Midnight in Siberia: A Train Journey into the Heart of Russia (25 page)

Deep in these thoughts, I suddenly feel a burst of pressure from the chilly window that my head is resting on and a loud hacking sound as another train flies by in the other direction. Within seconds the train is gone and peace is restored.

“I am driving across the plain of Siberia,” Anton Chekhov wrote during a trip—by carriage—in May 1890:

I have been transformed from head to foot into a great martyr. This morning, a keen cold wind began blowing, and it began drizzling with the most detestable rain. I must observe that there is no spring yet in Siberia. The earth is brown, the trees are bare, and there are white patches of snow wherever one looks; I wear my fur coat and felt overboots day and night. . . . Well, the wind has been blowing since early morning . . . heavy, leaden clouds, dull brown earth, mud, rain, wind . . . brrrrr.

Siberia, this vast and forbidding geographic expanse, has been the fascination of Russian writers, the torture chamber for Russian exiles, the gold mine for Russian energy companies, and the savior for Russia at large. Paradoxically, cold and forbidding lands have
helped
this country survive. As Fiona Hill and Clifford Gaddy write in their book
The Siberian Curse
, Germany lost its first major battle in World War II because thousands of its men were starving and freezing. Napoleon in 1812 fled Moscow, then faced an impenetrable enemy: the Russian winter:

Winter and snow are particularly Russian phenomena, captured in poems and novels and in the broadly-recognized images on lacquer boxes—of fur-clad figures bundled against the elements, troikas or sleighs drawn by three horses, expansive stretches of birch or pine forest laden with snow, and squat wooden peasant huts around a stove to beat back the elements. ‘Russia’ conjures up associations with Siberia, permafrost, and vodka to warm the flesh and boost the spirits on long winter nights. Winter (
Zima
) is even a place in Siberia, a small town and stopping point along the Trans-Siberian Railway from Moscow to Vladivostok.

But myth and poetry are one thing. Reality is another. And Hill and Gaddy argue that the Soviet Union’s obsession with moving people to Siberia, building up cities and industrializing in harsh and isolated places, is at the core of Russia’s economic problems today: “If Russia is to be governable and economically viable, it needs to ‘shrink’ itself. Not by divesting territory but by organizing its economy differently. The objective is to reduce distance and create new connections. People will need to migrate westward on a large scale, and large cities in the coldest and most remote regions will have to downsize.”

Moscow seems so very far away as we push eastward. The feeling of disconnect grows, making it seem unsurprising that having people scattered in such remote places is a drag on a nation’s economy. Politically the disconnect works in different ways. Many people in Siberia feel little if any relationship to Moscow and the Kremlin, and throughout history, people have felt relatively more free to think for themselves. And yet, distance is also an impediment for any serious opposition movement to grow and thrive.

Sergei and I are still in third class. On this train we both have top berths. I am still horizontal, quietly resting my head against the window. Sergei is up. He has climbed down and made tea. He is sitting on the lower berth. The man there is still sleeping but has shifted his legs to give Sergei a corner to sit on and enjoy his tea. Sergei has his hand on the spoon in his glass so it doesn’t rattle. He is worried it might wake me up.

I
OFTEN WONDER
how many gallons of tea are consumed daily on a Russian train. Every car has a big cauldron of water, in Russian, a
titan
. It’s like a modern-day samovar, a traditional device in Russia—usually ornately made of brass—that heats water with wood chips and churns out damn good tea. The samovar on the train runs on electricity—as does the train itself. Which raises the question: What is all the coal for? At many stops the
provodniks
shovel coal into a storage cabinet located on each train car. As I’ve learned, coal heats the train. And it makes sense. Look outside. The landscape is rugged, empty, and cold—at times twenty or thirty degrees below zero Fahrenheit. If a train breaks down and the electricity goes out in a place this remote, passengers could freeze to death. Except that the heaters would keep working—on coal. But I’ve noticed a downside: The heating in train cars is not easily controlled. To keep things remotely close to a certain temperature,
provodniks
will add more or less coal to the heating system. I have a guess this is why the trains get oppressively hot overnight—hot as in you rip off your sheets and begin using them to wipe sweat off your face. I imagine the
provodnik
getting ready for bed herself, not wanting to disturb herself overnight by having to add more coal. So she loads as much as possible before going to bed. Yes, she probably thinks, that will take care of things.

