S.L. Sanger
Trans-Sib, part 3
JULIE COMES ABOARD
A TREAT WAS WAITING in our compartment -- Julie, a 25-year-old blonde Australian traveling alone. She had come up from Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar. She was happy to see Americans since she had a healthy fear of Russian men. She knew we were Americans “straight away” because her friends back home told her all Americans wore white socks. I was wearing white socks. Julie was from Cairns, Queensland, an elementary school teacher who took a year off to travel alone with a backpack from Brisbane to London via China and Siberia. We were delighted to spend time with an English-speaking woman who was good-humored and talkative. Julie had been a month in China, much of the time traveling by train. If we thought the Russian train was primitive, she said we should ride on a Chinese train where the toilets were holes in the floor and the dining car floor was littered with garbage, bones and spit. The Chinese were friendly, though, and she was never afraid. She was afraid of Russian men because they drank so much.
She was assigned the lower bunk across from us. A gentlemanly Russian was on the upper.
Julie had two novels by John Fowles, “The Collector” and “The French Lieutenant’s Woman,” which excited us since we had almost struggled our way through “As I Lay Dying.” Our latest bafflement of “What did Faulkner mean” concerned the lines: “Cash is sick. He is sick on the box. But, my mother is a fish.” In addition, we tried to decipher Faulkner’s riddle-prose to decide which of the brothers had bored auger holes In Addie Bundren’s dead face. We could not decide who had sired the Bundren children or why Jewel’s mother was a horse. Julie stared at us as if we were demented.
The country had changed after Irkutsk to collectivist farms, mostly wheat, followed by upland pines, birches, larch and spruce and back to wheat. Smoky towns, although slightly more prosperous appearing than farther east. We stopped for 15 minutes at a town called Zima. I bought delicious soft rolls. The Kiwis used the time to clean our car window of mud. “What’s the difference between E.T. and New Zealanders? E.T. went home.”
A ways out of Zima I jumped up and shouted, “Triumph!” I had finished Faulkner’s novel. Still confused, but done. Hoyt was enjoying “The Collector.” He said the main character, a very strange man to say the least, reminded him of Indiana Ed.
The Kiwis in our car, a congenial bunch, invited three of us in Compartment VII, Dick, Julie and Steve, to share their table in the dining car. This situation was unusual because normally Hoyt and I were treated like persons carrying a violently contagious disease when we tried to enter a Trans-Sib dining car. We were almost always stopped, the waiter shouting, “Gruppa, Gruppa, Da!, Da! Indiwiduals, Nyet! Nyet!” Almost all travelers on the Trans-Sib were in groups of 10 or more accompanied by an Intourist guide. Our few memories of dining car food were negative. For instance, the soup, usually borscht, was a watery broth with gray mystery meat and floating blobs of grease. The bread and tea, however, as usual, were uniformly excellent.
May 4 -- a cold night in the unheated car. At first light, Hoyt jumped up and put on his heavy coat. “After this night the word ‘Siberia’ has taken on new meaning for me,” he said. As we waited for hot tea, a salvation, we listened to the Kiwis cackling in the corridor. The country was unchanged. Birches, cleared fields, mud and puddles, towns full of shacks. Still thinking of Faulkner, I wondered if Siberia were 5,000 miles of Yoknapatawpha County.
In a contemplative mood, Hoyt and I tried to decide why Russia was the most foreign place we had visited. Some possible reasons, not fueled by vodka, were: the prison camps we passed were sobering and disturbing, the lack of private enterprise, the rigid governmental control of society, a sense of hostility, drabness, poverty, trivial feuds with bartenders and waiters, primitive conditions, the obsessive preoccupation with Lenin. Other places may have some of these characteristics but not so many. Also, a lack of ease, comfort and convenience. We saw no all-night diners. Two of the most beautiful phrases in English for us were: “We never close” and “The bottomless cup.”
NOVOSIBIRSK, BEARS ON SKATES
MY NOTES AS WE PASSED the outskirts of Novosibirsk mentioned the gray dusty look to the buildings, but the closer we got to the station, the better the city looked. We would be leaving the train for a couple of days, our third and final overnight stop before Moscow. A final cheerful word about Julie. We would miss the lively blue-eyed blonde and her good-humored common sense conversation. She brightened the journey from Irkutsk. Ed and the Silent Valet will take our place in Compartment VII, but we expect to see Julie again in Moscow. Indiana Ed and the Silent Valet, maybe not. They are to continue on without delay to whatever awaited them in Slovakia.
