Sunbathing in Siberia (6 page)

I was surprised by the number of people I spoke to who lamented the dissolution of the USSR. One person even attributed its loss, not to the cold war but to Coca-Cola. Although Pepsi was available in the Soviet Union from 1979, Coca-Cola only became available there after the cold war in 1992. This person's theory was that the cost of the cold war resulted in massive economic decline, leading to extreme poverty. This, coupled with the broadcasting of American television programmes in which seemingly well-off people lived happily and drank Coca-Cola, seduced many of the people in the smaller countries that formed the Soviet Union into thinking they would be better off in a capitalist state; which of course proved not to be the case. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the economies of many former Soviet countries, such as Georgia, and Tajikistan are worse than in 1991, while other former Soviet countries are only marginally improved. Coca-Cola therefore is seen here as a seductive mistress who promises gold but only provides fool's gold.

When I first arrived in Krasnoyarsk, I felt some sort of culture shock, and while being unable to buy welsh cakes, laverbread, or (real) sausages and (real) mashed potato in gravy, I took to buying Coca-Cola, even though I do not drink it normally. I had to keep it a secret however as whenever Boris saw a bottle of it around, he would look at me disapprovingly, say the words ‘Cola, bad', and promptly pour it down the toilet. Although Boris wasn't a fan of the Soviets he still lives in the way he had to during their rule. Everything is recycled, including every plastic bottle, scraps of clothing and discarded bits of wood. This is a stark contrast to how the younger Russian generations live. Influenced by capitalist values, the younger people I met liked to have new things, and didn't mind replacing things when they weren't broken. This juxtaposition in attitudes is no clearer than in the city centre, where babushkas live in old wooden buildings that are sandwiched in between contemporary apartment buildings.

At the very centre of the city stands an unfinished, twenty-four storey tower block, the unofficial symbol of Krasnoyarsk. Begun in 1985, the tower was originally constructed to house new businesses, as if Russia somehow knew the transition to capitalism was inevitable. With the subsequent dissolution of the Soviet Union, the tower was abandoned. In the decades since then it has changed hands many times but has never been completed. Today it stands a hollow shell of concrete legs, half glazed with tinted panels. It is a constant reminder of one of the worst recessions Russia has known, and perfectly symbolises the current economic and political climate here. Locked in perpetual recovery, forever unfinished, the tower represents the ever present conflict between capitalist and communist ideals. Construction of the tower block began just before perestroika, the political movement for reformation within the communist party during the 1980s, spearheaded by Mikhail Gorbachev. This was also the period in which Gorbachev sought to introduce glasnost, a policy that called for increased openness and transparency in government institutions. With the building constantly open to the elements while under permanent reconstruction, it seems to perfectly encapsulate Gorbachev's political ideals, though I don't think a half-complete tower was exactly what he had in mind when planning Russia's reform.

People are People

The vast expanse of the Yenisei River makes Krasnoyarsk one of the most pleasant places in the entire world, and even though the city itself is huge, because of all the greenery throughout the suburbs and the centre, and a constant view of the mountains, it always feels to me that I am in a small town. It's not just the old Stalinist architecture, the classical music in the street, the river, the outstanding natural beauty, or the feeling of being miles from the capital and its pseudo capitalist ways; Krasnoyarsk would be nothing without its people.

Nastya told me that when I arrive in Moscow, to blend in well I should pull the meanest face I can and never smile: ‘No one smiles in Moscow'. People do tend to look either angry or completely miserable. Before I visited Siberia, my view of Russians came from clichés in films and was that they were mostly crazy, devious, calculating, treacherous people who hated the West, and were likely to be used as spies if they ever went to the UK or America. I suppose some people may be. You get crazy devious people wherever you go, but I have never met any in Moscow or Siberia. In fact, I am ashamed now to even think of my Hollywood-instilled notion of Russians. The people I have spoken to in Moscow were kind and open, and the people of Krasnoyarsk even more so. I tend to think of it in terms of the London/Cardiff difference. I have met many foreign travellers in Cardiff, most of whom preferred the people of Wales – Cardiff in particular – to the people of London and England. Not to say they thought the English unkind, just slightly more abrasive than the Welsh.

