To the Crimea and beyond

Kiev - Simferopol

By now, I have grown used to it. The train leaves right on time. The passengers move about the carriage, trying to find their place, like tossing around under the sheets before finding the right position to settle in for sleep. Kiev – Simferopol will take 14 hours. In summer, this is a holiday train. Simferopol is the gateway to the Crimea Peninsula, with its sunny beaches and sanatoria. On this Monday in March however, there are not many passengers, and I am alone in my compartment.

After the train has left the vast Kiev agglomeration, and wide open fields have replaced factories and scruffy yards, I head for the dining car, for a beer and a chat. The dining car is empty too. The staff hangs around one of the tables, doing crosswords together. They serve me a beer without much interest, and go back to their crosswords. It is a remarkable lot. The cook is a swarthy, heavy set young man. For some reason he has rolled up the legs of his trousers, exposing huge round and very hairy calves. There are two waitresses. One is young and very thin, the other a hefty, woman in her forties, with her hair dyed a very unnatural red. She has stashed herself in much too tight clothes. So much so, that everywhere her abundant flesh struggles to escape. Everybody smokes. Outside, the fields of southern Ukraine are like an ocean. Loess, fertile soil. I remember that some 50 years ago, the teacher talked to us about this mixture of sand and clay, and I still see the yellow color on the map indicating its spread over Europe; a very thin line trough the South of Limburg, widening to a huge splatch in Ukraine. Untold riches in capacity to feed millions of people. But, as all wealth, inviting plunder. Hitler, viewing these vast reaches as Lebensraum for his Arians, launched his tank armies to conquer it. For Stalin, the words lands, farmers, food, set off the short-circuits in his evil brain, that resulted in genocide for millions of Ukrainians, in the worst famine of modern times, with people dying on the land of plenty. Dark thoughts in the falling evening. …. Fortunately a young man comes in for a beer, and soon we are talking together. His name is Misha, and he is traveling to Simferopol for his business, selling and servicing equipment for blood-testing in hospitals. Misha is 28 and speaks some English. Soon the discussion is about money, and politics. Like most young people I talked to, Misha is proud to be Ukrainian, but worried about the future. Jobs are hard to get, salaries are low. He is married, but says that he and his wife, who also works, cannot afford to have children. According to him, birth figures in Ukraine are low, and the population is declining. But, although very realistic, he is a cheerful young man, and we spend a few good moments drinking beer, while the staff continues to toil away on their crosswords.
We munch some potato chips. The salt and the grease upset my stomach, and part of my dinner and a few bottles worth of Ukrainian beer end between the rails, about halfway to Djnepropetrovsk…..

The train roughly follows the Dnjeper River. By now it is pitch dark outside and I after I have recovered from my misadventure with the potato chips, I have settled comfortably in the cushions, with books and a tea in a dainty glass within reach. The sound of the wheels on the rails, the cozy atmosphere of the compartment, cause my mind to wander. A strong feeling of being here and now, the very reason for me to travel, zooms me “out” from here, like Google Earth. The great waterway we follow, witness to the flow of centuries and peoples comes into mind, clear as a recent photograph. The Vikings, in those days known as the Varangians, or Rus, used this river to reach the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. They rowed up the rivers of the Baltic, crossed a stretch of land near present day Minsk or Vitebsk and found the upper reaches of Berezina and Djneper. Fighting the early Slavs and Finns along the way, they founded Kiev and thereby what was later to become Russia. Late in the evening, the train passes Zaporishje. Alone and at ease in my coupe I am reading Neal Asherson’s “Black Sea”. It was here that the Cossacks he writes about built their first strongholds on a rocky island of Sechs in the Dnjeper, just below the rapids, and I promise myself to stop here on my way back. It was also along this river, that Catherina the Great’s lover general Potemkin built the ill famous “Potemkin Villages”. Painted on wooden theatre décors on the banks of the river, the villages were meant to give Catherina, who sailed down the Dnjeper to inspect the recent additions to her Russian empire, the idea of a populated, rich country, although it was mainly empty. Images float in my mind, and I did not realize when sleep came and changed thoughts to dreams.

When the train arrived in Simferopol, at 4 o’clock in the morning, it was cold and windy. Dark men in leather coats approached the few passengers, offering taxi service to Sevastopol and Yalta, and I decide not to wait for the local bus station to open but to take a taxi to Bachysarai, the former capital of the Krim Tatars, because that is where I am heading. After some negotiation, I am in a taxi, rattling though the empty and dark streets of Simferopol. It takes some time before we leave the city, on a good road to Bachysarai, a ride of some 30 km.

BACHYSARAY

Bachysaray turns out to be a small and very dark town where everybody is sound asleep. The hotels the provodnika, the conductress in the train had talked about, do not exist, and it takes some driving around to find, hidden among sparse trees along the main road, a building that professes to be a hotel. Knocking on a door finally produces an old lady who reluctantly lets me in and shows me the worst hotel room I have seen in my life. The room is vast, and contains a sofa, a shaky table and a few chairs. The bathroom is equally big, with a toilet in a corner and a washstand but no water. A folded bed sheet and a thin blanket on the sofa explain to me that this is my bed for the rest of the night. As is it really cold, instead of undressing I add a pullover or two, wrap myself in the bed sheet and doze off, my mind still full of the impressions of the day.

The next morning the sun shines brightly. As there is still no water, and no breakfast in the hotel, it does not take long before I am in the street looking for something to eat. The railway station is nearby, and the people, who were so sound asleep when I arrived in the night, are out in the street. The place has a distinct Asian look, with people hawking food and vegetables, shoes and clothes. Although I am hungry, I decide not to risk the Kebabs wrapped in a sort of pancake, but buy a few bananas for just a few cents. I wonder where these bananas come from, at that price. Marshrutkas and taxis compete for passengers. Most people are dark and small, and a few wear the small white caps of the Hadj. After all, this is the former capital of the Muslim Krim Tatars. Finally I discover a small café where, sitting in the sun, and watching the busy square, I enjoy hot tea and bread.

It is again history that brought me to this small town. Bachysarai was the capital of the Khanate of the Krim Tatars, a remnant of the vast empire established by Djengis Khan, which controlled these regions from about 1430 to their final defeat by the Russians in 1735.
Bachysarai was thoroughly destroyed by the Russians, but on specific order of Catherina the Great, the royal palace was spared. And this palace is what I had come to see…

Some negotiation with taxi drivers waiting in front of the station resulted in a reasonable taxi, with a jolly, round faced driver of course named Sergey, who would drive me around for the day. A few moments later, after a short drive along Lenin Boulevard, I arrived at my first destination.

The palace, confidently built in a valley clearly shows the self consciousness of people who did not feel threatened. All around the Crimea, settlement on distant hill tops tell the story of war, self defense or hiding from enemies. This palace is built by people who felt secure, and who loved refinement and had a clear sense of proportions. Through a large entrance, one comes to a central yard, around which the palace buildings and a fine mosque are situated. Whitewashed walls alternate with wooden roofs and stairs, giving the place lightness and balance, chasing thoughts about the fate of the Russian and Ukrainian slaves, who built the palace in the 16th century.

Alexander Pushkin visited this place, and it is not hard to imagine how the sensitive poet was impressed by the atmosphere and timeless beauty of the place. His famous poem “The Bachysaray Fountain” which has become a classic of Russian literauture, expresses the beauty of emotions but leaves unsaid the horrible facts of history that caused them. When reading about the systematic destruction of the Krim Tatars, after the conquest of their nation by the Russians, continuing until present times, I felt outrage. Beginning 1944 Stalin deported the remaining 250.000 Tatars in cattle trains to distant regions of Kasachstan, Uzbekistan and Siberia, and dumped them in the wastelands, to fend for themselves. But reading and learning further, I understood that for centuries the Krim Tatars had been raiding the Russian and Ukrainian countryside, for slaves. The Tatars also appeared several times before Moscow, once destroying it utterly, so it is not surprising that the Tatars still figure in Russian proverbs as the ultimate and ever present threat, so that getting even with, and finally destroying a terrible enemy, takes on another meaning.

The fountain Pushkin talks about so eloquently, was commissioned by Giri, the last of the Khans, who had it built to express the grief the Khan felt, when his favorite wife, a Polish beauty ravished from her home by the Khan’s slavers, let herself die of sorrow. The fountain was to weep tears for eternity. The romantic sees the tears of the Khan, the realist sees the fate of a girl, captured by slavers, to disappear for life in the harem of the khan.
Pushkin, well aware of this contradiction, placed two roses on the white marble fountain. A red rose for love, a yellow for misery. This custom is continued until today, and looking at the roses, fresh and with flecks of light from the fountain, I felt the touch of history.

After spending some time in this enchanting place, I climbed aboard the taxi again, and Sergey drove me through a narrowing valley, between sheer limestone cliffs, to the Uspensky monastery. A steep path leads to what could well be the oldest church of Ukraine. Small, and partly hewn into the cliff, this church is supposedly built in the 8th century by monks from Byzantium. The building itself, the proportions and decorations make it a real jewel. The place is tiny, and a few busloads of schoolchildren make it difficult to maintain a devout atmosphere. Again, and like everywhere, we are confronted with the conflict between spirit (the monastery) and money (the tourists).

The third, and possible most impressive sight in this valley, the cave city of Chufut Kale, just a few kilometers farther up the valley, remained out of reach for me. As if to rub it in to me, that people pass and mountains stay, it is here, on these steep paths, that my legs refuse service and walking becomes painful and finally, impossible. So, further discussions with the taxi driver impose themselves. I agree with Sergey on a lump sum for the “Krim Tour” at what I think to be a reasonable price, and a soon I am on my way to Sevastopol, thought the dry country side of the Crimea Peninsula.

Leaving Bachysaray, the town appears bigger than I had thought the evening before. The office buildings and apartment buildings that line the street leading out of the city have the customary derelict look of a Russian province town. Still, there is activity in the streets, and I wonder what it is to live in place like this, to see this street as your own, and that building as home. What drives me to run away from the place I call home? Why the realization that even this place is “home” to somebody, makes me want to drive away from it? And, at the same time, to be jealous of that man, who just enters that dreary building that is his home, and secretly longing for MY home again, each and every day?

The dry country around me, once out of the town, is densely planted with fruit trees. Apricots and peaches, says Sergey. For the first time I notice that the sky has a distinct southern look, like when passing Valence on the way south from Lyon. Bluer, brighter. We drive through broad valleys, surrounded by flat topped mesas. On one of them, visible above a small lake with some resort like buildings, and high up sheer cliffs, are the ruins of Manhup Kale, a place I wanted to visit but now out of reach because of my bad legs. Another story of remote places. Ruins of civilizations. Hiding, fighting for life and final defeat. Manhup Kale was the capital of Feodor, a nation of Crimean Greeks, and descendants of Goths and Samatians that thrived in the 6th century. The sheer cliffs made this stronghold easily defensible, but somehow, also this culture ran out of steam, and was simply abandoned in the 15th century.
Now, along with the birds, some groups of youngsters camp there in summer enjoying the beautiful sights from the high mesa, and the stars above, and the joints they get from God knows where.

We are on our way to Sevastopol, but will take the long way round, to see the historic battlegrounds of Balaklava, and the valley of death. From the earliest days of settlement by Greek colonists, 6000 years B.C., the rocky coast near Sevastopol has been of strategic interest. As such, it drew the attention of settlers and conquerors, be they Greek, Scythe, Goth, Samatian, Alane, Roman, Venetian and Genoese, Tatar, Turk, and finally Russian and German. So it happened that in 1854, during the war that opposed Russia and the Ottoman Empire, the Ottoman Turks, helped for their own reasons by the English and French, landed near Balaklava, with the idea to seize the all important town and naval base of Sevastopol, 25 km to the north.


THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE


A trench war resulted, with bad hygienic conditions and a fierce winter taking as many lives as the fighting itself. Florence Nightingale – the Woman with the Lamp – got everlasting fame with her help for the sick and the wounded, and the balaklava, a tight knitted garment covering the whole head and neck with holes for the eyes and mouth also takes its name from this battle where soldiers first wore them. On October 25th, during the battle of Balaclava, a Russian attempt to relieve the seige of Sevastopol, a badly worded instruction resulted in the “Charge of the Light Brigade”, a disastrous attack by the English Light Cavalry, up the wrong valley, straight into the fire of the Russians defending it from three sides. The attack comprised all the elements that make war so terrible and fascinating. Heroism and death, sense of duty and outight stupidity combined to create an event that in history rank wits Thermopilae and Calderone and the Alamo. It prompted Alfred, Lord Tennyson, to write the famous lines "Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die"
The Charge of the Light Brigade has been mentioned and commented upon in countless writings since, to point out to the consequences of bad reconnaissance and unclear instructions.

The road follows the crest of the hill, and gives a clear view of the Valley of Death, now a vast wineyard. When I get out of the car, at one of the many memorials that line this road, I can see to the left the small town of Balaklava and the sea, and, past a crossroads, the road climbing to the right, over a ridge that hides Sevastopol from view. Closer to Sevastopol, the momorails tend to become mixed up. There are those of the war of 1854, and those of the war of 1942, when the German Army took Sevastopol after a 250 days siege. The Russians do not need much to grab the occasion to plant rows of obsolete tanks and guns at such memorials. And so history repeats itself, every time again men dying, and being honoured as heroes for defending a homeland which their ancestors took from somebody else. The place saddens my mind, and on these heights a cold wind is blowing from the East, chilling my bones too. The road follows a high ridge, then goes over the top, and there before my yes is the white city of Sevastopol looking like a remnant of snow on the shores of the blue sea. Nearby, a small plot of land has been filled by strange and complicated looking villas obviously destined for the rich and powerful. Strange buildings, high and narrow with seemingly no logic in the structure. The road slopes down to the city, and before long we are entering the city via a busy road, rounding capes, and hugging coves and bays, full of warships. The city has a distinct Mediterraenan air. Until 1996 it was off limits to foreigners because of the naval base.


SEVASTOPOL


Sergey is visibly proud of this city. He points out to me the different uniforms of the many navy personnel in the streets. Black for the Russians, olive green for the Ukrainians. As part of the complicated discussions separating the two countries, in the 1990’s, it was decided that both countries would use the naval base, for the Russians as a lease that is due to expire in 2019. Some of the streets are lined with palm trees. White buildings with wide stairs and opulent balconies remind of Monte Carlo, the pavements are wide and full of people. The town seems to welcome the traveler, the air is soft and a faint smell of sea mixes with the various smells of a busy city.

Before long, after I have found a place to stay – the soviet-style Hotel Sevastopol, with cavernous hall, marble staircase leading to grubby floors and old fashioned rooms – I stroll the busy streets of the town. There is a lightness in the air and I feel relaxed as if I came back to a place I had known before. Broad avenues are crowded with lightly dressed people, although it is only March. The town is protected from the cold East winds by the ridge I crossed before entering the city and although it is early evening by now, the temperature is pleasant. The wide Prospekt Nashimova leads to a big open space at the waterfront. Admiral Nakhimov, the defender of the city during the Crimean War, stands proudly on the wide square named after him, looking out over the South Bay, and warships moored at the other side. Tourists visit the nearby Aquarium, and take each other’s photographs with the Eagle Column, on a rock in the bay, commemorating the deliberate scuppering of the Russian fleet in the mouth of the harbour, denying the use of it to the English and French navies during the Crimean war.

The next morning, I come back to this pleasant place, to sit in the sun, and to feel happy and at peace with the world. I visit the Aquarium, where classes of schoolchildren are shown around by stern teachers, who do not seem to have much trouble to refrain the kids from breaking up the place. I talk to a few of them, they come from Odessa. Some of them are wearing the same soccer shirts one can see in Amsterdam, with names like Ronaldo or Beckham. They don’t look like rich kids; it is good to see that apparently schools have the initiative and funds to make such trips possible. Later in the day, I see similar classes when I visit the vast Panorama of the siege of Sevastopol, housed in an imposing building on a hill in the centre of the town. Again the war, again heroism, this time on a painted canvas the size of a soccer field. This preoccupation with heroism and martyrdom is a very specific trait of Russia. Is it a compensation of peacetime life that offers so little to this population? Is it a policy, to replace the promise of eternal life in heaven – so despised by the communists – to the promise of eternal fame in some concrete mausoleum or heroic painting? A few years back I happened to be in Moscow on May 8th, hero’s day. I was impressed to see literally hundreds of buses discharge their loads of very old veterans, rows of ribbons and decorations on shabby costumes, brought in from the provinces to share in the glorious moments of the victory celebrations.

