An alt.johnny.appleseed?

The Autonomous Republic of Buryatia is one of the 89 administrative districts that comprise the Russian Federation and is the only one that is predominantly Buddhist. Supposedly the mother of Genghis Khan was born here, but that kind of thing is sort of hard to establish for wandering nomads like the Mongols. It certainly does have that Asian feel to it, whatever that means, save for the ubiquitous hammer-and-sickles that dot the area. Oh yeah, and that big old Lenin head!

Last night I met a nice girl named Marina, who was jamming away in Lenin Plaze on her electric guitar. Her English was not very developed beyond words outside of Nirvana songs, but she could play pretty damn well and it sounded pretty authentic on the cheapo portable Montgomery Ward-style amp she was hooked into. She often treks down to Beijing or Ulaan Bator to play in clubs but her dream is to save enough money for a trip to New York.

One of the things I like to do is bring self-burned CDs into Russia, not of the awful J.Lo/Brittany/Beyonce/Janet/Justin crap that even makes it over here, but of the good stuff that isn't even that well known outside of college stations and underground clubs in the US. I had already given my Flaming Lips CD to a dude in Moscow, and I thought she might like the Pixies, but instead I gave her a Bright Eyes CD, figuring she could make out the lyrics a little bit easier.

Tomorrow morning I leave Ulan-Ude on the Trans-Siberian with the intended departure point of Krasnoyarsk. I should have clear viewing of Lake Baikal but, as my encephalitis shots are not up-to-date and there's a major infestation right now, I'm not getting out of the damn train. Next update may be awhile since the journey lasts more than a day.

Transported to the Emerald City

Ulan-Ude is quite lovely and, as I said before, dusty. Wow! The population is a mix of about 25% Mongolian and 50% Russian, with the rest either mixed or miscellaneous. I would venture to guess that I am the only American in this city of 300,000 people as many people are asking where I'm from. The temptation to mess with them is overwhelming since Russians cannot tell a German speaking English from a Frenchman from a South African, but nowadays I just go straight to "California."

I learned last time around that telling people that I'm from Santa Barbara, approximately true since I'm 3/4 of the world away, will cause Russian eyes to light up. Little known in the US, the soap opera of the same name was so popular in this country that the whole nation, from Moscow to Vladivostok, would drop everything to watch "Santa Barbara". Pretty funny.

Now I leave you with Ulan-Ude's greatest claim to fame, watching Oz-like over his eponymous plaza, the largest Lenin head in the world!

Snappage at 50,000 Feet Over Russia?

I am here, safe and dusty, in pastoral and quaint Ulan-Ude. I will post more on this soon, but wanted to transcribe some of my handwritten journal entries while flying the friendly skies with Siberia Airlines:
--
With twenty or so Russian and Mongolian elbows nudged firmly in back, I approached the plane towards the Soviet-era Tupelov 154 jet, in that telescopic rolling tunnel that seems to have no name. Suddenly the chunnel heaves and drops five or six inches, causing half of us to fall to the floor and making the little man in the orange vest with the big whistle to raise his hand in the universal "Stop Comrades" gesture. After 10 minutes of one supervisor after anoth nodding and nyetting in bureaucratic pantomime, we are allowed in, silent apprehension transforming into, well, just normal apprehension. Not the most comforting sign to begin a five hour flight to the land of exiles.
--
To fully understand the decor of the airplane, I think one would have to be alive during 1970s USA. The upholstery, a loose term at best, is a pseudoplaid orange on yellow on blue - the kind of patterning you see years afterwards and wonder, head scratching, how some design committee actually settled on THIS design? To complete the 70s feel, the little button overhead transliterates as "stewardess", a term that surely brings fond tingly memories to post-thirty men everywhere. The rickety arm rests are still fashioned with ashtrays, perfectly matching the antiquated smoking/no smoking flash-sign overhead.
--
The take-off is delayed while the cabin reaches sweltering temperatures, these Russians don't seem to mind, as waiting and suffering duel it out for the official national pastime. By the sheer amount of window rubbernecking as the Moscow suburbs disappear below, this is apparently Flight #1 for many of my fellow passengers, and is admittedly more comfortable than the other forms of Russian transit. As the plane levels off, the pop pop pop sounds I hear throughout the plane herald the forty or so cans of cheap beer being opened, which every Russian man seems to have stashed on him somewhere at all times. Judging by the degree of close-talking that's going on, accompanied by wagging heads and spitting laughter, they filled up pre-flight as well. There is no leg room -- even my knees are cramped -- and I can feel those of the passenger in 25D knobbling through the soft back of my seat. Everyone (except,ahem, one idiot) has brought food onto this flight, and the odor of butter and meat, from animals I dare not guess, permeates the cabin, as does the unbearable sounds of finger and thumb slurping.
--
The beverage service cart is nothing more than a tray of wheels with dixie cups and generic juice (to my Chemistry Department colleagues, think of the carts in the D-wing stockroom). You get three choices - orange, tomato or shut the hell up. I choose tomato [pomedoro sok, pa russkie] and the differences from ketchup are purely, and barely, one of texture. The service produces an atmosphere of lip smacking which constructively interfered with the aforementioned digit-licking to produce the sonic hell in which I exist now.
--
Okay, I am starting to wonder, as this pen digs deeper into the page, if this is the event that finally makes me snap? I mean, I really hoped that I would be in front of a classroom or behind the wheel when the inevitable magic mental pixies came a-thumping with their wands.
--
No snappage yet but "dinner" almost did the colorblind vegetarian in. (Really, should I be complaining?, since Siberia Airlines at least serves a meal, unlike flights in the USA where companies now charge for their boxed gruell, all in the name of saving a buck whilst the boards of directors continue to rake in big bonuses). As the eerily and perhaps inappropriately sexy stewardesses (miniskirts, high-heels, berets) make their way down the ailse, bashing every limp armrest in its path, I strain to hear the "hot food" choices so that I can dive into my phrasebook and translate. Just as Snedlana, wide-eyed, smiling toothily but five inches from my face, arrives, I've deciphered the unholy triumverate: chicken, fish or "meat". My brain whirrrs as it tries in vain to calculate the degree of spillage each option might have, in terms of odor, sauce viscosity, and particulates, just in case something salvagable like vegetables or rice might be trapped inside. "Chicken" I weakly respond, voice cracking.

