visit, a book has been published which presents a first-hand account of contemporary life there, by a native of Transnistria. This book, “Siberian Education” by Nicolai Lilin recounts his life in the criminal underworld of the city of Bender, and promises to be a very different perspective than my previous trip there.
However, before giving my account of this book I should add a caveat – in fact the caveat is that of the author himself. At the outset of the book he states that: “certain episodes are imaginative recreation, and those episodes are not intended to portray actual events.” This broad statement leaves us, as readers, with the dilemma of not knowing what IS fact or fiction in the following account… I can understand the complaints of certain reviewers that they cannot therefore, treat this book as a serious social commentary, however for the purposes of my trip I am satisfied. After all, most of the books I have chosen for countries are fiction, and even if this IS a wholly fictionalised account – it fits my criteria well in being by a native author and set within my timescale in an actual location in Transnistria (the city of Bender).
As far as the book itself goes, veracity aside, I found this to be an interesting and enjoyable read. Nicolai describes his upbringing in a close knit community of ex-Siberian criminals in the ‘Lower River’ area of the city of Bender; from his pre-teen (but still prolifically criminal) youth until his forced eviction from the city in his early 20s. This eviction is as a conscript in the Russian Army – sent to the frontlines of the Chechnyan conflict (a conflict which only merits a few pages here, but which has already been described – from the Chechnyan perspective – previously on my journey). The book’s cover informs us that Nicolai subsequently lived in Ireland before settling as an Italian citizen – although the circumstances of this are never covered in this book (and have added to the scepticism surrounding the validity of his account of his criminal past…)
Still, I found this to be a gritty and visceral account of criminal life in an enclave of Transnistria (and certainly an interesting counterpoint to the rather clinical accounts given in my previous visit via “This is Radio PMR”).
The timescales of this account run roughly from the 1980s to the late 1990s, and mainly focus on his teenage years as a fledgling ‘criminal’ (a term of honour in his community). Life in this criminal society is a strange mix of ancestral pride, social etiquette (the elderly must be respected, fellow criminals must be greeted in an elaborately formal manner etc) and extreme violence – especially against rival criminal communities, who are often seen as degenerate by the Siberians. Perhaps one depiction that typifies this almost schizophrenic society is Nicolai’s account of how the family weapons are kept within the religious shrines of the household. No irony is acknowledged here.
Similarly, Nicolai’s progression from boy to man is a mix of increased social responsibility (within his community) and increased criminal activity. He is given his first ‘pike’ (knife) by a respected Siberian criminal at the tender age of 12 – and promptly gains an elevated status amongst his peers as a result.
Another element of Nicolai’s rite of passage is his first criminal conviction and incarceration in a juvenile prison. Here, divorced from the ‘Low River’ society, Nicolai has a degree of protection through fellow ‘Siberians’ but is nevertheless constantly in close proximity with other gangs. The atrocities carried out by these other gangs within the confines of the prison (including a particularly disturbing account of a prolonged gang-rape) are both nightmarish and, if one is honest, take one back to the author’s caveat that certain “episodes are not intended to portray actual events”.
Another important element of criminal society that Nicolai encounters whilst in prison is the socially-important culture of tattoos. Apparently tattoos play an important role in the criminal subculture - both in telling the story of a criminal’s life and enhancing his reputation as a result. Given this pivotal importance, skilled tattooists are also highly regarded within the criminal fraternity and enjoy an almost shaman-like status.
Nicolai determines to become a tattooist, and succeeds, and this is largely portrayed as a step on the road, in his life, to his escape from a criminal community that he portrays as both potentially fatal and in terminal decline. Certainly in recent interviews he has stated that the Siberian criminal society that he depicts in this work no longer exists – which seems odd given the tight-knit structure that he portrays as existing only a decade or so ago.
Another event that – more forcibly – extracts him from his criminal surroundings is his conscription (a virtual kidnapping by the authorities) into the Russian army to fight rebels in Chechnya. Most of Nicolai’s graphic account of his time in the army fighting the rebels (or “saboteurs” as he refers to them) comes, a little confusingly, in a chapter at the start of the book, and provides an interesting alternative perspective to that provided by Chechnyan surgeon Khassan Baiev in the earlier Chechnyan book “The Oath”.
Upon his enforced conscription the book abruptly ends, leaving us hanging as to the story of Nicolai’s time in Chechnya and subsequent escape to his current life as an Italian citizen. Perhaps this is intentional and another book is in the offing.
If my account seems a little cynical, I would say that that is inevitable. His opening caveat, along with a lack of explanation of how Nicolai came to be accepted as an Italian citizen despite his long criminal record – as well as his convenient attestation that the Siberian criminal community that he describes no longer exists – all make me question the amount of fact over fiction here. That said, taken at face value, I found the book to be pretty well written and an interesting account of criminal social mores in a post-Soviet Mafia-like community (and certainly, there is no denying that these Mafia-type gangs are thriving in the post-Soviet region, as previous books on my travels have shown).
As I mentioned in my last blog: there are no civilian flights into or out of Transnistria, so I retrace my inward journey from Bender to Chisinau via a Marshrutka. I have my exit papers so no issues at border control.
The next step of my journey returns me to Russia, specifically to Yekaterinburg, a large industrial city in the Urals Federal District, some 900 miles east of Moscow. To get there from Chisinau I take a 4.00pm flight on Siberian airlines from Chisinau’s International Airport. This takes me to Domodedovo airport in Moscow 2 hours later. Fortunately this is one of Moscow’s more salubrious airports: there are a lot of amenities including a clean lobby, secure waiting area, good cafes and restaurants, and a business centre. Author’s note: a few days after writing this description, on 24th January 2011, a suicide bomber detonated a 7kg explosive device at the airport, killing 35 people and injuring 110. Early news reports stated that “Militant groups from the North Caucasus are suspected of planning the attack.” (BBC News). This is a grim reminder that the conflicts and dangers described in some of the books on my journey have a very real impact upon the lives of ordinary people, and demonstrates how, in virtually the whole of this planet, ‘peace’ is an aspiration rather than an actuality…
At 10.00pm I take another flight directly to Yekaterinburg (flight announcements refer to it as Ekaterinburg/Sverdlovsk) which touches down at 02.10am (although this is largely due to time difference – the actual flight is just 2 hours 10 minutes). The price? £242 one-way, including taxes etc. Not bad for such a vast distance…
Thus begins my latest excursion – with “Anthrax: The Investigation of a Deadly Outbreak”, an account by anthropologist Jeanne Guillemin of her visit to Yekaterinburg in 1992 with a team of US scientists to investigate the causes of a deadly outbreak of anthrax there back in 1979; at the height of the Cold War…
Monday, 3 January 2011
War and Peace in Russia: Sailing to Murmansk (Russian Northwestern Federal District)
As mentioned in my previous blog, I now take an unusual detour – flying from Samara to the seaport of Bergen in Norway, despite my next destination being Murmansk, high up in Russia’s Northwestern district. The reason for this is that I shall be travelling to Murmansk by sea with a book called “Return to Murmansk.” In 1990, Henry Swain sailed the 34-foot yacht Callisto from Norway to Murmansk, Russia. He had been there 45 years earlier, on a Royal Navy warship escorting American merchant vessels charged with supplying vital aid to the Soviets. U-boats prowled the Russian coast and the Luftwaffe nestled menacingly in Norway, while the cruel Arctic winter offered its own deadly hazard – ice.
Swain's return journey, along one thousand miles of rocky coastline and over the Barents Sea, as well as his account of the reception he received in modern-day Murmansk, forms the main narrative of my next destination.
I have only been sailing once myself (a weekend trip from Portsmouth to the Isle of White), but Swain describes the experience of sailing (both the exhilaration and the stress, the excitement and the boredom) to great effect here. Of course, my efforts pale into insignificance compared to this epic journey, but Swain’s engaging prose really brings this journey to life.
As well as the quality of writing, there is an interesting structure to this narrative. Chapters about the 1990 journey made by Swain and his crew are interspersed by a gripping account of his journey to Murmansk nearly half a century earlier, as a seaman on the HMS Lancaster Castle, a Royal Navy ship escorting a supply convoy in U-boat ridden seas during World War 2.
What is striking in both elements of this account is Swain’s openness and honesty. In his account of the 1990 voyage he is open about his self-doubts in terms of his ability, at his age, to make the journey and occasionally accuses himself of cowardice in turning back in the face of inclement weather. He also appears acutely aware of the age difference between himself and the rest of the crew - and this honesty extends to his personal feelings towards some of them. A notable example of this is the attractive Kate: “Everyone was getting on well, Callisto’s crew was a successful team. After a while the thought slowly came into my mind that one other member of the crew was having personal problems. It was me. I was getting jealous about Kate…I felt strangely exiled. Jealously is a vice which unlike anger diminishes you. I hated myself for it.” Such candour has the effect of alienating Swain as a sympathetic character at the same time as endearing him to the reader. He has faults (which of course, are magnified in the pressured situation of a long voyage with strangers) yet he is at least honest and open about these. As it happens, in this instance his jealous feelings are unfounded – and I would have liked to know how things turned out between Katy and Henry after the journey was completed.
Swain is equally candid in depicting the events during his crossing with the HMS Lancaster Castle in 1944. Here the pressure-cooker environment of a cramped crew is magnified a hundredfold, and of course the stresses here are much more than bad weather and the fear of grounding – the threat of torpedoing by U-boat is ever present, and Swain describes in graphic detail how this is the fate of other vessels in this Arctic convoy. Even though his own ship is not hit, his imagination torments him when another ship is sunk: “I felt a sick surprise. My hands shook…Her crew were like us – 200 or so crowded in every compartment of the ship… I had experienced in my imagination what it would be like if we were torpedoed. I knew what was happening on Lapwing. First the mind numbing shock as the warhead of the torpedo exploded tearing everything apart. Steel and men would be shattered in smoke and blood. The ship would sink in minutes…some would die in the cold sea almost immediately…the men below would have no chance at all…they would go down with the ship. The live and the dead would be imprisoned in terminal darkness – light, fire, life and hope quenched forever.”
