I have not been out of Ashkhabad for twenty-four hours before I’m robbed of my documents. In Krasnovodsk I meet an alkash with a cruel hangover and invite him for a drink. While we are seeing off our third half-litre he crowns me with a bottle. I wake up to find my pockets empty. At least I had the foresight to hide my money in a pouch under my collar. I’m not badly hurt but a few splinters of glass have embedded themselves in my scalp. ‘Well, old son,’ I tell myself, ‘they say you’re never too old to learn, but it seems you’ll remain a fool till you die. Choose your drinking partners more wisely in future.’
I think it better not to hang around any longer waiting for Death. Without my release papers any cop could stop me and send me back to camp. Besides, I want to get out of Krasnovodsk. It is winter and the town is scoured by a cruel, sand-laden wind. I take a ferry to Baku and then a train to Tblisi.
***
According to legend, Bogdan Khmelnitski of Ukraine once summoned all the vagabonds in his kingdom to Kiev. He ordered straw of the best quality to be spread for them on the city’s main square. When the tramps arrived they laid themselves down gratefully and went to sleep. Then Khmelnitski ordered the straw to be lit around the edges. As their bed blazed the tramps called out: “We’re burning! Save us!” but none lifted a finger to help themselves. When the flames began to lick his feet their chief shouted: “How lazy you are, brothers! Why don’t you cry out that I too am on fire?”
Soviet railway stations are like that square in Kiev. Their warmth and 24-hour beer stands lure us vagrants like wasps to a jam jar, making it easy for the police to pick us up. We’re aware of the danger but it makes no difference. In Tblisi I spend a few days hanging around the station, drinking in the buffet and trying to snatch a few hours’ sleep in dark corners. Eventually my luck runs out. I am arrested and taken to the spets.
My cell is crammed with bare bunks. The small barred window lets in no sun so its light bulb burns around the clock. I’ve been drinking heavily for the past few days and fear the horrors will come on while I’m alone in the cell with no mental distractions.
“Hey, boss, give us a paper to read,” I ask the sergeant when he brings my dinner. As I was being led to my cell earlier I noticed a pile of newspapers on a shelf in the corridor.
“They’re old papers,” says the sergeant.
“So what if they are. I’m bored to death,” I insist.
“Do you really want something to read?”
“Well I’m not going anywhere in a hurry.”
“Okay we’ll give you a paper,” there is a tinge of spite in his voice. An hour later the door opens and he throws in four newspapers. Eagerly I snatch them up and then drop them in disappointment. They are Georgian. I can make no sense of the tiny worm-like letters writhing over the pages.
As I pace around the cell I remember a Conan Doyle story called The Little Dancing Men, in which Sherlock Holmes deciphers a code made up of matchstick figures. Following his example, I resolve to make sense of those worms. However, unlike the great detective, I do not understand the language I am deciphering. The only Georgian word I know is ‘beer.’ Nevertheless, I remember that most surnames end in ‘shvili,’ so by looking for groups of five letters I’m able to work out the characters for sh, v, i and l. The paper’s masthead ‘Communist’ is written in both Russian and Georgian, so that gives me 11 letters altogether. Pictures of Brezhnev and the cyclist Omar Pkhakadze add to my lexicon. Towards evening I am reading the paper aloud without understanding a single word. When the sergeant looks into my cell he can’t believe his ears. He throws in a packet of Prima.
Reading helps pull me through my hangover. The guards tell me the odd word of Georgian which I have to memorise immediately as I’m not allowed pen or paper. Unfortunately my solitude soon ends. My cell fills with tramps and their endless discussions about where they have drunk and how much, what the women were like and who beat the shit out of whom.
While exercising in the yard, I see an old man sitting by the wall. He looks vaguely familiar. I go over and – oh Lord – it’s Igor Alexandrovich. He has aged. Now he resembles a decrepit old lion whose shaggy black mane is grey at the roots where filth has not yet penetrated. Igor Alexandrovich screws up his eyes and studies me for a long time. Finally he mumbles: “Ivan Andreyevich! Is it you?”
