One steppe beyond, p.12
One Steppe Beyond, page 12
The Urals had been home to five of the Soviet Union’s ‘secret cities’ for weapons research and development, and before Chernobyl took the title, it was Chelyabinsk-65 that was the site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster when a waste tank exploded.
As was the Soviet way, news of the accident was suppressed for decades, whilst whole villages that had been affected were systematically wiped out. The region looked like it was still reeling from the effects of radiation and, come to think of it, they were extremely big shrimps.
It seemed to rain heavily the whole time we were passing through the Urals. We stocked up at a kiosk which was offering as a special that day polythene bags full of spotted eggs. It seemed a good idea to buy some, but they all got broken before we had a chance to eat them.
Eventually, we broke from the forested mountain borders along a waterlogged road, into a flat naked landscape. Our first impression of Siberia was bleak and desolate, cold and intimidating – pretty much what you’d expect, really. So where and what is Siberia? For some, it’s simply the huge area east of the Urals continuing to the Pacific seaboard. For others, it’s an ominous, dark place at the back of the mind, a symbol of all things bad, not really a place at all but an enigma. For some it’s the worst bit of Russia, where nobody wants to be. For others it’s Russia’s Texas, where everything is bigger, the roads longer, the forests bigger, the lakes deeper, with the biggest energy reserves, that one day the rest of the world will be crying out for.
Regardless of where Siberia actually starts and finishes or indeed what Siberia is, the general consensus is that the best bits are in its heartland – in the middle. You could travel for days being tortured by your surroundings before you start happening across little parcels of paradise and quickly forget all the bits that went before. The native Siberian writer Valentin Rasputin says: ‘From whichever direction you approach it, Siberia is in no hurry to reveal itself.’ He believes the region works gradually on you, no sudden surprises, but slowly drawing you in physically and emotionally until eventually ‘binding you tightly’.
The rain persisted and got heavier as we pushed on towards the sulky, unrewarding Soviet town of Tyumen. We filled up with petrol and were glad to drive on through. The weather cleared as we travelled south-east for 180 kilometres until reaching Omsk, where we pulled up for the night on the edge of a corn field bordered by silver birch trees aligned in perfect single file. There was an unearthly silence; the air was so pure it cleansed our skin. We could have been the only people alive.
We woke up the next morning to our first frost. A bridge across the rusty Irtysh River took us in to the centre of Omsk. Through the suburbs we passed sprawling Soviet industrialisation; factories, petrochemical plants, refineries – all contributing to the patchwork of pollution. It wasn’t long after reaching the centre that we became lodged bumper to bumper in a traffic jam. A haphazard line of vehicles stretched out of sight in both directions. The irony of being in Siberia – one of the least populated regions of the world – and in a traffic jam didn’t evade us.
We passed a policeman who had leant his motorbike up and was smoking a cigarette, surveying the scene with an air of detachment which suggested all was quite normal. An old fourgon sat up ahead with its lights flashing and a siren wailing, going nowhere; the red cross on its side wasn’t persuading anyone to let it through. I chuckled as I peeped between the gaps in Omsk’s decrepit tower blocks and glimpsed the miles of desolate steppe that lay beyond.
The city was founded in 1717 as a fortress for the Cossacks trying to keep the nomads at bay. Later a prison was built which was to become Dostoyevsky’s inspiration for The House of the Dead, where he was to spend four years in exile for his part in a revolutionary circle back in St Petersburg. Siberia’s rich tradition of playing host to political exiles, petty criminals and anyone else who managed to upset the rulers of the day went back several centuries and wasn’t restricted to antagonists of the human variety.
