Midnight in Siberia: A Train Journey into the Heart of Russia Read online

  I ACTUALLY FELT Sergei and I would have grown even closer as friends had culture and history not stood in the way of our truly understanding one another. We traveled everywhere together—to cover violence in Dagestan and Kyrgyzstan, discrimination in Estonia, environmental and political disputes in Siberia. Our friendship was cemented several years before any Trans-Siberian trip. It happened in Ukraine, the place that taught me that vodka and journalism don’t mix well.

  Rose and I had begun settling into our new life, and it was time to get to work. Getting over the initial shock of moving to Russia? Check. I no longer considered calling an ambulance when the cold froze my nostrils shut and eliminated air flow there. Russian language training? Check. After three intensive months, I could now ask for the check at a restaurant (shchyot), buy tickets for the subway (bilety), and offer my tea preference (chyorny s limonom—“black with lemon”). It was time for my first reporting assignment as NPR’s Moscow bureau chief: to cover a presidential election in Ukraine, Russia’s neighbor to the west. I have a personal obsession with Ukraine. My Jewish family has roots in the western part of the country: the city of L’viv, a place with cafés and cobblestones that feels as European as nearby Poland and Hungary. People speak mostly Ukrainian, and Russia feels distant on the map and in the mind. In contrast, eastern Ukraine feels bleak and industrial, and most people speak Russian. Western Ukrainians want their country in the European Union. Eastern Ukrainians have more complicated emotions. They generally feel estranged from the ethnic nationalism preached in the western part of the country. And their harsh existence and wariness about Western-style democracy make you think they would be soul mates with the Russians just across the border. And yet there’s no comfort level or sense of connection with Moscow either. Nevertheless, if you imagine Eastern Europe engaged in an ideological tug-of-war between Western values and Russian thinking, it’s hard not to see Ukraine as the rope, always stretched to the breaking point.

  It was the first time Sergei and I would work together, and we decided to spend some time in eastern Ukraine, where voters were widely expected to back a presidential candidate who was viewed as a stooge of Moscow and an enemy of the West. We were about to witness a former Soviet republic turn back the clock, erasing years of progress that Ukraine had made toward joining the European family.

  Sergei and I flew to the capital, Kiev, and took an overnight train eastward to the industrial city of Donetsk. It’s a place famous for its coal mines. I grew up in Pittsburgh in the 1980s, seeing old photos of men covered in soot walking home from the steel plants. You don’t have to search for grainy old photos in Donetsk—the dirty and cruel coal industry hasn’t changed much. The air smells and tastes of coal. Men leave their shifts at the mines with faces smeared with soot like some primitive tribal war paint, straggling home stoically, side by side in exhausted silence, their empty lunch pails swinging rhythmically at their sides. The scene is repeated several times a day when shifts end and men return to their families too tired to talk, too dirty for a hug.

  After a twelve-hour train ride, Sergei and I rolled into town at 7:00 a.m., as the overnight shifts at the mines were ending. We planned to begin interviewing people about the upcoming election by late morning. It was going to be a day when we took advantage of Sergei’s local knowledge. Sergei is ethnically Russian, nearing fifty years old. He reluctantly acknowledges that he bears a striking resemblance to Vladimir Putin—receding hair, dark mesmerizing eyes, thin lips, and a face that narrows down to the chin. He is short and unassuming when you first meet him, but get to know him and you’re treated to his biting sense of humor and infectious laugh. Sergei grew up in this hardscrabble Ukrainian mining region during Soviet times. After completing his compulsory military service as a border guard and graduating from college in Moscow, he became a Russian teacher for foreigners and a translator, including for Western news organizations.

