It was an unseasonably cold day in a late April of 1990. The incessant rain was slashing in horizontal streaks blown by vicious wind; it penetrated right through anything in its way. No matter what anyone wore, there was hardly any comfort for miles around. It felt rotten. I, drenched in the downpour, had a particularly bad day – my father died a few days prior and now I was saying my last good-byes. The edge of his muddy, freshly dug clay grave, was hardly a place to linger, lost in thoughts, decisions and regret. There was no shelter in sight from annoying cold rain drops soaking my clothes, skin and very soul. My thoughts kept running away like water ripples produced by an agile pebble toss at the lake. I yearned for some place warm, quiet and friendly. Here, surrounded by many friends, his and mine alike, I could not wait for this to be over. The pangs of grief were just too raw and his open casket was too close for sober contemplation. His lifeless body bore no warmth, and yet it still glistened in rays of painful streaks of unbearable familiarity.
Mercifully the mechanics of the rueful rite did not take longer than necessary and now everyone was ready to hurry up indoors for a soothing shot of vodka, the only apparent remedy against tough turns of life here. I nearly ran, away from pain, not to ever come back and re-open my wounds. These scars, so deep and many, nearly shred me into pieces. After all, I was not leaving behind just his grave but also the pain of someone buried right next to him – my paternal grandma. She died just three months before, leaving her hopeless, infirm and yet very meaningful existence of love and care for us, my father and I. He could not cope, and succumbed. I stayed on to grieve and remember. Now running away from the grim cemetery I could only hear thumps of clay falling on his casket in unison of eternity. Only one thought gave me comfort – God spared my grandmother particularly brutal pangs – she did not have to bury her son...
English – the Road Away
In the following days and weeks, I struggled to return to some level of normalcy. So far it had been a hard year and I needed something to serve as a positive distraction to deal with crushing grief, a feeling much too new and foreign to the twenty two year old. School was hardly helpful as my current subjects were not really all that exciting with my forth year classes dragging though the quagmire of the most boring subjects with “Labour Safety” featuring on the top of the list. While there is nothing wrong with the idea of helping people to arrive home in one, the subject did not tickle my interests nearly as effectively as remote abstractions of physics and math. I really needed a new place to hide my thoughts in order to escape unpleasant realities of life.
None could do better than skipping classes at the stalwart engineering institution to spend time at the university’s English department, just across the street. Communism, while failing on many an account, was quite great for students in search of useful distractions. Since education was free and they even paid us a monthly stipend of few roubles, nobody seemed to object to some straddling the street of learning - between hard core technical subjects and soft touches of all things lingual. In fact, this was my second semester of intense nesting in the cradle of the World Tongue. I have been tearing at it like a ravenous bulldog going at his old bone. Now I had enough pent-up energy and emotions to shred it to splinters.
Forget about tedious engineering rules, freedom of expression in the most popular language promised to open the most daring frontiers otherwise unavailable to my unilingual compatriots. Of course, I could hardly count on anything unusual all that soon. After all, while opening up, old stale Soviet society still offered very little in a way of real contacts with the outside world. This feeling of isolation was hardly any more palpable than in my dear home town - the nest of secrecy, brains and pride. While Moscows and Kievs of the world offered a tremendous deal in lessons of edifying history and current political drama, my birth place boasted very little aside from quietly lapping and much polluted waves of the mighty Dnepr. Instead it served as a vivid lesson in real and yet inconspicuous power of the Soviet military complex by housing one of the most prized assets of its nuclear deterrent capacity – UMZ. Disguised as a giant tractor factory, this key piece in the industrial puzzle was well run as one of the biggest world producers of engines, missile engines. Behind monotone red brick walls and haphazard landscaping in front of its main offices, the ominous conglomerate produced anything from rocket engines that propelled humans to the frontiers of space to those, conceived to push the frontiers of mutual destruction.
Predictably, our city pride and its best grey matter were employed at this institution. Its secrecy was about the only unfortunate consequence, as it forbade town access to anybody with a foreign passport. If did not matter whether you came from Prague or Dar-es-Salam, your very presence was not desired. A slight drawback of this exclusionist policy was a complete absence of any foreign guests, students and other similar types interested in sampling local populace for experience, kicks and levels of radiation.
With advent of Perestroika, the city was sort of declassified and had even re-emerged on some European maps next to the likes of Bucharest and Tirana. Some particularly adventurous foreign types started appearing in small numbers – usually hanging around university campus and causing much consternation near key transportation hubs. Some babushkas busking with their garden produce near the main railway station were particularly impacted with apparitions of people sporting decidedly darker tones. Their old gnarled farm fingers quickly assumed youthful flexibility in feverish cross signs designed to expunge such “diabolic” visions. Younger generations, unfamiliar with religious defence tools, usually resorted to simple gawking with only some particularly brave sorts willing to start a conversation. The scene so hilarious and innately familiar, it even sparked increased sales of Gulliver Travels among more satirically inclined.
As for me, a prospect of accumulating wealth of linguistic prowess for the next decade looked most probable considering the glacial pace of actual changes that were taking place. Fortunately or not, I was completely unaware of plans thatched by others on my complicated account of life marching forward.
The Gig
Few days later my phone rang unexpectedly. “Hello, this is Sergey from a translating agency. Igor from the English faculty gave us your name and told us that you might be interested in doing some work for us.”
My head started spinning, as if I got a call from an NHL agent to play alongside Mogilny or Yserman. With sudden sweat dripping down my shirt and pulse of well-over 120, I mumbled something hardly intelligible in response only to register an upcoming meeting with Sergey on the following day. May be this was the proverbial chance of luck on the ever-twisting road of life. May be just may be...
After a brief first-hand enquiry into my English skills, Sergey remained rather satisfied and offered me a translating gig in a small provincial town of Zhelty Vodi. I could not possibly hesitate and jumped at a chance to gawk, first hand, at apparitions from the world yonder. A chance to take a break from the dry subject of “labour safety” did not shine any dimmer even on the account of Yellow Waters, the translated name for the town of my destiny. No one could precisely explain the origin of the peculiar name save for a huge chemical plant on its outskirts. Oh well, at least there were no nuclear plants...
My first trip to the fateful town revealed a typical wonder of Soviet industry hiding amidst vast undulating fields of corn and wheat, peacefully swaying in unison to gusts of lashing steppe winds. Spring was still clinging to the driver seat, though it was about to start slowly yielding its impeccable charms to the scorching heat of summer. And yet it was still scintillating in its splendid glories, so soothing to the eye and pacifying to the brain. My heart was fluttering in expectations of the unknown and my eyes noticed only beauty to the detriment of all things ugly and Soviet. Dusty avenues led to open fields past characteristically uniform concrete gobs, housing average citizenry; an obligatory and inevitably centrally located monument to Lenin with an outstretched hand directing to ever-lasting communist bliss; and twisted industrial fences sporting many a sneaky hole pointed to just about any spot on the vast map of the USSR. Luckily I checked my tickets, the sign on my bus and asked the driver. Yes, I was in Zhelty Vodi, in front of a communal apartment block that housed, among others, few foreigners installing a complete line of textile equipment at the local factory that produced artificial fur to atone for ever-melting stocks of sable, fox and beaver that barely clang to life in the melting sub-Arctic.
"Good Morning"
Whatever could be said of any morning, it is usually way more cheerful and fuller of expectations when compared to dull predictable evenings that are fed-up with frustrations of things left undone. Alas, my first morning was not one of them, as I failed to induce my brain into a single minute of necessary bliss, commonly known as sleep. Tossing and turning, I could have blamed everything on my translating roommate Vladimir who spent the whole dreadful night in an exquisite snoring cadence that is worth gold in envy for any insomniac. Well, I was still reeling from all too familiar and all too painful memories of my father and his recent, untimely, demise. Mixed with anxieties of tomorrow, my mind just refused to shut down its futile processing of “what could have beens.”
Predictably, I joined a departing factory van in rather sour mood that did not promise much success in the hours to come. We shared the ride with two burly American types with similar morning grimaces of solemnity that culminated in brief “Good Mornings” and not much else. At least, I was not the only one to share sober repugnance of yet another productive working day. While an average little Soviet just lived through such days in mere hope of subsistent living, these guys could have exuded some real enthusiasm. After all, they received dollars, had corporate credit cards and enjoyed intercontinental travel – and yet they refused to smile. Remarkable!
First Breakfast
While sounding like an antithesis to the Last Supper, this occasion proved to be no less of a beginning than the most famous meal in history, in very personal terms of course. Moreover, instead of a simple and very Hebrew diet of bread and wine, this meal had to be viewed in extremely decadent terms. The abundance of choices, colours and tastes was so dazzling that my sleepless eyes had hard time stopping their circular rotation on any one thing in particular. Here were ample mounds of exquisite caviar casually lumped next to innumerable slices of cheese. These cascaded onto chunks of fresh butter, salami and superb white bread. This arrangement was alone and as it starkly contrasted with some fast meal concoction in a coloured cylindrical container with a funny old man sporting ruddy cheeks. Besides, there was a jar containing creamy brown substance right next to it. All this plenty culminated in batteries of colourful containers containing just about any kind of morning gruel so beloved by westerners – cornflakes. Predictably, any space for forks, knives and elbows was optional. What about drinks? They ranged widely – innocuously addicting likes of instant tea and coffee to a freshly chilled bottle of vodka – a perfect setting for its truly international company.
In place of the Lord and his twelve disciples, the table was headed by a short bolding man in his forties with a patented brown tie and a purple face of a Soviet red director. He was flanked by a similarly looking functionary in a grey jacket, tone-less brown shirt and pale visage betraying some traces of heavy drinking from the night before. The pair was assisted by a freshly shaved young fellow with rosy cheeks and intelligent deep brown eyes. He sported a happening attire of western jeans, a bright yellow t-shirt and white sneakers; this was much in keeping with the rest of the rag-tag crew. While the first three, in spite of the yellow t-shirt, were decidedly Soviet; these guys, unshaven and sourly, did not betray enough reverence for the morning “vodka and caviar” ritual to qualify. Instead, they unceremoniously dipped their fingers, hands and whatever else came along into the container with plump old man – it read “Quaker Oats”. Only a couple of them dared to follow the solemn procedure of chasing yesterday’s vodka with fresh reinforcements. They rest just wrestled with unwieldy cornflake packages in a morning health shtick, atoning for unnecessary calories of last night’s dinner.
I sidled up to a short fellow in oversized glasses and a surprising smile that threatened to break his friendly face in two. He was just about to plop a whole bunch of that brown gooey stuff from the plastic container on a piece of bread. Sensing my puzzled expression with some sixth sense of his, he suddenly stopped, risking a midair collision of truly culinary proportions.
“Ah, this is peanut butter, want to try?” – the monumental crash was avoided through some dexterous manipulations of a professional who took his meals seriously.
“Sure” – I was up for some refreshing dialog of cultures. Besides, stuffing my face provided a temporary reprieve from having to open my mouth all too often in this strange atmosphere of gruel packages, instant coffee and strange dialects.
Cedric, the name of my indomitable and friendly neighbour, proceeded with his well-processed selections by piling a whole bunch of flakes and milk into a soup bowl. This looked a little less appetising after my first bites into a flavourful peanut butter sandwich, but I could not resist his charms and tried anyway.
Cedric, true to the Old Saxon flair of his namesake coming alive from the pages of the famed Ivanhoe, proceeded to chew, joke and gesticulate all at the same time. I did not think he had any familiarity with unforgettable works of Sir Walter Scott, and yet he inherited the very gregarious and unique traits of his key character, making the whole experience all the more amusing.
He was the life of the party, doing his best to awake everyone around the table. While the Russian trinity did not need much help, the rest of the grim crew with dollars and corporate credit cards surely needed a boost. I could hardly keep up with his American dialectic gurgling that nearly left me paralysed in my tracks. It sounded so different to what I had become accustomed thanks to fuzzy and distant sounds of Voice of America. Completely readjusting the antennas was my only option. The only trouble was that just about everyone at the table had a different take on the English language.
The next to wake up was an opulent man of considerable girth – Jack. He hailed from Liverpool, loved a good joke and was essentially incomprehensible. Instantly, I learned to appear listening and smile at all times - the only tools available for combating his vernacular. He did not mind and was quite used to it as hardly anybody outside of his beloved Mercy Side could understand him even in the confines of the British Empire itself, forget about a town lost in the Ukrainian steppe.
He was a proverbial mystery bridge between wild Soviets and coddled Americans. He drank hard by night and worked hard by day. Russians appreciated his penchant for vodka and Americans thought of him as a man honestly earning his daily bread. The rest of the time he spent eating, laughing and smoking. And even now he was sending just about anybody doubling with laughter on his end of the table. It was so contagious that even Herr Red Director and cohorts were rather amused, especially since Jack was about to exhibit his new, very Russian, attachment to mouthfuls of pickles, first thing in the morning. After all, fighting daily hangovers was a complex task that required truly prodigious and very international efforts.
“Want’try’shum, it’delish. No! yu’ll’wanke’s” - he did not stand ceremony and called things the way he saw.
Jack’s joyous antics easily found its way across borders with ease thanks to some minor interventions by Igor and John England. The first character was that of the yellow shirt fame who was, sort of, a true genius who despite his residence in the obscure town and an engineering degree from a second-rate Soviet school spoke very good English, a feat basically unheard of. Moreover, he also had an incredible ear and was uniquely capable of discerning Jack’s moods and inflections. I envied Igor with gusto and tried to emulate him whenever I could – “lucky bustard”. His cold and noble-like disdain for those of lower station in Soviet life was palpable. His allegiance to Herr Director was unswerving and his dry humour was always ready to rip one in pieces. In short, he was not a friendship material.
“Hey John, zhis stoof woks great, I’m tellin’yu” – Jack was calling on his former compatriot.
John England was another pivotal man who, having been born and raised in England, had spent past twenty years in the south of US of A. Appreciative of momentary life’s pleasures he was indispensable in reconciling North American sensibilities with biting and ruthless humour of the English North. He was a walking slang dictionary who could explain anything ranging from “fags” to “fenders”, and “boots” to “bonnets”. I knew right from the start that much could be learnt from his well-experienced ways as he could easily switch from just about any dialect to Standard English, the only tongue I was reasonably well-versed in at the moment. He was going to be my guide whenever I needed a refuge in the turbulent seas of American gurgling and Liverpoolian gibberish, the waters that would torment me for the next few months.
“Wer’yu’goin? Joost’sheet’doun’fo’a’minut. I’stl’got’soomthn’in’me’coop” – Jack pleaded with his fast dispersing troops. “Fine’wanke’s” – he gulped the rest of his coffee to hurry up and join the crew. The breakfast was over and my first day of paid translating was about to begin.
Trial by Forklift
My first assignment sent me to the bottom floor of this large factory where busy men in blue from Magnavac were plying their trade of exhaust piping and air conditioning. Being from the industrial Lancashire they were very laconic in their truncated expressions that resembled automatic gunfire on the streets of Baghdad.
“Ca’yu’tran’ate’fo’me” - worked out to a translation request by one of the quietest participants at the breakfast table – Trevor. In fact the only way I could catch his name was his uniform stitching – an absolute novelty to any Soviet. Having your name on the uniform or having a uniform at all was an unnecessary luxury. We all were cogs in the giant proletariat machine and any allusions to personal identity were full of nefarious capitalist undertones. And even now, few unmarked men in sullied working rags with heavy working tools in tow chased Trevor who was anxious to proceed with his schedule – much in a capitalist, productive sort of way. Adept at resolving just about everything through a universal sign language, he resorted to translation services rarely, but when he did, he really needed them.
“Podyemnik, neobhodim podyemnik” – one particular resolute character in sullied work pants kept screaming into his face as if trying to convey the necessary meaning by osmosis. What he really tried to get at was a forklift. A simple request by any measure – alas, my mental vocabulary could not come up with an exact equivalent.
“They need something to lift this thing” – I was flying on my own for the first time! Trevor’s mental computer quickly repositioned towards my accented delivery.
“Yu’min’fok’lift” – “Pardon” – “Fok’lift”. Now I was catching on, Eureka – “Forklift!” For the first time I was on the winning side! It felt surreal – “Oh, yes of course, forklift”. Trevor smiled and walked away satisfied as my tool wagging people ran into the yard to find their beloved and only rusty forklift. With task accomplished, I was on the streak, as I went around the place looking for more weaknesses in sign routines frequently employed by my charges.
Making Rounds
With Trevor happy and working, I embarked on back and forth walk-abouts, staying visible and helping wherever I could. Since I was loosely assigned to the first floor for the first part of the day I had more than enough time to partake in a quick monkey-wrench educational program for English majors. Cedric was working on the first floor with a couple of his buddies from Parkson Woolson of Vermont. I could not escape but to nominate his Saxon gregariousness to the post of my official technical tutor. While the rest spread around the vast floor in the post-breakfast daze, just like cockroaches on a hot muggy day, Cedric was not about to lose a second in practicing his gift of gab even in the midst of electronic installations that he was in charge of. In was only happy to hear about “nuts”, “washers” and “pliers”.
Wait, there was more! “AC/DC”, “wires” and “sensors” were rolling off his gurgling tongue with the same ease as peanut butter sandwiches rolled onto it. It was amusing as time flew quickly all the way to our first coffee break. It turned out that unlike with other meals, coffee break was taken in a specially designated room with plush couches, a fridge and air conditioning. I thought I had ended up in paradise, not only it was cool, spotless and filled with unusual aromas but the fridge was stocked to the brim with the best contraband I had ever seen – Coke, western beer, spacey looking yogurt containers and, of course, delicious peanut butter!
Cedric and I were the first to jump on the coffee stand that contained an electric kettle, cubed sugar and not much else. Nothing new to me as it was exclusively “instant”, leaving mounds of regular coffee shipped in huge equipment drums largely useless due to complete absence of percolating technology behind the Iron Curtain. Much to the North American chagrin, instant coffee was never under any threat of extinction here. They had to live with it, treating it in line with other abhorrent ethnic aberrations ranging from Scottish haggis to Japanese sashimi and on to Russian buckwheat.
Barely plopping into a comfortable velvety couch, two more Americans, Ed and Richard called “Browny”, walked in to sip on their beloved Cokes and suck on amazingly appetising cigarettes in green packages – menthol! I was on the verge of yet another discovery. As if sensing my hunger for all things foreign and especially Yankee, Browny pulled out a couple for my treasure chest – “give it try”. I was on heaven nine with intoxicating menthol creeping up my already heavily polluted lungs. It felt like a breath of fresh air.
Not for long, as much to the delight of his audience, Browny let out a very loud fart, almost piercing delicate fabrics of the special couch he was sitting on. I cringed. Such uncouth behaviour was anathema even in a least elevated Soviet company. Here, the reaction was quite the reverse – cheap laughter spread like wildfire with other attempting to repeat the feat with even less palatable results – “fart”, “fart”’ “fart”…Menthol smoke was my last redoubt defence redoubt.
Perhaps better quality of western food produced such incredible levels of tolerance, or maybe it had to do with isolated upbringings in impenetrable forests of New England. In short, I did not know what to attribute this tolerance for bodily movements to. In fact, an arrival of a couple of English from Maganavac did not improve the matter at all – amazing! I must have missed something in my university classes…
A little amused and pensive, I plunged my pinky finger into one of my nostrils in a very Russian gesture of deep thoughtfulness. This harmless motion, much to my amazement, produced a nearly a half-an-hour lecture from John England. The main subject dealt with western norms of behaviour. While some bodily functions were quite natural and hence sacrosanct, others were not welcome at all. Nose picking, after advent of Kleenex (unknown to Soviets), became a virtual taboo in the west. Although it was nearly invisible and did not smell of yesterday’s meal, its premature spot mining by human nails was deemed unspeakable and was eschewed across all strata of society. Go figure, my education was not nearing its end…
After the coffee break, Vladimir and I switched places and I was consigned to the top floor. Here the factory was installing very intricate knitting equipment under culturally aware guidance of John England and his sidekick C.K. What in the world this name is supposed to mean? Obviously, I was unfamiliar with Chinese names. At first, I was baffled by everything – his appearance, name and accent. All were rather unusual, especially for an employee of an American company from South Carolina. Little by little things started clearing up.