In the glaring sunshine of the early afternoon, Sergey then drops me off at the vast seaside ruins of the ancient Greek city of Chersonesus. I had read about this place in Neal Acherson’s excellent book about the Black Sea. The ruins embody the fluidity of history, the realizations that nothing is stable and civilizations come and go. And at the same time, force us to ask ourselves how to react to this. Is the knowledge that everything we build will eventually be destroyed a reason NOT to build? Or is it an encouragement to take our place in history, to be come part of history by building, and by living and occupying OUR time and space in the endless tides of history?

Obviously, the people who built this city had chosen the second option, probably not after philosophic considerations, but out of sheer necessity. The city was founded some 600 years BC by Greeks from what is now the Turkish coast of Black Sea. The Greek city states had begun to run out of arable land, and when they started to visit and colonize the shores of the Black Sea it was for one reason only: Food! Although Jason went to Colchis in search of the Golden Fleece, an abundant supply of fish and the possibility to grow wheat were a more prosaic reason to brave the hazards of the Scylla and Charybdis.

In these times, the Scythes dominated large areas in what is now Ukraine and Russia, and the Greeks colonies existed only because the Scythes allowed them to be there. Although the Scythes originally were nomadic people, they understood rapidly where the money was, and before long became suppliers of wheat to the Greek. The interaction between the more sophisticated Greek and their hosts, did not fail to produce some of the stunning gold pieces of art we still can admire in the museums of St. Petersburg and Kiev.

Chersonesus (meaning peninsula in Greek) became a thriving city that very early at times knew democracy. Walking between the ruins very near the shore, one can easily imagine the straight streets with people, Greek and Scythes, later Romans from Byzantium, not much different from those, living in present day along the shores of the Black Sea and Mediterranean. The city knew good times as well as times of war and destruction. It was destroyed and rebuilt several times. Finally, the Mongols definitely destroyed it at the end of the 13th century. But the events that made it famous were the arrival of the monk Cyril who started to convert the pagan tribes to Christianity, culminating in the baptism of king Volodymyr the Great in 990 AD, a first step to what was to become the Russian Orthodox Church. A shiny new cathedral with a golden dome is supposed to mark the place where the baptism took place. A simple black statue of St. Cyril faces north, towards the endless lands of Russia he set out to convert. The Black Sea, here blue and green and transparent, has taken big chunks of the ancient city. Just a few metres separate the beautiful white marble remains of a Greek temple from the same fate as more than a third of the ancient city: to disappear into the waves.

The day is sunny and hot, when I leave Sevastopol. The road slowly climbs over the ridge, then passes the Valley of Death I had visited earlier, and after leaving Balaklava with the Genoese fortress of Chembalo to the right, slowly climbs through a dense forest of pine trees. After the dry landscape we just crossed, the subdued light is reposing the eyes.
The gradual ascent sort of slowly sets me up for the stunning surprise of Baydarksky Vorota Pass. After another turn of the road among the trees, I arrive at a small place, where the road passes through a narrow arched gap under what seems to be a bridge. A few ramshackle souvenir shops signal the presence of something to see. Dutifully I ascent the stairs leading to what seems to be a simple roadside restaurant, but nothing prepared me for the stunning sight that awaits me. The horizon opens in an explosion of light and height and distance. I am on a balcony, above the sea which is so near it seems to be right under my feet. 800 meters beneath me lies the small town of Foros on the shore of the Black Sea. The brilliant blue of the sea is accentuated by the white breakers against the rocky coast. Halfway down the steep slope a domed church, straight from a fairy tale, perfect in shape and proportions, sits atop a promontory, giving even more depth to the tri-dimensional wonder before my eyes. To the East, the coast stretches as far as the eye can see, grey mountains with clouds closely hugging them. To the West, the view is blocked by a massive mountain, dropping from far above us straight into the sea.
Every journey reserves such experiences to the traveller. Miles of uninteresting roads and boring hours in a train are like the tons of rocks that have to be shifted to find the few grains of gold. The light and the brightness are like food and drink for a mind that is sensitive to them.

It takes some time before the eyes and the mind are satiated of all the beauty, and it is almost with regret that I get back into Sergey’s taxi, and start the winding descent to the sea. Halfway down, at the church, that loses much of its magic seen from close range, we stop for a while. It may be the dominating presence of the sea that sets Sergey off to talk about his life and family. As a young man, he has been a sailor, in the time the Russian cargo ships were a dominating presence on the oceans. He has been to Pointe-Noire, in the then People’s Republic of Congo many times, perhaps delivering the Russian equipment I saw in that port when I lived there in the 1960’s. As happens to sailors, the adventures of the early years become long periods away from home, and marriage and children brought his seafaring days to and end. Now his son has taken over, and Sergey is proud to tell me that his son had phoned from Jakarta just a few days before.

We drive through the town of Foros, which became world news for a few days, when former president Gorbatsjov was kept there under house arrest during the aborted coup of the hardliners in 1991, and soon we are on our way along the coast, in the direction of Yalta. Sergey tells me that during summer this coastal road is frequently jammed with vehicles and buses, carrying the vacationing Russians and Ukrainians to their seaside resorts. And even now, with little traffic on the road, from time to time we are overtaken with breakneck speed by powerful cars of those who don’t have to count their rubles.

The scenery is beautiful. To our right, the blue sea, to the left, steep mountains in various shades of grey, near the tops closely hugged by white clouds. The sharp light and contrasting colours lend an air of lightness to these surroundings. It is easily understood that the rich and powerful of all ages liked to come here, to use the place as their play ground, or in a bid recover their health. Before the revolution the sanatoria filled with the rich who came to cure their tuberculosis. After the Bolshevik victory, although the communist regime was not tender with its workers, for many of them a stay in a seaside resort became a reality, thanks to Lenin, whose 1920 decree on the health of the workers is still remembered in marble, near the waterfront in Yalta, where we are heading now.


YALTA


It is early evening when around a bend in the road, that now has climbed well above the coastline, a splendid view on the bay and town of Yalta opens up. The sunlight has lost the sharpness it had during the day, softening the contours and the colours. The town is built as an amphitheatre around a vast bay. The setting sun in our backs bathes the far end of the bay in a soft light. Yalta is like an old lady, who wants to be seen in forgiving light only. The harsh truth will inevitably come out anyhow, but why spoil these first moments? The white buildings seem to blend in the green of the hills, the clouds cover the far mountains with the softness and grace of a woollen scarf, with a few patches of snow as confetti to complete the festive scene.

Driving down into the city, the fairy tale soon dissolves into the reality of streets and ugly buildings, factories, petrol stations and traffic. Each time I come to a place I have set out to see, a kind of elation overwhelms me, makes my eyes see sharper than normal, and fills my head with the images that assail me from all sides. “You are in Yalta now” a voice seems to repeat to me. The same voice that needlessly told me before that I was in Hawaii, or Sydney, or flying a plane all alone for the first time….. Some reward for realizing dreams? Still, the comparing never leads to disappointments as the expectations did not concern beauty or grandeur or precise details, but rather the being there, as an end in it self. The images before my eyes do not replace earlier constructions of my mind. They start to built my contact with the place from the ground up, and in doing so, already start to prepare the moment I want to leave, to pursue new names that invite my mind to travel.

Sergey knows the town, and soon I have found a place to stay. This time that place is Bristol Hotel, an English looking place that can easily withstand comparison with many seaside hotels in the cities of the Mediterranean. After making arrangements to meet again the next morning, Sergey has disappeared. The hotel is very near to Naberezhna (Quay) Lenina, a wide pedestrian promenade where, in the season, one comes to see and to be seen. The sun has disappeared behind the promontory to the West, and it has become chilly. The promenade, easily to be imagined full of people, is almost deserted. The palm trees look a bit dejected, and many of the bars and restaurants and attractions are closed. Some older people calmly stroll along, the same old couples I have seen on the promenades of Ostende or Cannes except for the small dog on a leash, which is missing. There are no white yachts to admire. The rich are still in Moscow and Kiev, getting richer. Only a few rusted boats of all sorts have been taken out of the water and line a jetty looking like a ship grave-yard.

I look around for a place to eat something. I skip the MacDonald, quite full of people, and opt for a stolovaya in a side street. Simple food, pork meat in many disguises, side dishes of potatoes and as always, various salads with mayonnaise and the ever present carrots and cucumbers. The beer is never a problem, and prices are adapted to the local economy. It has been a day full of impressions, and before long I am back in the hotel for a good night’s sleep.

The next morning, when I look out of the window of my room, which is at the rear of the hotel, I look into a vast construction site. The “new” money has of course found its way into this town, and although still the surroundings do not give that impression of utter and hopeless asphyxiation of the Cote d’Azur, there is great building activity.

Sergey is already waiting in front of the hotel. His old Mercedes looks considerably less shiny than his smile, full of gold teeth. He is a pleasant, open person, not cutting corners on HIS part of the deal, to drive me from Bachysarai, via Sevastopol and Yalta back to Simferopol, including the well known tourist attractions. The program of the day includes Chechov’s house, and the palace where the wartime meeting between Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill took place.

It is a few minutes before 10 o’clock when Sergey drops me off at Chekhov’s house. Although a large parking lot has been arranged for the coaches of the many visitors to this national shrine, there is nobody yet, except me. Small stairs descend from the road to a building housing the inevitable cashier’s deck and a small museum, with photographs and various objects used by the writer. As I am early, I can at leisure see how the premises wake up. An old man is slowly and in a very thoughtful way sweeping up some fallen leaves, contemplated by a security guard with an impressive army cap who seems to be settling in for the day at his occupation of doing nothing at all. The surroundings are lush, almost subtropical. A white marble buste of Chekhov faces the entrance of the building. Even the motionless stone cannot take away the impression of gentleness and calm charm in the face of the writer. We are on the “wrong” side of the amphitheatre that is Yalta, and the sun only now starts to reach the garden and the building. Just before 10 o’clock, a middle aged lady arrives, carrying a bunch of keys, who decorously starts to open up the doors and the shutters of the building.

After paying an entrance fee, I look at the exhibits, mostly photographs, that summarize a lifetime. From a harsh youth in Taganrog, at the Sea of Azov, alone in the world at the age of 15, Anton Chekhov beats all the odds by becoming a medical doctor. But his destiny is to become a writer of stories, books and above all a playwright. In his early years, he wrote as a means to earn a living, selling stories to magazines. But gradually, writing becomes his main occupation. His medical profession serves him, when he embarks on an inspection tour of the Tsar’s prisons on Sakhalin, and during a cholera epidemic, when he volunteers to help out his countrymen. The little boy from Taganrog becomes a famous man, acclaimed as a foremost playwright, but all the photographs show a gentle man, with a natural modesty. Finally, he settles in Yalta, in the hope to cure a tuberculosis, that eventually kills him at the age of 44.

Unfortunately, his house, a big and for those days no doubt very modern Mediterranean style villa, is closed for maintenance, and I can only walk around it through a romantic garden, full of pathways and benches where I imagine him sitting, breathing the clean air and dreaming up the characters of his play. Later, reading his short stories “Russian Love” and the account of his travel to Sakhalin, these images are in my mind. The more one knows of the writer, the more the pages seem to come to life. His descriptions of the hardships of his travel in Siberia, and the terrible conditions in Sakhalin contrast strangely with his rich and comfortable condition in Yalta. Still, Yalta “happened” to him, like “Sakhalin” happened to others. Had he been an exile, he would have made the best of that condition, as some of those he writes about.

From Chekhov’s house, to the palace where the leaders of the Allies met in 1945 to discuss the approaching end of WW2, is just a few miles, but it is a journey into another dimension. From the quiet, unassuming and contemplating mind of Chekhov, to the power politics between the three most powerful men of the world at that moment, the difference cannot be greater. Where Chekhov directed his mild, ironic attention to the behaviour and dreams of individual humans, the big three re-arranged the map of post war Europe with bold strokes of the pen, thus disposing without much consideration of the lives of millions of people, all the while putting their own interests first, haggling, distrusting, cajoling and arm twisting in an orgy of power, playing God.

THE YALTA CONFERENCE

It is not by accident that the meetings were held in the last palace Tsar Nicolas II had built before he was swept aside in the maelstrom of the Revolution. The setting of the Livadia Palace is stunning. The long, Italian Renaissance facade faces a well kept park, with a wide, unencumbered view Eastwards on the bay and the city. Cypress trees give a stark vertical contrast to the flowing lines of mountains and the coast and the sea. The Tsar had this palace built in 1911 as a summer residence. The man who already could not see his people because he stood too far above them, here also literally turned his back to them. In the well preserved private apartments of the royal family, at the first floor facing the sea, are full of the memories of this doomed family, with the Tsarevitsj Alexey often the centre of the action. The sunny photographs on the beach speak of carefree days, the personal objects on writing desks and in the bedrooms are witnesses of a seemingly normal family life, that was to be ended dramatically in the Ekaterinaburg shootings, 4 years hence.

Perhaps it was intentionally, perhaps just one of those quirks of fate, that made the allies choose this palace as meeting place for their conference on the pursuit of the war, and its aftermath. The corridors that had seen the absolute power in the person of Tsar Nicolas II now filled with the representatives of the greatest powers the world had known, armed to the teeth, slugging it out with Nazi Germany. The great White Hall, where the old noblesse had woven their intricate plays of court intrigues, had become the battleground where the big Three and their staffs redesigned the map of Europe. The place is pregnant with history. In a big room, right after the majestic entrance, stands the very table around which the leaders sat, with name cards indicating the exact location. НИНСТОН ЧЕРЧИЛЛЬ no doubt had to be shown to his place. A big photograph on the wall shows the same table and the same chairs. Only the Russian and English military men standing guard – dummies in uniform – will not feel the authenticity of this place. Immediately to the right two arches lead to the former ballroom, where the main conferences were held. Several groups of schoolchildren are being shown around. I regret not to understand enough Russian to follow the explanations of the teachers.
Thoughtfully, I follow the route though the palace. This is the study of Roosevelt, there Churchill met with his staff. Much dark wood and red carpets, nice places to hide microphones I can’t help thinking.
AY-PETRI

During the summer season, a cable car brings tourists up to the Ay-Petri at a dizzying height above the bay of Yalta. But it is March, and we have to reach that place with Sergey’s old Mercedes. For the next hour or so, we follow a winding road though a dense pine forest. Fortunately there is hardly any traffic. Sergey is a good driver, but the road is narrow and the trees hide cars from the opposite direction until the very last moment. Several times I think we have reached the top, but I am disappointed each time. Patches of snow, growing bigger as we ascend, become visible among the trees, and finally the car passes between two walls of dirty snow, the melt water streaming down in the middle of the road. Strangely enough we encounter a number of cyclists. Not one of them climbing – all tearing down the slope with breakneck speed. Finally we emerge from the trees, and the road flattens out to cross a wide plain, grey rock protruding from the snow. After the ascent, one would expect to reach a pass and to start going down the other side, but no, the top is flat country, with smaller hills in the distance. We pass a big radar- and telecommunications station, then turn back again in the direction of the sea, and arrive at the cable car station. And again, a wonderful reward for risking my life in Sergey’s car! A wonderful panorama opens before my eyes. The mountain ridge is so steep, that the sea seems to be right beneath my feet. To the right, Mount Ay-Petri looms with its 1233 m. To the left, Yalta smiles at us with its white buildings around the blue bay. I take my time to enjoy the beauty of the place, because from now, the journey will go north, away from the Black Sea, to the vast interior of central and eastern Ukraine.

We leave the coast with its beauty, and take the road to Simferopol. It takes some time to leave the snowy heights. We see ski-trails in the snow, and cross a few groups of young people, in skis and with backpacks, obviously tracking these deserted places. The mountains rise steeply out of the sea, but to the north, they gradually change and become flat plateaus, a “mesa” landscape. We drive north through what seem to be canyons. However with flat valleys with villages and many cultured fields. In the cliffs around us, erosion has created what seem to be vast cities of troglodytes, and with some imagination I see houses big and small and even churches and cathedrals. With the 3000 years of history of the Crimea in mind, I see these “cities’ inhabited and then abandoned by tribe after tribe and generation after generation. Sergey does not seem to know anything about this history. He seems to be happy to return to his home in Simferopol and chats with a strong voice to be heard over the constant noise of the radio.

Bachysaray reappears and after an uneventful trip, we arrive in Simferopol. Sergey drops me off at the railway station, and waves goodbye with a big smile of golden teeth. I have appreciated the company of this simple and cheerful man.

