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Published: July 29th 2009
Son of Stimpy
The Chelyabinsk trio -- we found these guys tearing it up in the Chelyabinsk bus station. Here Son of Stimpy's just wailing on that clarinet. Poppy in the back looks like a B-movie undertaker. I think their playing "Smoke gets in Your Eyes." I was blown away.Misha is one of those guys who can always be found in the Perm State University weight room. “He was a champion,” fellow powerlifter Vladimir once told me. “Now he is old.” Misha’s not that old, but he bears the scars of long lived powerlifter: a bum knee and a big belly. For reasons that remain mysterious, Misha took a liking to me. He displayed his affection by accusing me of being an American Spy (“your students will be so happy when they capture an American spy!”) and helping me with me technique on a shoulder exercise (“you look like a sparrow”). He’s also provided the most succinct critique of my Russian language skills I’ve yet heard (“My dog also understands, but he too can’t speak”). Misha’s hobbies include fishing, powerlifting, reading, and swimming in the Kama River in January. He’s one of the celebrated Perm “walruses” - or guys that swim when it’s really, really cold out.
Long ago, in summer of 2008, Misha gave me a standing fishing trip offer. He got around to making plans in March of 2009, and set a concrete date a few weeks ago. By that time Sveta, Misha’s girlfriend, Irina, and her
Misha's bad starter
Sveta poses in front of Misha daughter with the nearly but not quite identical name, Arina, had also been invited. The night before, Sveta and I caught a bus to the town of Lysva near Perm, where Irina and Arina lived. Fortified with eggs and porridge, the five of us set off Sunday morning. The closer we got to our destination, the more confused and hesitant Misha became. Irina, Sveta, and Arina noticed some missed turns, but keeping their place as women in the backseat, remained silent. After refueling stop and some time for contemplation (Misha’s big on silent contemplation) he turned the key, determined to go the women’s route. But the truck didn’t start.
So we sat around and watched Misha’s attempts at auto repair. He successfully identified the starter as the problem, but as all the bolts holding the thing together had fallen out, there was nothing to do. So we turned our attention to the stream of Russians returning from dacha weekends and made some desultory attempts at playing catch with the football I had brought along. We waited.
Eventually the gas station owner came over and expressed his sympathy. Then he ordered us to move the truck. Misha and I
pushed it to a gravel lot, and resumed our waiting in slightly altered circumstances. Sometimes we helped push other cars with starter problems. In what was mystery to me at the time (but later revealed to be girlfriend Irina’s family connections) a militia jeep (Russian police are called militia) pulled up. Two big-bellied, mustachioed guys got out and hooked our truck to theirs. The cable holding the vehicles together snapped on the highway, but by that time we had circumvented the starter and the engine was roaring. The trouble was that as soon as we stopped the engine, without any big-bellied mustachioed guys around we would be stuck again. Which is what happened when we pulled into our new “home of rest” Bunchuk. The gate master (there are millions of such masters in Russia) let us in. It would be two days before we could get out again. We tried to check in. Misha spoke into a window, a half-asleep man emerged. He took us to our cabin, gave us a collection of dirty dishes along with five sets of foul smelling sheets and blankets. Sveta and I were awarded the upstairs. This meant that we had the balcony, much
the dismay of little Arina, but lost out on the electricity and the table. With the upstairs we also got the mice that lived in the walls. Being a Russian cabin, there was no water (though we did have gas for the stove). And the toilet back behind the cabins, being a Russian toilet, was hideous. For bathing there was the lake.
The “home of rest” was a Soviet holiday institution. The Soviet home of rest, was quite different from the American “rest home.” In the old Soviet days, young people, old people, all sorts of people vacationed at homes of rest. But, despite the name, these vacationers rarely rested. Instead, these harried Soviets made the most of the precious free time away from the communal apartments and the prying eyes of neighbors, and as Russian historian of sexuality Igor Kohn has documented, created backwater bacchanalias. In the Puritanical USSR Homes of rest were oases of naughtiness, in which all manner of depravity peacefully coexisted. If the 24-7 techno music, free-flowing booze, and (though rather lame) dancing, the 20 or so young Russian men and women who were crammed into the cabin down the road were evidence that there
Police car
This car got us out of the road but into the Bunchuk prison yet remain some traditionalists intent on keeping the home of rest spirit alive.
Due to the fact that we had to keep the car running all the time while we were in town, we hadn’t been able to pick up much food. Sveta and I had some incomplete materials for chili. Our companions had salami and bread. That night was cold. The mice screeched. Sveta and I wore layers of clothing. Later we learned to huddle in one cot, wrapping ourselves as best we could the urine-scented blankets - we had never been closer than we were during those nights at Bunchuk.
I woke up early, determined to be active. I went running, and as I was getting out saw Misha preparing his fishing rod. I returned, and he was still preparing his rod. He did not fish. The camp shop was closed on Monday, so I couldn’t replenish our food stocks and was forced to make do with my incomplete chili supplies. With little food or diversions, everyone grew tired. I read Russian fairy tales. Sveta read “Tender is the Night.” In that novel, hero Dick Diver’s French Riviera holiday turns into a psychological prison trapping poor
cabin fever
we lived here for a week. It looks kind of nice. But you can't see the mice or cold DD and his wife into a downward cycle of despair and madness. So there were some parallels. Only we were not in the French Riviera. We were in Bunchuk. The night was again cold. Outside, a cat let loose a ferocious yowl that for a moment silenced the mice in the walls. But only for a moment.
