The Great Russian Arctic
“I’m determined to go as far north as possible,” I told my friends before embarking on this trip. “Here are my flight details. Wish me luck.”
And off I went.
—
I’m finally at the Murmansk Airport – Аэропо́рт Му́рманск – and it’s almost 3AM. Fortunately for my nerves, it’s July, and Murmansk is the kind of place where “July” means “nearly perpetual sunshine.” It’s also the kind of place that doesn’t post a bus schedule online. One who might assume that this means that public transportation from the airport must run perpetually will end up like me, stranded and staring at a rusty sign indicating that the bus won’t actually arrive for another three hours.
Murmansk is north. Far north. It’s situated in the extreme northwest corner of Russia in an inlet of the Barents Sea called Kola Bay. It’s where you might go if you’re looking to board an icebreaker towards the North Pole, a fact commemorated by the giant advertisement at the end of the departure hall featuring a giant ship surrounded by ice. Any tourists who might accidentally make their way to Murmansk do so with one goal in mind: leave.
In the distance – beyond the slab of concrete that functions as this tiny airport’s tiny parking lot – the sun slowly peeks up over the treeline: within the hour, it’ll have fully risen, forcing my sleep-deprived caffeine-fueled body deeper and deeper in to a state of utter confusion. Thankfully, the two-hour-long Aeroflot flight came with complimentary sandwiches and coffee, the latter of which is dutifully ensuring my consciousness. I’m suddenly deeply regretting the fact that I decided that the only way I’d have time to make it here is if I just didn’t sleep tonight.
But this sunrise is quite the sight and I quickly forget about my delicate physical state long enough to appreciate the fact that I’m here when I am. I’m seeing the sun rise over the top of the world, dammnit, and that’s something very few people have done.
There’s a rawness to this view I can’t quite comprehend as I pace indeterminately between the decrepit blue benches lining the parking lot debating my options: do I tempt my fate with a taxi, or do I wait until the 6:23AM bus rolls through?
I’m ready to make the decision to wait when suddenly I overhear a gruff middle-aged man speaking a familiar language into an ancient-looking cellular phone: “ya, honey… in Russia right now… gonna have to call you back later.”
English. American English. With a very distinctive Southern tone. Texas, maybe.
I realize he may be my only escape from this airport for quite some time, but I don’t want to appear vulnerable by admitting that I hadn’t thought to arrange my own transportation from the airport. I finally summon the nerves to waddle over to him and his friend. Smiling, I anxiously attempt conversation:
“Did I overhear an American accent?”
“—I’m American, yes”
“—any chance you know how you’re getting to the city yet?”
He stares at me for an uncomfortable amount of time, before slowly responding: “we’re not gonna go to the city — we’re goin’ work on the ships.”
He pauses, cautiously.
“We were just told to be waitin’ here for our ride.”
Dead end.
“Well, good luck,” I mutter, before slowly walking away, at least partially comforted to have met one of my kind. Because as far as I can tell we’re the only Americans here. Judging by the plethora of signs in and around the airport, we’re probably the only people who speak English here: even the information on the electronic departures board is entirely in Russian.
I look around me, bewildered. There’s nothing familiar here. I’m slowly forced to the conclusion that I’m really, really, really far from home.
—
So far, I’ve spent a total of 9 days in 2014 on American soil.
I hadn’t planned this. In the span of a few months, I’ve gone from having never left North America to the kind of person people solicit for travel advice.
When I received a message in my email inbox in August 2013 asking if I’d be interested in studying abroad in Asia, I laughed the notion off. But when I realized I had nothing to lose[3], I forced myself to apply.
By January, I found myself on a packed 747–400 excitedly pondering my new life in Hong Kong.
—
Hong Kong, indeed, was a fascinating place to spend a semester. I was expecting a city like those I’d had already visited: something like an Asian New York. But Hong Kong wasn’t like that: it was capitalism and consumerism on an entirely different scale.
The buildings that compose Hong Kong’s cityscape soar from the ground like huge black weeds made of concrete and steel. It’s one of the most vertical cities in the world. Like most of the people, most of the buildings are nameless and featureless in a way that disturbed me until the day I left.
There’s an emptiness about life in Hong Kong that I could never explain. Giant, dizzying shopping malls and luxury stores dominate in a way that would make Fifth Avenue jealous. The city reeks of fast money while wearing its poverty on its shirtsleeves. It thrives on newer, bigger, shinier, and more expensive; it enjoys ignoring its past as it races towards the future: there’s not much of a museum presence nor a very large creative community.
