“I can’t build a relationship on a lie. The lies come later.” The Simpsons
I would love to finish my story in an epic manner, with something like, “I plunged myself into deep waters, without having tried it before, not even knowing how to swim, and now, after all, I could say that I savored every minute of my adventure.” However, not once or twice I botched the chance of making that speech of praise with my own foolishness. It was all right though. I wasn’t trying to be as bad as a lazy perfectionist, but the biggest twist was still waiting for me.
“A bone to the dog is not charity. Charity is the bone shared with the dog, when you are just as hungry as the dog.” Jack London
From afar, through the spreading fir branches, I recognized the rundown framework of a bus stop by the dirt road, strewn with gravel, and my heart filled with pure joy. The joy grew even bigger when I glanced at my watch and found that I was about an hour and a half ahead of time. There were fewer Neanderthal frescoes on the bus stop walls, but the general condition of it, both outside and inside, was not that glamorous. The floor was broken, and cheerful twigs stuck out through its moldering floorboards. There was no place to sit or spread out one’s things. I had to clean myself up before I got on the bus, as some of my clothes were still damp, reeking of the bog. I didn’t want the people on the bus to die out of suffocation. It could take ages until the smell dissipated completely, but I decided to try my best and expose all my stuff to the purifying powers of the sun, which, was raising steadily like a freshly-minted ruble (not from the financial point of view, of course).
“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” Søren Kierkegaard
I got back on track and started striding energetically along a solid country road marked on the map as “out of use.” It was indeed an old driveway, with small trees and bushes overrunning its shoulders. It appeared as though vehicles hadn’t passed through there for long-bearded years and probably wouldn’t have been able to anymore, but for me, after having spent two days on rugged terrain, it was a gift from heaven.
“Expose yourself to your deepest fear; after that, fear has no power…” Jim Morrison
I woke up not long before sunrise, feeling a bit uncomfortable. My legs ached terribly, especially the heels, as if somebody had been using them to hammer nails all night long. My back and spine felt like they were breaking apart too. The only organ that didn’t hurt that morning was my brain. Well, no wonder: it appeared to not have been working at all since my journey had begun, while the other folks had been stretched to their limits.
“Man is the only kind of varmint sets his own trap, baits it, then steps in it.” John Steinbeck
By the time I finally reached the top of the cliff, my mood and view of things had lifted. “If you climb up, it means that at some point you’ll go downhill. From that point, it’s gonna be easy,” I cheered myself up. “It’s always nice to go downhill toward the end of your journey.” Indeed, it wasn’t long before the path turned downward. I ate some bread on the go and drank cold tea from the flask and carried on.
“There are no narrow-minded men; there are men who have very specialized brains.” Me
I was lying on my side in an embryonic position, feeling, unlike a normal embryo, cold and detached, with my face turned to the dying fire. Strange as it might seem, I was lying on a blanket, which meant that at some point I had climbed up the tree and brought my backpack to the ground. I had no memory of that particular event, but, somehow, it didn’t bother me. The hammock was still in the tree, but I didn’t feel personally attached to it anymore, so I decided to leave it there forever.
“Men seek rest in a struggle against difficulties; and when they have conquered these, rest becomes insufferable.” Blaise Pascal
I set up camp on the gentle rocky slope covered sparsely with tall, slim pine trees. Somehow I decided that bears and twentieth-century scalp hunters would avoid that picturesque place, probably because the stunning view might have repelled their simple minds. I climbed onto the slope, dropped my backpack on a flat dry rock coated loosely with a layer of dry pine needles, took a deep breath, and looked around.
“Some of them wanted to sell me snake oil and I’m not necessarily going to dismiss all of these, as I have never found a rusty snake.” Terry Pratchett
If you go hiking, your legs, unsurprisingly, become the most important part of your body. You can make your way through the wild without a head (easier to go through the bushes), a stomach (less food to carry), or some other organs that might seem vital in your ordinary urban life (like your middle finger, for example). However, you do need your legs on track and must treat them nicely. Otherwise, your journey will turn into torture.
“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” Lao-Tze
“Yeah, keep your eyes on the road, your hand upon the wheel!” Jim, old man, you knew what you were singing about. You knew “a million ways to spend your time” and did it insatiably, but you could never have imagined that your music would be heard somewhere far out in Siberia in a dilapidated bus painted a flashy orange, the very same bus that had just spat me out of its squeaky automatic doors at a bus stop in the middle of nowhere, overgrown with faded pine trees and larches.
I arrived at the central railway station long before the train was due. It was early morning, clear and cold. There was no wind, and the sun was shining at a low angle. The skies were dark blue and the air crisp and fresh, lightly touched by timid scents of the first Siberian blossoms.
The large square overlooked by the station — a long, massive, old-fashioned building — was almost empty. The occasional screechy tram stopped there, in the middle of its emptiness, releasing small groups of hasty people who, like herds of buffaloes, stampeded straight toward the station’s entrance, their breath steaming in the chilly air.
“It is lumber, man — all lumber! Throw it overboard.” Jerome K. Jerom
The next morning, I woke up feeling sick, in a bad mood, and decided to skip school. The morning was dismal, misty and dull, promising nothing but aggravation for those who suffered from a broken heart or rheumatic pains. I was deeply discouraged by my behavior the previous night. Well, it was an understatement. I felt absolutely disgruntled and pissed off. Useless, belated words swarmed in my head. The more I thought, the more complicated and pointless they seemed. I was calling myself all kinds of silly names. The amorous feeling in my chest had been replaced with a dull sensation of emptiness and remorse.
“The lesser of two evils is still evil.” King Solomon
The major problem for me was not the voyage itself, but arranging my plans with my parents. I knew one thing for sure — not for love or money, or any other thing of value, would they have let me travel solo through the Siberian forests. One day, I decided to talk to my father about my journey. I started vaguely, telling him a story about a brave man, who had, all alone, crossed the arctic desert somewhere in Canada. When I finished, my father turned to me and said, “What a fool. I hope you’ll never do something like that son, will you?” He had a clever, keen mind, my father. I left his room wondering whom the word “fool” was referring to.
“You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.” Jack London
I was fed up. Not with the unbridled street crime and the lame Bolshevik economy, but with myself. I was finishing school and had to apply to university in the summer. I was also inevitably approaching my eighteenth birthday — the age of maturity as they say — and felt a bit nervous about that. You can be as nerdy as you want, but you have to respect your hormones. Up to that point, I would not have had much to show for myself if I had had to take part in a manhood initiation rite. You know, the usual Siberian stuff: drinking vodka by quarts, dogsled racing, wrestling with a street bear, and sleeping all night on the bare snow. Sorry guys, just kidding — none of that stuff at all.
“One cannot live in a society and be free from society.” Vladimir Lenin
In this story, I will tell you about my reckless solo hike through the Siberian wilderness that took place toward the end of the 1980s. Thankfully, I wasn’t seriously injured or killed during that adventure, but those three days spent in the wild significantly impacted my life and creed. It wasn’t a heroic voyage. Rather, it was a successful but awkward fight for survival, a battle against various natural obstacles and my own foolishness — and I have to say that the latter one probably was the toughest. However, before I begin, I would like to paint a general picture of what it was like to live in the Soviet Union in that period.
I wrote A Siberian Elegy as an answer to my American friend who once asked what life was like in the Soviet Union during the 1980s, when I was a teenager. While working on it, I tried to capture a comprehensive snapshot of those days rather than a chapter of my autobiography. So, it’s a fictional story with fictional characters — but much of it comes from my own memories and sentiments. I finished it in 2018. My friend read it and gave me two thumbs up.