Foreigner

O behold! It's the last text entry of this journal for the time being.

So, on a lovely late-summer afternoon in Chita, Johanna and I made our way to a grocery store and bought supplies for a small dinner. We didn't know if Natasha was going to be offering dinner, but we didn't want to ask in case she wasn't, so it was a good idea not to be starving. We returned to our hotel room, ate, took a shower, and generally relaxed for a while, until it was time to meet Natasha. She arrived at our hotel, and together we all went for a lovely walk in the darkening evening. Natasha showed us many lovely buildings, a surprising number of them banks; several places of worship, including a mosque almost next door to a synagogue; and, best of all, her childhood home and the school she used to go to, as well as the school she was currently teaching in. When it had got almost completely dark, we made our way to our hotel and Natasha to her home. We were told Chita isn't dangerous, even after dark, and it was only ten or something.

The next day, we took a very slow morning, as we were expecting some activity later in the day. Some time after midday, we went to find our way to the marketplace of the city. There, we ate a good cafeteria lunch and shopped a tiny little bit before it was time to get back to the hotel. There, Natasha called sometime us and said she's going to be a tiny bit late from what we agreed, and thus Johanna bravely had the first Russian-language phone conversation of her life. Eventually we signed out, took our big backpacks and walked to Natasha's home.

We found her apartment again easily; Chita has a perfect grid plan, and anyway it's not that big. Natasha caught up with us outside her home, but we didn't go in because, as it turned out, her mom was just about to leave for China (rather common from East Siberia, and I gather not that expensive by bus) in a few hours, was very nervous, and didn't want to be disturbed. But we couldn't really go anywhere before leaving our backpacks. So perhaps discourteously, we asked if we could very quickly leave them at their apartment, were allowed to do so, and then went to run some errands with Natasha. Soon enough, Natasha's boyfriend Pavel called, and we hopped in his car and drove to the countryside!

We went about a 40 minutes' drive away, to a spot by a river, in a small forest. Judging by the tracks and, unfortunately, litter, it was a very popular place for Chita-dwellers to come and spend their day off. Aside from the human leavings, the place was very beautiful. It was also strange to me how even after we'd come so many thousands of kilometres from Finland, the nature looked more or less familiar. The species were cousins to the species we have at home, and the overall colouring, height, appearance of the plant life seemed the same.

We drank a bit of the river water, which tasted good, and then set out a bit further to have a small picnic. The Russians had brought pastries, which we sat down to eat, and looked at some photos from Natasha's phone; most of the conversation was between Johanna and Natasha. As befits Russian culture, where women seem to assume most of the leadership of the social situations in mixed company. And Johanna is somewhat more outgoing than I to begin with, and Pavel seemed like a bit of a quiet man.

When the mosquitoes found us, we started back, following a partly flooded sand road, but Pavel was a good driver and his small car powerful. On the way back, we stopped to eat some крушиновая berries, which Wikipedia tells me are called sea buckthorns in English. Yum.

Upon arriving back to the city, we separated from Natasha and Pavel for a while, with plans to meet again later in the evening. Once more, we didn't know about dinner plans and didn't feel it was polite to ask, so we went to a grocery store, bought some fish, some salad and some beers, and went sitting in the park to consume all this. But we'd barely sat down when we had our only police encounter of our trip: some police officers arrived and told us we can't drink there. We hadn't been aware of any public-drinking laws in Russia, but obviously we took our drinks and went away quickly. We then consumed our beers very secretively in the midst of a tiny park, with scarves wrapped around the bottles. We sat around for a while and killed time, not feeling up to doing anything in particular, before it was time to go to Natasha's again.

Natasha, again, met us outside her home. We went in; it was a lovely small apartment, with a fluffy cat (which Johanna was allergic to, unfortunately). We relaxed for a bit as Natasha prepared some food. I watched the news on TV, understanding only just the gist of each story, but it was very interesting nevertheless. At some point, Natasha's friend Svetlana showed up, as did Pavel, and we sat down for dinner, wine, and a lot of conversation in both English and Russian. I liked the dynamic of the group, we had a good time and some laughs and a lot of interesting cultural exchange. We also showed pictures of our families and of Helsinki, and we all exchanged email addresses and small gifts. The dinner had the traditional multitude of different meats (there went my vegetarianism, but politeness first) with cooked, um, I think it might have been barley.