C.K. was a wiry little man of undetermined age, a common feature of anybody with Chinese ancestry. His home was in Hong Kong, but he really worked all over the place – China, America, and Russia – take your pick. He was a truest specimen of emerging globalised economy. Whether the term already existed, I do not know, but C.K. was it. He spoke English (with strong accent), Cantonese, Mandarin and a whole bunch of other tongues of the Mao’s Empire. He was educated in England and spanned the globe like a huge Australian spider. He was smart, hard-working and loved any humour – dry, slap-stick or Soviet – everything went. He always smiled.
Right away I took particular liking to working among in his knitting kingdom. C.K.‘s English was simple and understandable and John England was always ready for a standard BBC delivery when needing my services. No gurgling and chopping vernaculars. Life was great on the third floor. C.K. hustled around his electronics, John minded mechanics and I could just perch on one of those huge and soft bundles of freshly knit carpet material and read, or nap – not bad when you are actually getting paid.
Lunch – Tasting the Unknown
Much like the breakfast, this meal ritual delivered basically the same line-up with the Herr Director, Igor, Cedric and C.K. The food was predominantly local - fresh and hot – consisting of delicious meat cutlets, buckwheat and green salad. In contrast to breakfast there was quite a bit less of that western stuff – I guess it is a challenge to pack fresh meat and steaming soups into a large metal drum. Much to my relief the supply of vodka was rather sparse too, as some productive efforts were still planned for the remainder of the day.
Russians ploughed right into the mounds of steaming grub. Americans were not so hasty. Together with English and C.K. everyone was devising an exit strategy vis-à-vis a pot of vile smelling brown rice-like particles - buckwheat. While an unsurpassed delicacy in our minds and mouths, this grain crop does not sit well with western adventurers, especially when it is cold and devoid of any supplements such as sour cream or butter. On our table, it was steaming hot with bowls of sour cream all over. And yet all kitchen efforts failed to entice sandwich-happy westerners.
“Again, thish’bludi’broun’shtoof” – Jack was not particularly amused.
Cedric, being the most adventurous, piled on following my sour cream instructions. He loved it so did C.K. who viewed it as a no less evil than snakes or chicken legs of his homeland – a truly sensible man. The rest of the crew just could not bring themselves up to the task. Instead they attacked plates of sliced bread and some scarce condiments to create pathetic semblances of an American sandwich. Only now, under a heavy carbohydrate guise, could they get full on the delicious cutlets. The Channel was not crossed that day as most of the buckwheat was left to the cleaning crew.
“I’tink’they’try’poisoning’oos” – piped up the most intelligible of all from the Oldham Magnavac crew – Alan McGovern.
“Ne’they’a’joost’lazy’wanke’s” – everyone turned into a wanker, as soon as they crossed his Liverpoolian sensibilities.
The rest of the cafeteria, filled to the brim with people in greasy overalls and large dirty tools, just gawked at the strange large table by the window that refused delicious buckwheat while the rest of the world was choking on cold hard boiled eggs and awful barley soup. Oh well, at least I had hardly any competition – hallelujah!
With strong desire for a siesta, I just climbed up to the third floor to find yet another, still warm, roll of fresh carpet. My first working day was tiresome and full of impressions – a perfect time to contemplate with eyes shut.
Dinner – Celebration of Bacchus
Food is just a small part of life for most of us not working in five-star kitchens – isn’t it? It is hardly true for those outgoing types who are more dedicated to advances in corporate careers, academic knowledge and bulimic shaping. For many others though, life just revolves around meals. For example my dear, fully retired, father-in-law finds it irresistible to start planning his next dinner while still digging in generous portions of his current one. A truly amazing witness to certain cultural ties to the kitchen!
Back at the factory, my life was literally spinning between breakfasts, coffee breaks and a myriad of other activities related to food. Daily dinner proceedings were the most solemn, judging by numbers of vodka bottles on the table. Judging by the mood, you have just entered a medieval mask carnival somewhere between Sienna and Venice. Forget about morning grouchiness and midday sleepiness, everybody and everything was in the most joyous of moods. With another work day behind, the time was to relax and indulge in anything inebriated and juvenile. The hosts were working doubly hard to leave good and hospitable impression, and since it typically meant one thing, puzzling with other alternatives was not at all necessary.
That one thing was, of course, vodka. Sometimes served with lesser species of champagne and beer it usually serves as absolutely indispensable agent in advancing social, business or political agenda if not outright measuring one’s human worth. To be honest, Russia is not a singular phenomenon on the world’s map of dysfunctional livers. One just has to mention few locales to make a point – Korea, Japan and Ireland would not be far behind. Each boasts its unique trait along the way, but no one strays from the truth universal – an ability to hold alcohol is the key to life’s success however short it may be.
Having grown in the insular society that touts vodka as one of the most important gifts to the civilization, I have been duly inculcated in truths and realities of our national character. Sure, we could be struggling with toilet paper supplies, perennial failures of national soccer team and, Heaven forbid, occasional hockey losses, but when it came to vodka we had no rivals and this was indisputable. And this was reality that was just about to melt into a waxy blob of a myth…
The first to start was our indomitable red director, Aleksey Dmitrievich, who undoubtedly owed much of his professional fortunes to his zest for things of high octane. In his old Soviet tie and suit, he was ready to pick up where he left off at breakfast time – toasts! These were enthusiastic and frequent. A quick warm-up amidst sparkles of Champagne went along the usual lines of eternal health and happiness. Everyone participated and thanked God that we did not have any French in our midst. After all, what used to be called Champagne in the Soviet Union was no Champagne at all; it was high quality sparkling wine from Caucasian slopes instead. Being isolated and disdainful of private property rights, Soviets were only too happy to circumvent many a trade mark law. Champagne was its most famous example and a slap on the face of French pride. And yet it was quite good and our foreigners just loved it.
“fntastk’shtoof’an’so’chip” – Jack loved his Champagne, especially since it cost about 20p a bottle and he had a fridge full of them back at the dorm.
After few of these highly enthusiastic “Na Zdorovye” and “Cheers”, the ranks of drinkers started melting. First were my sensible family types from the depth of Vermont. Sure, smoking menthol cigarettes might be bad for your health but morning hangover headaches are way worse and no amount of directorial prodding could change that. Moreover, heavy 40” degree artillery was about to come and that never promised uncomplicated evening wind-downs so treasured in the simple life routines of the American backwaters.
The host kitchen just rolled out the most delicate culinary offering of the day – SPAM. This, treated by Russians as an utmost rarity to be cherished and chased by hard liquor, is usually served on rare occasions. At this table its appearance was less than welcome as it reminded everybody else of dust covered back shelves of discount grocery stores. A treat of vodka looked better and better...
“now’we’gonna’get’shit’facd” – Trevor saw it coming and remained calm twiddling with his cigarette paper as he rolled his own to the exclusion of more institutionalized tobacco.
“joost’remember, we’av’FA’final’laita” – Jack could not possibly exist without his beloved football and was even respected in this capacity despite the unfortunate life’s twist of being born and bred Liverpool supporter.
The next give up were C.K. and John England. C.K., raised on green tea leaves and sticky rice, simply reached his limit and was not going any further with his cheeks already getting distinctly purple. John, having lived in the States for years, has gotten used to uncomplicated small town routines and was out of the proceedings accordingly. I was right behind. This did not create much fuss, as my job was to translate regardless of what kind of dribble came out of the director’s mouth. And this was not going to be easy as Igor had gone home with Vladimir and I left holding the fort.
Two more toasts later, and our roles were pretty well cleared up on one certain account – you were either a participant or an observer. For observers, it was getting really amusing. The only characters left standing in the ring was a full compliment of North English and Herr Director. They were locked in an interminable battle for survival. To be exact, the contest did not resemble a typical tightening of ranks when everybody joined their respective teams on the approaches to Check Point Charlie. Instead, it was a purely individual battle akin to those of Survivor or Apprentice – everyone stood on his own to face either glorious victory or despicable demise.
“tat’blouk’s’gonna’kill’ova. Giv’m’mo’pickls” – Jack was feeling a close triumph pointing at the director.
“Deaaar genteeelmen, lets haaave another toaaasst” – I was indulging in my own director impersonations. The timing was crucial as he was about to run out of things to say.
Long gone were the “Cheers” to good health, sturdy livers and good functioning kidneys. Now, submerged in various degrees of stupor some warriors did not go any further than a short pickle catch-up before the next round. Herr Director, having lost his tie and touch with reality, was my last bastion of famed Russian superiority and yet he was fast succumbing. While each new wave of rejuvenating liquid produced just a next round of jokes in the western camp, Aleksey Dmitrievich and his side-kick assistant were just sulking behind each new glass of the vial potion. They lost, and no amount of pickles was going to soften the blow. I was appalled at the English juggernaut and what it was going to do to my fainting national pride. Maybe it was just a bump on the rough and narrow to supremacy? Or maybe they had something more than just bottomless supplies of toilet paper?
FA Madness
Aleksey Dmitrievich and Ivan, the Assistant, had to be basically carried by night shift guys in sullied coveralls to the ever-ready factory van driven by teetotal and obliging Vadim. In his clean garb and submissive smile, his presence at the factory was absolutely indispensable. After all, an ability to remain sober for most of the day was a remarkable, and much appreciated, skill. Patiently packing the mumbling director, he promised to be back in a jiff. Luckily, no immediate intervention was required as Jack and Co. were willing to wait and Americans had already left for a refreshing evening stroll.
Back at the dorm, I was treated to a small cultural spectacle revolving around football – the most beloved and passionate pastime for billions around the world. It holds a particularly addictive hold on anything English. You see, having invented the bloody game, their dominance is long gone and this is particularly vexing. While best clubs can still buy their help and win few tournaments as Liverpool and Manchester United have done in so distant past, international arena is where the national game really suffers. You can hardly buy a new birth certificate (by the way I know just the place); and managing with what you dealt by Mother Nature is the best one can do. Here their losses are many and frequent, with the famous exception of 1966 when home crowds, a bit of crossbar charm and sheer talent catapulted England to the top of the world. Since then it has been one disappointment after another. And since no amount of Irish Guinness or Scottish Scotch can alleviate the suffering, many just turn insular outright. Forget about Brazil and Italy, we have FA Cup and nothing ever going to take it from our stubborn grip!
And FA Final it was. Crystal Palace, the brash upstarts from South London were taking on the beloved United and no amount of dinner fog was about to blunt the excitement. With Herr Director long asleep and Americans still on their refreshing stroll, the cohorts congregated around a lone radio to hear every particular of the most important annual event. Armed with additional supplies of beer, cigarettes and regional slang, the tight gang managed to create a bit of the Great Kingdom, right here in the middle of Ukraine.
“we’gonna’kik’ther’arses” - Alan and Mick the Irish were particularly pumped up.
“yu’all’wanke’s” – Jack could now afford his profound philosophies of a neutral party
This was about as close I could get to the understanding of the proceedings. The radio broadcast was no help as did not resemble a stout BBC news crew in the least. Instead of my beloved Queen’s English I was subjected to a barrage of Scottish brogue (?) mixed with traces of Gaelic and other nefarious substances. Needless to say I could hardly understand what went on and went it did. The swings of fortunes were violently oscillating between posh London suburbs and industrial outskirts of Manchester. The goals were plenty and beer ran like water. The smoke was impenetrable and Trevor kept rolling his vial cigarettes.
I just sat and took in second hand smoke, at least it was foreign. Not bad. It did not feel nearly as gross as any domestic fumes. It had something sophisticated about it, especially since most of it came out of shiny golden packs of Benson & Hedges. If you die, you might as well do it in style. Elated by the enticements of fleeting pleasure, I contributed my own efforts thanks to the golden packs and Alan McGovern.
“Great’shtoof!” - despite all the excitement, the match failed to produce a winner setting another appointment for the following week. Jack was just delighted, free impartial fun took no skin off his back. The rest of the crew seemed spent. Grey from smoke and Champagne, everybody was ready for a good night sleep. Younger characters led by Mick the Irish did not agree. There still was a half a case of beer and it just couldn’t go to waste!
By this time, with their dialectical exercises stretching no further than few “fooks” and “wanke’s”, I decided to retire for much needed rest. The proclivity of my new friends for drink and their ability to withstand its effects were truly amazing. My shredded national pride required much needed mending and R&R.
World Traveler
My usual daily routine did not require much settling due to its lack of complexity. Gloomy breakfasts, jovial coffee breaks and bacchanalian dinners interchanged in a steady succession of life as colourful images of a kaleidoscope. My knowledge of English dialects, slang and pronunciations was ballooning faster than US federal debt and my waste-line fed by steady supplies of peanut butter was not far behind. The life could hardly get any rosier. I surely received a much needed dose of distraction to deflect all those life traumas that seemed to just pile on in the beginning of the year. I felt as comfortable as a butterfly in a motherly cocoon and even Vladimir’s sonorous sleeping patterns were not all that disturbing after all.
Amazingly, my luck was about to take an uptick, as one morning I was summoned up to the director’s office for a special assignment – to deliver a fresh addition to the troops - and all the way from Moscow, no less. His name was Vic Baldwin. Apparently, he managed to get stuck there, waiting for some necessary new tools to arrive by air, the very tools British Airways loaded on his flight over. Imagine that – lost luggage! With distinct smudges on his burnished capitalist image, Vic took it pretty hard and now required a rescue crew to help with the tools and general logistics through the Byzantium of local travel arrangements and “KGB” that was always on the look-out for suspicious stragglers.
My joy was boundless as it was going to be my first “corporate” trip. A common phenomenon in the west, “corporate” travel in Soviet Union was typically much less exciting. Intermingled with grey non-descript ties, unhealthy amounts of vodka and creaky metal mesh beds of military issue, these trips at times managed to take years off one’s life and were not particularly envied with exception of few lucky types who got to travel to balmy Crimea, relaxed Georgia or, amazingly, near d’etranger. As a first timer though, I was ready to go anywhere south of the Arctic Circle and a trip to Moscow was just an unbelievable bonus. Bring on the squeaky beds!
Twenty hours later I was in the capital, working to secure Vic’s passage to the bowels of the Empire. The only way to connect was to collect him at the famous Hotel Ukraine in person, as understanding his dialect over the phone proved impossible. Much to my relief and general happiness, Vic turned out to be much less threatening type than his brusque telephone manners would imply. In fact, he was as cuddly as they came, so easy to get stuck just about anywhere. He turned out to be a closest human personification of a walrus, quivering on the top of his strong bowed legs of a former athlete. He carried himself with an utter degree of seriousness, statesman like. With thick rimmed glasses and perpetually fuming pipe, imbuing a great deal of respect in the eyes of his Lancashire colleagues, Vic, the Yorkshire Man, was the head of all walruses.
“I’m’Yoksha’man” - came out with dignity and decorum between his measured pipe puffs. He did it almost Stalin-like, giving yours truly very little room for a joke or two. No “KGB” was about to get him, even in the Hotel Ukraine. Vic was incorruptible and cheap, immune to hardships of easy, paid for, eastern travel.
Careful with money all his life, Vic was unwavering in his lack of generosity. After asking me to do a quick street exchange for his twenty-pound note, he carefully counted every penny, kopek to be exact. The whole procedure nearly put me to sleep. But suddenly this little dull scene, transpiring in the worn-out foyer of his hotel, became a lot brighter. My dimwitted brain, observing Vic’s careful handling of roubles, came across a gold mine – foreign exchange. You see, currency exchanged outside Soviet Central Bank was deemed illegal and could not avail itself of nearly costless transfers between non-existent commercial banks; hence there was a geographic premium. For example, Moscow International Airport at Sheremetyevo could command an exchange rate of 1USD to 14 roubles when in Centre of Moscow it could go up to 15 and in the Ukrainian periphery it fetched an easy 20. The spreads were huge and I just found another source of supplementary income.
The rest was a matter of mechanics, as we shared a plush first-class rail compartment purchased for a princely sum of $5 USD. There between Vic’s rolling snoring explosions and the steady drum beat of soothing rail travel I peacefully fell asleep.
The Legend of Dick Cross
“Oh, you actually got him here – remarkable” – Cedric was the most amused. Puffing on his menthol and sipping his steamy midday coffee he greeted our afternoon arrival rather philosophically – “hopefully he does better than Dick Cross”
Mentioning of Dick Cross made me smile as I had a juicy foretaste of the story our helpful Cedric was about to tell Vic. Having heard the gem on a couple of occasions before, I could hardly swallow this pleasure of all things warm and familiar.
Well, it did not start this way as everything appeared normal on the very first flight over to the Evil Empire. Cedric, Ed and Dick were in it together – facing rude guards, smoked-out customs and thorough baggage checks. Everything went just splendidly as it should have in the midst of Perestroika. The generals were chased back to the barracks, trade encouraged and KGB muzzled, life just could not be any less complicated and serene.
It was not nearly that simple for Dick, Richard as he was christened some years ago when born to an old, staunchly Protestant, American family. From his earlier simple years of growing up in the backwoods of one of the most tranquil states, Dick was an impressionable young fellow. In school he frequently found himself a predictable victim of many a bully. Life was a struggle sometimes and it got considerably better when Dick assumed an inconspicuous blue collar career of a mechanic. He loved turning nuts, bolts and other things that did not bite. His future was getting rosier - he got married, bought a house and drove a Ford pick-up. Everything was safe including his picket fence. The only worry was those distant Red Commies who constantly threatened to smudge his peaceful existence with atomic confrontations, clandestine killings and brash kidnappings. The KGB was dreadful and Dick regretted hid not choosing a more profitable career so he could build a decent bomb shelter.
“Dick, Dick. They are watching you” – Cedric and Ed were snickering behind Dick’s back on their first memorable walk across Red Square. Dick was pale and terrified. He hated the place and felt harassed by everyone including his dear compatriots. Feeling bullied just like back in the elementary school, all Dick wanted was to run to his room and stick a pillow over his head and hide - anything to dampen the horrors of the place. Besides, he was having second thoughts about his wife going on vacation to visit her friend in Venice Beach, California.
“Eh Dick, beware of the transformation when your wife comes back from her vacations. She might be a different person once those pumped-up dudes are through with her” – Cedric was fully aware of the dangers associated with the famous beach, home to the world bodybuilding community, pumped with testosterone and who knows what else.
“Get Lost” – Dick could hardly mount even simple defence. After all Cedric knew all about marital troubles going through a divorce only two years ago.
“Sure things might be cheap here but these numbnuts, Cedric and Ed, just refuse to understand the gravity of the situation. Here was the bloody Lenin’s Tomb with the guards. They are not just there for decorative purposes, did you now that? Just look at those bayonets and AK-47s – beats a heck out my “hunning” rifles at home” – Dick was just tiptoeing around, as if trying not to unduly disturb anything with KGB lurking behind any wall, corner and window. He needed his beer and it was nowhere to be found.
His first three days in Moscow were a pure torture. However, once on the train taking the trio into the depth of Ukraine, Dick’s fears were not assuaged. “Dick, they are watching you” lurked around every corner. Besides the state of toilets was despicable, toilet paper scarce and every thirty minutes they kept trying to poison everyone with some liquid they called “chai”.