“The very same.”
“Have you been here for a long time?”
“I’ll be out in a week.”
“Which cell are you in?”
“Six.”
“Would you be so kind as to take me in? Do you have enough room?”
“We’ll make some.”
Igor Alexandrovich jumps up and comes over to me. Bending his head close to mine he whispers: “Do you have lice in there?”
“Not until now,” I reply, catching sight of a huge louse on his coat lapel. I point to it. Despite his poor sight, Igor Alexandrovich catches his household pet with a deft pinch and for some reason drops it into his pocket. Our exercise period ends and we are locked up again.
A tramp in my cell says that for the last few months he has seen Igor Alexandrovich begging in the subway near the Collective Farmer cinema. “When he has enough money he runs to the chemists for eau de Cologne, which he drinks from the bottle right there in the shop. When he gets too cold and tired in the subway he goes to the Collective Farmer. The cashier usually lets him in without paying. He sleeps through the double bill of Indian films, warms up a bit and then returns to his pitch in the subway. At night he dosses in a basement in Chelyuskintsev Street.”
That evening the guards bring Igor Alexandrovich into our cell. They have sheared his mane and treated him to a half-hearted disinfection process. To keep him at a distance we put him to sleep on a separate bunk which we call the thieves’ bed. Igor Alexandrovich takes this as a mark of special respect.
That evening he entertains us with a monologue on Rasputin. Our cell mates listen open-mouthed. Believing Rasputin to have been the lover of Catherine the Great, they hope to hear some dirty stories. Encouraged by his audience, Igor Alexandrovich strides up and down the cell, gesticulating wildly. Suddenly he stops in the middle of a word and crashes to the floor with an demonic cry. White foam bubbles from the corners of his mouth. We rush to help him, trying to make sure he doesn’t bite his tongue. I have seen alcoholic epilepsy before in people who stop drinking too abruptly. We bang on the door, calling for a doctor, but the nurse has already gone home and the guards can’t be bothered to ring for an ambulance.
Gradually Igor Alexandrovich’s trembling ceases and he falls asleep, snoring loudly through his nose. We lift him onto his bed. We’re all frightened. Perhaps every one of us is thinking to himself, ‘That’s my fate too.’
When Igor Alexandrovich awakens he remembers nothing. He rises and paces about the cell. We are all silent. He comes up to me, his head trembling: “Could you tell me the time please?”
“I left my watch at home on the piano.”
“Yes, yes, it is easily done,” he nods. “And may I ask what your name is, if that is not confidential?”
“Pushkin, Alexander Sergeyevich.”
Igor Alexandrovich knocks at the cell door asking to be let out. When the sergeant comes he asks: “Would you be so kind as to tell me where I am?”
“Up your arse,” replies the sergeant and goes off to lie down again.
After a few hours Igor Alexandrovich recovers his senses. I tell him about his fit. He sits on his bed lost in thought for a long time. Then he looks at me with tears in his eyes: “Finita la comedia.”
As a doctor he understands very well what has happened and knows his end is near. “Ivan Andreyevich,” he whispers to me, “I pray that death may come sooner rather than later. I would like to be done with this life.”
The next day Igor Alexandrovich has another fit, an even more violent one. We make a terrible racket but still they refuse to call an ambulance. After all, it’s not worth going to any trouble over an old beggar.
I do not see Igor Alexandrovich die for I’m released the following day and I take the first train out of Tblisi.
I go west, to the town of Zestafoni, joining a group of tramps who sleep under the carwash by the fruit market. Tramps regard Zestafoni as their capital, perhaps because the local police are lenient and no one has ever been jailed for vagrancy in this town. When the bazaar opens in the morning I earn a few roubles helping farmers carry goods to their stalls.
Most traders sell chacha under the counter. The police take their cut and turn a blind eye. Real chacha is made from grape skins but this is only for personal consumption. The bazaar variety is made from rotten fruit and anything that will ferment. Some brewers fortify their chacha with luminal and calcium carbide.
