I went to the Far East when I was only seven. Typically, anything that happens to us any time prior to about ten remains just a chaotic collection of experiences. As such it could hardly be adequately remembered. It is really not fair that we count our years of life from the date of birth, we should really be counting from the time when our chaotic experiences assume much crisper outlines; prior to this life is just a blur. You may disagree – in my less than compelling case of a genius this remains true. Move aside all you precocious anomalies! Sure, Mozart could compile music freehand at four years of age. On the contrary, I could hardly compose a sentence then, let alone concertos and sonatas. Despite all my hereditary shortcomings though, my travels did leave a significant imprint in my memory – such that it seems worthy of recounting.
This was not the first exotic and untypical ordeal that I was subjected to by my dear peripatetic father. The first one occurred when I was an unsuspecting four-year old that had a propensity to whine whenever taken out his habitual equilibrium. Instead I vastly preferred pampering by my parental grandmother. Trying to break too comfortable of a bond, my parents made many a valiant effort including putting me into institutional day care – alas, it did not take. The proximity of my dear grandma was just too irresistible. Food, toys and park walks were the order of the day.
One day my father was summoned to the local Red Army office, and the next thing I knew we were going to Central Asia. Bye-bye grandma’s care, food and toys – it was the time to be on my own - with my parents to be exact. My time in Central Asia was memorable for two key reasons – joyful trips to the officers’ kitchen and minarets of Buhara. The officers’ kitchen provided an opportunity to be indulged by a friendly cook, Nikolai, who always had some special treats for me, one of the only few kids living in the military camp. The trip to Buhara must have been my first encounter with beatitudes unavailable in the industrial Ukrainian heartland. To this day I remember walking through the old city peppered with exotic buildings, walls and roofs. Unfortunately, we spent most of our time in Kagan, a typical Soviet concrete block creation. The place did not serve up any significant historic or cultural delights unless you were particularly susceptible to pleasures of cotton agriculture or germ warfare that must have taken its origins in a strange eastern invention that substituted for underground street sewage – arick. These open water trenches could be found just about on any street and provided an ample source of pleasure for mischievous miscreants with plenty of time on their hands. We jumped over, polluted and played war games near aricks. At times we waded through them and that was exactly when crisp and memorable spankings were administered.
It did not last long, as I was languishing according to my grandmother – I do not remember any of the languishing to be honest. Somehow my body was declared short of decent Ukrainian levels of nutrition – and after five or six months I was sent back to my beloved grandma. She was appalled when she first saw my thinning frame that did not arouse suspicions of anybody else around. Such state of mediocrity with respect to my nourishment standards was unacceptable. And voila, when my mother returned to Ukraine just few months later, she was in turn appalled – I had nearly doubled in size. This propensity for good nutrition, called gluttony, haunts me to this very day. Oh well, enough of this sordid saga, as we shall go back to the adventures in the Far East.
This decision to move eight thousand kilometres away surely did not come lightly. My father, a doctor with seven years of postgraduate experience, was still searching for a suitable position and this was despite scoring top student honours through his years in the medical school. Part of the difficulty were his bulbous nose, black hair and a special speech defect that betrayed all things Jewish to ever suspecting Russophile Bolsheviks. All these attributes, in addition to his proclivity to indulge in some things intoxicating plus his loud, nearly eastern, personality to boot created a difficult potion to swallow for some career minding bureaucrats. Having tried his medical luck in few different places including the army, my father convinced himself that a move far away into the land of much less prejudice and of much more wilderness would be a positive one.
BAM – Road into Unknown
Why the Far East you might ask? I think there may have been a host of different reasons including a very thin layer of Jewry among general populace. This in itself usually bode well for someone like my father – less Jews, less awareness, less anti-Semitism. The particular point in the Far East that he chose was also the commencement point for one of the biggest Soviet boondoggles in history – BAM (Baikalo Amursakaya Magistral – Railroad). You see, the vastness of the Soviet Union and virtual inaccessibility of some of its huge chunks puzzled many Moscow bureaucrats. If place was desolate and empty, it needed to be filled – people, factories and other bric-and-brak – anything that could prove to the rest of the world that Communism was above nature and geography. As a result, Bolsheviks mobilised immense resources of money, eager Komsomol youth and free prison labour to drill this nearly three thousand kilometre long railway through some of the most inhospitable parts of the Soviet Far East - all in order to connect two vital points – nowhere to nowhere. To be more precise though, the railroad was supposed to connect Khabarovsk region with Baikal region in order to develop a plethora of other industrial megaprojects along the way. Another key reason was to feed Japan a whole bunch of natural resources – the poor bastards had no gas and all the money – we had all the gas and no money – perfect match!
The amount of money and energy spent on this 20-year adventure must have been enough to reunite Germany ten times over. One little detail in the Byzantine Soviet economic planning cycle was conveniently omitted however – these two regions had already been connected by the famous Trans-Siberian Railroad from the times of the Tsars. Maybe it was a general dislike for the sovereigns, or just that some planners had strong geometrical inclinations – in any case they drew a straight line, parallel to the old Tsarist wonder, just only one thousand kilometres to the North. You see the Tsars took the railroad to people, Soviets took people to the railroad – or rather a mound of rails, piles and other gobbledegook that needed to be put together – just like a Lego set.
As any boondoggle does, this one had its winners and losers – the winners of course were anybody who heeded the call of dear economic geniuses from Moscow and their chief comrade Brezhnev – the place paid pretty well. Some though were as irrational as to view the whole experience in very romantic and pure naive terms – many a novel, song and ballad were written on the adventure. Others, much like my father, latched on to the dream of starting anew, making some extra coin and experience wilderness first hand. After all there was some sense in the overall economic nightmare that was the Soviet Union.
The losers of course were several – later to be disillusioned romantics, nature that got subjugated and denuded along the way and of course the perennial loser of many an undertaking – the state itself. Here is the quote from one of the current railroad observers – “Today, this railroad is used very little, due to erroneous forecasts regarding growth of oil exports from Siberia to Japan and other Asian Pacific nations, and, also because of ongoing economic crisis in Russia”… This pretty well sums things up, doesn’t it?
However, back in 1975 in the eyes of a seven year-old, who was just about to start his first school year, the prospects of moving quarter of the world over appeared somewhat daunting – but exciting and very promising nonetheless. It did not disappoint.
Trans-Siberian Saga
Our journey from Ukraine to Moscow was bland and uneventful. Our trip from Moscow to the Far East however, proved to be very picturesque and memorable indeed. My mother, probably due purely to pecuniary considerations, chose rail travel over Aeroflot – what a great decision that was! Welcome to Trans Siberian Railway. One journey was to take us from Moscow to Khabarovsk (incidentally the birthplace of Alex Mogilniy). This affair was to last eight days and seven nights and promised to take us through most spectacular Soviet geography. We comfortably settled in our four-birth compartment – this means we shared our lengthy journey with two other people. Not the same set, mind you, as not everybody was as crazy and adventurous to last eight days without exercise or showers – I could care less. I was only seven and having a great time, befriending anybody around including a cheerful car conductor, was natural.
At first our journey took us through the middle of Russia with its birch trees, swamps and general state of industrial disorder interspersed by sightings of the beautiful Russian past such as the ancient city of Yaroslav that boasted more magnificent golden cupolas than Kremlin itself. I would never forget the sight of fiery golden bulbs invading your senses in the abrupt and effulgent colour explosion of the pre-dusk sun. I squint my eyes to this day thinking of this iconic experience.
After a couple of days of bleak and flat terrain, we started seeing much more dramatic and eye-pleasing compositions of rolling hills and beautiful late summer pastoral vistas that opened my eyes to the immense gamma of nature that my Motherland possessed. Soon, these agriculturally minded and very bucolic views gave way to deep and mesmerising forests of Siberia. The endless forests that heaved to and fro between ever more apparent mountain ranges.