Siberian people are a world away from the Moscow-dwelling Muscovites. For a start, they smile more often. It's not uncommon to be invited to dinner and be presented with half a dozen courses of meat dishes and vegetables, and to be given some for the way home. Even if you visit someone very briefly they usually put an array of nibbles on the table for you to dip into. They care about other people's wellbeing, as if everyone were distantly related. I have my own theory that this is implanted by two major factors. The first factor is that most Siberian people are poor in monetary terms. Those I have met have little compared to Western standards, and therefore there is an attitude of ‘We are all in it together. So why not share'.

The second factor that informs my theory is that Krasnoyarsk is zek country. Krasnoyarsk housed a large number of Gulags – the enforced labour camps of the Stalin era from the 1930s to the 1950s. When the prisoners, known as zeks, were released (if they managed to survive), they couldn't always obtain resident permits for the towns and cities they once lived in and so became residents of Siberia. Not only that but once a prisoner was released, after suffering hard labour in 40˚ C summers and -40˚ C winters, they were probably in no state to travel far, and didn't feel they could always be understood by Russians who had not been enslaved themselves. This was something Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn touched on in
The Gulag Archipelago
. According to Solzhenitsyn, there was an understanding between zeks that could not be penetrated or understood by outsiders. This train of thought seems to be apparent even today. The people of Krasnoyarsk and its neighbouring cities have a precious and very rare sense of community, based on hardship, which they know most Westerners cannot fathom. This is something akin to the sense of community I know exists in Ely, Cardiff. However, that community is largely constructed of working class people, some of whom receive state-funded benefits (like my family did). These benefits are seen as a luxury among Siberians, although they do have a slightly less generous welfare system of their own. Having been rescued from drowning myself by Jobseeker's Allowance, even though I hated doing it, and there was a stigma attached to it, I am ever thankful that Britain is still a welfare state. It's a terrible thing that this is currently under attack from the Tory government; if I hadn't been able to float on JSA for a short period between jobs I may have perished, due to a lack of survival skills and an obvious lack of ability and space to grow my own food.

In Siberia, if you don't work, or grow your own food, or you're not an oligarch, you face extreme poverty, unless helped by another. You'd think in a place like Siberia where the weather systems are lethal, the danger of being killed by a number of deadly creatures is very real, and the economic climate is so severe, that only the tough would survive. This is true in a way, because Siberian people are tough, but the conditions set by the weather and the government only strengthen their resolve and their sense of humanity further. Like the people of Ely, Siberians seem to have a greater empathy for those who have it hard. For example: when I was waiting for a bus one day I noticed a babushka crossing the road where there was no designated crossing area. She got halfway across and then stopped because traffic was heavy in both directions. I thought she was going to get killed, but then a large, white off-road car stopped right next to her. The driver parked his vehicle in such a way as to stop the flow of traffic in the two lanes behind him. He got out and walked the woman across to the pavement safely. Then got back in his car and went on his way. It's the little kindnesses that count and Krasnoyarsk is the world's capital of little kindnesses.

Knowing Where to Walk

During that first month in Russia I felt afraid, I was visibly scared of everything and it was noticeable. Though I was never in any danger, the outside world felt so alien, so completely different from what I was used to in Wales, that I interpreted it as being hostile. The apartment blocks, tall and grey, sometimes had balconies that looked as if they were going to fall off and there were many wild dogs that although thin, were agile and obviously hungry. People spoke a language I couldn't understand, and sometimes in very harsh tones, and I didn't know the Cyrillic alphabet. I couldn't even translate the simplest warnings on the buses, or anywhere else. Plus, the fonts used on some of the signs looked decidedly military. Although these things aren't necessarily intimidating, the lack of control I felt was. I had no way of communicating with anyone other than Nastya and I had no control over what I ate either. Nastya did the cooking because I didn't know any of their cooking methods, and as I didn't have a lot of money I couldn't buy my own food. Not only that but it would have been offensive to cook my own meals. At times when we went to a supermarket, Nastya would scorn me for choosing something she said was unhealthy, but at the same time, she would buy a lot of candies. This lack of control over nearly every aspect of my life, at times, drove me further into myself.

