“Why are you going there?” was the general reaction to the news we were off to Siberia. For me it was for a number of reasons, none of which amount to compelling. I wanted to see Lake Baikal because it is the largest reservoir of fresh water in the world, 20-25 percent of it and more than all the Great Lakes together, and it has freshwater seals which of course hide from tourists. It’s 900kms long and skinny and extremely deep and in winter is completely frozen over, more than a metre deep with clear ice because the water is very clean. I wanted to do some of the Trans Siberian Railway, but not the whole lot because I lack the patience for that. We had one all-day trip, one of 53 hours, and one single overnighter which was plenty. I wanted to get a better perception of Russia after visiting the two big cities in the west last year. I wanted to go to Yakutsk which is the coldest city in the world, even though it was summer, and see mammoths that had been dug out of the permafrost. We actually only saw skeletons and some cool video stuff where the archeologists thought they had found liquid blood, but hadn’t. And I wanted to get an idea of how it was to live in this isolated place where winter is six months long.
My instructions to the agent in Russia was that the itinerary would include insights into the way people lived, have hardly any church visits, and museums were only allowed if small and very interesting. Inna was the agent and she did a good job. She happened to be in Vladivostok when we were there so we met briefly . We Four Old Guys met in Seoul where it was extremely hot and after a few days flew to Irkutsk, then Listvyanka by Lake Baikal, Ulan Ude, Khabarovsk, Vladivostok, all by train, flew up to Yakutsk, flew to Yusno-Sahhalinsk on Sakhalin Island, and then flew to Sapporo in a propeller driven plane where we all went our separate ways. We were supposed to get to Japan by ferry but it apparently is broken.
Going on a trip with three other guys was an interesting experience and we managed it without any arguments or invective, probably because of the juvenile behaviours that allowed insults and pointed jokes to be made and accepted, and of course the firm and decisive leadership given at all times by the “leader”. I had circulated a set of rules but apart from working out who had to choose a restaurant we didn’t need them. Colin, the Agricultural Correspondent, made a triumphant return to moderately priced travel. Justin was the youngest and the shortest so had to cope with plenty which he did without any obvious problems. Tony retired from road building a day or two before leaving NZ and this was his first taste of freedom. He had trouble referring to his engineering career in the past tense, and had to share a cabin with chatty Justin on the trains, but applied his experience of eliminating grey areas to fly through it all, even seeming to accept being occasionally referred to as Buddha. Naturally he was the Infrastructure Correspondent. Our antipodean boyish sense of humour mystified most of our guides although the one we all fell in love with seemed to get it. The older male guide, who we think had been with the KGB, probably did as well, but he wasn’t letting on. Our last guide was a very fit 46 year old blond woman, unmarried, with 4 children (youngest 4) who had an accounting background and she definitely didn’t get it, but she did have a nice way of taking the mickey out of local religions.
We had to adapt to local conditions so dealing with grumpy service providers, usually formidable females, became automatic. On our after-midnight arrival at Yakutsk airport our driver was not inside holding a sign with my name on it so I stepped outside to see if he was there. That meant passing a uniformed person, who was a large female, and when I tried to walk back in to tell my mates he wasn’t there she performed a wrestling manoeuvre which meant I sank into her body and was then thrust back outside with an accompanying “nyet”. I waited a couple of seconds and, thinking she was otherwise occupied, tried a small swerve in and away, but was semi-tackled and repelled again. I then resorted to shouting my situation so the others knew. (Eventually the driver was found in the parking area with the sign flat on the dashboard and headphones on. I think he understood my English and sign language that indicated extreme annoyance. By then it was 1a.m. and the airport was locked and dark.)
Getting a smile out of these ladies became a personal challenge for Colin, but on the long train journey he was completely usurped by Tony, who attracted a lot of attention from a very overweight lady attendant who seemed to take an unnerving shine to him. Or did she think he had lots of money? We shall never know, but she did seem to like sitting beside him in an active way. He also bestowed the honorific title of Space Cadet on the waitress in the dining car who would assiduously take orders that either never turned up, or eventually did long after most of us had given up waiting and returned to our cheese and salami in our compartments. Colin succeeded with the lady shopkeeper at Listvyanka when we bought some unknown wine. She smiled at him after scowling at me earlier when I tried to get close enough to the wine bottles so I could see the labels, and picked a bottle that she indicated as being good. It cost about $7 and the first mouthful was a challenge but things improved after that.
Part of the inter-personal fun was when one made a fundamental error. Justin started it by unknowingly dropping his new phone on Colin’s driveway when picking him up in Orini. Because Justin is comparatively young the ensuing deprivation would have been disastrous if wasn’t for Colin’s extremely generous loaning of his phone when required, which was most of the time. Colin now has lots of new and useful apps and probably a large bill waiting for him.
