ANDREI - Midnight in Siberia: A Train Journey into the Heart of Russia - page 98

this gang develop so much power. The fight succeeded, and Viktor and other villagers are
now off the hook.
Andrei's SUV is bumping up and down over mounds of snow as we make our way into
Sagra, where the prevailing characteristic is deep snow. It covers the patchwork of unpaved
streets, where dirt has been churned up by insufficient plowing. It blankets the rooftops
of rickety wooden homes. Deep snow has all but swallowed the tarps that cover piles of
firewood, perhaps the only resource here that's easy to come by, as this is a lumber town.
Geese are wandering by, honking away. Smoke is rising out of chimneys. We pull up to a
familiar house where we all met last time, the home of another Andrei, a friend and neigh-
bor of the Gorodilovs.
Inside, the owner, Andrei, and Viktor Gorodilov welcome us back with bear hugs. Vikt-
or, Andrei's father, looks like a lumberjack—a reddish-gray beard, balding, wearing a red
flannel shirt and camouflage pants. The house is one level, all activity pretty much limited
to a single room. There is a mattress—neatly made with a sheet and red blanket—on the
floor in one corner, a pool table, an exercise machine in another corner, a guitar hanging on
the wall, and a couch and table in front of a flat-screen television. The kitchen is noticeably
lacking a sink. That's because water comes from a well into one place—the small adja-
cent room, where there is a toilet, shower, and sink to wash yourself as well as the dishes.
Andrei's (the occupant) wife is a striking woman who is a spitting image of Angelina Jolie.
I imagine her—like so many Russian women of modest means—putting on makeup and
sprucing up in a cramped room like this. I see her makeup laid out in the same room as
dirty dishes. All this is a window into the haphazardness of Russian life. Many villages are
like this—in surprising stages of development. The streets are not paved. Homes have one
room with well water. But then there is also a flat-screen television, and everyone owns
mobile phones. The house is heated by burning wood, and cooking is done using an orange
canister of gas that people have to replace every few months.
“Russia extracts a great amount of gas,” Viktor notes wryly. His country is among the
world's top energy producers. “And yet somehow they can't bring gas service to our vil-
lage.”
In so many Russian towns and villages I have visited, I had to forget all assumptions
about democracy. For years people have lived under this set of unspoken rules—life will
be hard, the government will provide few services, people in power might be corrupt but
there's nothing you can do about it. Today a few people seem to be realizing, in small ways,
that they can have a voice.
“Thank you, son,” Viktor says, as Andrei passes the tray of pickles and meat over to him.
“David, like this,” Viktor says, putting a chunk of salo and a pickle slice on some brown
bread. Salo is a Russian delicacy, and not a healthy one—it's basically cured pig lard. It's