 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
From “Fonske” <amlozano@iies.es> Date Tuesday, July 20, 2004 00:02 To “List of contacts” Subject siberian anonymous dear all, irkutsk has greeted us in a rainy morning. anatoli (antolin for friends), our driver, has taken us to lystvianka inmediately. his chinese-made van move loosely in the careless neighbourhoods of irkutsk, where there's no any sign and where the lanes in the roads are just in the driver' imagination. lystvianka is about 60 km away from irkutsk. we live in a charming wooden siberian house. it doesn't have got inside nor a toilet neither a shower. both are outside. the first one in a latrine-like hut. the sit is wrapped in something similar to red velvet. the shower is a russian bath. here it's known as banya. it resembles a finnish one but less warm. in it we spent some of the most pleasant whiles. after three days without proper hygienics, it's a good change, that continous contrast between cold and hot water. our host is called rita. she is a women of undefined age, that can good really good and that speaks a basic but efficient english. she lives with her mother, a lively old women with bronze face that speaks just russian but who make her best to communicate. she looks from her deep eyes with the confindence of having seen everything. not places of course, her geography is the human soul. her eyes are plenty of life. they seem to tell the history of russia. apart from the superb baikal lake, where the russian girls take sunbaths in high heel shoes, is a dead city. rita, at breakfast, warn us: to get into the lake (till the knee) are ten years of life extension. fully inmersion, twenty five more. it seems to be an small investment for so much profit, so in the afternoon, we go to the shore to gain our award. water is around ten degrees and it's true you need to make an effort to dive into our legs or arms more than a few seconds. but we do it. just adeladard keeps himself out, with the excuse that he didn't want to live forevear and on top of that, he's not here to have a bad time. out attempts to swim are greeted by a russian guy that is spending the afternoon at the shore of the lake, with his children and wife. with his soviet swimming suit, dive with decision and in front of us, tries his own style, with no signs of cold. he's so proud that it turns out to be comic. our conversation is very limited, basically gestures. he looks amused to see us, three spaniards suffering as school boys in the waters of his sea. we are introduced to his son, who pretends to know english and tries to do the same to his wife. but she's ashamed of him. she's a pretty russian, brand new in youth, witha beautiful curves and breat. when he calls her to show her his new treasure (us), pack her stuff and goes home, two hundred metres away. her husband is disappointed, chase here, seeming to be angry with her for her lack of education.
saturday night after it's a curious village, where the cars pass through the road as if they were invaded by a demon, making s all along the road. from one of them a girl gets off, in the same pitiful situation than her vehicle, hardly keeping the verticality.. in the middle of the day, she offers us her ass as if it were two melons and takes out of it something that seems to disturb her a lot. i think that manolo requieres an apart, bigger than three empathic lines. i choose the chapter with manolo because it's minimalistic. manolo listened to us loudly chatting in lystivianka's street market. he came out from the smoke of smoked fish (that rough smell that remained for days within our noses). he just asked if we were spaniards. he was short, full dress in black, with an obvious sevillian accent. he came after flirting with the only girl in the market that could speak spanish (???). i guess he was a methodic guy. i think that he even tried to invite her to a beer. no matter what they say, business is business and is hard everywhere. then his ear took him to us. at the beginning, my colleagues ignore them. mt attitude was not exactly positive, just indifferent, distant but curious. manolo gave us his phone number and later left.at night, we met him in the empty pub of lystvianka village. it was cold that night. the sky was superb and black, only broken by the backbone of the night, that beared the sky as a nervous cat. sitting down in front of vodka and beer, the first thing he said was "you don't look like russians". i know i looked sebas, to his trendy shirt, his progressive pants and his blonde beard growing from his chin and then to adelardo, that was wearing checkered soft shirt and dockers (in my imaginary, the good-background-guy uniform). i looked at myself, in my plain, undefined colour shirt and jeans, my black shoes and said "no. we don't look russians. we don't need it". well, manolo was travelling alone and that includes to be able to camouflage with the environment. he truly looks like one of those russian with hawaian shirt. manolo was worried for two things: the indifference of life in seville, with its zerobrain heat, its easyness of letting it be, and the russian women, to whom we had admired so much. i don't know if he succeded with the second one, but with the first, he actually did. bribeing provodnitsas and avoiding former soldiers thieves in rossiya's compartments, went to vladivostok and back. from poisonous sevilla he had manged to run away, at least by the moment. in other moment, he told us: "you know, sometimes, when i travel alone, i get bored". when we left him, cold night, he still had half an hour walk in the darkness. i hope he managed. i hope he's now in seville, not taking care about if he has been understood or not, thinking in another trip. my colleagues find irkutsk ugly. of course, i love it. it's certainly sort of crappy and dodgy. but it's 5000 km away from moscow. wilde and pure and i do have the feeling that no matter what i do, it doesn't matter. it's a taste of freedom. it's russia. in irkutsk is where is better noted how the same and how differente we all are, and how uncertain for somebody from the south it could be to cross (don’t mention to live in) the middle of the russian steppe. we live in galiana's home, in the basement of a hidden street. her house is simple and without any kind of luxuries. it's shared by she, her almost teenager daughter and her baby and her daughter's husband. our visit forces them to stay all together in one of the rooms, while we occupy another two. when adelardo goes for a shower, daughter's husband has arrived a few ago. among shouting caming from their room, the daughter goes out half naked, not embarrased at all. more that not talking, she ignores us. i believe that galiana also misunderstood us when after leaving for a walk told us in vacillating german: "to bulvar gagarina, walk, beer, madam". and thus everything was that way: an enormous supermarket with almost empty bookcases in which, if you really wanted, could find all the merchandise that excite the imaginations of the travellers. in irkutsk there're lots of people that seems not to do anything. the wander, talk in low voice in the street corners. i'm unable to understand the meaning of their sights. for my companion they are indifferent or threatening, dependig on the moment. perhaps because walking in irkutsk is as well to recall the gulag, sometimes i imagine bad guys made starting from the concentration camps; those stone buildings, a lot built by them talk at the same time of freedom and intolerance through years of tsars and politburo, everything changing to remain the same; they talk about the women that followed the prisioners in the old times of the tsarists russia. here they made their home, here we could make our home. night is cloudy. maybe it will rain. but it's not refreshing. everything is painted in violet; at home the atmophere is warm and solid; after a cigarrette at the entrance door, while we see the children going home after their games, we go to sleep. it's not even midnight. tomorrow, we leave for beijing. the hugs and the kisses, fonske. |
|||
 |
||||
 |
||||
|
||||
|
||||
 |
||||
 |
||||
 |
||||
 |
||||
 |
||||
 |
||||
 |
||||
 |
||||
 |
||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