Novosibirsk, “Chicago of Siberia,” the industrial, scientific and cultural center on the River Ob, eighth largest city in the Soviet Union in 1984 (in 2017 third largest in Russia), 5,200 kilometers back to Khabarovsk or 96 Trans-Sib travel hours, but only 3,300 kilometers west to Moscow or 52 train hours. The city seemed more affluent than Irkutsk or Khabarovsk, more western in look and feel. The people were better dressed. We saw 100 people lined up for fresh cucumber and onions, even for plastic bags. Residential areas were not as grim as farther east and one morning our impression was that half the residents were outside sweeping, weeding and doing maintenance chores. We had our best meal in Siberia in Novosibirsk and it’s where we saw the ice-skating hockey team made up entirely of bears on skates.
AS SOON AS WE STEPPED OFF at the station, an Intourist guide named Olga appeared and took us to the Central Hotel on Lenin Square. Lunch at the hotel was delicious. Salted herring, cucumber sour cream salad, pork with fried potatoes, thick dark bread, ice cream. We stopped at the hard currency shop and bought gifts for not much money. Two Soviet pocket watches for $7.70 each. Six cans of Lowenbrau for 50 cents a can. Newly-married couples placed red tulips at the foot of the huge statue of Lenin in the city square. Novosibirsk, even though in the heart of Siberia, was the first city we had seen that had any resemblance to a western city in the quality of goods for sale or the appearance of its residents. There was a mania for fresh produce. A crowd gathered immediately when a young girl carrying a basket of ugly little knobby green apples for sale set the basket down on a curb.
That night before hitting the rack, we watched a Soviet movie on TV. We seldom watched much of the national TV, which was consistently tiresome. This movie, however, was watchable. It took place during the war and was about a fighter plane squadron. The plot resembled the sentimental and patriotic drift of many Hollywood movies of the period. Brooding, melodramatic, nostalgic, but the Soviet effort included some fine classical music.
We awoke to the sound of birds and a woman sweeping the sidewalk below our third floor room with a broom made of twigs. It was Saturday, the 5th of May. Across the street, people were lined up waiting for a bakery to open.
At breakfast, a fairly lavish buffet, I limited my intake because I decided I was getting paunchy from all the food coupled with inactivity. I ate only a cherry turnover and a cup of tea. Hoyt craved fresh vegetables, usually a rarity, and loaded up with cucumbers and sour cream. We took a 90-minute walk and realized Novosibirsk had a center, a place of large apartment buildings, public buildings and stores, not the tumble-down shack appearance of Irkutsk. The grocery stores were open. We stopped in at a bookstore and bought “An English Reader for Students,” which featured a story by Arthur Hailey and John Castle, “Flight into Danger,” and Kurt Vonnegut’s novel “Slaughterhouse-Five.” Bret Harte’s short stories in English also were for sale. On our way back to the hotel, people in dressy clothes were out raking and cleaning, probably preparing for Victory Day, May 9th. People farther east tended to stare at us. The folks in Novosibirsk tended to ignore us.
We dallied and didn’t get to the third floor buffet (the cheaper joint) before it closed, so were obliged, if we wanted to dine, to hit the first class restaurant on the ground floor. The English translations on the menu looked too formidable, so we simply pointed at what we thought might be desirable. As a result, we bought expensive brandy instead of the entrée. Otherwise, we muddled through and it was a decent meal. Salted herring, a pork dish with spinach that reminded me of Germany. We are accosted at the table by a man who wanted to change rubles for American dollars. Definitely not.
Capping the evening was attendance at an ice-skating circus, which featured real dancing bears on skates playing ice hockey. The bears could hit the puck, usually clumsily, and one of the goalies wasn’t too bad. One bear in particular paid marvelous attention to what he was doing and scored a couple of goals. The house was packed, including some remarkably pretty girls, and the music was acceptable.