Given these experiences, both past and present, it is not surprising that Swain has mixed feelings when finally arriving at Murmansk in 1990. The welcome accorded him and his crew upon their arrival is unexpected, touching and overwhelming in equal measure. The crew are warmly welcomed by local people and dignitaries – including a formal reception at the Town Hall by the Chairman of the City Council and a meeting with the War Veterans Committee, as well as a less formal procession of visitors to the yacht by local residents and well-wishers.
Swain is obviously overwhelmed by this - hardly surprising given his recent travails in the Barents Sea and his difficult memories. He is typically self-critical in this, upon leaving the Civic reception – accompanied by local school students - he states: “I walked by myself. There were too many new impressions and half of me was still with Callisto in the empty sea. I had not adjusted to the crowds, the traffic and the heat. I ought to have been chatting to my crew and the students. Instead I lagged behind”. In a touching episode this is noticed by an empathetic student, Natasha Vanyushkina, who looks after him for the rest of the day.
Swain does also manage to rouse himself to take in impressions of modern day Murmansk: “The Lenin Prospect could be the main street of any big town in Europe. It is wide and flanked by six and seven story buildings. They have vaguely classical facades and brightly painted stucco... The streets that intersect Lenin Prospect at right angles end in the green hills in one direction and the blues waters of the harbour on the other. In its brief summer there was a felling of vitality in the air. The streets were thronging with people, many of them carrying flowers, flown in from the south and sold at pavement stalls. Pink and blue flags were flying for the annual Fishermen’s Festival.”
Ultimately this book is as much about the journey as the destination, yet the destination of Murmansk – a remote Russian town visited 45 years earlier by his younger self, scared and fearing for his life yet risking all to help his Russian allies - is obviously a talisman for Henry Swain. In 1990 he evidently felt this was an important trip to make in order to banish the demons that his earlier experiences had created. One gains a sense from this book that the trip did exactly that – and also meant a huge amount to his Russian counterparts in the Veterans Committee in Murmansk who suffered huge tribulations themselves in the war.
Swain’s final chapter account of returning home to an empty suburban house in Nottingham is particularly poignant (his front room is still furnished with photos of his long-dead comrades from the Navy), and truly demonstrates how his wartime memories never left him. One hopes that this trip helped him to enjoy his remaining years (sadly, he died in 2002 aged 77 years.)
The next destination on my journey forms a quite different prospect from this voyage of self-discovery; and in doing so serves to demonstrate just what a diverse world we live in…
The past few weeks have seen several unusual detours for me where I have retraced my steps in order travel to a particular destination. For instance, in "Last Boat to Astrakhan" I flew back from Chechnya to Moscow to commence a river cruise to Astrakhan. Similarly, I flew to Bergen in Norway to "Return to Murmansk" by yacht in the book I have just reviewed.
For my next trip, however, I am returning to Transnistria for a second stopover. It is rather ironic that one of the smallest states on my travels is also one of the few to merit more than one visit! My reasons will be detailed in the next entry on this blog.
Due to the massive distance involved, I shell out £285 for a one-way flight on Rossiya-Russian Airlines which departs at 22:15 Murmansk and drops me at 15:15 in Chisinau, Moldova. The lengthy trip duration is largely down to two long stopovers: 7 hours 45 minutes in St. Petersburg and 5 hours in Moscow.
As there are no civilian flights into Transnistria, I travel the 35 miles from Chisinau to Bender by taking a Marshrutka (a small white minibus that sits about 14 people – very cheap at 25 Lei). I must admit to being worried about the border crossing – having heard lots of horror stories about Westerners being singled out and asked for bribes. However, my crossing is simple and businesslike. A few straightforward questions: “Where do you come, how long will you stay, where will you stay, how much money do you carry”, then customs have a brief look in the trunk and I am asked to fill in a simple immigration form (written in Russian and English). These forms can be obtained at the border, or you can try asking your Marshutka driver for a form, or anketa ("DAIE-teh anKYEtu").
And so I arrive in Bender – a small city of just under 100,000 people on the banks of the river Dniester. I am heading to the ‘Low River' area – populated largely by a community of displaced Siberians who are fiercely independent and maintain a strict social code of honour among criminals…
Swain's return journey, along one thousand miles of rocky coastline and over the Barents Sea, as well as his account of the reception he received in modern-day Murmansk, forms the main narrative of my next destination.
I have only been sailing once myself (a weekend trip from Portsmouth to the Isle of White), but Swain describes the experience of sailing (both the exhilaration and the stress, the excitement and the boredom) to great effect here. Of course, my efforts pale into insignificance compared to this epic journey, but Swain’s engaging prose really brings this journey to life.
As well as the quality of writing, there is an interesting structure to this narrative. Chapters about the 1990 journey made by Swain and his crew are interspersed by a gripping account of his journey to Murmansk nearly half a century earlier, as a seaman on the HMS Lancaster Castle, a Royal Navy ship escorting a supply convoy in U-boat ridden seas during World War 2.
What is striking in both elements of this account is Swain’s openness and honesty. In his account of the 1990 voyage he is open about his self-doubts in terms of his ability, at his age, to make the journey and occasionally accuses himself of cowardice in turning back in the face of inclement weather. He also appears acutely aware of the age difference between himself and the rest of the crew - and this honesty extends to his personal feelings towards some of them. A notable example of this is the attractive Kate: “Everyone was getting on well, Callisto’s crew was a successful team. After a while the thought slowly came into my mind that one other member of the crew was having personal problems. It was me. I was getting jealous about Kate…I felt strangely exiled. Jealously is a vice which unlike anger diminishes you. I hated myself for it.” Such candour has the effect of alienating Swain as a sympathetic character at the same time as endearing him to the reader. He has faults (which of course, are magnified in the pressured situation of a long voyage with strangers) yet he is at least honest and open about these. As it happens, in this instance his jealous feelings are unfounded – and I would have liked to know how things turned out between Katy and Henry after the journey was completed.
Swain is equally candid in depicting the events during his crossing with the HMS Lancaster Castle in 1944. Here the pressure-cooker environment of a cramped crew is magnified a hundredfold, and of course the stresses here are much more than bad weather and the fear of grounding – the threat of torpedoing by U-boat is ever present, and Swain describes in graphic detail how this is the fate of other vessels in this Arctic convoy. Even though his own ship is not hit, his imagination torments him when another ship is sunk: “I felt a sick surprise. My hands shook…Her crew were like us – 200 or so crowded in every compartment of the ship… I had experienced in my imagination what it would be like if we were torpedoed. I knew what was happening on Lapwing. First the mind numbing shock as the warhead of the torpedo exploded tearing everything apart. Steel and men would be shattered in smoke and blood. The ship would sink in minutes…some would die in the cold sea almost immediately…the men below would have no chance at all…they would go down with the ship. The live and the dead would be imprisoned in terminal darkness – light, fire, life and hope quenched forever.”
Given these experiences, both past and present, it is not surprising that Swain has mixed feelings when finally arriving at Murmansk in 1990. The welcome accorded him and his crew upon their arrival is unexpected, touching and overwhelming in equal measure. The crew are warmly welcomed by local people and dignitaries – including a formal reception at the Town Hall by the Chairman of the City Council and a meeting with the War Veterans Committee, as well as a less formal procession of visitors to the yacht by local residents and well-wishers.
Swain is obviously overwhelmed by this - hardly surprising given his recent travails in the Barents Sea and his difficult memories. He is typically self-critical in this, upon leaving the Civic reception – accompanied by local school students - he states: “I walked by myself. There were too many new impressions and half of me was still with Callisto in the empty sea. I had not adjusted to the crowds, the traffic and the heat. I ought to have been chatting to my crew and the students. Instead I lagged behind”. In a touching episode this is noticed by an empathetic student, Natasha Vanyushkina, who looks after him for the rest of the day.
Swain does also manage to rouse himself to take in impressions of modern day Murmansk: “The Lenin Prospect could be the main street of any big town in Europe. It is wide and flanked by six and seven story buildings. They have vaguely classical facades and brightly painted stucco... The streets that intersect Lenin Prospect at right angles end in the green hills in one direction and the blues waters of the harbour on the other. In its brief summer there was a felling of vitality in the air. The streets were thronging with people, many of them carrying flowers, flown in from the south and sold at pavement stalls. Pink and blue flags were flying for the annual Fishermen’s Festival.”
Ultimately this book is as much about the journey as the destination, yet the destination of Murmansk – a remote Russian town visited 45 years earlier by his younger self, scared and fearing for his life yet risking all to help his Russian allies - is obviously a talisman for Henry Swain. In 1990 he evidently felt this was an important trip to make in order to banish the demons that his earlier experiences had created. One gains a sense from this book that the trip did exactly that – and also meant a huge amount to his Russian counterparts in the Veterans Committee in Murmansk who suffered huge tribulations themselves in the war.
Swain’s final chapter account of returning home to an empty suburban house in Nottingham is particularly poignant (his front room is still furnished with photos of his long-dead comrades from the Navy), and truly demonstrates how his wartime memories never left him. One hopes that this trip helped him to enjoy his remaining years (sadly, he died in 2002 aged 77 years.)
The next destination on my journey forms a quite different prospect from this voyage of self-discovery; and in doing so serves to demonstrate just what a diverse world we live in…
The past few weeks have seen several unusual detours for me where I have retraced my steps in order travel to a particular destination. For instance, in "Last Boat to Astrakhan" I flew back from Chechnya to Moscow to commence a river cruise to Astrakhan. Similarly, I flew to Bergen in Norway to "Return to Murmansk" by yacht in the book I have just reviewed.
For my next trip, however, I am returning to Transnistria for a second stopover. It is rather ironic that one of the smallest states on my travels is also one of the few to merit more than one visit! My reasons will be detailed in the next entry on this blog.