Half-alive on arrival in Zhelti Vodi, Dick was hardly in the position to report to work. Fearing imminent stomach ills that lurked in his fragile body, he resorted to a liquid diet consisting of beer and diet coke as Soviets had not kept up with the new mode of privatised public water supplies typically referred to as “bottled water”. Skulking behind on his squeaky metal-mesh bed he moaned and groaned in desperate solitude when his friends went to work. Evenings went a little better but each morning brought with it a new bout of fear and indigestion. After a week of hell, his superiors on both ends of the Ocean realised their mistake and agreed on releasing Dick to his endless supplies of heavily processed food and beloved fresh beer.
So Dick’s Soviet troubles ended just as abruptly as they began. He was off and the legend of Dick Cross was born. His valiant efforts at the field of international toils left enough forage to last till the end of the campaign and beyond.
Jimmy Lohutko – A Ticking Bomb
America is generally very famous for its ability to produce serial killers in a steady, uninterruptible, procession. A number of theories have been advanced to explain such an anomaly. Wide availability of guns, pistols and bazookas for sale, lease or rent is cited as one. Marilyn Manson is inevitably as the other. However, the most peculiar attribute is employment with US Postal Service. In fact, the term “Gone Postal” has even entered the vernacular and is as common as “Barney” or “Mulligan”. It has also expended its meaning far beyond anybody associated with the stolid employer paid-for health insurance. It now includes anybody who boils white hot underneath and looks perfectly normal on the surface. A peculiar combination that is bound to explode from time to time and the worst part about is that it is virtually impossible to detect.
The scene of Jimmy leaving Soviet Customs at Sheremetyevo could hardly have been any more serene. His green wind breaker, tight fit jeans and white Nike sneakers appeared to be in complete harmony with his demure freshman smile and neatly combed straw like hair set on a youthful face adorned with well-trimmed moustache. Jimmy came as substitution for Dick Cross and he was going to stay. Not only was he anxious to spend some time in the country that gave him his name “Lohutko”, but also he felt much in the way of healthy curiosity, unafraid of KGB, Red Army and Politburo. Right from the start, we got alone famously as by now I was nearly a pro at the gurgling Vermontese. Besides, I knew certain cultural attractions that made these nice open people a delight to be around. Jimmy paid back in the same coin and our trip back to the factory was as pleasant as they ever were.
Always on the look-out for souvenirs, Jimmy was delighted to try out the cheapness of local rouble shops. He loved his dollars at 15 to 1, and I was only happy to oblige making himself my very first customer of the budding foreign exchange empire. Besides trinkets, Jimmy was a good fellow in those bright cheerless mornings, always ready to laugh at Cedric’s jokes and throw a dart or two at either Herr Director or Jack. Mostly though he was super friendly to everyone, exhibiting all the best traits America is known for – wide smiles, strong family connections and hard Protestant work ethic. Jimmy just loved showing wallet-sized pictures of his family. It was idyllic – a pretty wife, a cute house and a young healthy kid with ruddy cheeks, just like his father.
At night, Jimmy was just as circumspect of the drink of most of his compatriots, much eschewing bacchanalian inclinations of people from the Continent. He was just so unlike Jack or Mick the Irish – “tight’american’arse”. This went on for a couple of weeks.
On one particularly famous dinner outing designed to entertain particularly welcome bosses from the English contractor Taylor Woodraw, Jimmy suddenly decided to sprint with the English to the finish line. The closer they got the more rotten his mood threatened to turn. The smell of burning mortar started filling my nostrils. As Jack, Alan and Mick were proceeding along their usual jovial route; Jimmy was getting closer and closer to the edge. Foul-mouthed and angry, he was about to rip into anything and anybody. By the end of the dinner, some had to assume their new roles as hockey referees trying to break up many a conflagration swirling around Mr. Lohutko. “Look out!” somebody shouted as Jimmy was about to plough into yet another international guest. The world war was about to start and Soviets were not even supplying anything stronger than state produced vodka – remarkable!
Luckily, a major conflict was avoided that night as Jimmy was forcefully led to his lonely quarter. Next morning his mood was foul and required pickles, many pickles. Everybody were learning their lessons fast and stayed away from Jimmy at dinner time, as he started assuming his dual personality more often than not - pleasant and peaceful by day and on the verge of the precipice by night. Some wished Dick Cross was back.
I was one of the few who managed Jimmy well at night. Cedric was the other. Ultimately, he figured what triggered his postal proclivities – family troubles. It turned out that while Jimmy was making hard currency here in USSR, his wife was spending much pleasant time with a neighbour. While not the worst piece of news in morally corrupt locales, in America it meant a family disaster. Before getting back home and setting things straight, Jimmy could only suspect and insinuate. He could hardly cope and went to the telegraph station every other day to call home. He was a wreck and I felt sorry for him – no more wallet pictures and smiles. The longer his calls home went, the worse if got culminating in him setting a world record when managing to run up a bill of over $300 USD on a single phone call during his short stop-over in Frankfurt. Deutsche Telecom was very happy as Jimmy having no religion had only vodka to drown it all. Not all was that rosy in America after all…
Tuscan Son
No matter how much daily sun was produced during that hot early summer, nothing could compare with the radiant glow of the very son of sun - Mauro. His timing could not have been better in the shadows of Jimmy’s troubling departure. Hailing from the very world gem of Florence, he was a true embodiment of his motherland. Just imagine David plus cascading long perm hair and voila. Straight and long Etruscan nose completed the picture.
His very arrival at the factory caused a little furor around the place. Herr Director and Ivan, the assistant, hastily called a conference with Igor, trying to determine what type of species Mauro belonged to. Since stolid Soviet sensibilities did not leave much room for long hair for the stronger sex, they were in a conundrum as to whether offer him separate toilet facilities. Besides, everyone on the floor wanted to see him, creating small swirls of traffic jams whenever he went. His numerous gold chains and other ornaments did not help the matters. Fearlessly strolling through the place in his brand new sneakers and crisp coveralls, he was our new hero. Forget about Jack, C.K. and Alan. Those now looked tired, worn-out and common. Nobody cared about Magnavac any longer as volunteers for Santa Lucia, Mauro’s employer, were galore.
It took at least a couple of days for the hoopla to settle in some semblance of every day rhythm. In due course I was assigned to care for our new arrival. This was a piece of cake, as Mauro’s English was simple and fully recognizable continental version. Moreover, Mauro was a consummate worker who did not waste his time under any circumstances even when facing some immediate issues. On many an occasion instead of calling me up from a cozy chair and coffee with menthol, he took on a task of becoming trilingual by learning few useful Russian phrases.
At the dinner table he was exemplary, hardly imbibing any alcohol and eating buckwheat without complaints. He also liked my translations of whatever went on the English side of the table very much. Back at the dorm, he was a gracious host providing his guests through an ample personal soft drinks department. I even received basic instructions in Italian. I jumped on the drinks demurring on Italian, waiting for better times to come.
Fortunately, we worked six-day weeks leaving each Sunday with hardly anything to do. A trip to the near metropolis of Dnepropetrovsk was a welcome opportunity. Not only it offered some sightseeing but also a chance to restock on some necessary supplies exclusively available in the local Berezka (hard currency shop). With trusty and sober Vadim at the wheel, the mood was particularly joyful since I had arranged for some from the University’s English department to give us company. This was very much appreciated since most of our new guides were women, young and pretty. My English cohorts immediately rushed into the thick of things. Mauro was not far behind. Clean cut, statuesque and exotic – he was a definite hit. His English stumbles forgiven and jewellery gleaming, some found him simply irresistible.
My friend Helen was among them. She, thin and long-legged, with slightly exotic looks still bearing traces of the Tatar invasion could easily match Mauro’s passion for opposite sex. From the very start, they were indivisible, lost in a solitary conversation, a pensive thought or his thick soccer hair – lovely!
Well, after a couple of weeks, when all other momentary acquaintances from the English department fizzled into nothing, Helen started becoming a regular fixture around our encampment. My Italian lessons suddenly had to stop while Mauro was stocking up on Champagne and chocolate. Needles to say things accelerated from there, and now Helen lives under the Tuscan sun - amidst all those grapes, marble and pasta. If interested to read more please refer to “My Crazy Friend Helen”.
Last Days
German Olli was the last one to arrive. His Teutonic outfit managed to sell just one machine on the whole assembly. It was the very last fur finishing implement that was personification of pure German engineering pride. Huge in stature and amiable in spirit, well-travelled Olli fit right in. Unlike Mauro’s, his entrance was less conspicuous but no less formidable – all in leather with thick Keiser moustache and beer belly; he hardly drank anything but beer and was a good company apart from predictable cheapness, so common to happy beneficiaries of the famed Marshal Plan. With a tall biker girlfriend back in Frankfurt, Ollie was a harmless creature of habit who tolerated spam and buckwheat with remarkable equanimity.
Now, at the end of the project he was a welcome sign after weeks of English debauchery. Even Herr Director seemed to appreciate these soberer times. The factory in Zhelti Vodi was the first out of six scattered all over the map to receive the wondrous textile equipment and Herr Director was happy to be at the end of his piece. He was exhausted and in urgent need of rehab. He dismally lagged behind the blokes and any chance of restoration to our national pride was left to his unsuspected counterparts in other locations. He could see the end of the tunnel as our project was chugging along the original schedule hardly hampered by excessive feasting. After all, no amount of vodka could demolish incessant advances of capitalism. Money, or more precisely decent amounts of it, was important and nobody cared to overstay their slot in Zhelti Vodi. With each new piece of the whole line falling into its place, our dinner table was getting thinner and quieter. Long gone were Jack, Alan and the rest of the unruly crew. Vic followed their steps not too far behind, waddling walrus-like into the thinning horizon.
Now came the time to say goodbye to C.K. and John. They could not wait. Stifling summer heat reminded John too much of his beloved air-conditioned country house back in South Carolina. C.K. was not too far behind pining for his two-bedroom affair in the jungles of Hong Kong. He had not eaten his favourite red bean soup in months and now could not bear this separation any longer.
With very married and contemplative Vladimir involved in many an amorous affair in and around of Zhelti Vodi, the lot of transporting C.K. and John to Moscow inevitably fell on yours truly. Everything started in average fashion – a $5USD taxi ride to the airport seventy miles away seamlessly shifted into a $5USD plane ride (for all three) to Moscow and viola, we stood in front of the very western concrete structure with many windows and people in wing-tipped shoes – International Trade Centre, the best and the poshest the Mother Russia could produce at the time. The place was heavily guarded, offered a variety of glitzy hard currency shops and had an incredible lobby with transparent space-like elevators briskly sliding up and down its multi-story edifice. I was totally and utterly mesmerised.
Stepping inside was the closest thing to entering Western Europe short of passport control and KGB scrutiny. They had thick-headed bouncers instead. Safely though their strong-gripped hands, I felt like an alien. Here they accepted just about any currency but roubles. I felt sheepish and intimated since my stash of $100 USD could hardly buy a thing here. C.K and John were just the opposite. Feeling homely serendipity they fearlessly strolled directly into the elevator to whisk us right to the top of the office tower where their emissary Lloyds of London kept their offices.
“They help us out with some logistics from time to time. Besides they ensured the whole project” – John was having a field day with his protégé. I was all ears.
Soon I would have to become all hands and sinew though – “we have a suitcase with some spare parts for you to take back to Zhelti Vodi” – a feeling of belonging to something important and useful washed over me. I was ready to tug and pull.
Inside the glitzy office that could have competed with the best Si-Fi movies I had ever seen we were greeted by a Russian secretary, Tatyana, with impeccable English and very long legs. “Hello Gentlemen” – she serenaded our unfitting jeans and t-shirts – “Mr. Jones would be back in a couple of minutes. Please have a seat. Would you like anything to drink?” The next thing I knew we were served some very chilled heavenly drink with ice cubes. Wow, I felt like back in my childhood eating my first and only pineapple. The reality was slowly merging into a hazy dream…
Alas, Mr. Jones was back soon enough and after an exchange of necessary pleasantries, a large plastic suitcase was handed over to me. Actually, it was dragged by Mr. Jones and C.K. employing all four as only Goliath himself could lift the thing. It literally weighed a tone. “Hrrrr” – I nearly dislocated my shoulder tugging it to the elevator. Tatyana, her magic secretarial machines and freshly squeezed pineapple juice were waving their distant good-byes from the world yonder.
John and C.K. felt a little pity for me, taking me for a treat at the local pub, my first ever. Behind those heavy “glass and guard” they were in their element and it showed. The pub was full of inebriating whiffs of first rate tobacco, French cologne and foreign tongues. After managing to navigate with my little suitcase we were installed near a little round board of many colours that bore countless injuries inflicted by small little arrow things thrown by grown men with Guinness Pints – dartboard! It was a truly fascinating pastime. It seemed as if more beer one drank the closer he came to the bull’s eye. Forget rigorous stretching routines and 10K runs. All one needed was a pint. I was intrigued with the craft, as C.K. and I rushed in to our amateurish endeavour.
“Eh guys, do you know what I toilet I sat on in the bathroom?!” – John’s eyes were bursting in flames of adolescent excitement.
“What?” – we felt shocks of his electric charges.
“American Standard!!!” – we officially hit a new low.
Trying to avoid concentrating too much on toilet paper and swishing porcelain bowls, I dug in my very first shepherd’s pie. A mushy wallop of potatoes on top reminded of my mother’s cooking – delicious. I dug further. Now came out some interesting sauce of similar consistency. Any minute now I expected to come across something harder, a piece of meat to be exact. Instead, I kept pulling out same gooey mushy stuff till I got all the way to the bottom – “where was the meat?”
“You have eaten it!” – “Did I?” – “That delicious brown stuff” – John was pointing to something liquidly on the tip of his fork. No wonder there was only one British Pub in the whole of Moscow…
Loaded by the culinary adventure we arrived at the overwhelming honeycomb of daily bustle – Sheremetyevo Airport. Crowds swirled in one huge vortex that threatened to consume my favourite suitcase. I wish it did. Instead, I was to be left all alone with John and C.K. readying to give their last adieu.
“This is for you” – John just stuffed something sweaty into my hand in the midst of a suddenly Russian bear-hug.
“See you later” – sad and curious, all at the same time. I was sad to see them off and curious to find out what was in my hand. “Forty bucks! – Wow!” I just made an equivalent of my mom’s two monthly salaries. Dragging this blasted suitcase all the way back to Zhelti Vodi did not seem much of a burden any longer.
Quick Change
My return to now quiet factory was not nearly as peaceful as previously envisioned. The signs were not that great from the start as perpetually sarcastic Igor could not contain a certain portion of glee written all over his sly face.
“Your buddy Vladimir has gone back home” - I guess his matrimonial woes brought some pressure to bear. His toll stature and Pushkin-like hair attracted its portion of affairs that could have been the envy of the great poet himself. His wife was pissed off and ready to move back to her mother. Vladimir’s choices were suddenly limited and he hastily departed leaving much translating vacuum behind. On the other hand, my pristine prenuptial self was immune to Igor’s complex innuendos. I failed to smell the rat. After all, why would I worry? Without Vladimir I would be the only point of reference for the lost sheep. Or would I?
As I was puzzling, lost in calculations, here around the corner came Cedric, in full swing discussing something very technical with Ivan, the assistant. Oh horror! It was a new translator! Gnaws of envy started taking their hasty bites at my self-worth. I was nearly devastated. This new upstart in dark glasses and a cigarette to boot had something to offer I could not beat no matter how much slang I knew – she was a woman! With Cedric the only one left to commandeer the workings of the textile wonder, my choices were stark and I just turned around and went home. The bleeding suitcase loaded with masses of mechanical junk was left like a bedraggled and unwanted puppy on the steps of SPCA…
With my thin ties to the west nearly severed, I was sort of wallowing in bouts of self-pity. I had to come up with new schemes lest being consigned back the Labour Safety class. Suddenly, my phone rang. It was Ed from Parkson Woolson.
“Eh Sasha, remember we talked about you working on other locations?” – I was just flabbergasted as lady fortune showed up once again. Forget about cheap British and hard working Italians, my Americans were ready to open their wallets once again. Amazing – I loved the United States!
“The pay is forty dollars per week plus your expenses” – I was floored, bye-bye Labour Safety.
“Get in touch with Cedric; he is still in Zhelti Vodi. He’ll tell you of our plans in more detail”
“What the heck is he still doing there?”
“I think he’s getting married to that girl, Margaret” – “Get out of here!”
I could hardly believe that our philosophical and at times sarcastic Cedric got seduced by eastern charms of the very translator filling my spot! Now, there was no time to philosophise as I had to line up things with Cedric.
“Hey it’s me” – “I know” – I could never surprise him with any of my many appearances. Few hours later I found myself in front of the door to Rita’s apartment, the place Cedric called his temporary home. The door was opened by a smiley middle aged woman with curly blond hairdo and thick glasses - the mother. Rita and Cedric were not far behind. Everyone seemed happy to see me. After all, there was no need for ongoing rivalries as Rita had made a quick transition from an English school teacher to a translator to a bride of a foreign national. Everybody loved the transformation. Cedric got the best future mother-in-law one could wish. She cooked wicked meals, smiled and did not talk back. In other words things were progressing swimmingly and Cedric was on track to become a married man once again.
I enjoyed spending time with all of them. Menthol was widely available and appreciated by just about anyone except the mother. By this time, the Legend of Dick Cross had been enhanced to the point of art and could be recited in many voices even with an occasional pantomime – very original. On the business front things looked just as good; although Cedric did not require my help any longer, Ed and Brawny were only happy to see me back on board.
When working for these two back in Zhelti Vodi I did get to fully appreciate their quite and very American generosity. I was much too attracted to the Brits with their shoestring domestic budgets and Italians with their liras that were way too hard to count. Now I even felt slightly ashamed and repentant. Happily, it was not in their rural blood to bear grudges. They just loved comforts of certainty and familiarity, as no one appreciates routine as hard working Americans minting their dreamy retirement plans, independent of all things distant and penurious when it came to Social Security, a monumental retirement scheme that makes one works too long before kicking in. Brits drank and smoked, not expecting to see the end of their misery in this lifetime and Germans could get by on sign language and pickles. Americans needed me and I was there to oblige. The dollars did the rest of the trick.
.
World Traveler – Part II
Now I was criss-crossing the whole country in just about any possible direction. The arrangements were simple and well-worked out. Pick up the bunch in Moscow; spend a couple of days enjoying delights of the capital; jump on a $1 or $2 flight to the very edges of the Earth – all very exciting. Besides, I supplemented my income with a clandestine currency exchange operation that counted as its top asset a pair of boxer shorts underwear with pockets, fashioned by whom else but my dear mother.
Whenever leaving for Moscow, the usual starting point for my gigs, the well-sewn pockets contained heavy stacks of soggy roubles. When coming home, the pockets rested under a light yoke of valuable greenery. This is the operation in the nutshell; the rest was a matter of contacts. Since currency exchanged outside Soviet Central Bank was deemed illegal and could not avail itself of nearly costless transfers between non-existent commercial banks, there was a geographic premium. For example, Moscow International Airport at Sheremetyevo could command an exchange rate of 1USD to 14 roubles when in Centre of Moscow it could go up to 15 and in the Ukrainian periphery it fetched easy 20. As you can see the spreads were humongous – a rather lucrative proposition for anybody having a first name access to US dollars in addition to a pair of sturdy underwear.