I came second when I left my kindle plugged in my room after leaving Irkutsk. Because Russian management assume you have lied about no mini bar usage someone had checked the room the moment I left and rushed out with the device just as we were about to drive off.
Unfortunately, they hadn’t included the adaptor.
One of the hotels had quite a few steps up to it with a slope for pulling your bag up. When we left Justin put his bag on it, and not being a heavy person, the bag zipped down on it’s own and dragged him with it.
In Seoul, where Tony was temporarily the leader, he took us onto a subway train going the wrong way. He also developed a very strong aversion to the smell of Russian Orthodox Churches even though we only went into three. Something to do with the similarity to churches in his youth which lead to questions about his relationship with Catholic priests. Apparently it was just the smell and there was no fiddling. Justin went to sleep sitting in the back of a “speedy Yamaha boat” on Lake Baikal and was robustly saved from falling on to propellers by Tony. Colin left his bag in the van at least once.
Early in the tour Justin decided to have a haircut. He picked a new and upmarket place where coffee was served to the rest of us and music suitable for our age was played. These distractions were necessary because the cutting and washing (twice) took about 40 minutes, and we all observed it had not fixed the bald spot.
We also had debriefs most evenings and twice they accidentally became extended owing to inadvertently pouring too many vodkas. Each time it was really the fault of our dacha lunch hosts who had sold us, or given us, their homemade product which had to be tasted. And the last of silly behavior to be reported was caused by the lift in the building where we stayed in Yakutsk which allowed only a short exit and entry time before forcefully snapping shut. For the first couple of times the 4th in our group suffered near amputation, until we instigated the short-distance-rapidly-moving-maul technique. After our last meal in the town we successfully got on board and then set ourselves for disembarkment at speed – someone hoped nobody would be waiting to get in and someone else said it hasn’t happened yet. So we erupted out of the opening doors laughing at our expertise to see three very surprised people jump for their lives. It seemed very amusing at the time.
The request for insights into local life resulted in our having meals with locals six times. Some of these were in apartments, some were in places where locals had set up semi-commercial tourist operations, and some were at dachas. These are the local equivalent of a weekend bach which originally were land gifts from the government so people could grow vegetables in the summer to help survive the winter. The gardens were amazing and incredibly prolific. The meals were huge, with all the stuff locally grown, and vodka was not able to be avoided. The Lonely Planet says when the generosity is too much, say you are an alcoholic and the pressure will stop. I tried it at our last dacha lunch and mine host, a retired fisherman with a thirst, just laughed and refilled my glass. These occasions were the highlight of the trip in my opinion and a lot of fun. The strangest one was dinner in an apartment with a lady whose second language was French, not English, but it was clear we were not allowed to sip our vodka. The least fun for me was a visit to an Old Believers village where not only did I have to dance, but I was also dressed up as a local in winter, when it was actually a warm day, and then took the part of a son in a marriage negotiation. The negotiations obviously were successful because the next scene had me carrying two babies. The bride was not small. The rest of our party seemed to think it was most amusing.
Other touristic experiences included some blacksmithing and being lengthily cleared of bad spirits by a shamaness, whose daughter showed us how it was possible to play a Jews harp and throatsing at the same time. I was very impressed with that.
Our guides were a diverse lot and our main source of local information. Political questions were always, apart from one exception, answered very carefully, usually by saying they had no interest or opinion about politics. The exception was a young lady studying out of Russia and home for the holidays, who let slip a remark about the country descending into totalitarianism. She immediately wished she hadn’t said it and hoped no one had turned her phone into a recording device. The guy who we thought might have been a spy reckoned he was an ordinary bureaucrat but he had done more than your average town clerk. I did ask him if he had been with the KGB and that made him laugh. Who knows, although they probably get a big enough pension to avoid having to guide silly old people about. When we were on our own Google translate was very useful and if you haven’t used the camera feature give it a go. Menus and signs in incomprehensible characters become magically readable, and if the translations are not perfect you certainly get the drift.
There are not a lot of must-see exciting sights in Siberia. Every city has a Lenin Square and a Lenin Street and we saw the lot. The squares all had a statue of the man, with the biggest being a 43 tonne very large head in Khabarovsk, which doesn’t get pooped on by birds because it has lots of little spikes on top. The most useful was in Yakutsk because the extended arm pointing to a wonderful future also directed us to our restaurant in the evening. The Amur River was worth an explore, and if you know it is the tenth longest in the world have another glass of wine. There is a very long bridge over it in Kharbarovsk, and an accompanying museum which made Tony very excited, and rightly so. We had one of our local visits with an indigenous family there, who stick to their heritage as fishermen living off the bounty of the river. We all agreed that we were far from enamoured with the taste of fresh water fish, and I am convinced if I never taste any again it will be a good thing.
