Ulan-Ude’s giant head of Lenin looking imposing.

The Trains

The Russian Railway website does not generally work with foreign credit cards, which meant that we had to get friends to buy our train tickets once we arrived in Russia. As it was the end of August — prime vacation season — this meant that the quality of trains we had access to was not… always the best.

For one thing, the toilets were questionable. On most of the trains that we took across Russia’s hinterland, the toilet flushed with the aid of a foot lever, and “flushing” was a hatch opening up in the bottom of the toilet and spraying your poop directly onto the tracks.

Because of the risk of contaminating groundwater, you can’t be having poop on the tracks in all regions, so each settlement was flanked by a half-hour kontrolnaya zona, during which the train attendants would come through the train and lock each bathroom until we had safely passed all signs of human habitation. If you had to go? Tough luck. You should have known not to drink any water while approaching a town.

Occasionally, the trains we took had a mix of older and newer rolling stock. The newer rolling stock had suction toilets of the kind you might find on airplanes, which sometimes made it possible to go to the bathroom even in the station (I say sometimes because, confusingly, these too were often locked). This did not mean they were without issues. At each stop where people got on, the train attendant would go around to everybody (except for us, whom she skirted with her eyes, certain that we would not understand what she was about to say) and say, “the hot water is at the back and NO TOILET PAPER IN THE TOILET.”

Did the toilet have a bidet or something to make this easier on everybody? Of course not.

Surprisingly enough, people did not want to toss their noticeably used toilet paper in the garbage can for all to see, so the toilets inevitably broke. Breaking meant the toilet filled with an unflushable amount of water. As soon as it happened, the same train attendant would come back through the car, peeking into each compartment and wagging her finger. “DON’T PUT TOILET PAPER IN THE TOILET.”

The first train we took, from St. Petersburg to Moscow, was the last train with tickets available, and for good reason. The train didn’t simply go from St. Petersburg to Moscow, but actually from St. Petersburg to Krasnodar, in the south of Russia, close to Crimea. Crimea is a popular vacation destination, and taking land transport from St. Petersburg to Crimea takes a long time, which means it’s an option preferred by Russians of lower economic classes.

Picture us, innocent, having just bought the last available ticket to Moscow at the train station. As yet, we know none of this. We settle into our berths and get ready for an uneventful trip.

This was not to be. One of us proposed buying something from the canteen, but the train attendant didn’t have change for the large bills that the ATM had spit out. We decided to ask around on the train if anybody had change, and that is how we met Boris and Lena.

Lena was a 42-year-old taxi driver and Boris was a 26-year-old of uncertain occupation (his styling was a bit mobster-esque, but he was also cheerful and friendly and loved to cook — “he made all this!” Lena exclaimed, reprising her exclamations each time a new dish was brought out. Their two-year-old, Misha alternately explored the train and gazed out the window and passing trains, gasping after each one.

Lena and Boris taught us how to do things that are not allowed on trains. Smoking, for example. The technique was to walk to the back of the wagon and go onto the platform where the doors were. After that, you had to go between the cars, where the movements of the floor could chop off your toe if you weren’t wearing proper footwear, and the clattering din was enough to give you a headache if the smoke from four cigarettes didn’t do it first.

Since so many people were doing it, the train attendants couldn’t do much more than wag a finger and say nielzya (not allowed) because, really, how to kick every single passenger off the whole, entire train?

Lena and Boris were also generous people who took us under their wing from first “would you happen to have any change?” “Yes, we have change,” they said. “But wouldn’t you like some coffee?” They handed Adem a packet of instant, which we drank.

Coffee turned into apples and apples turned into sandwiches spread with lard and grated spam, and lard and grated spam turned into shots of Russian homemade vodka samugon. As the bottle of liquor got pulled out, I began to fear potentially going blind from the effects of moonshine of uncertain provenance, so I told Lena that I wasn’t drinking because I was trying to get pregnant, a lie (I didn’t smoke either, though I did allow myself to be shown how it was done.) After she’d had a shot herself, she drunkenly leaned into me and told me in a low voice that sometimes, when you really want to get pregnant and can’t, the problem is that you can’t relax and what better way to relax than to have a drink and forget your troubles? She cited two friends who had tried for a baby for a long time only to finally conceive during a night of drunken nookie and/or a day of drunken embryonic implantation.

