A Riddle Wrapped in a Mystery Inside an Enigma - Part 5

A Journey from Moscow to Vladivostok via the Trans-Siberian Railroad - Part 5

Day 15 – Saturday, 8/4/18 07:35. UTC: Friday, 8/3/18 23:35.

Irkutsk train station.

52.28763 104.26016

By my reckoning: Saturday, 8/4/18 07:35.

Travel to Ulan Ude

We're leaving Irkutsk for Ulan Ude on the other side of the lake. This will take us about one third  of the way around the lake and eight hours into the future. Sunday afternoon drives around here require chuck wagons.

The train ride was nice. A short commute by Siberian standards. Ulan Ude is a small city with a large Mongolian and Buddhist population. We managed to get a lot of views of the lake on our way, this time with sunshine. Here and there were camp sites of adventurers right on the lake, some out for a swim. We got to our hotel, checked in, presented our papers, and got our keys.

Now the adventure. I realized that I hadn't planned on a tip for our train elves. Yevgenya and Boris. I call him Boris because he looks like Boris Yeltsin. I've got about 7,000 rubles left and a pristine hundred and two fifty dollar bills, plus a bunch of twenties that I now realize are useless since nobody will take them. I'd like to give them at least 10,000 rubles each, which is $156.00. I will give Yevgeny $200.00 plus whatever rubles I have left, minus what I bring home for souvenirs. They've been very nice to us on this perilous crossing.

There was an ATM machine next to the hotel so I got 20,000 rubles. A clerk nearby helped me with the Russian. I was so relieved when the monster money machine didn't grind my card into small bits and pieces and spit them at my feet like one did to my ATM card in Rebe, Denmark. Talk about bite me!

Yevghenya and Yevgheny.

Giant Lenin. It had to happen someday.

A motley crew if I ever enlisted with one.

A playground outside of a Buddhist temple.

This boring poster is to inform you that Nicholas II stayed here while inspecting the Trans Siberian Railroad. It was the only place with electricity.

Russia's Mickey Mouse. They're not even sure what sex he(she?) is.

I've seen several wedding parties on my trip. I like it.

On to adventures. I got a map from the desk and went out to explore. I got lost so many times it's pathetic. I eventually landed in Lenin's lap. The largest head of Lenin, that is. Ok. I'll check my map. I couldn't make heads or tails of it. I couldn't orient myself. I'd compare the map to street signs, tourist maps set up here and there, whatever. There was a concert going on in the park by Lenin-head, so I could always hear them for some orientation. But I still couldn't figure out which way was what now?

I wandered around, got lost, and backtracked back again. I asked directions from people on the street, a police officer, a liquor store owner. They all told me to go in different directions. Two guys came up and offered me help. I was a little suspicious. They spoke very little English and seemed a little too anxious that I follow them. They wanted me to take their picture. Ok. Then they kept chattering to me and offered me a beer. Then the other one pulled something out of his pocked that looked like fat beef jerky and offered it to me. Bye, bye, I said and went the opposite direction.

Then I had an epiphany. I was holding the map 90° off kilter. No wonder the whole city seemed crazy. And nobody I asked seemed to know anything about their own city, either. There were a few monuments I really wanted to see and tomorrow it's supposed to rain. Oh, well. I'll see them tomorrow in their soggy state. So I headed home/hotel. I got lost again. Oh, for the love of...

Actually I went too far. I passed the hotel entirely and got to a place where the stars are strange and the people even stranger. I started back and saw a woman with a few children walking my way. They don't look dangerous. I asked them in my newly perfected pantomime/English/point language and asked her where my hotel is, pointing at my map. She knew exactly where it was and sign languaged how to get there. Spacibo! I said and went on my way. The hotel was set off the street a bit, which I had forgotten and was why I walked right past it. I recognized it finally and did not have to be a Siberian hunter sleeping on the ground rolled up in my horse hair blanket. Not today, at least.

I try not to approach women on the street for directions. Not that I doubt their knowledge, but I don't want them to feel threatened. I should know better. This is Russia. She could probably mug me. Whenever I've approached any woman in Russia to ask for help they have been eager to help and very knowledgeable. It's eerie.

So I got home and had 100 grams of vodka in the bar and now am talking to you. Tomorrow we site see in the rain. I at least have some nice pictures of the biggest head statue of Lenin.

Vocabulary word for the day: Я из Американеч Ya is Amercaner I am an American.

Day 16 – Sunday, 8/5/18 09:00. UTC: Sunday, 8/5/18 01:00.

Ulan Ude

51.83812 107.59412

By my reckoning: Sunday, 8/5/18 09:00.

Travel to Khabarovsk

We checked out of the hotel and met our guide, Galdan, in the lobby. He said we could call him Golden. He describes himself as Russian-Mongolian.

Ulan Ude is a new city. Only 300 years old. It was settled by Cossacks, which seems to be the norm for these cities. In Russia there are 150-170 nationalities, one hundred of them are found here. The biggest is Russian. There is a saying, So many minds. So many opinions.  Ulan Ude is the capital of the Briatria Republic, one of the 22 republics in Russia with a population of around 600,000. The other governorships are called something else, the difference being that republics have presidents. Actually, now that's not correct. Putin decided that there is only one president in Russia. Him. Call yourself leader or something.

During the revolution they fought against the Communists, along with Americans, Chinese, Mongolians, and others. So there have already been American soldiers on Russian soil fighting Communists and supporting the Tsar. Around 6,000 of them. Back then we were fighting alongside of them. Americans fighting on the side of White Russians.

A lot of Jews, Ukrainians, and Poles were exiled to Siberia. In Ulan Ude Jewish, Russian, and Mongolian's became merchants. They all got rich since this was a crossroad on the Silk Road. It will be again, in Xi’s New Silk Road. The Jews created Zionism and Bolshevism in their spare time. The former worked out but the latter was a dud. They used their money to grease palms and fund and legitimize the state of Israel along with European and American Jews. Galdan simply stated it as a fact, which it is. You can't create a state on top of people already living there without a pile of money
and good propoganda, now, can you?

People here like Lenin. Lenin teacher, they call him. He allowed them to keep their language, culture, and govern themselves. And, of course, he spread culture and education, as did Stalin. For this he at least is deserving of a street named after him in every city and a giant head overlooking a park in Ulan Ude.