After dinner, we sat down on the computer to look at pictures of each other and our friends on Facebook. Oh modern times, where social media follows you half-way around the world. At some point, a thunderstorm started, and we were told that according to a Russian saying, rain before a journey is good luck. Then it was very late, and we'd have a very early wake-up, so we walked Svetlana to her home to make sure she'd be safe, and then went to bed ourselves; Pavel had left a bit earlier. Johanna had Natasha's mother's bed and I had a thick mattress on the floor, which was comfortable enough.

Pavel had very gladly offered to drive us to the airport, so he showed at seven to take us there. We packed up, thanked Natasha, and sat down for a bit; sitting down before leaving on a journey is another Russian tradition, and Johanna and I drove to the airport with Pavel. The check-in and security check and everything went well enough; Chita airport was small compared to many I've seen, but palace-like as a true Russian station should be. In the plane, where we were soon served a good breakfast and then, later, a very good lunch. We'd brought a lot of things to do on the plane, books and the computer with some movies and everything, but in the end, we slept most of the way. When they announced that we're nearing Moscow, both Johanna and I thought it was some sort of a joke, surely there must be three or four hours left of the seven-hour flight. Quite a pleasant flight, then, and I can recommend Siberian Airlines to anyone. Our plane had left at about ten am and arrived at about eleven am, due to the time difference, which made that day into a weird parallel-universe experience.

Moscow was a bit of a shock. After the smallish, quiet Siberian cities, a true metropolis seemed intrusive, too loud and too busy. Also, at first we had to perform a series of unpleasant tasks, namely taking two metros to the Leningradskiy station, making sure our train leaves from there, leaving our backpacks in the right place in the huge station, making sure the baggage room would be open late in the evening when we wanted them back, and then taking another two metros to another station, where I'd agreed to meet a British friend currently living in Moscow. All of this took hours and was every bit as unpleasant as I'd thought, and we were confused at the station complex formed by Leningradskiy railway station, Jaroslavskiy railway station and Komsomolskaya metro station.

But finally, some half an hour late I think, we found my friend Louise, and I experienced another slight culture shock at meeting a British person. British cordiality is so different from Russian cordiality! (Finnish cordiality: does it exist?) Louise took us to a pub, we drank some tea and ate a bit and exchanged news, and I, and possibly Johanna as well, experienced a thorough inability to sum up our trip neatly. So much had happened and so recently that it was not yet formed in my mind, despite my having blogged all through the journey.

After a pleasant but brief time at the pub, Louise had to leave for work, so we were left on our own. We went wandering around and soon found our way to the Kremlin and a big souvenir market. So we set out to shop for all the souvenirs we'd refrained from buying when there was more of our trip left, spent a few hours on the market and were very successful. Then we wandered around aimlessly for quite a while, saw the river and some lovely buildings but didn't really spend time anywhere. We wanted to see the Red Square, but it was inexplicably closed. Eventually we decided to try and find the marketplace Louise had directed us to.

Find it we did, but they didn't sell pickled cucumbers there like we'd hoped, and also we were getting increasingly tired. It was now about 6 p.m., but out inner clocks were saying 1 a.m. already, and for all the sleeping in the plane, it had still been a short and badly-slept night. After a moment of desperation, we made our way to a very western-style cafe and ordered some excellent pizzas and coffee, which perked us up a little bit. We did a very short shopping tour on the market and then took the metro back to our train station, did an effective run to the nearby supermarket, and then waited for our train. We spent time first in one cafe, which was nice and affordable but very cold, and then in a restaurant where I think they frowned upon us because we were scruffy and had a ton of stuff and didn't want to buy food, only drinks.

The train was not the old-fashioned and atmospheric one we'd expected; either we'd had a different image of the Tolstoy on our minds, or else they have several different trains that run the line. But no matter; the going was smooth, the beds were soft, and our cabin-mates were quiet. (West Russians seem very reserved compared to Siberians! But we were exhausted, so not socialising much was a good thing at that point.) So we went to blissful sleep as soon as the train had left.

The next day, we woke up to passport control, and then, soon enough, we were in Helsinki, Finland. Home! I was left thinking I want to go back to Russia, soon. And for longer.

We settled in the last train of the whole trip, from Irkutsk to Chita, on a rather good and confident mood, if tired. We'd tried different train bed arrangements throughout the whole trip, and this time Johanna had the upper corridor bed (terribly unsuitable for me, since the corridor beds have a wall at both ends, so I couldn't stretch my legs, but all right for her), and I had one of the lower bunks in the opposing "cabin" (not really a cabin since no door). It's useful if at least one of us had a lower cabin bed, so in the daytime we could hang out there without feeling like we're intruding by sitting on someone else's bed. Politeness on trains is complicated, because you're in a cramped space with a lot of strangers and you don't want to make anyone's trip more uncomfortable than it needs to be, and you're not entirely familiar with the culture so you're not quite sure how to be as little trouble as possible. Then again, the closeness breeds a nice kind of informality, and when you're sharing a small space anyway you might as well make friends.