Adem accepted the samugon and got quickly and gloriously drunk as the shots kept getting thrust into his hands. He tried to refuse, but not speaking Russian, had few tools with which to do so. Waving his hands? Not good enough. The only words he knew in Russian were spasiba and nyet, but these two were not enough to communicate. He repeated nyet like a whimpering mantra, but his refusals were refused by an increasingly aggressive and drunken Lena, who had taken out yet another bag of food and busily tried to force a burger past his lips and into his mouth. Hurriedly, I told Lena that he wasn’t hungry anymore and that I quite fancied the burger that she was trying to foie-gras feed him but not before feeling a delicious wave of schadenfreude wash over me. “This,” I would say to a groaning Adem later in words laced with I-told-you-so, “is how foreign people feel when they come to Turkey. Now tell me, again, how wonderful Turkish hospitality is.”

Lena and Boris gave us one last gift of a dried fish before we arrived in Moscow, a fish we would take all across Russia and back and christened Gagariba (a portmanteau of Gagarin and the Russian word for “fish.”) On the platform in Moscow, we were picked up by the friends we were staying with.

“We are so surprised about you taking this train!” they said. “How was it? Was it crazy? You know this is the train of Russians who can’t afford to fly to go on vacation?”

Ulan-Ude

Ulan Ude, the capital of the Buryat respublika, is a polluted, ugly city. It is such a hole that even Yandex, the Google and Google Maps of Russia, hasn’t really bothered with it. It could not tell us any public transit details, nor was it much help for calling taxis. This was a surprise, considering that Yandex has even mapped dachaville, middle of nowhere respublika. The more we got to know Ulan-Ude, the more we understood. The only ingredients in the food are meat and dough (dill, if you are lucky and cabbage if you are very lucky), our boogers turned black from the pollution, and even in mid-September it was very very cold.

We were not in Ulan Ude for the public transit or for the taxis or the food, though. We were there for Russia’s Buddhist temple complex of Ivolginskiy Datsan, the only Buddhist spiritual centre of the Soviet Union.

Our first morning in Ulan Ude, we put on inappropriate clothing for the weather, blew the aforementioned black boogers out of our noses, and took three marshrutki to the complex.

By the time we arrived, we’d had plenty of time to realize that our summer outfits were unfit for the rainy weather, so we ducked into the gatehouse to warm up and see if we had to pay to visit the complex. The lady inside proposed an English-speaking tour guide, and soon, for the price of 500 rubles, we were being led into the complex by Anna, a guide with a flat voice and a tenuous knowledge of English.

“Dear our guests,” she intoned for the first time of many. “Before we start the tour, I must ask where you are from.”

“Turkey,” we said.

“Oh my,” she said flatly. She turned to Adem. “I have been working here for five years and I have never met anybody from Turkey before.”

She ushered us closer to the main temple and began. “Dear our guests, please take a look at this beautiful temple.”

It was, admittedly, beautiful.

“Here,” she continued, “lives a monk who is the phenomenon in Russia and all over the world. At this time he is 166 years old.”

Adem would later confess to me that he didn’t hear this part.

“Dear our guests. Please listen carefully to this history of Buddhism in Russia. Our Great Queen Catherine allowed Buddhist temples to be built during her reign. She was a great supporter of Buddhism.”

“Dear our guests. Please pay attention to this beautiful Buddhist university. This is where the Buddhist monks in Russia study. There are only men in this university.”

“Dear our guests. Please pay attention to this beautiful prayer wheel.”

“Dear our guests. Please pay attention to this sacred rock.”

