Siberian silver birch
On the three-day leg of the train from Irkutsk to Moscow, our companions sharing the other two bunks of our compartment were a woman, her two teenage daughters, a cartload of luggage and a black cat. The mother (we never did catch her name though we had several friendly conversations) was a good looking and athletic woman, who dressed, bizarrely, in white frilly hot pants, with sheer tights underneath. As she vaulted up on to the top bunk Stephen wasn’t sure where to look. When she went out into the corridor, the young men in the carriage stopped and stared, could not believe their luck. She too got off at every stop, to walk the cat on a lead on the icy platforms, her full-length leather coat flashing open to reveal her splendid legs. She gradually encroached into the next compartment, with first her luggage, and then one of her daughters taking up the top bunk. In that compartment were Liz and Andrew, a delightful pair of English musicians with whom we spent many hours chatting and playing cards – especially a vicious game called President which we had learnt in Listvyanka.
The hours slipped by pleasantly, actually five extra hours as we caught up with Moscow time. Not for nothing is this called the best train in Russia. Everything was spick and span, and our provodnitsa, Irina, her initial steely demeanour transformed into smiles and a mild flirtation with Stephen, came by every morning and painstakingly vacced the compartment. There were little tensions, of course – with our fellow-travellers over the muzak, between Stephen and me as to who faced forward. But I was able, at last, to read War and Peace – a perfect book for the journey, both in length and setting. Andrew in the next compartment was reading Dostoevsky.
And the landscape was enchanting: snow, firs, birch, frozen rivers and little wooden houses, each with its plot of ground and greenhouse with glass removed for the winter. How could anyone say this journey was boring? Stephen and I took it turns to stand guard over our luggage as we left the train for these stops. On the whole, the stations were grey, tidy and characterless, with a few shops set back beyond some steps, little kiosks selling more or less identical items of chocolate, sweets and cigarettes, often a few independent sellers offering sausages or home-made dumplings. The air rang with the sound of clanging as the provodnitsas, smart in their identical long blue coats and grey fur hats, wielded their axes against the ice on the train’s wheels.
On Easter Sunday I felt a pang as I thought of my children going to my mother’s and eating the Russian Easter cake, paskhha, which I make every year, and which I would not have this time, even though I was in Russia, since their Easter came long after we were gone. On day number four, we were finally on Moscow time, our body clocks awry – more awake than asleep at night. My mattress slithered to the floor at the least movement, the train temperature went up and down, and was mostly far too hot; the lavatories, which were locked in stations, always seemed to be locked at that moment in the middle of the night when the bladder was at bursting point.
We did not stay long in Moscow. As a Russian friend said: “Moscow is not Russia, it is a capital city”, and we had friends to visit elsewhere. But we did stay with a Servas host and his family in one of those Soviet apartment blocks about which we had heard so much. Apart from us, there were four adults and two children in this two-bedroomed flat. All four adults were working, and still they were poor. This was a story we were to hear again and again, as employers do not – possibly are unable to – pay the wages. Our host, Mikhael, was a homeopath, his wife, Ina, a cosmetologist, his mother, Marietta, a teacher, and his father Anatol, a technician as well as, at 63, a marathon runner who had competed all over the world, making the connections from which he helped to set up Servas Russia. They were hospitable but, disconcertingly, they did not eat with us. They flitted in and out and we never sat down with more than one of them at a time. We had the feeling that all was not well with the family, and that they were preoccupied. It was the first time that we had felt like paying guests (though we were not paying) and we did not like it. We offered to take the family out to eat, but all we in the end were able to contribute were some groceries and a cake.
The shops and cafes in Russia are still hard to find, often with little evidence of their existence on the street. Even when there is a sign “Produkti” or “Café”, not being able to see beyond a firmly shut steel door makes one tentative about entering, and usually the service inside lives up to all the jokes. Food and other goods are now readily available, if you have the money, and queues have largely disappeared, but you can see how the queues formed, as in each small shop there are different counters for cheese, biscuits, sausage or light bulbs, forcing one to stand in line for each in turn.
