My 90's Russian and Israeli Memoirs
Part 2: The Veteran
In my train carriage there were four maroon colored beds, the top left was mine, below me was a frail old veteran of world war II with medals on his chest, grey beard and happy bright eyes. Across from me was a lady with her teenage boy. I tried to greet them with the little Russian I knew. They were curious where I was from, where was I going? Why was I going there? “Ya Americanits” I am an American I told them. I was going to Novosibirsk to study physics. I repeated canned phrases I had recently memorized. The old veteran in particular was very friendly with me for some reason. I also really liked the old man. I can’t remember how but eventually the topic of my religion came up, so to explain it to him, I gave him a Russian pamphlet, which had simple introduction to the Baha’i Faith. He looked at it, smiled and said in Russian “Harasho programa! Nu Pechimu Boga?” ,“Good program! But why God?” He like, most communists, liked the principals of the Baha’i faith: the one world universalism, gender equality and economic justice parts. I tried to say “God keeps people moral otherwise you have people doing bad things like Stalin did.” Though its dubious I was able to communicate my meaning totally. He responded, “Nyet Stalin Plackila” , “No Stalin cried” and then he showed me pretending to rub tears from his eye how Stalin cried. Although misinformed (perhaps willfully so), there was a goodness about him that came from real care and sacrifice for his fellowman.
As I lived longer in Russia, I began to grasp, how large World War II still looms. How much they lost, how much was sacrificed. This war is ever present, from the public art, to the old men and women who wear their heroic medals proudly. Years later, after I had just moved into a new apartment in downtown Novosibirsk, I had a strange dream. I was watching a Soviet military parade celebrating victory of the Great patriotic war. Then I heard some one whispering over and over to me “20 million dead” as if to remind this foreigner what had happened. Since arriving in Russia I had this feeling of traveling back in time to the 30’s or 40’s. It looked as I had imagined things did back then. Different parts seemed to be caught in different time periods. There were some parts, which seemed from the early 60’s or 50’s like the university, complete with students listening to jazz and dressed like beatniks, while the train stations felt like you were in the 30s or 40s.
Another thing, which struck me, was the magnitude of the undertaking of the socialist experiment. They actually tried to accomplish communism. It is both insane and an admirable demonstration of faith and willingness to completely change. Many people really believed in it and sacrificed for it, gave their all to achieve this dream. I think few nations would have had the guts to actually try it first. The tragedy is that too many of these same people would live to see their dreams betrayed one of the disappeared into the monster of Stalinism or later pillaged by the gangsters who stole their factories and pensions leaving them destitute.
To me all the Russian train stations had the feel of a world war II set, the fur coats in the winter, old ladies with scarves. A mass of humanity carrying their belongings in square suite cases or tied up in a bundle of clothes. All the soviet trains were a dark green with large red star at the front. It usually held three classes of travelers. The ‘platzkart’ which was basically an open car with beds sticking perpendicular to the windows on one side and parallel to the other side. The next class was ‘Coupe’, in this case the car was divided into several rooms each with four beds and a hallway running along the other side of the train. Then there was first class, which was similar to ‘Coupe’ only there were two beds in the room.
As the train came to its first stop, I could see out the window of the train lines of old ladies and men with sausages, bread and cheese laid out on wooden boxes for sale. Before me were the victims of gangsters, whose brood and prostitutes would prowl in style down Arbaskaya Street in Moscow. I would later learn of the many methods wealth was looted from the state factories and pensions. How huge industries were auctioned off for pennies to the insiders at remote or unknown locations. How factory bosses would sell off all the products or even iron from the machines for pennies to an offshore shell company they owned. Or other schemes, like making pre-paid orders for products never which were never delivered, thus effectively loaning the money at zero interest rate when the going rate was 100% in rubles due to hyper-inflation. The Russian gangsters were very good at coming up with very clever ways to steal, which seemed silly, since during this time, engaging in almost any commercial activity was insanely profitable. This is because the rules of basic economics where on full display. The market was empty. Bring just about any product and you can sell it.
Part of the problem is that the basic idea of arbitrage: taking a product from one place where it is cheap and abundant and selling it where it is scarce for a profit, was still considered by many a criminal act. The Soviet system had so successfully engrain this idea of morality from childhood that all normal business transactions were viewed as ‘criminal’ by most people. Many legitimate businessmen who by most standards were not doing anything immoral knew in their heart of hearts that they were committing some kind of ‘sin’ and so did everyone around them. It was natural for them to adopt the culture of criminality, since they really believed they were criminals. Later when I plunged into the business world. I would observe a new way to speak, very different from my academic tea-drinking friends. The real Russian business language, full of creative methods of cursing was really the old Russian prison language.
After the train came to halt many exited to procure these sausages and bread. The better-prepared ones brought their own sausages. It was lunchtime and my empty stomach reminded me of that. From the time I landed in Moscow I was afflicted by perpetual hunger. Although my parents back in the US were horrified by my decision to go to Siberia, still they provided for my journey. They paid for my one-way ticket from Tel-Aviv to Moscow and gave me 2 thousand dollars to sustain me for however long it took me to ‘establish’ myself and generate my own income. This being the case I tried to limit my food expenditures to a few dollars a day, since I didn’t know when and if that would happen. I pulled out my army backpack and retrieved a can of tuna, which I proceeded to open using a pocketknife I had brought with me. Punching holes in the can slowly around the edge, I thanked my sister and lay down to nap on my bunk. I recall hearing the dreamlike sounds of the Russian national radio broadcast, playing the melody to what I would later discover was Moscow nights followed repeated beeps and a soothing lady’s voice “Moscovsya verma decetchesof” and with that I slowly fell asleep. I remember being awoken in the middle of the night with the jerk of train as it came to a stop and people loaded and unloaded onto the train.
The following morning, tuna couldn’t satisfy me anymore, and I was too timid to venture out on to the train platform during one of the stops to procure the sausages, bread and cheese I desired. Images of the train leaving or the conductor refusing me entry plagued my paranoid mind. I finally discovered there was a food car on the train and I decided to splurge and see what I could buy there. After making my way through several cars I came upon car full of tables and a lone waiter. I bought some soup and Russian dumplings (pelminie) and paid what seemed like too much. This is why it was empty I guess. Later I would come to adore my Russian soups and pelminie with sour cream and black bread and Kefir. At the end of our car was a dingy silver samovar where one could get tea out of glasses composed in the traditional Russian style, with metal holder and removable glass. Persians had many centuries ago stolen this item of culture, which decorated the home I grew up in, so it was familiar and I was pleased to see it.
I recall standing in the hallway looking out the train windows at the rivers and seeming endless forests we passed through. The uncertainty of my fate transfixed me with a feeling of transcendent power akin to what one must feel when you are about to die. We crossed the final bridge to the Novosibirsk Station, I exited the train and a blond haired gentleman with the standard soviet 70’s style thick brown plastic glasses said in English “Are you Vahid?”.