The sacred rock was up on a pedestal, looking much like a regular rock. Anna continued, “If you stand ten metres behind this rock, close your eyes, and concentrate on it, then walk towards the rock and touch it, you can make a prayer and it will be answered.”

“Oh cool,” we said, nodding enthusiastically since we were the only people on the tour.

“Now,” said Anna. “You must touch the rock.” Stand here, about ten metres behind. Reach your hands forward, close your eyes, and walk towards the rock. When you touch it, make a prayer.

Adem and I looked at each other in horror. His spatial awareness and sense of direction are only barely acceptable and mine are about as developed as those of a bumper car. Neither of us wanted to embarrass ourselves by closing our eyes, holding our hands out, and walking in a direction that would certainly not be on the way to the rock.

On the other hand, neither of us wanted to seem disrespectful by refusing to touch the rock. What to say anyway? “Sorry, I am spatially challenged. I must have done something wrong in a previous reincarnation to be so challenged in prayer.” “Sorry, my life is already so great that I literally don’t have anything else I could wish for.” “Sorry, I don’t have any friends or relatives to pray for.”

Rather than disappoint Anna, we gamely took up our positions ten metres behind the rock. I went first. Adem stood behind me with his eyes open periodically yelling, “Left!” “Right!” “Left!” “Okay, now just left. Just left, no, now right.”

Finally, I touched the rock. Relief flooded through me. I quickly prayed that I would never have to touch the rock again.

Adem repeated the performance as I yelled directions behind him. Having touched the rock, he walked triumphantly back to where Anna and I were standing. We looked at her expectantly. Where were we going next? To the Buddhist library, perhaps? As dear her guests, to pay attention to more beautiful things?

“I think,” said Anna slowly as we looked at her triumphantly, “that you both need to try again.” We blinked. “Sometimes,” she said slowly, “your concentration is just not enough.”

Adem and I looked at each other. We took our places at the start of the finish line. We concentrated. And, somehow, miraculously, we both managed to touch the rock again without getting directions yelled at us. It was truly a miracle. I didn’t even open my eyes.

We returned to the guide. “This is the end of the tour,” she said. “But if you would like to go see the phenomenon in Russia and all over the world, I can arrange for you to receive his blessing. He lives in the most beautiful temple, over there.”

We definitely wanted to see the most beautiful temple in the complex. “Of course we want to,” we said.

“Great,” Anna said. “That will be another 500 rubles.”

Adem grumbled something about religion and capitalism while I reached into my purse.

“Okay,” said Anna. “When you go into the temple there will be a monk. He will let you in. You will take a scarf as an offering to the phenomenon in Russia and all over the world. You will go up to the lama and you will make these gestures. Now, he is in very deep meditation, so you will not be able to speak to him. But, you can speak to him in your mind. You may stand in front of him for as long as you wish and speak to him for as long as you like. Afterwards, ask the monk that let you in for a scarf. He will tie it into a special knot. With this scarf, if you press the knot to your forehead, you can commune with him wherever in the world you go.”

We nodded. She led us to the temple and waved us in, but stayed outside herself.

Inside the foyer, we encountered the monk of which Anna had spoken. Though decked out in robes, he was absorbed in playing a game of Candy Crush. He had a plastic bottle of Coca Cola in his other hand. He briefly looked up and motioned with his head that we could go in.

The inside of the temple was underwhelming compared to its facade. We pressed gamely forward until we realized.

The phenomenon in Russia and all over the world was at the front of the temple.

Bald and seated in meditation posture, missing his eyeballs.

He was dead, and mummified, and obviously so.

Unfortunately, you are not supposed to turn around in Buddhist temples, so we could not tell if the monk at the back was watching us. So, we stood in front of the phenomenon in Russia and all over the world for a minute, pretending to commune through our minds. After we decided that we had communed for a respectful enough period, we walked backwards out of the temple to the foyer.  The monk had clearly not been watching us after all — he was still absorbed in Candy Crush and, rather than ask him for the communion scarf, we scampered out of the temple only to be once again surprised by the placid face of Anna who had waited outside. She did us a kindness by not commenting on our lack of scarf for future communions with the Phenomenon in Russia and all over the world.

