A Journey from Moscow to Vladivostok via the Trans-Siberian Railroad - Part 4
Day 12 - Wednesday, 8/1/18 08:39. UTC: Wednesday, 8/1/18 00:39.
Irkutsk & Listvyanka
52.282 104.25952
By my reckoning: Wednesday, 8/1/18 08:39.
Currently at the train station in Irkutsk. A bus will take
us one hour to a village on Lake Baikal called Listvyanka where we will stay
for two days.
It is overcast and not great for pictures. Our guide for the
next few days is Oksana. She speaks German as well as English and Russian, so I
could speak a little of my (halting) German with her. She told us about Lake
Baikal. It was formed when the Indian subcontinent smashed into Asia. It
buckled the land, made ripples that created the mountain ranges on either side
of the lake and a deep rift between. As the sea water was squeezed out from the
oceans, it was rinsed into a fresh water lake. It's over 1600 meters deep,
almost a mile, and 3,000 km around. It contains something like 70 cubic
kilometers of water. The water is cold all the time. Circulation insures that
the water is oxygenated all the way to the bottom. Which is actually the
beginning of a sediment layer 12 kilometers deep, making Baikal the deepest
point on earth. I said that Siberia can hold all 50 states with room to spare.
Well, the lake holds more water than all five great lakes combined.
Small krill like creatures abound, along with several other
breeds of fish, sponges, and seals. The water is the cleanest and clearest on
earth. If you take a boat out away from human habitation you can drink it right
out of the lake. It's too cold to support any bacteria. You can eat the fish
raw without any worries. And the fish have high quantities of oil. It tastes
like carrot and is used for cooking instead of eating by itself. The seals look
like fat balloons. They are very curious and not afraid, since they have no
predators. They'll pop up and watch you once in a while. In the winter they
maintain holes in the ice so they can breathe. Each seal keeps 30 air holes
open all winter long. There is a large seal population, mostly in the north of
the lake, so there can be millions of holes in the ice all winter.
Lake Baikal has its own cleaning system. Between the small
shrimp like creatures and the rest of the Baikal food chain, anything in the
water is filtered out. If I human being were to die in the lake, in three days
it would be reduced to a skeleton. Within a few months it would be gone
entirely. Great way to dispose of a body. They tried introducing the
micro-organisms into other lakes around the world that were polluted, but they
died. They evolved in Baikal. They live in Baikal.
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| Instead of locks, they use ribbons. |
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| Oxanna |
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| The view would have been spectacular. Honest! |
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| King Baikal |
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| And his daughter, Angara |
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| About the only wildlife I’ve seen. |
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Me, with my army of cuddly seals and Matrushka dolls. Don’t
let them fool you. Those dolls are merciless. And those are the real deal seal!
|
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| They may look fierce... But they're not. |
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| Russia's only fresh water, international navy. |
The water is so clear that, on a sunny day boats appear to be floating in air. You can see to a depth of 60 meters. During the winter it freezes to a depth of one meter or more and the ice is crystal clear. Siberia used to be colder and the water would freeze down three or four meters. Oksana said one winter about a hundred people were out on the ice, which some people find hard to do at first, because it looks like you are going to fall in the water. Someone realized that their child was missing. Everyone started looking for him. Then they found a bunch of children lying flat on the ice, the missing child one of them. Oksana found her children and they told her to look through the ice. Soon all the adults were laying on the ice with their children. They could see right through the ice and into the water. If there had been a scuba diver there they could have waived to him.
Tribes of indigenous peoples live there. They looked
Mongolian. One tribe on the west side is shamanic. One on the east side is
Buddhist. Catherine the Great had sent one of her lovers/generals to explore
Siberia and he discovered them. She rewarded him by banishing him to Siberia.
As Russians moved into the area they traded with the local population and
intermarried. Someone asked if the Russians tried to drive them out or put them
on reservations. She said, no. Nothing like that. They traded, lived side by
side, and got along fine. And they asked to be included in Russia so they would
have protection from the Mongolians. They are here to this day. Catherine the
Great was great because of how much she expanded Russia.
There is a spirit of Lake Baikal. An old man. Flowing beard.
Furrowed brow. Typical animistic stuff. He had a daughter, beautiful, free
spirited. Her name was Angara. She fell in love with someone far away and
wanted to be with him, so she went to him. Her father was angry and threw a
great stone towards them. In response she took off her necklace and scattered
it around the lake. And this is why the Angara River is the only river that
flows out of Lake Baikal to her lover, the Yenisei River and there are so many
beautiful stones in the mountains around the lake.
They say if you swim in the lake for five minutes it will
subtract five years from your age. Ten minutes will subtract ten years. Just be
careful. You don't want to come out as a baby. Or with hypothermia.
Listvyanka is a little fishing village. There's not a lot to
do other than a few museums, the lake, and a couple of restaurants. The
population is a little older. There are a lot of dachas here, so many people
live here during the summer and get visited by grandchildren. People also come
here to have picnics on the lake. Further north are indigenous villages where
people speak no English at all.
Next stop was a museum to the lake. They had a mockup of a
mini-submarine used to study it. We went in and saw a brief simulation of
diving into the lake. We saw the different marine life there through the
windows as we descended into the lake. Again, the clarity of the water is
amazing. A few years ago Vladimir Putin came here and went to the bottom of the
lake. Then all the conspiracy theorists started saying that they found
'something' on the bottom and of course Putin wanted to see it. The Lake Baikal
monster, I presume.
