Sunbathing in Siberia (5 page)

To celebrate our marriage, Nastya and I had decided that we would locate one of the very few Irish bars in Krasnoyarsk and have a pint of Guinness. What better way is there to celebrate? It took us a few hours to find one and once we did we discovered that it wouldn't be open until 1 p.m., which left us an hour to kill. Nastya knew of a café conveniently close so we went there for a betrothal breakfast while we waited; this was a mistake. The café, albeit modern, sold the usual type of mush found in most Russian cafés. We ordered mashed potato that was poured out of a machine like a drinks dispenser, and two portions of some kind of meat type thing which was as bland as roasted cardboard. The Irish bar wasn't much better. Yes it
was
decked out in green garb with Irish pictures on the walls, but there wasn't an Irishman in sight; we had to put our coats in the cloakroom (at the time I assumed this was in case we carried weapons, but later I learned it's standard across Russia), and not only was the pint poured to the little white marker line below the top of the glass, but each pint was a fiver. Still, I will never forget that drink. It was real Guinness, and we were newlyweds enjoying a pint of the good stuff, early on a Friday afternoon, in an Eastern Siberia that was still covered in snow. That one pint really hit the spot, so we collected our coats and went home, where we fell onto the bed and slept for the rest of the afternoon. I woke in the early evening to find Nastya, Nataliya Petrovna, Dima (my new brother-in-law), and several other distant relations preparing food in the kitchen and living room. Now we were going to celebrate Russian-style. In our wedding preparations Nastya and I had completely missed the need to throw a party, let alone invite family over, because we had been consumed with obtaining the right paperwork and getting me to Siberia.

The impromptu wedding banquet consisted of deer meat, hunted and killed by my now father-in-law Boris, and cooked in a variety of different ways by my now mother-in-law Nataliya Petrovna; and contrary to what we think of the Russians in the West it wasn't a boozy affair. Collectively we enjoyed two or three bottles of champagne before we called it a night. Nastya and I were left to put the dishes away and mop up the remnants of the large honey cake someone had bought instead of a wedding cake. There are a few customs in Russia when it comes to marriage, one being a large wedding pie that only the newlyweds can eat, and the one who devours the most is supposed to be the boss of the marriage from there on in. We didn't observe this or any other custom. It's not that we didn't want a wedding pie, because I especially wanted one, it was simply that in the rush to get married, with all the worry about documents, stamps and registration papers, we forgot to think about any of the things we would have enjoyed after the wedding, like giant pies and parties.

Dissolution of the Soviet Union

Before deciding on my voyage to Krasnoyarsk, Nastya and I had discussed getting married in Copenhagen, because we wouldn't have had to jump through hoops to obtain visas, and a company there offered an attractive wedding package for couples who lived in separate countries. At the last minute Nastya changed her mind, thinking it would be better for us to marry in her city so I could also get to know it a little, which would help us decide where we would spend our future. I had never heard of the city before. My knowledge of Russian geography was limited, as in I couldn't have told you where Moscow was if my life depended on it. It was only after I landed that Nastya informed me that I was bang, smack in the middle of Siberia. When we had courted online and in Paris, all of our talk was about being together, being apart, and missing each other. Later we spoke of legal matters: visas and certificates. In all that time, I hadn't actually given a thought to asking where Krasnoyarsk was, or even looking it up on the map; and consequently found myself in the most central part of Russia not really knowing where I was in the world. Which may sound a bit foolish, but after Nastya and I fell in love, I would have taken a flight anywhere as long as she was waiting for me there. There had been too many failed romantic affairs in my mid-twenties, where I hadn't the guts to take a leap of faith. I'm not sure why that was, but I do know that with Nastya it felt easier to let go of who I was, or had been, and forget my possessions and my limited view of the world. Meeting Natsya had enabled me to break free of the internal restraints that had broken hearts, including my own, in the past.