Sergei and I have been traveling for about two weeks now.

Passengers have gotten on and off, and Sergei and I are now joined by a pleasant, older couple, Tatiana and Oleg. They are two of the thinnest people I’ve ever met—but bursting with personality. He has wavy gray hair, she has short hair—dyed bright red.

“You are David? From America?” Tatiana says, trying her limited English.

“Yes.”

“It is funny. I ride the train in 1972. And there was an American David with me. A student. Harvard. He was coming from Japan. With his visa he had to stay on train the whole time crossing Soviet Union. We talked about America, about Soviet Union.”

“This is crazy, but I went to Harvard.”

Tatiana laughs. “This is crazy! You know he gave me gift for Oleg. Two packs of cigarettes. Marlboro.”

What a reminder about how this train, and this famous train route, have endured for so long. It has been the spine of this country, even as the body around it transformed and evolved. The train has seen a lot.

“Where are you going?” Tatiana asks.

“Ishim.”

I wish I could say that Sergei and I had a good reason for planning a stop there. In truth I had told Sergei we had seen enough big cities—I wanted to choose one of the smaller Trans-Siberian stops, a town where the train pulls in, dumps a few passengers, and continues on its way within minutes. The challenge if you’re disembarking is to get your stuff and yourself off in time, before the train is on its way again.

“We are going to Ishim too!”

“Really? We thought this would be a good place to stop.”

“I am going to give you a phone number for a friend of ours who works at a museum—her name is Tatiana,” this Tatiana says. Sergei takes down the number, and we tell her we’re grateful.

“Tatiana, I hope in another forty years you meet another David from Harvard.”

“Yes!”

The weather has taken a turn as we pull into Ishim. The wind is whipping around in all directions and heavy snow is falling. Tatiana, Oleg, Sergei, and I climb down the metal stairs into this mess, feeling as if we are skydivers who just stepped out of a plane into a powerful jet stream. “Good-bye!” I yell, waving to the lovely couple as they march off into the meteorological abyss.

Sergei and I find a rusty red car with a taxi light taped on top and a man sitting inside. We open the door and dive in. The driver revs his engine, spins his tires a bit, and we’re off, at high speed. The driver does not seem to be respecting the weather conditions. In fact, everywhere I look, people seem unfazed by this blizzard. At home, in Washington or New York—even in winter-proof cities like Boston and Chicago—I swear conditions like this would have schools closed, drivers warned to stay off the roads, power down, and people in an all-out panic about whether they bought enough bread, milk, and toilet paper. There are probably three feet on the ground already in Ishim and more snow is piling up.

Totally routine.

Sergei turns back to me from the front passenger seat.

“David, what’s the name of the hotel you found?”

I look down at my notepad. “Hotel Tranquility.”

16
•
NADEZHDA

W
E DRIVE
perhaps fifteen minutes out from the center of Ishim—which didn’t look like much of a center, as it was—and suddenly pull off the two-lane road onto a bumpy path. Our driver is swerving around what appear to be small factory buildings and abandoned trailers, then pulls to a stop in front of what resembles a farmhouse. It’s a small building with an A-frame roof.

“David, we’re here.”

“Okay, Sergei.”

We pay the driver and pull our luggage along; the roll-aboards are cutting a path through deep snow.

A pleasant young woman inside the Hotel Tranquility tells us she has a room for two people, for eight hundred rubles (twenty-seven dollars). She shows us the shared bathroom and shower in the hallway, then brings us to the room—it is about the size of a second-class train cabin, with two single beds within spitting distance of each other and a nightstand in the middle, with a vase of flowers. All I can think is, what an upgrade from our sleeping quarters last night! I settle in, while Sergei handles the always-elaborate check-in process. I hear his boots clunking along the empty hallway returning to our room.

“David, we have a problem.”

“What’s up?”

“I asked Oksana to register you as a foreigner with the local immigration authorities. She said she has no idea how to do that.”

“Well, we decided this is important—we need to do it at every hotel, right?”

I am sure it has as much to do with the weather and being tired, but Sergei and I are both pretty annoyed about this. Perhaps Sergei even more so. He walks back up the hall, and I hear him speaking—sternly but respectfully—telling Oksana that every Russian hotel is supposed to be able to do this, and that I could be in big trouble with the authorities if it’s not done. Sergei then returns.

