The smell of Ammon’s body odour drifting to the back of the line, mixed with what might have been the stench of my own burning flesh, made for a less than flattering organic perfume with which to assault the local people.
Hosting six universities, the city was teeming with well-dressed, young-adult students. I didn’t even know them, but I felt humiliated walking around with my mom like that, lugging a filthy backpack. I was completely ashamed of my stained clothes and the ugly khaki “travel-day” pants I was wearing. I grew ever more self-conscious as my face became increasingly red and swollen.
I’d never have a chance with these gorgeous guys. Look at me. So disgraceful. I look like a ten-year-old street kid. Oh. My. Gosh. I look like Oliver Twist – Oliver-Freakin’-Jungle Twist!
There was no denying that they were looking in our direction, and certainly not in any way a fifteen-year-old girl would want a tall, handsome man to watch her. When we had first arrived in Russia, we definitely stood out, and I had blamed it on our parade of big backpacks. I had been relying on our common heritage to help us blend in, yet even after we’d set our packs aside, they were still able to sniff us out. I realized if we were this noticeable in Russia, which was the most likely place we could hope to go unnoticed, then this trip would never allow us to be discreet. And from earlier discussions, it was quickly becoming apparent that this trip of Mom’s was not just going to be a one-year deal. Wanting nothing more than to just disappear, I kept my eyes directed downward and absentmindedly followed the heels of Ammon’s boots.
Despite my predicament, I couldn’t help noticing the simple beauty of a clean sidewalk that lacked the dust, mud, and animal droppings I’d become accustomed to. I thought about the dusty cloud that had formed around my flip-flops when they’d slapped the platform on that first arrival in Irkutsk two weeks earlier. I had been absolutely filthy, and it made me feel dreadfully embarrassed. In Mongolia, I’d hardly been conscious of the dirt when it came to what other people thought of me.
I hadn’t really considered this kind of peer pressure, or the influence my personal appearance had on my well-being – especially not about what I was wearing. I enjoyed people-watching in Russia, but I really didn’t like feeling so self-conscious. Perhaps it was just my own insecurity, but I knew for sure that in Mongolia and China, the people never made me feel they were judging my importance by my appearance. The comfortable, nonjudgmental attitude the Mongolians displayed made me think of Bree’s good friend, Grady, on whom I’d had a three-year-long crush back home. Grady was the only guy who got to know me despite the oversized jacket, the lack of make-up, or the boring braid, braces, and dental headgear I always wore. I sometimes wondered what he would have thought if he’d known that my notebooks were filled with big hearts inscribed G+S, and that I was secretly plotting our marriage all those years.
By the time we finally found a suitable place, we’d walked an unanticipated eleven-and-a-half kilometres (7.24 mi). My heels were on the verge of severe blood-letting. Though it cost only four hundred rubles per day, including meals (which was on the cheap side of our Russian lodging expenses), Ammon kept insisting, “We’ve got to get the heck out of here. It’s way too expensive. It costs fifteen bucks a night here – each!”
“It’s more expensive compared to other places, but we can’t really complain, can we?” Mom asked.
“Of course we can,” Ammon stubbornly insisted.
“It was only thirty-three dollars each for the thirty-hour ride on the train. That’s not bad,” she pointed out. “Generally speaking, that’s actually quite amazing.”
“Not when you consider that other Asian countries would only charge a few dollars,” Ammon said. Because he was paying his own way on the trip, he wanted the budget to fit his penny-pinching ways. He was a hard worker who’d had his first job doing paper routes with Sky when he was only nine. By the ripe old age of fifteen, he was working full-time as a chef and had learned enough to run his uncle’s restaurant. At eighteen, he graduated from correspondence high school and went on to study biochemistry for seven solid years with a full scholarship (earning his Bachelor of Science degree in molecular biology and biochemistry – with first class honours, no less), while working as a teaching assistant at Simon Fraser University and driving tour buses for our family-owned tour guiding business. He’d started this trip with almost twenty thousand dollars, and he knew the value of money. He sure as heck wasn’t going to spend it all in one place!
“Do you expect Kazakhstan will be better?” Mom asked.
“From what I’ve read online, Russia is the most expensive country on our itinerary, unless we end up going to Australia.”
“So if we can make it through here on an average budget of, say, twenty-eight dollars a day, I’d say we’re not doing too badly.”
“It’s still too much.”
We wanted nothing more than to indulge in a refreshing shower, but Ammon insisted there was no time for that. We’d wasted so much daylight looking for accommodation that we needed to leave right away if we wanted to do any sightseeing.
As we ambled out to walk even more, I couldn’t help but notice a significant absence that I’d wondered about since we arrived in Russia. There were lots of attractive young ladies, young men, and old babushkas, but I was starting to wonder where on earth all the old men were.
“You’re not going to find a Rhett Butler here,” Ammon said, referring to the dreamy character from my favourite novel, Gone with the Wind. I was constantly talking about Rhett, with whom I’d been having a serious imaginary romance. Perhaps I had developed an attraction to older men.
“Pft! Shut up! I would never try to replace him. Plus, he’s not that old. But seriously, where are all the old, old men – the grandpas?” I said, unsatisfied.