We saw the typical museum exhibits. A description of how Lake Baikal came into
existence. The lake is growing longer and deeper all the time. Eventually it
will split Asia in two. Then upstairs to a laboratory and looked at some
micro-organisms under a microscope. Oksana said they are always discovering new
things about the region. The more we learn the less we understand. There is a
lot of seismic activity in the area. Minor earthquakes occur as often as every
second. There is a recording station in the basement of the museum and we could
see the activity on a computer screen. That's normal and perfectly safe. If you
see the activity stop then you could expect a bigger quake. One that might
cause a Landslide.
There were several tanks of fish, seals, etc. The tanks were
icy cold to the touch. The seals liked showing off for us. That was all we
stayed for. Much to see!
We stopped at a gift shop. I got the obligatory T-shirt,
local herbal teas with medicinal properties, and a few local carved stones;
Charoite, a purple-ish semi-precious stone that is only found around Lake
Baikal where Angara scattered them. It must have looked pretty around her neck.
And I got my picture taken wearing a fake fur Russian hat with a Hammer and
Sickle pin on it. How many capitalists have you eaten today?
I asked Oksana what she thought about US Russian relations.
She's not too interested in what's going on internationally. She's busy with
her family, job (she's young, has a family, and is a college professor working
part time summers, like Yevgeny,) but once in a while she watches the news.
They get 500 channels. Channel one has Russian news. Then she watches
Al-Jazera, Der Spiegel, and CNN. She says one commentator will say, Things are
bad because of X, Y, and Z. Then another commentator will say, Things are good
because of (the same) X, Y, and Z. Like most Russians, she doesn't believe the
propaganda. And also like most Russians, she likes us and would like to visit
America. I said she'd be welcome. She would, right?
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Not
even here four days… Look what happens!
|
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| Singing Cossacks |
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| Sunday extra credit and adult Ed. |
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| My spirit guide |
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| Today is Airforce day. |
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| Very friendly tour guide, Oksana. |
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| And more jar heads. |
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| Commuter train. |
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| Irkutsk |
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| Generic Cossack and- God. What is that insignia? It looks like something PT Barnum wouldn't touch. |
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Red soldier and white. Laying down arms.
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Seriously,
what tortured group of sadistic lexicographers and bureaucrats came up
with this monstrosity? And what’s the statue all about?
|
On top was a lookout point. The view would be spectacular.
Snowcapped mountains. Crystal clear waters. Bears waiving around human bones.
But all we saw was a blank wall of grey that only revealed about a kilometer of
cloudy lake. So we took pictures of each other. On our way down we saw those
Siberian Larches we've seen buildings built out of.
Speaking of eating people, there are bears in them, thar
woods. They generally leave people alone but if one does eat a human, he will
not want to eat anything else and has to be put down. I guess we're sweeter
meat and not as gamey as they usually get. Stupid bears. Don't they know human
is bad for you? Sure, they're sweeter since they are raised on people farms,
but they are full of pesticides, bad cholesterol, and chemicals. Don't eat
that, Yogi! Eating them will kill you... Literally.
Stupid bear.
Back at the hotel we went to the sauna. Ten minutes in a
steamy, burning larch room and a jump in a pool at the temperature of the lake.
Twice! It was invigorating. Russians are concerned about their health.
Everything is healthy and medicinal. Medicinal mud. Medicinal food. Medicinal
tea, houses, fish, saunas, borsch, berries, and freezing lakes. All the
biological borsch! My body hasn't been able to cope with so much health. It'll
recover.
Out in the lake near here is Truth Rock. Once upon a time a
hunter went out hunting for a few days. When he got home he suspected his wife
had cheated on him, so he took her and tied her to Truth Rock overnight. If she
was gone the next morning, then she had not told the truth. I think the bears
got her.
After dinner a few of us sat outside for a few shots of pine
nut flavored Baikal vodka. Yevgeny joined us but he drank white wine. Not a
vodka Russian. What is the world coming to? We talked about the area, how
people got along. Politics. Typical bar room chatter. Yevgeny told us more
about how Russians see themselves. Is everyone a real Russian? Of course it's
not that simple. There are ethnic Russians, which make up 80% of Russia. Then
there are the ethnicities that are still considered geographic Russians. Tatars
are second. You can tell by sir names. Ethnic Russian names end in 'ov' or 'in'
like Putin or Romanov. Jewish names end in sky like Trotsky. But if you ask
someone what they are they might say Tatar or they might say Russian. In many
ways Russia is what America was supposed to be. A melting pot that is more of a
vegetable and meat stew than a puree. You should be able to be a Pollock, a
Jew, or a Black and still be an American.
Vocabulary word for the day: баня Banya Sauna.
Day 13 – Thursday, 8/2/18 07:35. UTC: Wednesday, 8/1/18
23:35.
Listvyanka
51.86416 104.84506
By my reckoning: Thursday, 8/2/18 07:35.
Oksana asked us which political leader inspired the road
from Irkutsk to Baikal? We said, Putin, Brezhnev, Genghis Khan, Sauron. She
said it was late 50's. Khrushchev! Right man for the era, but no. It was
Eisenhower. In the 50's Khrushchev wanted to visit Washington. It was not any
kind of formal negations. He wanted to visit for some reason. He met with
Eisenhower and they talked. They did come to an agreement on some issue. The
protocol back then was that an agreement would be reached in one country,
America or the Soviet Union, and the final accord would be signed in the other.
So Khrushchev asked Eisenhower where he would like to sign the agreement.
Eisenhower had heard of Lake Baikal and wanted to see it.
Khrushchev agreed, of course, and went back to Russia. Where the hell is Lake
Baikal? he said. He told his aids to give him a report. He found out where Lake
Baikal was and the fact that it was pretty much inaccessible to humans. There
was about a year till the signing so he ordered his engineers to build a road
and get it done on time for the signing of the accord. They worked three shifts
and finished it on time. Unfortunately an American pilot named Gary Powers flew
a spy mission over Russia right before the accord was scheduled to happen. They
thought their spy plane was invisible to Russian radar. When the Russians
picked it up, they radioed Powers and asked him politely to land. He refused so
they shot him down. That put the kibosh on their accord. Incidentally, I always
heard that Powers' plane's engines died from the extreme altitude and he could
not restart them. That's why he was shot down. For what it’s worth someone’s
not telling the truth.