The station is crowded. Simferopol is the central arrival or departing point for the Crimea. Many destinations are shown on the departure board, like Kiev, Moscow, Kharkov, Odessa, Djnepropetrovsk and even St. Petersburg, which is 35 hours away by train. In the central hall, a crowd of travellers occupy rows of seats, surrounded by their luggage. Long queues wait in front of the may ticket counters. The counters are usually for only a few destinations, and it takes some asking to find myself at the right one. My destination is Zaporisje, the old Cossack capital on the Djnepro. I’m lucky, there will be a train in about an hour time. I buy my ticket, and decide to find something to eat. Outside of the station, under a covered area, several small café’s offer cater for the hasty traveller. It is pleasant to note that I can just disappear into the crowd. Nobody takes notice of a lonely traveller who in bad Russian manages to order a few things to eat and to drink. The people around me, predominantly dark in appearance – Simferopol is also a centre for the Tatars returning from their forced relocation in Central Asia – sit and smoke quietly. It is not clear whether they are arriving or leaving, or just whiling away the time. Nobody seems rich, nobody poor. Outside, a very modest looking old woman sits on a ledge near a window. She reads in thick book, and tin the 30 minutes I saw her, she just turned the pages, and did not look up a single time. I wondered what she was reading, and later regretted that I did not ask. Then it is time to find my train. Usualy, the platforms in the Russian stations are low. One walks way below the level of the trains, and here you really climb into a train. Again I find a polite lady conductor standing patiently at the carriage, who after a perfunctionary check of ticket and passport, shows me to my seat. As it is low season, the train is virtually empty, and I can take my time settling in. The trip to Zaporizhzhya will take 5 hours, so a few books and a dictionary find their place on the small table, soon there is a steaming glass of tea too, brought by the conductress, who also knows that hers will be a quiet trip today. When the train leaves, right on time, I think back to a pleasant stay in the Crimea. It offered me all I had come for. History and beautiful nature and rather pleasant and helpful people.

As the train heads north, it passes right along the marshlands of the Sea of Azov. It crosses what seems to be causeway, just for the railway and a highway. To the left and the right there is only water. To the west, the setting sun sets the distant horizon on fire. To the east, the coming darkness gives a leaden colour to the flat surface of water. The flatness of it all accentuates the vastness of the regions I cross, and even after the rain has left the causeway, and endless fields stretch in all directions, hardly a village or house is to be seen. The ground is dull brown. Spring has not yet come, and nature is still passive, like after a long night sleep one can prefer not to jump out of bed, but to let the reality of the coming day slowly reach you through half open eyes.

Then a singular sight accentuates the vastness of this land. The fields are bare, with only here and there a small fence or signpost, or a small tree or shrub. And each and every one of these obstacles is covered with plastic bags, looking from far like Christmas trees. I imagine that these bags have been blown with the south west wind over considerable distances, not meeting any obstacle for miles and miles, until finally being stopped in their journey by a tree or fence. Pity I can’t get down to have a better look. I imagine there must be bags with prints of shops from cities like Simferopol or Cherson, to the south and the west. What fun it will be, to perform an autopsy on a small tree on the steppe, that does not move anywhere, but receives plastic gifts from everywhere around it. It is an eerie sight, these Christmas trees in the darkening fields.

Finally, darkness falls. The vast expanse outside is shut out and the world shrinks to a comfortable train compartment, books, and the regular beat of the wheels on the rails, gobbling up the distance. A few times we cross small towns, and some lights appear in the darkness. But the train does not stop until it reaches the small town of Melitopil. I am on my way to Zaporizhzhya, and did not include Melitopil in my program. The town is a middle sized industrial town, with nothing much to see, were it not for the site of one of Ukraine’s most remarkable historical sites at that nearby, at the village of Myrne, nearby. Prehistoric humans came here to pray to their gods, and sacrificial rituals were carried out by pagan holy men. Carvings in the rocks speak of a civilization of more than 9,000 years ago. The place is enveloped in mysticism, and even today’s political elite is reported to visit this “shrine” to try to obtain favours from the Gods. A man named Mykhailov runs the site, together with his wife, and has devoted more than 30 years of his life to safeguarding and studying the wonderful rock-drawings it contains. Time is a relative entity, because now I don’t have the time to visit this place, although it has waited 9000 years for me.

At nine in the evening, the train arrives Zaporizhje. A number of passengers disembark, on one of the low outer platforms. At the same moment an endlessly long freight train passes slowly at the other side of the platform. Two heavy locomotives, tank wagons and open freight cars lumber past. When finally the last wagon is gone, with red lights disappearing into the night, something happens that I had never seen. The passengers, who just disembarked from my train, step off the platform and cross the rails where the freight train just passed, to reach the station building. It all happens very matter of fact. It is surprising to me, proving again that we all develop our habits depending on where we live. The last thing one would do in Holland, is step off the platform of a railway station! The station building itself is clean. Again I have to choose between many counters, where ladies in uniform again are not very patient with my halting Russian. I want to book a train to Donetsk which turns out to be not an easy thing to do. Buying an “open” ticket, and just waiting for the next train like we do in Holland is not an option here. It took the help of a friendly young man – who later turned out to be a missionary for some American based Bible Club - to point out to me what I knew but did not realize: the countryside is deserved by buses, not by trains! Cities like Zaporizhzhya have substantial bus terminals and small and big buses connect destinations near and far. My friend the Bible salesman tells me that there is a bus to Donetsk the next afternoon at 2 o’clock, so I will have the time for a short visit to Khortytsya Island, the former stronghold of the Zaporizhzhya Cossacks.

A few moments later, I am in a taxi driving along the 10 km long main street, another Prospekt Lenina. Arriving at the hotel, I arrange a visit to the Island for the next morning. After a good meal of river fish and a few beers, I beef up on the history of the Cossacks.

In the late Middle Ages, people who for all kinds of reasons had fled the regions controlled by Muskovy, Poland and Lithuania, started to form small groups which could survive in the “empty” reaches of what is now Southern Russia and Ukraine. They formed loose tribes, under an elected “hetman”. Two centres of power emerge; the Zaporizhzhya Cossacks, along the Djnepro, right where I am at this moment, and the Don Cossacks, centred in the region of Rostov, on the river Don, to the east. This was a virile environment, where a man was first and foremost a soldier, and fiercely independent. The Cossack’s pride was his horse and his gun, and although agriculture was a necessary occupation, little encouragement was needed to get them going on adventurous campaigns, of which many ended in painful failure. Political acumen was not their strongest skill, and in fact they have been used throughout the centuries by the real powers around them. The Russians and Lithuanians did not mind to have some strong presence between them and the restless tribes from the central Asian plains, and stood at the sidelines cheering the Cossacks on when their hosts went on another “holy war” against the heathens from the plains. There was a tacit agreement that fugitives from the established estates who reached the Cossacks were not extradited, but in exchange, the estates could call for help in case they were attacked by Tatars or – more often – their neighbours. The Cossacks recognized the Tsar as their suzerain, and considered themselves the fierce defenders of the Orthodox religion, but that did not refrain them from revolting time and again against the Tsars if they felt strong enough. Several great revolts during the 17th and 18th centuries were led by Cossack leaders, such as Bogdan Chmelnitski and the great Stefan Razin, who is still revered in Russia as a genuine liberator of the poor and oppressed. The independent attitude of present day Ukraine is a reminder of that never resolved question: Did the Cossacks accept to be PART of Russia, or did their allegiance to the Tsar express a voluntary gesture between equals?

The rapid expansion of the Russian empire was more often than not spearheaded by Cossacks. From their origins in the South Russian plains, the centuries and the attraction of gold and furs brought Cossacks to the shores of the Pacific Ocean, and had them fighting the Manchus along the Amour River. Still, they never managed to acquire real political power and independence, and when finally, under Catherina the Great, Russian power reached the Black Sea, their “homeland” was no longer a frontier, and the Cossacks lose their strategic function. In 1775 the sich at Khortytsya Island was destroyed on order of Catherina The Great, and most of the Zaporizhzhya Cossacks finally migrated to the Kuban region. And now I am going to visit the site of the Cossack fortress on Khortytsya Island.


The Djnepro in the region of Zaporizhzhya forms a series of cataracts – Zaporizhzhya means “beyond the rapids” - and finally passes through a narrow and rocky valley. The rapids nowadays have disappeared under a huge lake behind a hydroelectric dam, built in the 1930’s.
Right opposite the dam, Khortytsya Island sits as a cork on a bottle, and the strategic importance of this site is still evident. It was here that in the mid 1500’s Cossacks built a sich (fortress) and became united under a strong leadership.

The next morning, I am early, and as the taxi to take me to Khortytsya Island is not due for another 40 minutes, I walk towards the main artery of the city, Prospekt Lenina. There, I see a mass of red flags, and a crowd of young people in something that looks like a demonstration. A few policemen hang around, but the scene is peaceful, and they have nothing to do. I approach the demonstration, and see that the red flags show a portrait of Jezus, and some of the demonstrators carry peace signs. On the pavement they have placed coffins, painted black, with in white lettering “Clean Air” and “Healthy Children”. I try to talk to some of the young people, and they direct me to Anton, who speaks French fluently. He explains to me that they demonstrate against the uncontrolled pollution caused by the heavy industries in the region.
It is heartening to see that even here some people care. The political reality of the country, and the prevailing economic conditions make their task a very long uphill battle indeed. But it is good to see in the earnest faces around me a calm determination. They know that a result of their action is not for today, or even tomorrow, but just do what they think is right to do. A bleak sun has appeared, giving the scene a festive air. I walk back to the hotel, with some sunshine in my heart that was not there before.

My taxi arrives on time, and we start in the direction of the island. To get there, we have to cross the dam, and get stuck in a gigantic traffic jam. There is only one road to get to the other side of the river, and it is built against the top of the massive dam. We advance very slowly, and from time to time there is no movement at all. At times, I can see through the open structure of the top of the dam, the lake it has brought into existence. What would it have been convenient for the Vikings, on the way to the Black Sea and beyond, who had to carry their boats the lengths of the rapids! To my left, when my view is not blocked by a truck advancing in the next lane, I can see Khortytsya Island. It has a steep bank, but seems flat, covered with a low forest. As often happens, when I have reached a place I have set out to see, my thoughts take me away from myself, like a camera zooming out to give a bird’s eye view of the dam, the lake and the taxi in which I sit. At the same time, the sounds around me change into those of other times. The traffic noise becomes the sound made by people discharging vessels on the banks of a much older Djnepro. De thin white light of the morning now illuminates Cossacks building their fortress, shouting at their horses dragging trees from the forest for the construction of their fortress. I see them working and building, but knowing that what they are building will be destroyed and I feel sadness and pity for these people. They build their fortress to last forever and in their drive and enthusiasm there is no doubt. For them, things will always be as they are now. It makes me wonder: is my travel an unconscious wish to stop time? My wanting to be somewhere else, my sometimes painful leaving and “not belonging” a way to avoid belonging to what must disappear too? I let these thoughts come and go, without trying to formulate the answers, because answers can produce certitudes that are a form of belonging too.

But eventually everything comes to and end, even this monstrous traffic jam, and a few minutes later we drive over a bridge that connects the west bank of the river with the island.
The site of the old “sich” on the northern tip of the island, facing the huge hydroelectric dam, consists merely of a few hillocks, which can be seen as having been a defence wall. For good mesure a few old canon have been put on these walls, but they don’t even begin to look authentic. In the area enclosed by these walls, a small museum contains artefacts and weapons. A big panorama like painting, of which I have by now seen quite a few in Russia, shows a scene with a big crowd of warlike Cossacks, humiliating some prisoners. It demonstrates the vigour of these people. Studying the history of the Cossacks, however, shows that this vigour was rather an end in itself, instead of being applied to a long term policy or common goal. It is not surprising that romantics have seen in this people the ultimate free warriors. They have earned gratitude and glory fighting for Russia, against Tatars and Napoleon and in the wars of imperialism to the East. They have robbed and raped and shown a lot of enthusiasm in many of the pogroms against the stetls of the Jews of Poland and Ukraine and Russia. They have joined the whites in the Civil war, but also joined the Red Cavalry under General Budjonny in the Soviet’s war with Poland in 1920 – as related in the books of Isaac Babel. The final defeat of the whites saw them leaving Russia, often forever, from the port of Novorossisk, to become taxi drivers in Paris. In the Ukraine, many have sided with the Germans in 1941, in the vain hope for an independent Cossack state. Again they betted on the wrong horse. Stalin’s revenge has been total. But whether doing small jobs in France, or being an apparatchik under the Soviets, a Cossack will remain first foremost a Cossack, even if he has never seen a horse form nearby.

After the visit to the museum, the taxi takes me to a site a few kilometres away, where a few small hills are disguised as Kurgans, with a collection of big stones, evoking the monoliths of old civilisations. The taxi driver takes a photo of me with the Cossack guard of the premises, a shabby looking man, in army fatigues, with a dirty woollen Cossack hat. So far for the tourism and the island. The whole site disappoints, but for me that does not matter. I have “seen” the place, and I don’t need an artificial Kurgan and a disguised watchman, to bring this place to life in my mind.

Half an hour later, the taxi drops me off at the central bus station, and obviously I am not the only one wanting to travel today. Around a large building in the middle of a vast expanse of concrete, a big crowd is milling about. Taxis come and go, people drag luggage about, and whole families are on the move, including their small kids and old folks. Inside, a number of counters sell tickets, in front of each of them, people form long lines. After some asking, where invariably people are helpful and polite, I find the right queue, and after a while have a ticket to Donetsk. Although the distance to Donetsk is about 250 km, I pay around 10 Euro for the ticket. I have to wait for about half and hour for the bus to leave, so I try to get something to eat. Outside, several food stalls offer cheap and bad sandwiches and a sort of pizza. Soft drinks and elementary snacks like Mars and Snickers are for sale everywhere. It is fun to see the crowd, and note the big variety in people. Families, businessmen, and many young adults, boys and girls, very self conscious in what at that moment and that place is the fashion. Jeans, leather jackets, T-shirts with prints and invariably, fashionable sun-glasses. Most people smoke. The weather has turned beautiful, and it becomes hot in the sun. In front of me, big and small busses park in numbered slots, and when a bus arrives, a whole crowd starts moving forward, luggage and all, and tries to be the first inside.

When my bus arrives, I go with the flow, and with some pushing and shoving I find myself seated, with my luggage on my knees. The problem is that when you wait with your luggage besides the bus, to have it stored underneath, the seats are taken, so everybody pushes inside with their luggage, and once sure of a seat, go outside again to place the luggage in the storage space under the bus. This involves quite some movement, but I do not see any aggression. As I have a printed ticket with a bus number, I would guess that no more tickets are sold than seats available, but it looks like that the passengers are not so sure of that.
I am seated beside a sturdy middle aged man, and either he does not want to talk, or my Russian is not understood, but during the whole trip, he does not utter a word. When everybody is more of less seated, a hefty middle aged woman with coloured hair passes to check the tickets again, and finally, the bus leaves. I am surprised to see that a number of people are standing between the seats, and I wonder if they will keep standing the full 5 hours
the trip to Donetsk will take. But, they get off at the outskirts of the city. Probably a small side business of the driver.

Once outside Zaporizhzhya the horizon opens up. We drive through a vast rolling country, practically without villages of farms. Miles and miles of fields, brown and bare at the end of the winter. The road is narrow, but good, and we do not cross much traffic. The bus does not drive very fast, and goes up and down with the long swells of the landscape, much like a small ship on the ocean. From time to time, the bus stops to drop off a passenger. More often than not “in the middle of nowhere”. Not in a village or even near some houses, but at a point where a sandy road starts off to the horizon. These roads are very large. Obviously, during thaw, these roads are just muddy tracks, and every passing car, looking for some firmer ground, moves farther away from the centre of the track. As a result the track is at least 100 m wide, but in the absence of any fence of ditch, and in the middle of this abundance of land, that does not matter. The passenger gets off the bus, picks up his belongings, and starts to walk, away from the road, to the horizon. I wonder how they cope with the harsh winters, when these plains are covered with snow.

Looking around, from horizon to horizon, I think of the armies these plains have swallowed all through history. Herodotus wrote about the campaign of the Persian king Darius, who crossed the Hellespont, around the year 500 BC, to teach the Scythians a lesson, pursued them all around the Black Sea to the river Don, without being able to make contact to defeat them. In a much more recent past, Karl 12th of Sweden, Napoleon, and the mechanized armies of Hitler suffered the same fate. The south Ukraine in WW2 was the site of great tank battles. But not the enemy tanks, but distance and the dust in the summer, and the snow in the winter proved to be the decisive factors.