Being a curious little waif I, and having befriended the conductor and few ever-rotating fellow travelers, took it upon myself to serve tea – the perennial delight of talkative Russian train travelers. In fact, any physiological laws that describe human traits of character and temper seize to exist whenever one enters a Russian train. The whole Universe of Freudian psychoanalysis is suspended in thin air by good servings of home made food and train tea. One’s personal food becomes communal, sacrosanct state yields to juicy Kremlin anecdotes, strangers feel like the closest relatives, passing views remind of summer vacations by the seaside and beloved tea cements it all. The very excitement of movement through the vast country constantly remind fellow travelers how lucky there are – the majority of breathing public is cocooned in their stationary misery with no communal food, racy anecdotes or sweeping vistas.
The tea serving was not the only task snatched away from the benevolent hands of the conductor. Occasionally, I managed to seize his hat, stick and other parts of his exotic professional arsenal. I was even allowed to participate in the solemn ceremony of train arrival and departure, when conductors are expected to open and close car doors in a rigidly prescribed and ritualistic manner. The coolest part of this job was standing by the open door of the moving train. This added immensely to my pride of the job well done. At times, these tasks took me away from truly frightening experiences such as occasional post-departure absences of my food foraging mother who in a spurt of sudden departures had to board other cars in order to avoid stranding. I despaired, thinking that we had been separated forever. But she never failed to show up heaving freshly packaged and hopefully just as freshly prepared railroad grub. Given certain budget constraints I got to be treated in the restaurant car just a couple of times. What an exhilarating feeling that was – ever-changing scenery, hearty meals and scary back and forth passes between many cars on the way there and back. Each time I stepped from one car into the next, I received a dose of swishing air and a rush of adrenaline, manoeuvring between beastly screeching connector ends.
The further east we went, the more spectular our surroundings became, almost an opposite what one experiences in North America when proceeding in the same direction – unpredictable creation this Earth is! The most memorable were the sights around Lake Baikal and River Amur (just like love in French) along the Chinese border. Lake Baikal is an incredible wonder, the singular largest world’s reserve of fresh water. Its confines are starkly outlined by beautiful snow-capped peeks and steely impenetrable skies. It is incredibly deep and its water gives out deep blue shine like that of the Pacific. The prudent and thoughtful tsar railroad planners made sure that the railroad literally hugged this Russian natural show piece for hundreds of miles. As a result, we were treated to nearly a full day sightseeing at no extra charge – strikingly similar to train sightseeing on Rhine when taking a train from Koln to Mainz - not quite as cheap though…
About half a day from the last of the majestic lake, we approached one of the famed Russian waterways – river Amur. Since a large part of the river also doubled as Soviet-Chinese border, we were the most intrigued. This was not only my closest ever to the enchanted world of l’etranger, but it was also an encounter with murky and menacing world of the Maoist China, a concept that seeded perennial unease in the minds of my Soviet compatriots. Sort of a younger brother, gone crooked dealing drugs and carrying guns, ready to sacrifice his own family if in the way. Not surprisingly, many felt Chinese menace before the American one.
Little did we know that their Maoist excesses were only a soft version of the domestic brutality when compared to terror unleashed by Comrade Stalin back in the 1930’s. However, for now, Comrade Stalin remained a demi-god figure that stood only a tiny step below the certified deity of Dedushka Lenin. The cryptic world of hieroglyphs and the Red Book, however, appeared truly frightening as we faced steep river bank escarpments that aligned the opposite side for many a mile. I would never forget red blazing glow of these clay formations that led into the unknown.
Eventually we arrived in the key regional city of Khabarovsk – a place of considerable size and greyness that was so typical to Soviet architectural achievements. Without much ado we changed horses (I mean trains) and proceeded overnight to even greyer city of Komsomolsk, the official departure point for the famed BAM. This locale appropriately took its name from Komsomol – the youth arm of the Communist Party. It was only fitting since the bulk of the BAM effort was to be carried out by Komsomol members. Of course the fact that first pre-WWII attempts at the railroad construction were made exclusively with forced labour of Gulag went unmentioned - no one was in the mood to celebrate this awkward historic fact.
Keeping up with my father’s well-intentioned penchant for adventure, our lengthy adventure did not end there, as we were to take yet another six-hour train ride to our final destination – the town of Berezovka. This final leg of our journey reserved one last travel thrill as we traveled in probably oldest coaches still running in the whole of the Soviet Union. They dated from the time of the Civil War of 1920s and were typically seen only in museums. Here they actually ran – amazing! They were rickety, worn-out and uncomfortable affairs with poor insulation. The air just swished through every nook and cranny and all seats were no better than just hard wooden benches without a shred of upholstery. An extremely exotic coal steam locomotive made up the rest of the charm. I was overjoyed as this ride with its hard wooden seats and ancient fixtures that transferred me instantly into the legendary historic age of first Commissars and Batka Mahno (famous Ukrainian anarchist).
Impressionable Youth
After our arrival I had only few days to get my bearings before starting first grade. The town of about ten to twelve thousand people was nestled between two rivers – one slow and quiet, the other fast and furious. Most of the town consisted of one-story wood-hewn unplumbed buildings with the exception of the local school and few other governmental edifices that boasted two stories and brick walls. Oh yea, the school also had plumbing that did not work since no sewer was anywhere in sight “hee, hee”– just like BAM itself. We used the outhouse instead – simple and reliable.
The place was completely unpaved with the exception of some wooden planks that happened to be thrown together in similar directions to create an allusion of a sidewalk. This bucolic ruse tended to work OK save knee-deep mud strolls in shoulder seasons. Regrettably, only select parts of town offered fully planked blocks otherwise you were on your own. Predictably, a pair of nice rubber boots was the most popular and practical kind of footwear. Now there was a redeeming side to the rustic look and cosy feel inside the wooden huts. It was especially handy in the middle of rough winters that reigned here for about six months a year. Our own dwelling was a typical local creation with outdoor plumbing, well water that came right into the kitchen, a wood burning stove and three spacious rooms. We were right in the middle of the bleak local milieu – my school and dad’s hospital were right across the street, a local government seat just a block away and one of the city leaders, as our neighbour next door. Had we lived in Paris, we would sported a plush pad somewhere in the middle of Champs-Elysses – alas, we had to settle for a drab Soviet dream helped on by a kerosene lamp, as the local electricity supply was prone to some occasional and lengthy outages. I nearly felt like Lenin in exile – but there was little time to waste on deep thinking – the new surroundings called to adventure.
Discovering Locals
Although the town was small and could hardly be found on the map, cultural and ethnic diversity here was quite remarkable. For a while I felt a bit out of place trying to put together this mosaic of faces, customs and food preferences. Given the truly countrywide effort at constructing BAM, Berezovka was a colourful microcosm of the entire country, as races and languages mixed with considerable fluency and ease. So was the food, as red caviar and salmon were abounding in prodigiously pristine quantities. This was especially mesmerising to city-dwellers accustomed to industry, pollution and absence of things natural. In Ukraine, red and black caviar was treated with reverence of an ultimate delicacy and was served almost exclusively on very special occasions – an unavoidable reality even for well-supplied families of party aparatchiks. Here, the jars of red caviar and chunks of delicious smoked salmon choke-filled our pantry. At first, I loved the prospect of partaking in delicacies such as these, however, my enthusiasm vanished at the sight of everyday caviar – “caviar for dinner again?” – spoiled brat! Once back in Ukraine, caviar and salmon would be sorely missed.
The native dwellers of the area had a very Asian appearance about them. Despite perennial difficulties of maintaining their cultural salmon chewing identity, regional educational authorities did take a crack at preserving the local ethos. This was quite colourfully expressed in beautiful carvings, hunting and fishing rituals bolstered by a plethora of aspiring legendary tales dealing in heroism, dragons, mystifying exploits and other similar gook. I recall enjoying reading numerous well-illustrated tale books winding their way through imagining misty past – luckily Bolsheviks had a decent penchant for glossy propaganda! For the most part however, while subsisting on the fringes of society, these nice and peaceful people ceded their place of prominence to other picturesque groups.
Please meet the old believers – “staroveri” in Russian. These represented to me an unknown part of the Soviet. They are not a particular ethnicity though just about all of them are more Russian than any members of the imperial family since the times of Peter the Great. They are not prisoners of skin colour or peculiar physical size; they are the stalwarts of the Old Russian Orthodoxy. Growing up in the atheistic Soviet Union, even hearing about religion or belief in God was nearly non-existent. So before I could understand what these folks meant and where they came from, I had to do a little self-education of my own.
