It was something of an awkward moment for a normally law-abiding citizen such as myself, but I had been warned something like this might happen - the policeman in the grey uniform and matching fur hat was adamant I did not have the right papers and I would need to explain myself at the station. My guide, Alex, told me this was more of a formality, but it would still take 3 hours to complete. Furthermore, they were calling up a police car to collect me - from a busy Kremlin! I was quite excited, as I thought this would make a great photo opportunity!
As it turned out, even the Moscow police face operational difficulties and there was no car available. So my guide ’smoothed things’ over and 3000 Rubles seemed to make the administrative oversight ‘disappear’ - and I didn’t even get a ticket as a souvenir.
Thus ended my trip to Russia last year. It had been a thoroughly amazing trip, during which I had the brief chance to experience ordinary life there.
Half-business, half-pleasure (I told myself), I had travelled over with my business colleague, Vladimir, to his home city of Saratov, which boasts around 1 million inhabitants and is located about 700km south of Moscow on the west bank of the Volga. The aim was to get to know the developers at Magic Web Solutions - people I had spoken to to often, but never met - and to gain an understanding of what goes on in their work lives, but also in their lives outside of work.
The first thing you notice about Russia, really, is that everything is big - or maybe ‘vast’ is a better word. You know it’s a big place, but it’s underlined by the fact that it’s a day’s travelling from door-to-door and the train journey alone takes 16 hours from Moscow. That’s a long time to be on a train. But the anticipation and excitement keep you going. I had a similar experience when I first arrived in Germany as a student: you want to see everything, to take it all in. But of course there’s too much from the moment you step foot off the plane.
When not talking (or more accurately listening) to my cabin-mates, as I know only a few words of Russian (including: “I don’t speak Russian!”) - or sleeping - on the train, I passed the time in the corridor looking at the scenery, which is basically a LOT of open space: lakes, woods and fields punctuated by small villages and towns. We pass through villages and towns, but they seem far apart from each other. All the villages look similar to me - one-storey wooden houses, some more rickety than others, painted greens, blues and reds, each with its own small plot of land. At each stop, villagers would walk up and down the platform, looking for passengers to buy their home-grown vegetables.
Saratov is bigger than I had imagined, bigger than it had seemed in photos I had seen. As the train wends its way through the city, over what seems like half an hour, we pass derelict factories, a reminder of Saratov’s past, when workers here made aircraft parts for the Soviet military.
On our arrival, Vlad and I are met by a crowd of people - finally, a chance to put names to faces! From there, I am escorted out of the station and across the square by Alexander Mikhailovich, Vlad’s father - but who, it later dawned on me, is really a father to everyone who works for LAR.
The first evening I stayed with my colleague’s family - my hosts are Lilia and Alexander Mikhailovich, Vlad’s parents. On our arrival, food was served and a bottle of vodka was produced – and, I can safely say, consumed (and, yes, even savoured).
Home for my hosts, like most Russians in the city, is an apartment. The Yakimenkos live on the sixth floor of their block and from the kitchen balcony, I am afforded a view of the tenement blocks on the other three sides. Together they form a square and in the middle of this square are old timber-framed houses, with tin roofs, much like the ones I had seen on my journey from Moscow. Outside one of them.
They value their free time and my hosts spend their weekends at a house in the country. We travelled to the ‘village’ of Ozjernoje, about 60km west of Saratov, where my hosts had a modest house, a kind of weekend retreat. Rather larger than South Holmwood and accessible only by bumpy tracks across farmland (4×4 is optional, as Ladas prove to be up to the job), Ozjernoje had more a township feel about it. It was not dissimilar to South Holmwood, however - there is no street lighting and it sits below woodland, but the differences were perhaps a bit more striking. There are no tarmac roads and no shops to speak of, not as we would know them. The houses are somewhat ramshackle and people there live off the land, being hugely self-sufficient (even gathering mushrooms from the local woodlands).
The remarkable thing, too, is that the land is just land, on which people are free to do what they like. And, for many Russians, this seems to be camping, cooking on an open fire and generally making good use of the resources Mother Nature has to offer. You can swim or canoe in the rivers and no-one comes along to tell you shouldn’t be there or you need a permit.
That self-sufficiency was extended to the city in some respect, as we brought back food from the village to see us through the week - home-cooked food is big in Russia - so much so, that my colleague had introduced home-cooked into the office where the programmers work, to help sustain them through the day.
City life is busy and hectic, although perhaps not as stressful as I had imagined. On the roads, both in and out of town, anything goes, but no-one worries if they are cut up by another driver, as they will be cutting someone up the next minute - and at least they always indicate. ‘Road rage’ seems non-existent. That said, there is a policeman on every other street corner and, after backwoodsmanship, the second national past-time seems to be sitting in a police car, handing over your details…and a few rubles!
Alongside a bit of work, we managed to cram in sight-seeing, some hair-raising Lada-driving (seatbelts and power-assisted steering would have been nice) and some gentle rafting. Most memorable, perhaps was an evening at the Opera, which is, unsurprisingly, big in Russia. Although very appreciative of this art-form, they are not above using mobile phones during the performance - presumably just to let the caller know: ‘Sorry, can’t talk now, I am at the Opera’.
The Russians are very direct and straightforward, which can be mistaken for impoliteness, especially by someone from Britain - and the man in the street is indifferent to strangers - but wherever I went I found only a warm welcome.
I’m not ashamed to say I was a little homesick, missing my wife and children, but at the same time, I felt very much at home and when my hosts found out I had children, they said they’d be welcome to stay for the summer (they probably don’t know my kids), but for them it would be a once-in-a-lifetime experience - although I’m not sure how they’d fare without videogames and chips! On my departure from Saratov, I was told the Russians have a saying, which translates roughly as: The world is round and we shall meet again - so maybe there is something in that.