Things were just hopping. As those days I spent more time travelling and standing with both feet on firm unmovable ground. Our appearances at each location typically caused much consternation on the part of red directors and their assistants. First of all, all their heavily laden KGB protocols were blown to pieces by arrival of one extra foreigner who actually spoke flawless Russian – imagine that! Already shaky, the matters were about to turn for the worse, as the extra “foreigner” was revealed to be a Soviet Citizen after all – “these blasted Yankees brought their own translator!”
Had this happened just few years prior, whole local KGB detachments would have been put in a state of alert and my ass would have been flying back home on a minute’s notice’ and this is not counting some potential jail time. Fortunately, with strong winds of Perestroika blowing in our backs, the mood was decidedly more positive especially after finding out that precious Soviet industrial resources were not going to be used to pay my salary. Once all t’s cross and i’s dotted, I was free to move around in just about any direction, unimpeded.
The very first order of business then was to locate a magic food drum among the boxes and crates that housed multi-million dollar pieces of equipment. We could not possibly start worrying about free trade and contracts when peanut butter was not on the table.
In Tula, our first port of call, Browny and I spent a couple of hours among piles of industrial debris looking for the proverbial jar of honey.
“Crackkk” – another crate gave in. in with dust and cobwebs thrusting into our nostrils. “Oh, there it is!” – I could hardly wait for the huge blue barrel to be brought into light.
“Crackkk” – the barrel is open and I have a first diving right. With a couple of cans of beloved beans and a Casco sized peanut butter container, I am stocked up for some time. Ed and Co. dive in for their favourite porridge, while the rest of scraps is distributed among the local workers. A wild celebration ensues! A good day’s work is done and we’ll start tomorrow – and I might need new pants to accommodate ever-bulging dimensions of my waste line.
Joyous Company
The rest of each subsequent project was just a mirror copy of previous ones with not much to report, except that I never again came across another red director who could compete with the bacchanalian tendencies of Aleksey Dmitriyevich from Zhelti Vodi. To fill in the blanks we needed an internal boost, one that only English could deliver. With Jack staying home to nurse his frequent headaches, Magnavac sent many a worthy reinforcements that included Mick the Irish, Neil and Jonny. These fellows did not need any red director and took matters in their own hands. Usually well-inebriated when through a couple of bottles of white stuff between three of them after the dinner time, they typically embarked on beer expeditions that could easily consume a case of first-rate Heineken before the night was over.
At this stage, Neil would frequently be amiable to starting yet another bottle of vodka, this time without glasses or other necessary decorum, just jugging it straight out - making any self-respecting Russian alcoholic cringe. Mick would slow down to a steady stream of “fooks” and “wankes”, and Jonny would be just there, silently starring at whatever wall colour happened to be in front of him. When the holy trio made it back to their rooms Americans, Germans and I were seeing our third dreams. The early wake-up time was the same for everybody and, amazingly, the English were out to prove that living up to the age of fifty was still possible. I guess life in the gruesome North must have been truly miserable and Manchester United’s successes could solve life’s worries. With wages low, hovering well below 10P per hour, the drink was the only method of survival in these bleak post-colonial days.
Forget about gloomy evenings for a minute, as every morning revealed an incredible transformation. Neil, Mick and Jonny always turned up in the most cheerful of moods that lasted throughout the day – honestly… These guys should have tried for a Polar iron man instead. Here with wrenches and screw drivers in hand, they seemed to be able to put in an honest day’s work as if the stuff they drank gallons of last night were lemonade. Long Live the Queen!
One day their company was just about the get a kick in the arse (in the mischief department, of course) – please welcome Mr. Cox from Birmingham. His triumphal entry into the factory was nearly ruined as I managed to fashion a greeting sign that savaged his honourable name – “Mr. Cocks”. Luckily, Ed arrived in change a course of history for the better or hardly… As the sign turned out to be a true descriptor of this fully bearded hippy-looking individual with the thickest of accents. He opened a new season with a bang. Besides it was hardly a problem in the city where women outnumbered men by two to one. When Tsars waived their economic wand to establish an industrial textile works in the city of Krasnaya Presna, they could hardly suspect long-term implication of such a decision. The end-product proved to be as economic as it was demographic as women’s beautiful and graceful fingers manages to lace intricate textile work with much more efficiency and flair, completely unattainable by gruff and unskilled male limbs, making their unfortunate owners scarce in the Russian capital of textile. Generation came and went… and here came a knight on the white horse.
Although he was not really a true medieval knight and wore grubby blue overalls instead of sturdy hand-fashioned armour, Mr. Cox proved to be no less romantic and useful when it came to rescuing beautiful Russian women lost in heavy winter blizzards. He did not take much to start. His single status and firm lack of attachments back in Birmingham made him irresistible. Felling emboldened and in a good company Neil and Mick proceeded in the same direction. Jonny was still staring at the wall.
Finally, his love searching inclinations culminated in an intriguing way when honourable Mr. Cox made an offer of marriage to a pretty translator, Natasha. The trouble was that Natasha was a married woman. No problem, six months later she was a free bird on a flight to heavily sooted Birmingham architecture. Inna and Olga, other translators, did not have as complicated flight arrangements. They went to Erevan, Armenia – the next port of call for Joyous Company, chasing Neil and Mick respectively. While Inna acted in a very adventurous but acceptable fashion of the emancipated sex, Olga was slightly more risqué, as she embarked in this “vacation” trip just one week after her own wedding that apparently went without a hitch. I think she was planning her honeymoon shortly thereafter…Oh, ya Jonny was staring at yet another wall.
Jimmy – Beefstroganoff is My second Name
With Joyous Company popping in and out of my eyesight, I was only delighted to work with much more “moral” American values that compared more than favourably with friends from the Continent. On this side life was happily enjoyed with not much of a drink or a mischief. The routine was predictable, monotone and nearly pleasant. Only Jimmy Lohutko, trying to reach to his wilder roots, provided more of a diversion. With his marriage woes mostly behind and divorce nearly finalised, Jimmy was open to things of mildly agitating nature. And since he always needed a guide to get around – I become his willing accomplice.
On one occasion we, Jimmy and I, had to spend few days in Moscow, waiting for some late arriving parts. It was early December and gloomy Moscow winter was upon us in all its ugliness – dirty impenetrable snow banks, freezing temperatures and almost complete absence of sunshine. All these did not sit well for outdoor adventures. We were stuck inside of Cosmos hotel, a huge concrety spread of a building that accepted roubles hardly for anything, did not take reservations from anybody sporting Hammer and Sickle on their passports and exhibited heavy bouncer-types by its doors.
Entirely bored, we made our way to the rouble side of the vast cavernous Soviet restaurant with grumpy waiters, bright fluorescent lighting and huge menus that would beat any New York diner hands down. The only problem was that despite the abundance of items on the list, anything we pointed our fingers to was not available – “Nyet”. Gone was fresh Sevryuga caviar, depleted were Bulgarian pickels and the offering of charming hot Ukrainian borsch just could not be located. Undeterred by the sight of other people around us consuming some articles resembling food, I enquired: “What is available exactly?” – “Beefstroganoff!” – was the laconic reply.
“Excellent, you’d love it Jimmy. A true pan-Slavic creation!” – Jimmy was delighted. Even our wait was not that long as the kitchen must have anticipated our arrival with every pot and crevasse filled with delicious brown stew. At the end, Jimmy felt fully covered in his latest Soviet experience and we switched to the hard currency bar fully stocked with foreign beer, pretzels and hookers. With skipped on the hookers in favour of beer and a conversation with a nice lady, Carol, travelling on her own from Massachusetts. Being Jimmy’s neighbour, they struck it pretty well and at least for the next two grim days we had a company.
Delighted to have a new companion, we even ventured to some landmark tours including menacing brick walls of Kremlin and marble stillness of Lenin’s tomb. Hungry and bedraggled, we just craved a nice hot meal in our western enclave. Carol was only happy to follow us back to the Soviet dietary cavern. Right before opening our menus, I assessed a situation around. On the right they cheered with some vodka, on the left a bottle of Champagne towered above a young couple enjoying a private meal, right behind they just tranquilly sipped on some steamy chai. All this harmonious diversity bore inerasable strokes of painful familiarity - brown-sauced potato clumps and stringy meat.
Once again, the menus were an unnecessary luxury - “Beefstroganoff Please.” Next day, we braved the cold and the slush, criss-crossing the city in search of some dish that did not end with an “ff”.
Yesinia – the Tower of Babel
From Moscow we headed to the western-most part of Ukraine – Zakarpatye. Squished by Carpathian Mountains to the east, and Soviet border to the west, this region is a melting pot of cultures, tongues and sensibilities. Although part of Ukraine, the region boasts many spoken languages - Hungarian, Rumanian, Polish and Slovakian. Throw some Russian and sprinkle it with English and German, and you got a complete multi-lingual nightmare.
Yesinia, lost in some deep valley near the Romanian border turned out to be a village in the winter paradise, as it charms were not lost despite to our late night arrival. Creaking in our summery shoes through freshly strewn crisp snow past barking dogs behind tall fences, I felt intrigued and unsure of what to expect in the morning. I felt Siberia and yet it was as Ukrainian as Lvov.
Our early ride to the factory did not reveal much as it transpired under a canopy of grey pre-sunrise sky. Only after having our first coffee break and opening our first blue drum with peanut butter and beans, did outside light start seeping through thick industrial curtains. Ollie, our old German companion, could not resist the temptation and pulled the heavy curtain all the way to one side to let golden rays of morning sun to completely flood the entire factory floor. To our collective owe, the panorama of golden snow-capped peaks and steep slopes dressed in thick firs was just breath-taking.
“This is just like Alps!” – Ollie was stricken by the beauty and ruggendess of the peaks.
“Phenomenal” – Cedric fell into a momentary reflective mood of reminiscence
“Do they drink vodka or something stiffer?” – Jimmy was fed up with “beefstroganoff” and beer. He could not wait.
I was very intrigued and little scared, envisioning having to switch from Russian to Ukrainian – a tough task for an Easterner. To make matters worse, any Ukrainian I had heard so far was completely incomprehensible. They called it Ukrainian and yet I failed to understand a single word – what a conundrum! There had to be an explanation. Luckily, another translator, Sergey, was a local with much fluency in such issues.
“When Mongolian horsemen swarmed over the land that later became known as the Russian Empire in the 13th century, their cruelty and greed appeared to have found a natural barrier in the form of the Carpathian Mountains. By now satiated hordes left the people on the other side alone. Thus their language and customs persevered. While the language on the east side continued changing and developing under the influence of the Mongolian invasion plus other historical twists and turns, the language behind the mountains laid dormant and retained much of its ancient traits. In fact some claim that what we hear in Zakarpatye is not Ukrainian at all but rather a version of ancient Russian”, Sergey was excellent in efficient and almost scholarly delivery.
“Great! But what do I do for translating. I surely cannot learn the language of ancient Muscovy in a couple of days?” I was still puzzling over my challenge.
“Do not worry, they all speak Russian anyway”, my fears were misplaced once more.
Things returned back to normal. Cedric had Margaret, I mostly helped Ed and Ollie, as Jimmy found new buddies interested in the bottle. Language aside they hardly had any barriers. The rest of the trip was great as we even ventured up to a mountain lodge where I had some first-time luck at alpine skiing. I even managed to arrive at the bottom of the run in one piece where I was greeted by Jimmy with a full to the brim glass of vodka – to celebrate. He did the celebrating and I went back up for more thrills. Our time in Yesinia was coming to an end and I did not want to miss any pleasures it had to offer.
Erevan – Last Port of Call
Our most exciting destination was the capital of then still Soviet Armenia – Erevan. Unlike gloomy Moscow and even gloomier towns in the middle Russia, this place had much promise from the very outset even as we first stepped into the local airport. The southerly winds softly caressed our faces as we stepped out of the artificial blue oxygen of air travel. Our paces involuntarily quickened, hastened by wildly gesticulating crowds that were frantically swirling in vortexes of inexhaustible activity. Wading though these thick human waves, we barely managed to reach our ride to a hotel right in the middle of this historic and intriguing city.
Born centuries ago, Armenian nation had managed to preserver through ages of wars, atrocities and miracles. The nation survived boasting very strong cohesiveness despite many a challenge. In fact, Armenian majority reaches unbelievably high 90 % amidst the total population make-up of the capital. Predictably most people looked similar to one another– swarthy, fiery and dark-haired. They all seemed to wear stylish locally-made leather shoes, sported dark sunglasses and smoked incessantly. In fact, throughout my month-long stay I failed to meet a single Armenian male who stayed away from puffing. Even local, exotically garbed, orthodox priests did not escape this beloved national pastime.
These latter types were a true revelation as we discovered many a beautiful side to this eastern orthodoxy, one of the oldest in the whole of Christendom. Born sometime in the late first century it preens with numerous old traditions that have been cherished and preserved since those simple and unspoiled times. Assisted by some local factory co-workers we got a first-hand opportunity to attend a local seminary that sprawled on the top of a very green and spacious hill, not too far from the city centre. The religion here was practised unabashedly, un-Soviet like. Instead of skittish old little ladies crossing in front of many teary icons and thick unapproachable Russian Orthodox priest with vast beards and love for vodka, we found a completely different picture that celebrated their beloved religion quite flamboyantly. Young, stylishly robbed, monks were many and enthusiastic, assisting multitudes of parishioners in sacred rites that included superb Gregorian chants that sailed in smooth and utter exuberance, reverberating throughout the main nave. The singing was so beautiful and mesmerising that we did not dare moving, stuck in our spots as if frozen – very refreshing.
To further its unique claim on all things biblical, Armenia claims the famed summit of Ararat to be a resting place for Noah’s Ark. In fact, many an archaeologist has not given up a dream of finding the famous remains – scouring satellite photos, enduring ridicule of doubters and raising money for yet another attempt at impossible. Alas, we were not in the position to help. After all, the magnificent mountain itself is not even an Armenian property as it sits just across the border in Turkey. This pisses Armenians to no end. Historically they always laid claim to this locale as the focal point of their nationhood. Brave and frequently outnumbered, Armenians managed to maintain its territory in many valiant efforts rebuffing invaders from any direction throughout centuries. All went swimmingly well until they encountered the mighty Ottoman Empire. The new foe was not particularly merciful and measured in its desire to conquer as much as Mother Earth could possibly allot for dry land. Ottoman’s most daring and famed efforts were spent in the West, fighting sizable European and Russian armies in its perennial bids to introduce strong coffee and salacious dancing to frumpish Catholics and uncouth Orthodox alike. While engaging in these noble undertakings, the powerful Ottomans always felt an uncomfortable irksome itch in some eastern reaches of their Empire – the staunchly independent and very Orthodox Armenians. When the itch developed into an outright eczema, it all came to a head with the 1915 genocide when Ottomans annihilated over a million of their neighbours in a short span of weeks. This was the start of the famous Armenian Diaspora that now spreads from Australia to Los Angeles on to Paris and London.
Predictably, the event still lingers in national blood streams. Turks behave as it has never happened and Armenians get to a boiling point at a mere mention of 1915. Turks kept the mountain and Armenians pretend that they still have it. And they almost have a point since from the Turkish side it is seen by but a handful of villagers strewn around sparsely inhibited eastern Turkey. From the Armenian side, on the other hand, it beacons to almost an entire nation populating the Ararat valley. The mountain is so close to the capital city itself that on particularly clear days it felt as if I could just touch the very shimmering snow of this majestic peak.
For a better view, a friendly factory van driver, Mkrtch, took us down to the glorious and fertile Ararat valley, just minutes from Erevan. Here on the bottom flats, surrounded by lush greenery and outcropping hills, one is treated to a particularly spectacular view of the national pride. The road we were on was a straight black clear line that led directly to the mountain with its southern tip almost piercing the snowy slopes. The road did not mesh with surrounding green lushness; it did not simply merge into the horizon; instead it linked a dream of the nation to be reunited with its beloved Ararat once again.
Poignant, as it was, we could not go any further after driving right up to the barbed-wired fences and fearsome looking man with guns – the border. Turning one-eighty and driving back into the valley promised to be a decent diversion from the sad reality. After all, Ararat was not the only Armenian mountain celebrating these unique people. Mkrtch, despite sporting an absolute lack of vowels in his almost unpronounceable name, turned out to have a very soft heart for soaring chants of remote monasteries that peppered the mountains on the opposite end of the valley.
Half an hour into the reverse journey, we started gradually losing lush rising crops and straight blacktop of the valley from our sights. We were steadily climbing, higher and higher up the mountains that were becoming more exotic and desolate with every sharp turn – now we were into the Alpine country. Here farmers ceded their economy to shepherds, and flamboyant city priests gave way to more solemn but no less attended ranks of the mountain clergy.
It was Sunday and traffic was particularly heavy with worshipers streaming to their ancestral highland roots. Seeing so many on their way to God worship shook my atheistic foundations. Browny and Ed, hailing from the land of pious pilgrims took it in more of a stride, as we toured a couple of churches. Both, built in some time immemorial, were filled to the brim. Their sparse, grey and very monastic, outlines stood in contrast to exuberance of the faithful and sublime signing of the priests. My tall, husky and fair skinned friends caused a slight furor if not outright distraction, as even some century old keys seemed to have gone awry as many gawkers forgot to move their jaws – clinging to Gregorian notes was not easy after all…
After the service, we were invited to an outdoor picnic outfitted with just about everything including a freshly flailed lamb twirled on a huge barbeque. Complemented with goodly amounts of superb local wine we were ready to enjoy the experience. Impatiently waiting to plunge into fresh, still seeping with fresh mountainous juices, meat, we witnessed another important and unavoidable rite of the Easter season – a little echo from pre-Christian past – animal sacrifices (a moderate version). Some fervent parishioners brought some domestic animals, mostly chickens, and gleefully plunged right into the grizzly proceedings.
“Watch these savages are just about to cut their throats”, coddled by sterilized violence of American TV, Ed was feeling a bit uncomfortable.
“Just like at home”, Browny betrayed his much more rural and hand-on roots
“I hope they do not throw the meat away”, my Ukrainian soul couldn’t bare any waste of food
With throats cut, fresh animal blood was collected in special clay dishes and promptly re-applied on everyone’s forehead with a sign of the Cross. Luckily, we were spared the unnecessary drama with Ed and Browny jumping on the healthy supplies of light and flavourful local wine. The feast was on!
“This is excellent”, Ed was beside himself tasting the superb and very surprising wine. “Lucky, we do not have those English wankers!”
“There would be none left”, Browny finished the thought.
I could not agree more. This was way better than rat-infested dirt floors of the factory cafeteria, and the contrast could not be truly enjoyed had it not been for a thought of your peers being deprived of the treasured experience. A truly selfish and yet very common sentiment…
The celebrations went on for a couple of unforgettable hours. By the end, we were all brothers with no barriers, cultural or otherwise, to squeeze in between. We all were just a part of larger humanity sharing common joys and emotions. Ed and Browny loosened by wine, lamb and surrounding fraternity, did not even mind sharing their ride down around hairpin turns with no seat belts and our inebriated Mkrtch at the wheel. For a moment we just melted into one larger being that did not require translators, bullet proof vests or Agreements In Principle – all was surreally simple.
Just before jumping in the van, I turned around for one split second to have one last look at the breathtaking scenery scintillating in last sparks of reddish sunlight. Surrounding rocks, sheep, churches and beautiful Armenian people were slowly entering my conscience in a glowingly happy memory parade. Suddenly, I felt happy and all alone. Sounds, near and far, just vanished leaving me in perfect Nirvana-like tranquility. This was the solitude of happiness, the very one God let me enjoy so much lately. Yes, it has been a year since that painfully hard day under the rain. Now, dry and pensive, engulfed in soft refreshing mountainous air, I starred at the majesty of creation, above and below, counting my blessings. My gig was at its end and new horizons were just about to unfold, I couldn’t wait.
