Bored in Siberia
MONGOLIA-RUSSIA BORDER
MAY 5
I coughed myself awake and prepared for the train to be boarded by what I imagined would be multitudes of border officials. Every Asian train
featured a hot water tank at one end of each car, so I drank some vile instant Nescafe and scarfed down a granola bar -- I had been carrying a whole pack of "Nature Valley's" finest ever since Hong Kong, and had not regretted it.
The bedding had left lint all over my clothes, but I was too lazy to prop up my berth and dig in my luggage underneath for my mini-lint brush. The border officials didn't seem to mind.
The Mongolians stamped me out swiftly, but the Russians were scrupulous in their formalities. A young sweaty soldier in uniform climbed all
over my cabin, inspecting alcoves for smuggled goods. Apparently, under normal circumstances, homeward-bound Russians smuggled all kinds of goods in.
But I was miraculously alone in my compartment for four, so I wasn't charged with carrying cartons of cigarettes or alcohol across the border for an
enterprising Siberian.
Customs formalities ended, but our Trans-Mongolian train couldn't go anywhere. We had to wait for the Vladivostok train to show up, so that the two
trains could hook up together and form the one, famous Trans-Siberian Express.
There's nothing "express" about the Trans-Siberian. It's officially called the Trans-Siberian Railway, which is a good deal more accurate.
To ride it from start to finish is to experience the longest train ride on earth. Foolishly, I was adding a detour, taking an spur route down into
Central Asia, that would add days to my already extensive trip. My trip would be, overall, more than the 7865 kilometers from Beijing to Moscow.
For now, en route to Irkutsk, I still thought there was something romantic about riding the rails of the famous Trans-Siberian Railway.
The guidebook described one of the highlights of the ride as "having nearly a week to do nothing." That would give me plenty of time to sew up my slashed bike messenger bag and tear through "Treasure Island," one of the only English-language books I had found in China. When I finished reading, I
stared out the window at the landscape. It had changed dramatically overnight, and Mongolia's broad yellow-brown steppe had been replaced with leafless trees and small lakes. Decrepit wooden cabins, smoke rising from their chimneys,
lined the paved road, which never strayed far from the rails. The sky was bright blue, with occasional wispy white clouds.
Ferocious winds kicked in late in the day, as we neared an amazingly giant, clear lake, which was probably Lake Baikal. I could hear the screeching
of the wind, mixed with the pop sounds of "Tarzan is handsome, Tarzan is strong," coming from further down the railway car. It added a surreal
element to a trip that amazed me already. Nothing about the trip felt real, especially since I was alone and there was no one to confirm that indeed I had
gone by train and bus all the way from Indonesia to Siberia.
IRKUTSK, RUSSIA
MAY 6
The morning sun shone in through the birch trees, illuminating my Nescafe and granola bar as the train pulled into Irkutsk. A local travel agent picked me up, transferring me and my granola bars to Hotel Rus in the
city center.
Every Russian town has a central store
I wandered around in hunt of lunch and remembered reading somewhere that a tourist could starve in Russia, not from lack of food but from
lack of access to it. I remembered surviving for five days on Pepsi as a 17-year-old in 1982 in Leningrad, but that was in the Soviet years. There still aren't
many restaurants in Siberia, and those that I could find served various combinations of beets, mayonnaise, and salami, none of which I could pick out on a
Cyrillic menu. I quickly put my newfound self-catering skills to work, buying bread, veggies, and lunch meat from Soviet-style stores where I pointed to
food and a woman would fetch it for me. Most of the stores seemed to carry little more than liquor, yogurt, instant coffee, and salami.
What is Cap selling? Who knows!
It was Sunday, and my walk around Irkutsk turned up a lot of cold, some miserable rain, and some nice old wooden houses featuring intricately
carved corners. The buildings looked more European than I had expected, and one shop inexplicable featured a light-up 'Captain America' sign. I turned in
early, to watch "South Park" in Russian. A commercial came on featuring two talking M&M's on the Trans-Siberian Railway.
MAY 7
Two days to fill in cold Irkutsk, and it kept raining me out of visiting Lake Baikal. I spent my time productively, using the hotel
bathtub to rinse the sand of the Gobi out of my fleece and stocking up on Trans-Siberian groceries at the Central Market. There were strangely a lot of men
bearing scars and stitches on the streets of Irkutsk, and I suspected it was related to the wide variety of vodka available in every convenience store. The
women did not have stitches but wore massive amounts of makeup, featuring bright red lipstick and heavy rouge, reminding me that the Russian sailors on the
Direct Kiwi had been surprised at how "little" makeup American women wore.