Eight o’clock the next morning, Sunday May 6, rain banged against the hotel window -- the first rain since leaving Honolulu. Good rest. Head colds better. Excellent breakfast at the economical 3rd floor buffet. The always-reliable cucumbers with sour cream, smoked cheese from Denmark, cherry turnover and tea. Eighty-five kopecks. No idea what that was in American gelt, but reasonable in Siberia. We discussed a medical question. Why were we bedeviled by bowel troubles in spite of a healthy diet of beer, water and tea, long walks and cucumbers? I exercise every morning, a five to ten minute regimen. We decided the bowel binding resulted from anxiety. Next question, unresolved. Anxiety based on what?
Or was it only an absence of morning coffee? “A cup of coffee is like attaching battery cables to my bowels,” Hoyt said.
THE VLADIMIR FAMILY. MY NAME IS SUSHA
LEAVING NOVOSIBIRSK AT 11:10 A.M., on time.
Next, we are in Compartment 1 with a family of three friendly Russians, hearty replacements for the ebullient Julie. Vladimir, a handsome pilot for Aeroflot; Natasha, his dark-haired attractive wife; and their pretty daughter, Susha, 3½. Vladimir was dressed in smart fitted jeans and a green nylon shirt; Natasha in a traditional flowered skirt, and Susha, a dark-haired, pigtailed good-humored little girl was gobbling apples. Vladimir spoke a little English. Susha’s one English sentence was, “My name is Susha.” The family was going home to Moscow after visiting parents in Novosibirsk.
AT TEATIME, VLADIMIR PULLED A LOAF of black bread and a hunk of red sausage from his bag and, using a frighteningly large clasp knife, sliced large chunks of bread and sausage. He offered some to us, which we ate with thankful enthusiasm. Natasha offered us cookies shaped like miniature waffles. She pointed to them, saying, “Babushka.” Susha gave us little candies, staring at my beard, occasionally grabbing it and giggling. As we ate in the warm compartment, it began to snow.
During the long afternoon and evening, no darkness until after 11 p.m., we passed small mounds with metal doors on top and ventilation shafts. While passing an industrial area, we saw hundreds of these puzzling structures. We couldn’t decide if they were root cellars, septic tanks, cyclone cellars or bomb shelters. We saw people lifting buckets of water from wells by using a long pole as a lever or turning a crank by hand. The car’s radio played a piece featuring mournful violins as two very large ravens flew alongside our car. An ancient biplane flew with us for a while, before dipping its wings and flying away. The countryside became endlessly flat with very few trees except for sporadic stands of birches. Occasionally, more birds, mostly ravens and magpies and off and on small flocks of sheep. The view reminded me of Eastern Montana wheat land before coming up against the Rocky Mountains.
At supper, along with the black bread and sausage, Vladimir pulled a bottle of vodka from his bag. We offered Lowenbrau, which delighted him. The fun started. Three men drinking vodka and Lowenbrau and eating fresh sliced cucumbers while Natasha sliced the cucumbers and took an occasional bite and sip. Birches and magpies swam past. Dick and I proposed Bogart toasts, our usual contribution during Russian-style drinking. “Here’s looking at you, Vladimir. . . Here’s mud in your eye. . . .” Vladimir mentioned Marian Anderson in one of his toasts. Hoyt did an imitation of Paul Robeson singing “Old Man River,” a song Vladimir recognized. A congenial evening, even though we could not talk to each other except in the universal language of convivial drinking. We smiled a lot.
After the beer and vodka were gone, we stood in the corridor. “Man, I’m looped,” Hoyt said. We hit the rack. Three sheets to the wind.
All this was east of Omsk.
Omsk has a literary history. Fyodor Dostoevsky was four years imprisoned in the Omsk penal fort, an ordeal that eventually was described in his “The House of the Dead” and provided outlines for later characters.
Dawn, May 7, the sun was a blazing orange orb (stolen from Faulkner) sitting on the snowy birches. It was 5:30 at the stop in Sverdlovsk, an industrial city just east of the Ural Mountains, the dividing line between Asia and Europe. Vladimir and I walked to the top of a pedestrian overpass above the railyard for a fine view of post-dawn Sverdlovsk. Smoke stacks and smoke, factories, columns of steam, acres and acres of railroad tracks and rail cars, miles of gray apartment buildings.
Sverdlovsk is now called Yekaterinburg, renamed after remnants of communist rule were erased. The former Sverdlovsk was named for Yakov Sverdlov, a Communist Party leader.