Tsar Nicholas II came here. He was inspecting the railroad and also concerned about defense. This was the time of the Great Game, as Rudyard Kipling called the struggle between the British Empire and Russia over control of the wealth in the east. He encouraged investment in the area. After the revolution the rich all fled overseas, taking their money with them. The Great Game was a flop. But now, a hundred years later, it starts again.

Yevgeny said one of the harder things for foreigners to learn is Russian verbs for motion. For instance, when Uri Gegarin said, Let us go, he used re-ES-el-e, which means to go by transport, car, horse, space ship, etc. But when Yevgeny tells us to go. He uses pashli, go by walking. As in, Pashli your little butts back onto the train before we accept you into one of the great Soviets of the State and stick a trowel in your hands.

There are 16 hospitals here that treated the wounded during WW2. There is also a monument to the Great Patriotic War, but I didn't find it last night while I was busy getting lost and we weren't going to it today. Just to the supersized head of Lenin. Pity. Newlyweds come here for pictures and to lay flowers near the statue. They hold dances and concerts here. Galina said she heard the MC this morning say he liked seeing all the children in the audience, we'll need someone to take care of us when we are older. He was only half joking. Children put giant sunglasses, cigarettes, etc., on Leninhead. The older generation is not amused.

At lunch I asked my routine political questions. On the one hand, they elected their governor last year, on the other hand he was appointed by Putin, on the next other hand he has done good things for Briatria, but on a further other hand he had no real opposition, though on an additional other hand he is popular while on a straggler other hand a lot of people didn't bother to vote and on one more other hand they feel that they have a governor with strings in the Kremlin. You figure out if that's a good thing or not. I'm sure there are other other hands, as well. They would probably tell me I'm being simplistic.

Russia's relationship with China is dicey. They are trying to increase trade and military cooperation. They won't give the Dahlia Lama a visa to visit, but Russian maps show Taiwan as a separate country. They are also something like twelfth in trading with America as no. 1. Like everything else, it's complicated. The status of Taiwan and Hong Kong is a bee in everyone's bonnet. Taiwan has the first woman president in Asia which makes them more progressive than anyone else. But China officially wants both of them back, though I think they would kind of like everyone to forget that.

He said that older people love Putin. He lived through the Crazy Nineties, so he knows how bad it was. He likes Putin, but he's been here for nineteen years and it's time to go. People recognize he did great good for the country, blah, blah, but they want a change. Time to retire, Vlad. Go ride some bears.

As far as east/west relations go people want to see what comes from the Helsinki meeting. They have all been told what serious issues the two presidents talked about. They were not just told about the 'I trust Putin' gaf that we were and know what substantive things they discussed like nuclear arms reduction, cooperation on fighting terrorists, increased trade, etc. Sometimes propaganda is about what they don't tell you.

They can see whatever they want. They get western TV stations plus the Internet is not blocked except for some terrorist web sites, or so they say. Anyway, they can use VPN to get anything that's blocked. It is much worse in China. If you are caught looking at a blocked site, which are a lot more, you can get into serious trouble.

Speaking of China, people here don't like them. Chinese visitors are rude, pushy, they will glom up a monument so nobody else can take a picture, and are generally in everyone's face. Once a tour guide he knows brought a group to a Chinese restaurant. They had asked to go for some odd reason. When they tasted the food they got up and ran to the kitchen to show the chef what he was doing wrong. We have noticed this behavior ourselves. Our tour guides have to be very aggressive when they try to overwhelm some monument. We're here first!

You can call the Russian (and our) feelings toward the Chinese bigoted, exaggerated, or an accurate observation, depending on how polluted by Political Correctness you are. But my experience is that the boy who cries bigot hasn't experienced it himself.

Galdan said that they need labor. Russia is really underpopulated. They bring in foreign labor, plus have illegal immigrants.

In Russian politics there are two factions struggling for control. The Atlanticists and the Russian Nationalists. The Atlanticists have lost all testicular resolve and want to be the west's lapdog like the rest of Europe.  Medvedev represents this group. The Russian Nationalists want Russia to be strong and independent and treated as equals by the rest of the world. Putin represents the latter. People wonder why Putin let people like Medvedev stay in power. After all, he enjoys a consistent 80% approval ratings among the Russian  population. What gives? He could clean house any time he wants. Putin is basically a pragmatist. They are doing some good for the country and besides, they are where he can keep an eye on them. Putin is Machiavelli tempered by Sun Tsu. With a dash of PT Barnum. That's probably why everybody hates him.

Is any of this the truth? Good luck finding it. You can look here and someone says this. And you can look there and someone says that. And you don't know who says what. You want truth? Study mathematics.

The One Belt One Road project will follow the Trans Mongolian railroad to Ulan Ude, which is a railroad hub. The Trans-Siberian Railroad splits here with one branch going to Beijing and one branch going to Vladivostok. Yevgeny said he's only ever gone to Beijing. He's never gone on to Vladivostok from here. Mongolia is called the Texas of the east. The terrain looks like Texas. Well, some of Siberia reminded me of Kansas.

We then went to a Buddhist temple. No pictures, no hats for anybody, and you always face forward, even when you are exiting the temple. You back out. It's on top of a hill 800 meters above sea level. Ulan Ude is 400 meters above sea level. Inside, Buddhist monks were chanting. It was mesmerizing. I tried to record them by taking a movie with my camera with the lens cap on, but I had shut off my camera outside and forgot to turn it back on. Just as well. We couldn't take pictures and the local lama might object to my loop hole interpretation.

We bought groceries for our upcoming long trip. If it wasn't sausage, cheese, or fruit, I went by the picture on the package. If it didn't have Capitalist babies on the label I figured it was Ok. I don't like Capitalist babies. Too decadent.

Then we went to our train. Our train elves were dressed in their dress uniforms, they do that at the bigger stations, I noticed that the insignia on Yevgenya's hat was a criss crossed hammer and wrench. We boarded at 6:00PM Sunday night and will get to Khabarovsk at 2:30AM on Wednesday. Two days, eight and a half hours later.

A few of us had a nice party tonight. Lots of vodka. Music on funny Bose gadgets. Outside we watched the sun set and the valleys and the hills gather fog and roll into grey seas. And the sun glazed the clouds with ochre and scarlet.

