Midnight in Siberia: A Train Journey into the Heart of Russia

by David Greene

  Angelina finishes her tea, and we say good-bye.

  As she puts on her coat, a young man walks swiftly into the office, hangs his coat on the coatrack, and positions himself at his desk.

  “I’m Robert,” he announces to us across the room.

  “Ah, David,” Sergei says quietly. “This is the gentleman we are supposed to talk to.”

  He’s Memorial’s local director.

  We walk over to Robert’s desk.

  “Please. Please sit,” he says.

  I ask Robert about the situation for Memorial since Putin returned to the presidency in 2012. He removes a letter from the top of a pile on his desk and holds it in front of me.

  “You see this? We received this today from a prosecutor informing us of a ‘checkup.’ They are looking for evidence of extremism. So I have to fill this out, confirming that I am authorized to lead this group, how we spend money, and how we use foreign grants.”

  Indeed, Putin angered the United States and other western governments by threatening to scrutinize human rights organizations, forcing them to register as “foreign agents.” The move was seen as a not-so-subtle effort by Putin to intimidate the groups and begin the process of shutting them down. In March 2013, the government raided some of Memorial’s offices as well as the offices of other rights organizations. Pavel Chikov, who leads Agora, an umbrella group for human rights organizations, told my NPR colleague, Corey Flintoff, that groups were deeply worried about bowing to Putin’s demand and registering as “agents” because, as he put it, “this means that we are spies of foreign government.”

  Robert tells me he received the threatening letter because he gets charitable contributions from the United States.

  “The situation in our country is constantly worsening,” Robert says. “I have this game. Whenever I hear about some new initiative like this”—he shakes the letter—“I hold it in one hand. Then I take a copy of the Russian constitution in the other. And I read that. And I’m surprised to learn about the country I’m supposed to live in.”

  The thirty-first of any month is an important one for democracy activists in Russia. Often people hold unsanctioned antigovernment protests. Often they get arrested. It is a symbolic display, because article 31 of the Russian constitution guarantees citizens’ rights to public assembly.

  “What we have,” Robert tells us, “is not democracy. It is imitative democracy. We have all the external signs. We have elections. We have a parliament. We have legislation. All the accessories of democracy. But anyone with common sense here knows we live in an authoritarian state. Putin has learned that if he offers the accessories of democracy, his regime can be very hard to accuse. The regime does one thing very well: It doesn’t listen. So there can be free speech, channels of communication. But normally in a democracy, those voices affect decision making. In this country that doesn’t happen.”

  “But why do the people allow this to go on?”

  “It’s in the genes, David. Do you deal with power? Or do you live in a parallel world? Two-thirds of our society was shaped in Soviet times. And young people? There are young people who agree with Stalin’s ideology. So for them it’s not fear driving them, but something else.”

  Two people have walked into the office, waiting to sit down with Robert. The last thing I want to do is take his time away from people who truly need it.

  “Just another question or two, Robert?”

  “Sure.”

  “Where do things go from here?”

  “I see several options. The first—there’s a slow process where people, very slowly, develop a better understanding of the country they want to live in, what kind of power they want. I am confident this can happen, if there’s no war or catastrophe.”

  “And other options?”

  “Option two is the one many experts predict: confrontation. Different groups competing for the best way to overcome their disappointment. Not necessarily with guns. But a revolution. The thing is, any revolution leads to tragedy. Ties are broken. One set of rules is gone. Another set of rules is established.”

  Robert is getting eager now to attend to his other guests. As we stand up, I ask him if he feels that better days may be coming.

  “I used to answer that question by saying I would not be working for this organization if I were not an optimist. I would like to believe those words. In truth, what makes me optimistic is my wife, my daughter, and knowing they have a bright future.”

  “Do you have trouble keeping that faith?”

  “We’ll manage that.”

  With that we shake hands, and Robert is already offering his next guest tea and a seat. Sergei and I quietly gather our things and walk outside onto the street to look for a taxi.

  Talking to Robert makes me even more eager to return to Sagra, and to reconnect with Andrei. He and his family have tested democracy in Russia, whatever it is. And I wonder if he feels that he has overcome the barrier Robert mentioned between people and power—the feeling that as a citizen you can’t interact with power in this country. It just exists and does its thing. And you do yours.

  IT’S THE MIDDLE of the afternoon, and the sun is setting in Perm as Sergei and I arrive back at the train station—dragging all our luggage, since we didn’t want to leave it in the storage room. Oddly enough there are no “friends” in sight. Maybe they have finally decided that an American writer riding the rails is no real threat.

  Sergei and I are ravenous. We find a food stand outside the train station. I wait with our suitcases. The weather has turned bitterly cold—I desperately dig out my gloves, as my hands are already feeling numb. Sergei buys four beers, a bag of piroshki (the same pastries I tried to buy on the train—this time they have their filling), and chechel (a stringy, salty cheese from the former Soviet republic of Georgia). We board our train, chow down, and relax, taking in the scene out the window.