With the three weeks I had left on my visa, I was free to explore the city, learning all that I should have
before
I went there. For example, I never knew that Russia is divided into eighty-three different parts: two dozen republics, krais, oblasts, and autonomous okrugs. Though I can't tell you what the difference is between a krai and an oblast. I'm not quite sure anyone can. Krasnoyarsk Krai is the biggest of the krais and covers about 13% of Russia's total territory. It's hard to really take in its size, though as a rough guide it is about one hundred times bigger than Wales, and slightly smaller than the moon.

Krasnoyarsk Krai is divided again into forty-four different districts, many of which have long, unpronounceable names like Nizhneingashsky and Zaozyorny. Krasnoyarsk city is the administrative centre of Krasnoyarsk Krai and is itself divided into seven further districts: Kirovsky, Leninsky, Oktyabrsky, Sovetsky, Sverdlovsky, Tsentralny, and Zheleznodorozhny. We lived in Oktyabrsky. It's a bit like one of those Russian matryoshka dolls that decrease in size when you pull their heads off, the seven city districts being at the centre. Oktyabrsky sits inside Krasnoyarsk city which sits in Krasnoyarsk Krai which sits in Siberia which sits in Russia. Russia is the really big doll, being over eight hundred times the size of Wales.

Krasnoyarsk city is the third largest city in Siberia, after Novosibirsk and Omsk. While Cardiff is about 140 km² with a population of around 350,000 people, Krasnoyarsk city is a little over twice the size but with three times the population. It's such a big place that you would think that I would have heard of it before. That's one of the things I find most annoying about my education and about the UK. I know at least a dozen people who can name all the states of America and know most of the cities. Britain has become so Americanised that it is taken as read that when someone says a place name in America you automatically know where they're talking about. Nobody ever asked if I knew the great little café on the corner of Ulitsa Surikova and Prospekt Mira.

Krasnoyarsk is actually famous in some parts of the world for several different reasons:

1. It is built around a junction of the Trans-Siberian Railway;
   
2. It is one of Russia's largest producers of aluminium;
   
3. It was a major centre of the Gulag system;
   
4. It houses the fifth largest hydroelectric station in the world;
   
5. In 1749, a 700 kg meteorite was found 145 miles south of the city and it was the first of its kind. Made from an unknown and as yet unclassified type of iron, it was registered as a pallasite, as the scientist examining it was named Peter Pallas, even though the actual discovery was made by a man named Medvedev.
   
6. In the late 1970s, Abalakovo, a city near Krasnoyarsk, housed a phased array radar station, which frightened Americans because it violated the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. The treaty stated that the radars had to be on the periphery of national territory and had to face outwards; the radar near Krasnoyarsk was in the middle of the country and faced Siberia. After heavy negotiations in September 1989, the facility was eventually dismantled. It was all a waste of time, however, as in 2001 George W. Bush gave Russia notice of the United States' intention of withdrawal from the treaty and withdrew six months later. It was the first time in recent history that America had withdrawn from a major international arms treaty and was a huge blow to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which is now almost completely ignored.
   

There are several other features of Krasnoyarsk that make the city unique from any other in Russia. One of those is the Stolby nature reserve, a 17,000-hectare area of outstanding natural beauty south of the Yenisei River. It is filled with giant pillars of volcanic rock that were forged millions of years ago when the Sayan mountains, the range between north-western Mongolia and southern Siberia, were pushed up out of the ground by pulses of magma from the Earth's core. Stolby which is otherwise known as ‘the land of forest giants' takes its name from the Russian word ‘stolb', which translates as ‘pillar'. It is hugely popular with rock climbers who flock from all over the world to test themselves against the pillars. It is also a hotspot for scientists who come to study the wildlife. Stolby is a reserve for thousands of rare species of plants as well as birds, wild cats and insects. It is a little too wild for my liking as when there is a lack of berries and nuts in the taiga hungry bears have been known to stroll into Stolby looking for people's leftovers or unattended children.