Party Cabin

It was some kind of train holiday today, so we got out train elves, Yevgeny and Yevgenya, and had a wine toast. We wished them a happy holiday, sprazdnikom. Chris gave Yevgenya a bottle if linden honey and told her that in English we call people we love honey and they have been very sweet to us.

We then had a little vodka party and then turned in, tipsy, happy, and ready for sleep and the next adventure.

Now it's two AM and I'm narrow awake. We've crossed a time zone and where we are going will be in another. Still a little tipsy and a lot drunk. It's quiet and the train is rolling as only a train can roll. Once in a while we stop and stand by for a bit. I don't know why. That's the train's business. I just ride from place to place. Our traveling companions have become our friends. Our guides from city to lake have become coveted acquaintances. Our helpers on the train have become well-loved companions, even though we don't speak their language. We still speak the universal language. Good will.

It's the middle of the night. 2:20 in some time zone. Nothing to see but my cabin mirrored back at me out the window. Dark. Siberian night. Rolling train. Comfort. Peace. Just gliding along. Pitch black outside. I feel the pulse of the rails. The pitch and yaw of it. And the eternal yearning of the next.

I could live here forever.

Vocabulary word for the day: спразднцчком! Sprazdnikom! Happy holiday!

 

Day 17 – Monday, 8/6/18 10:33. UTC: Monday 8/6/18 01:33.

Slightly West of Nowhere

51.36575 110.44235

Travel to middle of Nowhere

By my reckoning: Monday, 8/6/18 10:33AM.

Travel to middle of Nowhere

Siberia can grow on you. Or at least accumulate.

Everyone is recovering from our vodka party last night. I had more than was good for me. Less than would kill me. So I think I made out alright. Siberia and I are even. We're in a new time zone so it's not as bad as it looks. All day we'll be amusing ourselves with electricity towers, endless trees, and the occasional village.

I've got food and fruit juice. Those who didn't drink last night don't want it because they didn't drink and those who did drink last night don't want it because they did. Today is a day for contemplation, like a good Russian. And suffering, like a better Russian.

We're in God, Buddha, Allah, or Shaman's country. Look at it on a globe. Now look at any other country. It will be swallowed up by here without indigestion.

We had a fifteen minute break. While the smokers smoked, Chris started talking to some Russian young men. Boys, really. They like to practice their English. Then they started exchanging American and Russian coins. As we got back on the train one gave Chris a candy bar for all of us. This has been typical behavior from average Russians we have met in cities, great and small, that we have visited so far on our whole trip.

Galina told us she grew up in the Ukraine. She was a teacher. During Perestroika they were no longer paid but she could privately tutor children in exchange for food. There was no homelessness since everybody had an apartment and couldn't be evicted. No freezing to death since every apartment had city steam. Now there are beggars on the streets. There are very few drug and violence issues today, but a divorce and alcohol problem. I have seen people begging outside churches, but not a lot.

Ukrainian is like Polish, Lithuanian, and the other languages on the western border of Russia. She said Ukraine became a separate country in 1918, after the Revolution. I think that was also true of the Baltics. After the fall of the Soviet Union these became impoverished countries. They are still in economic limbo. Despite what anybody might say Russia has no interest in taking any of them back. Just Crimea, which is a no brainer.

Vocabulary word for the day: Как вас эовчт? Kak vas za-VOOT? What is your name?

Меня зовчт джонатан  Menya za-VOOT Djanatan. My name is Jonathan.

 

Day 18 – Tuesday, 8/7/18 10:30. UTC: Tuesday, 8/17/18 01:30.

Nowhere

52.43625 127.01228

By my reckoning: Tuesday, 8/7/17 10:30.

00:20. Stopped.

This happens once in a while. Maybe to synchronize the train with the schedule, longitude and latitude. Maybe so the conductor can have a cigarette. The trains are all electric, so there is no water tank to fill or coal car to fully recharge. I lie in bed and feel the solitude. It bathes me in nothing, but is reassuring anyway. Siberia's Siren song. And the train. The Trans-Siberian Railroad, currently sleeping, with a chuckle of motion here. A snort of a snore there. A bang as two twenty ton cars click together and lock. And engage cables, hoses, coupling, and pipes, making it a living thing. An indecipherable whisper as some vent decides to pass some mechanical gas from break lines and air pistons; relieving the pressure. Or just making it greater. Or just a prayer as twenty cars stretch and roll upon the tracks, gathering up spiritual strength for the next sprint. My purr is deep. My patience is beyond remembering. I am ready. Always.

Do not fear me, passenger. Rest in my arms. Roll in the comfort of my coming and my going. And my bringing you with me. Snort your own snores and stretch your aching muscles upon the thunderous steel of Mother’s lap. Prey your own prayers at my breasts in timeless solitude. Offer your face and mouth and arms and eyes in adulation.

Like you used to.

Siberia at night.

The Next Morning

The clouds are clearing up and the sun is shining. There are stands of white birch outside our windows and little clusters of yellow and purple flowers. There are patches of them now and again just outside the birches. They seem shy of the sun but still a little flirtatious, venturing just outside the stands of trees for a mischievous moment. I try to take pictures of them through my window but they shy away. So I put down my camera and gaze glassy eyed at the endless expanse. Another patch of wild flowers pops up! And as quickly retreats as I fetch my camera.

Everyone is sharing what they have with everyone else. We all bought too much food! The thought of two days without a dining car pushed us into third class on the Tsar's Trans-Siberian Railroad. I've had sunflower seeds given to me. Vodka. Fruit. Cheese and given the like to others. We've really gelled as a group. Some people have Internet, G3 I assume. GPS is available, but no maps so I can get our coordinates but just see a graph paper grid with a little cone creeping along it. Very enlightening.

There are little farms by the train tracks, the occasional station, some of which we can stop at and go free range for 30 minutes or so. Industrial parks, lakes with young people swimming in them, workers on the tracks, gravel pits, and, of course, trees. Birches and cedar, by the looks of them. And larch. If Russia is only eighteen percent habitable, that's one huge eighteen percent.