Tuesday the militia returned. The car was taken in for repairs. In the town of Kyshtym, Sveta and I left the group and explored the city market, its monuments to the workers of the Urals, their hammers and guns raised in victory or let down by their sides in sadness. We also found a cafe. It had pizza, hamburgers and fried chicken. This empty, but clean, palace had one endearing drawback - comical misspelling. On our bill we saw “nuggensy” (double plural in Russian) and Bik-Mac.
Meanwhile Misha bought the bait. He thus completed step two in his on-going preparations to fish. I have never found it unusual to fish with leeches. The eyeless bloodsuckers are not that creepy and they are really effective. Misha fishes with maggots. Writhing maggots.
Another thing we did together that day was visiting Kasli
fun away from the sun
In our dark quarters, I prepare myself for holiday - the home of cast iron sculpture. In the best traditions of the empire, Russians tricked the Bashkir people into selling the land around the Ural mountains (and the place where now Kyshtym and Kasli stand) for next to nothing. The iron ore rich land made possible the great iron works that served the empire and later the Soviet Union. Now, continuing the traditions of the new empire, the best examples of a numerous Kasli ironworks collection is presented in Ekaterinburg, while the plant is virtually dead, and the inhabitants of Kasli scramble to find work elsewhere.
Wednesday Sveta and I made our way to the bus station. Thus began our daily ritual/fantasy of escape plotting. We spent countless hours pouring over departure tables, and questioning clerks, but only made definite plans to visit Mt. Sugomak, which we did the following day. Of course getting anywhere required tremendous waiting. The closest bus stop was around 2 miles from camp Bunchuk. The bus schedule posted on the camp gate was a collection of cruel lies. That day, we found that it is useless to get out at 9:30 to catch 10 o’clock bus. The 10 o’clock bus came at 1:30.
Nice lake
This is where Sveta fought for our right to stay on the beach. Through such processes of trial and error and waiting, we learned that the busses run when they want to run. In any case there being no bus at 10, we decided to kill time and read at the beach. Luckily two of the beach pads were still unoccupied. These two lay between two fattish middle-aged men. “GIRLS! These are reserved for our company!” On of the fat men told us.
“What?!?” Sveta’s face had turned red. She had “that look.” The man apologized for calling me a girl, but maintained that if we sat down he would throw us off the pads. Sveta sat down, and motioned for me to join her. I did, and opened my book of fairy tales. My face was also red. The fat man and his fat friends occasionally pestered Sveta, but her aggressive seriousness cowed them. We remained on our pads, and I completed the fairy story about the magic carp.
Also on Wednesday, Misha completed the third and final fishing preparation step: he made porridge. This was to be thrown into the lake, and would lure the fish (“fish like kasha”). Misha did not fish.
On Thursday with all of
the necessary preparation steps completed, Misha fished. Each day had been devoted to one task - rod, bait, porridge. “He’s a phlegmatic personality,” Sveta offered in way of explanation. In fishing Mish had discovered the perfect hobby: sitting around in silence, doing nothing.
I did not fish on Thursday because Sveta and I scaled Sugomak. The mountain was by far the best part of the trip - beautiful and not too straining, catching the bus to town much more challenging. We saw flowers and caves - secret paths leading nowhere, and clear, quiet streams.
Friday Sveta and I pulled off a trip to Chelyabinsk. We went to an art museum and saw a collection of Japanese prints from the nineteenth century. I liked them, but was disturbed by their resemblance to comic book illustrations. The museum ladies had hidden the second portion of the display behind a couple of frosted doors- erotic Japanese prints! In this I was reminded of the video store corral doors, behind which the “adult” rentals lay.
It rained that night and on into Saturday morning. I went fishing. It was our last day, and I figured I had an obligation to at
Mt. Sugomak
We climbed her. least go once. The rod was about twenty feet long, and kept tangling the line trying to cast the thing. Misha issued a whole bunch of orders, most of which I didn’t understand. I would say “Da!” to everything whether I understood or not. “Yes, Yes, but you don’t understand,” Misha would say. The rain wouldn’t quit and I got soaked. Wet, cold, and skewering maggots, I stood at the end of the dock and occasionally pulled in a fish. They were small, bony creatures, which Misha would nonetheless fry up and devour. Once he bought some smoked fish in town. I remember standing and watching him at the picnic table where he was ruthlessly tearing heads and fins from trunks, meat from bones, and organs and air sacs from meat. Groups of mosquitoes formed black knots on his face. He paid them no mind and stayed on task. Eventually Misha acknowledged my presence, grunted, and pushed a fish in my direction. I did my best with it, but mostly got covered in slime.
I most of spent the rest of the day cold and in bed, sulking. Sveta once told Irina and Misha our blankets did not keep
A sad soldier
A Kyshtym monument us warm at night. Sveta wore three shirts and a pair of hooded sweatshirts along with jeans to bed. “Oh,” Irina replied, “you are warmth-loving people.”
On Sunday, we somehow almost left on time. But we stopped in Ekaterinburg. Misha had business deals of some sort. But the train station there runs regular shuttles to Perm, and so after getting some directions, we shook Misha’s hand, and made our getaway on the electric train, third class.
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Jamie Norwich McLennan
non-member comment
Warmth-loving people
Such adventures you are having! I have to say that you and Sveta show remarkable patience and a pragmatic view of making the best of whatever situation. Here we are in the process of re-building our staff; Wes has decided to not be a church musician right now, John is off to Cleveland with his wife Laura (starting graduate school) and Anne is off to a church with a full-time position. I don't know that we have been as pragmatic with our situation and are scrambling to pull things together for August and September... Thanks again for sharing! Blessings, Jamie