After a few hours driving, we make a stop in a small town with the nice name of Prokovskaya Bolshemichailovka. At a neat little bus station, a small shop and restaurant and clean toilets, cater to the travellers’ needs. Time for a drink and a cigarette, and off we go again. The sun starts to set and the softening light lends depth and colour to the landscape. Along the road, I see some people selling potatoes. A big sign, topped by a hammer and sickle, looking as weather beaten as the communism it represents, indicates the access to what I take to be a former kolchose. We approach Donetsk, and we see more and more small villages, looking bucolic in the evening light. Factories start to appear along the road, and the bus stops a few times to drop off passengers. Ahead of us, some hills appear, and the wide open plain gives way to some fenced fields.

Then finally, even before we see the city, slagheaps appear, painted orange by rust and the light of the setting sun. We arrive in Donetsk, East Ukraine’s centre of coal mines and steel factories. We drive into the city through broad avenues. The streets are full of cars, and the wide pavements full of people in the early evening. At the bus terminal, taxi drivers crowd around me. I am a bit tired after the bus trip, and Donetsk is my last stop before flying home, so I let myself be taken to Central Hotel, a nice and clean place near the centre of the city. Behind the check-in counter, against a wall, I see scores of club emblems of soccer clubs, who have played in Donetsk and stayed in this hotel. Valencia, Werder Bremen, Zenith from St. Petersburg, Borussia Dortmund, many of the great clubs have been here. At present, some oligarchs with money looking for a hobby have adopted Shaktar (=miner) Donetsk, and invested heavily in foreign players. Must be a tough life for a Brazilian in Donetsk!

The hotel staff is friendly and efficient, the room impersonal but international class. When I go down for a drink and dinner, I meet yet another Sergey. A beer at the bar, and a remark about the many visiting soccer clubs make an introduction and friendly chat possible. Sergey is a technician, Russian, knows something about pumps and speaks English. After he finds out that I am NOT a technician, he is not much interested in what I have to tell, but confides to me that he thinks that Ukrainians are a sorry lot, who must be happy to have Russians to protect them and manage their mines and steel factories. Although he has the Ukrainian nationality, he is vehemently against independence, and blames the CIA (where have I heard this before?) of complotting with local opportunists. Not surprising, giving the fact that more than half the population here is of Russia origin. When I tell him with an innocent face that the town, and the industry was founded by an Englishman, he ignores my remark and mentions that Ukrainians were “wrong” during the war, and that it were Russians who won the war for them.

Behind us, in the restaurant, some Germans are having dinner with their local girl friends. I have seen these groups of men everywhere in the world. Technicians, installing factories, or oil-crews, stopping over between jobs. Girls and beer are invariably part of the scene. Loud talk and continuous references to distant places. “When I was in Luanda…” “Remember that job in Dubai?” Invariably one man is the leader. He talks loudly and laughs about his own remarks. The girls, who have every interest to keep the thing going, laugh when he laughs…
Sergey disappears, and I silently have my dinner, seriously irritated by the din of the Germans behind me.

The next morning I take a walk in the vicinity of the hotel. The name “Central Hotel” is well chosen. A few hundred yards away is the central square of the city. Soviet style buildings face a vast park like space. In spite of the early hour the place is already quite animated, with people strolling and sitting in the sun on the many benches that line the borders, some of which look quite well kept, with flowers giving a festive air. At one end of the square, a demonstration is in process. Soon there will be elections. In front of the statue of Lenin, red flags with the Soviet hammer and sickle remind me of a not too distant past. Students, wearing red jackets with the same Soviet symbol and the print “КОМПАРТИЯ УКРАИНЫ» distribute tracts. At the other end of the square a group of people carry blue flags. The public hardly seems to notice these utterances of democracy, and seem to be much more interested by a fancy-fair, that is under construction around the statue of Lenin, in the middle of the square. The old Bolshevik looks bewildered in his heroic pose, looking down on a roller coaster, surrounded by the usual and almost forgotten fancy fair attractions of yesteryear.

Not far away, I find a ticket office, where I buy my ticket for the flight back to Kiev the next day. As it often happens, after some time of travelling, when the return home changes from something that eventually will come into a flight number with a departure time, I lose my curiosity for the things around me. I walk around in the city, taking in the wide avenues, the crowds, the obligatory T-34 tank on a concrete base, and some surprisingly erotic billboards, advertising some western brand of perfume. This town is disconcerting. It seems to unite
everything that happened during the last century. The slagheaps remind of a past of heavy industry, the modern buildings, many of which are banks and the advertisements for Japanese computers bring the present to our attention. Expensive Mercedeses and Lexuses, and even a bright yellow Hummer wait at a traffic light, to let old pensioners with plastic bags slowly cross the street. I find a place to sit in the sun with a beer. I feel detached from what I see, but concerned too, thinking of the hardship of the generation that endured communism, fought the war, and now can hardly survive on devaluating state pensions. But old days are gone, old people do not count much, and the streets are for hip youngsters on motorbikes. Their life is here and now, and I look at them in a pensive mood, halfway between the past I see shuffling to cross the street, and the future, having the time of their lives. Literally…….


Leusden, April 2007

Stalingrad

Stalingrad


On a cold day in January 2006, I found myself at Sawjelowskaya Station in Moscow, taking a train to Sheremetevo Airport for a flight to Volgograd, the new name of Stalingrad. I had arrived by train via Riga and St. Petersburg, and spent a few days losing myself in the crowds in Moscow, with the inevitable Red Square and the Kremlin, the crowded subways and the big avenues of the city centre. A small apartment in a modest part of the town made me feel at least a little Russian, and a shopping excursion to the neighborhood super market made me feel modestly proud of my elementary Russian, which the “natives” at least appeared to understand. The apartment was very basic to me, but in Russia a lot of things seem basic, and one wonders why in the West we bother with so many futile matters. In any case this apartment, the kvartiera, had what it takes to be a place to live. A bed, some easy chairs with doubtful covers, a kitchen with a refrigerator, a gas stove, hot water, some kitchen ustensils, cups, glasses, plates and, knives, forks and spoons. And the bathroom had a hot shower, and the ever present “S” of bent pipes very practical for drying small laundry. And a TV with a couple of foreign channels to wile away the late evening. And all this for a reasonable price! My home is my castle!

Facing a large square, Sawjelowskaya Station is a building that in the early days of railroads must have represented the prestige and glamour that went with the novelty of railroad travel, faces a big square. A busy traffic intersection, several Metro exits and hawker stalls and shops that must have looked temporary since decennia’s. In one of those rickety buildings I had found a ticketing office. No small feat, because it is stashed away in a corner of the square, small, almost hidden. Once inside, I found myself standing in a small room, behind the leather clad backs of swarthy men from the south, counting thick wads of banknotes on one of the three small desks, manned by a solid looking Russian woman. The old regime only reluctantly allowed their citizens to travel. If you wanted to travel at all, there had to be a real need for it, so why should you not have to work for it? These were no travel palaces like in our world, where colorful advertisements sell dreams of sandy beaches and palm trees facing a deep blue ocean. Here just a simple rundown ticket shop stashed away in the corner of a square.

From Sawjelowskaya Station, a fast and surprisingly modern and comfortable train took me out of the city centre, through dense suburbs, full of factories and railway yards. In a frozen river port I saw a few big yachts, waiting for their tycoon owners and better days in the cold embrace of the Russian winter. The snow was yellowish, in the fading light of the day. Surprisingly the monotony all of a sudden was interrupted by a small suburb with brightly painted houses. The blue, yellow and red buildings standing out like flowers that cannot await spring but already now pierce the dirty snow. Near a small station, a busy market had drawn many visitors. From the train, that did not stop, I could see a dense crowd milling around long tables loaded with what looked like carpets and clothes and spare parts and furniture. Farther away, the goods are on the ground, with a few people standing around, stamping their boots in the snow against the cold. It seemed there was a vendor for every separate piece of cloth offered for sale.

The train stopped at what seemed a recently built modern station in a small town. It is from here that a bus will take me to the airport nearby. On the square in front of the station, every available space was taken up by people selling something. Again a market where many different goods were for sale, and although it is winter, I saw vegetables and fruits too. From the surrounding buildings long and heavy icicles shone in the late sunlight. The snow is compacted to form a second layer of pavement, and it takes a big step to climb up to it after crossing the street, which is made ice-free.

After some inquiries, I found the right bus, and after a 10 minutes drive I reached the airport. Again that simplicity in everything. Not a post modern simplicity that is an art in itself. It is the simplicity of neglect. I noticed that I was surprised that the glass entrance doors do not open automatically. The pale green walls made the long departure hall resemble a hospital. Security checks were businesslike but polite. Also the shoes had to be taken off, and were carefully examined. Papers were checked a few times, and I saw that some passengers were taken into a small office for further checking. Somebody explained to me later, that in those offices rubles change hands to speed up real or imagined problems with papers. A policeman has to live too. And the people who have to pay up, seemed to accept it as one would accept a rain shower during a barbecue; unpleasant enough, but just one of those things…...

When an hour later, the plane took off, darkness was slowly spreading over the snowy fields outside Moscow. The sun was setting in flaming orange in a dark haze of pollution as I looked into the distance to the south west, the direction from where Napoleon had once come, and later the German army. I realized that my flight to Volgograd would take only a few hours, over a country side, frozen in winter, muddy in spring and autumn, and dry and dusty in the short hot summers. A countryside that has consumed and digested armies and inhabitants, noblemen and serfs alike. The noise of the jet added to the din of war and revolution that, I am sure, must still be echoing in the fields below. In such moments I can almost feel the passing of the centuries, in which we, as a random group of passengers in this aeroplane, also have our role to play. We came, we passed, and we disappeared. It gave me a feeling of satisfaction and peace, to be part of the world, of its history, and very much “here” and “now”.

It was pitch dark when the plane landed in Volgograd. It came to a stop in front of a large terminal building. Surprisingly, for someone accustomed to western Europe’s distances, there were no customs and police formalities. We had flown a few hours, but of course we were still in Russia. The passengers walked to the side of the building, where a small door in an iron fence gave access to a dark space where people waited to meet the arriving passengers, and where the luggage would be distributed. Here I met Igor, a 25 year old I had come to know from the internet, who shook my hand as if we had met recently. He immediately handed me a sheaf of papers with information about the city, and a visitor’s guide to the battle memorial. A few moments later we were in a marshrutka, one of the ever present minibuses of the Russian cities. The airport is far from the city, in Gumrak, a place heavy with history and death and destruction. After Pitomnik, the main airfield of the besieged army fell to the Russians, it was here that the last scant supplies arrived, and it was from here that the wounded soldiers found their last hope to be flown out to safety. Here airplanes were destroyed on the ground, or shot down while landing. Thousands and thousands of soldiers lay dying in the inadequate hospitals, where wounded were freezing to death, crammed into unheated tents.

These images crossed my mind while I was sitting in the marshrutka with silent people, speeding through the night. Every now and then someone would say something. The bus would stop at the road side, a passenger would get out, slam the sliding door shut, and disappear into the dark. After a good half hour, more lights started to appear, and finally we drove along the wide avenues of the city. Then it was our turn to get out and I found myself on what appeared to be Prospekt Lenina, at the corner of Ulitsa Alleya Geroev, Heroes’ Ally. The wide streets were lined with solid buildings. In the cold early evening, people were doing some shopping, before heading home from work.

A short walk brought me to Hotel Volgograd, where Igor had booked a room for me. The old, Soviet style hotel was comfortable enough, and the good looking young ladies at the counter were efficient and friendly. Igor took leave, and left to catch a bus home, to the modern satellite city of Volzjski, 25 km away, at the other side of Volga. He is one of those young Russians who carry the promise of changing times. He studies at the Volgograd Academy of Public Administration, and like so many of his generation has access to the world via internet and some excursions to the sunshine of the Mediterranean. As part of his studies he currently works at a large public utility. He has gathered some information about the town for me. The city plan he brought allows me to compare my surroundings with the drawings of battle situations I already have.

After a dinner in what looks to be the place to be in Volgograd, with a snappily dressed crowd of young people who can afford the stiff prices, I withdraw to my hotel room, with my books and maps. Only now I fully realize that I am in Stalingrad, at the very edge of Europe, 3000 km from home. Sixty four years ago, the frenzy of war and the obsessions of a few people, brought a million men here, to fight to the death. Again reading the accounts of the battle, and seeing the now familiar names on the maps, I have the same physical experience of shock and emotion I felt when I stood on the Altmarkt in Dresden. The towns have been rebuilt, entirely, because there was nothing left to repair, but the dead have a real presence, and the suffering has NOT left these places. It took a long time to fall asleep.

The next morning Igor will accompany me to the site of Mamaev Kurgan, the main memorial of the battle. Before he arrives, I visit the Heroes’ Alley, next to the hotel. Comparing maps and recent city plans, I realize that I stand on the former Red Square, with at the opposite end of this parklike space, the massive building of the Univermag, the department store in the cellars of which Von Paulus, the 6th Army commander, had his headquarters until the very end of the battle, on the 1st of February, 1943. At the western end, in front of a sober memorial of red granite, burns an eternal flame. To the east, the park narrows and slopes down to the Volga river, maybe 500 hundred meters away. Where the space opens to the river bank, wide stairs give the site a distinct Soviet look at the site, while pseudo Greek pillars and street lanterns that look vaguely like those one would find in Paris. Surprisingly, at the other side of the dark grey river, I see no buildings. The town stops at the Volga, and it seems our world ends here too. From behind the river, the rising sun makes the details of the waterfront stand out very clearly. On my right, a river port sits dark and foreboding on the waterfront. It is here that the ferries brought reinforcements to the besieged Russians in Stalingrad. Losses during the crossing, which was always under fire from the Germans, were staggering, and often only one out of three soldiers would reach the town, only to join the deadly battle with little chances of survival.

Igor arrived, and we took a marshrutka to Mamaev Hill. It was only a few degrees below zero, and the sun shone in a blue sky, but a strong wind made it chilly. Mamaev Hill is in fact a “kurgan”, an ancient grave hill on the high west bank of the river. The kurgans, of which a great number are strewn across the vast reaches of the plains of Southern Russia, are silent witnesses of the great migrations that crossed this ocean of grass…. From the East, with the rising sun, and with a great sound of thundering horses, Sarmathes, Alanes, Chazars, Huns, Mongols arrived, conquered, and stayed for centuries, before being overrun themselves. But this time, it was from the West that disaster arrived. First, in September 1942, the German 6th Army, came within sight of the city, and reached the Volga at Rynok, just north of the city. Then – history gathers speed as it approaches us - in November of the same year, the Russians, after haven broken through the German front at the Don, 100 km away, also approached from the west. Initially, for both sides, Stalingrad had only a limited strategic importance. For the Germans, who far away to the south, had pushed on to the Caucasus and the oil fields of Baku, Stalingrad was needed to guard the long front to the north and north-east. For the Russians, Stalingrad could function as an operational centre to contain the German armies. But the real drama unfolded, when the leaders of these political systems of utter evil chose Stalingrad as the place to prove their superiority over the other. As a result, the price both paid in loss of life far exceeded the REAL strategic value of the place. For Hitler a victory at Stalingrad – the town which bore the name of Russia’s leader - would once and for all prove the superiority of the Arian race, and the National Socialist political system over the hated Slavs with their Communist ideology. Stalin knew that a victory would give hope for the Russian people that the war could be won, and a justification for the millions of deaths his bloody dictatorship in the 1930’s and incompetent handling of the war so far had caused so far. The German attack on the country probably saved his regime. The shrewd Stalin saw how a combination of the innate love of the Russian for his native soil with his incomparable capacity to bear suffering, could not lose against a German army, fighting far from home, and, albeit competent and efficient, more and more demoralized in the unforgiving Russian winter.

