The JaYmes Escape

“Sibir daragoy!”, I protest angrily. I don’t understand all of the abuse I’ve just received from the hotel receptionist but I’ve grasped the general idea: You’re foreign, I don’t want you here, go to the Hotel Sibir. The Sibir being the expensive (daragoy) monolithic concrete slab down the road.? Unsure where to try next, I linger in the lobby with my bags, desperately scanning my guide book. A passing guest, having heard the exchange, catches my eye with a look of utter sympathy and shame.

“Hello, how long do you want to stay?”, calls the other receptionist, in English. Surprised,? I shuffle my bags back over? to the desk and her? xenophobic colleague glares disapprovingly at us as she checks me in.

The phone in my room starts ringing. It’s a classic 1970s model that looks like it’s straight out of a cold war? spy film; it probably comes complete with integrated ‘listening device’.? Having negotiated the now familiar clanky lift and been greeted enthusiastically by the attendant on the sixth floor, I’m sitting in my pokey room flicking through the channels on the TV, which predictably are all in Russian, and wondering what to put in the fridge this time. There’s always a fridge. There’s also? usually a phone, and often a TV but? a bathroom, no;? the? mildly unpleasanrt? shared facilities are down the hallway. There’s a sign on the door of the showers saying that they’re closed? from 11pm to 7am and the mens’? lavatory? smells like it’s? used as an informal smoking room.

“Allo?”, I say into the handset, trying to intonate it? like the? man who’d answered his phone on the bus this morning. After a day seeing Novosibirsk, photographing the opera house and the cathedrals, and getting a personalised tour of the Siberian railway museum, entirely in Russian, the phone has just rung a second time. When I answer there is once again no-one at the other end, just? the same? bizarre tone pattern.

“Beeg Ben, Mafia Boss, Larndon Arnderground”, I suggest, emulating the Siberian’s thick accent, and Angarsk roars with laughter. Beeg Ben seems to be one of only? three phrases he knows in English, the others being Beautiful (that’ll be bloody James Blunt again), and Russian Vodka, which he appears to have an unrelenting supply of. It is the way? the charismatic well-proprortioned? Russian says Beeg Ben that? suggests to me? the image of? a large gun-toting gangster rather than the London landmark or the bell inside.

“Cambodia Partisan!”, he declares? approvingly? when I show him my pictures, though I suspect that if he went there he’d be? somewhat disappointed by? the notable absence of genuine communism.? Despite the language barrier,? I learn? that? he works on an oil pipeline that stretches all the way from Novosibirsk to Vladivostok, where the oil is shipped to Japan, and I’m sure if he’d told me any more he’d have had to shoot me.

We’re travelling on train number 77, different parts of which originated in Tynda, in the Russian Far East, and Irkutsk, where I boarded to find an empty Kupe. Most of the train is bound, like me, for the Siberian capital Novosibirsk, 32 hours from Irkutsk,? but? our Vagon (carriage) is travelling onwards to Almaty in southern Kazahkstan. Angarsk appeared at some insignificant little stop west of Irkutsk, and we were later joined by Katia, Andrei and young Diana, a family travelling to to visit relatives in Soche on the shores of the Black Sea.

“Kantrabanda!”, declares Angrask triumphantly. One of the train staff has just appeared at the door with a fresh bottle of vodka wrapped in newspaper, for which? the Siberian? hands over the princely sum of 300 roubles (~£6/US$12) before pouring generously for himself, me and Andrei. As we lift our glasses, another cry of Kantrabanda! reminds me of one of the first Russian phrases I ever learnt.

“Nas Ne Dogonyat!”, I venture,? provoking another roar from Angarsk. The Russian pop song from which I learnt? this later appeared in English as the rather limp Not gonna get us, but a? better translation? might be? We will not be caught!

The sweat is pouring down me and the heat is permeating to the bottom of my lungs. My new comrades jump up and run out into the Siberian drizzle, grabbing a towel on the way, and I follow. It’s not cold by local standards but the I can feel the blood pumping through my veins. One of the guys laughs as he fills a small bucket from a large barrel of water and tips it over himself. He laughs harder as he fills it again before running and throwing it over me.