It turned out like this. In the 10th century, the Russian ruler Vladimir instituted Christianity as the official religion of his dominion. This religion and accompanying set of rituals and beliefs were brought in from one of two centres of the world wide church – Constantinopol. This Byzantine connection persisted for centuries until Christian dominance of Constantinopol was annihilated by the emergence of Islamic Istanbul. The waning of Byzantine influence coupled with a need for stronger, purely Russian, authority brought on the reforms of the Patriarch Nikon in mid 1600s. Although the reforms tinkered less with dogma and more with power balance, there was much resistance. Suppressing of such discontent took on rather violent forms as evidenced by many a torture and execution. The resisters themselves tended to be very peaceful. Many of their rank preferred moving away into the farthest reaches of the Empire where they could practice their religion undisturbed. The further the reaches of the real imperial power extended, the further away they had to move lest consumed by death in self-inflicted conflagrations – a common shortcut to heavens. After all death was better than tsarist heresy! They were tough characters.
No wonder that this centuries old tradition is alive to this day where it persists in far outreaches of the broken empire, far from the heresy of now resurgent modern orthodoxy. The experience of flight, life in the wilderness and general mistrust of outsiders has driven some of this people so far into the forest that some of them became literally cut-off from civilisation. For example, a whole family of old believers was discovered in the midst of impenetrable Siberian forest in the mid 1980’s. This particular bunch had lived in such isolation that the occurrence of the WWII was news to them! Well, the people I met were not as unique albeit still very distinct. They tended to be rather quite and reserved black-attired recluses who lived on the edge of town. They led very sober and industrious lives cemented by strong family ties and healthy domestic economy – my mother actually preferred to buy their milk as opposed to watered-down governmental issue. On a number of occasions I went to get our milk, they proved to be a very polite and soft-spoken lot that was very observant in some key cultural and religious elements – like not sharing the same cutlery with outsiders, fast observance and complete stillness on Sundays. This experience of coming into contact with these people of faith that refused many a perk of modern life such left a lasting impression in my memory.
Other interesting group of people that was very foreign to me was Koreans. Korea strikes me as a great country to be from, as millions Koreans live around the world escaping tight confines of the heavily populated homeland. They remind me of Jews and Armenians that way. Apparently, there are more Armenians in North America than in the whole of the mountainous republic. Jews are, of course, also a well-known case of Diaspora living. Koreans in Berezovka were remarkable in their ability to retain cultural and linguistic identity in the midst of these foreign surroundings. They spoke strange sounding tongue steeped into many a lashing note, loved domesticated animals and purportedly ate dogs – fascinating! My contact with them was primarily encapsulated in my trying my first ever Kim chi dish, while my father did not the escape the ultimate honour of partaking in a dog feast and this one was not of snow sledding variety. Apparently, he was not fully informed until late into the meal – the consequences were served outside – predictably to dogs, ce’est la vie!
In many other respects, the life was just as Soviet and monotonous, as it could have been in any other corner of the vast empire. Leaving this monotony to the adults, I hardly had time to miss my beloved Ukraine or anything else for that matter.
Finding New Friends
The best and the quickest way to explore new surroundings was to befriend someone next door. Our neighbours appeared to be an interesting lot, as they boasted the most unusual of all household pets around – a bear. This little cuddly creature, named Igor, was separated from its mother during one of ravaging summer forest fires that were rather frequent in the area. It was found cowering under some tree in a daze. Poor creature was only few weeks old. One the local leaders (our neighbour) decided to rescue this helpless cud and brought it home, installing it as a favourite and much beloved local pet. Having lived indoors for a couple of months, the bear had been put in a kennel and made a yard dog by the time I arrived. No wonder, as by then this little cuddly creature had lost some of its juvenile fat and had acquired a certain semblance of fangs. He also had got a bit more aggressive so a dog chain was in order. However, this obvious safety device did not bode well for anything of adventure, as we indulged ourselves in unleashing the beast and letting it chase us all around the yard screaming with delight mixed with a slight dose of creeping terror. Igor played its part very well, hounding us dog-like around the yard and the house. It was great as he was not even a bit put out by a lavish indoor rug display that predominantly consisted of bear hides! His dead ancestors did not spoil the fun. As time went by however, restless Igor became less and less like a dog and more and more like a bear – what a surprise! In the winter he got a bit docile and sleepy. In the following spring, after numerous attempts to escape into his native forest, our dear towering Igor was finally let out into the wild. Even an inducement of his, much beloved, dried sausage could not keep his wild spirit contained in one small yard.
After starting school, I also befriended Nazarov family. Their son, Ivan, went to the same class and I spent much time playing with him and his sister, Tonya. She was one year us senior and was always ready to share in her always valuable grown-up advice. These folks were true locals in their social habits such as food and household management. They even introduced me to eating raw fish. This was not quite the Vancouver style with wasabi and soy souse. Instead it was somewhat less appetising since we had to shave tasty bits from a frozen fish carcass ourselves. A much more palatable experience was eating their home made bacon. Witnessing the full process of preparation was a less savoury bit, as I got a chance the witness every gruesome detail.
To start with, a little pig was introduced into the household’s small domestic livestock sometime shortly after my arrival in late August. He was given the name of Hrusha and accepted as one of the family. The gullible little beast was pampered, played with and fed quite generously. Over the period of winter-induced inactivity and gourmet indulgence, Hrusha turned into a voluminous ready to eat pork. One day his staggering bulbous and unsuspecting mass of an animal was turned into delightful bacon. Hrusha was loved when alive, now his tender memory lived on vicariously.
I was slowly turning into a little savage easily withstanding all butchering and flaying details. By now my urbanite sensibilities were nearly forgotten. Apart from these raw memories, I am happy to report that my very first girl infatuation took place in connection with this lovely family. I loved Tonya and her mature ways. She was always ready to direct my uncertain steps in a right direction. Otherwise a stubborn character, I always managed to turn into an obedient pumpkin when she entered the room. Unfortunately, our juvenile attempts at keeping in touch after I left for Ukraine waned into nothingness after just a couple of letters.
Firefighters
My best friend of that year, Slava, was a boy of a Ukrainian stock who came from my home town, dragged by his rather adventurous and quite malfunctioning family for similar reasons as mine. Unlike my father a doctor, his father was a military man. He, an officer, was there to provide an occasional kick in the rear to his soldiers – a very important and, regretfully, much less exalted force behind the BAM construction. Bloody Komsomol took all the honours! Alas, most of the time he kicked a wrong rear - that of his own family, as frequent drunken parties and other unsavoury examples of unwise behaviour were rather natural to him and his buddies, my father included.
This friendship with Slava was one of true adventure. Since his father was an officer, we could get our hands on real ammunition and guns. This was at the ripe age of seven when majority of our peers still played with plastic toys. This access of course was somewhat regulated – but this would not dampen our spirits. On many a time we were allowed to go, supervised, into the neighbouring woods and practice live ammunition target shooting – the thrill was immense! And I do not recall anybody getting hurt…
Our favourite adventure, however, was to stomp about the surrounding wilderness that was so tempting and near. The northern side of town bordered on a dense pine forest that stretched along a pristine, pure and ice-cold mountainous stream that remained frigid even in the middle of warm local summers. This side offered numerous hike and camp-out opportunities – we did not seem to be much frightened by bears, cougars or any other creature that lurked nearby. The delights of unsuspecting childhood were our saving grace. Then I still believed in storks delivering babies – how delightful!
Most of our time though was spent on the opposite side – across the tracks – literally across the famed BAM tracks that separated the centre of town from military housing where my friend lived. Sometimes, as we could not wait for a train to pass, we impatiently risked climbing under and/or over cars, locomotives and whatever else was in the way in order to save ever-precious playing time. Sometimes it was close and we counted our stars. At other times it paid off in spades as we were invited into locomotive cabins and had a free run of the place exploring nooks and crannies of the latest railway technology. My grandfather, who served as a vice-president of a railway car refurbishing factory would be proud – so I thought – no wonder that my mother’s spankings over our frequent railway adventures caused a considerable degree of surprise and dismay on my part.
