Just Like Paris. (but without flush toilets)
Trip Start
Jul 02, 2007
1
24
36
Trip End
Jan 2008
Barnaul,
Russia
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Ah oui un detail HORRIBLE !!! On a ete oblige de prendre l avion ( contre notre gres).
Tout d abord nous n avons pas pu avoir de visas pour aller au Kazakstan. Avoir un visas pr un pays de l ex URSS depuis la Russie est pratiquement impossible, cela nous a ete confirme par d autres voyageurs. Il nous fallait nos tickets de train de sortie du Kazakstan. On a essaye d'en acheter mais ca aussi depuis la Russie meme via internet c est impossible. Donc on s'est resigne a prendre l'avion. Et les tickets de train en Russie ont augmente de 50% en 2 ans. Voila les 2 raisons qui nous ont pousse a prendre l'avion depuis St Petersbourg jusqu a Barnaul et Barnaul jusqu a Urumqy en Chine.
Revenons en a Barnaul
At the train station
. On est reste avec la tante de Tim qui a 72 ans et qui vit seule dans une maison en bois. Une fois encore pendant une semaine on a fait que manger, boire de la vodka ( pour moi) et prendre des banya. Traditionnelement les russes ne se douchent pas mais utilisent le banya. Ce sont des petites merveilles en bois ( photos a suivre) souvent a l arriere du jardin ou il y a un chauffeau. C est comme un sauna. Une fois dans le ils se fouettent les uns et les autres avec des feuilles de bouleau trempees dans de l'eau chaude afin de stimuler la circulation sanguine. Lorsque vous avez bien transpire, vous vous laver et apres vous prenez une douche froide ou en hivers vous pouvez vous jeter tout nu dans la neige . Pour ma part c etait un peu rude a cause du trop plein de vodka surtout celle faite maison. Je ne vous conseille pas faire un sauna apres avoir bu,c'est une sensation tres desagreable. Surtout que la tante de Tim ( Baba Macha) tenait beaucoup a me faire gouter aux differents alcool qu'elle faisait elle meme. Baba Macha etait etonnee que mes parents n'est pas un banya. Mais alors comment font-ils?Cette semaine etait tres instructive et tres emotionelle. Lorsque vous rencontrez des gens aussi aimants et gentils cela vous rassure sur la condition humaine. Non tout n est pas pourri et il y a encore des paradis terrestres ou les gens s aiment et s entraident les uns et les autres
Baba Ira & Her Calf
.Ils sont pauvres mais ne manquent de rien. Leurs maisons sont toutes mimi, chaque chose a sa place et c est tres propre. Ils cultivent leurs potagers et passent le reste du temps a visiter la famille et les amis.Ca fait chaud au coeur de rencontrer des gens comme cela. Avant de partir ils nous ont donne des croix orthodoxes benites par le pretre. Bon je ne sais pas si ca a vraiment marche car depuis on a eu quelques mesaventures que l on avait jamais eu avant.
Ils nous ont confirme qu ils vivaient bc mieux du temps du communisme. Tout le monde avait du travail et du coup les gens buvaient moins. Je ne fait pas l appologie du communisme mais c est juste un constat. Je pense que l on peut appliquer cette remarque a l Europe ou les gens vivaient mieux durant les annees 70 : il y avait du travail pr tout le monde.
"Kak V Parizhyi, tolkyo asphalt zhi-zhi ii kryishyi nyizhyi", translated roughly: "Just like Paris, only the asphalt is runnier and the roofs are lower". That is the you beaut little Russian rhyme that Sasha told us when we arrived to their village. It's that kind of self-depreciating humour which defines Russian life in the Syelo (village). They know they are poor but they accept the fact without any bitterness. Although they are known to complain a little about the bad hand they were delt during their lives they just get on with their lives and have faith that there is a better life following this one
Baba Ira's House
.When we first arrived at the airport (after being wedged in our air seats by a large person for 4 hours) we wondered how they would recogize us and when we arrived a little lady in a black leather jacket and gold teeth walked straight up to me and asked my name. It was my aunty Zhenya. She is my grandmothers niece from my fathers side. I asked how she recognized me and all she replied was "blood". That's the kind of way things work here. There was not really any logical reasoning to the way things were done, it was on more of an intuative level. Like in modern Western society we have advanced schooling, TV, telephone and internet up to the eyeballs we don't really need to be intuative. There they don't have technology as much as we have and they don't really need it. Because after Perestroyka they were just left in the dark (almost literally) and in the past. And as normal human instinct survival would have it they adapted without the technology we in the West so heavily rely on. The reason for that is that they really did get left with nothing so they had to manage on their own without the help of anyone. And I get the feeling that if the shite of the world hit the massive fan in the sky (ie, environmental collapse on a massive scale) and that modern civilization did indeed suffer a fatal blow, it's these little self sufficient villages that would keep on plodding along, long after the initial shock
Baba Masha & Laura
.Anyway, enough ranting for the minute. I'll just relate our little experience.