I survived – and even thrived – in Hong Kong. Though sometimes disheartened, I was never uncomfortable and never homesick. I assumed this would be my one chance to challenge my own expectations, assumptions, and beliefs. It was my chance to get lost in an attempt to find myself. That moment never really came: though I learned a lot – I was never transformed by the experience in the way I was hoping.
Sure, it was a period of intellectual blossoming. I now know more about Hong Kong’s economy and political structure than I may never need; my mind is full of the material that makes interesting dinnertime conversation and innovative concepts and ideas that I shall dutifully consult should I ever decide to pursue politics or law.
But that wasn’t enough, I decided. I was looking to be lost; seeking the exotic. I wanted adventure: I wanted to be challenged as much as I enjoy challenging others.
So halfway through my time in Hong Kong, I decided that I’d spend my summer prancing across Europe on a university that operates out of a cruise ship. Before long, I was naively unfurling an incredibly thin mattress over my bunk in a third-class platzkart carriage on a train that would spend the next 6 days slowly traversing Siberia – eeking 5,500 miles from Vladivosotok in far-Eastern Russia to Moscow, where I’d eventually fly to London and board the MV Explorer.
I’m still sure why I thought this was the most logical way to travel from Asia to Europe.
—
Time is different on Russian Rail. Though the train eventually passes through 8 time zones, the grimy public clock at the end of the corridor is permanently set to Moscow time, as all Russian Rail schedules and operations are coordinated to Moscow time —the clock might read 19:13 while the view out the window suggests early morning.
At one point, I tried to guess how far we were traveling based on the sun’s position the sky and the estimated offset relative to Moscow time, but I eventually deemed this exercise futile.
It’s not as if one needs to know what time it is, anyway. Nobody is exactly in a hurry. Once you’ve resigned yourself to spending 6 days in a tiny carriage barreling across the Russian countryside, precise time becomes irrelevant. A rhythm slowly develops: breakfast, reading, nap, lunch, attempting (and failing) to converse with the Russians, more reading time, nap, dinner, more reading, sleep, repeat. It’s relaxing. It’s dizzying. It’s disorienting. And yes, as the rumors suggest, it’s slightly terrifying.
In a platzkart carriage, up to 53 people are slammed almost comfortably together in one wagon. Lining the hallways are tiny open compartments, each featuring a set of bunks on each side and sleeping up to four people. On the other side of the hallway is a small table and two seats which folds into a bed with yet another bunk on top.
To save space, the beds are rather short, and what this means, essentially, is that if you’re over 5'8", your feet will be dangling in the middle of the narrow hallway and will be bumped relentlessly by those walking up and down the hallway.
Perhaps this is why I wasn’t immediately worried when late one night, I was jostled awake by something touching my feet. I arose from my light slumber to find a group of Russian army boys at the end of my bed who thought it would be hilarious to tickle me awake.
Waving around an empty bottle of vodka, they started yelling softly and drunkenly: “vodka, Russian tradition,” before holding out their hands in a way that suggested they were either demanding money from me or asking me to join them.
I hoped the latter, but feared the former. While I very much would’ve enjoyed the opportunity to drink real vodka with real Russians, I opted for caution and immediately sprung from my bunk, ran to the end of the hall and madly gestured at the carriage attendant with a frightened expression on my face.
Seeing my panic, she rushed out, and, through a combination of almost comedic gesturing and soft yelling, forced the hoodlums back to their part of the carriage.
This, of course, was not the first time the Weird Probably Gullible American was harassed by Russians attempting to separate me from the relatively few rubles I had elected to take on the trip.
Earlier, an angry large Russian man had approached me, crucifix necklace swaying back and forth across his sweaty, hairy chest as he knelt down to my bunk. He thought it apt to describe to me that he believed that Russia was superior to America, and decided the best way to do this was through violent gesturing:
“Rrrrusiaa,” he said, waving his top fist flamboyantly.
“Ammmerricccaa,” he said, now waving his other fist.
He smacked his fists together. Russia on top, America on the bottom. Just a bit terrified, I smiled and nodded, pretending to agree with him. He can’t hurt me here, there are too many people.
Unsatisfied with this response, he went back into the carriage and brought a perhaps even more intimidating friend, Angry Russian 2, who sat down in the seat across from my bunk and held out his hand, yelling something in Russian.