“You know what? ‘You can’t handle the truth.’ “ Ammon replied, quoting one of his favourite movies, A Few Good Men.
“Oh, c’mon Ammon, sure we can,” Bree said.
“Well, okay then,” he muttered, suddenly stopping to think. “How about if I show you instead?”
A wide walkway shaded by a beautiful birch grove led to the Great Patriotic War Memorial in Tomsk. Located on a raised platform that overlooked the Tom River, the monumental statues proudly held a bayoneted rifle vertically between them. I stood silently beneath the two stone soldiers towering over me as a solemn flame slithered at their feet like a serpent’s tongue, flickering and waving in memory of the dead.
“It’s called an eternal flame. It burns indefinitely to commemorate those who died from 1939 to 1945 in World War II. So many millions died in that war. It’s ridiculous,” Ammon stopped to let us consider. “So to answer your question, Where are all the old men? – they were all slaughtered, that’s where.” There was a definite edge to his voice that told us he was angry at the historical record. “Every able-bodied Russian male was drafted for the war. Not only did those generations of men get killed, but millions were unable to come home to father sons of their own. Russia alone suffered over twenty million deaths. That’s about fourteen percent of her entire population at that time, and Russians accounted for roughly a third of all the casualties suffered in the Second World War.”
“And I’m sure that’s not all military,” Mom added.
“No. Definitely not. There are no precise figures, but I think something crazy like ten million civilians died from bombings, starvation, freezing to death through harsh winters – the most horrible things you can imagine. They were cornered by both nature and governments, including their own. So when you whiners complain that you didn’t have a shower for a few days and have to walk a few miles, think about them,” he said, signalling toward a line of large plaques placed side by side. They were engraved with thousands of names of those who had fought and died. Standing before the rows and rows of these local names, I was dizzy, unable to comprehend those kinds of numbers.
“They have war memorials like this all over Russia, so be prepared. It’s unbelievab
le.” Ammon had been giving us background information and some basic history lessons the whole time we were in the country, but this brought everything he’d said into sharp focus. I don’t think I would really have believed it had I seen it any other way, and I definitely would not have felt the unsettling reality of my time at the monument.
“I’d been wondering why we were seeing so many hard babushkas. But you can’t really blame them for being that way, can you?” Mom looked thoughtful.
“What do you mean?” Bree asked.
“Well, imagine all the men go marching off to war – fathers, sons, brothers, uncles, lovers – while the women were left home alone,” Mom explained. “They wouldn’t have had their men around to do the tough labour on the farms and in the factories.”
“Yeah, I guess so…” I immersed myself in my imagination and tried to put myself in those other women’s shoes.
“They really lost everything. They were forced to play all the roles and become the backbones of the family and the society,” Mom continued.
“Exactly. It’s pretty insane, isn’t it?” Ammon said.
Russia had been pretty nice so far, nothing like Ammon had feared. Yet, there was a pervasive, somewhat sombre atmosphere in the air. I was beginning to feel like I had stumbled upon the reason behind it. Could it be the long-lasting impact of so much loss?
Our brother Skylar had enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps when he was just twenty years old. Now twenty-three, he was serving his first tour of duty in Iraq. The news of his deployment came the very same weekend Dad had left the family, so a tough time was made even tougher. Knowing Sky was out there fighting made me feel like I was helplessly watching a game of Russian roulette. It was too easy to imagine him as an open target, roasting beneath his heavy body armour in the Iraqi desert. We had absolutely no control over any of it.
“The Russians were severely ill-equipped, hardly able to provide food, shelter, clothing, or artillery for their men. Their strength was in large numbers, but it must have been absolutely hellish. They sent young teens out to the battlefields without weapons. Two soldiers shared a single rifle, the unarmed man trailing behind, at the ready to pick up the weapon of his fallen comrade. Can you imagine? At least nowadays our Canadian and American troops have enough supplies and equipment.”
As Ammon’s horror stories continued, I felt a heaviness in my chest that could almost be classified as guilt. How could I complain about anything when these men had marched to their deaths in the freezing winters, barefoot, with no shelter? Missing my friends and pets was nothing compared to losing family members to such a cruel war. My personal interpretation of suffering was insignificant compared to the unfathomable pain this land had suffered.
“So, do you think the statue is representing that? Two soldiers to one weapon?” I asked, looking up at them.
“I didn’t think of it that way,” Ammon said, “but maybe. There’s no information on the statues in my book, and all the signs are in Russian. To be perfectly honest, I don’t know what or who they represent. I guess they leave it open to your own interpretation.”
“Well, I can’t imagine the pain this block of stone represents.” Mom placed her hand on one. “Reading Sky’s name on a plaque would never fill the hole of his loss.” Her simple statement resonated with everyone. The thought of my own brother’s name etched into stone sent chills up my spine. There was a defining power behind her remark that really hit home. For all of us.
Sorcha
5
“Yep, this sure brings back memories,” Ammon said, turning around to face us just as the ticket window was slammed in his face. He slapped his small Russian phrasebook shut in frustration. Back to the drawing board, I thought, despairing over the hardship of this language barrier. But before we had time to consider a Plan B, Bree said, “Oh, look over there. Missionaries.”