There was a great deal of public drinking in Moscow. Many of the young people walk down the street, bottle of beer in hand – pushing a pram, hand in hand with a girlfriend, or a woman on her own, placing the empty bottle on the pavement. It was all horribly casual and habitual. But we were pleasantly struck by the Russian habit of simply flagging down a passing car in the street instead of calling a taxi. We did this with Russians and on our own, and in several towns found it a convenient way of getting about. Drivers are often keen to earn a bit of extra money if it does not take them too far out of their way. The destination and price is discussed, a deal is struck, and one is on one’s way. It can’t be such a dangerous country if climbing into a stranger’s car is so common. We could not imagine doing it in Britain.
We went to Moscow Quaker Meeting, held in a suburb, on the stage of a community hall. It’s a small but growing Meeting with some five members and a number of attenders. Several of them are well acquainted with other European Meetings, and one, indeed, is English, a woman who spends much of her time working with Chechen refugees in Ingushetiya. She and her colleagues do not now actually go into Chechnya since two volunteers, working partly under Quaker auspices, were kidnapped and held to ransom a year or so ago. Moscow Quakers are deeply involved in several projects in different parts of Russia. Under the auspices of Friends House Moscow, independent of Moscow Meeting, and in fact a British charity, they run Alternatives to Violence projects, and reconciliation, mediation and conflict prevention and resolution in many parts of the country. They conduct training in human rights, and give assistance to refugees and forced migrants, mainly from Chechnya. In many of these projects they are supported by British Quakers.
It was Stephen’s first time in Moscow, and we did a little sightseeing – marvelling at the beauty of St Basil’s, and of the world-famous icons in the Tretyakov Gallery. At the Pushkin Gallery, I was surprised to find, for the first time, that the Impressionists seemed strangely old-fashioned and “pretty”. I found myself drawn to the drama and glorious colour of the Gauguins and Matisse: vivid reminders of the colours of our journey, in the South Seas, in India and in the Far East.
I first met Sasha and his mother Larissa about seven years ago, at Taizé, the ecumenical monastery in south-east France that attracts people from all over the world. I had not found Friends at that time, was still seeking to fill the need that had unexpectedly opened up in me. We became good friends, and Sasha and I have corresponded ever since.
The family lives in Kolumna, a town a couple of hours’ train journey from Moscow. Expecting a dreary Soviet town, we found a pearl: churches of all shapes and colours, ancient city walls; a city founded in 1170, forty years after Moscow, but because of a military installation it was closed to foreigners until ten years ago. Larissa lives in a flat in an old wooden building, and Sasha and his wife, Inge, have a flat across the road, which, astonishingly, they handed over to us for the duration of our stay.
When Sasha came to us, I’m afraid he had to sleep on the floor. He had visited London a few years before, and we heard the terrible story of which his letters had given no indication – he didn’t dare commit such things to paper. He had duly qualified as an English teacher, then was summoned by the KGB. They wanted him to work for them, and said that all his male classmates had agreed to do so. Sasha refused: it was aga
inst all his convictions and his strong Orthodox faith. They said that if he did not do so, they would ensure that he did not get a job. And so it proved. For many years Sasha was obliged to work unofficially, mostly as a window cleaner. He had married a Latvian woman, Inge, but at that time was only allowed to see her for three months in the year – the police would not sign the papers to allow him to live there or for her to become resident in Russia. He was desperate to move abroad – anywhere – but having signed a piece of paper when he came to England saying he would not try to stay, he honoured his commitment. Despite his poverty, he came with armsful of presents – chocolates, traditional Russian bark pictures and papier mache lacquer bowls.