Occupying the bed below Johanna, there was an older man who seemed tired and not very sociable. In my cabin, there was a young woman traveling with a small dog, and we immediately exchanged a few words. Also, a middle-aged man, who turned out to be called Evgenii, and a woman in her early twenties, called Svetlana. In the beginning of the trip Svetlana was actually crying openly, because she'd had to leave her boyfriend for a while. Crying in public, on a train, would be super extra rare in Finland, and maybe considered somewhat shameful, whereas in Russia, emotions are displayed much more publicly. While Russians are, for the most part, polite and initially reserved, they are also open in a way you don't really see in Finland, and quickly cordial in a way that's unfamiliar through most of the Anglo-American world. These are massive, massive generalisations, of course, but this is my impression of Russian culture.

So eventually, when the train had left, we got to talking with Svetlana, Evgenii, and the dog owner (whose name I've sadly forgotten). Johanna and I chatted with them, as much as our Russian skills would allow, about our backgrounds, where we're travelling, where they are travelling, where everyone's from, and what we've all seen on our travels. Upon noticing that there are strange, Russian-speaking foreigners in the train car, many people started to gather in or near our cabin: an old lady who had a clothes importing business, another middle-aged man called (possibly) Ivan, the old man on the corridor seat, a young man who very much wanted to be friends with me, and best of all, Natasha, a thirty-something Chita-dweller who spoke very good English. (We tried to maintain the conversation in Russian, but her English was way better than our Russian, so we slipped into English some of the time.)

So there was an impromptu party. We had pickles and Finnish licorice vodka (which the men, after a polite taste, announced they couldn't drink, as sweet drinks are for women), the dog-owner had sausages, one of the men had Russian vodka, and Svetlana had chocolate. Everyone talked and laughed a lot, and we were asked a million questions. We talked a lot about education, the cost of living, social security systems, retirement ages, money and salaries and costs in our respective questions. Also about why I'm not married, what Johanna's husband says about her travelling with another man (the dog owner remarked, with some pride but without judgment of our foreign ways, that a Russian husband would not allow such a thing, and made a demonstrative fist to underline her point), how old we are, where we work, what we have studied and so on. I felt much like a circus animal, but then, a circus animal who can marvel at the people, in turn.

At some point, the party broke off. I'd been a bit worried whether we were disturbing the other passengers, but so many Russian people were with us that Johanna and I left it for them to decide what is acceptable within their cultural context. And we did start getting ready to sleep shortly after midnight, I think, so it was not terribly late that we kept talking and laughing.

The next morning, I woke up to the sound of Evgenii opening his first beer of the day. After Johanna and I were up, washed, and breakfasted, Evgenii and (possibly-)Ivan proposed a game of cards. So the two men, Johanna, I and Svetlana (the dog owner had left the train late the previous night) played an indefinite number of games of durak ("idiot"), an easy and entertaining game I'd learned on my previous Russian train trips but partly forgotten. At some point, the English-speaking Natasha joined us, and having taken us up as a sort of a project, she offered to show us around Chita and maybe ask if one of her friends or relatives might let us stay in their place. We had a reservation at a hotel for one night, and I for one was glad that we'd have some privacy for the first night after the socially intensive train trip (I am, in the end, a big introvert), but for our second night in Chita, why not? This would possibly be a unique chance to see some Russian life and get to know a seemingly very nice person in more depth.

In the late afternoon, our train arrived in Chita. It was a small, peaceful-looking city of some 300,000 inhabitants. We parted from our train friends, except for Natasha, who walked with us to our hotel. Hotel Chita was an absolutely charming, old-style place with Russian carpets and run-down wooden furniture, and our room turned out to be a dancehall-sized four-person dorm where we were the only occupants. Natasha talked to the reception lady and arranged it so that we could cancel our second night there. We walked her to the nearby tram stop, and agreed to meet her in a few hours.