Beyond the tracks was an entirely different world, as we had countless hectares of swamps, reeds and brush to roam around in search of anything exhilarating. Apart our shooting adventures we enjoyed discovering some long abandoned hunting cabins and dilapidated military barracks, creating our own network of forts and secret passages. This was an incredibly liberating and unforgettable experience for someone who grew up in the jungle of Soviet apartment blocks.
In the winter, our outdoor activities were a bit dampened by short days and crippling cold. So we shifted our adventures indoors. There we spent a considerable deal of time spying on the adults including witnessing domestic drama and disorder that plagued both of our families, partaking in the first experiments with hard alcohol and going to an authentic Russian banya – sauna that is. Once first thaw was in the air, there was nothing stopping us from lunging back outdoors with post-hibernation gusto.
Unfortunately, we were not the only ones with brains – mosquitoes apparently had some of it too. They always found ways to pester us regardless of how much swatting we did. If we wanted to give it to them, and as there were no truly effective chemical defence, so we had to resort to the last trick of resistance – becoming one of them or nearly so. It works like this, one takes his clothes off with possible exceptions of super sensitive parts, step right in the middle of a mosquito swarm and let these incisive bastards take a piece of you for about half an hour. Do not scratch despite indescribable urges to do so and voila, you have successfully become an impenetrable mosquito fortress – a true Russian tale of masochism!
Having conquered mosquitoes, our next target were massive local forest fires that were quite a normal annual occurrence. While average humans tend to flee these conflagrations, curious seven-year olds tend to walk right in them. Due to an apparent lack of local fire fighting efforts we decided step in. You see, we were not plagued by indifference, moral fatigue of yet another five-year plan or general Soviet disregard for the environment. We made our own pact with Mother Nature instead! We would just go into the forest to extinguish as many fires as possible primarily using stomping force of our feet and an occasional splash of water or a handful of sand if available. We never told our parents for the fear of being deprived of the thrill - the thrill of walking away with burning lungs, melting shoes and overpowering triumph of victory. Every little advance provided us with a tremendous sense of exhilaration and satisfaction of the job well done – do not tell my mother!
Our time in the woods also helped us to understand some sinister history associated with the place. On several birch tree juice hunting outings (by the way this juice is excellent and could be purchased in stores all over Russia) we encountered remnants of an old railroad. These old rusty dilapidated rails were almost completely invisible from even few yards away as they were just about swallowed by the thicket of bushes and weeds. In other words to see them you had to literally stumble over them. At first puzzled by the discovery, we found out that these rails were left from initial attempts to build BAM. This was undertaken in a different era – 1930s, for a different reason – to fend off, as opposed to feed, Japanese and by different people – political prisoners, victims of Stalin’s repression as compared to joyful Komsomol hordes. To this day I can remember the forlorn rails and ramshackle buildings scattered near the railroad. This memory sent a chill through my heart, the chill of injustice, innocence and perdition. Well, enough of reminders of sombre past, life still went on and needed some attending.
As one might imagine, this perpetual temptation for pranks in the wilderness could hardly keep us occupied with school. I managed to stay above the class average in all subjects. It was not much of an effort although I hardly had interest in academics. The only question that puzzled throughout the year was when they were going to open indoor toilet facilities – after all it was there – sinks, toilets and paper holders. I have a feeling that I could still be waiting…Soviets thrived on planning that emanated from well-plumbed Moscow offices of the Central Planning Agency. As everything seemed possible on BAM, the miraculous appearance of plumbing was imminently expected. Day after day, I just kept checking whether it was working already. Locals took much more prosaic view of things and used the available space for storage - after all many of them had never seen indoor plumbing. So instead of hot and cold water taps, swishing and gurgling sounds - nice porcelain tubs and toilets produced dust and cobwebs as they became a repository of old junk and useless documents, waiting to be flushed I guess…Also some mischievous school students had never experienced pleasures of porcelain under their bums actually went and tried – fascinating! When janitor arrived few days later, he could only shake his head in despair as even large and menacing locks did not succeed in preventing this unseemly undertaking reminding us all that this was no Eaton or Harrow.
Reading and math were an easy prey for my sponge like mind – full of holes I mean. Lurking and snooping around the hospital where my father worked was as satisfying as firefighting in the forest. I even managed to get myself a bit of a job there – cutting firewood! This was great fun and a chance to prove one’s masculinity. At first, my verve nearly ended one of my index fingers, as I drove it together with the axe blade into a chunk of wood. Ouch! I learned quickly but my flattened finger still reminds of youth’s follies. This was not the only painful experience…
Family Trouble
My father envisioned the move to the Far East as means of overcoming various career-related obstacles, as he was trying to prove that Jews could be doctors too. In Ukraine, where available medical help was plenty, his luck was minimal. He envisioned an exemplary career given his record in the medical school. Ukraine had hard time delivering, so the move to the pioneer surroundings of BAM, where there were only few doctors, instantaneously made him a chief surgeon of the local hospital. Unlike yours truly, my father did indeed relish his chosen career and approached it with fervour – this was always appreciated by a number of grateful patents and happy staff. His congenial nature and general disposition to working with people made him a very popular and noticeable member of the local “society”.
His activities did not start and end at the operating table, as he was an ardent promoter of many an initiative designed to boost hospital expansion and renovations – he was really flourishing in this remote and forsaken part of the Soviet geography. He made a lot of friends wherever he went, Berezovka was not exception. Soon his extra-curriculum activities included attendance of all sorts of parties and other relaxing activities. He even tried his luck at hunting, as once he terrorised my mother by nearly subjecting her to plucking a freshly harvested grouse. Her urbanite sensibilities did not bode well for such domestic challenges especially given her earlier resistance to such innocuous local joys as possession of bear rugs. These things were soft and cuddly but shed a lot and had many tiny little creatures living in them. Only after a lot of persuasion extolling our, my father’s and mine, strong preference for local exotics did she concede. Bear rugs, outdoor plumbing represented by a kitchen bucket and wood burning stove frequently drove her to the brink of despair that did not leave any space for grouse feathers.
As you might imagine my mother found local existence a little more tedious and less appealing as compared to the rest of the family. She was a piano teacher with delicate fingers and penchant for Chopin and Tchaikovsky. Rugged domestic duties of the exile did not fit all that well in her repertoire. Inevitably, this brought a new set of issues into the relationship, especially considering its already existing strife and tensions. My father always found it difficult to cope with questions of this nature, as the result his previous inclinations to drink and pinch resurfaced, not in the least helped on by the rowdy set of his military drinking buddies. These characters were not averse to trying such things as perfume and pure medicinal alcohol if vodka became scarce or they were just lazy to go outside and get it. Needless to say, temptations and boredom galore, they tried even worse things that required syringes. My father was into it…
Consequently, he acquired a comfortable habit of helping himself from the local apothecary that was attached to the hospital. Once, a store lock refused to co-operate with his addiction cycles in particular inopportune moment. After giving it a little thought or not, my father broke in, partook in necessary supplies and left. Of course, given how much of a hardened criminal he was, it did not take militia much effort or time to discover the perpetrator. Once facts were on the table, the Soviet justice system was swift and decisive. Within few days he was apprehended and led away not to be seen for a couple of years. As he was leaving, he said, “I will be back next week”. I will never forget a sense of abysmal dismay that overtook me at that moment – deep inside I knew that it was not true, I tried to believe it by just shutting down any thought related to the affair. But wounds had hard time healing especially when reminded of it by my, at times ruthless, peers during our mindless street games. Sometimes I would be so upset that I would just run back home, climb under my favourite blanket and cry. But life had to go on and carelessness of youth prevailed more often than not – fortunately…
Considering that chances of my father being welcome back were nil, the whole purpose of staying in this remote, small and exposed to gossip place no longer existed. It took us about three months to get our stuff together and go back to Ukraine. Despite friends, adventure and great memories, Ukraine was home and this was not.