Then we visited a village or fort that represented a typical
Siberian settlement in the area over three hundred years ago. All of the
buildings are authentic and original, much like Sturbridge Village in
Massachusetts. It had been settled by Cossacks. Cossacks came from southern
modern Ukraine and were the Tsar's best soldiers. That's where my grandfather
came from, around Odessa. Maybe he was a Cossack. He fled the Tsar so he
wouldn't be cannon fodder. They were recruited at 18, served in the military
for 25 years, served as policemen for 15 years, and then they retired with a
pension. They were an elite force. And they were not supposed to marry until
they retired, either. Tough life.
The Tsar would send them into an area to subdue it for
Russia. When they were finished, they left the area leaving it to fall again
with no occupying force. The Cossacks were breaking the rules about marriage,
anyway, and the authorities realized that with families they were more likely
to settle down in a conquered area, providing a sense of security to others who
may wish to settle there. The ones who survived became rich. Their
accommodations showed it. They could afford more and fancier furnishings in their
homes and enjoyed respect from the growing communities and a place in its
government. They continued to wear their military uniforms and medals with much
deserved honor.
Every house had a red corner for icons. Of course they were
very religious. They had a huge, square oven in the center of the house for
heat and cooking, which in the winter they slept on top of. A samovar, of course. Glass windows, a glass
factory had opened by nearby deposits of good quality sand. During the winter
they would put another pane of glass inside the windows. They had double paned
windows. Forget necessity. Freezing is the mother of all invention.
In a courtyard there was a woman singing and playing a
stringed instrument, not exactly a balalaika, but close. It was beautiful.
People came to Siberia for many reasons. Some were escaped
slaves, slavery was only ever practiced in western Russia. Some came for a new
life. Some to get away from the Tsar. Of the prisoners exiled to Siberia, only
3-5% were hardened criminals. The rest were political prisoners. This means
that the bulk of prisoners were educated doctors and lawyers who defied the
Tsar and, therefore, people they in Siberia would approve of. If one managed to
escape in chains and sometimes carrying a heavy chunk of larch on his back,
they would find help if they could make it to a local village, people to shield
them, blacksmiths to cut off their chains, food, warmth, life. Sometimes they
would try to burn away the larch. This required finding a cold stream and cooling
your iron bound hands while the larch burned on whatever campfire you managed
to set alight.
So many people who came to Siberia came voluntarily or
voluntarily stayed once they were there. Or if not, they found a home here,
anyway. Siberia requires a special kind of person. If you are not that kind of
person it will turn you into one. Or kill you.
That's another stereotype blown apart.
There were no basements or foundations, except one. Part of
the government compound included a small underground space, not even a room. If
a body needed to be examined they would store it underground until a circuit
doctor came by. I asked what they did with the dead in winter? They buried
them, first chopping through the frozen ground.
Next we visited the school. Children went to school at age
eight and studied for two years, from the end of September to May, Monday
through Saturday. They had to be free for the growing season. They studied for
two years. Teachers taught arithmetic, reading, writing, religion, and Russian
history. Any students who studied for four years were qualified to go and teach
for themselves. On Sundays after church the teacher would give lectures for the
adults and children if they wished. Adult Ed. Education has always been
important to Russians.
The teacher was provided with all his or her needs. She had
a house near the school and the mothers of the village would bring food for her
and lunches for the students. They had a clever device that they could fill
with hot water and wash their hands and face. The churches were always
immaculately clean and taught that the body is a temple of the soul. You must
take care of it. This included a banya, sauna, once a week.
Contrast with Europe. The church taught that the body is
evil and washing it unhealthy. Napoleon, for instance, wrote that he took a
bath once in his life and didn't like it. He forbade his wife to bathe as well.
Russia didn't ever get the plague or other diseases that breed in filth.
On top of the gate tower is the two headed eagle of Russia.
It symbolizes the union of civic and religious, east and west. It also faces
east, thus acting like a compass.
We entered a common peasant's house. There was a fenced
courtyard with stalls for animals and workshops off it and the house at the front.
Oksana told us a story about bear hunting. They would hunt
bears in the winter. Their dens were covered in snow so they used dogs to sniff
them out. When a dog found a bear they opened the den and let the dog go in and
bite and generally annoy the bear. Bears lose up to 45% of their weight during
the winter, so they come out angry and hungry. The hunter has a harpoon like
weapon which he holds out in front of him. The bear rears up and plunges down,
right on the blade. This is the only way to kill a bear. If you have a gun and
shoot him several times he might just get more pissed off and still attack.
Bears don't like to run downhill, so if you are near a downhill slope running
down it is your only hope if you don't get him on the first try.
Inside the house were several rooms. The bedroom had the
furnace in it. Sleeping was done in lofts. Grandparents slept near the furnace
and the rest of the family slept on the opposite side, shoulder to shoulder.
They had a formal room with the red corner, decorations,
examples of the women of the family's needlework, and other elaborate items. If
another family had a son or daughter they were interested in marrying into this
family, they would arrange to meet. When they got there they would first look
at the animals in the pens in the courtyard outside of the house. If they were
well kept, fed, and healthy they knew that this was a good family. Then they
would be led into the formal room and entertained. On one shelf were some
boxes, one for each daughter in the family. People were exempt from paying
taxes if they had daughters. This stopped when they married. Some families
tried to hide some of their daughters so nobody would come a'courting. But
people could just go to the registry and look it up. Love will out.