Oh, almost forgot – remember the Legend of Dick Cross? Well, recently he won a multi-million dollar state lottery. His new barbed wired fence and house alarm system are the best in Vermont. It is opened for visits Monday though Friday. Call in advance to schedule an appointment. Interested?
Mercifully the mechanics of the rueful rite did not take longer than necessary and now everyone was ready to hurry up indoors for a soothing shot of vodka, the only apparent remedy against tough turns of life here. I nearly ran, away from pain, not to ever come back and re-open my wounds. These scars, so deep and many, nearly shred me into pieces. After all, I was not leaving behind just his grave but also the pain of someone buried right next to him – my paternal grandma. She died just three months before, leaving her hopeless, infirm and yet very meaningful existence of love and care for us, my father and I. He could not cope, and succumbed. I stayed on to grieve and remember. Now running away from the grim cemetery I could only hear thumps of clay falling on his casket in unison of eternity. Only one thought gave me comfort – God spared my grandmother particularly brutal pangs – she did not have to bury her son...
English – the Road Away
In the following days and weeks, I struggled to return to some level of normalcy. So far it had been a hard year and I needed something to serve as a positive distraction to deal with crushing grief, a feeling much too new and foreign to the twenty two year old. School was hardly helpful as my current subjects were not really all that exciting with my forth year classes dragging though the quagmire of the most boring subjects with “Labour Safety” featuring on the top of the list. While there is nothing wrong with the idea of helping people to arrive home in one, the subject did not tickle my interests nearly as effectively as remote abstractions of physics and math. I really needed a new place to hide my thoughts in order to escape unpleasant realities of life.
None could do better than skipping classes at the stalwart engineering institution to spend time at the university’s English department, just across the street. Communism, while failing on many an account, was quite great for students in search of useful distractions. Since education was free and they even paid us a monthly stipend of few roubles, nobody seemed to object to some straddling the street of learning - between hard core technical subjects and soft touches of all things lingual. In fact, this was my second semester of intense nesting in the cradle of the World Tongue. I have been tearing at it like a ravenous bulldog going at his old bone. Now I had enough pent-up energy and emotions to shred it to splinters.
Forget about tedious engineering rules, freedom of expression in the most popular language promised to open the most daring frontiers otherwise unavailable to my unilingual compatriots. Of course, I could hardly count on anything unusual all that soon. After all, while opening up, old stale Soviet society still offered very little in a way of real contacts with the outside world. This feeling of isolation was hardly any more palpable than in my dear home town - the nest of secrecy, brains and pride. While Moscows and Kievs of the world offered a tremendous deal in lessons of edifying history and current political drama, my birth place boasted very little aside from quietly lapping and much polluted waves of the mighty Dnepr. Instead it served as a vivid lesson in real and yet inconspicuous power of the Soviet military complex by housing one of the most prized assets of its nuclear deterrent capacity – UMZ. Disguised as a giant tractor factory, this key piece in the industrial puzzle was well run as one of the biggest world producers of engines, missile engines. Behind monotone red brick walls and haphazard landscaping in front of its main offices, the ominous conglomerate produced anything from rocket engines that propelled humans to the frontiers of space to those, conceived to push the frontiers of mutual destruction.
Predictably, our city pride and its best grey matter were employed at this institution. Its secrecy was about the only unfortunate consequence, as it forbade town access to anybody with a foreign passport. If did not matter whether you came from Prague or Dar-es-Salam, your very presence was not desired. A slight drawback of this exclusionist policy was a complete absence of any foreign guests, students and other similar types interested in sampling local populace for experience, kicks and levels of radiation.
With advent of Perestroika, the city was sort of declassified and had even re-emerged on some European maps next to the likes of Bucharest and Tirana. Some particularly adventurous foreign types started appearing in small numbers – usually hanging around university campus and causing much consternation near key transportation hubs. Some babushkas busking with their garden produce near the main railway station were particularly impacted with apparitions of people sporting decidedly darker tones. Their old gnarled farm fingers quickly assumed youthful flexibility in feverish cross signs designed to expunge such “diabolic” visions. Younger generations, unfamiliar with religious defence tools, usually resorted to simple gawking with only some particularly brave sorts willing to start a conversation. The scene so hilarious and innately familiar, it even sparked increased sales of Gulliver Travels among more satirically inclined.
As for me, a prospect of accumulating wealth of linguistic prowess for the next decade looked most probable considering the glacial pace of actual changes that were taking place. Fortunately or not, I was completely unaware of plans thatched by others on my complicated account of life marching forward.
The Gig
Few days later my phone rang unexpectedly. “Hello, this is Sergey from a translating agency. Igor from the English faculty gave us your name and told us that you might be interested in doing some work for us.”
My head started spinning, as if I got a call from an NHL agent to play alongside Mogilny or Yserman. With sudden sweat dripping down my shirt and pulse of well-over 120, I mumbled something hardly intelligible in response only to register an upcoming meeting with Sergey on the following day. May be this was the proverbial chance of luck on the ever-twisting road of life. May be just may be...
After a brief first-hand enquiry into my English skills, Sergey remained rather satisfied and offered me a translating gig in a small provincial town of Zhelty Vodi. I could not possibly hesitate and jumped at a chance to gawk, first hand, at apparitions from the world yonder. A chance to take a break from the dry subject of “labour safety” did not shine any dimmer even on the account of Yellow Waters, the translated name for the town of my destiny. No one could precisely explain the origin of the peculiar name save for a huge chemical plant on its outskirts. Oh well, at least there were no nuclear plants...
My first trip to the fateful town revealed a typical wonder of Soviet industry hiding amidst vast undulating fields of corn and wheat, peacefully swaying in unison to gusts of lashing steppe winds. Spring was still clinging to the driver seat, though it was about to start slowly yielding its impeccable charms to the scorching heat of summer. And yet it was still scintillating in its splendid glories, so soothing to the eye and pacifying to the brain. My heart was fluttering in expectations of the unknown and my eyes noticed only beauty to the detriment of all things ugly and Soviet. Dusty avenues led to open fields past characteristically uniform concrete gobs, housing average citizenry; an obligatory and inevitably centrally located monument to Lenin with an outstretched hand directing to ever-lasting communist bliss; and twisted industrial fences sporting many a sneaky hole pointed to just about any spot on the vast map of the USSR. Luckily I checked my tickets, the sign on my bus and asked the driver. Yes, I was in Zhelty Vodi, in front of a communal apartment block that housed, among others, few foreigners installing a complete line of textile equipment at the local factory that produced artificial fur to atone for ever-melting stocks of sable, fox and beaver that barely clang to life in the melting sub-Arctic.
"Good Morning"
Whatever could be said of any morning, it is usually way more cheerful and fuller of expectations when compared to dull predictable evenings that are fed-up with frustrations of things left undone. Alas, my first morning was not one of them, as I failed to induce my brain into a single minute of necessary bliss, commonly known as sleep. Tossing and turning, I could have blamed everything on my translating roommate Vladimir who spent the whole dreadful night in an exquisite snoring cadence that is worth gold in envy for any insomniac. Well, I was still reeling from all too familiar and all too painful memories of my father and his recent, untimely, demise. Mixed with anxieties of tomorrow, my mind just refused to shut down its futile processing of “what could have beens.”
Predictably, I joined a departing factory van in rather sour mood that did not promise much success in the hours to come. We shared the ride with two burly American types with similar morning grimaces of solemnity that culminated in brief “Good Mornings” and not much else. At least, I was not the only one to share sober repugnance of yet another productive working day. While an average little Soviet just lived through such days in mere hope of subsistent living, these guys could have exuded some real enthusiasm. After all, they received dollars, had corporate credit cards and enjoyed intercontinental travel – and yet they refused to smile. Remarkable!
First Breakfast
While sounding like an antithesis to the Last Supper, this occasion proved to be no less of a beginning than the most famous meal in history, in very personal terms of course. Moreover, instead of a simple and very Hebrew diet of bread and wine, this meal had to be viewed in extremely decadent terms. The abundance of choices, colours and tastes was so dazzling that my sleepless eyes had hard time stopping their circular rotation on any one thing in particular. Here were ample mounds of exquisite caviar casually lumped next to innumerable slices of cheese. These cascaded onto chunks of fresh butter, salami and superb white bread. This arrangement was alone and as it starkly contrasted with some fast meal concoction in a coloured cylindrical container with a funny old man sporting ruddy cheeks. Besides, there was a jar containing creamy brown substance right next to it. All this plenty culminated in batteries of colourful containers containing just about any kind of morning gruel so beloved by westerners – cornflakes. Predictably, any space for forks, knives and elbows was optional. What about drinks? They ranged widely – innocuously addicting likes of instant tea and coffee to a freshly chilled bottle of vodka – a perfect setting for its truly international company.
In place of the Lord and his twelve disciples, the table was headed by a short bolding man in his forties with a patented brown tie and a purple face of a Soviet red director. He was flanked by a similarly looking functionary in a grey jacket, tone-less brown shirt and pale visage betraying some traces of heavy drinking from the night before. The pair was assisted by a freshly shaved young fellow with rosy cheeks and intelligent deep brown eyes. He sported a happening attire of western jeans, a bright yellow t-shirt and white sneakers; this was much in keeping with the rest of the rag-tag crew. While the first three, in spite of the yellow t-shirt, were decidedly Soviet; these guys, unshaven and sourly, did not betray enough reverence for the morning “vodka and caviar” ritual to qualify. Instead, they unceremoniously dipped their fingers, hands and whatever else came along into the container with plump old man – it read “Quaker Oats”. Only a couple of them dared to follow the solemn procedure of chasing yesterday’s vodka with fresh reinforcements. They rest just wrestled with unwieldy cornflake packages in a morning health shtick, atoning for unnecessary calories of last night’s dinner.
I sidled up to a short fellow in oversized glasses and a surprising smile that threatened to break his friendly face in two. He was just about to plop a whole bunch of that brown gooey stuff from the plastic container on a piece of bread. Sensing my puzzled expression with some sixth sense of his, he suddenly stopped, risking a midair collision of truly culinary proportions.
“Ah, this is peanut butter, want to try?” – the monumental crash was avoided through some dexterous manipulations of a professional who took his meals seriously.
“Sure” – I was up for some refreshing dialog of cultures. Besides, stuffing my face provided a temporary reprieve from having to open my mouth all too often in this strange atmosphere of gruel packages, instant coffee and strange dialects.
Cedric, the name of my indomitable and friendly neighbour, proceeded with his well-processed selections by piling a whole bunch of flakes and milk into a soup bowl. This looked a little less appetising after my first bites into a flavourful peanut butter sandwich, but I could not resist his charms and tried anyway.
Cedric, true to the Old Saxon flair of his namesake coming alive from the pages of the famed Ivanhoe, proceeded to chew, joke and gesticulate all at the same time. I did not think he had any familiarity with unforgettable works of Sir Walter Scott, and yet he inherited the very gregarious and unique traits of his key character, making the whole experience all the more amusing.
He was the life of the party, doing his best to awake everyone around the table. While the Russian trinity did not need much help, the rest of the grim crew with dollars and corporate credit cards surely needed a boost. I could hardly keep up with his American dialectic gurgling that nearly left me paralysed in my tracks. It sounded so different to what I had become accustomed thanks to fuzzy and distant sounds of Voice of America. Completely readjusting the antennas was my only option. The only trouble was that just about everyone at the table had a different take on the English language.
The next to wake up was an opulent man of considerable girth – Jack. He hailed from Liverpool, loved a good joke and was essentially incomprehensible. Instantly, I learned to appear listening and smile at all times - the only tools available for combating his vernacular. He did not mind and was quite used to it as hardly anybody outside of his beloved Mercy Side could understand him even in the confines of the British Empire itself, forget about a town lost in the Ukrainian steppe.
He was a proverbial mystery bridge between wild Soviets and coddled Americans. He drank hard by night and worked hard by day. Russians appreciated his penchant for vodka and Americans thought of him as a man honestly earning his daily bread. The rest of the time he spent eating, laughing and smoking. And even now he was sending just about anybody doubling with laughter on his end of the table. It was so contagious that even Herr Red Director and cohorts were rather amused, especially since Jack was about to exhibit his new, very Russian, attachment to mouthfuls of pickles, first thing in the morning. After all, fighting daily hangovers was a complex task that required truly prodigious and very international efforts.
“Want’try’shum, it’delish. No! yu’ll’wanke’s” - he did not stand ceremony and called things the way he saw.
Jack’s joyous antics easily found its way across borders with ease thanks to some minor interventions by Igor and John England. The first character was that of the yellow shirt fame who was, sort of, a true genius who despite his residence in the obscure town and an engineering degree from a second-rate Soviet school spoke very good English, a feat basically unheard of. Moreover, he also had an incredible ear and was uniquely capable of discerning Jack’s moods and inflections. I envied Igor with gusto and tried to emulate him whenever I could – “lucky bustard”. His cold and noble-like disdain for those of lower station in Soviet life was palpable. His allegiance to Herr Director was unswerving and his dry humour was always ready to rip one in pieces. In short, he was not a friendship material.
“Hey John, zhis stoof woks great, I’m tellin’yu” – Jack was calling on his former compatriot.
John England was another pivotal man who, having been born and raised in England, had spent past twenty years in the south of US of A. Appreciative of momentary life’s pleasures he was indispensable in reconciling North American sensibilities with biting and ruthless humour of the English North. He was a walking slang dictionary who could explain anything ranging from “fags” to “fenders”, and “boots” to “bonnets”. I knew right from the start that much could be learnt from his well-experienced ways as he could easily switch from just about any dialect to Standard English, the only tongue I was reasonably well-versed in at the moment. He was going to be my guide whenever I needed a refuge in the turbulent seas of American gurgling and Liverpoolian gibberish, the waters that would torment me for the next few months.
“Wer’yu’goin? Joost’sheet’doun’fo’a’minut. I’stl’got’soomthn’in’me’coop” – Jack pleaded with his fast dispersing troops. “Fine’wanke’s” – he gulped the rest of his coffee to hurry up and join the crew. The breakfast was over and my first day of paid translating was about to begin.
Trial by Forklift
My first assignment sent me to the bottom floor of this large factory where busy men in blue from Magnavac were plying their trade of exhaust piping and air conditioning. Being from the industrial Lancashire they were very laconic in their truncated expressions that resembled automatic gunfire on the streets of Baghdad.
“Ca’yu’tran’ate’fo’me” - worked out to a translation request by one of the quietest participants at the breakfast table – Trevor. In fact the only way I could catch his name was his uniform stitching – an absolute novelty to any Soviet. Having your name on the uniform or having a uniform at all was an unnecessary luxury. We all were cogs in the giant proletariat machine and any allusions to personal identity were full of nefarious capitalist undertones. And even now, few unmarked men in sullied working rags with heavy working tools in tow chased Trevor who was anxious to proceed with his schedule – much in a capitalist, productive sort of way. Adept at resolving just about everything through a universal sign language, he resorted to translation services rarely, but when he did, he really needed them.
“Podyemnik, neobhodim podyemnik” – one particular resolute character in sullied work pants kept screaming into his face as if trying to convey the necessary meaning by osmosis. What he really tried to get at was a forklift. A simple request by any measure – alas, my mental vocabulary could not come up with an exact equivalent.
“They need something to lift this thing” – I was flying on my own for the first time! Trevor’s mental computer quickly repositioned towards my accented delivery.
“Yu’min’fok’lift” – “Pardon” – “Fok’lift”. Now I was catching on, Eureka – “Forklift!” For the first time I was on the winning side! It felt surreal – “Oh, yes of course, forklift”. Trevor smiled and walked away satisfied as my tool wagging people ran into the yard to find their beloved and only rusty forklift. With task accomplished, I was on the streak, as I went around the place looking for more weaknesses in sign routines frequently employed by my charges.
Making Rounds
With Trevor happy and working, I embarked on back and forth walk-abouts, staying visible and helping wherever I could. Since I was loosely assigned to the first floor for the first part of the day I had more than enough time to partake in a quick monkey-wrench educational program for English majors. Cedric was working on the first floor with a couple of his buddies from Parkson Woolson of Vermont. I could not escape but to nominate his Saxon gregariousness to the post of my official technical tutor. While the rest spread around the vast floor in the post-breakfast daze, just like cockroaches on a hot muggy day, Cedric was not about to lose a second in practicing his gift of gab even in the midst of electronic installations that he was in charge of. In was only happy to hear about “nuts”, “washers” and “pliers”.
Wait, there was more! “AC/DC”, “wires” and “sensors” were rolling off his gurgling tongue with the same ease as peanut butter sandwiches rolled onto it. It was amusing as time flew quickly all the way to our first coffee break. It turned out that unlike with other meals, coffee break was taken in a specially designated room with plush couches, a fridge and air conditioning. I thought I had ended up in paradise, not only it was cool, spotless and filled with unusual aromas but the fridge was stocked to the brim with the best contraband I had ever seen – Coke, western beer, spacey looking yogurt containers and, of course, delicious peanut butter!
Cedric and I were the first to jump on the coffee stand that contained an electric kettle, cubed sugar and not much else. Nothing new to me as it was exclusively “instant”, leaving mounds of regular coffee shipped in huge equipment drums largely useless due to complete absence of percolating technology behind the Iron Curtain. Much to the North American chagrin, instant coffee was never under any threat of extinction here. They had to live with it, treating it in line with other abhorrent ethnic aberrations ranging from Scottish haggis to Japanese sashimi and on to Russian buckwheat.
Barely plopping into a comfortable velvety couch, two more Americans, Ed and Richard called “Browny”, walked in to sip on their beloved Cokes and suck on amazingly appetising cigarettes in green packages – menthol! I was on the verge of yet another discovery. As if sensing my hunger for all things foreign and especially Yankee, Browny pulled out a couple for my treasure chest – “give it try”. I was on heaven nine with intoxicating menthol creeping up my already heavily polluted lungs. It felt like a breath of fresh air.
Not for long, as much to the delight of his audience, Browny let out a very loud fart, almost piercing delicate fabrics of the special couch he was sitting on. I cringed. Such uncouth behaviour was anathema even in a least elevated Soviet company. Here, the reaction was quite the reverse – cheap laughter spread like wildfire with other attempting to repeat the feat with even less palatable results – “fart”, “fart”’ “fart”…Menthol smoke was my last redoubt defence redoubt.
Perhaps better quality of western food produced such incredible levels of tolerance, or maybe it had to do with isolated upbringings in impenetrable forests of New England. In short, I did not know what to attribute this tolerance for bodily movements to. In fact, an arrival of a couple of English from Maganavac did not improve the matter at all – amazing! I must have missed something in my university classes…
A little amused and pensive, I plunged my pinky finger into one of my nostrils in a very Russian gesture of deep thoughtfulness. This harmless motion, much to my amazement, produced a nearly a half-an-hour lecture from John England. The main subject dealt with western norms of behaviour. While some bodily functions were quite natural and hence sacrosanct, others were not welcome at all. Nose picking, after advent of Kleenex (unknown to Soviets), became a virtual taboo in the west. Although it was nearly invisible and did not smell of yesterday’s meal, its premature spot mining by human nails was deemed unspeakable and was eschewed across all strata of society. Go figure, my education was not nearing its end…
After the coffee break, Vladimir and I switched places and I was consigned to the top floor. Here the factory was installing very intricate knitting equipment under culturally aware guidance of John England and his sidekick C.K. What in the world this name is supposed to mean? Obviously, I was unfamiliar with Chinese names. At first, I was baffled by everything – his appearance, name and accent. All were rather unusual, especially for an employee of an American company from South Carolina. Little by little things started clearing up.