With no spoken Russian at all, I had to be accompanied by Nastya at all times. She was my guide, translator and wife, and the three roles were occasionally too much for her. When she had to work a twelve-hour night shift, I was stuck in the apartment on my own. At times I felt a bit like a prisoner, although I was a prisoner of my own making. Some nights Nataliya Petrovna would come over to cook for me when Nastya was working, but this only made things worse. As we couldn't communicate, I resigned myself to staying in our bedroom with the door closed. When it was time to eat, Nataliya Petrovna would knock on the door and motion me towards the kitchen. Though it was very kind of her to do this, I would rather have been left to my own devices and cooked something myself; there are only so many meatballs one can eat, and as they were home-made, I often found myself crunching teeth against pieces of bone. Even when I was alone at night, it was very difficult to prepare a meal. Many of the food stuffs in the fridge were out of date, and I couldn't tell what a lot of it was. If something had mould on it, they kept it for use in some soup or stew. I was from a culture of ‘If it's got green on it, don't risk it', living among a people whose ethos was the opposite.

Alone at night, it was also hard for me to sleep. A massive electricity station stood just across from the apartment on the side of our bedroom and it gave off an electric hum that couldn't be stopped, even with the window closed. Sometimes in the dead of night, this substation released what can only be described as massive explosions, caused by surges in power. These never failed to startle me from sleep, and when several explosions went off in a single night, I had the impression of being alive in a war zone.

On days when Nastya was free we would take walks along the Yenisei or visit whatever attractions were available. There are two Ferris wheels on the north side of the river, one in the park opposite the office where Nastya works and one in the central city park opposite Revolution Square. These wheels never stop turning all year round, except for the holidays around New Year.

About 20ft from each Ferris wheel was the ticket office, where a woman sat inside from morning till night. I couldn't help but feel sorry for her, or for the hundreds of other people like her in similar roles. Spread all over the city there are tiny little shops, some no bigger than ice cream vans. There is no access inside them except for a backdoor which is always locked. These kiosks are product specific. They either sell magazines, ice cream or cigarettes. There are more cigarette kiosks than any other. Each stall has just one person inside. Outside of these you tend to see two or three Coca-Cola-branded fridges of the type you find in British corner shops. The difference in Russia is that these fridges stand in the street and can only be opened by the stall keeper who, once she has taken your money, pushes a button that remotely releases the magnetic lock on the fridge door. She then watches as you take exactly what you paid for.

I thought it ironic that the ice cream kiosks were full of electrically operated freezers, even though it was below freezing outside. The person inside each had an electric heater too. It's a great shame that they don't stand outside in winter and store their ice creams in the snow, they would probably save a fortune on electricity, but I guess it would be a really uncomfortable way to make a living. Still people do it. Along the roadsides between our home and Nastya's office there were many people sat on stools. They had little trays in front of them, some of which had a few potatoes, some a few berries. These people, who were no doubt officially retired, would spend their whole days sitting there in the cold, trying to sell a few items they had grown at their dachas, in order to top up their small pensions. Near our apartment stood a row of shops, and outside these shops it was normal to see rusty cars parked up with the boot open. Inside the boot lay a range of red meats I could only assume was deer, laid down on pieces of torn carpet. Sometimes they even presented their stock on the bonnet. The people stood next to these cars never approached anyone or called out their prices. They just hung around, cold, wrapped up in several tattered coats, waiting for someone to ignore the shops perhaps and inquire after cheaper meats.