  Sergei’s loyalty to me and NPR is impregnable. If he is given a work-related assignment or piece of equipment, he guards it zealously. Once I bought him a roller suitcase on the company dime so he could more easily carry his radio gear. He read the instructions carefully, and every time he reached a flight of stairs—even just two steps—he would stop, push down the metal handle, carry the suitcase up the stairs, then extend the handle back out. As a longtime owner of roller bags, I told Sergei it was fine to lift his up by using the outstretched handle. “David—the instructions,” he said in his thick Russian accent. “They say it can damage the handle.” That black bag came with us to every corner of the former Soviet Union and always reminded me that Sergei, as much as he is a part of my family, is also Russian—fearful of breaking a rule, mindful of authority. And I was his authority. I would often say, “Sergei, we are colleagues—we both work for the NPR foreign editor back in Washington.” He would smile and say, “But you are the boss.” Russians can’t imagine life without a boss, without hierarchy. In the workplace they crave structure, predictability, and a pecking order. These touchstones offer comfort in a world that is otherwise chaotic and unpredictable. Doing anything—getting a new driver’s license, scheduling a doctor’s appointment, getting a document notarized—might require hours of delays and unanticipated bribes. The weather can get extreme at any moment. Traffic in the cities can become so bad, with no warning, that a trip you expected would take twenty minutes might take four hours. So Russians find their order and consistency at work.

  Sergei, like most of his countrymen, loved regular hours. He appreciated the ability to arrive at work at a particular hour and leave at 5:30 p.m. Those hours, of course, didn’t work for an American journalist responsible for covering news at any time of day. Sergei’s devotion to me and the company outweighed his Russian instincts, and he was willing to work whenever assignments came knocking. We had a favorite phrase we repeated countless times—“we can do everything”—meaning if we keep working, beyond what we may have expected that day, perhaps long into the night, we really can accomplish whatever is demanded. Poor Sergei lived in Moscow’s suburbs, a two-hour train ride from our office, and he spent many nights sleeping in a small bed in our office.

  ON THE FRIGID Ukrainian morning when we arrived by train in his homeland, Sergei had one request: that we drop by his father’s home on the outskirts of town for breakfast. He did not have to ask twice; I was thrilled to meet his dad.

  The streets of his neighborhood were cold and depressing: dilapidated shacks lined uneven streets blanketed by dirty snow. The dwellings were not built of wood—a material beyond most families’ means—but of slag, the waste matter from coal production, mixed with cement. The smell and essence of coal seemed to linger everywhere. We trudged through the snow, up to one home, and approached the door as a dog let out a headache-inducing string of barks. Greeting us was Nikolai Sotnikov, a seventy-five-year-old coal miner whose face and hands were leathery, covered in beat-up scars from years underground. The warmth poured out as Sergei and I entered his childhood home. Nikolai welcomed me with a hug, slippers, and the question I feared most: “Vodka ili cognac?”

  Vodka or cognac? Sergei shot me a glance suggesting that no was not an option. Sergei, Nikolai, and I did a shot of cognac to toast our inaugural meeting. Then we did a shot of vodka to celebrate sitting down at the table, and another to celebrate that Sergei and I had begun working together. How could I remain a bystander? I led a toast thanking Nikolai for his hospitality. This time, we went back to cognac. Nikolai poured. I raised my glass first. “Spasibo, ochen priatno paznakamitsa!” (“Thank you, it is great to meet you.”) Down went the cognac.

  Like so many Russians, Nikolai uses alcohol to soothe himself on hard workdays. He has battled alcoholism for years but has never won. He lives in a home with no plumbing. Every time he uses the toilet he has to replace his slippers with sturdy boots and venture into the cold to a wooden outhouse. His home is heated by coal, which he gets for free as part of his pension from the mines, and he cooks on a metal slab that’s heated by t
hat coal. And here he was, fussing over making breakfast for me: delicious pelmeni, small Russian dumplings in broth, and a spread of Russian salads. As we finished, Nikolai stared at me from across the table and waited to speak until he had my full attention. Sergei finished slurping a spoonful of pelmeni, swallowed, and was ready to translate.

  “People are poor and hungry in this part of Ukraine,” Nikolai said.