The first exile was the Uglich Bell in 1593. Uglich is a town on the Volga which was the home to Ivan the Terrible’s ten-year-old son and heir, Dmitri. Dmitri was found dead with his throat cut, and it was the bell that rung the news of the death around Uglich. The death prompted a rebellion by the locals that was easily quashed. It also prompted the Time of Troubles, between the end of the Rurik dynasty – of which Dmitri was the last – and the beginning of the Romanov, fifteen years later. When the immediate fuss caused by the murder had quietened down, suspicion fell on Boris Godunov for the murder; the official investigators, however, concluded the death to be accidental. With a shortage of suspects, it was the bell that got the blame: it had its tongue removed and was sent to Tobolsk, where it would remain until 1892. The bell, like many other exiles, was treated well, and in 1860 even had a tower built for it, the inanimate object equivalent of a penthouse suite. It now holds the record for the longest exile of any such object – coming in at 300 years. In the nineteenth century the people of Uglich battled hard for the return of the bell and eventually they got their wish, but not before a copy had been made and a chapel built for it to hang in – as it does today. Or does it? The story goes that a seventeenth-century fire in Tobolsk had completely melted the bell, which would make the bell returned to Uglich a copy, and the bell now in Tobolsk a copy of the copy.
Looking at the dishevelled inhabitants of Omsk trudging by, reflecting their surroundings perfectly as we passed through, the threat of a long spell in the city would have been quite a deterrent from any criminal activities. Omsk seemed to be one large construction site: roads were being dug up, buildings were either half completed or half demolished, and it looked like the victim of heavy bombing from the air. I noticed a building to the side of the road that looked strangely familiar; with its statue of Lenin and the red, white and blue of the Russian flag, it was a sight we could have seen in any number of Russian towns, but I was convinced we’d seen it before. Then I realised we had, about two hours before. We were going round in circles. We were trying to find the M51 which was, according to the map, an attractively straight road linking Omsk with the Siberian capital, Novosibirsk. All we’d managed to find was the town hall… again.
After several hours of unexplained gridlock we eventually broke free of Omsk, onto an enticing open road and a clear horizon ahead. This lasted for a mile or two. Our liberation was short lived as we were brought to a standstill by a gathering of 4x4s and trucks blocking the road. The vehicles had evidently been stopped by a massive expanse of standing water into which the road ahead had disappeared. A nearby river had been swollen by several days of torrential rain. Judging by the assembled engine power it would be impossible to cross. This included:
A couple of Nivas – the Siberian four-wheel drive version of the Fiat Panda, a nippy little runabout that can also handle a few thousand miles of steppe or mountain.
A Japanese landcruiser – a vehicle favoured by the St Petersburg mafia. Since crossing the Urals, this was probably the commonest vehicle on the roads, pushing the Lada into second place.
A seven-and-a-half-tonne truck.
A couple of UAZ vans – the Soviet cousin of the VW Transporter, probably Max’s closest relative in Russia.
The drivers were all gathered around a modified fuel canister which bellowed black smoke into the air. Shashlik, chunks of meat on a skewer, was being cooked on the makeshift stove and washed down by warming vodka. We were pretty much ignored as at least two separate conversations were under way, the men taking it in turns to prod the meat. I took a map and a dictionary from the van. After some moments we began to get noticed.
‘Novosibirsk,’ I uttered with my finest flat palm shoulder shrug.
The effect of my utterance was a heavy chorus of sighs, tuts and aahs. A bulky man with a canal network of thread veins embroidered on his face snatched the map from my hands and gave it a long disdainful look before passing it on to the next man. The map then circulated the group, and once inspected by all it found its way back into my hands. After some moments of silence the group looked at me intently before bursting into laughter. The laughter subsided into chatter, and I caught the eye of the first man, who nonchalantly waved his stick in the direction we had come from.
‘Omsk?’ I responded cautiously.
‘Novosibirsk!’ came the chorused reply, eyes now wide as if they were dealing with idiots. The man’s stick continued to point unwaveringly. I followed its direction closely for the first time, and realised that it was not in fact pointing towards Omsk but to a hole in a hedge by the side of the road. Noting my realisation the group all nodded in agreement before turning their attention back to the sizzling shashlik.