My last memory glimpse was that of an eight-hour air plane ride from Khabarovsk back to Moscow. I could hardly believe that a seven-day train ride covered the same distance. The country might be big, but wonders of aeronautic technology made it hardly any bigger than the village we had just left behind. The day outside was clear and I could hardly stay away from the window, trying to trace back the sights seen from the train ride. Maybe one day I will get to do some more tracing again.
This was not the first exotic and untypical ordeal that I was subjected to by my dear peripatetic father. The first one occurred when I was an unsuspecting four-year old that had a propensity to whine whenever taken out his habitual equilibrium. Instead I vastly preferred pampering by my parental grandmother. Trying to break too comfortable of a bond, my parents made many a valiant effort including putting me into institutional day care – alas, it did not take. The proximity of my dear grandma was just too irresistible. Food, toys and park walks were the order of the day.
One day my father was summoned to the local Red Army office, and the next thing I knew we were going to Central Asia. Bye-bye grandma’s care, food and toys – it was the time to be on my own - with my parents to be exact. My time in Central Asia was memorable for two key reasons – joyful trips to the officers’ kitchen and minarets of Buhara. The officers’ kitchen provided an opportunity to be indulged by a friendly cook, Nikolai, who always had some special treats for me, one of the only few kids living in the military camp. The trip to Buhara must have been my first encounter with beatitudes unavailable in the industrial Ukrainian heartland. To this day I remember walking through the old city peppered with exotic buildings, walls and roofs. Unfortunately, we spent most of our time in Kagan, a typical Soviet concrete block creation. The place did not serve up any significant historic or cultural delights unless you were particularly susceptible to pleasures of cotton agriculture or germ warfare that must have taken its origins in a strange eastern invention that substituted for underground street sewage – arick. These open water trenches could be found just about on any street and provided an ample source of pleasure for mischievous miscreants with plenty of time on their hands. We jumped over, polluted and played war games near aricks. At times we waded through them and that was exactly when crisp and memorable spankings were administered.
It did not last long, as I was languishing according to my grandmother – I do not remember any of the languishing to be honest. Somehow my body was declared short of decent Ukrainian levels of nutrition – and after five or six months I was sent back to my beloved grandma. She was appalled when she first saw my thinning frame that did not arouse suspicions of anybody else around. Such state of mediocrity with respect to my nourishment standards was unacceptable. And voila, when my mother returned to Ukraine just few months later, she was in turn appalled – I had nearly doubled in size. This propensity for good nutrition, called gluttony, haunts me to this very day. Oh well, enough of this sordid saga, as we shall go back to the adventures in the Far East.
This decision to move eight thousand kilometres away surely did not come lightly. My father, a doctor with seven years of postgraduate experience, was still searching for a suitable position and this was despite scoring top student honours through his years in the medical school. Part of the difficulty were his bulbous nose, black hair and a special speech defect that betrayed all things Jewish to ever suspecting Russophile Bolsheviks. All these attributes, in addition to his proclivity to indulge in some things intoxicating plus his loud, nearly eastern, personality to boot created a difficult potion to swallow for some career minding bureaucrats. Having tried his medical luck in few different places including the army, my father convinced himself that a move far away into the land of much less prejudice and of much more wilderness would be a positive one.
BAM – Road into Unknown
Why the Far East you might ask? I think there may have been a host of different reasons including a very thin layer of Jewry among general populace. This in itself usually bode well for someone like my father – less Jews, less awareness, less anti-Semitism. The particular point in the Far East that he chose was also the commencement point for one of the biggest Soviet boondoggles in history – BAM (Baikalo Amursakaya Magistral – Railroad). You see, the vastness of the Soviet Union and virtual inaccessibility of some of its huge chunks puzzled many Moscow bureaucrats. If place was desolate and empty, it needed to be filled – people, factories and other bric-and-brak – anything that could prove to the rest of the world that Communism was above nature and geography. As a result, Bolsheviks mobilised immense resources of money, eager Komsomol youth and free prison labour to drill this nearly three thousand kilometre long railway through some of the most inhospitable parts of the Soviet Far East - all in order to connect two vital points – nowhere to nowhere. To be more precise though, the railroad was supposed to connect Khabarovsk region with Baikal region in order to develop a plethora of other industrial megaprojects along the way. Another key reason was to feed Japan a whole bunch of natural resources – the poor bastards had no gas and all the money – we had all the gas and no money – perfect match!
The amount of money and energy spent on this 20-year adventure must have been enough to reunite Germany ten times over. One little detail in the Byzantine Soviet economic planning cycle was conveniently omitted however – these two regions had already been connected by the famous Trans-Siberian Railroad from the times of the Tsars. Maybe it was a general dislike for the sovereigns, or just that some planners had strong geometrical inclinations – in any case they drew a straight line, parallel to the old Tsarist wonder, just only one thousand kilometres to the North. You see the Tsars took the railroad to people, Soviets took people to the railroad – or rather a mound of rails, piles and other gobbledegook that needed to be put together – just like a Lego set.
As any boondoggle does, this one had its winners and losers – the winners of course were anybody who heeded the call of dear economic geniuses from Moscow and their chief comrade Brezhnev – the place paid pretty well. Some though were as irrational as to view the whole experience in very romantic and pure naive terms – many a novel, song and ballad were written on the adventure. Others, much like my father, latched on to the dream of starting anew, making some extra coin and experience wilderness first hand. After all there was some sense in the overall economic nightmare that was the Soviet Union.
The losers of course were several – later to be disillusioned romantics, nature that got subjugated and denuded along the way and of course the perennial loser of many an undertaking – the state itself. Here is the quote from one of the current railroad observers – “Today, this railroad is used very little, due to erroneous forecasts regarding growth of oil exports from Siberia to Japan and other Asian Pacific nations, and, also because of ongoing economic crisis in Russia”… This pretty well sums things up, doesn’t it?
However, back in 1975 in the eyes of a seven year-old, who was just about to start his first school year, the prospects of moving quarter of the world over appeared somewhat daunting – but exciting and very promising nonetheless. It did not disappoint.
Trans-Siberian Saga
Our journey from Ukraine to Moscow was bland and uneventful. Our trip from Moscow to the Far East however, proved to be very picturesque and memorable indeed. My mother, probably due purely to pecuniary considerations, chose rail travel over Aeroflot – what a great decision that was! Welcome to Trans Siberian Railway. One journey was to take us from Moscow to Khabarovsk (incidentally the birthplace of Alex Mogilniy). This affair was to last eight days and seven nights and promised to take us through most spectacular Soviet geography. We comfortably settled in our four-birth compartment – this means we shared our lengthy journey with two other people. Not the same set, mind you, as not everybody was as crazy and adventurous to last eight days without exercise or showers – I could care less. I was only seven and having a great time, befriending anybody around including a cheerful car conductor, was natural.
At first our journey took us through the middle of Russia with its birch trees, swamps and general state of industrial disorder interspersed by sightings of the beautiful Russian past such as the ancient city of Yaroslav that boasted more magnificent golden cupolas than Kremlin itself. I would never forget the sight of fiery golden bulbs invading your senses in the abrupt and effulgent colour explosion of the pre-dusk sun. I squint my eyes to this day thinking of this iconic experience.
After a couple of days of bleak and flat terrain, we started seeing much more dramatic and eye-pleasing compositions of rolling hills and beautiful late summer pastoral vistas that opened my eyes to the immense gamma of nature that my Motherland possessed. Soon, these agriculturally minded and very bucolic views gave way to deep and mesmerising forests of Siberia. The endless forests that heaved to and fro between ever more apparent mountain ranges.
Being a curious little waif I, and having befriended the conductor and few ever-rotating fellow travelers, took it upon myself to serve tea – the perennial delight of talkative Russian train travelers. In fact, any physiological laws that describe human traits of character and temper seize to exist whenever one enters a Russian train. The whole Universe of Freudian psychoanalysis is suspended in thin air by good servings of home made food and train tea. One’s personal food becomes communal, sacrosanct state yields to juicy Kremlin anecdotes, strangers feel like the closest relatives, passing views remind of summer vacations by the seaside and beloved tea cements it all. The very excitement of movement through the vast country constantly remind fellow travelers how lucky there are – the majority of breathing public is cocooned in their stationary misery with no communal food, racy anecdotes or sweeping vistas.