Central Market
I was in the midst of a book crisis. I had a three-day, four-night train ride ahead of me and only one short Hermann Hesse novel to occupy
my time. I scoured the shops of Irkutsk and turned up only one English-language book, a history of the USA. It was unfortunately far duller than it sounds.
Finally, I found a foreign language school via the internet, and it turned out to have books for sale in the lobby. I picked up a Raymond
Chandler book, a Sherlock Holmes novel, and avoided all the books that had 'question and answer' sections that would check my English comprehension.
I visited a Decembrist House, the home of Prince Sergy Trubetskoy. The museum guide did her best, pointing to things and articulating while I
looked up the words in my phrase book. The Decembrists were aristocrats who had badly botched a December 1825 revolt against the Tsar, and were exiled to Siberia.
The house was a beautiful wooden house, but a mere shack compared to the Prince's home in Moscow.
Decembrist House
I went back to the hotel for dinner. Perusing the menu, I noticed that
I could have:
-pieces of dark matter roasted on a spiittt
-dork sirloin
-milk dishes
I ordered "sirloin sandwich" and got two pink strips of meat on a small slice of bread. I retired to me room to eat it, as the restaurant was
filled with a band and hotel patrons, sitting alone and staring at the musicians. I snacked on "sirloin sandwich" to "Star Trek: the Next Generation," and
noted that there was no disguising "two to beam up" in any language.
MAY 8
I walked to the Irkutsk Regional Museum for a look at the history of the area. I noticed that everywhere people were sweeping, mopping, and cleaning. Cleans windows were being scrubbed cleaner. The stairs to my
hotel room seemed to be mopped at least three times a day. Could this be leftover from the days of the Soviet Union, I wondered, when jobs were made to
match the number of people in the population?
My Irkutsk meals had almost all misfired, so I had it in mind that before getting back on the train, I would have some decent Chinese food
at the town's largest hotel. But for the obscene lyrics that started blaring out of the P.A. concurrent with my entry into the restaurant, it was not a bad
meal.
When I finished, the young waiter came over.
"Excuse me," he said. "Do you like this music?"
"It's okay," I said cautiously.
"Do you have a few minutes for me?"
"O-kayyy..."
"Please, do you know Tupac Shakur?"
Huh?
I admitted that I knew of Tupac Shakur, but could not explain that it was not so much from his music as from his death and the 'Avenue A'
mural that had followed it (gone now, replaced by a bistro).
"Can you please explain what this means?" asked the waiter, writing some lyrics down on a napkin.
He wrote "one love."
I stumbled a bit, not sure what the context was, just knowing it was something people say about Tupac Shakur. I was way out of my "hip" depth. I later learned that it was a saying from Jamaica and is basically said in reference to the union of all tribes.
"It was the dedication at the end of a movie on his life," he said.
The waiter got very excited when I told him I was from New York, and proceeded to tell me that New York and Los Angeles are very dangerous
places. I told him that statistically they were safe, but he did not understand. I had by this time surmised that he had never been outside of Irkutsk, and so
was not totally shocked by his next comment.
typical Irkutsk house
"I love rap music. But here everyone thinks I am crazy to listen to black music because blacks are criminals."
How many times was I going to hear this around the world? Did anyone in the entertainment industry or in Hollywood have any idea of the damage they had
done to the reputation of African-Americans on a global scale?
It was hopeless and I was tired and didn't know enough Russian to set him straight, but I tried.
"Do you know any black people? Do your friends know any black people? Are you just like the white people who make rock and roll?"
Of course the answer to all these questions was no, so I continued.
"I know many black people and they are not criminals. They are just like you or me, they have jobs and families and normal lives. And, in
the States, we say African-American, not black. It's not nice to say black." (Mind you, I was really stretching it here as he was miles ahead of the nice
old man in Ulaan Bataar.)
He just looked puzzled and my lecture about movies and music videos being fiction fell on deaf ears. But he knew everything there was to
know about Tupac Shakur, that he was born in '75 and was shot in '96. I wasn't sure that this was breaking down any cultural barriers, however. The entertainment industry just seemed to be reinforcing stereotypes around the world.
I left my confused new friend behind, packed my bags, and took a midnight taxi to the train station, for the worst ride of my life.
NEXT: Still with me after that SLOW trip to Siberia? The prepare for the Trans-Siberian Hellway!!
