Ecology/Environment/Wilderness in Russia

The relationship Russians have with nature is beautiful and intimate. “Environment” is not a word here, not a word in the dictionary, not word under a non-democratic system. Ecologia and piroda, however, say it all. The first is the study of nature, the second is nature itself; we don’t work at a natural history museum, we work at a musei pirodi, where all aspects of the outside world come together in rock displays, stuffed animals, diagrams and models, bones and live animals. Our host family, which runs LAT, never evince any interest in the political issues—they merely love the world outside (well, Igor despises Greenpeace, arguing it does more harm than good in Russia, which is true). The version of nature here doesn’t inspire the sort of sleeve-worn, nalgene environmentalism that thrives stateside; it’s an automatic lifestyle (none of this may be good). They don’t treasure it they live in it. They take it for granted.

The natural uncertainty principle says we can’t hear a tree fall in the forest if we haven’t knocked other trees down to get there. What nature means here (defined by groups like the Laboratory for Active Tourism, FIRN, the Museum of Nature) hinges on the wildness of the forest, on a very Siberian appreciation for nature that cannot imagine urban life without an appropriate balance of wildlife, without the retreat to more primeval scenes, an edginess of a whole different sort. An edginess to take the edge off beer damp, dirt-caked, blood-stained city life. Along with a general, deep rooted antipathy to “business strategy,” this philosophy is not conducive to the eco-tourism that keeps so much of Eastern Europe afloat and that has come to define the American national park system. The tension between preservation and appreciation, between appreciation and tourism, between the old and the new, keeps the park pretty but poor. It’s anyone’s guess how many visitors our eagerly-anticipated brochure will bring to the park; but it’s also unclear how they’ll manage to pay for a new brochure. And if they can, still unclear is how the park could afford to clean up all the trash that all those new visitors would bring.

In-between (mehzdu)

Drifting through the shards of a language, drifting through surroundings you have before only begun to imagine, so far from home that nostalgia is either impossible or so deeply set in as to be un-diagnosable, the feeling of non-existence, of ghostliness sets in. As visible as you are, people try hard to see you here, to see into you. What they manage to see however may have little to do with you. It becomes hard to make an impression of yourself on others unless you can find yourself; and doing that of course depends on others. Even moving around, amidst a din of musical, unintelligible words, and the customs that define us, in a city (helplessly impersonal, furious), can physically feel like an out of body experience. Just as when trying to translate ideas, vodka seems to help, if at least only to obliterate the sense of mediate-ness and throw you into the present. Lost and found in translation.

Transportation

For the health-minded, traveling anywhere is generally not advisable. Siberian Air operates daily flights from Moscow to Irkutsk, Novosibiersk, Ulan Ude, and a snowy mountainside somewhere in the Urals. On the way, passengers may encounter unfeeling stewardesses, bad feeling drunkards, and, squeezed somewhere in front of one’s seat, non-feeling legs. While a trip home on the microbus is a cheaper, chancier, and kitchier alternative to a roller coaster made of rotting wood, getting in and out demands all sorts of intense determinateness and awkward body-twisting (befitting only of a culture obsessed with gymnastics), hairy, head-injurious jumps in and out of a moving vehicles, and a range of stares that would make even Clint Eastwood keep his eyes glued to the window, with its gorgeous display of spewing factories and smoke-brown apartment complexes. A taxi might be the best and safest way to go, assuming you don’t speak Russian in which case the driver may be less likely to spend half the trip facing the backseat in conversation.

Chut’ chut’

Perhaps my favorite Russian expression, especially when enunciated by Igor, with a slight gaping of the mouth and ever so much “shhh.” It of course means “a little bit,” as in, “vi hatyiti moloko, Igor?” “Da, chut’ chut’.”

Bears

Aside from the occasional mud wrestling (fortunately I was only wearing a pair of old chinos), the only sign of bears were their footprints, impressed in the mountain snow next to our own as a kind of ominous greeting upon finally reaching the top (nb: only one part of that sentence was factual.) Now then, two interesting habits of the Siberian Bear (both factual): 1. above almost every man-made marking on trees along the trail, a bear had left his own pawprint in order to lay to rest the issue of whose land it indeed was, and; 2, bears like to play this game called Stupid Squirrel, so named because it involves digging a ditch where squirrels might be inclined to deposit their latest batches of nuts and thus walk into a trap whereupon they are eaten along with their nuts.

The 80s

I think we’re alone now, take on me, 99 luftballoons. I’m living with children of the 80s, Melissa and John. She turned to me during Blondie and said, “can’t you just imagine us girls, singing along to this in a California junior high in the 80s, with our hairspray up to here?” Uh huh, I think so. Neon and legwarmers. Headbands.

The 70s

This room John and I live in, it’s so 70s. Great big old map next to my bed, medals and pins about, two old guitars (one seems truly ancient), endless photos of soccer players and race car drivers with mullets, faded pastels and primary colors, unvarnished wooden fold out desks and a gauzy mustard curtain that gives everything a warm, aging tone. Vladimir Putin looking bored on a certificate for Russian orienteering champion.

