A Siberian Awakening

Snippets from a diary of an 18-year-old Tamil Malaysian captivated by the beauty of humanity with his late friend, Maran HK.

1 9 9 6 Chita (Чита, Забайкальский край)

Chita, August 1996, was the coldest summer since setting foot on Kyrgyz soil one spring morning on the 21st of April. The sun shone brightly, and the four layers of clothes felt grand and apocalyptic. In Chita, the green oversized Overcoat I bought from a store in K.L. welcomed the frosty wind through my sleeves and every gap in the stitching.

I was a stick man under the overcoat, a pseudo “Overcoat,” though I had not heard of Gogol yet. Mid-September, it was uncomfortable, and suspicions that the green overcoat wasn’t a winter coat set in. Things looked grim when the temperature dropped to -10C in October. The price of winter coats and jackets made me think hard about suffering, as it would cost me every dollar in my leather belt, stashed away, for the rest of the year. I had with me less than US2000 before rent. The Metallica baseball cap was ‘not in’. It barely protected my thin black ear tips that became my temperature gauge for measuring various pain levels.

The artificially lined leather gloves gave way within a few weeks, and my fingers barely moved in the cold to count the 1000 rubles I owed a passionate bus ticket inspector. My boots felt the cold from the asphalt. Still, the handmade inner lining from street vendor Babushkas (pinned under the weight of capitalism), supplemented by their semi-invisible and often delayed government pension, kept all my ten toes ‘alles in Ordnung.’

By late October, snow and ice slush (from chemicals used to melt the ice on streets) that looked like someone split frozen coke on the ground was becoming a nuisance. Cold, wet and damp feet are somewhat a gulag-like torture. ‘The first day of winter is yet to come,’ they said. December the 1st, the giant fur artillery comes out looking like winter cavemen. A 20-minute walk in December was interspersed with short breaks in shops pretending to be interested in their product while body heat had a chance to collect itself.

It was cheaper to shop in the open-air markets for potatoes, rice, onions, garlic, and American chicken legs from war reserves. The women made it look easy with rosy cheeks and frost in the tips of their hair underneath their fur Shapkas. The women never showed their pain to the world, only resilience and hope. Their thick, knee-length felt boots looked warm and dry. Their bodies, covered in fur of all kinds, stood out from the coarse woollen scarf. Everything was money, and you needed it to be alive in Siberia. It cost at least $1000 in the 90s to walk out the door in winter, and if it weren’t for the old Soviet quality of clothes, Russians would have frozen. They did start to struggle when a different quality of Chinese manufacturing replaced the old.

Strangers, well-wishers, Gobniks, Babushkas, New Russians, and some ex-convicts found our lack of Russian language skills a curiosity, like dogs that cannot play fetch. Their curiosity found us standing in the streets explaining Malaysia, Tamil, and how much salami and a loaf of bread cost so that they could relate to our strangeness. Despite my inability to move the 14 or so muscles on my face to pronounce and enunciate, by the end of December, I got my degree in the Russian language from the streets.

The men were scary but unusually friendly. Hardened faces yet engulfed in a rustic sense of humour, I could relate to a shared experience of generational oppression. From serfs to Soviets, from indentured labourers to Tamils leftover from British occupation, we connected. Their intimidation was acceptable (considering the circumstances), disrespectful, and we felt embarrassed when called negro, and black as*, among other adjectives. The association with apes and bananas pushed me to learn Russian faster to dispel their concerns of Otherness, but also displayed my denial of Tamilness.

As I edged closer to January 1997, the cold was painful. We changed from a stroll home to running with packets of macaroni, tomato paste, and tinned meat. Tinned sardines were also one of our favourites. Everyone we knew had access to a comfortable apartment with double windows except us. We didn’t even have a functioning toilet for the 4 out of the six months we lived there. The springs on the mattress sagged like a hammock, and with no sheets and blankets, we slept in sleeping bags. At least we had good running hot water, and no one broke into our unit, although we lived two blocks from the state prison.

We must have looked like two refugees with nothing on our backs but worthless Overcoats, unfit for the Siberian Moroz, with an underwhelming attire which depicted my social status a priori, no one associated but only a tiny handful. We had no money, no fun, no alcohol, no parties, no lavish appetite, and most importantly, no class aspirations, which resulted in our isolation from youth culture. From our point of view, we had made it. There was nothing more to prove. We have arrived. But we needed the Overcoat. For an 18-year-old, the social isolation was devastating.

We squatted in an empty apartment for three weeks before transitioning into Ulitsa Seleginskaya opposite the Decembrist Church. We also cooked our meals, boiled water for 2 minutes noodles, eggs, and potatoes, which took 2.5 hours on this ancient electric burner. Hence, we combined them all: the same water from boiling our eggs we would soak our noodles and drink tea with.

The lifts and staircase leading to the top floor of this 12-story building stank in urine and excrement, but people always looked their best when they stepped out of their homes.

It took me a long time to understand the class-conscious efforts of Russians to extend beyond their social and economic predicament and manifest a better life, embodying hope and using the best material money can buy, taking years and multiple salaries to purchase the unique fur and leather Overcoat. My objectives were to use the least amount of money to keep warm. Your outer appearance determined the Russian perception of your personality and capabilities. However, many made minor exceptions for me, though they would not be seen with me publicly. Only a tiny handful saw beyond the redundant Overcoat in my possession that made me look like a skinned mountain goat.

Only a week now, before the Russian NYE party in the home of a military colonel whose daughter was a student at the medical university and where we attended Baha’i gatherings together. The frost on the windows got thicker, and a knife was handy to break apart the frozen lump of sugar. Sugar kept us warm, thinking, and alert. The warm radiators slightly kissed the general room temperature of about 16–18 degrees Celsius, but not when it dipped towards -40.

Helping the neighbours, Help Us.

The Babushkas left alone after the passing of their men who fought against fascism as youth, have lived the last 20 years carrying their 50-litre water canisters up ramps and over uncleared mounds of snow towards the public water pipes. We spent two days fetching water with the Babushkas when a pipe burst under our apartment block, and the plumbers had to sober up in time to find a cure. We learned how to use a mini pick axe to clear the ice from the mouth of the tap and the space for the canister. It was so easy to fall from setting your foot on ice the wrong way without dispersing your weight, using your arms to balance the swaying. I found the movements similar to a 3-year-old learning to walk.

The long strips of smoothened ice became a game for us as we watched and learned that all that is dangerous can also be fun. The beauty of a young couple, with her hands clasped around his elbow, striding in unison and then silently gliding on ice for up to 10 meters, became the symbol of what the future holds for us.

Today

The following quote from Nikolay Gogol breaks the silence of my Australian existence, reminiscent of Siberia, which passed swiftly like the life of Maran and as witnessed by the Warrior, Karna — I see it now, The world is passing by Swiftly. Rest in Power (12. Nov.1978–31. Oct.2021). I lived to tell the tales of Siberia, but this quote from Gogol perfectly describes what fuelled my passion to survive.

“… have buried the high destiny of man under the rubbish heap of a ridiculous complacency. And among these people who merely vegetate, I have to spend my days! I dread the thought that fate may cast me into some Godforsaken hole and make me play the part of nobody in the world”.