Due to the massive distance involved, I shell out £285 for a one-way flight on Rossiya-Russian Airlines which departs at 22:15 Murmansk and drops me at 15:15 in Chisinau, Moldova. The lengthy trip duration is largely down to two long stopovers: 7 hours 45 minutes in St. Petersburg and 5 hours in Moscow.
As there are no civilian flights into Transnistria, I travel the 35 miles from Chisinau to Bender by taking a Marshrutka (a small white minibus that sits about 14 people – very cheap at 25 Lei). I must admit to being worried about the border crossing – having heard lots of horror stories about Westerners being singled out and asked for bribes. However, my crossing is simple and businesslike. A few straightforward questions: “Where do you come, how long will you stay, where will you stay, how much money do you carry”, then customs have a brief look in the trunk and I am asked to fill in a simple immigration form (written in Russian and English). These forms can be obtained at the border, or you can try asking your Marshutka driver for a form, or anketa ("DAIE-teh anKYEtu").
And so I arrive in Bender – a small city of just under 100,000 people on the banks of the river Dniester. I am heading to the ‘Low River' area – populated largely by a community of displaced Siberians who are fiercely independent and maintain a strict social code of honour among criminals…
Sunday, 2 January 2011
Samara: Narrow Horizons in a Vast Land: Ordinary Lives in a Little Tenement on the Volga ((Russian Volga Federal District)
For my stop in the Volga Federal District of Russia I find myself again in the riverside city of Samara (previously a stopover on the “Last Boat to Astrakhan”). Samara is a modern city, one of the largest in Russia (around 1.2 million inhabitants). it is a leading industrial centre in the Volga Area, and is among the top ten Russian cities in terms of national income and industrial volume.
On the surface this shows – the futuristic airport of glass and steel is hugely impressive, and many of the commercial buildings in the city centre bear the names of large national corporations.
The accommodation during my time in Samara was rather more modest however, sharing a small communal apartment in a tenement block at Number Four, Specialist Alley courtesy of Englishwoman C.S. Walton’s “Little Tenement on the Volga”. Walton appears to have travelled widely throughout Europe, Asia and the Americas - learning Russian on an earlier stay in the USSR – yet her reasons for spending a year in Samara during 1993 remain a little vague: “I landed in Samara through a chance meeting with a refugee in London. Valentina said she had grown tired on living on the edge of civilisation. She gave me an invitation to the home town she had chosen to escape.”
The first thing that strikes Ms Walton upon arriving at Samara's Department of Visas and Foreign Affairs is the grinding bureaucracy of the city and, one senses, the country as a whole. The native population appears wearily resigned to this pervasive and inefficient officialdom: the various peasants in this particular waiting room radiate “ptierpelost – a characteristically Russian expression for patience and the capacity to endure”.
Walton patently struggles to fit into this mindset, and one senses an exasperation on her part with what she sees as a subservience on the part of the general populace in the face of state incompetence. Chapter titles such as “The Idiocy of Everyday Life” do come across as rather abrasive, and one does wonder what her hosts might think of their lives being described in such stark terms. This can be seen further in her descriptions of the daily, grinding battle to buy supplies – involving hours of queuing for scarce products that are often of dubious actual use (“It was a victory if by the end of the day if I could procure yoghurt, mineral water or eggs”).
Here, at least, Walton does acknowledge that much of her perception is filtered through her Western eyes – what is a tedious and stressful ordeal for her is actually seen as a social activity for her fellow Russians. Her realisation of this can be seen where she describes how: “People constantly shouted questions to assistants over the heads of waiting customers, yet prices were clearly marked on the front of the counter. At first I wondered whether everyone was terribly short-sighted, or perhaps illiterate; finally I understood that in Russia shopping is a social activity and any opportunity for argument or conversation is gratefully seized upon.”
Overall, however, one feels that Walton finds the Russians who surround her to be oppressive in their acceptance of what she sees as intolerable living conditions for the 1990s. Her description of her accommodation indicates she finds her surroundings equally oppressive: “Each room housed a couple or family. Each flat [of 10 to 12 rooms] contained one kitchen and one washroom…clothes and sheets were washed here in metal tubs. Water had to be heated up on the stoves. The washrooms contained two lavatories and two cold water taps over a trough. Some residents kept their personal wooden toilet seats hanging from nails on the wall.”
During the course of the book Walton’s bewilderment and frustration turn to anger and sadness as she observes a depressing cycle of social disenfranchisement which largely manifests itself in a widespread alcoholism; especially among the men of the lowly social strata of the city that Walton inhabits. Local people describe the consequences of such social isolation with a telling casualness ”It looks peaceful out there but in fact this area is full of alcoholics, junkies, and criminals. Last Sunday they took away a drunk woman from our stairway who had been beaten half to death. The neighbours heard her screaming but of course no one opened their doors.”
Walton herself encounters this problem first-hand. However, unlike the locals she positions this social ill in terms of gender – depicting an inevitable vicious circle whereby Samaran women contribute to there own social inequality by encouraging ‘infantilism’ in their menfolk, leading to a lack of responsibility and an increasing reliance on the bottle:
“Drinking must be less damaging to general female health than the perpetual infantilism they nurture in their men. Female care allows men to make an art form of irresponsibility. They learn to cope with life with a bottle in the hand and a woman in the kitchen.”
Walton is even, in a quite amusing episode, on the receiving end of this mentality when dating a Russian: in an awkward exchange with his mother Walton is forced to make a shocking (to the mother) admission: “When I finally told her that her son dined in his works canteen she was shocked into silence. Then her lips compressed in disapproval: ‘I’ll come around after work and cook his supper here,’ she announced.” Compounding this cultural abyss a proposal of marriage swiftly follows – and is even more swiftly rejected!
What should be stressed here is that – for all her sadness at the social disenfranchisement of her neighbours and outrage at the gender inequalities she witnesses - Walton is also open to the positives of the society that she is observing.
That not all men are drunken boors is personified in the person of Boris, a neighbour whom Walton befriends, and who proves to be helpful, generous and willing to take Walton under his wing in terms of guiding her through the complex mores of Russian society.
Another fascinating character that Walton meets is Lina Ivanovna Shatalova, the local ‘wise-woman’ who lives in a shack off Specialist Alley with a menagerie of rescued animals. One senses that Walton finds a certain affinity with Lina’s unwillingness to conform the Samaran social norms, and certainly Lina has a fascinating back story which Walton recounts in vivid prose. Lina was born in 1934 after the great famine in the Ukraine and then went on to live through the Second World War, Nazi occupation, Soviet occupation, displacement to Siberia, life in a dangerous chemical factory in Novokuibyshevsk and then a job as a carriage attendant on the railways (dealing with abusive and philandering husbands and partners along the way).
Later on, Walton begins to find further evidence that “The surface conformism of Samarans masked deep political cynicism.” Towards the end of her stay she has a particularly poignant meeting with Natasha from Chapaevsk, a satellite town of Samara. Natasha stands out in protesting to the authorities about the living conditions she is forced to bring her family up in: “The town of Chapaevsk is a contaminated pit, ringed by military plants. My daughter is seriously ill…her doctors are useless. They won’t admit that the environment is poisoning her. It’s a question of political interests.” One recalls the shadow of Belarus, contaminated by a remote government through Chernobyl, here (and an earlier stop on my Round The World trip). Walton’s summary of this encounter is heart-breaking: “Most women in Chapaevsk chose to anaesthetise themselves against life. Natasha was exceptional in her conviction that things did not have to be as they were. She had tried to halt the destruction of her environment and to improve her quality of life. Tired and disillusioned, she is stuck in Chapaevsk watching her hair fall out.”
What this demonstrates, rather starkly, is that an unwillingness to question the system – even in modern times - is just as likely to be driven by fear as apathy. And when the system IS questioned, there are no easy answers.
Walton sums up her account and her experiences of Samara concisely yet effectively at the end of this book: “Number Four, Specialist Alley is a microcosm of provincial Russia – a depressed and impoverished world, shot through with moments of beauty and compassion.”
Certainly, despite the grimness of Walton's observations of life here, one gets a sense of the humanity and the resilience of the residents of this city, and one can only hope that its surface prosperity has filtered down more equitably to its populace in recent years.
From Samara, I take another strange detour – flying from Samara to the seaport of Bergen in Norway, despite my next destination being Murmansk high up in Russia’s Northwestern district. The reason for this is that – as with Astrakhan earlier – I shall be travelling to Murmansk by water with a book called “Return to Murmansk.” In 1990, Henry Swain sailed the 34-foot yacht Callisto to Murmansk. He had been there 45 years earlier, on a Royal Navy warship escorting American merchant vessels charged with supplying vital aid to the Soviets. U-boats prowled the Russian coast and the Luftwaffe nestled menacingly in Norway, while the cruel Arctic winter offered its own deadly hazard – ice.
Swain's return journey, along one thousand miles of rocky coastline and over the Barents Sea, as well as his account of the reception he received in modern-day Murmansk, forms the main narrative of my next destination.
Due to the sheer distance involved in travelling from Samara to Bergen, I opt to fly. Although quicker, this is no easy option and requires a number of changes to make it affordable. As it is, the one-way journey costs me £307 in total – but beware, some operators will quote routes that will cost you from £1000 to £1500 economy class!
My itinerary is as follows:
1) Aeroflot flight 836 departs Samara at 6.40am and arrives at 8:30am in Sheremetyevo in Moscow, followed by a stopover of 3 hours.
2) Air Baltic flight 7425 departs Sheremetyevo at 11.30am and arrives at 12:10pm in Riga, Latvia (I gain an hour here due to time difference – the flight actually takes 1 hour 40 minutes). There is a brief stopover of 45 minutes here before boarding a rather bumpy turboprop plane:
3) Air Baltic flight 135, which departs 12:55pm Riga and arrives 1:30pm Copenhagen Airport, where we stopover for 1 hour 35 minutes before the last leg of the journey:
4) SAS flight 2872 that departs 4:20pm from Copenhagen Airport and finally arrives at 5:40pm in Bergen, Norway.