Russian-American relations

Even five years ago (so I’ve heard), being American in most far flung Russian towns bestowed celebrity status overnight. By morning, every local wanted to get a piece of the liberal democratic capitalist action, and you couldn’t go anywhere without getting some variation of the old royal treatment. It was partly a relic of the Soviet days when every westerner on some semi-official business had some handler to make sure the floors were swept, the doors were opened, and the rooms were extra hot. Back then the only Russia a westerner could visit was often limited to Moscow and Leningrad as many other places were “closed.” Such was Ulan Ude. Melissa suggested that perhaps we were among a the first set of westerners ever to have lived in our particular suburb. This may explain why recently, after apparently years of inaction, dozens of women dressed in scrubs showed up to renovate the dimly-lit, urine-soaked, asbestos stairwells.

But probably not. More likely is that the man-whose-name-we-don’t-know-who-always-comes-over-late-at-night-wearing-a-track-suit is a spy, keeping close tabs on us. While we’re a subject of intense fascination, we’re not exactly celebrities anymore. It’s clear that everyone recognizes us as foreigners, no matter how much leather we wear, or how well we mutter demands in Russian, or how hard are our stares. The security guards, as common as police are uncommon, shadow us throughout the stores, listening to their walkie-talkies. Either they think we’re going to take something or they want to take something from us. I think they just want us to feel suspicious. It doesn’t help that Melissa’s dark skin allies her with the Gypsies, John’s Asian (more acceptable here of course, but never completely alright), and I look like a dumb western European.

The Russians here have a lot to gain from us, but it’s unclear where our understanding of the world fits into theirs. When we ask them about Russia, their political system, they don’t say much; they’ve got a lot to say about America, but it tends to be just as informative. I know they’re holding back. Sometimes they like to practice their English on us, which I’m happy to accommodate (many Russians have some knowledge of English, only few of those I’ve met dare try to speak it); mostly though we remain on opposite sides of an invisible fence, not out of anything specific other than our foreignness. What are you doing in Ulan Ude? How can you possibly get any work done in two months? (Many cell phone photos). On the bus or in the store or the bar, the whispering is unmistakable: “Americanitz, taam.” I can’t tell what’s behind that simple there. Some weeks ago, Melissa overheard them saying something like, “Typically, when you stay in someone’s home…,” but as with the email she happened to see from our Moscow liaison Marina to our host mama, she didn’t catch the most crucial words. That missive read something like, “Melissa emailed me today to ask about the money… These kids must be crazy. I don’t understand—they all requested home stays [not true, John pipes in] and all they’re doing is complaining. I’m sorry they’re causing you so much trouble. It’s really….” What comes next may provide the clue to our cultures’ real relationship. We don’t know what it said.

Capitalism (Democracy), Fast, then Slow Onset Of

After the dust cleared, just as we were becoming aware of the world if not the incredible historical landslides taking place around us, the capital rolled in. The capital that kept us happy and rationally exuberant and rich and occupied with informercials and OJ and the tech boom, the capital (not indomitable) that people all over the world craved (not everyone). The capital and perhaps maybe the political bodies that come with it, like the lady who welcomed some of our ancestors in to begin with, the ones who knew that a new entrance and a new name and all the perpetual newness meant at least the freedom to get the stuff to make the stuff, or the lady who sits across from the Capitol, blinded and carrying a light and balanced load. Or perhaps the capital would flow in accompanied by just the skeletons of those bodies, like the ghastly horseback visitors of fairy tale hamlets that slip in at night, quietly leaving everything and nothing the same. Not just the bodies of oligarchs’ enemies, but the nameless bodies of wars waged partly in the name of a freedom that could not possibly exist yet, and partly in the name of the capital that could make, at the very least, the long travails, the long continuing wait, worthwhile. Worth something. The first months after the Soviet Union had passed on seemed the most exuberant and exciting politically, the most lawless, but the most exciting in Russia since the earlier revolutions. The succeeding months, it turns out, saw the exuberance and lawlessness continue across the bustling cities and unending swath of natural resources, but only for certain individuals. Everyone tried to get in the fold, including even some treasury department hacks and a couple of Harvard economists. Things changed and then they kept changing, so that the whole country fell into an unsteady but subtle rhythm of evolution between not two wildly different economic philosophies but a host of different corruptions, frauds, half-truths, prides and desperations. The display of wealth remains gaudy and intense because eager, while displays of non-wealth lie everywhere, and a growing middle class ekes out some ambivalent, new-fangled survival between the rosy culture of dedushka’s withered utopia and the newly-dyed Chinese or Malaysian or maybe Italian threads of the young marketplace, perhaps as glossy as before but delivered from the dictates of national songs to the candied, hypnotic din of ringtones. Where this colorful, painful, disorienting tension leads remains to be seen, beyond the parodic “Moscow Millionaire Fair” and the pathetic suffering of so many, perhaps in a future that might actually (as opposed to hypothetically, and emptied of mere ideology) have to do with a revolution—or a re-evolution—of the people for the people and by the people. But that is not a slogan on the dollar bill.