Russian etiquette in such matters required delicate
execution. You couldn't just come out and say, Sure, your little Cossack can
marry my little Matryoshka doll! Not so fast, Descartes! These things must be
done discretely. As if our lives depended on it, which they may. If the mother
approved of the union she would quietly and nonchalantly hang some item, a
cloth or some kitchen tool, on a peg by the door of the formal room. Then the
other family knew she was in favor of uniting their two families. The next day
they would come back with a formal proposal since they knew it would be
accepted. Otherwise, don't let the door impede your exit inertia.
To reduce rivalry the mother in law was expected to teach
the new brides of the family how to cook. They were patrilocal, so the girls
joined the boys' families. This insured that all the new daughters in law
cooked the way momma liked.
While walking to the next building politics came up. I told
Oksana that I heard that Putin was appointing governors, but one region is
having an election anyway. She said, yes. So do they and in the last election
the Communist candidate won. Who did what, now?
Nobody supports Communism, well. No more than three percent.
So it was more of a protest vote against the current government which everybody
holds in contempt. I said that was pretty much what the last election was for
us. She said Siberians are not beholden to anybody, after all. They are the
Russians of Russia. Good to know. Must come from all of the Bobr meat.
We listened to some Cossack men singing in the watch tower.
We saw a ger, which was used by the local tribes. It's like a yert made out of
larch. One item of note. They made blankets out of horse hair, which are
waterproof. A hunter would be out hunting and stop for the night. He'd place
his blanket on the wet grass and roll up into it. The next morning he'd wake up
warm and dry. Ok. One more thing. Babies died frequently. They would take
newborns and wrap them in blankets and carry them on horseback in little cradles.
They weren't warm enough and they'd die of hypothermia. Of course they thought
it was evil spirits. Life is brutal if nothing else. And the people who survive
it can be very, very smart as well as very, very dumb. Like always.
There was much more to see and we could have spent more
time, but lunch and a boat ride beckoned.
Khrushchev came up in our conversation, as he often does.
Oksana said he tried to introduce democratic reforms. He allowed for free
presidential elections. The result was that he was eventually voted out of
office. But now, instead of the KGB taking him out and shooting him like they
did to other deposed leaders they just banished him. In another case, the party
provided four candidates for the people to vote on. OK... You’ve got a handle
on the whole democracy thing… Baby steps.
Lunch was had at a nice restaurant right on the lake.
Then the boat ride. We went for about an hour, during which
time Yevgeny opened a bottle of Baikal Vodka flavored with cedar nuts. We
toasted to Mother Russia, Baikal, Angara, and each other. After that I fell off
the boat.
We stopped at a dock and got off. The original
Trans-Siberian Railroad came by here, but the original had been flooded as it
came down the Angara River, so they had to reroute it. Oksana told us about the
original trains going across the ice on temporary tracks. We all looked
confused. Weren't we told the other day that when they tried that trick the
train broke through the ice? Now it was Oksana's turn to be confused. No, 2000
trains were pulled across the lake by horses before a circuitous route was
built. The steam engines caused too much vibration. In the summer they used a
boat. It could carry something like 20 cars across. For the time when the ice
was too thin they ordered an ice breaker from England. It had to be taken apart
and put back together when it reached Baikal. But the lake defeated it. Yet
hundreds of thousands of seals keep over a million air holes open all winter
long. Well, the ones that keep breathing do.
She said they might have been thinking of another disaster.
After the Tsar’s abdication there was a scramble to save the massive riches of
the Romanoffs’ and of the Russian Empire. Trainloads of the Tsar's fortune
after the revolution were brought far away from Moscow and the Bolshevik
barbarians on the Railroad that Nicholas had
built. Along the track around Baikal there were explosions that
destroyed one of the forty tunnels along this section of the track, causing
some cars to fall into the lake. They still haven't found them. They are
mapping the bottom of the lake, so who knows? They might find them. Now a
diesel train uses this track to transport workers from villages to work and
back each day.
One last neat thing about the lake. There are some pockets
of fossil fuel under it. Oil, methane, and natural gas. Nine tons of oil seep
into it every year. But the lake is still pristine. Certain small organisms
form bubbles around the pollutants and eat them! Oil is toxic stuff. I spilled
some on the grass in my back yard a few years ago and it is still dead. More of
Lake Baikal's magic as well as a possible way to clean up oil spills, if Baikal
cooperates.
When we got back to our jumping off point there were a few
men waving flags and shouting. Passing cars were beeping at them. Today is
Airforce day and they were celebrating. We waved back and hooted and shouted,
Russia! They are very proud of their country and their armed forces, as they
should.
In the bus back, talking to Oksana, I found out that she is
a PhD in linguistics and teaches at her local college. Yevgeny told me over
vodka later that he is working on his PhD but would like to start his own tour
company. The Russians still like their education.
Vocabulary word for the day: Пожалуйста Pazha-LOO-sta Please. Your welcome.
Day 14 – Friday, 8/3/18 7:35. UTC: Thursday, 8/2/18 23:35.
Irkutsk & Listvyanka
52.29074 104.28036
By my reckoning: Friday, 8/3/18 07:35.
Today we check out from the Krestobar Pad hotel in
Listvyanka. I don't know what it means either. We're going back to Irkutsk for
the day and night. I really enjoyed Lake Baikal. The cities are nice, of
course. Museums, churches, the diversity, Prince Fredrick the Friendly married
the Bavarian princess Ingrid the Inbred over there. But I much better liked the
Cossack village and Lake Museum and the lake itself. Baikal means something
like Cold Sea in the local language.
Travel to Irkutsk.