From here, I make my bleary-eyed way through driving rain via the Airport Bus to Bergen’s busy seaport, located in the city centre (this normally takes 25 minutes, but my journey is 40 minutes due to hitting the tail-end of rush hour – still it is a LOT cheaper than a taxi!!).
Here I hook up with the 34-foot yacht Callisto and prepare for a 1000-mile journey around the rocky coastline of Norway and Russia in order to “Return to Murmansk”.
On the surface this shows – the futuristic airport of glass and steel is hugely impressive, and many of the commercial buildings in the city centre bear the names of large national corporations.
The accommodation during my time in Samara was rather more modest however, sharing a small communal apartment in a tenement block at Number Four, Specialist Alley courtesy of Englishwoman C.S. Walton’s “Little Tenement on the Volga”. Walton appears to have travelled widely throughout Europe, Asia and the Americas - learning Russian on an earlier stay in the USSR – yet her reasons for spending a year in Samara during 1993 remain a little vague: “I landed in Samara through a chance meeting with a refugee in London. Valentina said she had grown tired on living on the edge of civilisation. She gave me an invitation to the home town she had chosen to escape.”
The first thing that strikes Ms Walton upon arriving at Samara's Department of Visas and Foreign Affairs is the grinding bureaucracy of the city and, one senses, the country as a whole. The native population appears wearily resigned to this pervasive and inefficient officialdom: the various peasants in this particular waiting room radiate “ptierpelost – a characteristically Russian expression for patience and the capacity to endure”.
Walton patently struggles to fit into this mindset, and one senses an exasperation on her part with what she sees as a subservience on the part of the general populace in the face of state incompetence. Chapter titles such as “The Idiocy of Everyday Life” do come across as rather abrasive, and one does wonder what her hosts might think of their lives being described in such stark terms. This can be seen further in her descriptions of the daily, grinding battle to buy supplies – involving hours of queuing for scarce products that are often of dubious actual use (“It was a victory if by the end of the day if I could procure yoghurt, mineral water or eggs”).
Here, at least, Walton does acknowledge that much of her perception is filtered through her Western eyes – what is a tedious and stressful ordeal for her is actually seen as a social activity for her fellow Russians. Her realisation of this can be seen where she describes how: “People constantly shouted questions to assistants over the heads of waiting customers, yet prices were clearly marked on the front of the counter. At first I wondered whether everyone was terribly short-sighted, or perhaps illiterate; finally I understood that in Russia shopping is a social activity and any opportunity for argument or conversation is gratefully seized upon.”
Overall, however, one feels that Walton finds the Russians who surround her to be oppressive in their acceptance of what she sees as intolerable living conditions for the 1990s. Her description of her accommodation indicates she finds her surroundings equally oppressive: “Each room housed a couple or family. Each flat [of 10 to 12 rooms] contained one kitchen and one washroom…clothes and sheets were washed here in metal tubs. Water had to be heated up on the stoves. The washrooms contained two lavatories and two cold water taps over a trough. Some residents kept their personal wooden toilet seats hanging from nails on the wall.”
During the course of the book Walton’s bewilderment and frustration turn to anger and sadness as she observes a depressing cycle of social disenfranchisement which largely manifests itself in a widespread alcoholism; especially among the men of the lowly social strata of the city that Walton inhabits. Local people describe the consequences of such social isolation with a telling casualness ”It looks peaceful out there but in fact this area is full of alcoholics, junkies, and criminals. Last Sunday they took away a drunk woman from our stairway who had been beaten half to death. The neighbours heard her screaming but of course no one opened their doors.”
Walton herself encounters this problem first-hand. However, unlike the locals she positions this social ill in terms of gender – depicting an inevitable vicious circle whereby Samaran women contribute to there own social inequality by encouraging ‘infantilism’ in their menfolk, leading to a lack of responsibility and an increasing reliance on the bottle:
“Drinking must be less damaging to general female health than the perpetual infantilism they nurture in their men. Female care allows men to make an art form of irresponsibility. They learn to cope with life with a bottle in the hand and a woman in the kitchen.”
Walton is even, in a quite amusing episode, on the receiving end of this mentality when dating a Russian: in an awkward exchange with his mother Walton is forced to make a shocking (to the mother) admission: “When I finally told her that her son dined in his works canteen she was shocked into silence. Then her lips compressed in disapproval: ‘I’ll come around after work and cook his supper here,’ she announced.” Compounding this cultural abyss a proposal of marriage swiftly follows – and is even more swiftly rejected!
What should be stressed here is that – for all her sadness at the social disenfranchisement of her neighbours and outrage at the gender inequalities she witnesses - Walton is also open to the positives of the society that she is observing.
That not all men are drunken boors is personified in the person of Boris, a neighbour whom Walton befriends, and who proves to be helpful, generous and willing to take Walton under his wing in terms of guiding her through the complex mores of Russian society.
Another fascinating character that Walton meets is Lina Ivanovna Shatalova, the local ‘wise-woman’ who lives in a shack off Specialist Alley with a menagerie of rescued animals. One senses that Walton finds a certain affinity with Lina’s unwillingness to conform the Samaran social norms, and certainly Lina has a fascinating back story which Walton recounts in vivid prose. Lina was born in 1934 after the great famine in the Ukraine and then went on to live through the Second World War, Nazi occupation, Soviet occupation, displacement to Siberia, life in a dangerous chemical factory in Novokuibyshevsk and then a job as a carriage attendant on the railways (dealing with abusive and philandering husbands and partners along the way).
Later on, Walton begins to find further evidence that “The surface conformism of Samarans masked deep political cynicism.” Towards the end of her stay she has a particularly poignant meeting with Natasha from Chapaevsk, a satellite town of Samara. Natasha stands out in protesting to the authorities about the living conditions she is forced to bring her family up in: “The town of Chapaevsk is a contaminated pit, ringed by military plants. My daughter is seriously ill…her doctors are useless. They won’t admit that the environment is poisoning her. It’s a question of political interests.” One recalls the shadow of Belarus, contaminated by a remote government through Chernobyl, here (and an earlier stop on my Round The World trip). Walton’s summary of this encounter is heart-breaking: “Most women in Chapaevsk chose to anaesthetise themselves against life. Natasha was exceptional in her conviction that things did not have to be as they were. She had tried to halt the destruction of her environment and to improve her quality of life. Tired and disillusioned, she is stuck in Chapaevsk watching her hair fall out.”
What this demonstrates, rather starkly, is that an unwillingness to question the system – even in modern times - is just as likely to be driven by fear as apathy. And when the system IS questioned, there are no easy answers.
Walton sums up her account and her experiences of Samara concisely yet effectively at the end of this book: “Number Four, Specialist Alley is a microcosm of provincial Russia – a depressed and impoverished world, shot through with moments of beauty and compassion.”
Certainly, despite the grimness of Walton's observations of life here, one gets a sense of the humanity and the resilience of the residents of this city, and one can only hope that its surface prosperity has filtered down more equitably to its populace in recent years.
From Samara, I take another strange detour – flying from Samara to the seaport of Bergen in Norway, despite my next destination being Murmansk high up in Russia’s Northwestern district. The reason for this is that – as with Astrakhan earlier – I shall be travelling to Murmansk by water with a book called “Return to Murmansk.” In 1990, Henry Swain sailed the 34-foot yacht Callisto to Murmansk. He had been there 45 years earlier, on a Royal Navy warship escorting American merchant vessels charged with supplying vital aid to the Soviets. U-boats prowled the Russian coast and the Luftwaffe nestled menacingly in Norway, while the cruel Arctic winter offered its own deadly hazard – ice.
Swain's return journey, along one thousand miles of rocky coastline and over the Barents Sea, as well as his account of the reception he received in modern-day Murmansk, forms the main narrative of my next destination.
Due to the sheer distance involved in travelling from Samara to Bergen, I opt to fly. Although quicker, this is no easy option and requires a number of changes to make it affordable. As it is, the one-way journey costs me £307 in total – but beware, some operators will quote routes that will cost you from £1000 to £1500 economy class!
My itinerary is as follows:
1) Aeroflot flight 836 departs Samara at 6.40am and arrives at 8:30am in Sheremetyevo in Moscow, followed by a stopover of 3 hours.
2) Air Baltic flight 7425 departs Sheremetyevo at 11.30am and arrives at 12:10pm in Riga, Latvia (I gain an hour here due to time difference – the flight actually takes 1 hour 40 minutes). There is a brief stopover of 45 minutes here before boarding a rather bumpy turboprop plane:
3) Air Baltic flight 135, which departs 12:55pm Riga and arrives 1:30pm Copenhagen Airport, where we stopover for 1 hour 35 minutes before the last leg of the journey:
4) SAS flight 2872 that departs 4:20pm from Copenhagen Airport and finally arrives at 5:40pm in Bergen, Norway.
From here, I make my bleary-eyed way through driving rain via the Airport Bus to Bergen’s busy seaport, located in the city centre (this normally takes 25 minutes, but my journey is 40 minutes due to hitting the tail-end of rush hour – still it is a LOT cheaper than a taxi!!).
Here I hook up with the 34-foot yacht Callisto and prepare for a 1000-mile journey around the rocky coastline of Norway and Russia in order to “Return to Murmansk”.
Tuesday, 28 December 2010
The Tide Turns on Communism: Cruising Down the Volga on the Last Boat to Astrakhan (Russian Southern Federal District)
My journey to the Southern Federal District of Russia really WAS as much about the journey as the destination. For this trip I retraced my steps from Chechnya to Moscow (for reasons outlined in my previous blog) – and then began my river cruise down the Volga (Russia’s main river) to Astrakhan, the primary city in Russia’s Southern Federal District, courtesy of “Last Boat to Astrakhan” by Robert Haupt.