C.K. was a wiry little man of undetermined age, a common feature of anybody with Chinese ancestry. His home was in Hong Kong, but he really worked all over the place – China, America, and Russia – take your pick. He was a truest specimen of emerging globalised economy. Whether the term already existed, I do not know, but C.K. was it. He spoke English (with strong accent), Cantonese, Mandarin and a whole bunch of other tongues of the Mao’s Empire. He was educated in England and spanned the globe like a huge Australian spider. He was smart, hard-working and loved any humour – dry, slap-stick or Soviet – everything went. He always smiled.
Right away I took particular liking to working among in his knitting kingdom. C.K.‘s English was simple and understandable and John England was always ready for a standard BBC delivery when needing my services. No gurgling and chopping vernaculars. Life was great on the third floor. C.K. hustled around his electronics, John minded mechanics and I could just perch on one of those huge and soft bundles of freshly knit carpet material and read, or nap – not bad when you are actually getting paid.
Lunch – Tasting the Unknown
Much like the breakfast, this meal ritual delivered basically the same line-up with the Herr Director, Igor, Cedric and C.K. The food was predominantly local - fresh and hot – consisting of delicious meat cutlets, buckwheat and green salad. In contrast to breakfast there was quite a bit less of that western stuff – I guess it is a challenge to pack fresh meat and steaming soups into a large metal drum. Much to my relief the supply of vodka was rather sparse too, as some productive efforts were still planned for the remainder of the day.
Russians ploughed right into the mounds of steaming grub. Americans were not so hasty. Together with English and C.K. everyone was devising an exit strategy vis-à-vis a pot of vile smelling brown rice-like particles - buckwheat. While an unsurpassed delicacy in our minds and mouths, this grain crop does not sit well with western adventurers, especially when it is cold and devoid of any supplements such as sour cream or butter. On our table, it was steaming hot with bowls of sour cream all over. And yet all kitchen efforts failed to entice sandwich-happy westerners.
“Again, thish’bludi’broun’shtoof” – Jack was not particularly amused.
Cedric, being the most adventurous, piled on following my sour cream instructions. He loved it so did C.K. who viewed it as a no less evil than snakes or chicken legs of his homeland – a truly sensible man. The rest of the crew just could not bring themselves up to the task. Instead they attacked plates of sliced bread and some scarce condiments to create pathetic semblances of an American sandwich. Only now, under a heavy carbohydrate guise, could they get full on the delicious cutlets. The Channel was not crossed that day as most of the buckwheat was left to the cleaning crew.
“I’tink’they’try’poisoning’oos” – piped up the most intelligible of all from the Oldham Magnavac crew – Alan McGovern.
“Ne’they’a’joost’lazy’wanke’s” – everyone turned into a wanker, as soon as they crossed his Liverpoolian sensibilities.
The rest of the cafeteria, filled to the brim with people in greasy overalls and large dirty tools, just gawked at the strange large table by the window that refused delicious buckwheat while the rest of the world was choking on cold hard boiled eggs and awful barley soup. Oh well, at least I had hardly any competition – hallelujah!
With strong desire for a siesta, I just climbed up to the third floor to find yet another, still warm, roll of fresh carpet. My first working day was tiresome and full of impressions – a perfect time to contemplate with eyes shut.
Dinner – Celebration of Bacchus
Food is just a small part of life for most of us not working in five-star kitchens – isn’t it? It is hardly true for those outgoing types who are more dedicated to advances in corporate careers, academic knowledge and bulimic shaping. For many others though, life just revolves around meals. For example my dear, fully retired, father-in-law finds it irresistible to start planning his next dinner while still digging in generous portions of his current one. A truly amazing witness to certain cultural ties to the kitchen!
Back at the factory, my life was literally spinning between breakfasts, coffee breaks and a myriad of other activities related to food. Daily dinner proceedings were the most solemn, judging by numbers of vodka bottles on the table. Judging by the mood, you have just entered a medieval mask carnival somewhere between Sienna and Venice. Forget about morning grouchiness and midday sleepiness, everybody and everything was in the most joyous of moods. With another work day behind, the time was to relax and indulge in anything inebriated and juvenile. The hosts were working doubly hard to leave good and hospitable impression, and since it typically meant one thing, puzzling with other alternatives was not at all necessary.
That one thing was, of course, vodka. Sometimes served with lesser species of champagne and beer it usually serves as absolutely indispensable agent in advancing social, business or political agenda if not outright measuring one’s human worth. To be honest, Russia is not a singular phenomenon on the world’s map of dysfunctional livers. One just has to mention few locales to make a point – Korea, Japan and Ireland would not be far behind. Each boasts its unique trait along the way, but no one strays from the truth universal – an ability to hold alcohol is the key to life’s success however short it may be.
Having grown in the insular society that touts vodka as one of the most important gifts to the civilization, I have been duly inculcated in truths and realities of our national character. Sure, we could be struggling with toilet paper supplies, perennial failures of national soccer team and, Heaven forbid, occasional hockey losses, but when it came to vodka we had no rivals and this was indisputable. And this was reality that was just about to melt into a waxy blob of a myth…
The first to start was our indomitable red director, Aleksey Dmitrievich, who undoubtedly owed much of his professional fortunes to his zest for things of high octane. In his old Soviet tie and suit, he was ready to pick up where he left off at breakfast time – toasts! These were enthusiastic and frequent. A quick warm-up amidst sparkles of Champagne went along the usual lines of eternal health and happiness. Everyone participated and thanked God that we did not have any French in our midst. After all, what used to be called Champagne in the Soviet Union was no Champagne at all; it was high quality sparkling wine from Caucasian slopes instead. Being isolated and disdainful of private property rights, Soviets were only too happy to circumvent many a trade mark law. Champagne was its most famous example and a slap on the face of French pride. And yet it was quite good and our foreigners just loved it.
“fntastk’shtoof’an’so’chip” – Jack loved his Champagne, especially since it cost about 20p a bottle and he had a fridge full of them back at the dorm.
After few of these highly enthusiastic “Na Zdorovye” and “Cheers”, the ranks of drinkers started melting. First were my sensible family types from the depth of Vermont. Sure, smoking menthol cigarettes might be bad for your health but morning hangover headaches are way worse and no amount of directorial prodding could change that. Moreover, heavy 40” degree artillery was about to come and that never promised uncomplicated evening wind-downs so treasured in the simple life routines of the American backwaters.
The host kitchen just rolled out the most delicate culinary offering of the day – SPAM. This, treated by Russians as an utmost rarity to be cherished and chased by hard liquor, is usually served on rare occasions. At this table its appearance was less than welcome as it reminded everybody else of dust covered back shelves of discount grocery stores. A treat of vodka looked better and better...
“now’we’gonna’get’shit’facd” – Trevor saw it coming and remained calm twiddling with his cigarette paper as he rolled his own to the exclusion of more institutionalized tobacco.
“joost’remember, we’av’FA’final’laita” – Jack could not possibly exist without his beloved football and was even respected in this capacity despite the unfortunate life’s twist of being born and bred Liverpool supporter.
The next give up were C.K. and John England. C.K., raised on green tea leaves and sticky rice, simply reached his limit and was not going any further with his cheeks already getting distinctly purple. John, having lived in the States for years, has gotten used to uncomplicated small town routines and was out of the proceedings accordingly. I was right behind. This did not create much fuss, as my job was to translate regardless of what kind of dribble came out of the director’s mouth. And this was not going to be easy as Igor had gone home with Vladimir and I left holding the fort.
Two more toasts later, and our roles were pretty well cleared up on one certain account – you were either a participant or an observer. For observers, it was getting really amusing. The only characters left standing in the ring was a full compliment of North English and Herr Director. They were locked in an interminable battle for survival. To be exact, the contest did not resemble a typical tightening of ranks when everybody joined their respective teams on the approaches to Check Point Charlie. Instead, it was a purely individual battle akin to those of Survivor or Apprentice – everyone stood on his own to face either glorious victory or despicable demise.
“tat’blouk’s’gonna’kill’ova. Giv’m’mo’pickls” – Jack was feeling a close triumph pointing at the director.
“Deaaar genteeelmen, lets haaave another toaaasst” – I was indulging in my own director impersonations. The timing was crucial as he was about to run out of things to say.
Long gone were the “Cheers” to good health, sturdy livers and good functioning kidneys. Now, submerged in various degrees of stupor some warriors did not go any further than a short pickle catch-up before the next round. Herr Director, having lost his tie and touch with reality, was my last bastion of famed Russian superiority and yet he was fast succumbing. While each new wave of rejuvenating liquid produced just a next round of jokes in the western camp, Aleksey Dmitrievich and his side-kick assistant were just sulking behind each new glass of the vial potion. They lost, and no amount of pickles was going to soften the blow. I was appalled at the English juggernaut and what it was going to do to my fainting national pride. Maybe it was just a bump on the rough and narrow to supremacy? Or maybe they had something more than just bottomless supplies of toilet paper?
FA Madness
Aleksey Dmitrievich and Ivan, the Assistant, had to be basically carried by night shift guys in sullied coveralls to the ever-ready factory van driven by teetotal and obliging Vadim. In his clean garb and submissive smile, his presence at the factory was absolutely indispensable. After all, an ability to remain sober for most of the day was a remarkable, and much appreciated, skill. Patiently packing the mumbling director, he promised to be back in a jiff. Luckily, no immediate intervention was required as Jack and Co. were willing to wait and Americans had already left for a refreshing evening stroll.
Back at the dorm, I was treated to a small cultural spectacle revolving around football – the most beloved and passionate pastime for billions around the world. It holds a particularly addictive hold on anything English. You see, having invented the bloody game, their dominance is long gone and this is particularly vexing. While best clubs can still buy their help and win few tournaments as Liverpool and Manchester United have done in so distant past, international arena is where the national game really suffers. You can hardly buy a new birth certificate (by the way I know just the place); and managing with what you dealt by Mother Nature is the best one can do. Here their losses are many and frequent, with the famous exception of 1966 when home crowds, a bit of crossbar charm and sheer talent catapulted England to the top of the world. Since then it has been one disappointment after another. And since no amount of Irish Guinness or Scottish Scotch can alleviate the suffering, many just turn insular outright. Forget about Brazil and Italy, we have FA Cup and nothing ever going to take it from our stubborn grip!
And FA Final it was. Crystal Palace, the brash upstarts from South London were taking on the beloved United and no amount of dinner fog was about to blunt the excitement. With Herr Director long asleep and Americans still on their refreshing stroll, the cohorts congregated around a lone radio to hear every particular of the most important annual event. Armed with additional supplies of beer, cigarettes and regional slang, the tight gang managed to create a bit of the Great Kingdom, right here in the middle of Ukraine.
“we’gonna’kik’ther’arses” - Alan and Mick the Irish were particularly pumped up.
“yu’all’wanke’s” – Jack could now afford his profound philosophies of a neutral party
This was about as close I could get to the understanding of the proceedings. The radio broadcast was no help as did not resemble a stout BBC news crew in the least. Instead of my beloved Queen’s English I was subjected to a barrage of Scottish brogue (?) mixed with traces of Gaelic and other nefarious substances. Needless to say I could hardly understand what went on and went it did. The swings of fortunes were violently oscillating between posh London suburbs and industrial outskirts of Manchester. The goals were plenty and beer ran like water. The smoke was impenetrable and Trevor kept rolling his vial cigarettes.
I just sat and took in second hand smoke, at least it was foreign. Not bad. It did not feel nearly as gross as any domestic fumes. It had something sophisticated about it, especially since most of it came out of shiny golden packs of Benson & Hedges. If you die, you might as well do it in style. Elated by the enticements of fleeting pleasure, I contributed my own efforts thanks to the golden packs and Alan McGovern.
“Great’shtoof!” - despite all the excitement, the match failed to produce a winner setting another appointment for the following week. Jack was just delighted, free impartial fun took no skin off his back. The rest of the crew seemed spent. Grey from smoke and Champagne, everybody was ready for a good night sleep. Younger characters led by Mick the Irish did not agree. There still was a half a case of beer and it just couldn’t go to waste!
By this time, with their dialectical exercises stretching no further than few “fooks” and “wanke’s”, I decided to retire for much needed rest. The proclivity of my new friends for drink and their ability to withstand its effects were truly amazing. My shredded national pride required much needed mending and R&R.
World Traveler
My usual daily routine did not require much settling due to its lack of complexity. Gloomy breakfasts, jovial coffee breaks and bacchanalian dinners interchanged in a steady succession of life as colourful images of a kaleidoscope. My knowledge of English dialects, slang and pronunciations was ballooning faster than US federal debt and my waste-line fed by steady supplies of peanut butter was not far behind. The life could hardly get any rosier. I surely received a much needed dose of distraction to deflect all those life traumas that seemed to just pile on in the beginning of the year. I felt as comfortable as a butterfly in a motherly cocoon and even Vladimir’s sonorous sleeping patterns were not all that disturbing after all.
Amazingly, my luck was about to take an uptick, as one morning I was summoned up to the director’s office for a special assignment – to deliver a fresh addition to the troops - and all the way from Moscow, no less. His name was Vic Baldwin. Apparently, he managed to get stuck there, waiting for some necessary new tools to arrive by air, the very tools British Airways loaded on his flight over. Imagine that – lost luggage! With distinct smudges on his burnished capitalist image, Vic took it pretty hard and now required a rescue crew to help with the tools and general logistics through the Byzantium of local travel arrangements and “KGB” that was always on the look-out for suspicious stragglers.
My joy was boundless as it was going to be my first “corporate” trip. A common phenomenon in the west, “corporate” travel in Soviet Union was typically much less exciting. Intermingled with grey non-descript ties, unhealthy amounts of vodka and creaky metal mesh beds of military issue, these trips at times managed to take years off one’s life and were not particularly envied with exception of few lucky types who got to travel to balmy Crimea, relaxed Georgia or, amazingly, near d’etranger. As a first timer though, I was ready to go anywhere south of the Arctic Circle and a trip to Moscow was just an unbelievable bonus. Bring on the squeaky beds!
Twenty hours later I was in the capital, working to secure Vic’s passage to the bowels of the Empire. The only way to connect was to collect him at the famous Hotel Ukraine in person, as understanding his dialect over the phone proved impossible. Much to my relief and general happiness, Vic turned out to be much less threatening type than his brusque telephone manners would imply. In fact, he was as cuddly as they came, so easy to get stuck just about anywhere. He turned out to be a closest human personification of a walrus, quivering on the top of his strong bowed legs of a former athlete. He carried himself with an utter degree of seriousness, statesman like. With thick rimmed glasses and perpetually fuming pipe, imbuing a great deal of respect in the eyes of his Lancashire colleagues, Vic, the Yorkshire Man, was the head of all walruses.
“I’m’Yoksha’man” - came out with dignity and decorum between his measured pipe puffs. He did it almost Stalin-like, giving yours truly very little room for a joke or two. No “KGB” was about to get him, even in the Hotel Ukraine. Vic was incorruptible and cheap, immune to hardships of easy, paid for, eastern travel.
Careful with money all his life, Vic was unwavering in his lack of generosity. After asking me to do a quick street exchange for his twenty-pound note, he carefully counted every penny, kopek to be exact. The whole procedure nearly put me to sleep. But suddenly this little dull scene, transpiring in the worn-out foyer of his hotel, became a lot brighter. My dimwitted brain, observing Vic’s careful handling of roubles, came across a gold mine – foreign exchange. You see, currency exchanged outside Soviet Central Bank was deemed illegal and could not avail itself of nearly costless transfers between non-existent commercial banks; hence there was a geographic premium. For example, Moscow International Airport at Sheremetyevo could command an exchange rate of 1USD to 14 roubles when in Centre of Moscow it could go up to 15 and in the Ukrainian periphery it fetched an easy 20. The spreads were huge and I just found another source of supplementary income.
The rest was a matter of mechanics, as we shared a plush first-class rail compartment purchased for a princely sum of $5 USD. There between Vic’s rolling snoring explosions and the steady drum beat of soothing rail travel I peacefully fell asleep.
The Legend of Dick Cross
“Oh, you actually got him here – remarkable” – Cedric was the most amused. Puffing on his menthol and sipping his steamy midday coffee he greeted our afternoon arrival rather philosophically – “hopefully he does better than Dick Cross”
Mentioning of Dick Cross made me smile as I had a juicy foretaste of the story our helpful Cedric was about to tell Vic. Having heard the gem on a couple of occasions before, I could hardly swallow this pleasure of all things warm and familiar.
Well, it did not start this way as everything appeared normal on the very first flight over to the Evil Empire. Cedric, Ed and Dick were in it together – facing rude guards, smoked-out customs and thorough baggage checks. Everything went just splendidly as it should have in the midst of Perestroika. The generals were chased back to the barracks, trade encouraged and KGB muzzled, life just could not be any less complicated and serene.
It was not nearly that simple for Dick, Richard as he was christened some years ago when born to an old, staunchly Protestant, American family. From his earlier simple years of growing up in the backwoods of one of the most tranquil states, Dick was an impressionable young fellow. In school he frequently found himself a predictable victim of many a bully. Life was a struggle sometimes and it got considerably better when Dick assumed an inconspicuous blue collar career of a mechanic. He loved turning nuts, bolts and other things that did not bite. His future was getting rosier - he got married, bought a house and drove a Ford pick-up. Everything was safe including his picket fence. The only worry was those distant Red Commies who constantly threatened to smudge his peaceful existence with atomic confrontations, clandestine killings and brash kidnappings. The KGB was dreadful and Dick regretted hid not choosing a more profitable career so he could build a decent bomb shelter.
“Dick, Dick. They are watching you” – Cedric and Ed were snickering behind Dick’s back on their first memorable walk across Red Square. Dick was pale and terrified. He hated the place and felt harassed by everyone including his dear compatriots. Feeling bullied just like back in the elementary school, all Dick wanted was to run to his room and stick a pillow over his head and hide - anything to dampen the horrors of the place. Besides, he was having second thoughts about his wife going on vacation to visit her friend in Venice Beach, California.
“Eh Dick, beware of the transformation when your wife comes back from her vacations. She might be a different person once those pumped-up dudes are through with her” – Cedric was fully aware of the dangers associated with the famous beach, home to the world bodybuilding community, pumped with testosterone and who knows what else.
“Get Lost” – Dick could hardly mount even simple defence. After all Cedric knew all about marital troubles going through a divorce only two years ago.
“Sure things might be cheap here but these numbnuts, Cedric and Ed, just refuse to understand the gravity of the situation. Here was the bloody Lenin’s Tomb with the guards. They are not just there for decorative purposes, did you now that? Just look at those bayonets and AK-47s – beats a heck out my “hunning” rifles at home” – Dick was just tiptoeing around, as if trying not to unduly disturb anything with KGB lurking behind any wall, corner and window. He needed his beer and it was nowhere to be found.
His first three days in Moscow were a pure torture. However, once on the train taking the trio into the depth of Ukraine, Dick’s fears were not assuaged. “Dick, they are watching you” lurked around every corner. Besides the state of toilets was despicable, toilet paper scarce and every thirty minutes they kept trying to poison everyone with some liquid they called “chai”.