It was wonderful to see them again, and finally to meet Inge, a very bouncy, feminine and highly intelligent young woman with red cheeks, like a doll. Events had moved on. Although not officially resident in Russia, Inge now lives with Sasha, retaining her Latvian passport and a considerably freer situation than her husband, who finds it hard to get a visa to travel anywhere, though the whole family does manage to go to Taizé every year. Sasha had filled out and grown a moustache, Larissa was the same as ever though I had not recognised her when we bumped into her on the train.
We had heard from his letters that Sasha had managed to get a job, as a translator in a local factory; his mother had two jobs as a teacher and translator. Still they could not make ends meet – very few people in Russia get paid their whole salary; often only ten per cent. Anyone with a little land grows vegetables to keep body and soul together. Everyone in this country seems to grow, pick and pickle their own. Even Muscovites pick the wonderful mushrooms (griby) that we had in soup, and Larissa was growing peppers and aubergines on her window sill, and other vegetables outside. After my previous visit I had sent them seeds from England.
Despite their better circumstances, Sasha remained, perhaps not surprisingly, pessimistic about the future of Russia. “What can you expect with a president who used to be head of the KGB?” Pessimism is of course endemic in the Russian character, and reflected in their literature. The hopelessness that we encountered was pervasive. Elya in Siberia had felt it would take fifty years for Russia to “catch up” and was sure local elections were rigged, though she had some faith in national ones. Sasha had never voted, feeling that only a drop in voting figures would make an impact on an otherwise irredeemable situation. Only Mikhail had felt positive about the current administration.
But, unlike most that we met, Inge was able to make good use of her original psychology qualification by working as a Neuro-Linguistic Programming practitioner in Moscow three days a week, though she had to travel two and a half hours each way by bus. Larissa was due to get her pension in two years’ time, at the age of 55, but she said she would not retire. No one, she said, stops work in Russia until they die. Her mother, who worked for 57 years, is living proof of that stress. At 78, she lies in her bed in Larissa’s flat with a heart condition, afraid to move. Sasha is out of a job temporarily, and there is no unemployment benefit.
The flat was, it appeared, state-owned and thus rent-controlled at a level common throughout the country, depending only on the amount of space. In their case it was set at R200 a month. Larissa was living in the house her mother had been able to buy, ten years before, after perestroika. We heard awful tales of old people who are promised care on condition their carers inherit their property, then their “carers” leave them to die. Sasha said there had been an example in the flat below – horrible to contemplate as we watched neighbours come and go.
Also staying with the family were two builders and decorators from Uzbekistan, working locally and sending money home to their wives. In return for their accommodation the men sometimes did a bit of work for their hosts, but it was basically just as a kindness that they were allowed to stay. We only had one conversation with them – they kept themselves to themselves, and ate separately. Indeed, their cuisine was quite different from that in Russia.
The renaissance of religion in Russia has of course been underway for some time. Faith had not disappeared but just gone underground. When I had visited Moscow a few years before, it seemed that every church was being renovated: an enormous amount of time and money was flowing into the restoration of these lovely buildings. But on my previous visit too I had heard of how much money (estimated cost US $250 million) people were being expected to donate to rebuild the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow, with domes again of pure gold. On this visit to Moscow I had unwittingly been taken to see the finished product – a repro-style monstrosity of very visible expense. The question of poor people giving to the church is as old as the church itself, however, and the principal point was the restoration of choice and freedom to worship, in which I delighted.
Our time in Kolumna was steeped in visits to local churches, glimpses of services in different buildings, congregations mainly of older women but with smatterings of men and younger people. Sometimes there was some singing, just a few lovely voices in harmony. On one walk round the town in a biting wind, in a borrowed coat, I went into a church in a monastery, and heard singing of tear-inducing beauty and precision – just two women’s voices and one man’s: perfect. Outside the glorious early evening sun and shadows greeted us.