In 1995, his fifth year in Russia as a foreign correspondent, celebrated Australian journalist Robert Haupt decided to take a boat trip down the Volga River to Astrakhan by the Caspian Sea. This journey forms the core of his book, which interweaves strands of art literature, politics, history, economics and geography to capture a country and a people for which the author had an immense passion. I say ‘had’, as sadly Mr Haupt died soon after the publication of this work.
Haupt's time on the Volga cruise ship Fyodor Shalyapin, along with his earlier experiences while living in Moscow, forms a framework around which he intersperses historical episodes, numerous quotes from earlier traveller's accounts, and his own perceptive observations, to give an impression of the character of Russia. The difficult transformation of Russia since the end of communism is a central theme. However periods of difficult transformation are also presented as being characteristic of the wider flow of Russian history, and Haupt makes many telling points about how and why Russian society differs from the West, and why we in 'the West' can often misunderstand Russia by judging it through the perspective of our own past.
Haupt uses the story of his apartment building's plumbing system to illustrate the 'workings' of Russian bureaucracy; and the plight of the Chaika watch factory trying to sell handmade products in competition to machine-produced electronic watches from China as an example of dead-end paths still being followed.
Whilst discussing bribery in the police (after reading the observation of a British MP, writing in the Times, that the Yaroslavl traffic police hadn't been paid for months), Haupt notes that “What he meant was that they had not been paid by the government for months; those who live in Yaroslavl or drive through it feed the police force there everyday.” and goes on to observe that “Jurisprudence is as poorly developed in Russia as particle physics in Rwanda. To a Russian, the law is a source of oppression, not an avenue for the relief of injustice.”
The above examples encapsulate much of how this book is structured. On the surface this is an engaging and insightful account of Haupt’s journey from Moscow down to Astrakhan by river cruise. We are treated to some fascinating observations not just of the stopovers along the way but also his fellow passengers – largely the tracksuited nouveau riche of New Russia - as well as lengthy and involved digressions of Haupt’s observations of Russia’s socio-economic past, present and likely future.
I must admit, the latter often defeated me. Haupt was obviously a highly intelligent individual with an in-depth knowledge of Russia’s workings, and he exposits these eloquently here. However, not having the same knowledge of Russia (nor, I fear, the same level of intellect), these narrative diversions often left me a little bewildered. I occasionally found myself floundering though pages of in-depth socio-political analysis like a poor swimmer in a lake of intellect, looking for an island of straightforward narrative description!
That said, I can only attribute this as a fault on my part not the author’s. After all, I am on a journey of observation, keen to glean facts and impressions about each place that I visit – and the fact that I am on a schedule to visit every country in the world means that I am occasionally impatient when being given essential background information and historical context to places I am visiting.
Furthermore, during the 3000km(!) trip from Moscow to Astrakhan we are introduced to interesting descriptions of a range of cities and towns that have developed, prospered (and in some cases perished) as a result of the rise and fall of the mighty Volga river and its importance to Russia.
Ultimately, we arrive at our destination of the city of Astrakhan in Russia’s Southern Federal District.
“In Astrakhan, the air is heavy, the people sleepy. Nothing seems to get underway before ten-thirty or so. The cars move with astonishing slowness along wide streets lined by motionless trees. Even a road accident – a man who had steered his red motorcycle and sidecar into the path of a police jeep – appeared as a tableau, onlookers frozen in mid-stare as the motorcyclist, his blue helmet neatly placed on the road beside him, solemnly picked pieces of dry grass from his socks. Even when something like this happened, everyone seemed to be waiting for something to happen.”
Haupt goes on to describe Navy Day in Astrakhan. This is, apparently “the occasion in a Fleet town for epic displays of drunkenness”. Haupt’s descriptions of how drunken “young men – boys, really – with their caps pushed back to near-vertical, leant on their girlfriends and climbed imaginary stairs on their way home” are telling – they form a notable and telling precursor to the next book on my journey: “Little Tenement on the Volga.” This account is written by Englishwoman C.S. Walton about a year spent in Samara in the Volga Federal District, and one of the overriding themes of her fascinating observations here, is that of stoical females (girlfriends, wives, mothers) coping with their own harsh lives and the pressures of supporting their families. The images of Astrakhan’s Naval Day are telling: often Walton’s depiction of Samaran women’s lives involves them looking after men – sons, lovers, husbands – who are enslaved to alcoholism, with the women themselves enslaved by the Soviet social system of female subjugation.
Samara – one of the largest cities in Russia – lies in the Volga Federal District. Having already passed through here during my river cruise courtesy with Robert Haupt I am tempted to retrace part of my Volga river cruise to return here. However, the current price of 100 EURO for a single berth on one of today’s cruise ships PER NIGHT is off-putting. And even if I had been tempted, it is December and decidedly off-season (cruises only run between May and October).
Therefore, I opt for the train – quicker than the six days a cruise would take between these destinations - but still nearly 28 hours (well, the journey IS 1147km in total)!
I take the easy option for booking and buy my tickets online at realrussia.co.uk – a very user-friendly UK-based website that sends me my tickets via email for collection at Astrakhan station. I buy a one-way 2nd class ticket for £64.97 on the 373 train, which is on the lower-quality and slower end of the Russian train scale (apparently, the higher the classification number, the lower the grade of train).
And so I set off from Astrakhan’s spacious train station at 13.25, taking a train that – after numerous stops - will drop me off at Samara the next day at 16.23 in the afternoon (before it heads on to its final destination of Beijing!).
A word about the train itself: my cabin is second class, sometimes called a ‘Kupe.’ This is a cabin for four people with two lower bunks with storage underneath, two upper bunks, a window table and a lockable door. There is also a shared toilet for the carriage and a restaurant car. Russian restaurant car food is quite edible and not expensive. Allow about US$15-$20 for a 2-course meal with a bottle of beer. During my day-long trip I have ham and fried eggs for breakfast, schnitzel and potatoes for lunch and dinner, with soups and salads for starters. I also have a few shots of vodka in the evening – after all, when in Rome (well, Russia)…
And so I arrive, surprisingly refreshed, in the city of Samara in the Volga Federal District. The modern train station, I have to say, looks amazingly like a huge glass R2-D2 from Star Wars…. My rather-more modest accommodation in Samara is at Number Four, Specialist Alley, a cramped communal apartment which was occupied by Englishwoman C. S. Wilson during 1993, and whose account of her stay there forms the next leg of my journey.
In 1995, his fifth year in Russia as a foreign correspondent, celebrated Australian journalist Robert Haupt decided to take a boat trip down the Volga River to Astrakhan by the Caspian Sea. This journey forms the core of his book, which interweaves strands of art literature, politics, history, economics and geography to capture a country and a people for which the author had an immense passion. I say ‘had’, as sadly Mr Haupt died soon after the publication of this work.
Haupt's time on the Volga cruise ship Fyodor Shalyapin, along with his earlier experiences while living in Moscow, forms a framework around which he intersperses historical episodes, numerous quotes from earlier traveller's accounts, and his own perceptive observations, to give an impression of the character of Russia. The difficult transformation of Russia since the end of communism is a central theme. However periods of difficult transformation are also presented as being characteristic of the wider flow of Russian history, and Haupt makes many telling points about how and why Russian society differs from the West, and why we in 'the West' can often misunderstand Russia by judging it through the perspective of our own past.
Haupt uses the story of his apartment building's plumbing system to illustrate the 'workings' of Russian bureaucracy; and the plight of the Chaika watch factory trying to sell handmade products in competition to machine-produced electronic watches from China as an example of dead-end paths still being followed.
Whilst discussing bribery in the police (after reading the observation of a British MP, writing in the Times, that the Yaroslavl traffic police hadn't been paid for months), Haupt notes that “What he meant was that they had not been paid by the government for months; those who live in Yaroslavl or drive through it feed the police force there everyday.” and goes on to observe that “Jurisprudence is as poorly developed in Russia as particle physics in Rwanda. To a Russian, the law is a source of oppression, not an avenue for the relief of injustice.”
The above examples encapsulate much of how this book is structured. On the surface this is an engaging and insightful account of Haupt’s journey from Moscow down to Astrakhan by river cruise. We are treated to some fascinating observations not just of the stopovers along the way but also his fellow passengers – largely the tracksuited nouveau riche of New Russia - as well as lengthy and involved digressions of Haupt’s observations of Russia’s socio-economic past, present and likely future.
I must admit, the latter often defeated me. Haupt was obviously a highly intelligent individual with an in-depth knowledge of Russia’s workings, and he exposits these eloquently here. However, not having the same knowledge of Russia (nor, I fear, the same level of intellect), these narrative diversions often left me a little bewildered. I occasionally found myself floundering though pages of in-depth socio-political analysis like a poor swimmer in a lake of intellect, looking for an island of straightforward narrative description!
That said, I can only attribute this as a fault on my part not the author’s. After all, I am on a journey of observation, keen to glean facts and impressions about each place that I visit – and the fact that I am on a schedule to visit every country in the world means that I am occasionally impatient when being given essential background information and historical context to places I am visiting.
Furthermore, during the 3000km(!) trip from Moscow to Astrakhan we are introduced to interesting descriptions of a range of cities and towns that have developed, prospered (and in some cases perished) as a result of the rise and fall of the mighty Volga river and its importance to Russia.
Ultimately, we arrive at our destination of the city of Astrakhan in Russia’s Southern Federal District.
“In Astrakhan, the air is heavy, the people sleepy. Nothing seems to get underway before ten-thirty or so. The cars move with astonishing slowness along wide streets lined by motionless trees. Even a road accident – a man who had steered his red motorcycle and sidecar into the path of a police jeep – appeared as a tableau, onlookers frozen in mid-stare as the motorcyclist, his blue helmet neatly placed on the road beside him, solemnly picked pieces of dry grass from his socks. Even when something like this happened, everyone seemed to be waiting for something to happen.”