Before me are placed five plastic open-faced minitrays, and one aluminum one apparently stored in the engine, as it is near fusion temperature. Half the tray contents are recognizable to me as some type of food: The vaguely Germanesque pastry shiny thingy, the tray of grapefruit slices laid atop pancake/blintzes, and the seven or eight leafy things surrounding some carrot threads. After testing the temperature of the solar block many times, I finally exhumed the hot dish: Four tendrilly, sinewy cuboids of something brown, ensauced and spread over a bed of gooey french fries. Complete disaster, but at least I've got that yummy fruit plate!

As I sniff the pink slice of grapefruit, out of habit as a quick check of freshness, the dreaded unmistakeable smell of death needles my olfactories. Knocked back in a fog of confusion, I realize that this, this, this grapefruit slice is, in fact, lukewarm fish. WTF?!?! Okay, who eats fish pancakes? Surely this is the twilight zone because, I *clearly* heard fish as one of the three options. Yes, Snedlana, along with my bread and mayonnaise, along with my limp romaine lettuce and my fish flapjacks, well I'd really like to have some more fish.

It's a madhouse! A madhouse! <-- said ala Charlton Heston-like in the Planet of the Apes for full effect.

Outta Here

I got the new cell phone, just like my old Motorola model, except less expensive and with the ability to write in cyrillic. Of course that helps me zero with my American friends and family, but what the hell, it's cool. Getting an account with MegaFon.ru is like filling out life insurance with the number of vapid questions that I don't understand.

Tell me how cool this is, especially for you city dwellers. I just checked in my luggage at the metro station and it is being whisked away to Domodedovo Airport as we speak, right onto the airplane. The metro line goes right to the terminal, so no dealing with sharky cab drivers or minibuses that rip you off. Costs about $2 to get to the airport, supposedly the best in all of Europe (as opposed to Shermetevo II, Moscow's other hellish aeroport).

Dasveedanya!

The Trans-Siberian Plan is Hatched

To most Americans, the words Irkutsk and Yakutsk are known, if at all, solely from the Parker Brothers game Risk. And, as everyone knows, if you are unfortunate to be allotted these Siberian swaths of earth at the beginning of the game, you will certainly lose (unless you use them as a springboard to Australia).

Very soon, however, I will not only be visiting said regions, but will be using those words as if I know what the hell I'm talking about. Just hours ago I booked myself a $120 flight from Moskva to Ulan-Ude, deep in the heart of Siberia, on the eastern bank of Lake Baikal, close to the Mongolian border. Yes, that's well into Asia, and is a five hour flight on Siberia Airlines -- that's one hour for each time zone I cross. This flight will almost certainly be the true revealer of how little Russian I've learned and I'm already trying to work up more than one variation of the blank "I-dont-know-what-the-hell-youre-saying-to-me" face. I'm thinking that a combination of this and this may do me well.

The idea: Drop into Siberia by plane, visit Lake Baikal for as long as I can stand being outdoors, then take the old Trans-Siberian Railway, salmon-like and against the normal touristy direction, back towards Moskva. From there I whisk down the Volga, hitting as many Russian cities as I can handle, then its off to Turkey. I need to find a way to send the snark via cell phone while in Siberia and on the train -- but I still have 24 hours left in dark, rainy, grey Moscow.