The tea serving was not the only task snatched away from the benevolent hands of the conductor. Occasionally, I managed to seize his hat, stick and other parts of his exotic professional arsenal. I was even allowed to participate in the solemn ceremony of train arrival and departure, when conductors are expected to open and close car doors in a rigidly prescribed and ritualistic manner. The coolest part of this job was standing by the open door of the moving train. This added immensely to my pride of the job well done. At times, these tasks took me away from truly frightening experiences such as occasional post-departure absences of my food foraging mother who in a spurt of sudden departures had to board other cars in order to avoid stranding. I despaired, thinking that we had been separated forever. But she never failed to show up heaving freshly packaged and hopefully just as freshly prepared railroad grub. Given certain budget constraints I got to be treated in the restaurant car just a couple of times. What an exhilarating feeling that was – ever-changing scenery, hearty meals and scary back and forth passes between many cars on the way there and back. Each time I stepped from one car into the next, I received a dose of swishing air and a rush of adrenaline, manoeuvring between beastly screeching connector ends.
The further east we went, the more spectular our surroundings became, almost an opposite what one experiences in North America when proceeding in the same direction – unpredictable creation this Earth is! The most memorable were the sights around Lake Baikal and River Amur (just like love in French) along the Chinese border. Lake Baikal is an incredible wonder, the singular largest world’s reserve of fresh water. Its confines are starkly outlined by beautiful snow-capped peeks and steely impenetrable skies. It is incredibly deep and its water gives out deep blue shine like that of the Pacific. The prudent and thoughtful tsar railroad planners made sure that the railroad literally hugged this Russian natural show piece for hundreds of miles. As a result, we were treated to nearly a full day sightseeing at no extra charge – strikingly similar to train sightseeing on Rhine when taking a train from Koln to Mainz - not quite as cheap though…
About half a day from the last of the majestic lake, we approached one of the famed Russian waterways – river Amur. Since a large part of the river also doubled as Soviet-Chinese border, we were the most intrigued. This was not only my closest ever to the enchanted world of l’etranger, but it was also an encounter with murky and menacing world of the Maoist China, a concept that seeded perennial unease in the minds of my Soviet compatriots. Sort of a younger brother, gone crooked dealing drugs and carrying guns, ready to sacrifice his own family if in the way. Not surprisingly, many felt Chinese menace before the American one.
Little did we know that their Maoist excesses were only a soft version of the domestic brutality when compared to terror unleashed by Comrade Stalin back in the 1930’s. However, for now, Comrade Stalin remained a demi-god figure that stood only a tiny step below the certified deity of Dedushka Lenin. The cryptic world of hieroglyphs and the Red Book, however, appeared truly frightening as we faced steep river bank escarpments that aligned the opposite side for many a mile. I would never forget red blazing glow of these clay formations that led into the unknown.
Eventually we arrived in the key regional city of Khabarovsk – a place of considerable size and greyness that was so typical to Soviet architectural achievements. Without much ado we changed horses (I mean trains) and proceeded overnight to even greyer city of Komsomolsk, the official departure point for the famed BAM. This locale appropriately took its name from Komsomol – the youth arm of the Communist Party. It was only fitting since the bulk of the BAM effort was to be carried out by Komsomol members. Of course the fact that first pre-WWII attempts at the railroad construction were made exclusively with forced labour of Gulag went unmentioned - no one was in the mood to celebrate this awkward historic fact.
Keeping up with my father’s well-intentioned penchant for adventure, our lengthy adventure did not end there, as we were to take yet another six-hour train ride to our final destination – the town of Berezovka. This final leg of our journey reserved one last travel thrill as we traveled in probably oldest coaches still running in the whole of the Soviet Union. They dated from the time of the Civil War of 1920s and were typically seen only in museums. Here they actually ran – amazing! They were rickety, worn-out and uncomfortable affairs with poor insulation. The air just swished through every nook and cranny and all seats were no better than just hard wooden benches without a shred of upholstery. An extremely exotic coal steam locomotive made up the rest of the charm. I was overjoyed as this ride with its hard wooden seats and ancient fixtures that transferred me instantly into the legendary historic age of first Commissars and Batka Mahno (famous Ukrainian anarchist).
Impressionable Youth
After our arrival I had only few days to get my bearings before starting first grade. The town of about ten to twelve thousand people was nestled between two rivers – one slow and quiet, the other fast and furious. Most of the town consisted of one-story wood-hewn unplumbed buildings with the exception of the local school and few other governmental edifices that boasted two stories and brick walls. Oh yea, the school also had plumbing that did not work since no sewer was anywhere in sight “hee, hee”– just like BAM itself. We used the outhouse instead – simple and reliable.
The place was completely unpaved with the exception of some wooden planks that happened to be thrown together in similar directions to create an allusion of a sidewalk. This bucolic ruse tended to work OK save knee-deep mud strolls in shoulder seasons. Regrettably, only select parts of town offered fully planked blocks otherwise you were on your own. Predictably, a pair of nice rubber boots was the most popular and practical kind of footwear. Now there was a redeeming side to the rustic look and cosy feel inside the wooden huts. It was especially handy in the middle of rough winters that reigned here for about six months a year. Our own dwelling was a typical local creation with outdoor plumbing, well water that came right into the kitchen, a wood burning stove and three spacious rooms. We were right in the middle of the bleak local milieu – my school and dad’s hospital were right across the street, a local government seat just a block away and one of the city leaders, as our neighbour next door. Had we lived in Paris, we would sported a plush pad somewhere in the middle of Champs-Elysses – alas, we had to settle for a drab Soviet dream helped on by a kerosene lamp, as the local electricity supply was prone to some occasional and lengthy outages. I nearly felt like Lenin in exile – but there was little time to waste on deep thinking – the new surroundings called to adventure.
Discovering Locals
Although the town was small and could hardly be found on the map, cultural and ethnic diversity here was quite remarkable. For a while I felt a bit out of place trying to put together this mosaic of faces, customs and food preferences. Given the truly countrywide effort at constructing BAM, Berezovka was a colourful microcosm of the entire country, as races and languages mixed with considerable fluency and ease. So was the food, as red caviar and salmon were abounding in prodigiously pristine quantities. This was especially mesmerising to city-dwellers accustomed to industry, pollution and absence of things natural. In Ukraine, red and black caviar was treated with reverence of an ultimate delicacy and was served almost exclusively on very special occasions – an unavoidable reality even for well-supplied families of party aparatchiks. Here, the jars of red caviar and chunks of delicious smoked salmon choke-filled our pantry. At first, I loved the prospect of partaking in delicacies such as these, however, my enthusiasm vanished at the sight of everyday caviar – “caviar for dinner again?” – spoiled brat! Once back in Ukraine, caviar and salmon would be sorely missed.
The native dwellers of the area had a very Asian appearance about them. Despite perennial difficulties of maintaining their cultural salmon chewing identity, regional educational authorities did take a crack at preserving the local ethos. This was quite colourfully expressed in beautiful carvings, hunting and fishing rituals bolstered by a plethora of aspiring legendary tales dealing in heroism, dragons, mystifying exploits and other similar gook. I recall enjoying reading numerous well-illustrated tale books winding their way through imagining misty past – luckily Bolsheviks had a decent penchant for glossy propaganda! For the most part however, while subsisting on the fringes of society, these nice and peaceful people ceded their place of prominence to other picturesque groups.
Please meet the old believers – “staroveri” in Russian. These represented to me an unknown part of the Soviet. They are not a particular ethnicity though just about all of them are more Russian than any members of the imperial family since the times of Peter the Great. They are not prisoners of skin colour or peculiar physical size; they are the stalwarts of the Old Russian Orthodoxy. Growing up in the atheistic Soviet Union, even hearing about religion or belief in God was nearly non-existent. So before I could understand what these folks meant and where they came from, I had to do a little self-education of my own.