  Over four hours our train moves into the famous but less-than-impressive Ural Mountains. Even with the benefit of daylight, they don’t look like much—foothills, really, making you expect the giant peaks to arrive, but they never do. Symbolically, though, the Urals are an important marker. They divide Europe and Asia and mark the official beginning of Siberia. The borders of Siberia differ depending on who you ask—the official Russian region extends from the Urals to west of Lake Baikal, not even close to the Pacific Ocean. But most geographers and historians consider Siberia to be all of Russia east of the Urals—all the way to the Pacific, all the way to North Korea to the southeast and Alaska to the northeast. Russia as a country is already by far the world’s biggest geographically. Siberia alone is 5.1 million square miles—meaning somewhere close to 1.5 United States of America (yes, including Alaska) could fit inside Siberia.

  Aside from most of the place being very empty and very cold, it is hard to generalize about it. In fact, it’s not always even cold. Parts of Siberia get horribly warm and bug infested during the summer months, making many people dream of the snow and twenty-four hours of darkness in the winter. The topography is different in different places. So are the cultures. There are scores of different ethnic pockets and native languages. The Siberia that borders North Korea is nothing like the Siberia that Sarah Palin marvels at, which is nothing like the Siberia that Sergei and I will see when we head farther east from here.

  12 • ANDREI

  WE ARRIVE in the Urals city of Ekaterinburg at 10:00 p.m. Andrei Gorodilov, who lives with his wife and son in the city (a half hour from his father in Sagra), is waiting for us in the parking lot of the train station.

  “David, Sergei, zdravstvuyte!”

  “Andrei, privet. Rosa tozhe skazala privet [Andrei, hi. And Rose also says hi].”

  “David, look,” Andrei says in his bit of English. He climbs into the driver’s seat of his SUV, reaches into the console to the right and pulls out a fading Aeroflot boarding pass—with Rose’s e-mail address scribbled on it: “I still have!”

  I am really touched. “Andrei, she wish
es she could be here.”

  “I will be glad to see her.”

  But that wasn’t all.

  “Vodka.” He reaches into the glove compartment, and there is the third bottle of vodka I left to Andrei and his family: “I don’t drink!”

  I am really happy our first visit to Sagra was as meaningful to him as it was to me.

  The three of us go to a sushi restaurant near the train station, attached to a hotel where we get two rooms for the night. Sergei, Andrei, and I are squeezed into a booth ringed by fake bamboo. Andrei is medium height, with a round face, brown hair, and bright blue eyes. He is sipping tea—he has already had dinner—as Sergei and I dive into bowls of soup.

  We exchange news about our wives. Andrei tells me that his wife is starting her own business, selling replacement parts for excavation equipment. “I bought a property at a good price during the economic crisis,” Andrei says. “But you know how long it took me to get the permits to make it a business?” He snaps his hands into motion, as if flinging documents, one after another. But now it looks as if the business will be in good shape to open. After the difficult legal battle over Sagra, things are going better for Andrei. His wife may get her business open—and his businesses are doing well. He imports excavation equipment from abroad, mostly South Korea, and he owns a store selling custom-made fur hats.

  I am even more struck by the connection between us. Rose, like Andrei’s wife, has dreams of opening a business, and after months of legal wrangling, she’s close to opening a restaurant in Washington, D.C. What’s more, like me, Andrei travels abroad a lot—we both realize that one of our favorite cities in the world is Busan, a South Korean port where he moves excavation equipment and I covered an international summit attended by former president George W. Bush.

  “There really are special moments in life,” Andrei says, looking at me and Sergei. “When you came last time, we spent time together, all of us, and I believe we grew wiser.”

  It’s getting late, and we have an early start to get to Sagra in the morning. We pay the bill, and Andrei walks us to the lobby of the hotel. “Do zavtra [until tomorrow],” I say, before catching myself and noticing it’s already 12:30 a.m. “Do sevodnya [until today].”

  Andrei walks out into the cold to his car, and Sergei and I take the elevator up to our rooms for a few hours of sleep.

  At 10:00 a.m. sharp Andrei is in the lobby, and we jump into his SUV for the half-hour drive to the village. It takes a while to get out of Ekaterinburg, a city of more than a million people that reminds me of Chicago—a population and cultural hub, with a more friendly vibe, not as intense or high-strung as New York, or in this case, Moscow.

  I ask Andrei if we can stop at a grocery store to pick up some things to bring to his father. We grab sausage, pickles, and a bottle of cognac. I pay, Andrei grabs the bags from the cashier, and, smiling, hands me the bottle of cognac to carry. I get his message: Let’s see some redemption. I carry it—carefully and successfully—to the car.

  As we get closer to Sagra, the roads get narrower and less well traveled. We are now on the road where, in 2011, that violent gang was walking toward the village, with unknown intentions.