  He stopped, allowing me to digest that fully. It wasn’t a complaint so much as a statement. He didn’t seem eager to expand, and I hesitated to push. This was Sergei’s family, and I wanted to keep personal and work relations separate. His words just hung there.

  Nikolai moved on, saying something to Sergei in Russian far too fast for me to understand. Sergei turned to me and explained that he and his father were going to walk over to the cemetery to visit the grave of Sergei’s mom. It happened to be the anniversary of her death. Having lost my own mother when I was thirty, I felt strongly that Sergei should have whatever time and space he needed. I told him that he and his dad should take their walk. I would be just fine sitting (let’s be honest, detoxing) in the living room. This many shots—I believe I counted ten—would be obscene for a night of intentional drinking at a bar. This was well before noon on a day when we were supposed to be practicing journalism. But Russian welcomes are often measured in vodka, and resisting could risk insult.

  Sergei’s father insisted I come along to the cemetery. As we bundled up in our hats, gloves and coats, Nikolai put a bottle of vodka and four shot glasses in a plastic grocery bag. After a frigid ten-minute walk, we arrived at the local cemetery, where only the tops of gravestones emerged from a thick layer of snow. Beside each gravestone—including the one belonging to Sergei’s mom—were a small stone table and bench. Sergei, Nikolai, and I sat down on the bench, and Nikolai said what sounded like a few prayers in Russian. Then he noisily opened his plastic grocery bag, arranged four glasses, and poured shots of vodka, placing one on top of the gravestone.

  “It’s for my mother. It’s Russian tradition to leave a shot for the deceased,” Sergei explained. Nikolai’s eyes filled with tears, and he and Sergei sat quietly for several minutes. Then we raised our glasses, motioning to the glass sitting atop the gravestone, and drank.

  Russian traditions are ubiquitous. In her 2002 book Russian Myths, British scholar Elizabeth Warner described how for centuries, Russians believed so strongly in pagan customs—some of them peculiar—that they blended them with Christian Orthodoxy into what Warner called a “dual faith.” The Soviet government suppressed religion any way it could—a 1976 article in the London Telegraph detailed the aggressive campaign to convince citizens that religion was “useless superstition.” Russians still yearned for spiritual encouragement, and one way to find it was to adhere to actual superstitions. You’ll find a mirror right by the front door of many Russian homes. It’s bad luck to forget something after you’ve left the house. If you do, when you return home to retrieve the item, you have to look in the mirror on your way out to make sure your image is still there. Another superstition: never shake a Russian’s hand across a doorway or your friendship will be severed. Whenever this rule slips my mind at someone’s front door, the host will generally yank me back across the threshold to complete the handshake.

  One final tradition that Nikolai passed on to me was one we Americans share: Na pososhok—“one for the road.” This was one final good-luck shot before Nikolai hugged me good-bye and sent Sergei and me on our way.

  In the following hours I wandered the streets of Donetsk with Sergei, chatting with voters in conversations I frankly don’t remember. It was late afternoon when the ten or so shots of vodka began to wear off and Sergei and I began meaningful interviews. We spent hours in the break room at one of Donetsk’s mines, an aging brick building where the walls were sprinkled with Russian Orthodox icons—small pieces of religious art that Russians often display, especially when they are doing something dangerous. The room was dark, the smell of coal oppressive. We were surrounded by various hunks of equipment, too old and dirty even to guess what purpose they served or when they were last used. The workers sat on wooden stools, still wearing grimy helmets outfitted with flashlights. One man at a time would speak to us. The others occasionally glanced up but mostly chain-smoked and paged through photos of naked women in Russian-language Maxim magazines.

  Ukraine had gone through political upheaval in recent years. A Western-backed leader, Viktor Yuschenko, had become president in the 2005 Orange Revolution, an event hailed by U.S. president George W. Bush as a watershed moment in democracy’s march to new corners of the world. (At the time, I was covering the White House for NPR and saw on television somewhere close to a million people filling the streets of Kiev, declaring victory for democracy.) Five years later many Ukrainians—especially here in the east—looked at the Orange Revolution as a failed experiment with democracy that delivered nothing. The miners of Donetsk saw their wages shrink and struggled harder to feed their families.