Cautiously I guided Max through the hole, which led into a muddy field, but wheel ruts ahead suggested the advice was sound – the track appeared fairly well-beaten, if a little unlikely. The tyres gently spun as the wheels struggled to get a grip on the wet grass. We slowly followed the track when it was visible, and when it suddenly vanished we guessed a route.
We continued, increasingly aware that we were off the map in western Siberia. Every kilometre felt like a bonus. It really did feel like we were swimming, holding our breath and seeing how long we could stay under before we lost our nerve and broke for the surface. The truth was there was now no visible surface to break for. We saw cattle being herded by a man on horseback in the distance, but that was the only show of life we saw that day. When darkness finally approached we pulled up in the shadow of a hulking oak tree. Rain was again steadily falling and we took the opportunity to wash in the warm raindrops. Then we lay in the back of the van watching distant silver birches turning gradually black and listening to the rhythm of the rain falling on the plastic roof. Neither of us had a clue where we were, but we were both where we wanted to be, and slept well that night.
The following morning the sun was shining and lush grass glistened all around. We had been joined by a herd of longhaired cattle, their flat noses sniffing Max. Now that the cloak of rain had lifted everything seemed much bigger, the space around us more daunting. There was no way of knowing whether we were heading towards Novosibirsk, but the sun was able to confirm that we were heading east. After three hours of slow crawl along an increasingly faint trail petrol was getting low.
Just when we most needed some reassurance, up ahead in the far distance we deciphered the outline of a stationary jeep. As we drew closer it was possible to see a man pacing up and down next to it, apparently slamming his hand down repeatedly onto the bonnet. We pulled up behind, and with one final bang on the bonnet the man climbed into the jeep and shook his head at us, driving off in the direction we’d come.
We pushed forward a little way beyond, and fast realised why he’d decided to turn back. The trail disappeared downwards into an expanse of water, which stretched some 30 metres into the distance. Any frustration was compounded by what looked like a magnificently broad and solid road of Roman proportions emerging from beyond the watery obstacle, and stretching into the distance as far as the eye could see. No wonder he had been thumping his bonnet. We slumped into our seats and imagined the pleasure of driving along the road that was so tantalisingly close – but yet so far. We continued to sit in silence, hoping that we would suddenly be spirited across the newly formed lake.
‘We’ll have to wait,’ Jo broke the silence.
‘Wait for what?’ I snapped.
‘For the ground to dry out,’ she barked back. ‘Or we could go back to Omsk – and wait there.’
Neither waiting nor returning to Omsk were bearable options; however, they were the only options, a fact that gradually and painfully sunk in as we sat and stared at the water, wishing it to not look as deep as it increasingly did.
Just as I had resigned to the second option, and the not-so-straight-forward task of navigating the way back to Omsk, I was distracted by a flicker in the wing mirror.
The claustrophobic silence was broken by the sound of an engine edging in behind us. A hatchback about the size of a Ford Fiesta covered from top to bottom in mud had joined us to admire the view.
Under closer observation, smoke drifted from the passenger window, on the sill of which rested a pair of old trainers, feet crossed. A rough crackle of radio interference came from within the vehicle, which made me jump to the conclusion that the Kazanian police had caught up with us. They’d taken their time. The vehicle crawled past and inched to the water’s edge, like a dog seeking its bowl. The car then stopped and the engine died, restoring the great Siberian silence for several moments. We watched intently, curious to see the occupants. The long thin head of the driver appeared first, followed by his body of about six foot in length, which he stretched out in the manner of someone who had been cramped behind the wheel for some time.
The man proffered an ear-to-ear smile, revealing a full set of gold ware and a relaxed attitude to the obstacle ahead compared with our gloomy resignation. I tried to return the smile, which ended up more of a grimace – still, he was unperturbed and bounded over to the van, presenting a large leathery hand to shake. Next to clamber from the vehicle was the owner of the trainers; a large smile lit his face too, which was shaded by a huge bushy moustache and a mop of dishevelled hair. Cigarette in hand he greeted us both with equal enthusiasm to that of his friend.
