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On the vodka express from Moscow to Yekaterinburg
Reticence melts away under the influence on the first leg of our reporter's journey on the Trans-Siberian RailroadCNN Interactive Correspondent Steve Nettleton is traveling east across Russia on the Trans-Siberian Railroad. His dispatches from towns and cities along the way will report on what ordinary Russians beyond Moscow and St. Petersburg are thinking and feeling during this uncertain time in their nation's history. ON THE NO. 2 TRAIN "ROSSIYA" (CNN) -- Goodbyes break out all along the queue of humans and baggage lining the platform at Moscow's Yaroslavl Station. The train is leaving in minutes. Its ultimate destination: the fringe of another continent, a city 5,778 miles (9,198 kilometers) away on the eastern shore of Asia -- the port of Vladivostok. Not everyone starting in Moscow will make the entire journey. Some will take their leave in Yekaterinburg, or in the Siberian industrial centers of Novosibirsk and Krasnoyarsk, or perhaps in Irkutsk, near the vast Lake Baikal. But even to these "closer" destinations, the distance is measured in days. As the conductors beckon travelers aboard, two men hug fiercely, their grizzled faces speckled with thick snowflakes. They kiss forcefully on each cheek, then take a parting look at one another: "Do Svidanya." It takes a long time before the train breaks free of Moscow's Lego-like apartment blocks and factories. Eventually we are surging through forests of towering fir and barren birches. Through clearings I see clusters of dachas -- tiny homes made of wood and aluminum, many no larger than shacks -- dotting the white countryside. A few feet from the railway a brown fox turns his head from his prey to watch the clattering cars zip past.
Passing the time with ZhenyaOn the Rossiya the passengers settle in for the journey. I pay a visit to the restaurant car, which is managed by an affable drunk named Zhenya. This is not the Orient Express. Most of the tables are in an unlit section of the car. A cassette player blasts Russian folk songs so loudly that the music is reduced to white noise. A man sits passed out at one of the tables, unable to walk back to his first-class accommodations. The kitchen works sometimes, sometimes it does not. Upon ordering Russian pancakes, or blini, I was told "something was wrong" with the stove but no one knew what. What the restaurant car lacks in charm and quality it makes up for in Zhenya's personality. He jokes with his guests even as he engages in fits of laughter with two staff members idling their time playing backgammon. With a mischievous grin he escorts a lone Japanese traveler to a table at which two women are sitting. The traveler asks for a shot of vodka; Zhenya brings him an entire bottle. Zhenya then joins the table with a glass of his own, launching into a series of anecdotes that the women struggle to translate into English.
A clash of culturesTime on the Trans-Siberian Railroad, it seems, passes in a blur of vodka, food and conversation. I quickly discover there is no such thing as a quick chat with my fellow passengers. Each encounter must be measured in hours, and the conversations seem as if they can go on indefinitely. In one of the forward cars I meet Alik and Lena, an ethnically mixed couple returning from the Caucasus to their home in Blagoveshchensk, near the Chinese border in eastern Russia. Alik, a Lezgin from the Russian republic of Dagestan, had taken his Russian wife to his homeland to visit family in the wake of his mother's death. It would have cost more than $1,000 for the two of them to fly to Dagestan, Alik says. Instead, they chose the much more affordable six-day train journey. Between bites of fried chicken, blini with red caviar and pryanik (small honey cakes), Alik and Lena show me photos of their stay in the Caucasus and describe the clash of cultures they had experienced. "My wife is used to saying what she thinks," Alik says. "But in Dagestan, women don't behave that way. Women don't argue with men. On the way there I told her, 'Lena, please, when we're at home, we can be like normal. But while we're with my family, go along with their traditional ways.'" Lena says, "But there were times I just had to speak up. I tried to keep quiet, but sometimes I just couldn't." Hoping Putin will restore orderOur conversation shifts to life in Blagoveshchensk. Alik, who fought with the Russian army in Afghanistan in the 1980s, is a police officer in the bustling border city. Tracking down crime is a challenge, he says. "We don't have computers. We have only notebooks," Alik says. "Police cars are given only 20 liters of gasoline per day, but we patrol an area of 100 [square] kilometers. It's not enough." The police consequently must make special arrangements with local businesses to get extra gasoline, a trade-off that comes with a price. If the businesses that give them gasoline are implicated in crimes, the police may decide not to go after them. "If they are involved in major crimes, certainly, we will arrest them. But as far as small crimes are concerned, yes, we close our eyes." The level of crime and corruption has reached intolerable levels, Alik says. Rich criminals live in "castles" while ordinary Russians struggle to survive. "There is no system as it is," he says. "People with higher education degrees are forced to go to work in Moscow hauling cargo." Like many of Russia's disgruntled voters, Alik says he hopes Acting President Vladimir Putin will win the March 26 presidential election. He said he believes Putin will restore the rule of law and root out bribery and corruption. "Under Putin, at least everything will be fair. Everyone will have the same access to success." Making friends over vodkaAs the train nears the end of the first leg of my journey, I encounter a group of sailors of the Russian navy enjoying the long trip to Vladivostok with a two-liter soda bottle of homemade vodka. Most likely it isn't their first bottle, and it is already nearly empty. They welcome me into their car with great enthusiasm. They open a spot in the cramped compartment and hand me a plastic cup to share the moment. A small sense of alarm passes through me: I know it would be suicide to try to keep pace with these burly, hardened, life-long vodka drinkers. But to refuse to join them in a drink (make that many drinks) would be insulting. I resolve to go as slowly as I can. Fairly quickly the sailors turn the tables on me: I become the interviewee and they become the journalists. I can hardly get out a question before they bombard me with questions of their own: Where are you from in America? What do Americans think of Russia? Why does America have such an anti-Russian attitude? Why is America meddling in our conflict in Chechnya, when they went and bombed Yugoslavia? Before long the political questions subside, and one of the sailors is declaring me his "American friend." They insist I visit them on my next trip to Russia, a stay I am assured that would involve a great deal more vodka. As the train approaches Yekaterinburg, my first stop, I almost have to forcefully extricate myself from the group. All I have to offer the sailors are a few souvenirs from CNN, including a pair of baseball caps bearing the letters "CNN.com." They put them on immediately and walk about the train sporting their new icons. For some reason it is only at that moment, with the sight of these young Russian sailors bearing the CNN logo on a train deep in the heart of the Ural Mountains, that it strikes me just how much attitudes in Russia must have changed. | ||||||||||||||||||
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