A Disquisition on Mother Russia

From my handwritten journal, enroute to Turkey:

My trip to the former Soviet Union was never meant to be a vacation, despite some occasional mind-detours to Aruba here and there, undoubtedly induced by comically low blood sugar. My assignment was to truly absorb this important, complicated and misunderstood culture in all of its richness. And over nine time zones of complexity, from emerald Belarus to Mongolian Russia to the chaotic streets of Moscow, I got it, at least a snapshot. The greens and the greys. The sweat, piss, perfume and dust. Granite and grass. Urban rain and chalky roads. Laughter, confusion, joy, awe, lust, hunger, xenophobia, beauty, numbness. Heartbreak, misery, unbridled potential. Solitude.

Peering out undulating train windows for hours on end, seeing and smelling the tremendousness of Siberia and the Urals, and their unusually happy inhabitants, has made me and my way of being feel small. The pain and the promise of Russia, especially Moscow, has amplified nagging questions, making me perhaps yearn for another model of living life.

I miss my friends and family -- and Mexican food -- but not my fishbowl. Soon, [over]work will again dominate me, snuffing out that which masquerades as a personal life, itself seemingly increasingly open to intrusive and offensive public scrutiny. Missing more bill deadlines because of the crushing ordeal of being an academic flying solo. Inaction delivered under the guise of policy discussions. Inflexibility crushing once promising opportunities.

Restlessness in unbelievably gorgeous Pacific Coast small town America.

Dead Presidents

I walked briskly out of my short-term apartment onto Tverskaya Street, one of Russia’s main avenues, ready to meet up with Olga and Vladimir, a pair of music promotors I had met earlier in the day in Moscow. I had remarked to them that I only had 12 hours to exit Russia before my visa expired (extensions are impossible, fines heavy and severe). Olga arranges travel iteniraries for many of Eastern Europe’s biggest and most awful acts (needless to say, entirely unknown back in the USA) and helped me obtain a quick, cheap getaway to Antalya, one of Russia’s pet summer destinations. One of the greatest things about Russia is the ability to purchase inexpensive airplane tickets on the spot, none of the 14-day in-advance nonsense that we Americans accept as free commerce. So, with a phone call and a couple of Metro stops, everything was in order and, though it required me to stay here in Kemer for 4 days as part of a package, I must say that it shockingly nice here. For ex-Soviets, this must be the equivalent of a weeklong orgasm.

As I headed up towards Cafe Pyramid, across the block and in view, I ran into two of Moscow’s finest – the constables in the big red hats and the shiny black guns in hte brown holsters. They demanded my documents – in Russia, they need no presumption or suspicion of guilt to question anybody, everybody – and I complied with my passport.

“Big problem, you must come to polize station. Your documents not in order.” And they weren’t, technically, because Sveta, the brunette babelet I hired to take my visa to be registered (which is required of everyone, within 72 hours of arrival into a city) had not returned. As longtime readers may recall, Sveta is the apartment manager’s assistant, raised on a reindeer farm in Arctic Russia, knows three languages and is as nice as she is beautiful. I called her, she was still ten minutes away on the Metro, so I had to wait for her to rescue me.

Somehow I stalled them for fıfteen excruciating minutes and, soon, red-hatted goons were everywhere, with many greatly concerned onlookers. In the meantime, I tried in vain to explain my situation, that although I had been in Russia for nearly an entire month, I had only been in Moscow less than 36 hours, that I didn’t even need a registration. Of course, their command of the English language conveniently shorted out from time to time and puzzlingly, I still don’t know the Russian words for incompetence and harrassment, so the stalemate continued.

I finally get a text message from Sveta saying that she sees me across the boulevard but cannot help as she herself is an illegal resident in Moscow, not being registered either (for two years!). Finally, I convince her to walk by quickly and, on the busiest street in Moscow, we make a sleight-of-hand pass-off that would have made any grifter or Sidney Bristow proud. I magically produce my registration, stamped. Discussion over.

Not so fast, foreigner, this is Russia after all. “Big problem. You in Moscow 29 days, this registration good, three days.” I explained and re-explained the deal, that I had arrived by train from Kazan just one day earlier, and all the red-crested robins could do was just shake their heads no, no, no. The fine for not being properly registered, incidentally, is roughly $200 and, worse, not being able to re-enter Russia for 5 years, If taken to the statıon, I would be in deep shit and would undoubtedly miss my flight, six hours away. I needed a solution, one that only donned on me as fresh-faced Olga arrived to help, after having phoned me ten minutes earlier.

I asked her, who was now yellıng at the cops, to calm down and please stay put with the authorities -- and my passport -- while I retrieved "extra documentation", namely my train ticket. From earlier run-ins, I knew that I was now in an infinite loop of bureaucratic jabberwocky, that no matter what credentials I produced, there would assuredly be some new “problem". Back int the apartment I so-conspicuously interleaved two crisp $20 bills in-between the train ticket dupes and, back on Tverskaya, handed them back with a wink and a nod to Moscow's most upstanding blue-eyed civil servant.

“Look closely” I said. He slowly opened the tickets, nodded with a smile and said, in Russian: “The best documents are those with American presidents.”

Five minutes later, Olga, Vladimir and I were enjoying Ukrainian beers at the cafe, me full of the euphoria and satisfaction one garners only from successfully bribing a cop, a feat we don't often get treated to back in the States.

Back in Moscow

This is just a three sentence placeholder to notify those who care that I'm back in Moscow and it feels good. According to my visa, I have less than 16 hours before I *must* be out of Russia, so I've been working hard on getting that ticket down to Turkey. When I get a chance I will wax poetically on what it's like to spend an entire month in Russia, the largest country in the world.