GOOD BREAKFAST, CROSSING THE URALS
CROSSING THE URALS was barely noticeable. The only sign of mountains was an occasional low ridge. More snow. We looked for the low stone column that marks the boundary between Asia and Europe. I missed the boundary marker because I was engrossed in Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five and Billy Pilgrim. More miserable factory towns and stone quarries slid by the window. The sky was overcast and spitting snow. Breakfast was currant raisin cake and chai. The family ate with us. Salami, chicken and dark bread.
Our conductress, without apparently being aware of it, gave us a show of Russian female sensuality with her moves, her voice, her trim figure. Even her metal teeth were charming. She was busy, all over the car, sweeping, straightening and serving tea. Natasha was a maternal contrast, deftly devising a doll for Susha out of a sweater, a stocking cap and handkerchief.
Leaving Perm provided a typical Russian urban rail scene of huge apartment buildings 10 to 15 stories, half a block square looming over fields of tarpaper shacks. After Perm, a town on a rutted hill reminded me of Butte, Montana. Hoyt and I are adjusting to Russian train habits. We eat in our compartment, the food bought at stalls on the station platforms during the usually brief stops. Today’s lunch was especially tasty. Fried fish, raw cucumber scrounged from Mrs. Vladimir, chai and for dessert a piece of raisin cake left over from breakfast. To paraphrase Lincoln Steffens, I have been over to see the future and, well, the trains run on time and the dark bread and tea are excellent.
Nap time. 1300 hours, Moscow time.
SPRINGTIME HAPPINESS NEAR KIROV
A FEW MINUTES EAST OF KIROV, or maybe it was west, on the sunny and warm spring afternoon, the train stopped. No reason given. Passengers jammed the windowed corridor for a look outside. They saw tiny white daisies and bright yellow dandelions blooming along the track. As one person, 20 carloads of Russians spilled into the warm spring sunlight, laughing and running crazily among the flowers, grabbing as many as they could. Hoyt and I watched, amazed, at their coltishness, deciding their happiness must have something to do with the interminable Russian winter. Hoyt was right. We had ridden from winter into spring.
That night, the cars were baking. Passengers stood in the corridors in their pajamas, the windows down, or sat in their compartments playing cards and singing.
Tuesday, May 8, we awoke to leafy birches close to the tracks. This country west of Kirov is the prettiest so far. It is spring, the sky is blue, flowers are blooming, plowed fields stretch to the horizon. Houses began to look better. Nicely painted and maintained. Many had neat and orderly fences. At a stop, we hopped off for hard raisin cakes. The air was warm.
At breakfast, Susha acted up a little, fussy and a bit unpleasant. Her mother, without a word, took a black leather strap from her bag. Susha quieted immediately. Hoyt and I wondered if we had witnessed an example of Russian parenting.
THE EXCEPTIONAL LYUDMILLA
ON THIS, OUR LAST MORNING before arrival in Moscow, Hoyt and I pooled some of our impressions. Vivid memories were of people spitting on the sidewalks, excessive smoking and drinking by men, women much less.
Generally, with exceptions such as our long conversation with the Red Army engineer and good relations with the Vladimir family, the Russian passengers remained aloof from us, not actually unfriendly but distant. They stuck to their compartments to play cards, eat, sleep and drink. A gigantic exception that very morning was Lyudmilla, a brazen bleached blonde with breasts like the prow of the icebreaker Polar Star. She barged in on Hoyt as he sat on the toilet. He laughed; she laughed and backed out. Later, Hoyt stood at the window in the corridor outside our compartment. Lyudmilla sidled up to him, pushed her breasts into his shoulder and struck up a conversation in Russian. When she found out he was an American, she giggled and grabbed his Russian phrase book. “Nyet serious,” she said when he laboriously told her he wrote mystery novels. Lyudmilla, who was about 45, a school teacher in Kirov, took over a berth in our compartment. The Vladimirs must have been absent.
“Are you married?” she asked Dick, and screamed when he shook his head.
When she said she was married to a Red Army major stationed in Leningrad, all the blood drained from Hoyt’s face. She invited both of us to meet her at the Metropol Hotel bar at 8 p.m. “We go for walk in Gorky Park. I bring friend.” She looked Hoyt in the eye and smiled. By now Hoyt was beside himself with anxiety, he said later, and realized we had to get her out of our compartment and out of our lives. We agreed with fake enthusiasm to meet her at the Metropol, but had zero intention to show up.