We got out at the low end of the vast memorial complex at Mamaev Hill, just a few meters from the Volga. At both sides, a low wall contains square granite boxes with the sacred earth of the declared Hero cities of the Soviet Union. Kursk, Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev, Minsk, Sebastopol, Odessa, Tula, Novorossiisk, Kerch, Smolensk, Murmansk and the Brest Fortress. Witnesses of as many battles and countless deaths… A massive sculpted structure guards the entrance to the complex. It depicts a procession, men and women and a child, carrying wreaths and oak leaves, as symbol of glory. A few flights of stairs bring us up to the level of the Poplar Alley, a 200 meter long alley of concrete, lined with poplars. The slender trees draw our attention to the now visible giant statue of mother Russia, on top of Mamaev Hill, a kilometer away. Walking on, the giant statue gradually disappears behind a 16 meter high statue representing a soldier, carrying a grenade and a sub-machine gun (and not much else), surging from the stone, facing the enemy, and ready to fight to the death. The traits are heavy, square and true to Soviet tradition of larger than life reality. I reflect that the men fighting on this ground would not often have had time for feelings of patriotism. Killing instead of being killed, rage, and self preservation leave little space for noble and romantic notions. But then, are memorials to honor the dead? Or do they carry a message for the living? The man running a small hawker stall nearby, has similar worries. Survive by making a living, selling pitiful war souvenirs, cartridges, Red Army buttons and flags … but for now, just trying to keep warm….

Still, the place is impressive. The light is hard and almost colorless. The wind rustles the leaves of the poplars, whispering sounds, haunted. A train passes underneath the alley, the noise swelling and subsiding. As if life comes and goes, literally underneath the memories.

After the statue of the soldier, again in full view of Mother Russia, a few steps lead us between two structures, deliberately evoking a battle damaged city street. The architect responsible for the complex visited Stalingrad immediately after the battle, in February 1943. Streets and squares had disappeared, all that remained was a landscape of smoking rubble. The two walls, each about 50 meters long and up to 17 meters high, depict these ruins. Soldiers, half hidden in broken masonry, bullet holes and fragments, inscriptions and broken masonry and a hidden loudspeaker which plays wartime songs, alternating with brief spoken bulletins of the Russian radio at that time: “… we are fighting for every street, for every house…”

On summer days, masses or visitors from all over the former Soviet Union crowd these spaces. Now, only a few visitors brave the cold. I notice a group of soldiers, smallish boys in camouflage, with eager faces under their fur “ushanka”… They do not object when I ask them to make a photograph… they look into the lens with self-confidence, like priests who find it normal to be photographed in front of “their” St. Peter in Rome.

Walking on, we come into “Hero’s Square”, a vast space around a large rectangular pool, now frozen solid. The pool is lined with imposing statues, representing heroic attitudes. On the left-hand side of the square is a wall in the form of an immense, unfurled banner, on which are the words:

"An iron wind was blowing in their faces, but on they came. Once more the enemy was gripped by fear: was it mere men who were attacking them? Were they mortal?"

The far end of the square reaches the foot of the actual Mamaev Hill. A heavy concrete wall is covered with a bas-relief showing moments of the battle, and finally, a relaxed group of Russian soldiers, celebrating, above a group of German prisoners, looking dejected and visibly wanting to be somewhere else. They had every reason to. Of the 90.000 Germans who survived the battle and were taken prisoner, only some 5000 returned home, some as late as 1955. In the wall a large rectangular opening, framed by heavy pillars giving it a distinct Egyptian style, gives access to the heart of the complex, the Hall of Valour. Coming from the bright exterior, the dark passage prepares you for the view that awaits you. A vast round space with golden walls, and in gold letters on red stone banners, the names of tens of thousands of fallen soldiers. In the middle, a giant hand, surrounded by flowers, holds an eternal flame. Solemn music – ironically Schubert – gives a feeling of being in a cathedral. A non-religious cathedral, not built for a God, but for a system, where the state is God, and soldiers his angels. Above the flame, an opening in the roof is surrounded by the red and green ribbon of the Defence of Stalingrad Medal. Two guards stand rigidly at attention. Some visitors line the walls, talking with hushed voices. This vast Hall is half built into the hillside, and has become part of the kurgan where men have been buried for thousands of years. Mamaev Kurgan……a hill that is a tomb and a tomb that is a hill. For every name on the walls, a hundred men, unknown, blown to pieces, are buried in this soil as if to copy the burial rituals of those old times. Men and horses, buried, and the wind blowing over the hill, and the plains as it does here, though the Hall of Valour.


On the hour, heavy footsteps approach through the access tunnel. Changing of the guard. A small detachment of soldiers, led by an officer. They march with heavy, martial steps. Stretched legs, boots hitting the granite floor with a loud noise, arms folding, stopping a moment in front of the chest, faces staring into nowhere. Machines, not human at all. They approach the guard standing at attention, and in a swift moment two men step out to replace them. The detachment then steps past us. Heavy, heavy steps that resound in the vast space. They move up the winding slope, towards the exit, one level above the entrance. During their slow progress, questions race through my mind, and different emotions seem to tumble over each other. Should we admire? Do we see heroism or the extreme limits of human stupidity? Should we bow our head and remember the sacrifice or should we raise fists and cry out our indignation for this vast murder?

When I stand in the exit of the hall, I follow with my eyes the oblique shaft of sunlight that enters the dark space like a searchlight. It strikes a part of the floor, the red and white flowers around the giant hand holding the flame, and the head and shoulders of one of the guards, making him seem to float on the surface of a bottomless well. The beam will move around the hall as the sun will continue its course, striking the flame, the flowers, the golden walls, and the names on the banners, as if searching for a truth. But there are no answers here, only questions. We can build memorials; we can travel to the other end of the world, only to find out that the only answers are within us, in our hearts.

The sun and the wind hit us like a brick wall, when we emerged from the hall, and started the last climb towards the Mother Russia statue. She looms above us, impressive and contradictory in the concrete flowing of her dress. The path zigzags, and its movement now brings the sun in our faces, then throws long shadows ahead of us. After the heavy atmosphere of the hall, the air seems lighter although the cold is intense. The wind hammers at us as if we can only reach the top of the hill at a price, and it is almost impossible to stand motionless to make a photograph. Mother Russia engulfs us, but does not take away the cold…. She stretches out her arms, one holding a sword, the other in a pleading gesture, as if to call those in the back to come and join. She does not look at the enemy; she looks at those people behind her with a stern face. A woman in arms. What does it mean? Are there no men to do the fighting? Are they dead already? With this woman looking at you, it is very clear that there can be no running away from the battle. Here we don’t see a mother protecting her children, but someone making clear to you that you are expected to do your part. But her solid and generous body also has another message. The sword will bring struggle and death, the body, the solid, wide hips, will bring life and the generous breasts will sustain it. But standing at her feet, some 80 meters below the tip of her sword, it is impossible to see these arms, the face and the woman’s body. You can just feel her presence, and with the sun in your back, see her imposing shadow reach over the land. Mother Russia, seen from far away, will impress you, and also invite you to form your opinions. She is overwhelming, greater than life, and she invites you to know more about her. But from nearby, at her feet, in the cold wind and the hard light, all you can do is feel her presence.

The landscape around me, although lit by the winter sun, has a strange absence of color, broken only by the blue sky and the bright blue ribbon of the Volga, to the East, not more than a kilometer away, and too, the golden domes of the recently built church nearby. My thoughts go back almost 50 years, to when, as a schoolboy, I read the books of Theodor Plievier: ‘Moscow’, ‘Stalingrad’, ‘Berlin’. After reading these books, I understood that regardless of who wins, battles cause endless suffering and real death. I realized for the very first time, that evil exists and that it can appear in many shapes. To me, the name Stalingrad became synonymous with growing up, with facing the world. I realized that I would also meet evil, and I knew from that moment that life is an adventure, full of dangers and struggles, with inevitable death at the end. It also made me doubt about the existence of the God I had heard about as a child. And, I decided, that one day I would see Stalingrad. Since those days, I had left home, seen the world and done the things I wanted to do. And now, I had realized a dream and fulfilled a promise, made the the voyage, and in a way, reached the end of my journey.

After Mamaev Kurgan, we visited the nearby Pavlov house, and the Stalingrad war museum. The broken shell of the Pavlov house stands only a few meters from the Volga. The massive building stares back at you from it’s empty windows. It stares, but does not see us, just like we look, and see, but cannot comprehend. Under the command of a sergeant Pavlov, this building held out for two months against the attacks of the Germans:

……. Pavlov’s men smashed through cellar walls, to improve their communications and cut holes in the walls, to make better firing points for their machine-guns and long-barreled anti-tank rifles. Whenever panzers approached, Pavlov’s men scattered, either to the cellar or top floor, from where they were able to engage the Germans at close range. The panzer crews could not elevate their main armament sufficiently to fire back…..


Several times the Germans penetrated the building. At times, the Russians and Germans would occupy different floors. In hand to hand fighting, with everything from guns to bayonets and infantry spades, the invaders were thrown out again. Marshal Chuikov later remarked that the Germans lost more men at the Pavlov house, than during the capture of Paris. Jakob Pavlov was made a Hero of the Soviet Union. After the war, he became a priest, and attracted many people as Archimandrite Kyrill in the Monastery at Sergievo, formerly Zagorsk, not far from Moscow.

Next to the Pavlov House, a round building houses the painted panorama of the Stalingrad battle. A vast painting puts together some of the more well known episodes of the battle, including the surrender of the German commanders. We climb small stairs to reach a platform, from where the 16 x 120 meter panorama can be viewed. A group of Russians, visibly impressed, listens silently to the guide, who points at different scenes with a small light beam. Downstairs a vast museum houses the usual objects of war and battle; guns, uniforms, portraits, decorations, the remnants of battle and history. I find it difficult to concentrate on what I see. The war, which in the open air, in the cold and the wind seemed so real, is here reduced to glass cases full of objects. A uniform coat with bullet holes has become an attraction, the man who wore it long dead. The museum has no windows, and the long concrete and granite halls somehow evoke death and burial without glory. After the visit to Mamaev Kurgan, I feel saturated with images and emotions, and I am happy to be outside again, on a platform overlooking the Volga, maybe 100 meters away. A few fighter planes and tanks are facing the river, to the East, as if to say again that the war is won.

The next day the weather has changed. Grey clouds hang low above the river and the city, and from time to time a light snow falls, covering the streets, buildings and parks. I walk around in the city. Massive buildings line the broad avenues, and a fancy fair stands forlorn in the square facing the hotel. A big sign with C НОЫМ ГОДОМ wishes me a Happy New Year, and SAMSUNG seems to be willing very much to sell me a TV set. Along Lenin Avenue a small street market offers clothing for sale. The women are mostly elderly, standing in the snow, stamping their boots to stay warm. Shops are open and I notice that several of them are well stocked with articles for newborn and small children. A hopeful sign in a city that does not immediately bring love and marriage and childbirth to mind. The world and time did not stop, that 1st of February 1943, when silence replaced the continuous thunder of the battle. The eternal flame in the Heroes Alley in front of the hotel, has received an armed honor guard of teenage schoolchildren, boys and girls, in black uniform. They are standing motionless in the falling snow. Their faces earnest and serious. When they change the guard, I notice that their steps are still light and lack the severity of those of the soldiers in the Hall of Valour. Their presence tells me that memories in this country are kept alive. Heroes’ Alley is not just a name. The young people guarding the flame show that the pride of these people for their victory is very real and heart felt. Different from the institutionalized pride the imposing Mother Russia on Mamaev Hill seems to throw at your face, whether you like it or not.

All through the day, temperatures have been around -5 to -10 degrees. Not very low for this time of year in this place. During the night however, a cold front has crept over the city, and when the next morning I come down to the lobby of the hotel, to take a taxi to the airport, a sign above the door indicates minus 26 degrees. Nobody however seems to notice anything special, and people walk in and out of the hotel the same way as before. The taxi, a Lada that has seen better times, arrives at the agreed time, and a little later I ride through the snowy streets of Volgograd. The car windows are opaque with frost and condensation, and the driver has made a peep hole the size of a handkerchief. A scary experience, but fortunately the pace of the traffic around us is very slow. Once outside the city, on the way to the airport, I see that the ground is not so flat as it seemed, and we pass through some “balka’s”, the gullies that are mentioned so often in the war stories. I arrive well in time at the airport which seems almost deserted. But maybe half an hour before departure time other passengers arrive, and a short while later I am on the Aeroflot plane to Moscow.

When the plane gathers speed, and then slowly climbs away from the city, I look down on the white fields below. The scars of war are made invisible by time and snow. I fly away and think that in those times this would have been an impossible dream for hundreds of thousands of men – to fly away from the hunger and the pain and the danger. To fly away from death. Stalingrad disappears behind us, the promise I made to myself as a boy has been fulfilled. And the confrontation with so much death, brings about the realization that for me there is still a good deal of life to be lived.


Quotations from:

“Stalingrad” by Anthony Beevor
Pinguin Books

Reisverhaal: Petrozavodsk

Een reis naar ПЕТРОЗАВОДСК (Petrozavodsk) en КИШИ (Kishi)


september 2006



St. Petersburg – Petrozavodsk

Op perron 2 van station Ladoshkaya staat de trein naar Murmansk gereed. De lange trein, met bij iedere wagon een conductrice, keurig in uniform, heeft iets ouderwets. Wij zijn gewend geraakt aan electronische incheckbalies en hightech vliegvelden. Hier wordt naar je kaartje gekeken en een blik geworpen in het paspoort, want reizen is niet zo vrijblijvend in dit land. Maar, deze bureaucratie werkt verbluffend goed. Nog nooit klopte er iets niet. Wagon 12, plaats 19…. Ook nu weer, mijn plekje ligt er keurig bij. Opgerold beddengoed en een flesje water. En onder de bank een goed af te sluiten ruimte voor de koffer.

Geleidelijk aan komen de andere passagiers binnen. De twee bovenkooien zullen worden bezet door twee Japanse meisjes. Ze blijken ook onderweg te zijn naar Kishi, mijn eindbestemming. Als ze even naar boven klimmen om hun plekjes te verkennen zijn het net vogeltjes. Een van hen spreekt vloeiend Russisch. Ze zullen direct uit de trein naar Kishi reizen, en ’s avonds weer terug gaan naar St. Petersburg. Ze zijn alleen even beleefd om te vragen of WIJ niet in de bovenkooien willen. Als dat niet het geval blijkt te zijn verliezen ze alle interesse in ons. Kennelijk reizen ze in een groep van ongeveer 8 personen. Hoe kan het ook anders. Maar, twee reizen met de nachttrein spaart ook twee hotelovernachtingen uit.

De andere benedenkooi wordt ingenomen door Julia. Een norse, zware man deponeert haar bagage in de coupé en verdwijnt. Julia is een klein, sierlijk vrouwtje, en spreekt voortreffelijk Engels. Ze is biologe en op weg naar huis in Petrozavodsk. Ze heeft het typische uiterlijk van de noordelijke Russin. Blond, breed gezicht maar nog jong genoeg om aantrekkelijk te zijn. Als biologe doet ze onderzoek naar de effecten van vervuiling op de visstand. Als ik voorzichtig suggereer dat er veel vervuiling IS, komt het typisch Russisch antwoord. Misschien wel, maar het noorden is ZO uitstrekt, er is nog veel ongerepte natuur die NIET vervuild is…

Ze was, op reis terug van een conferentie over dit onderwerp in Mexico City – of all places – in Amsterdam geweest. Ze was verbaasd hoe klein alles daar was. Later, reizende door Karelië, kon ik me daar wel wat bij voorstellen.
De afstanden hier zijn groot, de uitgestrektheid maakt bijna elke vergelijking met Nederland onmogelijk.

De trein vertrekt, zoals altijd hier, precies op tijd. Er zit iets droevigs in de manier waarop hij heel langzaam in beweging komt, en, geleidelijk vaart meerderend, zijn cadans probeert te vinden met het stoten op de rails. Buiten is het donker, het is 11 uur ’s avonds, en al snel maken de lichten van de stad plaats voor duisternis. De reizigers lopen nog wat heen en weer door wat de komende 10 uur hun thuis zal zijn. De Japanse meisjes beginnen meegebracht eten uit te pakken, en Julia en ik maken even plaats aan het tafeltje in de coupé. De conductrice brengt thee, in een glazen beker in een bijzonder sierlijke bekerhouder. De 9 Roebel die ze vraagt betekenen 30 cent…..

Als de trein zijn cadans heeft gevonden, de Japanse meisjes de resten van hun etenswaren hebben opgeborgen en in de bovenste kooien zijn gekropen, pak ik mijn boek en installeer mij voor een paar uur lekker lezen. John Updike “ Villages” als een trouwe metgezel. Slapen in de trein is niet mijn sterke kant, maar, even later vallen mijn ogen toch dicht, terwijl de trein zijn weg zoekt door de uitgestrekte bossen van Karelië.