Yevgeny just showed us a clip of the Russian National Dance Show Kastroma doing a dance. It was stunning. Google them. I'm glad we got our culture for the day. He and Galdan had both mentioned a saying they use and I got it wrong. It should be; Many men, many mind (singular. Don't know why.) He said it was English but they seem to like it. I told him the Jewish saying, where you have two Jews together you have three opinions. He said we will be at the Jewish capital in Russia soon.

I wonder why the Zionists didn't just move here instead of stealing land from the Palestinians? They considered South America for a while. Even Crimea. With a little palm greasing in the British Parliament they got the Balfour Declaration to give them land that England didn't own any more than Crimea was Khrushchev's to give to Ukraine. But possession is nine tenths of the law, they say. There are no Philistines or Canaanites to claim the Levant and the Palestinians don't have any clout. Maybe we should give them asylum and put them on Indian reservations, at least soldiers won't be shooting them for target practice.

Solzhenitsyn wrote a book about the history of Russian Jews. It's never been translated into English, of course, because it honestly depicts the good and the bad, particularly with their connections with Bolshevism. A recent translation in English appeared on Amazon. By the time I heard about it, it had been removed. But I found a PDF on another web site and managed to download it before it was removed, too. In Russia Jews are just another of the 170 ethnicities and don't enjoy the sacred cow status they do in the west. They act like people, they're treated like people. Just like everybody else. Yes there were pogroms against them, as there were against many other indigenous people all over the world. What makes you special? Get over it.

Yevgeny has been very good to us. He ordered food ahead and we just picked it up at a 20 minute rest stop in a large city, for Siberia. We have salad, chicken and rice, desert, and an ice tea. What, no soup? I'm never riding this prison train again.

But then again, prison food beats airplane food.

He's still trying to get through to the airport hot (sic) line to check on Denny and Michelle's luggage. Denny's showed up several days after he got here, soaking wet, but Michelle's can't be located. It doesn't appear to be Aeroflot's fault and United is disavowing any responsibility for it. Flight insurance was $900.00, though someone said you can get an annual policy for $400.00 per year. That's worth looking into.

I just asked Yevgeny about those two Mongolians who offered me the stuff that looked like some drugs. He said it was a chewing gum used to clean the teeth made from larch sap. He said it tastes disgusting but it gets your teeth clean. They were just being friendly. He said he wouldn't accept something like that either. He did say that some people around the Caucasus are known to be disagreeable. I asked him about the Chechen war that Putin ended and he said they were closer to Turkey. Some Chechen or Caucasian taxi drivers used to offer a fare a beer that had been spiked and then rob them. They didn't kill them or take their kidneys, at least. That hasn't happened in about five years, though, he said. Putin's Russia is safe, but what else?

We went to our designated party room, an empty cabin toward the back of the carriage that we use for group recreation, and had some snacks and White Russians. Someone made some coffee and hot chocolate and mixed it with vodka and cream in careful layers. After all, we are all White Russians, not Red Russians.

Galina told us about being in school. Everyone could tell that she would be a teacher someday. She worked in a library until she was forty and then went into teaching. She told a story about Nabokov. He was born in St. Petersburg. After the revolution his house was taken by the government and he fled to Europe. His son is in his 80's and lives in the USA now.

We stopped at a station in the Jewish province of Russia. Jews from western Russia were relocated here by Stalin in the 1930's. He relocated other ethnicities as well. They say that a lot of ethnicities like to live around the Black Sea where it is warm. Only Russians are crazy enough to want to live in Siberia. In the 30's there was a Jewish movement in America which sent support here. 60% of the population immigrated to Israel. Today there is a large population of Russian Jews living there, many with dual citizenship.

We are now in the last time zone in Russia. We will get to Khabarovsk in five hours at 2:00 AM on Wednesday.

Vocabulary word for the day: Очень приятно! O-chen pree-AT-na. Nice to meet you.

Day 19 – Wednesday, 8/8/18 09:30. UTC: Tuesday, 8/7/18 23:30.

Khabarovsk

48.4765 135.0581

By my reckoning: Wednesday, 8/8/18 09:30.

Travel to Vladivostok

Arrived at Khabarovsk at 02:20. At the hotel. Will pick up from tomorrow. Good night.

There's not much to Khabarovsk. Founded by Cossacks, of course. There are a lot of Cossacks, Jews, Ukrainians, Poles, Chinese, and Mongolians here. Our guide, Irena, said she didn't know all of her husband's nationalities. She rattled off Polish, Jewish, Ukrainian and a few more and then got lost after that. There are only about 15% of Jews here now due to migrations to Israel. The river Amor, which means 'river,' runs through here. An explorer asked a local what's the river called? He said, it's called river, Dumdum. So now it's the River River.

Before the Trans-Siberian Railroad it was a two year trek from here to Moscow. We are very close to China. And they contest the area. China says the land was theirs and the Cossacks took it from them and Russia says that nobody was there except some natives and that China had no interest in it until they settled it. Oh, ya? They're OUR natives and you STOLE our land!

He said, she said. There have been squabbles with China and Mongolia through the years. During the two Opium Wars in the early 1800's China was weakened and Russia could take advantage of that. But they have signed several treaties since as far back as the seventeenth century defining where the border is and who controls what. Typical big boys fighting over their turf. There is also an Island in the river that both claim half of. Again, by treaty it's been divided between the two. Now play nice.

China and Russia don't like each other very much. They have contested border issues, have differences culturally, and the Chinese tourists are obnoxious. Peter the Great, who was two years away from here, would rather get closer to Europe. The same is true today. Russia is not quite European and not quite Asian. But of the two they are closer to Europe than to Asia.They are only drawing closer to China by necessity. The enemy of my enemy. When you are weak, negotiate. When you are strong, intimidate.

Irena said that they say they are taking bus no. 11 in the winter when they can't find their car under three meters of snow and they are going to walk. They need special winter tires so they don't shatter. There's a saying here. There are good cars, bad cars, and Russian cars. Most people buy used Toyotas from Japan for really cheap. They drive on the right side of the road yet many of the cars have steering wheels on the right side. They adapt.

We visited the Great War memorial. There is an obelisk nearby with the names of people from here in the Far East who were awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union carved on it. There are about 60. Only men, unfortunately. Many women were heroes, too. Then the monument itself. It's huge. On one side there is 1941-1945 carved on it. On the other side the names of all the solders from this province who died in the war were carved on marble slabs, lots of them. This is at least two Viet Nam walls. More. And this is just one province. Over 25,000,000 Soviet citizens died in that conflict, male and female, civilian and military. War does not discriminate. This single monument to the sacrifices of one province in far east Russia brings the abstract chain of zeroes into focus.