It was a nice early evening and the sun was shining, so although we needed a bit of rest before going for a walk with Natasha later in the evening, we decided to see a bit of the city at first. We were right by the beautiful, blue cathedral, so we decided to pop in and see it first. Like we had learned to expect, there was the continuous Orthodox service going on, and we stood around for a while and soaked in the atmosphere. After the church, we headed toward the main square, which in every city seems to be called Lenin Square (the main street being always Lenin Street). We bought some beers at a store and sat down by Lenin's feet to admire the central square and just relax. The evening sun was perfect, the Lenin statue was impressive, the buildings by the square were grand, the beer was good, and all in all it was a perfect East Siberian moment.

And that's a good place to leave our heroes until my next (and probably last) text post!

After our unfortunate morning in Baranchiki, confined to staying on either the grandma's porch or in our own tiny cabin, we packed our stuff and headed back to the port. We caught the 2 pm ferry back to Listvyanka, and as we were on the ferry, the weather started to clear a bit. (It wouldn't have done us any good to wait in Baranchiki, anyway, though, because we had no way of knowing if it was actually going to stop raining, and also any forest paths would be hopelessly muddy anyway.)

In the slight drizzle and surprisingly cold weather, we walked back from the ferry dock towards the centre of Listvyanka. It's a delightfully two-dimensional village, as on one side of the main road there is the lake and on the other a steep hill. Some side roads do part from the main road, up the hills, but the bulk of the village is concentrated on the main road. We had raincoats, but still, in the rainy weather, lake Baikal showed its less than paradisiacal side. Living there would be cool and damp for large parts of the year. (Not to mention the merciless Siberian winters.) We looked for accommodation that would be slightly less basic than the previous night's; if we could be outside, accommodation wouldn't matter much, but if it would rain, we'd prefer somewhere we don't mind hanging out inside.

Chilled to the bone and rather tired and hungry, we stopped in an expensive, touristy restaurant. We had coffee and smallish blinis, and felt intense envy for the multi-course feasts people were being served in tables next to ours. But we minded our budget. And we had our minds on the excellent lake Baikal omul, a fish endemic to the lake, that the village serves cold-smoked and hot-smoked and probably prepared in several other ways. After walking a bit more towards the centre, we found a charming, large log house that had a "rooms for rent" sign outside. We rang the bell and asked, and it turned out to be a regular, affordable hotel. It was very nice, so we took a room and freshened up a little.

Then, for the village. It was getting to be after 6 pm, so we didn't think we can do much else than eat and admire the lake view that night, but we were determined to find out what to do the next day. There was a small market in the centre of the village that sold arts and crafts and souvenirs to tourists (who are abundant in Listvyanka, Russian and foreign alike), but it was just closing down, so we decided to hit it the following day. I'd also been very excited to learn that there is a seal aquarium in Listvyanka! There's a seal species, the nerpa, that is endemic to lake Baikal, and I actually did a small thesis on it as part of my biology studies. (No actual research, I just read some papers and wrote based on that. My findings were that there are surprisingly little heavy metals concentrated in these mammals that are on top of the food chain, in a lake that has some major industry around it.) And indeed, there was a thing called a "nerpinarium" in Listvyanka (I didn't remember it from my last trip there). It also had just closed, but we decided to see it the first thing the following day.

Then, for some omul. We bought one whole hot-smoked fish per person, and a small white bread, and had what was probably the best dinner of the whole trip. We sat down by the lake and ate bread and fish with our bare hands, sitting under one umbrella in the light rain. I had had omul before, but I hadn't remembered it's quite this delicious; probably the best fish I've ever had.

After that, we shopped for some food for an evening snack and the next morning's breakfast, went to our hotel, rested up a bit, and then went back out to sit on the lakeshore a bit. Johanna actually went on a swim! Lake Baikal is generally cold, as it's so deep it never really warms up even in the hot Siberian summers, but maybe it was at its warmest (16°C?) then, at the end of August. Anyway, not my cup of lakewater! After that, we were exhausted, and went to our hotel to sleep.

The next morning, we walked back to the centre with our backpacks. We left them at the tiny bus station, purchased tickets back to Irkutsk for later in the afternoon, and walked to the nerpinarium. And then it was time for my worst disappointment of the whole trip: it was closed. It was Monday, and just like a regular museum, the nerpinarium wouldn't open on Mondays. Which we hadn't thought to check. Not that we could have gone there at any other time.

