This is Truth.

ЭКСПРЕСС

The following are the precise instructions supplied to me by Mikhail (Misha) Sherbakhov, the close friend of a BU friend of mine, on how to get from Moscow to Dubna, his hometown at the edge of the Moscow Region [something like a ‘state’].

1. Go to Savyoletskaya Station
2. Buy a ticket for an EXPRESS train to Dubna.
3. Get on the blue train.
4. I’ll meet you in Dubna.

Thorough. I spent most of my time on the metro in the process of completing Step 1 trying to figure out what the Russian word for EXPRESS is, thumbing through my pocket dictionary, panicked that I would end up on one of the notorious commuter trains with one hard wooden bench that stopped at every cluster of datchas from now to the Artic Ocean.

Thankfully, the word for ‘EXPRESS’ in Russian actually is ‘EXPRESS’, or, to be more precise, “ЭКСПРЕСС.” Close enough.

If you’ve never traveled to some far-off land without adequate knowledge of the language on the ground, you would be shocked to find out how much you can get away with by just keeping your mouth shut and observing what other people do. As I approach the ticket counter, I realize that people aren’t saying anything, and only handing over 100 rubles. There was only one line, and it said ЭКСПРЕСС right over it, along with ДУБНА right below that. After which, everyone was going over to the gates, showing their newly purchased ticket to the woman at the gate, who flashed some card over the sensor and allowed you to pass through. I got to the front, handed over my rubles, asked for ‘adin’ (one)Thus, the whole transaction was possible without any interaction whatsoever, only your powers of observation. This is meant to allay the fears of the lighthearted. Of course, this system is never perfect.

Step 3. Get on the blue train.

They’re all blue.

Luckily, I’m literate enough now to solve this problem.

The train was similar in quality to an Amtrack roller. There wasn’t quite as much leg room as there could have been, but there were comfortable lounge seats, tables between seats, and storage was ample. I took an empty singular seat near the end of a car, until a woman came up to me and looked perplexed. When I explained to her that I didn’t understand the ticket, she directed me over to my assigned seat across the isle. A center seat in a row of three, between two middle aged Russian guys and facing two other Russian guys across an all-too-small table. Comfy. Maybe we’ll play Canasta.

Later I would realize that I actually had the isle seat, when the guy who had the middle seat showed up and talked at me for 5 minutes, while the guy sitting next to me in the isle took off. About 3 perplexed looks from me later, he sat down in the vacated isle seat. After that, I glanced at the ticket, found the number ‘6’, and looked up to see myself sitting in ‘5’. A little gesturing on his part would have made the difference, but no. Quote from my travelogue: “Remember to learn some Russian, you jackass.” No matter, I wanted to be as close to the window as possible anyway. Plus, the guy to my right took off after 15 minutes and never returned. There were no stops for the next 2 hours, so I have no clue where he went.

Perhaps he jumped out of the window after realizing that those suspended 13” TVs above our heads would play, out loud, a French comedy movie from the 1970s starring Gerard Depardeu with a faded audio track of dubbed Russian performed entirely by one Russian guy. Male parts, females, children; same guy. Monotone, no less. I couldn’t decide if it would be worse if he tried changing his voice for every character. I suppose the Soviets deemed it necessary to subject the masses to the stupidest of Western entertainment in order to keep them content with their tank parades. That aspect of the experience reminded me of sitting on the bus as it careened across central Moscow while being subjected to hours of videos of traditional Moroccan wedding ceremonies in inescapable mono for 8 hours. At least that was Moroccan video in Morocco.

Then there was the window.


Across a broad river bridge, in the distance you can see dozens of apartment buildings rising out of patches of trees, with the vista peppered by clusters of smokestacks. Decrepit abandoned factory. Universal Bakery Number 9. A canal. A nuclear reactor. The train speeds and slows, but never stops.

Red-brick garages line the edges of the tracks. Wooden telephone poles struggle to suspend 6 crossbars, layered thick with lines. Metal electrical wire towers bisect the landscape repeatedly, carrying light to the ends of the tundra. The trees are green with leaves, turned to a sad yellow, or bare. An empty field of brown grass, without a farmhouse to be seen. A dirt winding road. Small houses and small gardens. The houses are wooden slats, with sharp and steep tin roofs that hurl any scant sunlight back from whence it came. A traffic infested road parallels the train as we enter Икша (Ikshha). The car is silent, except for the droning Russian dubbing and the underlying droning French performances of the movie. Occasionally there is an obnoxious whistling tune in the soundtrack, which serves as a transition between scenes. To a Russian, whistling is considered a sure sign of idiocy. A picturesque village on a hill, a few houses in a clearing around a circular domed orthodox church. Suspiciously similar to the faceless thousands of villages upon hills that I passed in Scotland or Turkey.

We stopped, but the doors don’t open. An old collective farm – fields around an unoccupied multi-family farmhouse. 70 km from Moscow (30 miles). A coal loader without coal. A factory that, but for the fact there are two workers near a loading bay, has no business being operable. It has that ‘built in 3 months because Stalin said so’ kind of craftsmanship – where the sheet metal walls appear ready to peel off their girders, the innumerable nails noticeably absent. Another factory on the other side. We’ve been passing it for 3 minutes. It must be 2 miles long. Perhaps it makes tractors. In the subway in Moscow, many of the stations feature icons [pictures or designs created using tiny square pieces of colored tile, originally used only to depict Christ or Mary] of a certain propaganda quality, where tractor-welding workers look up in awe as another finished tractor is lowered from the halls of their gargantuan tractor factory. The look on the faces of the tiny idealized workers is striking; its as if they’re drunk with tractor. You’d think it was a keg of Baltika Lager coming out of that chute.

Swamp run through by canal. Tin roofs. Electrical towers. Glimmering new highway bridge. The woman who took my seat has been fixing her makeup in the window for 45 minutes. Wooden village. Each one is confined to one side of the tracks or the other – the towns never quite reach the tracks, and they never dare cross to the other side. They are caged. We scream past one empty train platform after another. Орудьево. One woman sitting alone, surrounded by bags, looking North. The movie is finally over. Cue whistling. Roll credits.

Then roll another Gerard Depardou French comedy from the 70s dubbed, of course, by the same long guy. If I happen to have spelled “Gerard Depardou” wrong and you know how to; please, tell me why. Сореваное. Empty. Grass is slipping through the cracks in the platform. Some of the platforms are in such thick forest that you wonder if there was ever anything there, or if they were planned communities, poorly planned. A few people start getting up and moving towards the doors. I do not budge. Not only do I assume that mine is the last stop (ЭКСПРЕСС В ДУБНА, right?), but I have come to realize that Russians have this deep set belief that if they are not standing at the doorway an unconscionably long time before arriving at wherever they’re going, that they will be ‘swept away’ and they will continue on in that train until the end of the Motherland. These people would end up standing in front of the doors for at least 17 minutes before the next stop. Ridiculous. On the subway, it is assumed that you will be standing at the door ready to exit by the time the doors close at the stop before your destination. I sit. When we arrive, I get out. Its not rocket science. And these guys are good at rocket science. Well, they were. At one point. So were we, I suppose.

Text message received: “Get ready, the next stop is yours, its called Bolshoi Volga” (The Big Volga [River])

posted by Майлз Г. Смит @ 8:39 PM