One woman lost her husband but did not get the triangular telegram people get when a loved one dies. She waited for him for ten years. She went to see a movie and saw a newsreel. She recognized her husband among the casualties. Another local woman lost 9 sons. Just a few of many stories of the suffering Russians endured.

I brought up the statistic of every family having lost someone in the war. She had three relatives wounded and a grandfather captured by Germany. He won the hero of the Soviet Union medal. But she said it depends on which area you look at. It's around one in two or one in three. Still...

One church had an icon that cried at one time. She's better now.

Malinovsky. Fiend Marshall over Stalingrad.

They must really like him.

Notice the people to the right of the globe.

A doctor here allowed women to work in the hospital. Before that women weren't allowed to work out of the home at all. It was a start.

In one square Galina warned me to stay close to the group. That was puzzling, until she said some of the people were gypsies and are known to be pickpockets. That's the first warning I've received so far.

Speaking of families, the perfect family should have 7 members. Two parents and five children. One woman slightly bettered that. She had 69! Starting at age 16 she had twins or triplets until she died at age 41.

After the tour I went for a walk in Khabarovsk. I went toward the river. There was a lovely park there and a sidewalk along the river. Girls roller blading. Kids in little electric cars driving around. A little girl crying and her older brother trying to comfort her. A band playing. Carnival rides. Food and souvenir kiosks. Jitneys being paddled around. Adults sitting on benches watching their kids. Young lovers holding hands. Well tended flowers in pots and by the pedestrian walkway. It was lovely.

On my way back I couldn't figure out how to get from the street I was on and to the hotel, which I could clearly see. There were a lot of roads around it but only one connected. There was some trash next to a dumpster and a used condom in the road. That's really the first trash I've seen not properly disposed of. The rest of the city was clean. End white glove inspection.

Then back to the train and on to Vladivostok.

In the evening we went to our party room for a beer or three. Yevgeny proposed a toast. To you for your bravery and courage, that you were willing to come to a strange land and overcome your initial beliefs and trust us. Hear, hear.

Yevgenya, one of our train elves, stopped in and asked if we could change a thousand ruble note for her. We did and she said, "Thank you very much," in English, which she doesn't speak at all. That was very sweet.

And Rob wrote a poem for us. It incorporated things like our accommodations, the fact that Yevgeny is a Russian who prefers dry white wine to vodka, and a few other quirks of our trip.

Vocabulary word for the day: Пожалуйста! Po-cha-LOOS-ta. Please. You're welcome

 

Day 20 – Thursday, 8/9/18 08:30. UTC: Wednesday, 8/8/28 22:30.

43.118021 131.88869

Vladivostok

By my reckoning: Thursday, 8/9/18 08:30.

We arrived at Vladivostok station about an hour late, but here we are. The end of the Moscow to Vladivostok Trans Siberian Railroad. There is a marker here that has 9288 on it. 9,288 km from Moscow. At the Moscow station is an identical marker that reads 0.

Vladivostok is an entirely different city from any I have seen so far, even Moscow. It is a military city. It was a closed city during Soviet times. Closed to outsiders, even other citizens of Russia. And there is a military base on a nearby island that was closed to Vladivostok's citizens.

Vladivostok, once it was opened to impurities from other countries like us, was called the San Francisco of the east. It is on a peninsula off the sea of Japan and a bay called the Golden Horn bay. There were Manchurian tribes living here at one time. It is within spitting distance of China, North Korea, and Japan. Good place to have a massive naval fleet.

We saw navy ships, including a hospital ship that had been used in Syria, cargo ships, and the headquarters of the Russian Navy, which we aren't supposed to photograph, next to a park and submarine museum that everybody photographs. Damn Perastrioka. We visited a museum of Vladivostok history, that was quite interesting. Flora and fauna, and a little anthropology and archaeology for good measure. And Lenin. Gotta have Lenin.

They have their own eternal flame to the martyrs of WW2, of course, and their own wall. A big one.

Our guide, Dennis, told us a bit about the city. They don't like Chinese tourists, either. They're rude, pushy, don't have any consideration for others, etc. I guess they are now the ugly Chinese. We Americans are off the hook.

And the traffic! Every family has two or three cars. The streets are clogged all the time. Tourists like me flood in all the time, as well so there are busses everywhere. Our bus took us up to a lookout spot above the city which seemed inaccessible by horse and carriage, let alone a bus, but we got their anyway. There was a statue to two monks who created the Russian language. They used Romanian as a model and hashed in other bits. Funny. Does that make Russian a Romance language?

I asked Dennis my usual political question. What do Vladivostokians think of politics? It's a navy town so they are conservative. Putin got over 70% of the vote. Other candidates could not get much of a hearing. But I asked, what do people think of east/west relations? Ah, he said. People aren't concerned about it a lot because they are so far away from Moscow and politics. They understand propaganda, probably much more that we do. They like Americans but don't like our government.

So it's been pretty much consistent. Over 9,288 kilometers the people I have talked to think our government is manufacturing a crisis where there is none. Been there. Done that. Got the hammer and sickle. But they have no quarrel with us as Americans.

Her letters to her husband during the Communist Revolution gave scholars a look at how average, not politically activated civilians saw the war.

So many names,

And flames.

Russian Ministry of the Navy.

With cute little boat above the entrance. No Pictures!

Pull my finger!

Vladivostok train station. End of the line.

Indigenous Person

What, he again?

Character from a children's fairy tale.

Dennis, our guide.

Ehh. More road barnacles.

Saints Cyril and Methodius

History is never legible.

Russia's Golden Gate Bridge.

It's a naval shipyard, after all.

Look at that tee shirt. Talking about proselytizing

the youth!

Though this is the most auto-intensive city in

Russia, they still manage their pedestrian spaces.

Yevgeny left us at the hotel. There were hugs all around, the exchange of emails, and sad but sweet da svedanias. Then we were on our own. After a rest I ventured out to explore. I tried to follow my Google maps, but it got flakey when I got out of the hotel wifi range.

