Midnight in Siberia: A Train Journey into the Heart of Russia (22 page)

I am pointing out that, if Hillary Clinton wins the presidency in 2016, there’s the potential for a few familiar names to have occupied the White House over thirty-six years of American history.

“Neepravilno! [not right]” Andrei yells, laughing. Everyone else joins in.

But then I press Andrei on what really he dislikes about Western-style democracy.

“I don’t understand why in European countries, they have gone so quickly from being so religious, so hateful of gay marriage, to enshrining it in their laws.”

Andrei quickly backs up and says he personally has nothing against homosexuality: “It’s just that you destroy a society when all of a sudden you invent something new. Something gets imposed by the mass media. And a country’s people can lose their sense of purpose.”

I’m beginning to understand Andrei better—and I admit it’s disappointing me. I know Russians are averse to change. The anger and fear that Russians felt toward Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin for driving the country into economic paralysis was well reported. But somehow, challenging Andrei, a man who seems so close to appreciating democratic values, and hearing him recoil, hearing him express fear, underscores the complexity.

“Gorbachev and Yeltsin,” Andrei says, just as I’m thinking about them. “They destroyed our country.”

Now Viktor Gorodilov offers that well-known Russian signal that the serious conversation must end: alcohol. He pours shots of cognac. We end up drinking the afternoon away, laughing together in this hardscrabble Russian village. But I know Andrei has given me a lot to think about.

“David,” Viktor says, pouring the second round of shots. “Russians really are optimists. But there’s a proverb. It goes like this: ‘Think about bad things. The good things will come on their own.’”

Think about bad things. The good things will come on their own
.

What does this mean? I am in a room full of people who don’t like Putin. They see their country as corrupt, and without a fair system of justice. And yet their patience is astounding.
The good things will come on their own.

Father and son have a few more questions about America before the cognac sets in. “Twenty years ago,” Viktor says, “if I had told you that in twenty years, America would have a black president, would you have believed me?”

“I would have,” I tell him. Viktor’s point seems to be that positive change comes with time. The thought I’m left with is how many Americans had to fight for that change. They didn’t just wait.

We drink, and laugh, and drink some more for hours. There is nowhere in Russia I feel warmer than in this snowy village. Finally, in midafternoon, Sergei and I thank our host and say good-bye to Viktor. We step outside as Andrei spends a few minutes talking to his dad. The streets are so quiet—the kind of eerie silence that follows a big snowstorm, before people have come out to inspect the damage and shovel. I am standing in this village, thinking about how many villages just like this dot the hills around Ekaterinburg, and dot the Urals region, and dot this vast country. Hidden, struggling communities, each with its own set of challenges largely ignored by the government. Suddenly Andrei’s fight for justice seems smaller, less consequential. Sergei, looking down a street covered with snow and dirt, seems as contemplative—and buzzed—as I am. “If this government would just
work
. They should build the roads in this village. The government should operate well.”

A whistle shatters the silence, and a train flies by the village at high speed.

“Like the trains—they work,” Sergei says.

A young boy from the neighborhood walks up to us on the street, looking curious. We learn his name is Maxim. Sergei reaches into his pocket and takes out a keychain—a mini-Kalashnikov rifle—he bought in the museum gift shop. He hands it to Maxim.

“Eto Kalashnikov,” Sergei explains. Maxim shakes the gift around in his hands, then stares up at me. “Eto David,” Sergei says. “Iz Ameriki.” (This is David. He’s from America.)

Maxim’s eyes grow big. He smiles. And he reaches out and shakes my hand.

13
•
POLINA

T
HE DRIVE BACK
from Sagra to Ekaterinburg is quiet. I am in the backseat, behind Andrei, watching the rural landscape become more urban again. At each corner men and women, bundled up against the cold, wait for mud-covered buses to pull over—their tires splashing dirty snow in the direction of the bus stop—to pick them up. The crowd rushes onto a bus, the last passenger barely on board as the uncaring driver swiftly shuts the door and whisks his big vehicle back into traffic. There can be a rhythm to life on Russian streets that feels so devoid of emotion—people move as quickly as they can in the cold from one spot to the next, not smiling, not noticing other people, lost in their own thoughts.