I knew he was demanding money from me like a middle school bully, but I refused to let him know I knew what he wanted. If I play dumb, maybe he’ll give up.
He continued gesturing and yelling even more frantically, finally resorting to pulling out a 500 ruble bill out of his pocket. Very deliberately placing it in his own hand, he suggested in no uncertain terms that I ought to do the same. It’s dangerous to negotiate with terrorists, but I’ve already lost too many valuables.
As he continued to gesture angrily, I finally resorted to pulling from the limited amount of Russian I’d learnt on the journey, yelling “stuooddent; nnn-yett roobles,” several times, until the Very Scary Russian Duo gave up and walked away; leaving me and my property unharmed. So that’s how you defeat Russian Train Muggers.
—
Perhaps this is why I’m incredibly confused, when I suddenly find myself stuck at the Murmansk airport at four in the morning and for the first time since I embarked on United Airlines Flight 869 bound for Hong Kong, I feel lost.
I’ve climbed mountains in Norway, fended off prostitutes and drug dealers in Hong Kong and learned how to navigate the Cyrillic disaster that is the Moscow metro map. Last time I counted, the number of metro cards I’m carrying exceeds the number of fingers on my hands (I think there’s still $2.96 left on my BART ticket, which may be enough to whisk me from the Embarcadero to South San Francisco.) Over the past few months, I’ve bought things in 12 different currencies and by the end of the summer, multiple forms of long-distance transportation will have comfortably whisked me over 50,000 miles across seas, land, and skies. I have a favorite airline, favorite jet and favorite seat.
And yet, as I sit outside of the Murmansk airport, madly batting mosquitoes off my ankles, enjoying what is perhaps the most beautiful sunrise of my life, I’m finally feeling truly lost for the first time this year. It’s both liberating and terrifying at once. I’m an outsider where outsiders simply don’t go – Murmansk is the definition of inhospitable: inhospitable buildings, inhospitable people, and, as the largest city in the Arctic Circle, inhospitable weather for most of the year. If the point of travel is to get lost, I’ve finally made it.
I spend the next few hours thinking about this. I realize that since beginning my voyage, I haven’t had much time to simply stop and think. Since embarking on my Epic Tour of Europe™, I’ve spent most of my time with my nose in my tourism-department-sponsored map and guidebooks, hopping from sight to sight. Supposedly seeing the wonders of the world, but never feeling wholly enriched by the experience.
I’ve been looking, but failing to see.
Suddenly the bus finally arrives, and I hop on. The only passenger. I give the attendant 25 rubles and before long we’re heading to the city of Murmansk. We go a few minutes, stop, go a few minutes more, stop. Suddenly, I notice the bus becoming very crowded, as Russian after Russian boards, pays the attendant, and sits down.
Pretty soon, there’s no room to sit, as the once-empty bus is standing room only. We continue driving. 20 minutes. 30 minutes. 45 minutes. I wonder if the bus will ever terminate.
The other passengers stare at me, bewildered. I clearly don’t belong. I’m too busy staring at the buildings along the highway to care what they think: there’s a certain emptiness to these gray weather-beaten buildings I can’t quite place. Nothing seems to belong here. I ponder what the crumbling Soviet infrastructure might look like glistening under the mountains of ice and snow that blanket this place for most of the year and shudder.
Suddenly the bus attendant starts yelling at me in Russian. I show her my ticket, but she’s unhappy. I’ve been on this bus for what seems like forever but is probably closer to an hour. I shrug and apologize in English. She finally backs away, unhappy.
We go for longer, until, finally, we stop at what looks like it could be a train station. Everyone left on the bus alights, I follow them. I walk inside, and breathe a sigh of relief.
Thoroughly terrified, I decide not to risk my fate in this inhospitable town any longer. I had planned to actually do things like see the weird statue at the end of the pier; instead, I tell the ticket agent I want a spot on the next train to Petersburg, and hand over my rubles.
Before long, I’m on a smelly and hot train to St. Petersburg. It’s disgusting and I’m going to be here for 26 more hours but I don’t care. I crawl on the top bunk and begin to fall asleep. For the first time in what seems like forever, I know where I am and where I’m going and that’s good enough for me.
I start to smile and laugh a bit. I’m not at all upset by this experience. It was terrifying and exhausting; but I don’t care. Because I finally stopped looking, and started seeing.