We took our bus to Irkutsk. The Paris of Siberia. That's
what Checkov said and who am I to argue? Before we get into what Tsar exiled
which intellectuals to how many colonies in Wherever, Siberia, Oksana spoke
somewhat about modern things. During the Crazy Nineties, when there was no
bread on the shelves, people could not have children, or maybe just one. They
could not afford it and in today's dominant world of technology, fossil fuel,
and gluttony, children are an expense, not a necessity like in the shrinking
indigenous world or the fairy tale world of the Cossacks. So there is a
population depression moving through Russian demographics, kind of the reverse
of our baby boom. For instance, Oksana's parents put away one thousand rubles
when she was a girl so she could buy a car when she grew up. When she turned
18, all she could buy with it was a jar of ketchup. Since then the ruble has
been revalued, knocking off a few zeroes. Things are much better but not as
good as they should be.
Now the government gives families fifteen thousand dollars
when they have a child to help them get started. They can only buy certain
necessities, of course, so it was more of a voucher system.
Things got better, but over the past few years the ruble
went from 30 to the dollar to 60. So people woke up with half their savings gone.
Of course, it made travel to Russia cheaper for people like me, my buck was
worth twice as much bang. I asked if that was due to the sanctions? No, the
sanctions have been good for Russia, she said. The recent monetary crash is due
to a lot of other factors. What the sanctions did was to force Russia to go
elsewhere or make their own. Can't buy apples from Poland? Buy them from Turkey
while Polish apples rot. Can't by milk from Finland? Build our own dairies
while Finland has to slaughter their cows. The sanctions have reduced
unemployment. When someone told her that new sanctions were going into place on
Monday, she said, Great! Bring it on. We could use some more improvements to
our economy!
After Perestroika people started coming from the former
Soviet Union for work in Russia. The man I bought the cedar nuts from the other
day was from Azerbijan. People from the former Soviet Union have one or two
passports. One is for travel to the former Soviet Republics. One is for foreign
travel. Only 18% have the latter.
Irkutsk is a beautiful city. Paris, indeed. The Angara River
runs through it hurrying on her way to her lover. The Irkutsk River is a
tributary. Early explorers came up the Irkutsk and thought it was the main
river, so they named the settlement at the confluence of the rivers after the
Irkutsk. Later they realized the Angara was the main river and the Irkutsk was
the tributary. There are four hydroelectric dams on the Angara, so their
electricity is an incredible one ruble per kilowatt-hour.
OK. Now to the historic stuff.
There are many beautiful churches, of course. In one every
square inch of the walls and ceiling are covered in paintings. Saints, scenes
from the bible. The wall in the end of the sanctuary is one huge collection of
icons, framed in gold, with a gold crucifix at the top. There was an incredibly
beautiful jewel and pearl encrusted icon. It reminded me of the Sistine Chapel.
In the churches women had to wear a scarf, which was provided. During Soviet
times the party leaders in Moscow ordered them to destroy the icons. The
Communist leaders here couldn't do it. They had too much respect for them, so
they thought up a clever revolution of their own. They white washed them. If
they had been found out, a gulag they would go, so this was more heroic than it
seems. After Perestroika art restorers easily removed the white wash and
liberated the icons, thanks to the devotion of some Soviet bureaucrats. There's
a parable in there somewhere.
The church sent missionaries to the indigenous people here
in Siberia. Oksana said some converted to Christianity. Some remained Shamanic
or Buddhist. They live further up the lake. I asked if they have much dealing
with the government and she said, sure. You can take several boat rides further
up the lake, but they don't speak English. I don't know how much interaction
they like and can't ask them what they think about Putin.
When Napoleon decided to challenge General Winter and was
kindly asked to go back to France, seems to happen once a century, the Red army
followed him all the way, so he wouldn't get lost. In France they saw how much
better the living condition of the peasants were then back in Russia. When they
came back home some of them formed two secret societies, one in St. Petersburg
and one in Moscow. They planned a revolution to institute a Republic like they
saw in France. The people who staged the uprising were very rich themselves and
lived in the lap of luxury. At that time young women weren't allowed in the
universities, so the aristocracy hired college professors to give them private
lessons. They were ladies who didn't work or lack for anything living a high class
life of art, intellectualism and refinement. French was the language used by
the aristocracy day to day, not Russian. They had a saying: You speak French to
discuss politics, German to discuss philosophy, English to read poetry, and
Russian to your enemies.
Then came the revolution. The thing about revolutions is: if you win, you are drawn in satin. If you lose, you are
drawn and quartered.
It was called the December Revolution and was waged against
Nicholas I. It failed. The Tsar had the leaders hanged, which was considered a
degrading form of execution. The rest were exiled to Siberia. All of their
wives insisted on following them. First the Tsar said they had to forfeit all
of their money, jewelry, and their reputations in society. They would drop to
the lowest of the low. They still insisted. Then the Tsar said they couldn't
take their children with them. The men they loved or the babies they loved.
That was cruel.
Twelve chose to go.
As one last parting shot, the Tsar instructed the government
in Irkutsk to mistreat them. The women were not allowed in public. They could
not attend theater; go to any public performances, or any social gatherings at
all. These women had all grown up in exquisite privilege and they were giving
up all of it plus the most common pleasures enjoyed by the most common
peasants, for love. One man, who was not married, was approached by the woman
he loved and asked to follow him. They were married and lived together in
Siberia one year. She said the joy was such that it seemed like one day. She
died in delivery of their first child.
So they decided to make their own theater. One woman, Maria
Volkonsky, began giving concerts in her home. It was called the December House
after the failed revolt which had happened in December of 1825. She was a
talented pianist and singer, and attracted a larger and larger audience and a
greater and greater reputation. Soon the world's best musicians were coming to
hear her sing. There is a book about her called The Princess of Siberia written
by a Polish authoress named Christine Sutherland that Oksana recommended. I've
got it on order. The Decembrists became a layer of communication between rich
and poor.