It turned out like this. In the 10th century, the Russian ruler Vladimir instituted Christianity as the official religion of his dominion. This religion and accompanying set of rituals and beliefs were brought in from one of two centres of the world wide church – Constantinopol. This Byzantine connection persisted for centuries until Christian dominance of Constantinopol was annihilated by the emergence of Islamic Istanbul. The waning of Byzantine influence coupled with a need for stronger, purely Russian, authority brought on the reforms of the Patriarch Nikon in mid 1600s. Although the reforms tinkered less with dogma and more with power balance, there was much resistance. Suppressing of such discontent took on rather violent forms as evidenced by many a torture and execution. The resisters themselves tended to be very peaceful. Many of their rank preferred moving away into the farthest reaches of the Empire where they could practice their religion undisturbed. The further the reaches of the real imperial power extended, the further away they had to move lest consumed by death in self-inflicted conflagrations – a common shortcut to heavens. After all death was better than tsarist heresy! They were tough characters.
No wonder that this centuries old tradition is alive to this day where it persists in far outreaches of the broken empire, far from the heresy of now resurgent modern orthodoxy. The experience of flight, life in the wilderness and general mistrust of outsiders has driven some of this people so far into the forest that some of them became literally cut-off from civilisation. For example, a whole family of old believers was discovered in the midst of impenetrable Siberian forest in the mid 1980’s. This particular bunch had lived in such isolation that the occurrence of the WWII was news to them! Well, the people I met were not as unique albeit still very distinct. They tended to be rather quite and reserved black-attired recluses who lived on the edge of town. They led very sober and industrious lives cemented by strong family ties and healthy domestic economy – my mother actually preferred to buy their milk as opposed to watered-down governmental issue. On a number of occasions I went to get our milk, they proved to be a very polite and soft-spoken lot that was very observant in some key cultural and religious elements – like not sharing the same cutlery with outsiders, fast observance and complete stillness on Sundays. This experience of coming into contact with these people of faith that refused many a perk of modern life such left a lasting impression in my memory.
Other interesting group of people that was very foreign to me was Koreans. Korea strikes me as a great country to be from, as millions Koreans live around the world escaping tight confines of the heavily populated homeland. They remind me of Jews and Armenians that way. Apparently, there are more Armenians in North America than in the whole of the mountainous republic. Jews are, of course, also a well-known case of Diaspora living. Koreans in Berezovka were remarkable in their ability to retain cultural and linguistic identity in the midst of these foreign surroundings. They spoke strange sounding tongue steeped into many a lashing note, loved domesticated animals and purportedly ate dogs – fascinating! My contact with them was primarily encapsulated in my trying my first ever Kim chi dish, while my father did not the escape the ultimate honour of partaking in a dog feast and this one was not of snow sledding variety. Apparently, he was not fully informed until late into the meal – the consequences were served outside – predictably to dogs, ce’est la vie!
In many other respects, the life was just as Soviet and monotonous, as it could have been in any other corner of the vast empire. Leaving this monotony to the adults, I hardly had time to miss my beloved Ukraine or anything else for that matter.
Finding New Friends
The best and the quickest way to explore new surroundings was to befriend someone next door. Our neighbours appeared to be an interesting lot, as they boasted the most unusual of all household pets around – a bear. This little cuddly creature, named Igor, was separated from its mother during one of ravaging summer forest fires that were rather frequent in the area. It was found cowering under some tree in a daze. Poor creature was only few weeks old. One the local leaders (our neighbour) decided to rescue this helpless cud and brought it home, installing it as a favourite and much beloved local pet. Having lived indoors for a couple of months, the bear had been put in a kennel and made a yard dog by the time I arrived. No wonder, as by then this little cuddly creature had lost some of its juvenile fat and had acquired a certain semblance of fangs. He also had got a bit more aggressive so a dog chain was in order. However, this obvious safety device did not bode well for anything of adventure, as we indulged ourselves in unleashing the beast and letting it chase us all around the yard screaming with delight mixed with a slight dose of creeping terror. Igor played its part very well, hounding us dog-like around the yard and the house. It was great as he was not even a bit put out by a lavish indoor rug display that predominantly consisted of bear hides! His dead ancestors did not spoil the fun. As time went by however, restless Igor became less and less like a dog and more and more like a bear – what a surprise! In the winter he got a bit docile and sleepy. In the following spring, after numerous attempts to escape into his native forest, our dear towering Igor was finally let out into the wild. Even an inducement of his, much beloved, dried sausage could not keep his wild spirit contained in one small yard.
After starting school, I also befriended Nazarov family. Their son, Ivan, went to the same class and I spent much time playing with him and his sister, Tonya. She was one year us senior and was always ready to share in her always valuable grown-up advice. These folks were true locals in their social habits such as food and household management. They even introduced me to eating raw fish. This was not quite the Vancouver style with wasabi and soy souse. Instead it was somewhat less appetising since we had to shave tasty bits from a frozen fish carcass ourselves. A much more palatable experience was eating their home made bacon. Witnessing the full process of preparation was a less savoury bit, as I got a chance the witness every gruesome detail.
To start with, a little pig was introduced into the household’s small domestic livestock sometime shortly after my arrival in late August. He was given the name of Hrusha and accepted as one of the family. The gullible little beast was pampered, played with and fed quite generously. Over the period of winter-induced inactivity and gourmet indulgence, Hrusha turned into a voluminous ready to eat pork. One day his staggering bulbous and unsuspecting mass of an animal was turned into delightful bacon. Hrusha was loved when alive, now his tender memory lived on vicariously.
I was slowly turning into a little savage easily withstanding all butchering and flaying details. By now my urbanite sensibilities were nearly forgotten. Apart from these raw memories, I am happy to report that my very first girl infatuation took place in connection with this lovely family. I loved Tonya and her mature ways. She was always ready to direct my uncertain steps in a right direction. Otherwise a stubborn character, I always managed to turn into an obedient pumpkin when she entered the room. Unfortunately, our juvenile attempts at keeping in touch after I left for Ukraine waned into nothingness after just a couple of letters.
Firefighters
My best friend of that year, Slava, was a boy of a Ukrainian stock who came from my home town, dragged by his rather adventurous and quite malfunctioning family for similar reasons as mine. Unlike my father a doctor, his father was a military man. He, an officer, was there to provide an occasional kick in the rear to his soldiers – a very important and, regretfully, much less exalted force behind the BAM construction. Bloody Komsomol took all the honours! Alas, most of the time he kicked a wrong rear - that of his own family, as frequent drunken parties and other unsavoury examples of unwise behaviour were rather natural to him and his buddies, my father included.
This friendship with Slava was one of true adventure. Since his father was an officer, we could get our hands on real ammunition and guns. This was at the ripe age of seven when majority of our peers still played with plastic toys. This access of course was somewhat regulated – but this would not dampen our spirits. On many a time we were allowed to go, supervised, into the neighbouring woods and practice live ammunition target shooting – the thrill was immense! And I do not recall anybody getting hurt…
Our favourite adventure, however, was to stomp about the surrounding wilderness that was so tempting and near. The northern side of town bordered on a dense pine forest that stretched along a pristine, pure and ice-cold mountainous stream that remained frigid even in the middle of warm local summers. This side offered numerous hike and camp-out opportunities – we did not seem to be much frightened by bears, cougars or any other creature that lurked nearby. The delights of unsuspecting childhood were our saving grace. Then I still believed in storks delivering babies – how delightful!
Most of our time though was spent on the opposite side – across the tracks – literally across the famed BAM tracks that separated the centre of town from military housing where my friend lived. Sometimes, as we could not wait for a train to pass, we impatiently risked climbing under and/or over cars, locomotives and whatever else was in the way in order to save ever-precious playing time. Sometimes it was close and we counted our stars. At other times it paid off in spades as we were invited into locomotive cabins and had a free run of the place exploring nooks and crannies of the latest railway technology. My grandfather, who served as a vice-president of a railway car refurbishing factory would be proud – so I thought – no wonder that my mother’s spankings over our frequent railway adventures caused a considerable degree of surprise and dismay on my part.
Beyond the tracks was an entirely different world, as we had countless hectares of swamps, reeds and brush to roam around in search of anything exhilarating. Apart our shooting adventures we enjoyed discovering some long abandoned hunting cabins and dilapidated military barracks, creating our own network of forts and secret passages. This was an incredibly liberating and unforgettable experience for someone who grew up in the jungle of Soviet apartment blocks.