There are an estimated 200,000 brown bears in the world, and it just so happens that half of them live in Russia. Worse than this, Siberian bears are said to be larger than your average grizzly and unfortunately human flesh
is
on their menu. During my first month in Krasnoyarsk there were seven reported bear attacks. These happened around populated areas on the outskirts of the city where people live in their dachas during the summer period. Bears, it seems, will spy someone lying with their eyes closed, then venture in for a munch. In one case, a local resident out gathering mushrooms came across a bear with cubs. The beast attacked the man and ripped off his scalp. Luckily, a local forester found him, and took him to hospital. Other than complete shock and a lack of scalp, the man came away relatively unhurt.

Besides bears, there is a long list of other ferocious man-eating beasties like wild cats and wolves. Although the chances of running into a tiger in the forests are remote, as they are nearly extinct in the wild, the possibility of running into a pack of wolves isn't. In early 2011, a super pack of wolves, numbering four hundred was reported to have killed thirty horses in just four days in the Northern town of Verkhoyansk, due to a lack of wild rabbits. Besides tigers, the smaller more agile Siberian lynx also lives in the surrounding forests, and although smaller than the native tigers, the lynx of Siberia are the largest found anywhere, and can grow to twice the size of their North American relation. The worst creature however, and the most feared, is the Siberian grass tick. This little critter is no bigger than a head louse, but can be much more harmful. From a blade of grass, this tick can jump onto your skin. Once on your body it eats its way into your flesh where it secretes a poison which causes a disease known as the Siberian tick-borne encephalitis virus; this virus attacks the central nervous system. There are a long list of nasty symptoms, the worst being paralysis, and death. Nastya says that if you are bitten and poisoned, then you have to go to hospital for a month. If you don't walk out of the hospital after this time, you're coming out in a box. Though the grass ticks primarily live in the forests, it's not uncommon for them to set up camp in areas of the city too. If ever I walked near grass Nastya would shout ‘Are you stupid?' before rubbing my legs up and down, and checking behind my ears. Apparently if a tick is found pre-bite, it cannot simply be crushed onto your skin, it has to be burned. If however it has taken its first bite, the only way is to pour oil on the wound, which annoys the tick and makes it release itself from your flesh, and then you can pry it out with tweezers.

Although the possibility of being eaten by bears or poisonous insects was very real, when I walked around the city I wasn't inhibited by it. Described by Chekhov as the most beautiful city in Siberia, Krasnoyarsk had a lot to live up to. From wherever you stand you can see mountains, which are almost always snowcapped except for the hundred or so days of summer, and when they are not covered in snow they are a striking dark green from the thousands of trees that live on them. The city centre itself is quite attractive, made up of wide streets and wooden houses from the Stalin years with ornate carvings and window shutters. Although there are a few chain stores, most of the shops are completely unique and are usually quite small. The city is never overly busy, is a peaceful place to walk, and is made especially romantic by the classical music that is played through speakers on lamp posts throughout the day. These speakers were installed during World War II and were used continuously, right through till 1991 when President Mikhail Gorbachev's negotiations with Reagan officially ended the cold war.

Trams still operate throughout and even the old-fashioned second-hand buses from neighbouring countries add to the city's charm, though the traffic was the most obvious example of the Russian class divide. Oligarchs and officials drove around in large off-road vehicles, silver Japanese Mitsubishi 4x4s or American Humvees while regular people drove cheap Japanese saloons or old Russian cars. I saw an inordinate number of Ladas from the 1970s and 1980s and an occasional sleek vintage car from the 1950s. The majority of vehicles I saw were old, and many had parts missing from small accidents, which are quite common as most people drive like nutcases.

Boris's car was quite old, and Nataliya Petrovna was forever nagging him to buy a new one because it seemed every other day he had to spend an afternoon with his car in the garage because it failed to start. Although this would have driven me crazy, Boris didn't seem to mind. He has an attitude of ‘If it's not broken, why replace it?' Which I could understand, but at the same time, his car may not have been broken, but it was on its last legs. Materialism and capitalism are very much looked down upon, not only within my Siberian family, but throughout Krasnoyarsk. Having spoken with some of Nastya's friends, the general view is that ‘the soul is more important than money.' Dima, who is aware that I am writing this told me that he hopes it brings me success, ‘Not lots of money, but happiness, and a little money.'