One thing I noticed when we arrived was that everyone had gold teeth, and that everyone had a vegetable garden. So there were golden smiles and fresh food all around. And my lord how much fresh food can one tolerate. Of all the places that we overate, this was the most severe. The reason for that is that here you don't really have a choice of how much you eat. Here you eat until the Baba's (grannies) are satisfied that you have ate enough. And for us they relentlessly reiterated that we are "too skinny and that we need to get you right". Getting right means fattening you up. But lucky we only stayed 5 days otherwise we would've gotten very right. Right like a sow ready for the slaughter. They may be poor but there is really no shortage of food.
And after dinner, when dusk would bring a little chill, you would go to the thunderbox (outside, non-flush toilet for all you non-Aussies), sit down, choke on the smoke from everyone heating their houses and banya's, choke from the dunny smell and get a little bit of a frosty bottom. I couldn't imagine how you would go to the toilet if it was -50 degrees centigrade
Baba Masha's House
. You'd get more than a frosty bottom. You could quite possibly get frostbite (or even hypo-thermia if you had to take your time). At least it wouldn't smell if it was that cold. Sanya told me a story of how Baba Masha got stuch in the dunny one time. She went in to clean it the box (there is no bowl) and the latch (wooden block on a screw) fell and locked her in. When she finally finished cleaning she tried to go out but realised that the lach had fallen and locked her in. She stood up on the box and tried to reach over but because she is such a munchkin her arms weren't long enough to open it up again. She was stuck there for two hours. In that time Sanya had come to visit her and saw that she wasn't in the kitchen or the garden (her usual places or occupation) and assumed that she had gone to visit her friends. Lucky she managed to open it somehow (i didn't understand how). Here in Siberia it's no laughing matter to get stuck in your out-house. It's possible that if you got stuck overnight you could even freeze to death, even in spring or autumn. Not many people could say that they narrowly escaped death by toilet.As I was saying above, people here like to complain occasionally, and I don't blame them. If the things that happened to them happened to me I would be the loudest to whinge. After Perestroyka all the state assets got divided up and the people who had the friends got everything and got rich
Baba Masha's Izba
. Most of the people got nothing and are still poor so many years later. Perestroyka was meant to be good for Russia but most of the people haven't seen the benefits yet. Baba Masha keeps on reminiscing how good everything was before Perestroyka. How everything was cheap and how everyone had work. Now it's hard to find decent work (Sanya makes about US$400 a month working 40 hours a week) and inflation just keeps on killing their standard of living. Add to all that they have huge social problems (mainly alcohol) and a high rate of cancer. Baba Masha recons one day someone is alive and healthy, the next day they are dead. I think all that filthy stinking industry has something to do with that among other things such as cheap cigarettes and a poor health system.When we arrived the surface of everything looked grey and dreary, old crumbling apartment blocks, roads full of potholes, industry, cloudy skies. Social problems, health problems, harsh weather conditions, harsh life in Siberia. But they just keep on going. Complain a little (as they say) and keep on going.
But what helps them to keep on going? It's little things. Family. Friends. Decorating the house with many colours and patterns (all the colours of the rainbow). Working in the garden
Banya
. Cooking in the kitchen. Their hope for the future in their children and grandchildren. They don't have many of the modern conveniences like us in the west. They don't have gas heating, they don't have flush toilets, electricity is getting prohibitively expensive (energy demands of the world is pushing prices up as everone is beginning to see, and it will get worse). They don't buy many processed foods, maybe some sausage and sugar. They can't afford all that stuff. Most of their time goes into preparing their own food. They know the real value of food. They grow it from scratch and prepare it all themselves. Not like the west, where everything is produced on a mass scale. Where prices are distorted. Where people don't understand the value of food (or where it comes from).Well, besides Perestroyka, pollution, stinky dunnies and Micklooha Micklay (Russian David Attenbourough) I found out that I had relatives all over Russia. From St. Petersburg to the far East. I found out that I had relatives near the Black Sea in a place called Hidizhinsk (I don't know if that is the correct spelling), Kirov near Moscow, Somewhere in Kazakhstan, the Urals (I have a deceased relative who had the name of Uralov), Altay, Baikal, and some river separating China & Russia in the far East (Near Khabarovsk I think). A story about the river separating China & Russia: I was told that during winter