Haupt goes on to describe Navy Day in Astrakhan. This is, apparently “the occasion in a Fleet town for epic displays of drunkenness”. Haupt’s descriptions of how drunken “young men – boys, really – with their caps pushed back to near-vertical, leant on their girlfriends and climbed imaginary stairs on their way home” are telling – they form a notable and telling precursor to the next book on my journey: “Little Tenement on the Volga.” This account is written by Englishwoman C.S. Walton about a year spent in Samara in the Volga Federal District, and one of the overriding themes of her fascinating observations here, is that of stoical females (girlfriends, wives, mothers) coping with their own harsh lives and the pressures of supporting their families. The images of Astrakhan’s Naval Day are telling: often Walton’s depiction of Samaran women’s lives involves them looking after men – sons, lovers, husbands – who are enslaved to alcoholism, with the women themselves enslaved by the Soviet social system of female subjugation.
Samara – one of the largest cities in Russia – lies in the Volga Federal District. Having already passed through here during my river cruise courtesy with Robert Haupt I am tempted to retrace part of my Volga river cruise to return here. However, the current price of 100 EURO for a single berth on one of today’s cruise ships PER NIGHT is off-putting. And even if I had been tempted, it is December and decidedly off-season (cruises only run between May and October).
Therefore, I opt for the train – quicker than the six days a cruise would take between these destinations - but still nearly 28 hours (well, the journey IS 1147km in total)!
I take the easy option for booking and buy my tickets online at realrussia.co.uk – a very user-friendly UK-based website that sends me my tickets via email for collection at Astrakhan station. I buy a one-way 2nd class ticket for £64.97 on the 373 train, which is on the lower-quality and slower end of the Russian train scale (apparently, the higher the classification number, the lower the grade of train).
And so I set off from Astrakhan’s spacious train station at 13.25, taking a train that – after numerous stops - will drop me off at Samara the next day at 16.23 in the afternoon (before it heads on to its final destination of Beijing!).
A word about the train itself: my cabin is second class, sometimes called a ‘Kupe.’ This is a cabin for four people with two lower bunks with storage underneath, two upper bunks, a window table and a lockable door. There is also a shared toilet for the carriage and a restaurant car. Russian restaurant car food is quite edible and not expensive. Allow about US$15-$20 for a 2-course meal with a bottle of beer. During my day-long trip I have ham and fried eggs for breakfast, schnitzel and potatoes for lunch and dinner, with soups and salads for starters. I also have a few shots of vodka in the evening – after all, when in Rome (well, Russia)…
And so I arrive, surprisingly refreshed, in the city of Samara in the Volga Federal District. The modern train station, I have to say, looks amazingly like a huge glass R2-D2 from Star Wars…. My rather-more modest accommodation in Samara is at Number Four, Specialist Alley, a cramped communal apartment which was occupied by Englishwoman C. S. Wilson during 1993, and whose account of her stay there forms the next leg of my journey.
Saturday, 18 December 2010
Under Oath: A Surgeon’s Testimony of Hope and Despair in Chechnya (Russian North Caucasian Federal District)
“The Oath: A Surgeon Under Fire” tells the story of Khassan Baiev, a cosmetic surgeon working in Moscow but born in the Chechnyan town of Alkhan Kala whose life - along with that of the rest of the population of Chechnya – is turned upside down by several wars with Russia from the 1990s onwards, as a result of Chechnya’s declaration of independence.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Chechen-Ingush Soviet Republic was split into two: the Republic of Ingushetia and Republic of Chechnya. The latter proclaimed the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, which sought independence. Following the First Chechen War with Russia (1994-96), Chechnya gained de facto independence as the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria. Russian federal control was restored during the Second Chechen War (1999 – 2007). Since then there has been a systematic reconstruction and rebuilding process, though sporadic fighting continues in the mountains and southern regions of the republic.
The above factual paragraph however, does not go any way towards giving the historical context of the conflict, nor the scarcely believable human tragedies that these conflicts inflicted on all involved – civilian and military. Baiev’s book, however, depicts these elements in graphic detail and to great effect.
Whilst this is very much the story of Baiev’s life it is also the story of the homeland that he loves so much. Indeed the fact that the horrific descriptions of war in this account are sandwiched between a prologue detailing Baiev’s idyllic rural childhood and his later life as a refugee in urban Boston (safe, but cut off from his nation and his extended family), only serves to highlight what has been lost to this nation – and the book’s author – through this conflict.
Even during Baiev’s childhood it is apparent that as a Chechnyan he is an outsider in his “Russian” motherland. His father’s accounts of being denounced as a Nazi collaborator in WW2 because he was a Chechnyan – despite having fought with the Soviet Army at Murmansk - is particularly telling.
Another example of disenfranchisement through his ethnic origin is seen in his being denied at the last minute of attending the World Sombo Martial Arts Championships at the last minute, despite his prowess in the sport as a youth, by the KGB so as not to have Russia represented by a Chechynan.
However, the above slight – though reprehensible – pales next to what Baiev and his countrymen endured after August 1994, when Russia massed thousands of troops along the border of Chechnya and Baiev, then 31, left his promising surgical career in Moscow to aid his Chechen countrymen.
What follows is a harrowing and relentless account of Baiev’s forced move from cosmetic surgeon to wartime field surgeon. Whilst trying to keep a semblance of normality with his family and his staff, Baiev is faced with treating an ever-growing conveyor belt of wounded – many from mine and shrapnel wounds – with ever-diminishing supplies (even resorting to using sewing thread in operations). Baiev’s matter-of-fact narrative jars heavily (to great effect) with descriptions of 48-hour surgical sessions where he could no longer move his arms through the amount of amputational sawing he had to do, through to descriptions of himself and his staff having to work whilst feeling faint due to the amount of blood they had to directly donate to treat the wounded.
His efforts to save lives in the midst of war are played out against a backdrop of constant shelling, threats to his life and – on several occasions (one resulting in him being in a coma for some time) the physical destruction of the hospital premises he is working in.
This brings to mind a phrase that Baiev quotes on several occasions in the book: “The Russians destroy, Chechnyans rebuild.”
And, in the context of this war, the Russian army does destroy: buildings (Baiev’s family home is targeted several times), cities (the capital of Grozny is literally razed to the ground), and indeed people. Time and again we hear of men, women and children – young and old – whose bodies are shattered by this conflict. And just as the populace rebuild the cities, it is surgeons who are left to rebuild the shattered bodies of the wounded.
Sadly, just as some buildings and cities were bombed beyond repair – so some causalities could not be saved. And it is here that the mental toll of war begins to be inflicted upon Baiev – he is haunted by the images of friends, family and strangers who were simply beyond salvation despite his expertise.
But this account is not just a litany of horror. What makes this book relevant and unique is the fact that Baiev – according to the Hippocratic Oath and his Muslim beliefs – treats each patient equally; be they civilian, Chechnyan fighter or Russian soldier.
For this, he becomes vilified as a traitor by both sides – although there are individual flashes of humanity which provide a certain counterpoint of hope in the overall despair of the conflict. Not least among these is a Russian FSB (the former KGB) colonel who risks his own life to help Baiev escape to America at the point where his assassination by one side or the other has become inevitable. The ultimate fate of this brave individual, which we learn later, only adds to the poignancy of this act.
If this account tells us one thing it is this – that war and interracial hatred is more about governments and regimes than individuals: who are capable of great heroism as well as hateful acts.
I should also make it clear here that Baiev – whilst a patriot and a proud Chechnyan – is no apologist for the atrocities that were also carried out by the Chechnyan separatists, such as the taking hostage of a Moscow theatre audience of 850 people in 2002. Most of the Chechnyans and around 130 hostages died as a result – mainly from a gas pumped into the theatre by Russian forces. Baiev is unequivocal in condemning this. The book was published before the further outrage in 2004 where separatist took an entire school hostage. Ultimately, at least 334 hostages were killed, including 186 children. Hundreds more were injured and many were reported missing. One can only imagine that Baiev would have condemned this act also, had it happened before publication.
In summary then, this book shows two things – the human capacity for evil and the human capacity for good. Reading this book, one can feel uplifted by the capacity for good in the worst of scenarios, but one does not hold out much hope of this struggle between good and evil ever resulting in more than a stalemate.
Still, to end on a positive note: a touching detail of Baiev’s later life (effectively in exile) in the US is that he was finally free to compete in the World Sombo Championships (in Paris) in 2001. These are the championships the KGB denied him way back in 1983. He won – and was able to raise the Chechnyan flag on the winner’s podium.
From Chechnya I make the rather unusual move to take a return flight back from Grozny to Moscow, my previous destination. The reason for retracing my steps is the fast moving changes of national / federal boundaries! Chechnya was chosen as my stopover in Russia’s 'Southern Federal District'. However, earlier this year (2010) the District was split into two: The 'Southern Federal District' and the 'North Caucasian Federal District'. Chechnya now falls into the latter so I needed to quickly find a stopover for the former!!
This I have done with a book by foreign correspondent Robert Haupt called “Last Boat to Astrakhan”. This is an account of his riverboat cruise down the Volga, starting at Moscow and travelling down into the Southern Federal area of Astrakhan, ending at the Caspian Sea.
Thus – rather than describing a book and then my onward journey as usual - this book IS my onward journey, as I will take a leisurely cruise from Moscow’s North River Terminal down the Volga – Russia’s primary river – to Astrakhan on the cruise ship Fyodor Shalyapin. I would love to give you the price of this trip but – as it was taken in 1995, I can only tell you it involved a shopping bag full of inflation-era roubles! This particular route has since been discontinued, but similar cruises are operating today (and they aren’t cheap!)