Oh well. We went to the market and I bought myself a plush nerpa seal as a consolation prize. Johanna also bought some souvenirs, and we ended up spending a good couple of hours looking at all the stands. Then we had an omul lunch, just like the previous day's dinner minus the rain, and just admired the lake view for a while. I tried to commit the beauty, all the shades of blue, to my memory as best I could, so that I'd remember it until the next time I get to go to Baikal. (Another eight years?) Then, we took the minibus back to Irkutsk. On the way to Listvyanka, the bus had been full but we'd been the only people with big backpacks, but now there happened to be about eight backpacks there, and not only were all the seats full, but there were always some local people riding part of the way, standing. I was actually pretty comfortable in a snug little corner behind a mountain of backpacks, and I wasn't road-sick this time, and my seat was on the shadow side of the bus. Johanna wasn't as lucky, as she was on the sunny side, and I hear it really got hot.

Back in Irkutsk, we made our way back to the hostel we'd already stayed one night, now taking the tram like old-timers. After a rest at the hostel, we went out looking for sights and food. We walked to the centre and saw the very nice view from the long bridge across river Angara, and then many an amazing palace-like building, plus a very nice Lenin statue. It was beautiful, and as Johanna pointed out, no one does capes blowing in the wind like the social realists do. I developed a genuine love of social realism on this Russian trip. Yes, it means ugly block buildings, but also magnificent palaces and impressive statues. And while the somewhat naive socialist spirit of this art and architecture is sometimes ridiculed, I don't think a political idea is inherently a worse source of inspiration for art than, say, religion or nationalism, both of which have produced some great art in their time.

After walking in the centre for a while, we happened on the strangest thing, and one that definitely didn't exist on my last trip to Irkutsk: right next to the historical centre, there was this area of very old-style Siberian buildings, all brand new and some still being built. Ornate, terribly neat, very theme-park-like in their perfection. Inside were expensive little boutiques and pricey restaurants and bars. It was... scary. And yeah, I understand this is not a real comparison between equal options, but it still made me sad that the actual old town of Irkutsk is in dire need of restoration and they're spending the big money building this soulless commercial pseudo-old town. Oh well. We visited a jewellery shop where we couldn't afford anything, and then went in search of cheap and local food.

This proved to be more of a task than we'd expected. All the cheap eateries had closed at seven or eight, and what we could find was expensive Italian food, expensive English food, expensive Japanese food and even expensive Russian food. All the grand, candy-coloured palaces in the centre of the city didn't cheer us up when we were starving. Finally, we settled for an only moderately expensive Italian joint and had some very good pasta. With nothing to drink, as even water cost a lot. After our almost-satisfactory dinner, it was dark outside, and we had a bit of excitement walking back to the hostel. The streets were emptying, all the people who were still out seemed suspicious, and the streetlights weren't that good. Looking back, we were in no danger at any point, but we still walked to the hostel quite fast.

The next day was a shopping day! After a long and relaxed breakfast, we took a tram to near the marketplace and went out looking for things to buy. We checked a few second-hand clothes stores, but they were a disappointment: the clothes weren't that cheap, and they all seemed to be imported from Europe, more like luxury items than affordable flea-market ware. Then we went to a hot, crowded bookstore and went crazy on stationery, buying a dozen fancy school notebooks. (Notable was a series of very nice notebooks with gold-rimmed pictures of famous people in on the covers. I bought Vladimir Mayakovsky and empress Ekaterina, but available were also Ivan the Terrible and, yes, Josif Stalin.) Then we got lost in a clothes-shopping hell, a centre filled with a maze of aisles lined with small clothes stores, suffocatingly hot and monotonous. We tried on a few hats but didn't buy anything. Another frustrating experience was another clothes marketplace, this one more Chinese than Russian, where the service was way too pushy for us timid FInns. This is a cultural thing I can't get over: when I shop, I want to look at things in peace, I can't make decisions if someone's talking to me all the time, trying to get me to buy stuff. If that happens, I just end up not wanting to shop at all.

After that, we rested outside for a bit, drinking some kvas and feeling exhausted. And then we went to a very long shopping round in the market hall, buying about a ton of food for our dinner and for the train. As we came out to where the trams went, it was apparent that traffic was in some sort of a chaos. A very kind man who worked for the public transport or something tried to work things out for the people, and we could make out that trams were probably not running. So we ended up taking a bus that would go approximately to the direction of our hostel. Indeed, we made it quite near to the hostel. Once there, we cooked a nice omul omelet and chatted a bit with two Swedish guys who had been driving to Ulaan Baatar in Mongolia, but their car had broken down outside of Irkutsk.

Then it was time to leave for our last stretch of train travel. The last train was by far the best! But I guess that's my next update.