Now the full-throated debate about the future of Russia back in Sagra is feeling almost intrusive, as if I was forcing these questions on people who don’t want or need to think about them, and just go on each day getting by. But Andrei Gorodilov engaged. He asked challenging questions of me. And he defended Russia against this notion that it is only a matter of time before a Western-style system is imposed here. I have just never seen such a patient people.

The good things will come on their own.

. . .

I
N THE 2013
debate over possible military action in Syria, President Obama made the case that the United States sometimes needs to engage, to help people elsewhere in the world—“That’s what makes America different. That’s what makes us exceptional.” Putin then wrote an op-ed in the
New York Times
, saying he closely read Obama’s comments and that he “would rather disagree.” In Putin’s view “It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional.” He added, “There are big countries and small countries, rich and poor, those with long democratic traditions and those still finding their way to democracy.” Putin finished by writing, “We must not forget that God created us equal.”

Putin is not someone I’m eager to take lectures from. But that exchange raised the very questions I was asking myself on the ride back from Sagra. Notably Putin suggested that Russia is finding its way to democracy. And no doubt he has benefited from using a “we’re not ready for democracy” argument to justify some harsh policies that threaten human rights. Throwing people in prison for being gay is despicable and immoral. I’m all for lecturing—and shaming—Russia when it comes to an issue like that. But I realize I had gone into that house in Sagra thinking that I knew the best model for Russia, falling into the trap many of us fell into twenty years ago.

“Do you guys have time to stop at my house and meet my wife?” Andrei asks from the driver’s seat.

“Of course,” I say.

We drive into what appears, on its face, to be a ramshackle neighborhood behind a shopping center. But then we pull into one house that stands apart from the rest—far more modern looking. Andrei walks us into his home, and here is everything that was lacking in Sagra—a sparkling kitchen with marble countertops, polished wooden floors, a bathroom not just with city water service but a state-of-the-art shower with a computerized display.

For Andrei business has clearly been good. His wife and young son come in from the snow, bundled up in winter coats. Andrei starts speaking about Sagra, and I can see in his wife’s eyes a look of, Are we still talking about
that
?

“You know, the people who suffered the most were my wife and kids,” he says, boiling water for tea and unwrapping a cake to go with it.

“It really was outrageous,” his wife says. “We were trying to lead a quiet life.”

Andrei and his wife were apart for the larger part of a year, as Andrei stayed with his father in Sagra for weeks at a time, working on the case. And their older son was expelled from the local police academy—which Andrei is certain was punishment for his confronting local officials.

It is striking how Andrei was pulled into this other world for a year. Here he was, with a gorgeous house, stable work, and a wife fulfilling her dream to open a business. Then, all of a sudden, he is yanked into the darker, more vigilante side of Russia, having to defend his father in Russia’s joke of a justice system. It’s all a reminder of how precarious life is for everyone in this country.

Andrei got a taste of democracy at work.
Publicity was our protection.
But he didn’t feel much incentive to do more with this case. He and his wife are just eager to get back to their routine, and not make more waves.

It’s not just that Russians are built to endure. They are also wise. Many see their odd version of democracy today as flawed and dangerous. But this purgatory is perhaps as safe as they can hope for.

“Wasn’t it Confucius who said a person shouldn’t be born into a time of change?” Andrei asks. I’m not familiar with the particular quote, but I’m all ears. “It’s the worst thing to be born into a time of change. We were children of perestroika. Born in one country, grew up in another, and now live in a third. And who knows what’s next?”

Andrei emphasized back in Sagra that Russians are not lazy. But they are tired. At least his generation is. And so are many in Russia’s younger generation, as Sergei and I were about to learn on our next stop to the south.

“Sergei,” I say, as both of us have pieces of cake in our hands. “We have a meteorite to chase.”

Feels odd just to say those words. After all, are we in some science-fiction movie? Role-playing at a
Star Trek
convention? No. In fact, while we were making our way across the country by train, a
meteorite
streaked across the Russian sky at low altitude, shattered windows, and scared the hell out of people in a large city, then plunked down in the middle of a lake. This just isn’t normal!

The thing landed near the city of Chelyabinsk—only a few hours to the south. How could Sergei and I pass up the chance to go?