I had been reading recently in Colin Thubron’s In Siberia of Old Believers, a fascinating sect that had been hounded as heretics and, on hearing that there was an Old Believers’ church in the town, we asked Sasha to take us. There was some doubt as to whether we would be allowed in – it is rather an exclusive sect – but in the event we were let in to stand at the back of the few worshippers in their headscarves and boots. Some of their beliefs are quite similar to those of Quakers, and the glimpse we had of their church showed it to be much simpler and barer than the usual ornate Orthodox churches with their wealth of gilded icons.
A deeper connection came from a visit to a fourteenth-century monastery, in process of restoration, some miles out of town. We were shown round by a joyous bearded young monk who expressed his assumptions about the divide between the cloistered and the worldly life. I expressed the belief that it is possible to obtain interior peace and joy while living in the world.
Because Sasha and his family are religious, we saw a Russia quite different from what atheist Elya had shown us. She said that, brought up as a Pioneer, she could only be an atheist, but Sasha, who had been forced to be a Pioneer, is deeply religious. We heard that he had been a rebellious Pioneer, and, foreshadowing his adult refusal to join the KGB, he had been the only child to have refused to go on to the next stage towards membership of the Communist Party. He told them: “I have been such a bad Pioneer, I think it would be harmful to the organisation if I were to join.” Devout, pessimistic, but strong-minded, even at that age.
Chapter 15
Spring
The beauty of the world… is a relationship of the world to our sensibility… The love of this beauty proceeds from God dwelling in our souls and goes out to God present in the universe. It… is like a sacrament. Beauty is eternity here below.
Simone Weil
We came home gradually. As we travelled confusedly through the five time zones of the Trans-Siberian Express, we were moving ever closer, to Europe and to England. Already in Siberia, on the shores of the deeply frozen Lake Baikal, we had noticed a difference in gesture, ways of talking that made us realise we were soon to be out of Asia. We didn’t cross the boundary between Asia and Europe till a point in the Ural mountains some 3,500 kilometres further west, but we felt the intimations.
It was in St Petersburg, though, that we were forcibly hit by Europe and by spring.
St Petersburg, jewel of European civilisation, and my mother’s birthplace. I had wanted to take her there for her eightieth birthday, but she would not go. Having left in 1920 with her mother and brother on the back of a hay cart, leaving her father for dead (he had in fact been imprisoned by the Bolsheviks and caught up with them later in Latvia), she had no wish to retu
rn.
“I was so glad to leave,” she said, “I don’t want to go back.”
She had not been able to tell me where they had lived, except that it was close to the main street, the Nevsky Prospect. But she remembered riding on a horse-drawn sleigh as a small child, in the snow. A horse had stumbled and had been whipped. She had been upset: when she fell, she was cuddled.
I phoned her from St Petersburg, as I had from every country we had visited.
“Where are you?” she asked.
“I’m in St Petersburg.”
Intake of breath. “Oh … and is it lovely?”
“Yes, Mum, it is lovely.”
And so it was. Grand and gracious and beautifully proportioned. The long eighteenth-century buildings along the River Neva like a Canaletto painted in pastels. The Winter Palace in particular, a glory in pale green and gold; the ethnological museum turquoise and gold with a look of a wooden building – the first museum in the country. The Neva itself, flowing fast through the centre of the city, was thickened by little ice floes speeding downstream, reminders of a fierce winter just past.
Because we had hit spring. It was our first spring for two years (we had left before it had got underway in the UK) and we had forgotten how lovely it is. We had been travelling through extreme climates: the humid heat of the Southern States of the USA in August and Singapore; the severe cold of Mongolia, even the temperate heat of central India in winter. But nothing was like a European spring, with everything sparkling in the brilliant blue skies that we had been experiencing almost continuously since Beijing, but they now had a gentle warmth that melted the ice from the canals.
And I experienced Europe as if for the first time, and realised how much we take for granted. The richness of the culture; a city steeped in history – even if much of the history has been oppressive.
Call of the Bell Bird Page 18