Finally, the third amigo emerged from the car, not through the door but through the window, a man dressed in a worn old black suit; the jacket’s buttons were all fastened and the trousers didn’t fit. A cigarette rested in his mouth, and in his hand was a bottle of beer.
‘Atkooda?’ asked the tall man. We were always being asked this (it means ‘where are you from?’) and it was always nice to offer some initial hope that we might be able to hold a conversation by replying, ‘Anglia.’ This brief glimmer of hope was generally fast extinguished by our blank faces when anything else was said. This time was no exception, but rather than meet our looks of confusion with ‘Russian for foreigners’ (the same thing repeated over and over with increasing volume), our lack of understanding was met by a look of sheepish embarrassment by the three men.
They were from Chechnya, a point revealed to us by the tall man gesturing to his friends and then himself and saying ‘Chechna’, and, assuming us to be Russian speakers, they believed our lack of comprehension was down to their poor Russian. A lot of people we met in Russia thought we must be Estonians, being of fair complexion and fat in the face. When they actually realised we were a lot further from home than they, they visibly relaxed. In a comical exchange, which to be honest could have been about anything, we discovered that they were headed to Novosibirsk for a boys’ weekend away. They appeared completely unfazed by the water that still taunted us not 5 metres away. The guy in the suit looked over at the obstacle and, sensing our concerns, laughed loudly, choking on his cigarette, before saying:
‘Nyet problem. Voda nyet problem.’
It felt good to hear his optimism, and in order to enjoy the temporary warm feeling of hope, I tried to prolong our conversation by conveying where we were going. To assist I produced our trusty map and traced my finger over the relevant bits. For some reason this sparked the same raucous hilarity as it had with the truckers back on the edge of Omsk. These guys were on their knees with laughter. It was clearly the map that was the source of the humour. The tall man went over to his car and returned with one of their maps, which he opened out in front of us. I couldn’t recognise anything at first, but then it dawned on me – the map was of the area we were in, and was infinitely smaller in scale, with just about every tree and hedgerow indicated. We had been trying to navigate complex terrain with a map showing not much more than a single red line.
There was a bigger joke to come. The tall guy pointed to the M51 – a fat red line on our map – then walked us to the edge of the water and pointed ahead.
Stretching into the distance was indeed the M51 as on our map, but that’s where the similarity to a road, as indicated by a cartographical symbol, ended. The M51 wasn’t actually yet a road. There was just one long slush trail disappearing out of sight. How wrong our earlier evaluation of what lay ahead had been. The M51 was a work in progress. Substantial mounds of clay rose about a metre above the surrounding terrain, which, if the weather had been kinder, would have been just fine. However, several weeks of rainfall had sent the builders home and turned the unfinished concourse into a paddy field. Water-filled ditches ran either side and sections of piping that had been laid end to end attested to the surrender to the elements. Our companions looked on as we surveyed the scene that represented our bold red line; there was no more laughter and their expressions were sympathetic.
Bottles of beer were passed around, for which we were grateful. It helped to diffuse our anxiety and turn an altogether disastrous situation into nothing more than a small hitch.
The Chechens finished their beers and then jumped back into their small car and began crawling cautiously in the direction of the water. They made it to the other side, the water in fact not rising above the top of their hubcaps, and progressed painfully along the clay. Wheel spins and fish-tailing took them frighteningly close to the gaping drainage ravines on either side, but after a hundred metres or so the driver managed to keep the car pretty central. This gave us the confidence to follow.
We took the plunge. Max’s body sat much lower than that of the hatchback, so it was still with much trepidation that we proceeded, watching the dirty puddle engulf Max’s tyres and stop rising uncomfortably short of the exhaust. After just one stall and a few nervous splutters, with fingers tightly crossed we emerged onto the clay, but the difference in the two vehicles now became immediately clear. Max was that much heavier, sinking into the clay, and the rear-wheel drive of the camper certainly didn’t help, as steering was near impossible. I was having to thrash the engine simply to move a few feet, and it felt like it was only a matter of time before we lurched off into a gorge.