Toilet Paper

Typically very rough, and might explain the general mood of your average man in the street. We bought some softer stuff at the nearby supermarket—a very western affair—and left it in the bathroom as a sort of token of our appreciation. It’s going to save our asses. And I think it’s already helped ingratiate us a bit more with our wonderful hosts, who I like to imagine secretly look forward to going to the bathroom whenever westerners come rolling in with their three-ply. Then again, I wonder if they think our bathroom imperialism impolite.

Humor

Some people have inquired about this. Yes of course, Russians are a very light-hearted people (within the confines of their home) and have a rich and complex sense of humor. Much of it is based on a set of “inside” folk jokes, stories, proverbs, word plays and sayings. With enough command of the language and all of its infinite prepositional constructions you can capture a Russian’s ear, but if you don’t know the humor, you’ll never capture a Russian’s heart (Eugene). And if you don’t know the Russian heart well—and the language—you won’t understand the humor.

Kitchen Table

The epicenter of Russian home life. This is where you will find the chai, the chai paraphernalia, the chai biscuits, the chocolate, and family and friends in the evening, drinking chai and breaking off bits of chocolate and biscuits as they chat, slap each other on the back, tell jokes, and drink chai.

Cold

Coldness doesn’t exist in Russia, except outside (and in certain bad-tempered people). And even na ulitsa (literally “on the street”), it’s been mostly sweater weather since we’ve been in Ulan Ude, knock on wood. The dark, salty wood of a banya (a sauna-like sweat bath), the wise sturdy logs of a cabin in the middle of the Siberian forest outfitted with a heavy-duty stove that keeps me up all night, the worn pine of the kitchen table where a cup of hot tea is the only beverage served with steaming borscht and piroshky and kartoshky. Ice can be found in the northern tundra and maybe there’s some cold vodka in the freezer, though even that will make you feel really warm. Russians have a bizarre pathology about the cold, which explains (I’m beginning to see) why there are so many coat and hat stores: even on the warmest days by Boston standards, Russians are bundled up in their North Faces, sleeping-bag jackets, fur shapkas, etc. To make things even more confusing, it’s only on these days that the lines wind around the town’s ubiquitous ice cream stands. Hard to understand.

Dangers

Russia can be a dangerous place for foreigners; use special caution when going out at night, handling money and expensive things, using ATMs, crossing the street, sitting in a car, drinking, speaking English loudly in public, going into the banya, eating meat, not hanging up your jacket upon entering a house, placing an empty bottle on the table, whistling indoors, wearing your shirt inside out, feeding the dogs, uttering Russian curses, uttering Russian curses to men with knives, applying Russian toilet paper, “meat,” and plugging in electric devices. If you think you’re being followed, a simple “Nyet,” “Ya amereekanitz,” “Shootka!” or “west siiiiide” will fall flat. If you must go out doors, best to hide your passport and run to your destination, probably screaming, so as not to attract attention.

Siberia

Not exactly what you imagined, Siberia is a land of incredible places and people, and contradictions and all that jazz. “Blues” clubs (Abba, the Beatles and Jim Morrison being the closest things to that genre). Siberian bears (we’ve only met one, an imaginary medved named Sergei). Siberia has wolves, the sort that might rise up and howl in the eye of a full, gorgeous moon, of which the nights as many as they have brilliant suns lavishing the mountains and valleys and factories with intense white light. Siberia has large department stores where you can find crystal vases and Moschino eyewear and ebony-appointed samurai swords and gleaming washing machines. Siberia has desolate tundra and sometimes intense heat (see “Hot”) and often intense cold, underlaid at places by 600m of Permafrost. Siberia has Lake Baikal, the deepest lake in the world, the world’s eighth sea containing 1/5 of the world’s fresh water, and at that size, the cleanest water you can find: that’s no commissar’s exaggeration. Also true: Siberia has thousands of factories spewing many carbon dioxide and mercury and mystery molecules into an otherwise pristine (is there an otherwise?) atmosphere and as many of other chemicals into the soil and watertables. Siberia has wizened, homeless goats who will eat cigarettes butts off the mud if you won’t share your piroshky, or your Snickers or your Pringles. Siberia has the hardest and most toothless (literally, not, not at all figuratively) and most beautiful and placid and nicest persons in Russia. The geography seems to mirror them in a certain, vague way (or vice versa)—immense wilderness punctuated by lakes and unreal mountain ranges and smokestacks and flats colored brightly and in dirt. Like places all over the former empire and like no where else in the world. Long confrontational lines at the bank. Gold in the mountains. Carts and motorcycle sidecars on the rough roads. Calm and cross-cultural, withered and obstinately progressive, in a completely apolitical way. The sales at the new supermarket. Pirated Kill Bill and Microsoft Word. Numbing chill and numbing homemade vodka and a rainbow of indigenous birds, emptiness and horror and industry and rustic pleasure and survival, braving, with ancient patience, the continual reinvention.