“The train to Chelyabinsk takes hours—I think you should take a bus,” Andrei says. We heed his advice.

After saying good-bye to his family, Andrei drives us to the bus station in downtown Ekaterinburg. Evidently Russian traditions are not specific to one’s mode of transportation, because Andrei grabs my suitcase, rolls it over chunks of snow and ice, and escorts us into the bus terminal. (Now I’m feeling guilty for the times when I have pulled up to an airport terminal or train station and just let Rose out of the car, without going inside.) The bus terminal is pure chaos. There are indecipherable timetables hanging on the walls all over the vast room that echoes the sounds of travelers yelling at one another. As for the timetables, it’s not just the Russian making it hard on me. Sergei can’t figure out what any of them mean either. We eventually decode one and are reasonably confident there’s a bus to Kazakhstan at 9:00 p.m. that makes a midnight stop in Chelyabinsk. (Some twisted version of “Midnight Train to Georgia” is now playing in my head.) We buy tickets, and we each hug Andrei.

“It was great to see you—and thanks for all your honesty.”

“David, come back anytime.”

Andrei waves as he walks out to the parking lot, and Sergei and I find a spot to wait for our bus.

T
HIS BUS
makes third class on a Russian train seem downright luxurious. I swear, our driver looks just like the Moscow trolleybus driver who refused to let me pay. And he’s just as cruel. Sergei and I stand at the door to the bus and ask if we can put our luggage in the compartment underneath. He shakes his head no.

“Where do we put it?”

He motions inside the bus. So Sergei and I lug our roll-aboards in and place them in the vacant seats next to ours, which moments later become occupied. And so our bus to Chelyabinsk involves Sergei and me being pressed up against our suitcases, squeezed into a seat. The bus jostles back and forth, hits every imaginable bump, and smells on the inside distinctly like an outhouse. I can’t sleep a wink because my nightmare is missing our stop and being awakened by Kazakh immigration authorities asking me for a visa. (I once arrived at a small airport in Kazakhstan’s neighbor, Kyrgyzstan, thinking I did not need a visa but learning on arrival that I did. I was held for six hours in the transit zone, a small concrete area with no air-conditioning—it was ninety-seven degrees—no food, and facilities that amounted to a hole in the ground. A fellow passenger sharing my predicament offered me warm Kahlua. I politely declined. At hour five having eaten no food and found no water, I took him up on his offer. Hence my pangs of fear about accidentally arriving in Kazakhstan tonight visa-free).

Our bus bounces its way into Chelyabinsk, and on first impression the stereotype that this is the armpit of Russia is spot on. In near-darkness, looking from the bus in all directions, we see endless oceans of industry, hulking towers and monster machinery rising over lots full of old trucks and vehicles caught in the orange glow of spotlights.

This city of three million people is among the most polluted places in Russia, maybe the world. The city has long been home to major industry—iron and steel plants, and a huge tractor factory—and a large number of Soviet tanks used in World War II were produced here. And while foreigners could not visit firsthand to know for sure, there was evidently a major Soviet nuclear research center in the region outside the city where a deadly nuclear accident occurred in 1957. In other words, this is not the nicest place to live. Then again, being a native of Pittsburgh and familiar with all the jokes and stereotypes of living in a dirty place, I come to Chelyabinsk with an open mind.

My former NPR colleague and Russia veteran Anne Garrels followed the story of this industrial city in a series for our network. Anne reported, when she visited in 2008, that the city had closely followed the broader narrative of Russia.

In the 1990s, the economy of Russia fell apart. There was no demand for Chelyabinsk’s goods; they could not compete on the world market, and the decrepit factories all but shut down. The city was bankrupt. Civil society, the ability of people to take responsibility for themselves, was in its infancy. . . . I returned this fall to find out what had happened to this city and region, more than a decade after I was first there. The changes are staggering. Thanks to the global economic boom in the intervening years, demand for Chelyabinsk’s metals and raw materials saved the city. With new service industries, shops, restaurants, and everything that comes along with them, there is an emerging middle class. There is a profound psychological change. Residents credit former president, and now Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, with bringing stability and a renewed pride in being Russian.