Half-alive on arrival in Zhelti Vodi, Dick was hardly in the position to report to work. Fearing imminent stomach ills that lurked in his fragile body, he resorted to a liquid diet consisting of beer and diet coke as Soviets had not kept up with the new mode of privatised public water supplies typically referred to as “bottled water”. Skulking behind on his squeaky metal-mesh bed he moaned and groaned in desperate solitude when his friends went to work. Evenings went a little better but each morning brought with it a new bout of fear and indigestion. After a week of hell, his superiors on both ends of the Ocean realised their mistake and agreed on releasing Dick to his endless supplies of heavily processed food and beloved fresh beer.
So Dick’s Soviet troubles ended just as abruptly as they began. He was off and the legend of Dick Cross was born. His valiant efforts at the field of international toils left enough forage to last till the end of the campaign and beyond.
Jimmy Lohutko – A Ticking Bomb
America is generally very famous for its ability to produce serial killers in a steady, uninterruptible, procession. A number of theories have been advanced to explain such an anomaly. Wide availability of guns, pistols and bazookas for sale, lease or rent is cited as one. Marilyn Manson is inevitably as the other. However, the most peculiar attribute is employment with US Postal Service. In fact, the term “Gone Postal” has even entered the vernacular and is as common as “Barney” or “Mulligan”. It has also expended its meaning far beyond anybody associated with the stolid employer paid-for health insurance. It now includes anybody who boils white hot underneath and looks perfectly normal on the surface. A peculiar combination that is bound to explode from time to time and the worst part about is that it is virtually impossible to detect.
The scene of Jimmy leaving Soviet Customs at Sheremetyevo could hardly have been any more serene. His green wind breaker, tight fit jeans and white Nike sneakers appeared to be in complete harmony with his demure freshman smile and neatly combed straw like hair set on a youthful face adorned with well-trimmed moustache. Jimmy came as substitution for Dick Cross and he was going to stay. Not only was he anxious to spend some time in the country that gave him his name “Lohutko”, but also he felt much in the way of healthy curiosity, unafraid of KGB, Red Army and Politburo. Right from the start, we got alone famously as by now I was nearly a pro at the gurgling Vermontese. Besides, I knew certain cultural attractions that made these nice open people a delight to be around. Jimmy paid back in the same coin and our trip back to the factory was as pleasant as they ever were.
Always on the look-out for souvenirs, Jimmy was delighted to try out the cheapness of local rouble shops. He loved his dollars at 15 to 1, and I was only happy to oblige making himself my very first customer of the budding foreign exchange empire. Besides trinkets, Jimmy was a good fellow in those bright cheerless mornings, always ready to laugh at Cedric’s jokes and throw a dart or two at either Herr Director or Jack. Mostly though he was super friendly to everyone, exhibiting all the best traits America is known for – wide smiles, strong family connections and hard Protestant work ethic. Jimmy just loved showing wallet-sized pictures of his family. It was idyllic – a pretty wife, a cute house and a young healthy kid with ruddy cheeks, just like his father.
At night, Jimmy was just as circumspect of the drink of most of his compatriots, much eschewing bacchanalian inclinations of people from the Continent. He was just so unlike Jack or Mick the Irish – “tight’american’arse”. This went on for a couple of weeks.
On one particularly famous dinner outing designed to entertain particularly welcome bosses from the English contractor Taylor Woodraw, Jimmy suddenly decided to sprint with the English to the finish line. The closer they got the more rotten his mood threatened to turn. The smell of burning mortar started filling my nostrils. As Jack, Alan and Mick were proceeding along their usual jovial route; Jimmy was getting closer and closer to the edge. Foul-mouthed and angry, he was about to rip into anything and anybody. By the end of the dinner, some had to assume their new roles as hockey referees trying to break up many a conflagration swirling around Mr. Lohutko. “Look out!” somebody shouted as Jimmy was about to plough into yet another international guest. The world war was about to start and Soviets were not even supplying anything stronger than state produced vodka – remarkable!
Luckily, a major conflict was avoided that night as Jimmy was forcefully led to his lonely quarter. Next morning his mood was foul and required pickles, many pickles. Everybody were learning their lessons fast and stayed away from Jimmy at dinner time, as he started assuming his dual personality more often than not - pleasant and peaceful by day and on the verge of the precipice by night. Some wished Dick Cross was back.
I was one of the few who managed Jimmy well at night. Cedric was the other. Ultimately, he figured what triggered his postal proclivities – family troubles. It turned out that while Jimmy was making hard currency here in USSR, his wife was spending much pleasant time with a neighbour. While not the worst piece of news in morally corrupt locales, in America it meant a family disaster. Before getting back home and setting things straight, Jimmy could only suspect and insinuate. He could hardly cope and went to the telegraph station every other day to call home. He was a wreck and I felt sorry for him – no more wallet pictures and smiles. The longer his calls home went, the worse if got culminating in him setting a world record when managing to run up a bill of over $300 USD on a single phone call during his short stop-over in Frankfurt. Deutsche Telecom was very happy as Jimmy having no religion had only vodka to drown it all. Not all was that rosy in America after all…
Tuscan Son
No matter how much daily sun was produced during that hot early summer, nothing could compare with the radiant glow of the very son of sun - Mauro. His timing could not have been better in the shadows of Jimmy’s troubling departure. Hailing from the very world gem of Florence, he was a true embodiment of his motherland. Just imagine David plus cascading long perm hair and voila. Straight and long Etruscan nose completed the picture.
His very arrival at the factory caused a little furor around the place. Herr Director and Ivan, the assistant, hastily called a conference with Igor, trying to determine what type of species Mauro belonged to. Since stolid Soviet sensibilities did not leave much room for long hair for the stronger sex, they were in a conundrum as to whether offer him separate toilet facilities. Besides, everyone on the floor wanted to see him, creating small swirls of traffic jams whenever he went. His numerous gold chains and other ornaments did not help the matters. Fearlessly strolling through the place in his brand new sneakers and crisp coveralls, he was our new hero. Forget about Jack, C.K. and Alan. Those now looked tired, worn-out and common. Nobody cared about Magnavac any longer as volunteers for Santa Lucia, Mauro’s employer, were galore.
It took at least a couple of days for the hoopla to settle in some semblance of every day rhythm. In due course I was assigned to care for our new arrival. This was a piece of cake, as Mauro’s English was simple and fully recognizable continental version. Moreover, Mauro was a consummate worker who did not waste his time under any circumstances even when facing some immediate issues. On many an occasion instead of calling me up from a cozy chair and coffee with menthol, he took on a task of becoming trilingual by learning few useful Russian phrases.
At the dinner table he was exemplary, hardly imbibing any alcohol and eating buckwheat without complaints. He also liked my translations of whatever went on the English side of the table very much. Back at the dorm, he was a gracious host providing his guests through an ample personal soft drinks department. I even received basic instructions in Italian. I jumped on the drinks demurring on Italian, waiting for better times to come.
Fortunately, we worked six-day weeks leaving each Sunday with hardly anything to do. A trip to the near metropolis of Dnepropetrovsk was a welcome opportunity. Not only it offered some sightseeing but also a chance to restock on some necessary supplies exclusively available in the local Berezka (hard currency shop). With trusty and sober Vadim at the wheel, the mood was particularly joyful since I had arranged for some from the University’s English department to give us company. This was very much appreciated since most of our new guides were women, young and pretty. My English cohorts immediately rushed into the thick of things. Mauro was not far behind. Clean cut, statuesque and exotic – he was a definite hit. His English stumbles forgiven and jewellery gleaming, some found him simply irresistible.
My friend Helen was among them. She, thin and long-legged, with slightly exotic looks still bearing traces of the Tatar invasion could easily match Mauro’s passion for opposite sex. From the very start, they were indivisible, lost in a solitary conversation, a pensive thought or his thick soccer hair – lovely!
Well, after a couple of weeks, when all other momentary acquaintances from the English department fizzled into nothing, Helen started becoming a regular fixture around our encampment. My Italian lessons suddenly had to stop while Mauro was stocking up on Champagne and chocolate. Needles to say things accelerated from there, and now Helen lives under the Tuscan sun - amidst all those grapes, marble and pasta. If interested to read more please refer to “My Crazy Friend Helen”.
Last Days
German Olli was the last one to arrive. His Teutonic outfit managed to sell just one machine on the whole assembly. It was the very last fur finishing implement that was personification of pure German engineering pride. Huge in stature and amiable in spirit, well-travelled Olli fit right in. Unlike Mauro’s, his entrance was less conspicuous but no less formidable – all in leather with thick Keiser moustache and beer belly; he hardly drank anything but beer and was a good company apart from predictable cheapness, so common to happy beneficiaries of the famed Marshal Plan. With a tall biker girlfriend back in Frankfurt, Ollie was a harmless creature of habit who tolerated spam and buckwheat with remarkable equanimity.
Now, at the end of the project he was a welcome sign after weeks of English debauchery. Even Herr Director seemed to appreciate these soberer times. The factory in Zhelti Vodi was the first out of six scattered all over the map to receive the wondrous textile equipment and Herr Director was happy to be at the end of his piece. He was exhausted and in urgent need of rehab. He dismally lagged behind the blokes and any chance of restoration to our national pride was left to his unsuspected counterparts in other locations. He could see the end of the tunnel as our project was chugging along the original schedule hardly hampered by excessive feasting. After all, no amount of vodka could demolish incessant advances of capitalism. Money, or more precisely decent amounts of it, was important and nobody cared to overstay their slot in Zhelti Vodi. With each new piece of the whole line falling into its place, our dinner table was getting thinner and quieter. Long gone were Jack, Alan and the rest of the unruly crew. Vic followed their steps not too far behind, waddling walrus-like into the thinning horizon.
Now came the time to say goodbye to C.K. and John. They could not wait. Stifling summer heat reminded John too much of his beloved air-conditioned country house back in South Carolina. C.K. was not too far behind pining for his two-bedroom affair in the jungles of Hong Kong. He had not eaten his favourite red bean soup in months and now could not bear this separation any longer.
With very married and contemplative Vladimir involved in many an amorous affair in and around of Zhelti Vodi, the lot of transporting C.K. and John to Moscow inevitably fell on yours truly. Everything started in average fashion – a $5USD taxi ride to the airport seventy miles away seamlessly shifted into a $5USD plane ride (for all three) to Moscow and viola, we stood in front of the very western concrete structure with many windows and people in wing-tipped shoes – International Trade Centre, the best and the poshest the Mother Russia could produce at the time. The place was heavily guarded, offered a variety of glitzy hard currency shops and had an incredible lobby with transparent space-like elevators briskly sliding up and down its multi-story edifice. I was totally and utterly mesmerised.
Stepping inside was the closest thing to entering Western Europe short of passport control and KGB scrutiny. They had thick-headed bouncers instead. Safely though their strong-gripped hands, I felt like an alien. Here they accepted just about any currency but roubles. I felt sheepish and intimated since my stash of $100 USD could hardly buy a thing here. C.K and John were just the opposite. Feeling homely serendipity they fearlessly strolled directly into the elevator to whisk us right to the top of the office tower where their emissary Lloyds of London kept their offices.
“They help us out with some logistics from time to time. Besides they ensured the whole project” – John was having a field day with his protégé. I was all ears.
Soon I would have to become all hands and sinew though – “we have a suitcase with some spare parts for you to take back to Zhelti Vodi” – a feeling of belonging to something important and useful washed over me. I was ready to tug and pull.
Inside the glitzy office that could have competed with the best Si-Fi movies I had ever seen we were greeted by a Russian secretary, Tatyana, with impeccable English and very long legs. “Hello Gentlemen” – she serenaded our unfitting jeans and t-shirts – “Mr. Jones would be back in a couple of minutes. Please have a seat. Would you like anything to drink?” The next thing I knew we were served some very chilled heavenly drink with ice cubes. Wow, I felt like back in my childhood eating my first and only pineapple. The reality was slowly merging into a hazy dream…
Alas, Mr. Jones was back soon enough and after an exchange of necessary pleasantries, a large plastic suitcase was handed over to me. Actually, it was dragged by Mr. Jones and C.K. employing all four as only Goliath himself could lift the thing. It literally weighed a tone. “Hrrrr” – I nearly dislocated my shoulder tugging it to the elevator. Tatyana, her magic secretarial machines and freshly squeezed pineapple juice were waving their distant good-byes from the world yonder.
John and C.K. felt a little pity for me, taking me for a treat at the local pub, my first ever. Behind those heavy “glass and guard” they were in their element and it showed. The pub was full of inebriating whiffs of first rate tobacco, French cologne and foreign tongues. After managing to navigate with my little suitcase we were installed near a little round board of many colours that bore countless injuries inflicted by small little arrow things thrown by grown men with Guinness Pints – dartboard! It was a truly fascinating pastime. It seemed as if more beer one drank the closer he came to the bull’s eye. Forget rigorous stretching routines and 10K runs. All one needed was a pint. I was intrigued with the craft, as C.K. and I rushed in to our amateurish endeavour.
“Eh guys, do you know what I toilet I sat on in the bathroom?!” – John’s eyes were bursting in flames of adolescent excitement.
“What?” – we felt shocks of his electric charges.
“American Standard!!!” – we officially hit a new low.
Trying to avoid concentrating too much on toilet paper and swishing porcelain bowls, I dug in my very first shepherd’s pie. A mushy wallop of potatoes on top reminded of my mother’s cooking – delicious. I dug further. Now came out some interesting sauce of similar consistency. Any minute now I expected to come across something harder, a piece of meat to be exact. Instead, I kept pulling out same gooey mushy stuff till I got all the way to the bottom – “where was the meat?”
“You have eaten it!” – “Did I?” – “That delicious brown stuff” – John was pointing to something liquidly on the tip of his fork. No wonder there was only one British Pub in the whole of Moscow…
Loaded by the culinary adventure we arrived at the overwhelming honeycomb of daily bustle – Sheremetyevo Airport. Crowds swirled in one huge vortex that threatened to consume my favourite suitcase. I wish it did. Instead, I was to be left all alone with John and C.K. readying to give their last adieu.
“This is for you” – John just stuffed something sweaty into my hand in the midst of a suddenly Russian bear-hug.
“See you later” – sad and curious, all at the same time. I was sad to see them off and curious to find out what was in my hand. “Forty bucks! – Wow!” I just made an equivalent of my mom’s two monthly salaries. Dragging this blasted suitcase all the way back to Zhelti Vodi did not seem much of a burden any longer.
Quick Change
My return to now quiet factory was not nearly as peaceful as previously envisioned. The signs were not that great from the start as perpetually sarcastic Igor could not contain a certain portion of glee written all over his sly face.
“Your buddy Vladimir has gone back home” - I guess his matrimonial woes brought some pressure to bear. His toll stature and Pushkin-like hair attracted its portion of affairs that could have been the envy of the great poet himself. His wife was pissed off and ready to move back to her mother. Vladimir’s choices were suddenly limited and he hastily departed leaving much translating vacuum behind. On the other hand, my pristine prenuptial self was immune to Igor’s complex innuendos. I failed to smell the rat. After all, why would I worry? Without Vladimir I would be the only point of reference for the lost sheep. Or would I?
As I was puzzling, lost in calculations, here around the corner came Cedric, in full swing discussing something very technical with Ivan, the assistant. Oh horror! It was a new translator! Gnaws of envy started taking their hasty bites at my self-worth. I was nearly devastated. This new upstart in dark glasses and a cigarette to boot had something to offer I could not beat no matter how much slang I knew – she was a woman! With Cedric the only one left to commandeer the workings of the textile wonder, my choices were stark and I just turned around and went home. The bleeding suitcase loaded with masses of mechanical junk was left like a bedraggled and unwanted puppy on the steps of SPCA…
With my thin ties to the west nearly severed, I was sort of wallowing in bouts of self-pity. I had to come up with new schemes lest being consigned back the Labour Safety class. Suddenly, my phone rang. It was Ed from Parkson Woolson.
“Eh Sasha, remember we talked about you working on other locations?” – I was just flabbergasted as lady fortune showed up once again. Forget about cheap British and hard working Italians, my Americans were ready to open their wallets once again. Amazing – I loved the United States!
“The pay is forty dollars per week plus your expenses” – I was floored, bye-bye Labour Safety.
“Get in touch with Cedric; he is still in Zhelti Vodi. He’ll tell you of our plans in more detail”
“What the heck is he still doing there?”
“I think he’s getting married to that girl, Margaret” – “Get out of here!”
I could hardly believe that our philosophical and at times sarcastic Cedric got seduced by eastern charms of the very translator filling my spot! Now, there was no time to philosophise as I had to line up things with Cedric.
“Hey it’s me” – “I know” – I could never surprise him with any of my many appearances. Few hours later I found myself in front of the door to Rita’s apartment, the place Cedric called his temporary home. The door was opened by a smiley middle aged woman with curly blond hairdo and thick glasses - the mother. Rita and Cedric were not far behind. Everyone seemed happy to see me. After all, there was no need for ongoing rivalries as Rita had made a quick transition from an English school teacher to a translator to a bride of a foreign national. Everybody loved the transformation. Cedric got the best future mother-in-law one could wish. She cooked wicked meals, smiled and did not talk back. In other words things were progressing swimmingly and Cedric was on track to become a married man once again.
I enjoyed spending time with all of them. Menthol was widely available and appreciated by just about anyone except the mother. By this time, the Legend of Dick Cross had been enhanced to the point of art and could be recited in many voices even with an occasional pantomime – very original. On the business front things looked just as good; although Cedric did not require my help any longer, Ed and Brawny were only happy to see me back on board.
When working for these two back in Zhelti Vodi I did get to fully appreciate their quite and very American generosity. I was much too attracted to the Brits with their shoestring domestic budgets and Italians with their liras that were way too hard to count. Now I even felt slightly ashamed and repentant. Happily, it was not in their rural blood to bear grudges. They just loved comforts of certainty and familiarity, as no one appreciates routine as hard working Americans minting their dreamy retirement plans, independent of all things distant and penurious when it came to Social Security, a monumental retirement scheme that makes one works too long before kicking in. Brits drank and smoked, not expecting to see the end of their misery in this lifetime and Germans could get by on sign language and pickles. Americans needed me and I was there to oblige. The dollars did the rest of the trick.
.
World Traveler – Part II
Now I was criss-crossing the whole country in just about any possible direction. The arrangements were simple and well-worked out. Pick up the bunch in Moscow; spend a couple of days enjoying delights of the capital; jump on a $1 or $2 flight to the very edges of the Earth – all very exciting. Besides, I supplemented my income with a clandestine currency exchange operation that counted as its top asset a pair of boxer shorts underwear with pockets, fashioned by whom else but my dear mother.
Whenever leaving for Moscow, the usual starting point for my gigs, the well-sewn pockets contained heavy stacks of soggy roubles. When coming home, the pockets rested under a light yoke of valuable greenery. This is the operation in the nutshell; the rest was a matter of contacts. Since currency exchanged outside Soviet Central Bank was deemed illegal and could not avail itself of nearly costless transfers between non-existent commercial banks, there was a geographic premium. For example, Moscow International Airport at Sheremetyevo could command an exchange rate of 1USD to 14 roubles when in Centre of Moscow it could go up to 15 and in the Ukrainian periphery it fetched easy 20. As you can see the spreads were humongous – a rather lucrative proposition for anybody having a first name access to US dollars in addition to a pair of sturdy underwear.
Things were just hopping. As those days I spent more time travelling and standing with both feet on firm unmovable ground. Our appearances at each location typically caused much consternation on the part of red directors and their assistants. First of all, all their heavily laden KGB protocols were blown to pieces by arrival of one extra foreigner who actually spoke flawless Russian – imagine that! Already shaky, the matters were about to turn for the worse, as the extra “foreigner” was revealed to be a Soviet Citizen after all – “these blasted Yankees brought their own translator!”