In de gehele Russische literatuur komen zinnen voor zoals deze: “En Ivan Ivanovich begaf zich weer, voor de zomer, naar zijn landgoed te …..”. Weggedoken in mijn kussen, in de voortdenderende trein, kan ik niet nalaten te denken aan de velen die deze trajecten ooit aflegden in koetsen. Onbegaanbare wegen; modder in de zomer, sneeuw in de winter. Weken misschien wel hobbelen in een nauwe koets. Slapen in dorpsherbergen. Wachttijden bij veerponten over de vele rivieren die ik af en toe bespeur als de trein met een hol geluid over een brug raast. De uitgestrektheid van dit land heeft van invloed moeten zijn op het begrip tijd. Wanneer een reis, als alles goed gaat, twee weken duurt, is een uitloop van een dag niets en krijgt het begrip tijd een andere betekenis.

Als ’s ochtends de trein het station van Petrozavodsk nadert, word ik vriendelijk gewekt door Julia. “We zijn er!” Er wordt druk gelopen en met bagage gesleept. Even later sta ik op het lange perron van Petrozavodsk. De treinen die deze lange ritten maken zijn lang, en dus reikt het lage perron aan weerszijden tot ver buiten het station. Overal staan groepjes mensen, die zich vormen om aangekomen vrienden of familie, en zich even later druk pratend in beweging zetten. De Japanse meisjes groeperen zich in een peloton en benen weg. Het is zeven uur, en het is nat en kil. Eerste zaak is een bagage depot te vinden. Om mèt bagage naar een hotel te zoeken is ook niet alles. Er hangen wat bordjes met o.a. het woord bagage erop, maar alles zit dicht. Tenslotte begrijpt een wat oudere dame waarom ik loop te zoeken, en wijst mij de weg. Een steile trap, een minuskuul loketje met een stuurse vrouw erachter, en een aantal bagagekluizen. 40 Roebel en een rugzak lichter sta ik even later op het stationsplein van Petrozavodsk.
De hoofdstraat van de stad heet Prospekt Lenina (dus de Avenue VAN Lenin) … Ik denk eraan dat deze stad een berucht verbanningoord was in de dagen van de Tsaren en later de communisten. Mensen die in St. Petersburg teveel in de gaten liepen werden hierheen verbannen om wat af te koelen. Zij hebben door dezelfde straat gelopen. Weg van het station, in de richting van het meer en van de oneindige toendra’s daarachter, en meestal hun dood. Het is druk op straat. Men is op weg naar het werk. Donkere wolken hangen dicht boven de gebouwen. De straat is glimmend nat van een recente bui. Ik zie in de gids dat hotel Severnaya (het Noorden) een eindje verderop is, daar waar Prospekt Marxa begint. Ik had gebeld vanuit St. Petersburg, maar alles was vol. De ervaring leert dat men niet gaarne reserveert op basis van een telefoontje, en het blijkt even later dan ook dat men een kamer vrij heeft.

Het hotel is typisch oude Soviet stijl. In de hal maakt een grote marmeren trap indruk, maar gaat eigenlijk nergens naartoe. De onvermijdelijke breedgeschouderde veiligheidsman in het donkere pak aan het begin van de gang verveelt zich nu al. De receptie is vriendelijk, en men spreekt engels. Het ontbijtzaaltje, een nette cafetaria-achtige ruimte is weggefrommeld aan het eind van een statige gang op de eerste verdieping (2e verdieping dus in Rusland). Na de treinreis is een echt ontbijt welkom. De thee wordt zoals bijna overal geserveerd in een glazen beker. Heet en fris met citroen erbij. Ik zie dat enkele anderen een soort pap zitten te eten, en bestel die ook. КАША betekent slechts “pap” maar het is niet erg duidelijk wàt voor pap. Een flinke klont boter erin met wat suiker maakt hem toch smakelijk. Wat brood en kaas erbij. De jonge serveerstertjes in strakke rokjes en bloesjes lopen af en aan, en zijn vriendelijk. Het publiek is gemengd. Omdat hotel Severnaya midden in de stad is zie ik ook de nodige zakenlieden, en een enkel ouder echtpaar.

Even later loop ik op mijn gemakje door de stad. De Perestroika (= reconstruction) heeft misschien het leven van de mensen ingrijpend veranderd, maar in deze verre stad de horizon ongemoeid gelaten. Voorbij het hotel ligt een klein plantsoen, en daarachter het grote, verlaten Ploshad Lenina (Lenin Plein). Een massieve betonnen Lenin leunt in zijn bekende overtuigende pose naar voren, en brengt zijn woordeloze en achterhaalde boodschap over aan een paar oude vrouwtjes, die gestoken in oranje straatwerkersvesten met trage zwiepen de weinige bladeren die al gevallen zijn wegvegen. Het plein is groot. Een enkele auto komt voorbij. De gebouwen om het plein hebben menselijke afmetingen, van voor de revolutie. Deze lage gebouwen, in een halve cirkel gebouwd, deden dienst als regeringsgebouwen voor de deelstaat Karelie. In één ervan is nu het Museum van Plaatselijke Studies gevestigd; een must voor de bezoeker natuurlijk.

In het museum wordt je – zoals overal in Russische musea – behoedzaam van vertrek tot vertrek doorgegeven door de surveillerende babushka’s. Even relaxen of tegen de stroom ingaan is er niet bij. Er is aandacht besteed aan het authentiek weergeven van oude hutten en kampplaatsen van de oorspronkelijke bewoners. Eén vertrek is gewijd aan de epos Karevala, een ontstaansgeschiedenis van de mensheid, Finse en Karelische stijl. Onduidelijke, spookachtige figuren sieren de wanden – er is steen, en riet, en hier en daar kopieën van de rotstekeningen die in het Noorden van het Onega meer zijn gevonden. De surveillante, een wat jongere vrouw met slordige haren en een wilde blik, draagt bij aan het spookachtige van deze plaats. Alsof er, lange tijd na dato, uit de kolkende zee nog een mens is ontstaan die nog wat af te rekenen heeft met de nú bestaande mensen, al dan niet met ANWB Reisverzekering.

Verdere vertrekken zijn prozaïscher. De aanleg van de spoorlijn naar Murmansk, begin 1900 heeft een voorname plaats. Vele foto’s van groepen mannen die met ernstige gezichten bijeenstaan voor spoorbruggen, stapels hout en rots en materiaal. De inspanning laat zich raden. Ruw terrein, de permafrost onder de oppervlakte verandert ’s zomers alles in één groot moeras. En in de winter zijn temperaturen van 30 graden onder nul hier heel normaal. In een hal hangt een portret van een van de gouverneurs van Karelië. Een rustig, voornaam gezicht. Aleksander Shidlovskij 1863 – 1943. Slachtoffer van Stalin, 1930 naar Kazachstan verbannen en daar gestorven. Postuum gerehabiliteerd. Een korte zin, maar welke tragiek! Ik lees dat Shidlovski een prachtige carrière in dienst van Karelië had opgebouwd, industrie had aangetrokken, nederzettingen gesticht, en een belangrijke voorstander en bouwer van de spoorlijn was. Maar, Stalin hield niet zo van constructieve mensen…..

Over de aanleg van het beruchte Witte Zee kanaal kom ik in dit museum weinig te weten. Kennelijk past dit verhaal nu even niet in het beeld dat men wenst te schetsen. Rusland is nog steeds selectief met zijn herinneringen. In de jaren 20 van de vorige eeuw hebben honderdduizenden dwangarbeiders aan dit project gewerkt, waarvan er velen zijn bezweken. Het Projekt Belomorkan was een paradepaardje van Stalin persoonlijk, en moest St. Petersburg verbinden met de Witte Zee . Aan het eind van de jaren 20 was het in het Westen algemeen bekend geworden, dat de Sovjet Unie grote aantallen gevangen gebruikte als slaven in met name de productie van houtprodukten. Minder uit menselijke solidariteit, maar meer uit zorg om hun markten te beschermen, ontstond er in de Verenigde Staten een roep om een boycot van die houtprodukten. Het regime probeerde het tij te keren door de dwangarbeiders aan het kanaal te laten werken, en door het organiseren van show-visites in de kampen voor houtproduktie. Kampen die op de nominatie stonden bezocht te worden door buitenlandse waarnemers werden – soms op zeer korte termijn – omgebouwd tot model werkplaatsen en nederzettingen. De gevangenen werden soms zonder enige voorbereiding afgemarcheerd het bos in, en vervangen door kulakken die slechts marginaal beter af waren dan de dwangarbeiders. De Finse zakenman Kitchin, die vier jaren in de Gulag doorbracht, beschreef dat kort voor de aankomst van een buitenlandse delegatie,

….een gecodeerd telegram werd ontvangen van het hoofdkantoor in Moskou, met de opdracht het kamp binnen drie dagen totaal op te heffen. En het op zo’n manier te doen dat er geen spoor van zou overblijven…. Telegrammen werden verstuurd naar al de werkstations om binnen vierentwintig uur alle activiteiten te stoppen, de gevangen bijeen te brengen in evacuatie centra, om alle sporen van de strafkampen te doen verdwijnen, zoals prikkeldraadomheinigen, wachttorens en borden, om al de officials in burgerkleding te steken, en de bewakers hun wapens te laten afgeven. Dan moest er gewacht worden op verdere instructies.

Kitchin, samen met duizenden andere gevangenen, werd afgemarcheerd naar het bos waar geen enkele voorziening was getroffen. Hij gelooft dat er in deze en enkele andere evacuaties die paar dagen meer dan 1300 gevangenen omkwamen.

In het museum is een aparte zaal gewijd aan de Kanonnenfabriek Charles Gascoigne. Er staat een werkend model van een door water aangedreven meervoudige draaibank voor het uitboren van kanonnen.
In deze wildernis, in de 18e eeuw, hadden een scherp brein en hard werken iets bijzonders gepresteerd…..

Charles Gascoigne (1738 - 1806) was een Brits industrieel uit het begin van de industriële revolutie. Hij was door zijn huwelijk, partner in de Carron Company Ironworks geworden. Hij was geboren in Engeland, maar groeide op in Schotland. Charles studeerde af in techniek en scheikunde. In 1765, zes jaren na de oprichting van de Carron Company Ironworks, kwam Charles Gascoigne voor het bedrijf te werken, en vier jaar later nam hij de bedrijfsvoering over van William Cadell Jr, zoon van een van de oprichters. Op dat moment leverde het bedrijf o.a. kanonnen aan de Royal Navy. Door de slechte kwaliteit van het gebruikte staal werd een hoog percentage van deze kanonnen afgekeurd, en zelfs tijdens het gebruik waren deze vaak gevaarlijker voor de schutters dan voor de tegenstanders. Charles schijnt persoonlijk veel aan de techniek van het gieten van de kanonnen te hebben verbeterd, maar de marine bleef ontevreden en in 1773 werd het contract zelfs geheel geannuleerd.
Gascoigne bleef toch doorgaan met het zoeken naar oplossingen. Uiteindelijk kwam het bij hem op een idee van Generaal Robert Melville uit te werken, voor een korter kanon met lage loop-snelheid. Tot nu toe waren de kanonnen van het type “long-gun”. De nieuwe kanonnen, de Caronnades zoals ze genoemd werden, hadden een korter bereik, maar de toenmalige taktiek van de zeegevechten vroeg niet om een groot bereik. Een “broadside”, een volle laag met alle kanonnen tegelijk, van dichtbij, werd effectiever doordat er, door het lagere gewicht, meer van de nieuwe kanonnen per schip geplaatst konden worden. De Navy was opgetogen, en de zeelieden gaven het nieuwe kanon de bijnaam “The Smasher”. Deze kanonnen zouden zelfs aan de pas ontstane V.S. geleverd worden, en in de oorlog van 1812 tegen de Engelse marine gebruikt worden.
Voordat het succes van de Carronnades echter de resultaten van het bedrijf aanmerkelijk begon te verbeteren, waren er spanningen ontstaan tussen Gascoigne en zijn schoonvader. Intussen was er in de jaren ‘70 en ‘80 van die eeuw een programma voor militaire hulp aan het Russische Keizerrijk opgestart. Zo werd er een door de Carron Company gebouwde stoommachine geleverd aan Charles Knowles, die toen voor de Russen werkte. De machine werd geleverd in 1774, samen met aan aantal werkers van de Carron fabrieken.
In 1784, bestelde admiraal Samuel Greig, de Schotse admiraal die Knowles had opgevolgd, en nu de Russische Marine leidde, een groot aantal kanonnen bij Carron. Intussen roken de Engelsen onraad, maar ondanks de tegenwerking slaagde Gascoigne erin niet alleen kanonnen, maar ook machines, en vakkundige werklui te leveren. Hiertoe zal hebben bijgedragen dat Gascoigne persoonlijk nagenoeg failliet was, en dus wel voelde voor de “expat’ job in een wereldstad als St. Petersburg. In Mei 1786 reisde hij naar Kronstadt met enige naaste medewerkers, om de Aleksandrovsky ijzergieterij aldaar te verbeteren. Later verhuisde hij naar Petrozavodsk, om daar de reeds bestaande wapenfabrieken uit te bouwen een efficiënter te maken. Uiteindelijk vestigde hij zich in deze stad.
Hij zou tot zijn dood in 1806 in Rusland blijven. Hij wordt beschouwd als de stichter van de industriestad Lugansk (in het Don bassin in Z.O. Ukraine). Een standbeeld daar herinnert aan een bijzondere man met een bijzonder leven.
En zo vind ik, in een stoffige zaal, in een uithoek van Europa, het verhaal van zo’n uitzonderlijke levensloop. In een tijd dat er nauwelijks wegen waren, dat deze grote afstanden moesten worden overbrugd in hotsende koetsen, ging men er op uit. Een telefoontje “naar huis” bestond niet.. De enige medische oplossing was “ gezond blijven” in een streek waar voedsel op zichzelf al schaars was… Zoals zoveel beelden tijdens een reis als deze je opnieuw doen beseffen op welk wankel topje van “ Bien Etre” wij ons bevinden.
Na het interessante bezoek aan het museum besluit ik – voor de volgende morgen alvast – een kijkje te nemen bij de afvaartplaats van de boten naar Kishi.
Marxa Prospekt is een brede straat. Links staan er statige gebouwen die aan St. Petersburg doen denken. Vaak is niet te zien dat het vooral om winkels gaat. Een kleine deur geeft toegang tot een grote boekenwinkel, of een supermarkt. Er is nauwelijks een opschrift. In eerdere tijden kon men de winkels herkennen aan de rijen die voor de door stonden, vertrouwde een Rus mij toe.
Aan de andere kant van de brede Prospekt loopt de grond af naar het begroeide dal van de Lososinka Rivier. De bomen worden al geel. Het is nat en koud en winderig. Op straat weinig auto’s. Op het brede trottoir lopen veel mensen die duidelijk ergens naar toe op weg zijn. Het valt op dat veel mensen hier klein en donker zijn.
Het voornaamste warenhuis van de stad ligt aan deze straat. Het is een soort V&D met vooral kleding. Grijs en zwart overheersen als tinten, maar het is natuurlijk het begin van de herfst. Ik koop een paraplu want de hemel wordt steeds dreigender. In het gebouw is een café gevestigd. Dat de Russische naam РАНДЕВУ “Rendez-Vous” betekent zou ik moeten weten….. Vroeg op de dag kan er al koffie gedronken worden en hangen er al wat jonge mensen rond, studenten zo te zien.
Aan het einde van Marxa, voorbij het theater dat van voren op een Griekse tempel en van achteren op een kantoorgebouw lijkt, begint de straat af te lopen naar het meer. Zoals vaak in Rusland is de oever gespaard gebleven. Geen dure flats en luxe appartementen met uitzicht op het meer, maar een breed park, waarin de nu heldergele berken zich scherp aftekenen. Het park wordt doorkruist met betonnen wandelpaden. Een oud vrouwtje, met een oranje wegwerkersvest over haar dikke kleren, veegt onverstoorbaar de steeds vallende bladeren bijeen. Achter het massieve gebouw dat de veerdiensten herbergt staat een blauw Ferris Wheel, midden in een wat schamele speeltuin, een beetje verloren aan de voorbije zomer te denken. Dichtgetimmerde kiosken geven aan dat dit in de warme zomermaanden een geliefde plek is. Het haventje bestaat uit een aantal betonnen pieren. Er liggen enkele massieve rivierboten van het soort dat ik ook in Kiev op de Dnjepro zag. Rivier cruises komen hier vanuit Moskou. Op de pieren, terugkijkend naar de oever zie ik in het zuiden een imposante overslaginstallatie voor erts. Peter de Grote stichtte deze stad als “ werkplaats” voor zijn in aanbouw zijnde St. Petersburg. IJzererts en graniet geven zogezegd een solide basis aan deze no-nonsense stad. Ook Charles Gascoigne moet dit hebben kunnen waarderen.
Het is intussen middag en ik vind een café, dat open blijkt te zijn. Enkele serveerstertjes zien van afstand dat ik buitenlander ben, en schieten weg. Even later komt er een goed uitziende dame mij een menukaart brengen. Ze spreekt vloeiend Engels en zegt pas te zijn “overgeplaatst”.
De kaart is uitgebreid. Je hoeft nergens van de honger om te komen.. Ik vraag om een kleine snack, en even later komt ze terug met twee heerlijke sandwiches met gerookte zalm. Tesamen met een groot glas goed bier kost deze goede lunch me nog geen 3 Euro. Met tranen in de ogen begin ik weer aan de wandeling, heuvel-op, naar de stad.