The indigenous people of eastern Siberia are Asian-looking, and in some areas are a significant majority and in others just hanging on. The young lady who hoped her phone wasn’t working against her was from the local people and wasn’t sure if she would permanently return and use her qualifications to help them, or stay overseas. Probably that is a common problem because although each area may be an autonomous part of the Russian Federation with a local parliament, they are actually ruled directly by mates of Putin. The real local power lies with the governor who is not voted for and some are regarded as good and some not. I made a point of asking each guide about their local governor and when I put the question to the very littoral lady in Sakhalin she very happily replied he was in jail for corruption. All the guides agreed corruption was a major issue but seem to regard it as part of the price of a stable government. They also followed the usual age divide when it came to discussions about the Soviet times. Those bought up with it remember the security of jobs, apartments, healthcare, and education. Those who didn’t experience it wonder why anyone would want to live like that. And what did they think about Putin? When we got an answer it was a guarded positive one.
It was nice to get to Vladivostok and see the sea after all the same, same, same from the train windows, and there were also a couple of stunning big bridges. Tony lead us on a walk to a small funicular there, which may well have not gone quite as planned because we went down it rather than up. Colin really enjoyed all the hills we walked over, but the Brugge Pub Tony found for us at the end made up for it. Yakutsk is built on permafrost which is engineeringly interesting and we actually went under the surface into tunnels made in the permafrost. It was a mild minus 5 degrees, nothing compared to the minus 50 it can be in the winter. Nearby, in Siberian terms, is a very big diamond mine so as good tourists we looked at the processing of diamonds and the shops that sold finished articles. I made a purchase in short time for my wife knowing getting it right would be a fluke but that it’s the thought etc. The others stuffed around overnight wondering if they should or shouldn’t. In one case sending photos of possible items that might be suitable, and receiving a complex reply. The next day we had to go back to the shop and all walked out with a little black bag containing a suitable sparkling goodie. Hopefully. Sakhalin Island was the main prison area in Siberia so is a bit like Australia in its antecedents but now it has oil and gas and was the most prosperous-looking place we saw. The southern half was a colony of Japan for 40 years until 1945. On the last day of the tour we were driven a long way to a lonely beach where a picnic in a tent was waiting for us, including a freshly caught giant crab which tasted really good. I thought the guy who had caught and cooked it, along with everything else , was a local fisherman earning a bit of extra cash, but he was actually the manager of the local travel agency. It was a great way to finish our tour.
The Agricultural Correspondent has not made a written report but I can repeat his verbal one:
“There isn’t any agriculture.”
The Agricultural Correspondent
The Infrastructure Correspondent has reported in detail as follows:
What a land of contrasts. The telecom is world class with mobile phones everywhere and coverage for the full length of our railway journey. Contrast that with the wrecked Soviet era factories, at least one in each village, stripped of everything useful and the original use unknown. The railway is substantial with dual lines and rolling stock on every siding. Goods trains were 2kms long, twice that of NZ, and the red engines are massive on the wide gauge with a really grunty look and they travel at 80 kph. We have seen trains chocka with coal, aggregate, sawn timber, logs, unknown liquids with no obvious filling points, containers, and even fifty armoured personnel carriers on flat beds.
The cities are very clean but everything needs maintenance which is clearly not a priority. The old Soviet era apartment blocks are run down and need replacing but nothing appears to be happening. There are new blocks being built that look good but they are for the new prosperous class. In the country it’s different and all the houses are old shacks, nicely kept but no more than depression era houses in NZ. Many are empty thanks to migration to the cities after the collapse of collective farming and you can tell the occupied ones by the substantial vegetable gardens, mainly potatoes, needed to get through the long winter.
Finally the roads. Rough old city roads needing repair, substantial motorways gradually replacing busy two lane local roads, and very rough unsealed roads when you leave the main ones. The bridges might lack flair but look like they will last a hundred years. Just when I thought I had seen it all we came across two massive and beautiful cable stay bridges in Vladivostok that blew me away. Infrastructure priorities seem to be impressive new construction over regular maintenance. The footpaths sum it up. Tripping hazards everywhere and no sign of repairs .
Justin was supposed to be the Health and Safety Correspondent but as of now no report has been received. It’s probably because it’s a bit like agriculture. There was little evidence of any health and safety measures.
For the Four Old Guys in Siberia this trip was a lot of fun and we all learned a lot.