“You know,” Anna said reflectively as soon as we got out. “Some people claim that he is dead, but in fact, he is alive and just in very deep meditation. Did you know that the monks here even take his body temperature, and it sometimes goes up to 34 degrees?”

Adem and I nodded. Of course. Even in Siberia, it gets hot sometimes.

Anna walked us out to the gatehouse. The marshrutka to takes us back to Ulan Ude was already there. “Just a moment,” she said. “I’m going to ask the driver to wait for you. I need you to give reviews of my tour.”

She waved us into the gatehouse and spoke to the driver while we bought camel-wool socks, then came into the gatehouse waving an iPhone which she put onto video mode. “Do you think you could say some things about my tour in your languages?”

We both gave a short, complimentary review, and then skipped outside to the van without a door that would drive us back to the city.

Four Putins

Travelling in Russia, we knew enough to keep our mouths shut about any political opinions we might have about Russia – at least until we knew it was safe. And so, if anybody asked us if we had heard of Putin or had any thoughts on him, we evasively said things like, “Oh yeah, Putin. I think I’ve heard of that guy. He’s some famous person in Russia, right?”

We probably needn’t have worried, as not only did we not meet anybody who was a great fan of Putin (I’m not sure what official statistics are saying, but my guess based on the people we met, with whom we mostly only spoke Russian, is that his popularity has taken a dip), but people mostly only seemed to ask us what we thought about Putin in order to tell us what they thought about Putin.

Lena and Boris said they used to like him, but now think he’s horrible.

A couple of drunk guys in the dining car of the train who were travelling to the middle of nowhere and were planning to go to the banya and tried to get us to buy them vodka told us that they thought he was horrible, too.

Another woman, unconvinced by our evasive answers about how much we knew pressed us to tell her what we really thought. “We think,” we finally said carefully, “that he is smart, and cruel.”

“I agree,” she said. “Anyway, I am not so interested in politics.”

Finally, in Buryatia, we met a man who told us about his belief in a Russian YouTube conspiracy.

It is common knowledge that Putin is an ex-KGB agent, and the KGB and its heir the FSB have lots of resources at their disposal. These include plastic surgery and other methods of disguise.

At some point or other, the world’s best plastic surgeons were tasked with creating decoy Putins. The reason for this is unclear – to protect the real Putin? Just to mess with people?

Whatever the case, the evidence for this is (apparently) overwhelming. For example, it explains why, even though Putin (allegedly) used to speak German so fluently that he could be mistaken for an honest-to-goodness Bavarian, he has recently been known to make basic mistakes when speaking German. It also explains why Putin and his ex-wife Lyudmila recently divorced.

I mean, why would Lyudmila claim that Putin was no longer the man she married, unless… he… was… LITERALLY… no longer the man she married?

I like to imagine this conversation.

Putin: Lyuda dear, what’s for dinner tonight? Something involving potatoes, kasha, or dill? No, no wait, don’t tell me. It could also involve cabbage, beets, or sour cream. Hmmm…. Even after 30 years of marriage,  you still know how to keep me guessing.

Lyudmila: Volodka, I’ve been thinking recently.

Putin: Pierog?

Lyudmila: I would like a divorce.

Putin: (surprised) But why?

Lyudmila: (bursting into tears). You’re just not the man I married anymore! The man I married spoke German like a Bavarian! The man I married came by his good looks honestly! And you speak of surprises. Surprises! After this long! HOW can you POSSIBLY not know after 30 YEARS that I ALWAYS make vareniki on Thursdays? You claim to have been a KGB AGENT!

In one version of the legend, the other three Putins offed the real Putin. This is apparently why Putin has been acting out of character lately, though it isn’t clear exactly in what way his behaviour has been out of character (except for the German mistakes.)

We would just like to say

We were shown around/helped/encouraged by some very kind friends (and some very kind people we met along the way), to whom we owe a lot for the great time we had. Thank you 🙂