  Now a Russian-speaking candidate, Viktor Yanukovych, was promising to end the experiment for good and make sure miners got good wages. Forget that Yanukovych was viewed by the West as corrupt and little more than a thug, or that he had been convicted on robbery and assault charges as a teenager and spent a year and a half in prison. He talked tough, spoke Russian, and the miners saw him as something familiar, an authority figure whom they believed they could trust.

  “Politicians are all bandits,” the coal miner Roman Fyodorov told me, holding his left palm on his Maxim so he didn’t lose his place. “Yanukovych is just our bandit.”

  Several days after I interviewed the coal miners in Donetsk, I followed Viktor Yanukovych on the campaign trail. During my days as NPR White House correspondent I had the fortune of traveling in the luxury press cabin on Air Force One. Now I was aboard a sputtering Soviet propeller plane, built in 1969 and apparently not updated since. The seat cushions on the Yanukovych press charter were threadbare. A piece of metal pushed into my thigh with every bump and the engines whined from age and overuse. Food and beverage service amounted to bottles of cheap vodka, which Sergei and I made good use of as our plane violently lurched back and forth at twenty thousand feet.

  At one stop I interviewed Yanukovych and got my first close-up look at the man who was about to win an election and lead Ukraine. He was tall and imposing with broad shoulders that made him appear brutish. More confident than smart, he was someone you’d expect to see on a soccer pitch or rugby field rather than on a campaign trail. He was just the right bandit for his people and said what ethnic Russians—who would turn out in large numbers for him—wanted to hear. “In the last five years, Ukraine has lost so much,” he told me, speaking Russian. “These have been lost years in the development of Ukraine.”

  He was ready to begin a new era. The Orange Revolution was over. And he was about to take office and fulfill his promise, moving Ukraine further away from democracy.

  After boarding our plane to head to the next stop, Sergei and I spoke about the morning we spent with his father.

  “Your dad was a coal miner, too,” I said. “He’s clearly struggling. Who is he voting for?”

  Sergei took a long pause, then sighed. “Yanukovych.”

  I’ve covered my share of politics back home. I’ve done scores of interviews with Republicans, Democrats, independents. Sometimes I connect with the point of view I’m hearing, sometimes not. But I try to put that consideration aside. There can be no personal bias in the business of journalism. Hearing Sergei say that name—Yanokovych—was my first powerful reminder that I had to remain true to that philosophy in this new chapter of my career. Covering American politics, I meet people who disagree—sometimes fiercely. But in so many cases Americans agree fundamentally on the idea of democracy, the belief that people have the power to speak out and make change. Here, sitting in a creaky old airplane on a frigid tarmac in Ukraine, I realized I would have to take openmindedness to a whole differe
nt level. Yanukovych was open about wanting to roll back one of the most optimistic democratic movements in modern history. And the people supporting him were not just coal miners I interviewed on the job but also the father of my colleague and friend, the elderly man who fed me at his dining room table and took me to his wife’s graveside. Even as I got close to people in this new job and entered their lives, I would have to be careful to try to see things through their eyes and to never make assumptions. Feeling a connection with a person would not mean they would necessarily have a world view anywhere close to my own.

  The coal that heated Nikolai’s home, over which he also cooked, came from a pension that was his lifeline. Nikolai needed every bit of that pension to stay alive, and feared it would dry up under capitalist rule. While talk of democracy and Western values sounded promising at one point to an old man like Nikolai, it was a Russian-backed, Russian-speaking leader who made him feel safe. He spent most of his lifetime valuing strong leadership and predictability, neither of which democracy can guarantee. To Nikolai, promises and talk of change were no match for the culture that built him and no match for the broad figure climbing the stairs of the plane next to ours, Ukraine’s soon-to-be-president, Viktor Yanukovych.