I shall let you know if it is worth the money in my next post.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Chechen-Ingush Soviet Republic was split into two: the Republic of Ingushetia and Republic of Chechnya. The latter proclaimed the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, which sought independence. Following the First Chechen War with Russia (1994-96), Chechnya gained de facto independence as the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria. Russian federal control was restored during the Second Chechen War (1999 – 2007). Since then there has been a systematic reconstruction and rebuilding process, though sporadic fighting continues in the mountains and southern regions of the republic.
The above factual paragraph however, does not go any way towards giving the historical context of the conflict, nor the scarcely believable human tragedies that these conflicts inflicted on all involved – civilian and military. Baiev’s book, however, depicts these elements in graphic detail and to great effect.
Whilst this is very much the story of Baiev’s life it is also the story of the homeland that he loves so much. Indeed the fact that the horrific descriptions of war in this account are sandwiched between a prologue detailing Baiev’s idyllic rural childhood and his later life as a refugee in urban Boston (safe, but cut off from his nation and his extended family), only serves to highlight what has been lost to this nation – and the book’s author – through this conflict.
Even during Baiev’s childhood it is apparent that as a Chechnyan he is an outsider in his “Russian” motherland. His father’s accounts of being denounced as a Nazi collaborator in WW2 because he was a Chechnyan – despite having fought with the Soviet Army at Murmansk - is particularly telling.
Another example of disenfranchisement through his ethnic origin is seen in his being denied at the last minute of attending the World Sombo Martial Arts Championships at the last minute, despite his prowess in the sport as a youth, by the KGB so as not to have Russia represented by a Chechynan.
However, the above slight – though reprehensible – pales next to what Baiev and his countrymen endured after August 1994, when Russia massed thousands of troops along the border of Chechnya and Baiev, then 31, left his promising surgical career in Moscow to aid his Chechen countrymen.
What follows is a harrowing and relentless account of Baiev’s forced move from cosmetic surgeon to wartime field surgeon. Whilst trying to keep a semblance of normality with his family and his staff, Baiev is faced with treating an ever-growing conveyor belt of wounded – many from mine and shrapnel wounds – with ever-diminishing supplies (even resorting to using sewing thread in operations). Baiev’s matter-of-fact narrative jars heavily (to great effect) with descriptions of 48-hour surgical sessions where he could no longer move his arms through the amount of amputational sawing he had to do, through to descriptions of himself and his staff having to work whilst feeling faint due to the amount of blood they had to directly donate to treat the wounded.
His efforts to save lives in the midst of war are played out against a backdrop of constant shelling, threats to his life and – on several occasions (one resulting in him being in a coma for some time) the physical destruction of the hospital premises he is working in.
This brings to mind a phrase that Baiev quotes on several occasions in the book: “The Russians destroy, Chechnyans rebuild.”
And, in the context of this war, the Russian army does destroy: buildings (Baiev’s family home is targeted several times), cities (the capital of Grozny is literally razed to the ground), and indeed people. Time and again we hear of men, women and children – young and old – whose bodies are shattered by this conflict. And just as the populace rebuild the cities, it is surgeons who are left to rebuild the shattered bodies of the wounded.
Sadly, just as some buildings and cities were bombed beyond repair – so some causalities could not be saved. And it is here that the mental toll of war begins to be inflicted upon Baiev – he is haunted by the images of friends, family and strangers who were simply beyond salvation despite his expertise.
But this account is not just a litany of horror. What makes this book relevant and unique is the fact that Baiev – according to the Hippocratic Oath and his Muslim beliefs – treats each patient equally; be they civilian, Chechnyan fighter or Russian soldier.
For this, he becomes vilified as a traitor by both sides – although there are individual flashes of humanity which provide a certain counterpoint of hope in the overall despair of the conflict. Not least among these is a Russian FSB (the former KGB) colonel who risks his own life to help Baiev escape to America at the point where his assassination by one side or the other has become inevitable. The ultimate fate of this brave individual, which we learn later, only adds to the poignancy of this act.
If this account tells us one thing it is this – that war and interracial hatred is more about governments and regimes than individuals: who are capable of great heroism as well as hateful acts.
I should also make it clear here that Baiev – whilst a patriot and a proud Chechnyan – is no apologist for the atrocities that were also carried out by the Chechnyan separatists, such as the taking hostage of a Moscow theatre audience of 850 people in 2002. Most of the Chechnyans and around 130 hostages died as a result – mainly from a gas pumped into the theatre by Russian forces. Baiev is unequivocal in condemning this. The book was published before the further outrage in 2004 where separatist took an entire school hostage. Ultimately, at least 334 hostages were killed, including 186 children. Hundreds more were injured and many were reported missing. One can only imagine that Baiev would have condemned this act also, had it happened before publication.
In summary then, this book shows two things – the human capacity for evil and the human capacity for good. Reading this book, one can feel uplifted by the capacity for good in the worst of scenarios, but one does not hold out much hope of this struggle between good and evil ever resulting in more than a stalemate.
Still, to end on a positive note: a touching detail of Baiev’s later life (effectively in exile) in the US is that he was finally free to compete in the World Sombo Championships (in Paris) in 2001. These are the championships the KGB denied him way back in 1983. He won – and was able to raise the Chechnyan flag on the winner’s podium.
From Chechnya I make the rather unusual move to take a return flight back from Grozny to Moscow, my previous destination. The reason for retracing my steps is the fast moving changes of national / federal boundaries! Chechnya was chosen as my stopover in Russia’s 'Southern Federal District'. However, earlier this year (2010) the District was split into two: The 'Southern Federal District' and the 'North Caucasian Federal District'. Chechnya now falls into the latter so I needed to quickly find a stopover for the former!!
This I have done with a book by foreign correspondent Robert Haupt called “Last Boat to Astrakhan”. This is an account of his riverboat cruise down the Volga, starting at Moscow and travelling down into the Southern Federal area of Astrakhan, ending at the Caspian Sea.
Thus – rather than describing a book and then my onward journey as usual - this book IS my onward journey, as I will take a leisurely cruise from Moscow’s North River Terminal down the Volga – Russia’s primary river – to Astrakhan on the cruise ship Fyodor Shalyapin. I would love to give you the price of this trip but – as it was taken in 1995, I can only tell you it involved a shopping bag full of inflation-era roubles! This particular route has since been discontinued, but similar cruises are operating today (and they aren’t cheap!)
I shall let you know if it is worth the money in my next post.
Tuesday, 14 December 2010
Moscow: The Russian Bear plays host to Ancient Chinese Foxes and Modern Werewolves (Russian Central Federal District)
My stopover in Moscow - in Russia's Central Federal District - is represented by the novel "The Sacred Book of the Werewolf" by acclaimed contemporary author Victor Pelevin.
In this satirical, erotic allegory of the post-Soviet and post-9/11 world, Pelevin gives new meaning to the words “unreliable narrator.” The story is told by a shape-shifting nymphet named A Hu-Li, a red-haired Asiatic call girl who is some 2,000 years old but looks 14. Her name, said aloud, sounds like a Russian obscenity, but it derives from the Chinese expression for fox spirit, huli jing — an epithet that doubles in China as a put-down for a lascivious home-wrecker. By day, A Hu-Li lives in a dark warren under the bleachers at an equestrian complex in Bitsevsky Park in Moscow; by night, she works the high-end Hotel National, hunting investment bankers.
While she may look like an ordinary (albeit exceptionally alluring) sex worker, A Hu-Li is a supernatural creature, a “professional impersonator of an adolescent girl with big innocent eyes” who ensorcells her clients by whipping out her luxuriant fox tail before each tryst and setting it a-whir like a pinwheeling ray gun, beaming hypnotic carnal fantasies into her customers’ minds. Although the men feel the telepathic pleasures in the flesh, a hotel spy-cam would reveal that the vixen took no physical part in the gymnastics. The men frolic alone.
However, early in the novel, as A Hu-Li plies her trade, her signals get jammed when she brushes up against a member of the F.S.B. (the new K.G.B.), the “captain of the hit men’s brigade.” Alexander Sery (his surname, which means “grey” in Russian, is also a euphemism for the black market) is “unshaven, sullen and very good-looking,” with a “fierce, wolfish” mien, for which there’s a very good reason. Alexander is a werewolf, and A Hu-Li’s shifty vulpine defenses prove useless against his crude lupine brio. His greyish-yellow eyes burn into her retinas, but the “most significant thing,” she notes, is that his face “was a face from the past. There used to be a lot of faces like that around in the old days, when people believed in love and God.”
Alexander calls his lover Ada — a nod to her Internet name, to Nabokov and to the Russian word for hell. She nicknames him Shurik, deliberately suggesting the name of the dog Sharik from Bulgakov’s story (famous in Russia) “Heart of a Dog,” about a cur who turns into a proletarian and becomes so annoying that he has to be stopped. Their werefox and werewolf games begin with lovestruck “tailechery” (a form of transcendental canine commingling) but detour into more dangerous sport as A Hu-Li and Shurik initiate each other into secret passions. She likes to put on an evening gown, drop by farmhouses and horrify the occupants by nabbing their hens and bolting, transforming into a werefox as she flees. He likes to rally with other F.S.B. werewolves in the frozen north, howling at a cow skull on a stake in hopes of necromantically summoning oil from the substrate into Mother Russia’s waiting pipelines. Watching this scene, seeing the cow’s skull, A Hu-Li is reminded of a grim Russian fairy tale about a slaughtered cow who takes pity on an orphan and sends the girl gold from the grave (a story told to her by Shurik, just prior to this episode). Touched, A Hu-Li adds her own soulful lament to the cacophony: “We were all howling, with our faces turned to the moon, howling and weeping for ourselves and for our impossible country, for our pitiful life, stupid death and sacred $100 a barrel.” In response to her emotion (she thinks), oil comes burbling up the stake. Shurik laughs at her sentimentality. “It’s my job to get the oil flowing,” he scoffs. “And for that, the skull has to cry.”