Op de hoek van Prospekt Marxa en Pushkinskaya Ulitsa wordt ik aangesproken door een jonge man, die een met grote letters bedrukt hesje draagt, en een nog lege vragenlijst in de hand heeft. Ik begrijp dat het om een politieke enquete gaat, maar kan nauwelijks ingaan op de vragen die hij mij stelt. Maar de jongen roept er met zijn mobieltje een collega bij, die redelijk Engels blijkt te spreken. Sergey Kostin is student bouwkunde, en komt uit het plaatsje Essoila, 150 km van Petrozavodsk. Bouwen is een goed vak, zegt hij, maar als je geld wilt verdienen moet je in de politiek!!

De streek van Petrozavodsk is recentelijk het toneel geweest van rassenrellen. Zoals overal in Rusland wordt de kleine handel – marktkooplui, eetstalletjes – overheerst door mensen uit het Zuiden, uit de Kaukasus. Je ziet hen op de stations met hun omvangrijke balen handelswaar. Kleine donkere mensen in goedkope leren jassen. Misschien vindt niet iedereen zichzelf gauw een “uebermensch”, maar een “ untermensch” is gauw gevonden voor de mensen die in de grauwe volkswijken, in betonnen dozen, een uitzichtloos bestaan leiden. En hier zijn de “untermenschen” dus de donkere mensen uit de Kaukasus, en de zwarte studenten uit Afrika. Zeer recent nog waren in Kondoroga, een stadje dichtbij, doden gevallen bij gevechten tussen Russen en “allochtonen” en volgens Sergei halen deze voorvallen meestal niet de kranten. De Afrikanen gaan zeker niet alleen over straat. Zij studeren en blijven in hun hostels – bronnen van frustratie en eindeloze heimwee naar de zon en hun eigen cultuur van warme “dichtbijheid”.

Sergei vertelt over zijn studie. Autocad lijkt hij niet te gebruiken. De nadruk schijnt te liggen op discipline en het vlekkeloos kopiëren van tekeningen. Het woord originaliteit, dat in Nederland evangelie lijkt te zijn, lijkt niet te bestaan. Een door Sergei gewaardeerde leraar lijkt fulltime bezig te zijn het in de hostels naar binnen smokkelen van Vodka tegen te gaan… Maar toch bespeur ik achterliggende zorg van deze jongelui een vak te leren, en een inkomen te hebben. Terug naar zijn dorp is geen optie, bestaan op de rand van de armoede ook niet. Als Sergei het heeft over Sotchi, het “ Marbella” van Rusland, aan de Zwarte Zee, komt er een weemoedige klank in zijn stem – als een non die droomt over Rome, en een bezoek aldaar na een leven van abstinentie…

Terug in het hotel boek ik een bezoek aan Kishi bij het kantoortje van Intourist. Heen en terug met de draagvleugelboot, plus de entree van het eiland zelf kost ongeveer 60 Euro. De oude bureaucratie heeft zijn status hier behouden, en deze simpele handeling vergt meerdere formulieren, waaronder een Agreement-order on rendering Agent Services (in het Engels) waarop de volgende referentie gegevens:

Agent: ZAO “Intourist-Petrozavodsk”
INN/KPP 1001011600/100101001
21 Lenin Str. Petrozavodsk, 185028
Republic of Karelia
Account No. 40702810800129008220
Petrozavodsk Branch of ZAO “Baltiisky bank”
Correponding account No. 3010180000000000752
BIK 048602752

Mevrouw Vera Soldatenkova, acting under Power of Attorney 9 of January 7, 2006 stelt dit document op, ik moet het ondertekenen, mijn naam, geboortedatum, paspoortnummer worden zorgvuldig vermeld, en dan moet ik doodleuk het bedrag van 2040 Roebels cash betalen.
De tickets, voor de boot en het eiland, waar het allemaal om ging, hebben het formaat van een kleine kassabon, en in durf bijna niet adem te halen uit angst dat ze wegwaaien. ’s Land’s wijs, ’s land’s eer……