I was looking for some of the monuments we had visited earlier. The sun was breaking through the clouds, so I hoped for some shots of sunset over Vladivostok. I found the train station where we had arrived. A shopping mall. Some monuments coated in pigeons. Scary looking blocked off places. A grocery store where I bought some vodka to bring home. And a tempest of traffic. So I decided to go back to the hotel and eat in their restaurant.

Let's see... I've been walking this way... Across these railroad tracks... My hotel should be somewhere around here... Doesn't look familiar on my Google map... I think it might be up here...

Ah. I've found my favorite place. Lost. I'll just keep walking this way. The Golden Gate bridge of Vladivostok is within sight, so I can't be that lost. I came to a nice pedestrian open air mall. I started to worry. Google maps looked like I was too far up than I remembered. I asked a few people but they didn't know any more than me. I asked a shop owner and she tried to Google it for me but had no luck. I asked another man in a little storefront that sold something or other and he took the time to pour through the wilderness of Google until he had it. He got a map with the correct path back to my hotel, about four blocks away, and let me take a picture of it with my phone and I was on my way.

Back at my hotel I realized I hadn't eaten so I ate at the hotel restaurant. It's a five star hotel, four of them wasted on me, but I went there, anyway. I had a shot of Beluga vodka, an appetizer of caviar, quails eggs, and olives, and a main course of grilled shrimp with chili sauce and a Russian beer. Just shy of 3,000 rubles. About forty bucks. For a fancy shmancy restaurant in an expensive city that was not bad.

Tomorrow. Ah, alas tomorrow, my lovely time in this beautiful nation ends. For now.

Vocabulary word for the day: Рока! pa-ka. Bye!

 

Day 21 – Friday, 8/10/18 09:05. UTC: Thursday, 08/9/18 23:05.

Vladivostok

43.11865 131.88857

By my reckoning: Friday, 8/10/18 09:06.

Travel to Portland

What should we make of this contradiction contained in an enigma wrapped in a riddle? Is Russia the homogenized sausage of evil we've been told about? Are they a repressed society too brain washed to know how miserable they are? Are they the reawakened Russian Empire reclaiming their place on the world stage no matter what the decaying hegemon thinks?

I've got no clue. As Oksana said, The more we know the less we understand.

I can only speak for the few people I met in the few cities, train stations, restaurants, bars, and side streets while lost that I saw. Outside of the cosmopolitan city of Moscow I found a consistent theme. The cities are clean, modern, and safe. Building projects are everywhere. Every city, no matter how small, has a cultural center offering ballet, theatre, and symphony. Always near sold out. The people are educated, cultured, and outspoken in their many opinions while being gracious and kind. Many ethnicities live close together peacefully. No one is expected to give up their cultural birthright. There are eternal flames and monuments to the Great Patriotic War, as well as parks and beauty everywhere. The people are at peace with themselves.

You may call me a deluded de Toqueville seeing Russia through Red Square colored glasses. So be it. But I can't argue with kindness, which is what we received everywhere in abundance. And everyone wanted to use their smattering of English and have their pictures taken with us. Even out in the endless Siberian forests and plains, where westerners are not seen often, people greeted us with friendship and curiosity. No one is persecuted for being themselves.

From strangers coming up to volunteer help with the language barrier to our guide Yevgeny, who is very modern and outspoken in his criticism of his government, to our train elves, Yevgeny, and Yevgenya, to the Soviet and Crazy Nineties era folk who retained their memory and their humanity. They all smiled much more than I expected and they all loved when we tried speaking Russian with them. Red, as in beautiful, blood flows in all our veins. Russians are intellectual. You can talk about issues honestly. You can talk about Jews, you can talk about Ukrainians, you can talk about Tatars, Mongolians, Indigenous people, or any of the other 165 some odd nationalities living here without being hit over the head with petty name calling and school playground bullying.

And then there's Putin. What should we make of that puzzle? Tsar? Patriot? Tyrant? Independent? He is all the contradictions Galdan said he was plus some more, undoubtedly. He saved Russia from the Crazy Nineties by defying the west. For which he is loathed by the real butchers in Brussels and Washington. But stand in Moscow and look back at our world. What do you see? Do you like it? His conceit seems to be that he will work with anyone who will work with him but he will not bend to anybody.

The Russian economy is one tenth the size of ours. Their annual military budget can fit inside President Trump's increase to ours this year. As a matter of fact, Russia reduced their defense budget this year. Their military had been modernized to insure for Russia's defense, now that that's done they can back off a little. Even so, they have succeeded in making our navy and nuclear strike capacity completely irrelevant. As long as Russia and any Russian communities living abroad are safe, they're happy. Shouldn't that get our attention? Shouldn't we take Sun Tsu's advice and pursue diplomacy?

China is a much more repressive state than anything Russia does. Why don't we bang the drums of war and spread slanted propaganda and bigotry about them? Saudi Arabia is more draconian in their society than any Tsar up to and including Ivan the Terrible. Why don't we place sanctions on them?

The Russian people love and admire us and are puzzled why we don't like them. Why? they ask. We are the same. I have no answer for them.

Oksana was the smart one. Our economy, our very survival, depends on war. Pull that plug and we perish. The rest of the world is determined to stop us without destroying itself or us. We are the heroin addicts of the world about to have an intervention.

Well, there may be a way out. If we can be willing to accept our place in the world as just one country among many, we can survive. I don't wish to consider the alternative.

Russians are contradictory. To understand them you have to stand on your head and set your perspective glasses to maximum. But you know what? So are we. The same is true of us. They can't understand us, either. The difference is that they are trying and, I am glad to say, they are welcoming us into their country and learning from average Americans. They don't trust either of our governments, either. Some things never change.

But there are more things in heaven and earth, and Russia, than are dreamt of in my philosophy. With this I am content.

We are all the same. We all live on this tortured globe together. And we all are 90% in agreement. We have less that one in ten things we disagree on. We all want peace. We all want poetry and art, science and reason. We all love our children and our parents, and want a better life for the future. We all want to worship our gods, or not, as we see fit. And we all want to live and let live.

Well, 90% of us.

Some want to destroy. Some want to tear down. Some want to force their twisted vision of the world on everyone else.

Why do we listen to them?

I will leave you with one question. Why are we not friends?

Vocabulary word for the day: До свидания Da Sva-DAN-ya. Good bye. Till we meet again.