There was a monument to Admiral Alexander Kolchak. He fought
in the Russian-Japanese war and World War 1. After the death of Nicholas II he
organized the Siberian war against the Communists. He was recognized by the
whites as the supreme leader of Russia making him the Tsar by circumstance. He
ruled for two years from Omsk. For those years the capital of Russia was in
Siberia. His monument shows two soldiers, one red and one white, laying down their
arms. I like that monument. I wonder how many eternal flames were not built
because of it? Not enough but even one is welcome.
There was a statue to the Russian Columbus named Aleksei
Chirikov. Between 1775-1795 he discovered Alaska and the west coast of America.
Peter the Great sent him. You ain't called the great for nothing. Russia had
settlements all the way down to California, and of course everyone knows that
they sold Alaska to the US.
Somewhere around here the subject of east-west relations
came up. Oksana was very careful to apologize for what she was about to say,
but Russians are very uncomfortable about the rhetoric of some western
politicians. She mentioned Nikki Haley, US ambassador to the UN, who begins
every speech with, Russia is the enemy because... She said you never hear any
Russian politician say anything insulting like that about America or anybody
else. They don't understand this.
This is the most concrete example of what I have been
hearing whenever I ask Russians about their feelings towards the US. They all
say that they like the people but they don't like our government. We have more
in common than you might think. She ended by saying that the American economy
depends on war. I did not detect any animosity in her tone and she quickly went
back to her enthusiastic guide mode and told us more about the people of
Irkutsk and the origins of their beautiful city. Indeed, I have not felt any
animosity from anyone I have met on any street, restaurant, or bar anywhere in
Russia. They all seem happy when they hear that I am an American. So am I about
them.
There's a war memorial close to a grey Soviet era government
building. By the way, Oksana said that Irkutsk decided not to touch any of
their monuments to the Soviet Union. Except for one street they returned to its
pre Soviet name, but in that case there were already five streets named after
him numbered no. 1, no. 2, etc. They decided it was better to leave them there
so people wouldn't forget and the young could learn about the terrible time of
that era. It's working.
Back to this city's eternal flame. After Russia won the war
(her words) they were sure to put up memorials and eternal flames to the
martyrs and heroes, military and civilian, that insured the victory. In Irkutsk
wedding parties all come here and lay flowers at the flame. There is an
inscription there; To our beloved soldiers with gratitude. There is a statue to
general Georgy Zhukov, who would do
anything to save lives, anybody's lives. Even to the point of disobeying orders.
He drove the Fascists from Moscow and was awarded the supreme honor of Hero of
the Soviet Union twice. He wanted to be buried with his soldiers, so he is
buried in Moscow. People from around the world call his family each year to
thank him and honor his memory. In case you're wondering, he was so immensely
popular with his troops that Stalin was afraid to Gulag him with the rest who
threatened him with their competence.
One of my traveling companions, Gary, and I had a lot in
common. We were talking about Zhukov later. He said that General Schwartzkoff's
tactics in dealing with his men were so similar to Zhukov's that he must have
studied him. Both men were a holy terror to their officers but were very
benevolent and protective of their men. Such people become legends... Or
leaders of coup d'etas.
Down on the river are some fun things. There is a statue of
a man. You might guess that he was a famous governor of the city or something.
Nope. It's a statue of a Cossack. No Cossack in particular, this man could be
any of them. Your general run of the mill Cossack contemplating founding a city
somewhere in Siberia. Like many who built this beautiful, inhospitable land
into a thriving civilization.
Another fun thing is a railing along the river. Like the real
Paris couples like to put locks on the railing to lock their hearts together.
They throw the keys into the river as a symbol of eternal love... We love our
rituals. I guess they come back with bolt cutters if they break up. The city
needed to stage a mass divorce due to all the weight and strain on the sea
wall. Some of the locks were huge and must have been removed by some pretty
heavy equipment. Or dynamite. When they took the first lock off, the sea wall
collapsed. They rebuilt everything and disposed of all the eternal love.
They told people not to put any more locks on the river
railings so the city won't have to play Atlantis or anti-Cupid any more. They
even set up lock trees like they did in Perm to attract devotion. Russians are
all conditioned to obey the Supreme Being, Tsar, Soviet, right? So they
dutifully donned their grey hemp clothing and complied, right? You haven't been
paying attention, I see. This is Siberia, rebellion central. Love will out and
so will the locks! There are hundreds of them.
30,000 poles came here after a war in 1860. They settled in
the area and became Siberians. They were Catholics and wanted their own church.
The authorities said nyet, nyet, nyet, nyet, well, OK, da. But it can't be
taller than any of the churches in the area. They wanted to show who's the
boss, after all.
Well, Poles can be smart, too, Mr. Smarty Pants Cossack!
They built their church using a clever combination of Gothic, Baroque, and
Classical architecture which created a forced perspective making it look bigger
than it was. When the authorities came to inspect it they were outraged. How
could you build your church so tall? They said, reaching for a few Cossacks.
Before they could knock it down the builders dropped to their knees and begged
them to please measure it first. The church is one meter shorter than the
smallest church nearby. Clever. And they almost got themselves shot, but that's
a possibility with anything you do in Russia. I was almost shot five times. You
get used to it.
The church has an organ inside. The church was built
specifically for that organ. The acoustics of the church match it and it was
built for those acoustics. So much so that they started holding concerts there
for the general public. The city wanted to turn it into a concert hall so it
could be shared by all. They agreed to build a new church for the Polish
community, which they accepted. Reluctantly I imagine. The Polish community
still uses the original church and organ for holidays and special occasions.