Another close call in Moscow

The architectural craziness of St. Basil's Cathedral in Red Square cannot be captured by simple photos, certainly not by my unskilled hand. There are unusual and hypnotic nuances that shadows bring that make the peculiar textured onion domes seem more than three-dimensional, as if they are dynamically changing before your eyes. At noon the cathedral looks entirely different than it does in the morning, or in the evening. To a person with normal color vision I'm sure the imagery is even more spectacular. The cathedral was commissioned by Ivan the Terrible in 1534 to commemorate the slaughtering of the Tatars in the Russian city of Kazan (a city on my agenda, watch for the bouncing ball).

At ninety degrees from St. Basil's is Lenin's tomb, which I stood in line for, again, over an hour. I'm not really sure why I went again this year, perhaps to see if he was less waxy this time. The goons in the tomb were just as mean-looking as before, so I quickly donned my Mr. Stoneface mask as I sauntered in to take another looksee at the most celebrated of the mummified communists. (If anyone out there needs a good band name, there you go!)

Since I was playing tourist, I thought mayhaps I shall take in the famed Moscow Circus, not too far from where I'm staying. And as I waited in line to pay the entrance fee, a thought struck me like lightning, one so horrible that my throat ricocheted off my heart. How could I forget, that entity which is most unholy on earth, so wretched in its existence that even children have the good sense to quiver in horror. And after somnambulating through the streets and subways of a 9 million strong city of crazy people, after having a rohypnol vacation in Muscovian shrubbery, I was about to inadvertantely subject myself to this?

CLOWNS!!!!

To that, I said nyet.

Siberia or Bust

I have been telling people for quite some time that this mission to Russia will be incomplete - nay, a failure - if I don't make it to Siberia. Right now I don't know where my passport or credit cards are, there is still residual roofie coursing through my veins, I almost got swept up into a nine-person brawl on the subway last night, I am sans cell phone and my intestines are starting to rebel against my diet. Still ...

Must. Reach. Siberia.

I may have a chance to go to Lake Baikal by air on the cheap, to the city Ulaan Ude, only five time zones away. But first, find that damned passport or I'm stuck in Moskva.

Must. Reach. Siberia.

Why Siberia?

Because.

Update: Passport found! In my roofied state I still had the good sense to hide my dokuments away. It took some searching but now they are found.

Roofied

I awoke to droplets splattering on my face amid the unmistakable sounds and smells of a rainshower. My surroundings were alien, but I knew that something was amiss because I was quite definitely outside. It took me more than a minute to recognize that I had wedged myself underneath two bushes and some carefully laid branches and twigs. I was soaking wet, clothing and hair matched in their dampness, and my thought-processes were sluggish. Pulling myself out of this makeshift bunker, I realized that I was in some residential area but I had no idea where. I wasn't even sure if I was still in Moscow or, for that matter, Russia. I stumbled around looking for clues that would tell me where I was and how to get back to my apartment on Tversakaya Street. I was completely lost. This was sometime on Saturday, late morning.

Some of the details of the earlier night began to precipitate out of my soupy mind. On Friday I had gone to an expat bar on the east side called the Boarhouse and had a good time chatting with Russians and foreigners alike. The nightlife in Moscow is considerably later than most American bars, and I looked at my cell phone and was astonished that it was 4:30 am already and the place was still quite full. I was ready to go home, but the subway would not be open until 5:00 am, so I decided to wait it out. I hate trying to negotiate with taxis in Moscow with me not being able to properly pronounce long Russian names to indicate the address. Besides, it would be easy for me to just wait for the Metro to open, just 30 minutes away.

Walking up to the Kurskaya Metro station I noticed a man who was bleeding profusely from his left eye, obviously the victim of a beating. There were a few teenager musicians mulling about, normal looking, who were yelling at the guy but not helping him. I later learned that he was an Armenian ("all are criminals" I was later told) and he had tried to pilfer from their donations cup. Not knowing the background, I tried to help, brought him a napkin and told him to keep pressure on the wound. He quite obviously needed stitches but no one around was thinking of helping him, and the policeman who eventually came plainly pointed the man towards the medical clinic.