I’m in Listvyanka on the western shores of Lake Baikal, home to 20% of the world’s fresh water and a unique species of fish called Omul. Litsvyanka is one of the few places in Russia to have a tourist information office, though this is rather a grand name for a desk in a room by the bus station that’s staffed by a friendly lady who doesn’t speak English. Ya Khauchu Deshovy Gastinitsa (I want a cheap hotel)”, has led me to an outside room in the garden of a local family, who have invited me to join some friends in their Banya. It’s a bit like a sauna, but hotter and with the addition of leafy branches which are boiled before being used for an all-over scrub, or more accurately, thrashing.

As you might expect, the Banya experience is followed by another authentic Russian experience. The group sit me down, feed me fresh Omul and keep filling my glass with local Vodka. We talk in a mixture of pidgin Russian, pidgin English and the odd word of pidgin French well into the night; they tell me all their names and professions which I immediately forget, and I reiterate the tale of my journey from Australia, which by now is getting quite detailed in Russian.

I awake the next morning and find myself comfortably in my bed, but without much memory of how I got there. Nor do I have much memory of how I managed to break the roughly made table that was beside me. Still, there’s nothing quite like an authentic Banya and vodka session on the shores of Lake Baikal. Having paid my board on arrival, I carefully write out a thankyou note (in Russian) and leave it with some bottles of beer before I slip away to have a walk beside the water and look for some sort of bus to take me back to Irkutsk.

“Moy Poest”, I wave my ticket towards the display, “Pozniy, Da?”, the man peers at my ticket, “Da”, he replies ambivalently and goes back to his newspapaer. Believe it or not, trains in Russia aren’t often late, though it’s said that this is mainly due to generous timetabling. This one, number 5, started it’s journey to Moscow from Ulan-Bator in Mongolia so I’m assuming it was held up at the border. I’m pleased with myself, it’s not a mammoth step but I successfully understood the Russian on the display without looking at my book.

“Your name in Russian should be ???? (Pavl), not ??? (Pol)”, says the friendly girl, “??? (Pol) means floor“. She is referring to the Russian transliteration of my name on my visa which she’s reading to check me into a hostel, my cheapest and friendliest accomodation so far in Russia. After a mere 7 hour train ride, much of it around the southern shore of beautiful Lake Baikal with three Russian university professors who kept handing me cups of wine and cognac, I’m in the city of Irkutsk from where in a couple of days I’ll be heading down to see the lake for myself. Maybe when I get there I’ll introduce myself as Pavl rather than Floor.

“Dobrae Utro”, (Good Morning) I say? confidently to the floor attendant as I hand her my key, “Dobrae Utra“, she replies firmly but politely? as she passes over my guest card and returns to her book. I like to think I’m getting the hang of this Russian thing but the difference between when to use a? or o is so far lost on me; I think its partly a dialect thing -? perhaps she was correcting me like I might correct a? non-native English speaker? saying “Tomaydo” or “Yoegirt”.

I’m staying in the Buryatia, a? big Soviet-era monster of a hotel in the town of Ulan-Ude, just to the east of Lake Baikal.? Buryatia is the name of the local semi-autonomous region, home to the Buryats, an asian race indigenous to the area. It is an unexpected and fascinating mix of cultures – on the one hand an enormous Lenin head, apparently the largest in the world,? sits in the centre of Ploschad Sovetov, the main square, but on the other hand the streets are full of smiling Asian faces and a local museum is full of intriging local Buddhist relics.

The hotel is? a model of Soviet-era efficiency. A seperate attendant sits at a desk on each floor, all twelve of them, 24 hours a day,? and their? sole? task, aside from correcting foreigners’ Russian, seems to be to swap keys for cards as guests enter or leave the floor. This arrangement is not uncommon in Russia. Today’s attendant on my floor, the eleventh, is otherwise? reading a book. Yesterday’s was watching a TV she’d pulled out of one of the rooms, but to be fair, it’s hardly an exciting job and I do suspect the pay is truly pitiful. Still, as I stand? in the rattly old lift on? my way down to the lobby I can’t help but wonder what that big head down the road would actually? have thought? of it all.