Update: I made it and am now in Antalya, on the Mediterranean Coast of Turkey. It was difficult going and I had to grease some cop palms to get here, but my exile in Russia has ended. Hopefully my updates will continue but Turkey != Russia and this damned Turkish keyboard is completely crazy.

Blue Minarets and Tatars

Nestled on the conflux of the Kazanka and the Volga, Europe's longest river, Kazan feels unlike any other Russian city, instead resembling those further south in ex-Soviet Central Asia. The city was founded in the 11th century by a people called the Volga Bulgars, who built one of this country's most beautiful and famous kremlins. When the terrifying Golden Horde thundered through Old Russia under the direction of the great conqueror Genghis Khan, the people of this region began to be referred to as Tatars (a historical misnomer, since the native people were not, in fact, Mongol). The name stuck, the Tatars were absorbed into the Bulgar populations and the new Kazan Khanate quickly grew as an important trading center in the Mongol empire.

In 1552 the city was smashed by Tsar Ivan the Terrible (who celebrated the victory by having crazyass St Basil's Cathedral in Moscow constructed) and the city was absorbed into Russia's rule. Nowadays Kazan serves as the capital of Tatarstan, one of the republics united, albeit uncomfortably, in the Russian Federation. The city recently celebrated its 1000th birthday by unveiling the reconstructed and stunningly beautiful Kul Sharif, the largest mosque in all of Europe.

Time to get back on the funtrain, this time all the way back to Moscow.

Woo Hoo, Party Train to Kazan!

To buy a train ticket to Kazan, I walked into the Sputnik Aviakassa in Ekaterinburg, one of the city's almost-pleasant rail and air ticket offices -- roughly approximating a travel agency, except that all the women are dolled up in that scary-sexy librarian way. My Russian skills, now developed enough to get me to the right room at least, predictably and invariably send me to the wrong Natasha. I was taken by hand to where the trains are negotiated -- there someone would surely help me procure my ticket (which, as it turns out, is equivalent to a sleeping board next to a rolling outhouse in aromatic August). While conversing entirely in Russian, Alexandra, the raven-haired babe with the uncomfortably low-cut white blouse, painstakingly recorded all my requests (well, not all of them) in a well-used hardbound ledger (nothing here is fully computerized, nothing). With her speaking at mach V by phone to a disembodied train expert, the plans were finalized, smiles and spasibo's exchanged, buying of ticket nearly complete.

Not quite, this is Russia after all. Creating a head-scratching level of bureaucracy, no one in this country who sells you something can actually handle the money. All transactions, whether at a restaurant or on the bus or at the drugstore, require at least three persons [the buyer, the seller and the miserable shoot-me-now harpy who runs the register or credit card machine]. Up the dusty stairs, stopping at each floor to ask the ubiquitous and bored security ogre in the red cap about the cashier's office, receiving the appropriately negative grunt. I finally reach floor 4 where I encounter The Beast in the Plexiglas Bunker. Even if she were speaking perfect English I would not be able to hear the hazy heavily-refracted apparition behind the ten inches of solid clear plastic, much less this crazy language that no one will ever be able to master. I could not understand her, could not even see her beyond the little drawer-chute peephole in which she demanded my information and my money. Finally I guess I nodded my head yes and no in the right pre-determined configuration, like unlocking a mysterious easter egg from a video game [yes, yes, no, no, no, yes, yes], and my purchase request was granted.

Back down to Alexandra's desk, all bureaucratic needs filled, the negotiations complete. Opening a steel box which she pulled slowly from under her desk, she plucked out an ivory velvet baggie and unveilled a glimmering, chromium circular stamp, attached to a long black wooden handle. The sign that either I've been in this nutty country way too long or that my nutritional reserves have been exhausted is that this whole procedure seemed in slow-motion and unnecessarily erotic. I felt myself blushing as Alexandra twisted and pressed the stamp firmly into the black ink pad and then wwwhacked it down suddenly onto my receipt with a startling and satisfying clap, cracking a half-smile as several of her body parts jiggled asynchronously. Whew, I was on my way to Kazan, which all of a sudden had a strangely sexy overtone to it.

The crashing, sobering reality came next.

I finally dragged myself off Train 229 in the Russian city of Kazan at 3:17 am this morning, the sun yet to arise, sleep still encrusting my orbs and god-knows-what flourishing in my hair. The one-day, seven-hour trip in the kupe compartment, strategically situated next door to the urinal, was nothing short of miserable. I felt and smelt the vibrations of piss and poop for a full day. To top that I watched in frozen disgust, not able to get far enough away, as my cabinmate choked down a copious trapezoidal flap of flimsy, damp, brownish meat in the most sickening, gut-spilling manner conceivable [swallowing more than he could properly ingest, ejecting part of it back out with a gurgling-gagging sound, then repeating until it was all ingested]. In darkness with a shitty map, I tried in vain to find a hotel room this morning, the search lasting six hours -- so many hotels will not accept foreigners --and, although this city inhabits nearly a million people, a shocking shortage of accomodation remains.

Finally I found a room in Hotel Tatarstan, a typically Soviet monstrosity that specializes in discomfort. Somehow I made it to this internet cafe, purely by accident and, as usual, I'm the only one actually doing anything besides playing ear-crashing games in this humid, hot videodrome.

My mood is suprisingly good, the city looks rather beautiful right now and the Tatarstan air smells delightful, an after-effect perhaps of having my nose wafted with blasting bursts of alcohol-laced urine for the prior 27 hours.