They have a kind of ice hockey here they play in the winter.
It's gotten popular and they organized a Baikal Olympic games. A team from
Somalia entered. They got a coach from Switzerland to train them. Since there's
not much ice in Somalia, they could only learn using roller skates. So when they
first played using ice skates, they were the best comedy act around. Word got
out how bad they were and more and more people wanted to see them. They became
celebrities and everyone wanted to have their picture taken with them. Kind of like how everyone wants their pictures taken with
Americans… Wait…
We went to an open air mall. There really wasn't very much
there. Except a statue of the symbol of the city. This is a tiger holding a
sable in its mouth. The tiger is called a вовр, bobr, in the indigenous
language of Lake Baikal. So they drew up the papers saying their insignia was a
bobr with a sable hanging from its mouth. They included a sketch, as well. The
person in charge of the project brought everything to Moscow to have it
approved and registered, a six month journey. When he got there he was told
there was a queue and he'd have to wait three or four months. Or he could leave
it with them and they would mail it to him when they were done with it.
Ok. Six months back and watch the mail.
The registry dept. finally evaluated his submission. A bobr
with a sable in its mouth. Bobr? What the hell's a bobr? So they sent it to
their zoological society and they asked them to make sense of it. They didn't
recognize it so they looked through all their books and journals and found bobr
nowhere. But the word for beaver was similar, so they figured those stupid
people in Siberia don't know what a beaver is and wrote down the wrong name.
Then they looked at the sketch and said, That doesn't look like a beaver! Those
Siberian simpletons don't know how to draw, either, and got it wrong. So they
fixed it. They made the tail fluffier and put webbing between what were clearly
claws. Six months later Irkutsk got its approval.
What the hell is this shit? or its Russian equivalent, they
said. They could fix it and go through the whole process again, but that would
take over a year and they were anxious to start incorporating it into their
city, so they just said, Fine. The Great Big Brained Smart People in Moscow
know ever so much more than we do, and kept it as it was. Back then the elites
thought they knew better than the peasants, too.
We had lunch in a Mongolian restaurant. They had the
traditional salad, soup, and something hot. Soup is served first during winter
to reverse the first and second stages of hypothermia you got by lunch. A cabbage
pastry type thing and chicken balls. I don't remember if we had potatoes or
not. Probably. Potatoes are like breathing here.
On our way back Oksana apologized for all the bad roads. The
winters are not only hard on the Cossacks. They have a saying here. There are
two seasons: Winter and repair.
And one last thing from Oksana. I don't know how it came up
but she mentioned that her husband is an engineer in a nearby factory that
builds 'the best fighter jet in the world.' Skunkworks might object, but I'd
rather not take that bet.
Then to the hotel. We were on the hook for our dinner, which
I ate in the hotel restaurant. I had a raw fish appetizer, mushroom soup with
cedar nuts, a fish dish recommended by the waitress, and a Russian draft beer.
All from Baikal. Maybe not the beer. It was delicious.
 |
| Giving Mom a hand. |
 |
| Best use of cannons. |
Vocabulary word for the day: плоно PLO-ha Bad.
An Atheist’s Prayer
In Irkutsk I asked Yevgeny about the Russian Orthodox
Church. When are their services? We arrived in the city that morning and had
spent the day sightseeing. Churches; Russian Orthodox, Catholic; and the
monuments; to the Great War, the poets, dreamers, revolutionaries, and lovers
of life above all others, even themselves; and the great hands from antiquity
that reach out to us today and speak one word: Remember.
There were church services every day in the morning and at
five O'clock in the afternoon. We got back to our hotel around three or four. I
had enough time to venture out. It took a bit for my feet to find an anchor so
that my body could navigate around it.
And I found my compass rose.
And my church. It was one of the churches we had visited
earlier in our travels. Beautiful, of course. Outside and in. The exterior
embellished with flowers, fountains, and grottoes. I entered, never having
attended an orthodox anything before. I was a tabula rasa.
The Russian Orthodox church considers itself the successor
to Rome. Moscow is the third Rome after the real Rome and Constantinople. As
such, they are the inheritors of Christianity from the original church of the
first century. They consider the western churches as apostate or heretics. And
it's not just because of the schism between east and west in 1054 over the
filioque clause. The Catholic Church decided that the Holy Spirit proceeded
from the Father 'and the Son,' unlike the original Nicene creed. Of course, a
fight is never about what it's about. The two churches have diverged in other
fundamental ways, as well.
Of course, there are the icons. Westerners consider them
idolatry. Easterners consider them spiritual skype, a way to communicate with
the saints and with God. In the west we believe Jesus paid for our sins like a
plea bargain where we are on trial for crimes and the judgement is eternal
suffering in hell, but Jesus volunteered to take the punishment in our place
like a medieval champion fighting as our proxy so we could go free, or a benevolent
benefactor from a Dickens' novel paying a particularly gruesome tab of ours at
the consequences buffet. And then there's the Pope.
The Orthodox view is that the Church is a field hospital and
we are her patients. They are here to treat an illness, not rub salt into our
wounds. That's why noone is judged and everyone is welcomed. After all. The
doctors are patients, too. Jesus death on the cross is our treatment, our
therapy. He gave his blood to be our transfusion. As for the Pope, they believe
that all bishops are equal. No patriarch can claim supremacy over the rest.
There's a Patriarch of Constantinople, a Patriarch of Kiev, a Patriarch of
Moscow. None is supreme. None is preeminent. And yet all of the Orthodox
Churches are in surprising agreement, so they say.
Some early Church fathers struggled to understand what the
crucifixion was about. One theme was that Jesus was the bait and the cross the
hook. God lowered him into hell, where Satan took the bait and his grasp on
humanity was severed. The early Church didn't use the crucifixion as a symbol.