At this time, Nikolai the Kazakhstani came into the picture, telling me that the bloody man was a criminal and to leave him be. I reluctantly said okay and Nikolai said, "You're a good man, let us drink a Russian beer." I told him no that I needed to get home, but he insisted and was so excited to meet an American. "We drink Russian beer, to friendship" His English was practically non-existent but I could understand his Russian fairly well. We walked to one of the many convenience stands around the subway terminal (where you point to stuff that you want in the window, but there's only room inside for one, the clerk). He said "We get good Russian beer!" On the way there Nikolai had explained to me that he was in Moscow only to make money for wife and son who were back in Astana, Kazakhstan. I could tell he wanted to impress me with his choice of beer, but it was evident quickly that he did not have money to afford it regularly. But he scanned over the displayed beers with his index finger, all of which unknown to me, and he finally stopped on one that was suitable. The logo was quite familiar to me and I tried in vain to dissuade him from it as he uttered, aloud, "Red Bull -- good Russian beer!"

We talked amiably for awhile in my makeshift Russian, drinking our Red Bull "beers', until I realized that something was going wrong in my system. Nikolai asked me if I was feeling okay and I said yes but I knew that something was amiss. I was completely sober by this time, I had only a few beers that night, the last being several hours ago, and began to realize that I had just been drugged. I had read online about foreigners, usually men, being slipped a sedative and subsequently robbed, but I prided myself on being too aware or observant or street-savvy to have that happen to me. But I could feel the roofie taking effect and I quickly scanned my mental datafile whether I was offered an open drink or not. No, I left the bar over 30 minutes prior and only drunk bottled water before leaving. But wait -- I had looked away, bent over while tying my shoe, that was when Nikolai must have slipped it to me. I did not want him to know that I knew he was trying to rob me, so I quickly excused myself and headed towards the Metro station.

As the mental fog buildt I knew I had to get to a place of safety, a relative term to be sure in Moscow, so I headed towards the subway exit where a large number of people would be mulling about before too long. Only ten minutes or so until the lines would open, perhaps I could thwart robbery or assault by anchoring myself there. That's one of the last of many muddy images I can remember.

I next awoke, between twenty minutes and an hour later, with the police asking me for my dokuments. I make it a practice to never leave the house with my passport, only carrying a photocopy if anything, because that's the worst thing to lose in a different country. They asked me if I had been drinking and I told them that I wasn't drunk but had been drugged. I have no idea what transpired afterwards because they left and Nikolai was there, escorting me to the subway. I surmise now that he had told them that I was his buddy but had too much to drink and that he was helping me home. I was definitely and extremely out of it, the rohypnol was at full peak.

Having a superhuman metabolism is not always a good thing. In college I was often the only one not drunk (or much much less drunk) when the gang would go out on the town. It probably has a lot to do with me being a light-sleeper and with my inability to put on too much weight. But now I am so thankful for it because I don't think there's any way I would have wriggled myself out of this situation. I told Nikolai that I was headed home through the Metro and ran towards the station. Somehow I even had the wits about me to buy two metro tickets from the teller and to go through the turnstiles. Nikolai, of course, followed me. I told him no, you stay here, I will go home. I don't recall what his excuse for coming with me, maybe he said he didn't want me to walk the streets of Moscow drunk, but I was already wise to his plan but I'm not sure that he knew that I was onto him. He seemed irritated that I was still awake and seemingly alert, although I was shutting down rapidly.

I got onto the blue line towards the Tverskaya Station, close to my apartment, five or six metro stops away. I was groggy, could barely stand much less read the cyrillic signs. There was no way I was going to be able to tell when the subway reached my station and each minute that transpired meant another step towards unconsciousness. Stay awake! I told myself as the blur of people and stations flew by. Finally, I saw my opportunity as we made a stop. The train across the room, going the opposite way, was also arriving so I decided to bolt towards it. Mind you, I was moving in slow motion at best, but I quickly jumped out of the car and "ran" towards the other one, barely making it as the doors automatically slammed shut. I looked backwards and saw that Nikolai, thankfully, had been shut out.

Still sure, however, that he was going to try to follow me, I had to make a clean getaway. At the next subway stop (I think) I hopped off and got onto another line entirely and rode somewhere four, five stops away. I don't remember much after that but I did have the good sense to make it into some bushes in a residential area and cover myself up so that no one would see me. I must've slept until the rain awoke me four or five hours later. I made a check of myself: I still had money and ATM card as well as my apartment keys and shoes. No pain in my bottom, no obvious bruises anywhere. All that was missing was my cell phone, which was due to be replaced by Cingular anyway. Whew!

I was still swirling after I awoke, having absolutely no idea where I was. I asked a cop for directions to the nearest Metro station and he courteously pointed it out. I was on the other side of the city, at least ten miles away! I was able to get myself home, finally, and collapsed on my bed on what must have been around noon on Saturday.

When I next awoke a few hours ago, it was 11:30 am Sunday morning. I just got back from eating and I feel pretty good, considering what I went through. Thank god for my superhuman metabolism! Now to go buy a cheap cell phone for the rest of my trip.