“David, all she can do is talk to the owner. And she gave me the owner’s e-mail address. I will try to e-mail her. Her name is Nadezhda.”

“Great. They have Wi-Fi?”

“Oh. No. I asked about Wi-Fi. Oksana didn’t know what I was talking about.”

With this I calm down. So does Sergei. I think we both realize we were being jerks—waltzing into a hotel in a small town in rural Russia, expecting them to have Wi-Fi and to be able to register a foreigner immediately. Oksana is doing her absolute best—and she can’t think we’re very pleasant. And I realize how happy I am to be in a place that has never seen a foreigner—or heard of Wi-Fi.

Sergei and I turn in and get some much-needed sleep. We are awakened by—wouldn’t you know it?—sunshine, streaming through the window. Sergei takes a towel and washcloth and heads up the hall to use the shower. He comes back with news.

“David, you will not believe it. The owner of the hotel is here. Nadezhda. She stayed up all night reading about how a hotel should register foreigners. She has spoken to the local immigration authorities. They gave her instructions.”

“Oh, Sergei.”

“And she brought a portable photocopy machine this morning to copy your passport. She said she was very sorry for the trouble. And she thanked
me
, because she is grateful now to know how to register guests from other countries.”

I am touched—and angry at myself for being frustrated last night.

“David, Nadezhda is also offering to drive us into town—should we say yes?”

“Of course.”

“She has one request: She would like to take a picture of us. She would like to begin a display of photos of honored guests. We are the first.”

I shower and pack. Then Sergei, Nadezhda, and I pose for a photo in one of her guest rooms. I thank Nadezhda profusely.

“Nadezhda—ogromnoe spasibo.”

It’s quite a photo. Nadezhda looks best—she’s an attractive blond, perhaps in her forties. She’s wearing a bright red sweater, with a gold Orthodox cross hanging around her neck. Sergei and I are in our Trans-Siberian uniforms—we packed light, so our outfits become familiar. I am in jeans, a blue sweater and gray scarf. Sergei is in jeans and a tan sport coat over a plaid shirt.

The three of us walk outside and load into Nadezhda’s Nissan SUV. The driver’s seat is on the right—a telltale sign we are making our way East. Russians in Siberia try to import cars from Japan if they can, because they are generally cheaper than Russian- or European-made cars. The only downside is that you drive on the right side of the car—and also the right side of the road.

The hotel looks nicer in the sunlight—a bright yellow-and-brown building with white windowsills—but the neighborhood does not. We pull out of the parking lot into the industrial wasteland—abandoned vehicles buried in snow and empty industrial buildings with gaping holes where windows used to be.

Sergei asks Nadezhda about her life. “She is saying there have been some sad events,” he leans around to tell me from the front passenger seat. “But she doesn’t like to talk about it much.”

We do learn that Nadezhda lived with her husband for fifteen years, but they divorced. She is raising two daughters on her own—they are seven and thirteen.

“There is a quote from Lenin—
Uchitsa, uchitsa, uchitsa
[Study, study, study],” she says. “Not for me. God meant for me to work, work, work.”

Nadezhda and her husband owned two hotels together. When they divorced, she kept one—the Tranquility—and now runs it herself. On the side she also decorates cars for weddings. In Russia weddings are elaborate—at times gaudy—affairs. Couples go over the top to decorate cakes, and vehicles. To Americans, Russian wedding dresses are hideously over the top. Rose actually kept a blog, and one of her favorite things to capture was the craziest wedding dresses in this country.

“I make the fabrics and the artificial flowers to go on the wedding limousines,” Nadezhda says. “This is a small town. At weddings I’ll often ask couples how their parents are doing. They’ll say, ‘oh, my mother and father drink too much.’ It’s a terrible thing.”

Ishim looks better in sunlight, with a fresh coating of snow. Trees line the streets. It’s too small a place to have any large buildings—in downtown there are mostly two- and three-story structures with flower shops and restaurants. The place reminds me a bit of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where I went to high school. Ishim has the same population—around 65,000 people—and the same feel. Big enough to have some energy, small enough to feel tight-knit.