29 January 1860 – 15 July 1904
Words from Russia
4th July 2013
A fast rambling update on Russia…while I wait…it’s 5.30am…Just arrived in a town called Irkutsk, western Siberia (beside lake Baikal) after a 75 hour (5,000km) train journey from Moscow. Sitting here in this station till the hostel opens. Train journey was great but after 3 nights and 4 days you start to feel confined. Hung out with quite a few European backpackers on the journey, shared 4 bed compartment with local Russians. An elderly Russian woman must have felt sorry for me and assertively helped set up my bed and get food, and became my babushka for the journey. Ate borsch (cabbage beetroot soup) most days on the journey, rice for breakfast and nuts / green tea for lunch. Slept so much on the train..I think because I must have walked 10 miles a day in Moscow before. Overall train journey a good experience but the landscape gets monotonous and 75 hours… and I kept bumping into this old Russian drunk guy with rotten teeth who wouldn’t shut up talking to me and took me two days to get out of my politeness and yell Nyet!! at him.
So here I am in the wild countryside of Siberia at Lake Baikal. I plan to stay on an island on the lake called Olkhon – get back to nature – a huge contrast to Moscow.
Moscow was fantastic! I guess I had no expectations, that’s why I think I loved it so much. And I’m still smitten by the women. They are so elegant. Self-possessed walking and glances. And this isn’t just me saying it, my female backpacker friends were commenting the same. I prolonged the eye contact and they sustain that straight-faced continual glance until you walk right by each other. Thrill. I wish I spoke Russian…:-)
Being a very cultural historical city, it seems Russians take their art more seriously. Went to Moscow Art Theatre and saw a Vladimir Nabokov play in Russian. This is where Chekhov and Stanislavsky premiered their plays. I also visited their homes which are now museums. Stanislavsky’s was great cos they left it exactly as it is, intact since the day he died (1938). Literally – his spectacles and notes still on his bed table. Chekhov’s Moscow home was more poignant for me though cos I was alone in the room he wrote in and I just stood there for a long time..channeling..
I’m getting all romantic in this email. Russia is romantic. … Those glances…One of the best city parks in the world is Gorky park, Moscow. Everything about it – activities, bean bags, landscape, people. Talking to Muscovite students there who want to practice English over tea (not vodka). They’re rebelling and don’t drink at all, explaining this is why the country is in such a state.
It feels like a lost city I discovered. And everything is written in the Russian alphabet with no English. The metro stations are beautiful, vast and all marble, busy – trying to decode where to go staring at sparse map signs for 10 minutes. Got lost a few times. Language..Even getting water in shops… I say ‘No gas’? They say “da nyet no gas” and I still eventually end up with fizzy water in humid 35 degree heat. Moscow is expensive. So we do end up getting fast food few times and buying grocery food.
It’s interesting what we learn from news of Russia: vodka drinking corrupt nation with ex-KGB renegades, oligarchs and Russian mafia. But seriously, I felt safe (and besotted) walking around Moscow. Another thing- Russians do not smile. And I love it! Seriously. There’s something sincere and matter-of-fact about not smiling. I don’t think they’re sad, I just think they can’t be bothered in trying to be cheerful for effect…what makes the women elegant..
Anyway… It still feels like a train now..everything still swaying for me…
Naadam Festival in Mongolia next week..
Trevsky Murphrilovich
More writing
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Words from Iran (January 2020)
Click for Words from Myanmar (January 2018)
Click for Words from Russia (July 2013)
Click for Words from Mongolia (August 2013)
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