 

Day 21 - Addendum Friday August 10, 2018 18:31 UTC: Friday August 10, 2018 09:31

Seoul, S. Korea Incheon International airport

My GPS knows where I am, and shows me the nearest McDonald for some reason, but won't display the coordinates. I'll get the coordinates later. (They're 37.4602° N, 126.4407° E)

By my reckoning Friday August 10, 2018 18:31

Hm. I appear to have gone back in time by an hour.

Soule, South Korea.

The flight from Vladivostok to Seoul took longer than I expected due to going back one time zone.  I was able to transfer from terminal 1 to terminal 2 by subway. Be sure to follow the Transfer sign! Otherwise you might end up on the Streets of Seoul. I had to go through another security check anyway, they wanted to look at my liter of Russia Select vodka. It was properly sealed and packaged, so I breezed right through. The limit is two liters. I've got a half liter and three quarters of a liter in my checked on luggage, so I hope it won't get confiscated. Of course, in Honolulu I will have to go to baggage claim, get my bag, and reenter a different concourse. I'll stuff my Stoli in my bag and check it back in. And now, boarding my Hawaiian Airlines flight to beautiful, tropical Hawaii!

I had to get my boarding pass at the gate, and Hawaiian Air had reassigned me to seat 1A. First Class, or Privileged Class, as it was called on Korean air. Nice, since I'll be traveling overnight. And they conveniently gave us a separate entrance tube to enter and exit the airplane. It was what you would expect for people of our social status; chandeliers swinging from the ceiling, scantily clad attendants popping corks from bottles of champagne, a band playing Mozart. Nothing less will do.

 

Day 22 – Friday, August 10, 2018 11:08. UTC: Friday, August 10, 2018 21:08.

Honolulu, Hawaii

21.33398 -157.92406

By my reckoning: Saturday, August 11, 2018 11:08.

Hmm. I appear to have travelled forward in time. Yesterday, Friday the 10'th, the sun set in Seoul, S. Korea and this morning, Saturday the 11'th, it rose in Honolulu, Hawaii. But the clocks here all say it's Friday the 10'th.

Honolulu, Hawaii.

Hail people of the past! I salute you from the enlightened and well attended future. I know you poor, simple, superstitious folk live in what we of the future call the Wasted Times. You cannot imagine the wonders of today, with your primitive electric cars and carbon brain cells, some with a creamy center. We switched to nuclear powered cars ages ago. Some models get a million miles per pinch of plutonium. A heavy pinch, but still. Your mileage will vary.

Now I go back to the holo-ballet to watch Romeo and Juliet in Metropolis. They get cloned from their corpses and when they are pre-teens Romeo pulls Juliet's hair and Juliet thinks Romeo is a jerk. They do better in college.

 

Day 22 - Friday Addendum, 8/10/18 22:30 UTC: Saturday 08/11/18 05:30

Portland, OR

45.47955 -122.8507

By my reckoning: Saturday, 8/11/18 22:30.

Time is fluid

I got to Portland around Friday, 8/10/18 10:30PM their time and got to bed around midnight, whatever time that might have been. I woke up in Vladivostok around Friday, 8/10/18 09:30AM their time, whatever time that might have was. I was getting increasingly sore and exhausted, having slept no more than four or five hours over the past 31.5 hours. My back ached, my neck, my legs, I had a headache, felt a whooshing noise in time with my heartbeat in my head, and I was seeing double vision. It felt like I had been run over by a trans-Siberian railcar, or the worst hangover I have ever had. I ate whatever food was squeezed between me and the seat in front of me and drank as much water and juice as I could get.

The next day (you can do the date arithmetic,) I woke up at two in the afternoon after evil dreams, if anything feeling worse. I needed water during this whole time, lots of it, as I felt dehydrated. It's around midnight that night (August 12?) and I still have a bit of a headover...hangache...thing. I am feeling better but the imprint of the Siberian train is still there. Imagine if I had gone the additional 13 some odd hours, the last one driving around Hartford and eastern CT?  I won't blame you if you don't want to imagine it.

I guess this must be Jet lag. I know what a hangover feels like and this ain't it. At first I thought I might be sick, but of what? Siberian flu? No, I am experiencing Travel Decompression. I don't like it.

Time travel isn't easy!

 

Day 39 – Tuesday, August 28, 2018 11:05. UTC: Tuesday, August 28, 2018 15:05.

41.68578 -72.00998

Canterbury, CT. USA.

By my reckoning: Day 40 – Wednesday, August 29, 2018 11:05.

Around the world in 40 days.

Newerk, New Jersey.

Ancestor Dreams

I wonder if I should try to immigrate to Russia? There is a chance I could do it, considering my ancestry, though I doubt that Russia would want me. What do I have to offer? A twice butchered hospital dweller with a pension from a university career spent writing database code and shunning the bumbling bureaucracy? Not likely. And I don't know anyone there, though the few people I met would make excellent friends. Any family I might find there, if they are anything like their American cousin, would have been sent to the gulag long ago. Or shot while either trying to shoot their next fascist through the eye or trying to escape their battalion leader. Each takes different skills which, apparently, my grandfather possessed. And being a Romonoff may or may not help. I suspect the latter. Russian historians may be 'reevaluating the Tsar,' but that's not the same as wanting him back.

Still. It was thrilling talking to people. Yes, I know. I was following a yellow brick rail road through Russia's industrial/cultural/city/interstate highway system of sameness in the middle of summer when there was not four meters of snow on everything. But if I went to the hinterlands? Would I find the real Russia? The bomb throwing, Kremlin kissing, Bolshevic bashing baddies we've all heard about? Wait. I already met them. And they're not all the same. And they're called Russians. And they're decent people.

I wonder if I can get my pension and soc-sec checks in rubles?

Seriously, though, I may be able to get a Russian passport. I have all of the documents I need. That is, my grandfather's papers.

He was born in the village of Ostrovka in Savran Raion (district), Odesa Oblast, currently Ukraine though it was all Russia then. Ukraine wasn't established as a separate country until after the  Revolution. In Ukrainian: Ostrivka, Savran. In Russian: Островка (Одесская область.)