Had this happened just few years prior, whole local KGB detachments would have been put in a state of alert and my ass would have been flying back home on a minute’s notice’ and this is not counting some potential jail time. Fortunately, with strong winds of Perestroika blowing in our backs, the mood was decidedly more positive especially after finding out that precious Soviet industrial resources were not going to be used to pay my salary. Once all t’s cross and i’s dotted, I was free to move around in just about any direction, unimpeded.
The very first order of business then was to locate a magic food drum among the boxes and crates that housed multi-million dollar pieces of equipment. We could not possibly start worrying about free trade and contracts when peanut butter was not on the table.
In Tula, our first port of call, Browny and I spent a couple of hours among piles of industrial debris looking for the proverbial jar of honey.
“Crackkk” – another crate gave in. in with dust and cobwebs thrusting into our nostrils. “Oh, there it is!” – I could hardly wait for the huge blue barrel to be brought into light.
“Crackkk” – the barrel is open and I have a first diving right. With a couple of cans of beloved beans and a Casco sized peanut butter container, I am stocked up for some time. Ed and Co. dive in for their favourite porridge, while the rest of scraps is distributed among the local workers. A wild celebration ensues! A good day’s work is done and we’ll start tomorrow – and I might need new pants to accommodate ever-bulging dimensions of my waste line.
Joyous Company
The rest of each subsequent project was just a mirror copy of previous ones with not much to report, except that I never again came across another red director who could compete with the bacchanalian tendencies of Aleksey Dmitriyevich from Zhelti Vodi. To fill in the blanks we needed an internal boost, one that only English could deliver. With Jack staying home to nurse his frequent headaches, Magnavac sent many a worthy reinforcements that included Mick the Irish, Neil and Jonny. These fellows did not need any red director and took matters in their own hands. Usually well-inebriated when through a couple of bottles of white stuff between three of them after the dinner time, they typically embarked on beer expeditions that could easily consume a case of first-rate Heineken before the night was over.
At this stage, Neil would frequently be amiable to starting yet another bottle of vodka, this time without glasses or other necessary decorum, just jugging it straight out - making any self-respecting Russian alcoholic cringe. Mick would slow down to a steady stream of “fooks” and “wankes”, and Jonny would be just there, silently starring at whatever wall colour happened to be in front of him. When the holy trio made it back to their rooms Americans, Germans and I were seeing our third dreams. The early wake-up time was the same for everybody and, amazingly, the English were out to prove that living up to the age of fifty was still possible. I guess life in the gruesome North must have been truly miserable and Manchester United’s successes could solve life’s worries. With wages low, hovering well below 10P per hour, the drink was the only method of survival in these bleak post-colonial days.
Forget about gloomy evenings for a minute, as every morning revealed an incredible transformation. Neil, Mick and Jonny always turned up in the most cheerful of moods that lasted throughout the day – honestly… These guys should have tried for a Polar iron man instead. Here with wrenches and screw drivers in hand, they seemed to be able to put in an honest day’s work as if the stuff they drank gallons of last night were lemonade. Long Live the Queen!
One day their company was just about the get a kick in the arse (in the mischief department, of course) – please welcome Mr. Cox from Birmingham. His triumphal entry into the factory was nearly ruined as I managed to fashion a greeting sign that savaged his honourable name – “Mr. Cocks”. Luckily, Ed arrived in change a course of history for the better or hardly… As the sign turned out to be a true descriptor of this fully bearded hippy-looking individual with the thickest of accents. He opened a new season with a bang. Besides it was hardly a problem in the city where women outnumbered men by two to one. When Tsars waived their economic wand to establish an industrial textile works in the city of Krasnaya Presna, they could hardly suspect long-term implication of such a decision. The end-product proved to be as economic as it was demographic as women’s beautiful and graceful fingers manages to lace intricate textile work with much more efficiency and flair, completely unattainable by gruff and unskilled male limbs, making their unfortunate owners scarce in the Russian capital of textile. Generation came and went… and here came a knight on the white horse.
Although he was not really a true medieval knight and wore grubby blue overalls instead of sturdy hand-fashioned armour, Mr. Cox proved to be no less romantic and useful when it came to rescuing beautiful Russian women lost in heavy winter blizzards. He did not take much to start. His single status and firm lack of attachments back in Birmingham made him irresistible. Felling emboldened and in a good company Neil and Mick proceeded in the same direction. Jonny was still staring at the wall.
Finally, his love searching inclinations culminated in an intriguing way when honourable Mr. Cox made an offer of marriage to a pretty translator, Natasha. The trouble was that Natasha was a married woman. No problem, six months later she was a free bird on a flight to heavily sooted Birmingham architecture. Inna and Olga, other translators, did not have as complicated flight arrangements. They went to Erevan, Armenia – the next port of call for Joyous Company, chasing Neil and Mick respectively. While Inna acted in a very adventurous but acceptable fashion of the emancipated sex, Olga was slightly more risqué, as she embarked in this “vacation” trip just one week after her own wedding that apparently went without a hitch. I think she was planning her honeymoon shortly thereafter…Oh, ya Jonny was staring at yet another wall.
Jimmy – Beefstroganoff is My second Name
With Joyous Company popping in and out of my eyesight, I was only delighted to work with much more “moral” American values that compared more than favourably with friends from the Continent. On this side life was happily enjoyed with not much of a drink or a mischief. The routine was predictable, monotone and nearly pleasant. Only Jimmy Lohutko, trying to reach to his wilder roots, provided more of a diversion. With his marriage woes mostly behind and divorce nearly finalised, Jimmy was open to things of mildly agitating nature. And since he always needed a guide to get around – I become his willing accomplice.
On one occasion we, Jimmy and I, had to spend few days in Moscow, waiting for some late arriving parts. It was early December and gloomy Moscow winter was upon us in all its ugliness – dirty impenetrable snow banks, freezing temperatures and almost complete absence of sunshine. All these did not sit well for outdoor adventures. We were stuck inside of Cosmos hotel, a huge concrety spread of a building that accepted roubles hardly for anything, did not take reservations from anybody sporting Hammer and Sickle on their passports and exhibited heavy bouncer-types by its doors.
Entirely bored, we made our way to the rouble side of the vast cavernous Soviet restaurant with grumpy waiters, bright fluorescent lighting and huge menus that would beat any New York diner hands down. The only problem was that despite the abundance of items on the list, anything we pointed our fingers to was not available – “Nyet”. Gone was fresh Sevryuga caviar, depleted were Bulgarian pickels and the offering of charming hot Ukrainian borsch just could not be located. Undeterred by the sight of other people around us consuming some articles resembling food, I enquired: “What is available exactly?” – “Beefstroganoff!” – was the laconic reply.
“Excellent, you’d love it Jimmy. A true pan-Slavic creation!” – Jimmy was delighted. Even our wait was not that long as the kitchen must have anticipated our arrival with every pot and crevasse filled with delicious brown stew. At the end, Jimmy felt fully covered in his latest Soviet experience and we switched to the hard currency bar fully stocked with foreign beer, pretzels and hookers. With skipped on the hookers in favour of beer and a conversation with a nice lady, Carol, travelling on her own from Massachusetts. Being Jimmy’s neighbour, they struck it pretty well and at least for the next two grim days we had a company.
Delighted to have a new companion, we even ventured to some landmark tours including menacing brick walls of Kremlin and marble stillness of Lenin’s tomb. Hungry and bedraggled, we just craved a nice hot meal in our western enclave. Carol was only happy to follow us back to the Soviet dietary cavern. Right before opening our menus, I assessed a situation around. On the right they cheered with some vodka, on the left a bottle of Champagne towered above a young couple enjoying a private meal, right behind they just tranquilly sipped on some steamy chai. All this harmonious diversity bore inerasable strokes of painful familiarity - brown-sauced potato clumps and stringy meat.
Once again, the menus were an unnecessary luxury - “Beefstroganoff Please.” Next day, we braved the cold and the slush, criss-crossing the city in search of some dish that did not end with an “ff”.
Yesinia – the Tower of Babel
From Moscow we headed to the western-most part of Ukraine – Zakarpatye. Squished by Carpathian Mountains to the east, and Soviet border to the west, this region is a melting pot of cultures, tongues and sensibilities. Although part of Ukraine, the region boasts many spoken languages - Hungarian, Rumanian, Polish and Slovakian. Throw some Russian and sprinkle it with English and German, and you got a complete multi-lingual nightmare.
Yesinia, lost in some deep valley near the Romanian border turned out to be a village in the winter paradise, as it charms were not lost despite to our late night arrival. Creaking in our summery shoes through freshly strewn crisp snow past barking dogs behind tall fences, I felt intrigued and unsure of what to expect in the morning. I felt Siberia and yet it was as Ukrainian as Lvov.
Our early ride to the factory did not reveal much as it transpired under a canopy of grey pre-sunrise sky. Only after having our first coffee break and opening our first blue drum with peanut butter and beans, did outside light start seeping through thick industrial curtains. Ollie, our old German companion, could not resist the temptation and pulled the heavy curtain all the way to one side to let golden rays of morning sun to completely flood the entire factory floor. To our collective owe, the panorama of golden snow-capped peaks and steep slopes dressed in thick firs was just breath-taking.
“This is just like Alps!” – Ollie was stricken by the beauty and ruggendess of the peaks.
“Phenomenal” – Cedric fell into a momentary reflective mood of reminiscence
“Do they drink vodka or something stiffer?” – Jimmy was fed up with “beefstroganoff” and beer. He could not wait.
I was very intrigued and little scared, envisioning having to switch from Russian to Ukrainian – a tough task for an Easterner. To make matters worse, any Ukrainian I had heard so far was completely incomprehensible. They called it Ukrainian and yet I failed to understand a single word – what a conundrum! There had to be an explanation. Luckily, another translator, Sergey, was a local with much fluency in such issues.
“When Mongolian horsemen swarmed over the land that later became known as the Russian Empire in the 13th century, their cruelty and greed appeared to have found a natural barrier in the form of the Carpathian Mountains. By now satiated hordes left the people on the other side alone. Thus their language and customs persevered. While the language on the east side continued changing and developing under the influence of the Mongolian invasion plus other historical twists and turns, the language behind the mountains laid dormant and retained much of its ancient traits. In fact some claim that what we hear in Zakarpatye is not Ukrainian at all but rather a version of ancient Russian”, Sergey was excellent in efficient and almost scholarly delivery.
“Great! But what do I do for translating. I surely cannot learn the language of ancient Muscovy in a couple of days?” I was still puzzling over my challenge.
“Do not worry, they all speak Russian anyway”, my fears were misplaced once more.
Things returned back to normal. Cedric had Margaret, I mostly helped Ed and Ollie, as Jimmy found new buddies interested in the bottle. Language aside they hardly had any barriers. The rest of the trip was great as we even ventured up to a mountain lodge where I had some first-time luck at alpine skiing. I even managed to arrive at the bottom of the run in one piece where I was greeted by Jimmy with a full to the brim glass of vodka – to celebrate. He did the celebrating and I went back up for more thrills. Our time in Yesinia was coming to an end and I did not want to miss any pleasures it had to offer.
Erevan – Last Port of Call
Our most exciting destination was the capital of then still Soviet Armenia – Erevan. Unlike gloomy Moscow and even gloomier towns in the middle Russia, this place had much promise from the very outset even as we first stepped into the local airport. The southerly winds softly caressed our faces as we stepped out of the artificial blue oxygen of air travel. Our paces involuntarily quickened, hastened by wildly gesticulating crowds that were frantically swirling in vortexes of inexhaustible activity. Wading though these thick human waves, we barely managed to reach our ride to a hotel right in the middle of this historic and intriguing city.
Born centuries ago, Armenian nation had managed to preserver through ages of wars, atrocities and miracles. The nation survived boasting very strong cohesiveness despite many a challenge. In fact, Armenian majority reaches unbelievably high 90 % amidst the total population make-up of the capital. Predictably most people looked similar to one another– swarthy, fiery and dark-haired. They all seemed to wear stylish locally-made leather shoes, sported dark sunglasses and smoked incessantly. In fact, throughout my month-long stay I failed to meet a single Armenian male who stayed away from puffing. Even local, exotically garbed, orthodox priests did not escape this beloved national pastime.
These latter types were a true revelation as we discovered many a beautiful side to this eastern orthodoxy, one of the oldest in the whole of Christendom. Born sometime in the late first century it preens with numerous old traditions that have been cherished and preserved since those simple and unspoiled times. Assisted by some local factory co-workers we got a first-hand opportunity to attend a local seminary that sprawled on the top of a very green and spacious hill, not too far from the city centre. The religion here was practised unabashedly, un-Soviet like. Instead of skittish old little ladies crossing in front of many teary icons and thick unapproachable Russian Orthodox priest with vast beards and love for vodka, we found a completely different picture that celebrated their beloved religion quite flamboyantly. Young, stylishly robbed, monks were many and enthusiastic, assisting multitudes of parishioners in sacred rites that included superb Gregorian chants that sailed in smooth and utter exuberance, reverberating throughout the main nave. The singing was so beautiful and mesmerising that we did not dare moving, stuck in our spots as if frozen – very refreshing.
To further its unique claim on all things biblical, Armenia claims the famed summit of Ararat to be a resting place for Noah’s Ark. In fact, many an archaeologist has not given up a dream of finding the famous remains – scouring satellite photos, enduring ridicule of doubters and raising money for yet another attempt at impossible. Alas, we were not in the position to help. After all, the magnificent mountain itself is not even an Armenian property as it sits just across the border in Turkey. This pisses Armenians to no end. Historically they always laid claim to this locale as the focal point of their nationhood. Brave and frequently outnumbered, Armenians managed to maintain its territory in many valiant efforts rebuffing invaders from any direction throughout centuries. All went swimmingly well until they encountered the mighty Ottoman Empire. The new foe was not particularly merciful and measured in its desire to conquer as much as Mother Earth could possibly allot for dry land. Ottoman’s most daring and famed efforts were spent in the West, fighting sizable European and Russian armies in its perennial bids to introduce strong coffee and salacious dancing to frumpish Catholics and uncouth Orthodox alike. While engaging in these noble undertakings, the powerful Ottomans always felt an uncomfortable irksome itch in some eastern reaches of their Empire – the staunchly independent and very Orthodox Armenians. When the itch developed into an outright eczema, it all came to a head with the 1915 genocide when Ottomans annihilated over a million of their neighbours in a short span of weeks. This was the start of the famous Armenian Diaspora that now spreads from Australia to Los Angeles on to Paris and London.
Predictably, the event still lingers in national blood streams. Turks behave as it has never happened and Armenians get to a boiling point at a mere mention of 1915. Turks kept the mountain and Armenians pretend that they still have it. And they almost have a point since from the Turkish side it is seen by but a handful of villagers strewn around sparsely inhibited eastern Turkey. From the Armenian side, on the other hand, it beacons to almost an entire nation populating the Ararat valley. The mountain is so close to the capital city itself that on particularly clear days it felt as if I could just touch the very shimmering snow of this majestic peak.
For a better view, a friendly factory van driver, Mkrtch, took us down to the glorious and fertile Ararat valley, just minutes from Erevan. Here on the bottom flats, surrounded by lush greenery and outcropping hills, one is treated to a particularly spectacular view of the national pride. The road we were on was a straight black clear line that led directly to the mountain with its southern tip almost piercing the snowy slopes. The road did not mesh with surrounding green lushness; it did not simply merge into the horizon; instead it linked a dream of the nation to be reunited with its beloved Ararat once again.
Poignant, as it was, we could not go any further after driving right up to the barbed-wired fences and fearsome looking man with guns – the border. Turning one-eighty and driving back into the valley promised to be a decent diversion from the sad reality. After all, Ararat was not the only Armenian mountain celebrating these unique people. Mkrtch, despite sporting an absolute lack of vowels in his almost unpronounceable name, turned out to have a very soft heart for soaring chants of remote monasteries that peppered the mountains on the opposite end of the valley.
Half an hour into the reverse journey, we started gradually losing lush rising crops and straight blacktop of the valley from our sights. We were steadily climbing, higher and higher up the mountains that were becoming more exotic and desolate with every sharp turn – now we were into the Alpine country. Here farmers ceded their economy to shepherds, and flamboyant city priests gave way to more solemn but no less attended ranks of the mountain clergy.
It was Sunday and traffic was particularly heavy with worshipers streaming to their ancestral highland roots. Seeing so many on their way to God worship shook my atheistic foundations. Browny and Ed, hailing from the land of pious pilgrims took it in more of a stride, as we toured a couple of churches. Both, built in some time immemorial, were filled to the brim. Their sparse, grey and very monastic, outlines stood in contrast to exuberance of the faithful and sublime signing of the priests. My tall, husky and fair skinned friends caused a slight furor if not outright distraction, as even some century old keys seemed to have gone awry as many gawkers forgot to move their jaws – clinging to Gregorian notes was not easy after all…
After the service, we were invited to an outdoor picnic outfitted with just about everything including a freshly flailed lamb twirled on a huge barbeque. Complemented with goodly amounts of superb local wine we were ready to enjoy the experience. Impatiently waiting to plunge into fresh, still seeping with fresh mountainous juices, meat, we witnessed another important and unavoidable rite of the Easter season – a little echo from pre-Christian past – animal sacrifices (a moderate version). Some fervent parishioners brought some domestic animals, mostly chickens, and gleefully plunged right into the grizzly proceedings.
“Watch these savages are just about to cut their throats”, coddled by sterilized violence of American TV, Ed was feeling a bit uncomfortable.
“Just like at home”, Browny betrayed his much more rural and hand-on roots
“I hope they do not throw the meat away”, my Ukrainian soul couldn’t bare any waste of food
With throats cut, fresh animal blood was collected in special clay dishes and promptly re-applied on everyone’s forehead with a sign of the Cross. Luckily, we were spared the unnecessary drama with Ed and Browny jumping on the healthy supplies of light and flavourful local wine. The feast was on!
“This is excellent”, Ed was beside himself tasting the superb and very surprising wine. “Lucky, we do not have those English wankers!”
“There would be none left”, Browny finished the thought.
I could not agree more. This was way better than rat-infested dirt floors of the factory cafeteria, and the contrast could not be truly enjoyed had it not been for a thought of your peers being deprived of the treasured experience. A truly selfish and yet very common sentiment…
The celebrations went on for a couple of unforgettable hours. By the end, we were all brothers with no barriers, cultural or otherwise, to squeeze in between. We all were just a part of larger humanity sharing common joys and emotions. Ed and Browny loosened by wine, lamb and surrounding fraternity, did not even mind sharing their ride down around hairpin turns with no seat belts and our inebriated Mkrtch at the wheel. For a moment we just melted into one larger being that did not require translators, bullet proof vests or Agreements In Principle – all was surreally simple.
Just before jumping in the van, I turned around for one split second to have one last look at the breathtaking scenery scintillating in last sparks of reddish sunlight. Surrounding rocks, sheep, churches and beautiful Armenian people were slowly entering my conscience in a glowingly happy memory parade. Suddenly, I felt happy and all alone. Sounds, near and far, just vanished leaving me in perfect Nirvana-like tranquility. This was the solitude of happiness, the very one God let me enjoy so much lately. Yes, it has been a year since that painfully hard day under the rain. Now, dry and pensive, engulfed in soft refreshing mountainous air, I starred at the majesty of creation, above and below, counting my blessings. My gig was at its end and new horizons were just about to unfold, I couldn’t wait.
Oh, almost forgot – remember the Legend of Dick Cross? Well, recently he won a multi-million dollar state lottery. His new barbed wired fence and house alarm system are the best in Vermont. It is opened for visits Monday though Friday. Call in advance to schedule an appointment. Interested?