’s Avonds drink ik een biertje in de Bar Neubrandenburg, tegenover het hotel, en als avondeten heb ik genoeg aan een paar pannenkoeken met rode caviaar. De bar zit vol. Grote groepen meestal jonge mensen zijn druk in gesprek, kennelijk niet gehinderd door oorverdovende Russische popmuziek.
De volgende dag vertrekt de draagvleugelboot naar Kishi om 9 uur. Om acht uur loop ik weer over de Marx Avenue. Het is nog half donker, want zwaar bewolkt. In een grote kiosk op het trottoir wordt een winkel opnieuw ingericht. Er brandt een fel licht binnen. Een timmerman zonder shirt, meet iets uit op de grond, Zij bovenlichaam is zo dichtbehaard dat het lijkt of hij een trui draagt. Op bijna iedere hoek van de straat staat wel zo’n kiosk. Men verkoopt er vooral drank. Bier, softdrinks, Coca Cola, Sprite, limonades en mineraal water met en zonder prik. En natuurlijk sigaretten. Een pakje kost nog geen Euro. Velen roken.
In het haventje ligt de draagvleugelboot klaar. Gedrongen en zichtbaar vol paardenkrachten. Enkele mensen staan al rokend te wachten op het vertrek. Een paar Japanners. Oude, kromme mensen, windjacks, tassen en rare hoedjes. Een gids die eruit ziet als een zeeman staat hen toe te spreken in wat ik hoor als vloeiend Japans. Er staan enkele Russen, zichtbaar toeristen met omvangrijke camera’s and leren petten op. Het interieur van de draagvleugelboot is verwaarloosd maar comfortabel. Precies op tijd beginnen de motoren te grommen, en even later scheren wij op de draagvleugels over het meer. Het is een uur varen naar Kishi. Er is niets te zien buiten, de gebogen ruiten van plexiglas zijn gekrast en laten weining zicht toe. Ik duik maar weer even in Updike’s boek. Zijn zorgvuldige beschrijvingen zijn als een vergrootglas voor de gewone dagelijkse dingen om ons heen. Voor hem, dus nu ook een beetje voor mij, wordt een stinkende, rammelende en walmende draagvleugelboot met teveel paardenkrachten op het Onega meer, een monster uit de Karevala epos dat zich in de grijze nevelen verzet tegen de op handen zijde schepping van de mensheid……
Ik ben ingedut, en als ik wakker wordt door de verandering in het motorgeluid, zie ik vaag door de gekraste ruiten een grijs gevaarte uit de ochtendnevel opdoemen. De kathedraal van Kishi!!!
In iedere reis komt het moment dat men het doel van de reis bereikt, en de werkelijkheid ijking op. De werkelijkhied zich over het gevormde beeld legt. Gewoonlijk is dat beeld, gevormd door foto’s uit glimmende publicaties, geïdealiseerd. Er worden geen mislukte foto’s in boeken afgedrukt. Beroepsfotografen kunnen wachten op het juiste moment om hun foto te maken, en kiezen de beste uit de vele, die zij maken. Vaak kiezen zij dan die in overeenstemming is met hun emotie, welke die ook is. Avondlicht kan zich ontfermen over harde lijnen en vormen, zoals make-up over een vermoeid gelaat. De eerste eigen waarneming is altijd anders. Omdat die ook subjectief is. De beroemde houten kathedraal staat nu ineens voor me. Grauw, op een kale oever, in een verlaten landschap, met laaghangende wolken. Het is koud en ik word net wakker in een rammelende boot. Pas later kan ik deze bruuske waarneming plaatsen in de context van dit land, en dit landschap. Karelië is hard. Het is het alles overheersende kenmerk van dit land, dat niet verdwijnt, ook niet als het zonlicht op gele berkenbladeren voor korte tijd een gordijn van kleur voor het achterliggende decor schuift. Karelië is basic. De altijd lage horizon houdt het graniet, het water en de strakke bossen in toom, om daarboven de grote ruime hemel te laten domineren. Bijgevolg is alles wat de mensen maken, en zijn ook de mensen zelf, ondergeschikt aan deze harde natuur.
Even later loop ik over de aanlegsteiger richting ingang van het museum eiland. De onvermijdelijke souvenirwinkeltjes schurken zich om de betonnen steiger. Een groep Japanners in hun 60-plussers actieve vrijetijdskleding schuifelt compact vooruit. Hun typische loophouding, halzen uitgestrekt naar voren, kantelend op te korte beentjes, roept beelden op van rijstvelden, en het vanuit de heupen naar voren buigen om de plantjes een voor een in de modder te steken.
Eenmaal op het eiland, dat zo drassig is dat de looppaden als verhoogde plankiers zijn uitgevoerd, maakt de hardheid van het landschap, die mij daareven zo overviel, plaats voor een trage liefelijkheid. Het water van het meer, van het eiland af gezien, krijgt een zweem van blauw. Zacht bewegend riet verbergt de stenen langs de oever en kleurverschillen in de lage begroeiing verdrijven de gevoelde grauwheid. Het is druk bij de ingang. Het plankier gaat over in een verhard pad. De Japanners zijn vooruit gelopen, en er voor terug krijg ik een grote groep Duitse toeristen die de excursie achter de rug hebben en zich naar hun hotelschip begeven dat in het kleine haventje ligt afgemeerd. Zestigers en ouder, enkelen moeilijk lopend. Allen individuen met levens achter de rug, waaronder oorlog en vernedering, Wirtschaftswunder en welstand, maar hier, zoals overal ter wereld, als groep vreemd uniform. Flarden gesprek in het voorbijgaan. “… das hatten wir doch schon in Moskau gesehen …” Camera’s en heuptassen, windjacks en wandelstokken, witte haren en bruine gezichten. Een zware man met één been – ligt andere nog in de buurt van Kursk of Arromanches ? - kantelt zich vooruit. ….. Wat hier loopt vergt een lange en voortdurende investering van gezondheidszorg. Het krakende venster wordt met alle macht opengehouden door wat hier wandelt. De plaatselijke bevolking – er staat een groep jonge mannen te werken aan een rij op maat gezaagde boomstammen – zien deze groep aan zich voorbij trekken. De gezichten uitdrukkingsloos. Hun opa’s en oma’s zitten thuis met een pensioen van 60 Euro in de maand, hebben geen tanden en een kapotte heup komt nooit meer goed.
Even later ben ik alleen. De Japanners zijn vooruit gesneld, de Duitsers verdwenen naar hun schip, en de enkeling, zoals ik, is aan zijn lot overgelaten. Tijd ook om de omgeving te verkennen.
Het eiland Kishi (КИШИ ОСТРОВ) is sinds de prehistorie een plaats van rituelen en godsdienst. Vanaf de 12e Eeuw worden er kerken en een klooster gemeld maar die zijn niet bewaard gebleven. Deze streek was ooit dichtbevolkt. Er werden voortdurend oorlogen gevoerd tussen Russen, Finnen en Zweden om het bezit ervan. De stad Novgorod, die in de 12e eeuw een centrum was van handel en cultuur, breidde zijn invloed uit tot aan de Witte Zee, en moedigde kolonisatie van deze gebieden aan. Huiden, honing en hout waren belangrijke produkten eden aan. ntrum was van handel en cultuur, breidde zijn invloed uit tot aan de witte zee, en moedigde koloniosatie van deze gebvoor de Europese markt. Novogorod, als Hanze stad, leverde die markt en had toelevering nodig. De Zweden bleven aanspraken houden op deze gebieden, maar werden, tesamen met Teutoonse Ridders uit het Baltische gebied, in 1240 beslissend verslagen door Alexander Nevsky, een prins uit Novgorod. Maar het was pas Peter de Grote, die de streek definitief onder controle kreeg, ondermeer door de stichting van het strategische St. Peterburg in 1703.
Novgorod, dat als enige belangrijke Russische stad ontkwam aan de vernietiging door de Mongolen in de 13e eeuw, werd in 1477 aangevallen en grotendeels vernield door Ivan III van Moscow, waarna Ivan de Verschrikkelijke bijna een eeuw later het werk afmaakte door tienduizenden bewoners, waaronder de gehele elite, om te brengen. Deze gebeurtenissen hebben in belangrijke mate de richting bepaald van de Russische geschiedenis. Novgorod was georiënteerd op het Westen, kende een volksvertegenwoordiging en gold als een centrum van handel, wetenschap en verlichting. Moskou daarentegen was Oosters, een feodale macht gebaseerd op oorlog en verovering, en daarbij tweehonderd jaar lang onderschikt aan de Tataren van de Gouden Horde, het Khanaat dat Kazan als hoodstad had. De vernietiging van Novgorod sloot de deur naar het Westen en doofde het licht, en pas Peter de Grote slaagde erin, ruim twee eeuwen later, het gezicht van Rusland weer naar het Westen te draaien.
In Novgorod, was tijdens de gouden dagen, in de tweede helft van de 10e eeuw, de houten kathedraal van de heilige Sophia de Grote gebouwd. Deze kathedraal heeft de vernielingen door Ivan III niet overleefd, maar bleef voortbestaan in de overlevering en de harten van de gelovigen, als een mythische belichaming van de verloren gegane materiële en geestelijke rijkdom van Novgorod. Nadat Peter de Grote Karelië definitief had veilig gesteld, kwam de roep om een symbool weer tot leven, en het was in Kishi dat die roep zijn uiting vond. Meester timmerman Nestor nam het op zich de glorie van Novgorod te herstellen. De overlevering wil dat hij, toen de laatste klap met de bijl gegeven was, hij die in het Onaga meer wierp en uitriep: “De wereld heeft nog nooit zoiets gezien, en zal ook nooit meer zoiets gebouwd zien worden.
De kathedraal van de Transfiguratie in Kishi bestaat uit een centrale achthoek, die gebouwd is op een Grieks kruis. Daarboven verheffen zich nog eens twee achthoeken, die tenslotte de grootste van de tweeëntwintig uivormige daken dragen. Daaronder hebben de dakkapellen van elk van de vier verdiepingen het traditionele granaat-vormige uiterlijk van een Botsjka *). Een van de vernieuwingen van Nestor was dat elk granaat-vormig dak weer een uivormige koepel draagt. Doordat de dakspanen, die de koepels bedekken, gemaakt zijn van zilveresp, lijken de koepels los te zweven van de donkere dennenstammen, als de vlammen boven de kaarsen die zij verondersteld zijn voor te stellen. De op zichzelf primitieve blokbouw leende zich bij uitstek voor deze bouw, zelfs voor de ronde koepels. Men begon met een achthoekige basis, en legde telkens een iets grote versie op de vorige. Nadat de grootste dikte was bereikt, ging men weer naar kleinere achthoeken. Tenslotte werd met de bijl de ronde vorm zoveel mogelijk benaderd.
*) Ton
De kathedraal staat in een Pogost, een omheining waarbinnen meerdere gebouwen en een kerkhof bescherming vinden. Hierbinnen bevindt zich ook de kerk van de Voorspraak, die met zijn negen uiendaken op een lage piramide een visueel contrast vormt met de grote kathedraal ernaast. Dit kleinere gebouw, met zijn lagere plafond, was ook beter warm te houden tijdens de ijzige Karelische winters.
Ik loop rond in de pogost, die op dit moment verlaten is. De grote kathedraal is niet toegankelijk, de kleinere kerk ernaast wel. Binnen valt de eenvoud van de constructie extra op. De grijs verweerde houten wanden en vloeren geven diepte aan de kleurige ikonen, die in de Orthodoxe rituelen hun eigen functie hebben. Het is niet moeilijk zich de eeuwen van simpele aanbidding voor te stellen. Mensen uit deze barre streken, te voet of met sleden vaak na een lange tocht hier aangekomen, biddend om soelaas te vinden voor hun noden en angsten. De stilte en het gedempte licht dragen bij tot een onmiskenbare spirituele atmosfeer.
In recentere tijden zijn meerdere houten gebouwen uit de omgeving naar Kishi overgebracht. Enige imposante boerenwoningen zijn te bezichtigen, met oorspronkelijke inrichting en gebruiksvoorwerpen. Opvallend is dat alle werktuigen, boten inbegrepen, via een sleephelling naar zolder gebracht kunnen worden. In de koude winters kon zo alles beschermd en bewaakt worden. Vrijwel alle gebruiksvoorwerpen zijn uit berkenhout vervaardigd. Geen wonder dat deze veelzijdige houtsoort nog steeds geldt als het nationale symbool van Rusland, en het nog steeds verboden is voorwerpen uit ruw berkenhout uit te voeren. Interessant zijn de zware vormen, waarin verhit berkenhout in allerlei gewenste vormen gebogen wordt. Wellicht eeuwen vóór Thonetz hiervoor een begrip werd.
Dicht bij de woningen, aan de waterkant, staan de banya’s. Kleine gebouwtjes met de Russische variant van de sauna. De ingangen zijn klein. Er is nauwelijks plaats om zich aan- of uit te kleden. Wandelde men met -40 hier naartoe? Ik stel mij voor dat hier de met berenbont gevoerde badjas is uitgevonden.
Het eiland Kishi is slechts een paar kilometer groot. De grond is zowel rotsachtig als drassig, en ik zie slechts één klein akkertje zonder begroeiing. De moeite waard is ook de kerk van de wederopstanding van Lazarus, wellicht het oudste nog bestaande houten gebouw in Rusland, daterend van ca. 1390. Kan wel zijn, maar er is aan alle kanten aan gerestaureerd, de nieuwe stammen en planken zichtbaar afstekend tegen te verweerde resten van het oorspronkelijke gebouw.
Intussen is het weer beter geworden. Er zijn stukken blauwe lucht te zien. Het meer krijgt een heldere kleur en windstrepen. De zon schijnt op de gele berken, en het geheel krijgt een vredige uitstraling. Ik loop in een grote lus om de pogost weer terug richting uitgang en aanlegsteiger. De draagvleugelboot gaat aan het begin van de middag weer terug naar Petrozavodsk. Intussen is een grote groep mannen aan de slag gegaan de betonnen aanlegsteiger te voorzien van rode tegeltjes. Een enkeling past en meet. De rest staat eromheen, rookt sigaretten en loopt af en toe met een tegeltje in de hand heen en weer. Hoewel het lichter en zonniger is dan vroeger op de dag, is het koud geworden. Enige van de stalletjes die softdrinks en bier verkopen hebben een plastic voortent, en de mensen die op de boot wachten schuilen bijeen. De Japanners zijn ook weer opgedoken, en laten hun camera’s afkoelen. Een enkeling laat trots een zojuist gekocht souvenir zien. Kleine modelletjes van de kathedraal. Ik vraag mij af of die onbeschadigd in Tokyo of Osaka zullen aankomen.
Een later rammelen wij weer het haventje uit, en op het moment dat de boot zich grommend verheft op zijn draagvleugels, zie ik de nu vertrouwde vorm van de kathedraal voor de laatste keer. Een lange reis voor een kort bezoek, maar een ervaring rijker pak ik mijn John Updike weer op voor de lawaaierige tocht naar Petrozavodsk.
Terug in Petrozavodsk besluit ik door een buitenwijk naar de Aleksander Nevski kathedraal te wandelen. Ik verlaat de nu vertrouwde Prospekt Marxa, steek de rivier de Lososinka over en bevind mij meteen in een buitenwijk. Het is vrij druk op straat, vele mensen verplaatsen zich te voet. Ik loop langs lange massieve gebouwen. Betonrot is hier uitgevonden. De grond is kennelijk verzakt hier en daar, want het is niet vreemd hier dat een trap naar een grote voordeur pas een meter van de grond begint….. Uiteindelijk vind ik de kathedraal, hoewel op een andere plaats dan aangegeven op de kaart. Ondanks de klassieke bouw en het goede onderhoud, mist deze plaats de spiritualiteit van bijvoorbeeld Kishi.
Er is kennelijk een universiteit in de buurt, want er zijn veel jongelui op straat. Het valt mij op dat niemand opkijkt van een zichtbaar buitenlandse voorbijganger. De enkele keer dat ik de weg moet vragen wordt ik beleefd te woord gestaan. Ik kom via een ruime omweg weer op de Ploshad Marxa en via Lenina bij het station. Ik koop voor de volgende dag een treinkaartje teug naar St. Petersburg, dit keer een reis overdag, en met opzet in de goedkopere klasse. Voor de 8 uur durende reis betaal ik ongeveer 10 Euro. Ook nu weer wordt mijn paspoort doorgebladerd, en het ticket is op naam.
’s Avonds, na op mijn hotelkamer flitsen van een aantal Champions League wedstrijden gezien te hebben, ga ik erop uit een goed restaurant te zoeken. De eerste twee in de gids aangegeven restaurants blijken niet meer te bestaan, een derde sluit net voor mijn neus de deuren – om acht uur ’s avonds. “Rendez-Vous” is open, en het is er een drukte van belang. Langs de bar, en aan een serie kleine tafeltjes zit een overwegend jong publiek bier the drinken. De grote ruimte wordt verlicht door reprodukties van Parijse straatlantaarns, hetgeen een Europees decor schept. De eetzaal is een ruimte apart, met minder publiek. In een hoek zitten twee mooie jonge meisjes intensief te plukken aan een paar pukkelige vriendjes die het druk hebben met hun mobieltjes. Als ik hen zo zie, moet ik terugdenken aan de vele vrouwen met tassen, in de volkswijk waar ik vanmiddag doorliep. Het lijkt of de mooie flirtende meisjes bij het huwelijk zonder overgang veranderen in tobberige huisvrouwtjes. Het stemt mij mild hen zo vrolijk bezig te zien, terwijl de klok doortikt…. Tegenover mij twee heren in business pakken en zonnebrillen. Een vriendelijk meisje brengt mij een uitgebreide kaart. Het wordt свинина по швейцарки , de plaatselijke interpretatie van een Zwitsers varkenshaasje. Met een groot, goed glas bier een lekkere maaltijd. De rekening bedraagt nog geen 10 Euro. Als ik even later door de nu al verlaten straten naar mijn hotel loop, is Petrozavodsk al een vertrouwde plaats geworden. Een enkele auto raast door de lege brede straten. De mensen zijn thuis, doorgaans hoog in hun betonnen gebouwen, achter een stalen deur met sleutels van 20 cm…. Home sweet home.
De aankomst van de dagtrein uit Murmansk is een gebeurtenis in Petrozavodsk. Precies op tijd – om 10.45 de volgende morgen - komt de bijzonder lange trein langszij, want je kunt niet zeggen dat deze het station binnenkomt, daar dit bestaat uit een klein gebouw met aan weerszijden honderden meters perron. Overal staan groepjes mensen, wachtend op aankomende reizigers, of om vertrekkende reizigers uit te zwaaien. Een en twintig wagons tel ik en dat moet ook wel, want ik heb een plaatsje in wagon Nr. 21. Van de wagons die langzaam langs schuiven zijn de meeste gordijnen dicht. Achter enkele ramen staren slaperige gezichten naar buiten. Op de tafeltjes flessen en dozen. De trein is al 20 uur onderweg, en de interieurs van de wagons en coupés zijn veranderd in woningen, in eet- en slaapkamers. Het is de eerste keer dat ik klasse “wagon” reis, en hoewel het interieur totaal verschilt van de coupés die in ken van eerdere reizen, heeft ook hier de bureaucratie zijn werk gedaan, en tussen de wanorde van reizigers, bagage, etenswaren, dekens en kleding is ook hier mijn bank keurig onbezet. Er is een ruwe afscheiding gemaakt tussen ruimten waarin zich in totaal 5 bedden bevinden. Brede zitbanken of bedden, al naar gelang het gebruik, twee hoog, en aan de andere kant van het gangpad, in de lengte richting, nog één. Op de bank tegenover mij slaapt een dikke man in een trainingspak, snurkend met diepe halen. Op het tafeltje aan het raam staan flessen water en er liggen een paar lege verpakkingen. Op de bank in de lengte richting ligt een wat oudere man onder een deken, stil om zich heen te kijken. De banken boven mij zijn niet bezet en dus omhoog geklapt. Buiten, op het perron lopen mensen met bagage heen en weer. Groepjes staan bijeen. Er is een sfeer van vrolijke agitatie.
Als de trein zich langzaam in beweging zet, glijden de buitenwijken aan het raam voorbij. Fabrieken, opslagplaatsen, en een zagerij laten zien dat er veel activiteit is in en om Petrozavodsk. De gebouwen tonen de sporen van het barre klimaat. Een splinternieuwe loods staat als een fel gekleurde bloem op een veld vol sintels. De trein ratelt over een hoge brug over de rivier Lososinka, die klein en smal is maar diep in het terrein uitgesneden. In de verte ligt het Onega meer in een zilveren schittering, de horizon onzichtbaar.
De trein meerdert vaart, en het ritme van de wielen op de rails vindt zijn plaatsje tussen de andere geluiden in de wagon. Het snurken van mijn buurman, het huilen van een klein kind, het praten en lachen en het buiten voorbijtrekken van gele berkenbossen mengt zich tot een muziekstuk met beeld. Mijn bank is eigenlijk te breed om comfortabel te zitten, dus lig ik even later met het hoofd op mijn rugzak, een boek in hand, tevreden te wezen….
Mijn buurman wordt gewekt door een telefoontje. Deze uitgestrektheid wordt toch onzichtbaar bedekt door een telecommunicatienet. Alleen op Kishi was geen telefoon mogelijk, verder overal. Het duurt even voordat Pavel, want zo heet hij, de ogen weer achter de gaatjes heeft, maar even later zit hij, het telefoongesprek achter de rug, tegenover mij. Pavel is een veertiger, blijkt uit Kandalaksja te komen, en is onderweg naar St. Petersburg voor zijn werk, dat iets te maken heeft met computers. Kandalaksja ligt aan de spoorweg naar Murmansk, aan het begin van het Kola schiereiland. Het gesprek dat op gang komt nadat ik mij heb voorgesteld, verloopt traag maar met 20 woorden – 10 woorden Engels van hem en 10 woorden Russisch van mij, komen we een heel eind. De Oxford Travel Dictionnary Engels-Russisch en Russisch-Engels wordt veelvuldig geraadpleegd en beurtelings doorgegeven. Pavel is vriendelijk, en al gauw staat er een blikje “ Baltika” voor mijn neus. Hij vouwt een pakje open waaruit een keihard gedroogde vis komt, die hij schilfer voor schilfer met dikke handen met zwarte nagels uit elkaar peutert. Ik krijg schilfers aangeboden alsof het om zeldzame truffels gaat. De schilfers, die er zo dodelijk uitzien als asbest, blijken eetbaar te zijn. Even ermee roeren in het bier en dan op de tong verder laten weken. Dit hoort bij nader inzien tot de basisvaardigheden om in dit land te overleven…. Terwijl zijn thuishaven Kandalaksja bij mij beelden oproept van oneindige toendra’s en leegte, legt Pavel uit dat zijn vader van de drukte daar niets moet hebben, en een vissershut heeft aan de Witte Zee waar het pas ècht prettig toeven is. Er is niemand in de hele wereld die vis zó goed kan roken als vader Pavel, en ik moet volgens hem daar de volgende keer toch maar eens gaan kijken. Buiten schuift een eentonig landschap voorbij. Ik vroeg mij wel eens af waarom de gordijnen van de treinen doorgaans gesloten zijn. Welnu, er is gewoon niets te zien buiten, en een beetje Rus weet dat al lang. Het enige dat ik zie zijn bossen met dunne berkenstammetjes, een heel af en toe een datsja-achtig huisje dat schreeuwt om een likje verf. Hoewel, als het decor voor een operette, verschijnt opeens een klein dorpje, om een rond meertje, netjes in de verf met vrolijke kleuren. Een oude man in een roeibootje roeit rustig voort….. Vreemd beeld, dat dan ook weer snel opzij wordt geschoven voor de hoofdvoorstelling.
Af en toe gaan we een sigaretje roken op het rokers balkon, een koud, rammelend hok naast de deur naar de volgende wagon. Er staat altijd wel iemand. Zo staan wij even te roken en te praten met Zhenja en Sergey, militairen van de eenheid “Artilleria en Raketa” uit Murmansk. Zij zijn op weg naar St. Petersburg voor een verlof. Het zijn solide jongens van twintig. Jonge gezichten maar sterk en zichtbaar trots op dikke gespierde armen die, vol tatoeages, uit hun camouflage t-shirtjes steken. Er wordt in Rusland veel ophef gemaakt over mishandelingen die jonge rekruten ondergaan in het Russische leger. Hier zijn er twee waarmee in ieder geval de vloer niet vaak is aangeveegd. Zij blijken bij een anti-tank eenheid te dienen. Ik vraag mij af wèlke tanks men in de buurt van Murmanks wil tegenhouden. Ze zijn vriendelijk, en ik zie hen ook met andere reizigers vaak praatjes maken. Misschien een reflex van de doorsnee Rus, ieder uniform met respect te behandelen?
Pavel en ik blijven onze gedroogde КАПЧОНАЯ in het bier soppen en dat is weer wat anders dan een kaasstengeltje bij de Vat 69. Er komt politie voorbij. Zware mannen in zwarte uniformen die oplettend rondkijken. Als ze voorbij zijn legt Pavel uit dat men geen alcohol sterker dan 20% in het openbaar mag nuttigen. Anders…..: en hij maakt het gebaar van iemand die aan de handboeien wordt meegenomen……
Tijdens een van de rookpauzes komt een oud vet mannetje met een enorme gouden tand, die eruit ziet alsof de plaatselijke hoefsmid bezig is geweest, mij vragen of ik wel geproefd heb van de mooie Russisch vrouwen. De omstanders kijken belangstellend toe, maar ik maak een geintje over grootvaders en over de goede oude tijd en de opa met tand wordt een beetje gedold door het publiek. Er heerst een tijdelijke kameraadschap van hen die in het zelfde schuitje zitten, en de tijd vliegt voorbij.
Af en toe stopt de trein en blijft een kwartiertje staan op stations zoals Лодейное Поле. Er wordt gerookte vis verkocht, en ik ben blij iets terug te kunnen doen voor Pavel, die bijzonder vriendelijk en gul is. Ik koop een ОКУНЬ, een massieve gerookte baars, die even later roze en vettig op het tafeltjes tussen ons in ligt. Met de hand worden bijzonder smakelijke dikke brokken afgebroken en naar binnen gewerkt. Ik had voor de reis wat kruimelige broodjes en een fles water gekocht, maar dit smaakt uitstekend!!
Tegen de avond dendert de trein over de brede en zilveren Neva rivier. Wij naderen St. Petersburg. In het westen is de lucht oranje gekleurd, en een vreemd paarsig licht valt over de uitgestrektheid om ons heen. Hoewel wij vlak bij de wereldstad St. Petersburg zijn, ziet de streek er nog steeds verlaten uit. Het licht doet mij eraan denken dat wij – eind september – de laatste herinneringen aan de zomer zien. De herfst is kort, de winter is nabij.
In de wagon wordt druk opgeruimd, gepakt en opgevouwen. Bagage begint het gangpad te vullen. Pavel verkleedt zich, en het trainingspak maakt plaats voor het nette pak van de handelsreiziger. De eerste nieuwe wijken verschijnen aan de horizon. Nieuw, maar nog steeds bestaande uit immense woontorens met als concessie aan de nieuwe vrijheid wat kleuren en een zekere variatie van vormen.
Even later, precies op tijd, vaart de lange trein als een schip het station Ladoshkaya binnen. De vrolijke eensgezindheid van de wagon verdwijnt, en iedereen vindt weer zijn plaats in een andere wereld, die zich dringend en duwend richting uitgang en Metro begeeft.
Bronnen:
J.W.Bezemer; Een geschiedenis van Rusland
Anne Appelbaum; Gulag
Will Pryce; Architectuur in Hout
Leusden, 19 oktober 2006