  The story of what happened next has been widely reported in Russia, and has been a matter of some debate. Some observers wondered whether the villagers, including Andrei’s family, went after the group of men because they were ethnically Azeri. People from Azerbaijan do face discrimination in Russia. Andrei, his family, and other people in the village have always said they were offended by charges of racism and maintained that this gang had been selling drugs in the community for a long period of time. And whether it was part of a turf battle or an effort to intimidate, the gang made its way up this road one evening. Neighbors saw them advancing, alerted people in Sagra, and a resident called the police. The police never came. And when the gang members approached the outskirts of the village, the residents were waiting, with pitchforks and hunting rifles. One gang member died in the melee that ensued.

  As with so many cases in Russia’s justice system, the police made an accusation—here blaming the villagers—and it appeared it would be an open and shut case. Viktor Gorodilov, Andrei’s father, and his fellow villagers would serve time. Andrei took time off from work, found a lawyer, and began a public campaign to learn the truth and expose the police who, the villagers believed, were trying to cover up their own negligence in letting this gang develop so much power. The fight succeeded, and Viktor and other villagers are now off the hook.

  Andrei’s SUV is bumping up and down over mounds of snow as we make our way into Sagra, where the prevailing characteristic is deep snow. It covers the patchwork of unpaved streets, where dirt has been churned up by insufficient plowing. It blankets the rooftops of rickety wooden homes. Deep snow has all but swallowed the tarps that cover piles of firewood, perhaps the only resource here that’s easy to come by, as this is a lumber town. Geese are wandering by, honking away. Smoke is rising out of chimneys. We pull up to a familiar house where we all met last time, the home of another Andrei, a friend and neighbor of the Gorodilovs.

  Inside, the owner, Andrei, and Viktor Gorodilov welcome us back with bear hugs. Viktor, Andrei’s father, looks like a lumberjack—a reddish-gray beard, balding, wearing a red flannel shirt and camouflage pants. The house is one level, all activity pretty much limited to a single room. There is a mattress—neatly made with a sheet and red blanket—on the floor in one corner, a pool table, an exercise machine in another corner, a guitar hanging on the wall, and a couch and table in front of a flat-screen television. The kitchen is noticeably lacking a sink. That’s because water comes from a well into one place—the small adjacent room, where there is a toilet, shower, and sink to wash yourself as well as the dishes. Andrei’s (the occupant) wife is a striking woman who is a spitting image of Angelina Jolie. I imagine her—like so many Russian women of modest means—putting on makeup and sprucing up in a cramped room like this. I see her makeup laid out in the same room as dirty dishes. All this is a window into the haphazardness of Russian life. Many villages are like this—in surprising stages of development. The streets are not paved. Homes have one room with well water. But then there is also a flat-screen television, and everyone owns mobile phones. The house is heated by burning wood, and cooking is done using an orange canister of gas that people have to replace every few months.

  “Russia extracts a great amount of gas,” Viktor notes wryly. His country is among the world’s top energy producers. “And yet somehow they can’t bring gas service to our village.”

  In so many Russian towns and villages I have visited, I had to forget all assumptions about democracy. For years people have lived under this set of unspoken rules—life will be hard, the government will provide few services, people in power might be corrupt but there’s nothing you can do about it. Today a few people seem to be realizing, in small ways, that they can have a voice.

  “Thank you, son,” Viktor says, as Andrei passes the tray of pickles and meat over to him. “David, like this,” Viktor says, putting a chunk of salo and a pickle slice on some brown bread. Salo is a Russian delicacy, and not a healthy one—it’s basically cured pig lard. It’s mushy, salty, and to many people, delicious. I did learn to appreciate it, so I happily join Viktor.

  “Andrei, Viktor, I wonder if we can reflect a bit more on what happened here in Sagra,” I say, as we all chew—and chew and chew—our chunks of salo.

  “The police,” says Andrei, in midbite. “They tried to suggest this conflict was just a part of everyday life in Russia.”

  And that is sadly believable. Even just living in Russia for a few years, I adjusted to the lawlessness. It was not uncommon to see two men punching each other on a street corner, settling some dispute, then moving on.

  “The truth?” Andrei says. “The police didn’t want to admit there was organized crime here. They didn’t want to admit there was major gang activity. That would have opened them up to charges of negligen
ce and criticism. In Russia that’s all anyone worries about—blame.”

  He takes a few chews of salo and pickle and gets more animated.

  “In our country, sure, a person is equal to another person. But there are people who are more equal. They have connections to another resource—the police, or government officials. And they feel superior. The law is not one and the same for everyone. And that is not democracy.”

  He chooses his next words carefully. Sergei smiles as he translates them.

  “In this case publicity was our protection.”

  “Okay Andrei, publicity is your protection. A belief that the truth can expose a corrupt power. Aren’t those democratic values?”

  “Yes,” Andrei says, “and we have to protect them. When I studied at university, I was taught that the police, the authorities, should fulfill their duties for the state. Their only motivation should be, ‘What can I do for the people?’ But the state machine that we have works in favor of itself. I remember the lectures. They are supposed to work for the people.”

  “So a government for the people—”

  Andrei cuts me off. He senses where I’m going. “But our Russian mentality has to be protected, too.”