Near the entrance to the bazaar there are a couple of kiosks which sell odds and ends: envelopes, cosmetics and shoe-laces. They are owned by two Georgians, Archil and Soso. One evening as we sit outside the car-wash Archil comes up with a three-litre cask of chacha. He makes an offer: “I’ll give you this if you pick up Soso’s kiosk during the night and move it further away from the bazaar entrance.”
“What about the cops?”
“I’ll take care of them. You’re not breaking into the kiosk.”
“Okay.”
We find an old telegraph pole, chop it into rollers, and at night move Soso’s kiosk about 100 metres away from the entrance to the bazaar.
The next day Soso approaches us, offering another cask if we’ll roll his kiosk back and drag Archil’s away. This goes on for a week. There’s no enmity between the two men; they’re simply having a joke with each other. They have a sea of chacha and they think up this game out of boredom. Everyone has to find a way of entertaining himself.
There is a tramp in our circle who goes by the name of Lousy Vassya. Lousy Vassya has lived in Zestafoni for years. Everyone knows him; some even pity him. All year round he wraps himself in a dirty woollen coat which has not a single button. He likes to sit in the sun scratching himself. A tall and sturdy peasant, he’s bloated from constant drunkenness and unable to do any form of work. From time to time a woman approaches Vassya and surreptitiously holds out a small medicine bottle. Reaching deep under his armpits he catches a few lice and offers them to the woman at a rouble a piece. His price is as stable as the London stock exchange. Georgian folk medicine recommends live lice as a cure for jaundice. They are stirred into yoghurt and fed unnoticed to the patient.
A few days before Mayday the bazaar director Vakho comes to us. “If you go on the First of May demonstration I’ll give you a barrel of wine.”
Tempted, we get down to business. We find a couple of poles and Vakho gives us three metres of red linen. We boil glue on our bonfire and mix it with chalk to make paint. Then we try to decide on a slogan. I propose Lenin is with us! but the others reject that as too inflammatory. Peace to the World! is too innocuous. Finally we agree on Zestafoni tramps salute the First of May!
Neatly stencilling the slogan, we hide the banner under the carwash and go around to other places in town where tramps congregate. Most of them sleep outside the metal plant where waste pig-iron is dumped. These tramps are distinguished by their burn scars and blackened clothing. Some agree to join us on the parade.
The parade begins with schoolchildren, followed by workers from the metal plant and then other factories and institutions. We infiltrate the contingent of shop workers, waiting till we are about 40 metres from the platform of dignitaries before falling into a group. This way the police have no time to seize us and pull us out.
The bigwigs on the platform know the order of the march so that they can shout appropriate slogans to each section.
“We greet the first of May with the highest respect for study!” they cry to the school children.
“Hoorah!” respond the kids with a half-hearted cheer.
“The world’s youth are the vanguard of Communism!” they shout to the students.
“Hoorah!” cry the students, with even less enthusiasm.
“More goods! Cheaper and better!” they shout to the bazaar traders.
“Hoorah!” they mutter back, no doubt thinking, ‘surely to God not, otherwise how are we going to survive?’
“A healthy mind in a healthy body!” they call to us, for according to their programme we should be doctors.
“Hoorah!” we roar at the top of our lungs, unfurling our banner. The loudest of all is Lousy Vassya. Pulling a hand out of his armpit he waves at the town’s fathers. They stand in shock, rictus grins on their faces. As we march past I catch sight of them whispering to each other. I fear we won’t see that barrel of wine, but I’m wrong. The barrel appears in the evening and we don’t need telling what to do with it.
A few days later the police come to question us. Fortunately they only laugh and decide to overlook the matter. It would be too embarrassing to take us to court.
Not long after the parade Lousy Vassya overhears two Georgians arguing over whether anyone can drink a litre of chacha straight down. Vassya volunteers to try. He has been drunk since morning and wants to show off. He tips the bottle to his lips and swallows the chacha in great gulps. He just manages to draw the back of his hand across his mouth before he falls to the ground, black in the face. By the time someone has called an ambulance he is dead.
Vakho and many bazaar traders donate money to bury Vassya. We hold such a wake that it’s a wonder no one follows Vassya to the next world.