“No way,” I said.
Mom smiled. “See? Just when we need help, it always shows up.”
Recognizing them by their distinctive white dress shirts and matching black backpacks, we took action. This was the second time we’d run into young Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints missionaries in Russia. The organization’s young men are typically assigned a mission and spend two years, most often in a foreign country, to learn the language and proselytize. They were probably American and would be a great help in translating.
Bree approached them with an outstretched hand. Reading their name tags attached to their right shirt pockets, she grinned. “Elder Timmons, Elder Jones. It’s so nice to meet you.”
The two twenty-year-old American lads looked as if they were seeing double as they shook our hands in formal greeting.
“Whoa, dang! A whole Canadian family. That’s out of this world,” Elder Timmons, the senior of the pair, said, shaking his head in disbelief after hearing our story. They couldn’t stop smiling as they looked us up and down. “This is really something. I haven’t heard English in a year and a half. This is crazy.” His familiar and much missed Californian accent was equally appreciated.
“I can’t believe you guys are here,” Bree said.
“Good thing, too, because it’s a bit of a nightmare with everything being sold out,” Ammon grumbled. “They keep shutting the window in my face, and it just feels like it’s impossible to get the heck out of here.”
“Yeah,” Elder Timmons laughed, “I remember when I first came and couldn’t speak a word of Russian. But they treat everyone like that. Try not to take it too personally.”
“Where are you guys trying to get to?” Elder Jones asked, pushing up his glasses.
“We want to go south as soon as we can, and head into Kazakhstan. I know there’s a direct train there, but they won’t help me at all.” With the elders’ assistance, we went back to the ticket window, and Ammon explained as they translated. While the woman searched for availability, the two young missionaries barely took time to breathe between questions.
“So, what are you guys doing here? Are you just on vacation? What made you choose Russia?”
“Well, sort of a vacation, but not really. We sold everything we had left back home and are on a one-year backpacking trip,” Mom answered.
“Really? Dang. You’re way braver than my mom. She’d never do something like that. She cried when we found out I was going all the way to Russia for my mission,” Elder Jones said. “What do you think of it here?”
Mom said, “I don’t know, we’ve heard some pretty scary stories, but so far everyone has been really nice.” Ammon gave her a doubtful look. “Okay, except for the window getting shut in our faces. But I’ve never felt unsafe, and people have been unbelievably friendly, for the most part.”
“So far, the only dangerous thing for us has been the verbal abuse of drunks on the streets. The old grandmas can be pretty aggressive too, especially with their canes.” Elder Timmons chuckled. I could definitely relate to seeing men drunk and swaying in the streets as they drank from paper bags. But why wouldn’t they drink a lot, when vodka was cheaper than bottled water here?
“Oh, and don’t forget about the man who swung at us with a hatchet that one time. Maybe our moms were right to cry.” They laughed to put a positive spin on what must have been a pretty nerve-wracking time.
“Seems that might be a common occurrence here,” Ammon said, referring again to a similar story he’d heard from a tourist who was chased down the street by a crazed, axe-wielding babushka the first time he’d visited Russia.
“You guys are headed out of Russia then?” Timmons, the more talkative of the pair, asked. “Have you got the rest of the route planned, or are you just going with the flow?”
“At this point, we planned the first six months based around the trekking season in Nepal. We’re just working our way down to Kazakhstan, then we’ll pop back into China from the west to reach Nepal in late September, early October, just before it gets busy on the trekking trails.”
“Wow. That sounds amazing. I’d love to do
that one day,” Timmons said.
“But it’s all still pretty vague, kind of like now.” Ammon indicated us standing there looking slightly lost, with all our baggage weighing us down in the heat. “We’re just kind of trying to wing it to the border. We want to get to Almaty. We never have anything pre-booked; we just kind of find our way as we go with a general direction in mind.”
“How long have you been out now then? Where did you start?”
“We started in Hong Kong after flying out of Seattle on May 5.”
“Yup. 05/05/05!” Mom added, always eager to share her interest in numerology. This specific numbering was special because the number five represents freedom, a value that was quite indicative of her new direction in life.
“It’s August 5 today. So you’ve been out exactly three months now. Do you think you’re going to last the full year? Like, would you say you’re getting tired of it yet? Or is it more like you never want to go back?”
“It’s all gone by so fast, I just can’t imagine being ready to stop after a year. I want to keep going for as long as the money lasts.” Mom smiled, oblivious to the fact that her revised timeline might not be welcome news to everyone concerned.
“That’s what I was just going to ask. How do you afford all this travel? Do you stop along the way to work?”
“No. Or not yet, at least,” Mom replied. “We’ve been travelling on a pretty tight budget.”
“A really tight budget,” I emphasized.
“Yeah, and so far, it’s cost a lot less than we thought it would,” Ammon began. “I’ve only spent eighteen hundred dollars so far. At this rate, I’ll be able to last a lot longer than a year. I don’t know about them, though,” he said, nudging us off. “They like to splurge on luxuries.”
Sihpromatum - Backpacks and Bra Straps Page 3