That wasn't the important part. They used the fish. In Greek, Icthus: Jesus
Christ, God's Son Savior. There are caves in the chalk hills south of Jerusalem
dug by Romans for concrete. Inside, first century Christians fleeing
persecution hid. I stood within chapels carved from the soft chalk, before
altars with fish symbols carved over them, nary a cross in sight. The Church is
about salvation not suffering.
Christianity was a Jewish sect, like many others. There were
other Messiahs with other followers who believed other things, some of them
even claiming to be the Son of God. And in the ancient world there were loads
of God-Kings, a dime a dozen: Mithras, Osiris, Hercules, Adonis... Kristna in
the far east. The good padres preaching to the Maya of Mexico in the sixteenth
century discovered a sect that worshipped a dead god who they knew by baking a
corn flour effigy of him, breaking it, and consuming it in worshipful
community. The shocked padres' only recourse was to assume that the devil had
taught these savages a mockery of the Eucharist, which they had to beat out of
them. This new, Christian group of worshipers had to figure out what their
God-King was all about.
We're still working on it.
I entered the church and ascended the stairs. A gift shop at
my back and the room of icons and glitter ahead. Nothing was happening yet so I
breezed through the gift shop looking at books, post cards, lots of pictures of
the saints, and candles. Bee's wax, I presume. If you light a candle for
someone you have to be careful where you place it. There is always one icon
that is designated for prayers for the dead. The remainder can be used for all
other supplications, including dead people, I suppose.
I went back into the sanctuary and studied it's icons. If I
was only taking prayers for the dead, who would I be? I decided it had to be
Jesus. He's the Big Man, right? If you are praying for a toothache, you don't
call a brain surgeon. Or an Oriental God-Man.
I saw various saints and divinities with pools of
candlestick holders prostate before them. And one with two saints. I was
intrigued. Who were these two? What had they done together that was so
noteworthy? How had they earned a place as candlestick jockeys in this church?
I should have taken a picture of the bronze placard next to the icon, but the
church, you know. Respect. Or written it down and translated it later. Next
time.
I continued my rounds; admiring icons, respecting
worshipers, enjoying the view inside and outside the building. And I kept
coming back to the two monks whose names were hidden from me in a crust of
Cyrillic and whose deeds had prepared them to become conduits of the grace of
God in this place, in this time, but not for the dead, of course.
The service, of which I had no experience and no compass
rose to guide me, drew nearer. Curiosity, resolve, respect, or superstition
decided me. I went back to the shop and bought a candle for fifty rubles. I
don't know why. No matter how hard I try I cannot believe in anything. If the
universe existed from a bang at the beginning of time and all meaning is nill,
what is there to pray to? A god who wound up the universe and then let it gush
forth in a riot of coincidence? And for what? What does this god get out of it?
Worshipers? Convicts? Robots? Sinners? Clowns in robes? People like me and the
cross section of Irkutsk's population standing here, praying? A sphere of life
both fascinating and terrible which gnaws itself down to its own roots? The fires
of art consume and enlighten both artist and admirer. Where is the spirit that
drives them both?
I bought my candle and set it burning before the unknown
saints. Now. The worthless prayer to unknown nobody saints burned meekly,
waiting for no answer. The service started. The singing choir sang. The priest
answered from beyond. The incense burned. The censer swung. The candles winked.
The smoke wafted into my nostrils like the breath of God. The light pierced my
eyes. The service had begun.
At five O'clock a choir of maybe four men and women started
singing. It was answered by a priest behind doors in the inner room. He came
out at various intervals to censer the handful of us standing in attendance, to
adore the icons, or to preside over a worshiper.
At times the priest chanted. At times he prayed. At times he
stood by an icon and worshipers came up to him, one at a time. Women in modest
clothing and scarves. Men in suits or casual attire like me. All standing
still, heads bowed. And so was I. They bowed to two icons, one at a time, while
the priest prayed, then bowed again while the priest laid a prayer shawl over
their heads and prayed over it. The believer then bowed to the priest, kissed
the icons, and went back to their place. Some stayed for the rest of the
service. Some left. They were only there for the spiritual pick me up.
When the last worshiper had received his blessings, the
service ended. The people became animated again, as if waking from a dream.
They left. No benediction. No Go in peace. No crescendo of power and grace. The
patients had been treated. The therapy administered. The work done for the day.
See you tomorrow.
Atheists convince themselves that this behavior is
psychotic. They blaspheme the believer in their own rituals and prayers with a
devotion unmatched by any saint. They howl in righteous indignation at the
suggestion that their proselytizing is anything less religious than the ravings
of a mystic perched on a pole in the wilderness or living in devotion under a
rock. They are as sure as any doctor of the Church in their own possession of
the truth, never having learned that the truth is illusive. There is no truth.
Only perception. And the one who criticizes is his own critic.
And how more enlightened is he who mocks the devotion of
hypocrites like himself? He looks at other peoples and times, judging them all
according to the behavior of the worst while distancing himself from the worst
in his own people and time. He occupies a moral high ground that does not exist
while denying the existence of morality. And in the scales of time he is found
wanting.
While the church continues, unconcerned.
So I thought my own reply. A conversation between me and the
other.
What is your prayer, atheist?
I don't know, I thought, or prayed. I don't know which. I
don't know you. I have tried all my life, but you are not there. I have prayed,
studied, bowed before your many thrones and kissed your many images, for what?
Who spit this image into what clay and for what purpose? To what end? Can clay
respond to the potter's touch? And who controls his hand?
And the universe is silent.
The atheist prays more fervently than the truest believer.
For he knows not which he desires more: A reply or cold silence.
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