Tallinn to Fushiki - Grounded: A Down to Earth Journey Around the World - page 37

Chekhov died in 1904. Not long after, Russians did indeed attempt to create a different way of living.
The emptiness gnawing at Chekhov's characters seems to predict the cultural dissatisfaction that led to the
Russian revolution. People were searching for a more profound and harmonious existence. It was a beauti-
ful dream, though it ended in tatters.
To be sure, I've met some smiley, friendly people in Russia. And I've seen evidence of forward-looking
optimism. The little girls crushing forehands on the public tennis courts in Irkutsk looked determined to be
Wimbledon stars. The far eastern town of Khabarovsk built a lovely park along the Amur River—as pretty
and peaceful as a stroll along an Amsterdam canal.
Still, if I were to identify a defining attribute in the people I've interacted with here, it would be this:
Most Russians seem viscerally aware of the fact that day-to-day life is an absurd endeavor. This explains
their mad desire to create a different and better way of being (a response Chekhov foretold, and Len-
in channeled into revolution). It also explains why, once that utopian vision faded, Russians grew bored,
gloomy, and resentful of quotidian tasks.
Toppling a government, creating a new political system, and defeating Hitler? These were soul-stirring
missions that Russians could get excited about. Fixing sidewalks, laying carpet competently, and being po-
lite to American tourists?
Shrug.
THE clackalack of the train rolling over tracks is sometimes a perfect 3/4 shuffle. Other times it morphs
into an exotic polyrhythm. Occasionally, in the steeper turns, it's a scary cacophony of groaning, popping
metal. When it's smoothly clackalacking along, though, it mostly reminds me of all the ground we're cov-
ering, day and night, as we roll onward toward the next line of longitude.
We're less than thirty miles from the Chinese border now. The facial features of the villagers we see as
we rumble by have, on balance, shifted several ticks toward the Asian end of the racial continuum. This
region actually belonged to China until 1858, when a Russian military buildup strong-armed the Chinese
government into ceding territory.
This is our very last leg on the Trans-Siberian, and it's a relatively short twelve-hour, overnight ride. For
this final segment, we've booked ourselves into a shared, four-berth cabin, betting on the hope that we'll
get interesting roommates and not the shirtless, fish-toting kind. The gamble pays off, as our cabinmates
turn out to be friendly and easygoing and even speak a bit of English.
Natalia is twenty-seven and a petite, pretty blonde. Much excitement ensues when we learn that she, like
Rebecca, is a lawyer. She tells us she's on her way to a legal conference in Vladivostok, and that there are
several other attorneys on the train, all headed to the same gathering.
I'm trying to picture a bunch of D.C. lawyers traveling together to a conference in Indianapolis (an
approximately equivalent distance). Would they opt to take an overnight Amtrak instead of the two-hour
flight? Admittedly, Rebecca—given her crippling fear of airplanes—might actually do this, but she's the
exception. I assume Natalia's reasons for taking the train have to do with the economics of Russian law
firms and Russian airlines, but my polite attempts to ask her crash up against the language barrier.
Albert, our other cabinmate, is thirty-eight and tells us he has four children. He lives in Yakutsk, which
is a city in northeastern Russia, not far from the Arctic Circle. (Yes, you are correct; it's also another im-
portant territory in Risk. If I had a set of dice, I'd challenge Albert to roll for ownership of his house.)
Albert is an ethnic Sakha. His skin is bronze, his hair black. The Sakha are a Russian indigenous group,
and Albert says he shares genealogical roots with the Eskimos. Things get a bit hazy here, with a lot of frus-
trated searching for simple words to convey complex ideas. But it's my understanding, based on Albert's
scribbled drawings and notations, that temperatures in Yakutsk can drop as low as minus ninety degrees