It’s a joy to read Pelevin’s phantasmagoria so brilliantly translated by Andrew Bromfield, a crowning achievement of the pair’s longtime association. Complex ideas are rendered simply and organically, never disturbing the narrative flow. Bromfield’s English text is fleet and magical.
Animal parables lie at the heart of every culture. Usually such tales are meant to instruct human behavior, but Russian folktales are unusual because they so often lack a moral. Instead, they portray bleak or unjust situations in mesmerizing language, making a fable of resignation itself. Russian children grow up on stories like the adventures of Alyonushka and her thirsty brother, Ivanushka, who turned into a goat after he drank water from a hoof print.
Werewolf literature is an offshoot of the man-and-beast genre and an abiding preoccupation of this author. In his early story “A Werewolf Problem in Central Russia,” Pelevin sent an unsuspecting young man to a village near an old collective farm to take part in a gathering of werewolves, creatures whose existence he had not previously suspected. “What are werewolves, really?” he asks the leader of the pack. “What are people, really?” the leader retorts, baring his teeth.
For a man as steeped in Nabokovian wordplay as Pelevin is, it can be no mistake that in the Russian version of “The Sacred Book of the Werewolf” he chose the word oboroten, which means shape-shifter or, literally, someone who turns back to what he was before, instead of vervolk, which he used for his earlier werewolf tale. Could this choice be a comment on present-day Russia? Is there a moral to Pelevin’s story? What are changelings, really? Those are questions best answered by A Hu-Li.
The above review was written by Liesl Schillinger for the New York Times Book Review © 2008.
Apologies from myself for my tardiness in posting a review of this fascinating book. Whilst pursuing my ‘virtual’ round the world trip, occasionally I am distracted by real world events in my life and, as I have occasionally before, will need to recourse to existing reviews to keep my travel journal up to date. Where possible I shall return to add my own views: but please be assured that when I add a third party review I will only be if that review fully endorses my own opinions about a book and destination. As does the one above!
As I mentioned earlier I have divided the seven largest countries in the world up into their main regions, so as to be truly representative. Therefore I have split Russia up into its eight Federal Districts, with a book for each. Having starting my journey within Russia in the most internationally well-known Central Federal District courtesy of Moscow, I now make my way to a much more contentious region.
The next stop on my journey is to a small town called Alkhan Kala with occasional forays to Grozny. Both of these locations are based within the republic of Chechnya. Whilst Chechnya is officially located within Russia’s North Caucasian Federal District, it is involved in a long and bloody battle with Russia for independence. It is this struggle and its tragic consequences that form the backdrop to my next book: “The Oath: A Surgeon Under Fire” in which the author, Khassan Baiev (a Muslim Chechnyan surgeon) describes his harrowing experiences throughout the Chechnyan-Russian wars of the 1990s and the 21st Century - and the personal implications of following the Hippocratic Oath by treating both Chechnyan and Russian fighters alongside innocent civilians.
And so, warily, I prepare to leave Moscow. Sadly, travel from Moscow to Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, is complicated due to the conflict, so I stay on a few days whilst I arrange complicated Visas and a safe route into the country. Fortunately, Chechnya's airport is finally open again for the first time since the start of the war. Planes to Grozny leave 3 times a week from Moscow's Vnukovo airport. Estimated flying time is 2 hours and 30 minutes. Having been lucky enough to secure such a flight I arrive in my destination of Chechnya. I shall post an update on this leg of my journey soon.
In this satirical, erotic allegory of the post-Soviet and post-9/11 world, Pelevin gives new meaning to the words “unreliable narrator.” The story is told by a shape-shifting nymphet named A Hu-Li, a red-haired Asiatic call girl who is some 2,000 years old but looks 14. Her name, said aloud, sounds like a Russian obscenity, but it derives from the Chinese expression for fox spirit, huli jing — an epithet that doubles in China as a put-down for a lascivious home-wrecker. By day, A Hu-Li lives in a dark warren under the bleachers at an equestrian complex in Bitsevsky Park in Moscow; by night, she works the high-end Hotel National, hunting investment bankers.
While she may look like an ordinary (albeit exceptionally alluring) sex worker, A Hu-Li is a supernatural creature, a “professional impersonator of an adolescent girl with big innocent eyes” who ensorcells her clients by whipping out her luxuriant fox tail before each tryst and setting it a-whir like a pinwheeling ray gun, beaming hypnotic carnal fantasies into her customers’ minds. Although the men feel the telepathic pleasures in the flesh, a hotel spy-cam would reveal that the vixen took no physical part in the gymnastics. The men frolic alone.
However, early in the novel, as A Hu-Li plies her trade, her signals get jammed when she brushes up against a member of the F.S.B. (the new K.G.B.), the “captain of the hit men’s brigade.” Alexander Sery (his surname, which means “grey” in Russian, is also a euphemism for the black market) is “unshaven, sullen and very good-looking,” with a “fierce, wolfish” mien, for which there’s a very good reason. Alexander is a werewolf, and A Hu-Li’s shifty vulpine defenses prove useless against his crude lupine brio. His greyish-yellow eyes burn into her retinas, but the “most significant thing,” she notes, is that his face “was a face from the past. There used to be a lot of faces like that around in the old days, when people believed in love and God.”
Alexander calls his lover Ada — a nod to her Internet name, to Nabokov and to the Russian word for hell. She nicknames him Shurik, deliberately suggesting the name of the dog Sharik from Bulgakov’s story (famous in Russia) “Heart of a Dog,” about a cur who turns into a proletarian and becomes so annoying that he has to be stopped. Their werefox and werewolf games begin with lovestruck “tailechery” (a form of transcendental canine commingling) but detour into more dangerous sport as A Hu-Li and Shurik initiate each other into secret passions. She likes to put on an evening gown, drop by farmhouses and horrify the occupants by nabbing their hens and bolting, transforming into a werefox as she flees. He likes to rally with other F.S.B. werewolves in the frozen north, howling at a cow skull on a stake in hopes of necromantically summoning oil from the substrate into Mother Russia’s waiting pipelines. Watching this scene, seeing the cow’s skull, A Hu-Li is reminded of a grim Russian fairy tale about a slaughtered cow who takes pity on an orphan and sends the girl gold from the grave (a story told to her by Shurik, just prior to this episode). Touched, A Hu-Li adds her own soulful lament to the cacophony: “We were all howling, with our faces turned to the moon, howling and weeping for ourselves and for our impossible country, for our pitiful life, stupid death and sacred $100 a barrel.” In response to her emotion (she thinks), oil comes burbling up the stake. Shurik laughs at her sentimentality. “It’s my job to get the oil flowing,” he scoffs. “And for that, the skull has to cry.”
It’s a joy to read Pelevin’s phantasmagoria so brilliantly translated by Andrew Bromfield, a crowning achievement of the pair’s longtime association. Complex ideas are rendered simply and organically, never disturbing the narrative flow. Bromfield’s English text is fleet and magical.
Animal parables lie at the heart of every culture. Usually such tales are meant to instruct human behavior, but Russian folktales are unusual because they so often lack a moral. Instead, they portray bleak or unjust situations in mesmerizing language, making a fable of resignation itself. Russian children grow up on stories like the adventures of Alyonushka and her thirsty brother, Ivanushka, who turned into a goat after he drank water from a hoof print.
Werewolf literature is an offshoot of the man-and-beast genre and an abiding preoccupation of this author. In his early story “A Werewolf Problem in Central Russia,” Pelevin sent an unsuspecting young man to a village near an old collective farm to take part in a gathering of werewolves, creatures whose existence he had not previously suspected. “What are werewolves, really?” he asks the leader of the pack. “What are people, really?” the leader retorts, baring his teeth.
For a man as steeped in Nabokovian wordplay as Pelevin is, it can be no mistake that in the Russian version of “The Sacred Book of the Werewolf” he chose the word oboroten, which means shape-shifter or, literally, someone who turns back to what he was before, instead of vervolk, which he used for his earlier werewolf tale. Could this choice be a comment on present-day Russia? Is there a moral to Pelevin’s story? What are changelings, really? Those are questions best answered by A Hu-Li.
The above review was written by Liesl Schillinger for the New York Times Book Review © 2008.
Apologies from myself for my tardiness in posting a review of this fascinating book. Whilst pursuing my ‘virtual’ round the world trip, occasionally I am distracted by real world events in my life and, as I have occasionally before, will need to recourse to existing reviews to keep my travel journal up to date. Where possible I shall return to add my own views: but please be assured that when I add a third party review I will only be if that review fully endorses my own opinions about a book and destination. As does the one above!
As I mentioned earlier I have divided the seven largest countries in the world up into their main regions, so as to be truly representative. Therefore I have split Russia up into its eight Federal Districts, with a book for each. Having starting my journey within Russia in the most internationally well-known Central Federal District courtesy of Moscow, I now make my way to a much more contentious region.
The next stop on my journey is to a small town called Alkhan Kala with occasional forays to Grozny. Both of these locations are based within the republic of Chechnya. Whilst Chechnya is officially located within Russia’s North Caucasian Federal District, it is involved in a long and bloody battle with Russia for independence. It is this struggle and its tragic consequences that form the backdrop to my next book: “The Oath: A Surgeon Under Fire” in which the author, Khassan Baiev (a Muslim Chechnyan surgeon) describes his harrowing experiences throughout the Chechnyan-Russian wars of the 1990s and the 21st Century - and the personal implications of following the Hippocratic Oath by treating both Chechnyan and Russian fighters alongside innocent civilians.
And so, warily, I prepare to leave Moscow. Sadly, travel from Moscow to Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, is complicated due to the conflict, so I stay on a few days whilst I arrange complicated Visas and a safe route into the country. Fortunately, Chechnya's airport is finally open again for the first time since the start of the war. Planes to Grozny leave 3 times a week from Moscow's Vnukovo airport. Estimated flying time is 2 hours and 30 minutes. Having been lucky enough to secure such a flight I arrive in my destination of Chechnya. I shall post an update on this leg of my journey soon.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)