35 The Old Believers were a sect that broke away from the Russian Orthodox Church in the seventeenth century. Members were supposed to renounce alcohol and tobacco.
11
Beggars
The 1980s
I grow bored of Zestafoni and decide to try my luck in the capital. Perhaps I’ll cut down on my drinking, clean up and find some sort of permanent job.
On New Year’s Day I arrive in Tblisi. This time I know better than to hang around the station so I take a trolleybus into town. Usually I avoid public transport: you can never get your bearings through the filthy windows. I prefer to walk the streets of a strange city to orientate myself. But this morning I’m tired and in urgent need of a hair-of-the-dog.
In the town centre I stop at a beer-stall. It’s crowded and I have to look around for some elbow space. A voice growls: “Over here mate!”
I go across to three men, alkashi by the look of them. The one who hailed me sports a pair of broken glasses and a pointed beard. “Where are you from?” he asks.
“From where the wind blows.”
“And where d’you stay?”
“Where the night finds me.”
“And what do they call you?”
“Ivan.”
“Ivan the what?”
“Just Ivan.”
“Nothing in this world is simple. not even a boil can lance itself. I know Ivan Moneybags and Ivan the Terrible… Which one are you?”
“None. I’m from Chapaevsk.”
“Let me see… the Terrible was the Fourth so that makes you Ivan the Fifth.”
He holds out his hand: “Kalinin.”
“Kalinin who?”
“Kalinin the Chairman of the Supreme Soviet!” he laughs. “Now we must drink to this meeting!”
Everyone rummages in their pockets. I offer a rouble but Kalinin puts out his hand to stop me.
“Today you’re our guest!”
One of my new friends runs across the road to a wine shop and returns with a bottle of champagne. I’m disappointed, but Kalinin gives me a sly wink and approaches another table where several well-dressed Georgians are gathered. Wishing them a Happy New Year, he offers them the champagne. Then he returns to our table. In a few minutes the Georgians have sent over two bottles of champagne, a half-litre of vodka, and a dozen beers. We plunge into the beer and vodka. After a while we send the two bottles of champagne over to another group of Georgians. In an hour there are so many bottles on our table there’s not even room to rest your elbow.
/> Kalinin used to be a physics teacher He really does look like the former Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR and he shrewdly exploits this resemblance.
“When I strike my pose on the Elbakidze bridge people stop and stare. Then they feel obliged to throw me a coin. You can find me on the bridge at any time; the cops leave me alone as long as I keep quiet. Trouble is, after I’ve had a few the urge comes over me to deliver a speech. My oratorical talent has landed me in the spets a few times.”
When night falls Kalinin shows me a place to sleep. Under one of Tblisi’s parks there is a cavern housing steam pipes that heat the city. In winter every railway prostitute, beggar, tramp and thief drifts to that cavern. Some are so weakened by illness and booze that they hardly ever leave the place. Others go about their business by day and gather again in the evening bringing food and drink. All night long the cavern rocks with songs, curses and fights.
It’s a murky place, lit only by candles stolen by church beggars. Rats scurry over the bodies of sleeping tramps. The floor is covered in crusts of bread, slimy pieces of rotting liver sausage and shattered eau de Cologne bottles. Wine and vodka empties are collected early in the morning. We sleep on cardboard discarded by furniture stores. On my second night one of the sick vagrants dies. We all leave the cavern, someone tips off the police and we make ourselves scarce while they come to collect the body.
Hippies have made their appearance in Georgia by this time and some of them try to join us. We despise them as dilettantes and kick them out of the cavern whenever they hang around for too long. Once in a while, however, some Tblisi artist or intellectual decides he want to experience life in the lower depths – and offers to pay for the privilege. Then we put on a real feast with songs and folk dances. We tramps know perfectly well what’s expected of us and earn the bottles that our visitors bring. Putting our arms around our free-spirited friends we spin endless yarns about our lives, sparing no harrowing detail.
Smashed in the USSR: Fear, Loathing and Vodka on the Steppes Page 18