He was drafted into the Tsar's army; the oldest boy always was.  I don't know how long he stayed, not long I assume.  He bribed a guard and escaped by swimming across a freezing river.  It seems he was only about thirteen or fourteen at the time. When they came to take you for the Tsar's army, it wasn't by choice - and it was for life.  Although life was not usually long.

He made his way to Hamburg and got enough money to get on a ship to America.  When he got there, and remember, he was only about 14, he was sent back for either not having enough money and/or not having a sponsor. That would have been around 1898.

I guess he stayed in Hamburg, working, probably cooking.  He was saving to get back to New York.  And he probably had to find a sponsor.

He arrived back at Ellis Island on Dec. 20, 1910 on the ship "Amerika" from Hamburg. He would have been 26.  Records there say he was born Sept. 24, 1884, that he was 5'7" , fair skin, brown hair with grey eyes.  His mother's name was Anna.  He was going to stay with a friend named Ackermann at 67 Clinton St., N.Y., N.Y.

I have the necessary documents, including ship manifest from Hamburg, my mother's birth certificate, parents' wedding license and my birth certificate and US passport. I don't have my grandfather's birth certificate from Ostrokov. I can probably pay someone to get it and put it all together and submit the application. I'm not interested in Russian citizenship as long as I have a passport, though if I can get dual citizenship, why not? I may be knocking on Russia's Ellis Island one of these days. I hear great things about Moscow girls.

Processing

They say we are the Universe trying to understand itself. When we look into the sky we are seeing the face of God and our own looking back at us. And all of our art and all of our poetry and all of our science and all of our religion are the collective soul of man taking it all in.

It takes a long time to process things. Sometimes forever. We in America are still processing the Civil War. We are at the stage of iconoclasm. We are tearing down monuments and thinking by doing this we can tear down the problem. Somehow we can make the wounds heal by amnesia. The Soviets did this with the whole church. For 70 years they tried to wipe out a culture, a people, and a religion. It can't be done. Christianity spent a thousand years beating itself into the psyche of Europe. But not without absorbing a lot of its pagan elements.

Individuals do this. Walt Whitman had to process his Civil War experience as a nurse through poetry. Tolstoy processed the Napoleonic war with War and Peace. Wedding couples, children, and the elderly process it in Russia today by laying flowers at the monuments and eternal flames to the Great Patriotic War. Picasso with Guernica. Jews by breaking a glass at weddings in honor of the last temple. Every monument ever raised, every book ever written, every play, every tome, every prayer to every god, every blasphemy uttered, every curse bit off off and spit into the void, every bawdy joke told, every story met with eager ears around the hearth is someone processing what it means to be alive.

Individuals process their own life's trials and triumphs. Families process theirs, sometimes in a healthy manner, sometimes not. Processing is not always easy and not always pleasant. And often avoided. Communities. Countries. And the whole world. Stories like the Garden of Eden or the Mahabharata are all of mankind processing what it means to be human. What golems are we? What clay breathed into life or windup toy let loose? And why?

Russia is still processing their civil wars. Brother fought against brother and father against son just like in our Civil War. And their revolutions (two of them in the same year,) and their Great Patriotic War. Pasternak's Dr. Zhivago. Soviet era monuments, which are carefully preserved and never vandalized, as well as newer monuments to Stalin's millions killed or exiled. And the fall of the Soviet Union, dragging one tortured nation into the hands of an even worse torturer.

Mother Russia was on her knees. Putin raised her up. This, too, is processing. Like any savior, he must die. Putin is receiving ambivalence from a younger, less involved population. This, too is processing. Some day they will have their own tragedies to process, their own vigils to watch, their own eternal flames to lay roses before. And their own story to tell.

And the next generation will listen. And process.

 

One Last Note

Last March I wrote a letter to President Vladimir Putin, CC. to President Donald Trump. I never got a reply from either of them.

                                                                                                President Vladimir Putin

                                                                                                The Kremlin

Moscow, Russia.

CC. President Donald Trump

The White House.

Washington, DC.

March 26, 2018.

Jonathan H. Loux

USA

Dear President Putin,

I am an American citizen. I lived through the Cuban missile crises, the Cold war, and its aftermath. I watched as our two nations negotiated détente, anti-ballistic missile treaties, and arms reduction. I rejoiced. I worked, briefly, for a defense contractor where we felt that we were working to insure peace and balance between our countries. I never wanted war. None of us did. We always felt that Russia and America were, in a very basic way, on the same side. The side of peace. The side of the olive branch. But still we were cautious. Afraid. And so were you. Fear can be a powerful advisor. And so we built spears.

We knew in our hearts we were alike, but something was keeping us apart. So we had the peace of the spear. So be it. At least we could still talk across the spear. We could hold the spear strongly in one hand, poised at the heart of the other, while offering the olive branch with a trembling hand. It was an uneasy peace, but still peace; a blind peace, a cautious peace, an uncertain peace. But it was enough. Both of our sides understood, and accepted, the peace of the spear. One by one, step by step, we negotiated our way ever closer to true peace and understanding. We plucked more olive branches. There was respect and guarded trust. So be that as well. Let us never cease.

Nor forget the fear; needless fear, haunting fear, horrible fear, but fear, none the less. The peace of the spear and the olive branch. And so our lives lived on the edge. We have nothing to win from hostility, everything to gain from fraternity, all to lose from disparity. Why not be friends? Why not plant our olive branches into whole groves where children play? Why not find ways to make them all grow?

I fear my country has abandoned the balance of the spear and the olive branch and is now controlled by lunatics who do not speak to you or speak for me or anybody else in my country. They trust the spear more than the olive branch. They destroy the process of communication and guarded trust, replacing it with hostile suspicion and insult. Clowns judged by fools lead by idiots.

I don’t think this is a common perception. I think most people in my country want friendship. Peace and respect. And a chance to move beyond the spear and the olive branch to embracing as brothers. But they are afraid. Afraid and have been duped by our leaders who tell us there is no olive branch. The groves have all been burned to ash, the olive branch defiled. Only the spear remains. The antidote to hatred is familiarity. Peace through understanding. War is the great unifier, for in it we all bleed alike by the spear and see the olive branch whither. We both live together. Or die together. I choose life.

I hope for better relations, peace and respect.

                                                                                    An American friend,

                                                                                    Jonathan H. Loux

 

Not hoping for much. You? Didn’t think so.