In the winter, our outdoor activities were a bit dampened by short days and crippling cold. So we shifted our adventures indoors. There we spent a considerable deal of time spying on the adults including witnessing domestic drama and disorder that plagued both of our families, partaking in the first experiments with hard alcohol and going to an authentic Russian banya – sauna that is. Once first thaw was in the air, there was nothing stopping us from lunging back outdoors with post-hibernation gusto.
Unfortunately, we were not the only ones with brains – mosquitoes apparently had some of it too. They always found ways to pester us regardless of how much swatting we did. If we wanted to give it to them, and as there were no truly effective chemical defence, so we had to resort to the last trick of resistance – becoming one of them or nearly so. It works like this, one takes his clothes off with possible exceptions of super sensitive parts, step right in the middle of a mosquito swarm and let these incisive bastards take a piece of you for about half an hour. Do not scratch despite indescribable urges to do so and voila, you have successfully become an impenetrable mosquito fortress – a true Russian tale of masochism!
Having conquered mosquitoes, our next target were massive local forest fires that were quite a normal annual occurrence. While average humans tend to flee these conflagrations, curious seven-year olds tend to walk right in them. Due to an apparent lack of local fire fighting efforts we decided step in. You see, we were not plagued by indifference, moral fatigue of yet another five-year plan or general Soviet disregard for the environment. We made our own pact with Mother Nature instead! We would just go into the forest to extinguish as many fires as possible primarily using stomping force of our feet and an occasional splash of water or a handful of sand if available. We never told our parents for the fear of being deprived of the thrill - the thrill of walking away with burning lungs, melting shoes and overpowering triumph of victory. Every little advance provided us with a tremendous sense of exhilaration and satisfaction of the job well done – do not tell my mother!
Our time in the woods also helped us to understand some sinister history associated with the place. On several birch tree juice hunting outings (by the way this juice is excellent and could be purchased in stores all over Russia) we encountered remnants of an old railroad. These old rusty dilapidated rails were almost completely invisible from even few yards away as they were just about swallowed by the thicket of bushes and weeds. In other words to see them you had to literally stumble over them. At first puzzled by the discovery, we found out that these rails were left from initial attempts to build BAM. This was undertaken in a different era – 1930s, for a different reason – to fend off, as opposed to feed, Japanese and by different people – political prisoners, victims of Stalin’s repression as compared to joyful Komsomol hordes. To this day I can remember the forlorn rails and ramshackle buildings scattered near the railroad. This memory sent a chill through my heart, the chill of injustice, innocence and perdition. Well, enough of reminders of sombre past, life still went on and needed some attending.
As one might imagine, this perpetual temptation for pranks in the wilderness could hardly keep us occupied with school. I managed to stay above the class average in all subjects. It was not much of an effort although I hardly had interest in academics. The only question that puzzled throughout the year was when they were going to open indoor toilet facilities – after all it was there – sinks, toilets and paper holders. I have a feeling that I could still be waiting…Soviets thrived on planning that emanated from well-plumbed Moscow offices of the Central Planning Agency. As everything seemed possible on BAM, the miraculous appearance of plumbing was imminently expected. Day after day, I just kept checking whether it was working already. Locals took much more prosaic view of things and used the available space for storage - after all many of them had never seen indoor plumbing. So instead of hot and cold water taps, swishing and gurgling sounds - nice porcelain tubs and toilets produced dust and cobwebs as they became a repository of old junk and useless documents, waiting to be flushed I guess…Also some mischievous school students had never experienced pleasures of porcelain under their bums actually went and tried – fascinating! When janitor arrived few days later, he could only shake his head in despair as even large and menacing locks did not succeed in preventing this unseemly undertaking reminding us all that this was no Eaton or Harrow.
Reading and math were an easy prey for my sponge like mind – full of holes I mean. Lurking and snooping around the hospital where my father worked was as satisfying as firefighting in the forest. I even managed to get myself a bit of a job there – cutting firewood! This was great fun and a chance to prove one’s masculinity. At first, my verve nearly ended one of my index fingers, as I drove it together with the axe blade into a chunk of wood. Ouch! I learned quickly but my flattened finger still reminds of youth’s follies. This was not the only painful experience…
Family Trouble
My father envisioned the move to the Far East as means of overcoming various career-related obstacles, as he was trying to prove that Jews could be doctors too. In Ukraine, where available medical help was plenty, his luck was minimal. He envisioned an exemplary career given his record in the medical school. Ukraine had hard time delivering, so the move to the pioneer surroundings of BAM, where there were only few doctors, instantaneously made him a chief surgeon of the local hospital. Unlike yours truly, my father did indeed relish his chosen career and approached it with fervour – this was always appreciated by a number of grateful patents and happy staff. His congenial nature and general disposition to working with people made him a very popular and noticeable member of the local “society”.
His activities did not start and end at the operating table, as he was an ardent promoter of many an initiative designed to boost hospital expansion and renovations – he was really flourishing in this remote and forsaken part of the Soviet geography. He made a lot of friends wherever he went, Berezovka was not exception. Soon his extra-curriculum activities included attendance of all sorts of parties and other relaxing activities. He even tried his luck at hunting, as once he terrorised my mother by nearly subjecting her to plucking a freshly harvested grouse. Her urbanite sensibilities did not bode well for such domestic challenges especially given her earlier resistance to such innocuous local joys as possession of bear rugs. These things were soft and cuddly but shed a lot and had many tiny little creatures living in them. Only after a lot of persuasion extolling our, my father’s and mine, strong preference for local exotics did she concede. Bear rugs, outdoor plumbing represented by a kitchen bucket and wood burning stove frequently drove her to the brink of despair that did not leave any space for grouse feathers.
As you might imagine my mother found local existence a little more tedious and less appealing as compared to the rest of the family. She was a piano teacher with delicate fingers and penchant for Chopin and Tchaikovsky. Rugged domestic duties of the exile did not fit all that well in her repertoire. Inevitably, this brought a new set of issues into the relationship, especially considering its already existing strife and tensions. My father always found it difficult to cope with questions of this nature, as the result his previous inclinations to drink and pinch resurfaced, not in the least helped on by the rowdy set of his military drinking buddies. These characters were not averse to trying such things as perfume and pure medicinal alcohol if vodka became scarce or they were just lazy to go outside and get it. Needless to say, temptations and boredom galore, they tried even worse things that required syringes. My father was into it…
Consequently, he acquired a comfortable habit of helping himself from the local apothecary that was attached to the hospital. Once, a store lock refused to co-operate with his addiction cycles in particular inopportune moment. After giving it a little thought or not, my father broke in, partook in necessary supplies and left. Of course, given how much of a hardened criminal he was, it did not take militia much effort or time to discover the perpetrator. Once facts were on the table, the Soviet justice system was swift and decisive. Within few days he was apprehended and led away not to be seen for a couple of years. As he was leaving, he said, “I will be back next week”. I will never forget a sense of abysmal dismay that overtook me at that moment – deep inside I knew that it was not true, I tried to believe it by just shutting down any thought related to the affair. But wounds had hard time healing especially when reminded of it by my, at times ruthless, peers during our mindless street games. Sometimes I would be so upset that I would just run back home, climb under my favourite blanket and cry. But life had to go on and carelessness of youth prevailed more often than not – fortunately…
Considering that chances of my father being welcome back were nil, the whole purpose of staying in this remote, small and exposed to gossip place no longer existed. It took us about three months to get our stuff together and go back to Ukraine. Despite friends, adventure and great memories, Ukraine was home and this was not.
My last memory glimpse was that of an eight-hour air plane ride from Khabarovsk back to Moscow. I could hardly believe that a seven-day train ride covered the same distance. The country might be big, but wonders of aeronautic technology made it hardly any bigger than the village we had just left behind. The day outside was clear and I could hardly stay away from the window, trying to trace back the sights seen from the train ride. Maybe one day I will get to do some more tracing again.
1 comment:
Hey Al,
Nice work. The blog is good to you.
Later
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