NADEZHDA - Midnight in Siberia: A Train Journey into the Heart of Russia - page 129

“I ended up paying 75,000 rubles [$2,500] to upgrade my fire escape,” Nadezhda says.
She did everything she could to follow the regulations, but different regulations called for
different requirements. In the end, hoping to avoid fines, she built the best and safest fire
escape money could buy. Just like she stayed on the phone overnight with an immigration
officer, learning every detail she possibly could about the rules for registering a foreign
traveler.
“Do you wonder if the money ends up in the wrong hands?”
She's smiling. “There are so many 'fines.' Many are incredibly expensive. They can just
show up and do an inspection. You don't even know what they're looking for. I wish they
would just help—help me understand what the actual rules are.”
“My wife is going through the process of opening a business at home. And I'll say the
process has been hard. But I feel like one thing she has is certainty. She pretty much knows
what is required, and then she has to figure out how to get there.”
“I wish we had that kind of stability.”
Sergei is worried about the translation here. “Maybe we've heard a lot of people talk
about political stability in Russia—maybe Nadezhda is talking about a different kind of
stability,” he says.
Or maybe not. Perhaps it's all intertwined. In this crazy, unpredictable, unfair country,
maybe what Russians really do starve for is stability—not just political stability, but stabil-
ity in their own lives. In marriages, friendships, and businesses.
When I've pressed Russians—like Andrei Gorodilov—on why they don't push for
change in their country, and they answer “because they want stability,” I tend to scoff.
But then I look at Nadezhda. She craves stability—and is fighting for it. And in a way
she's calling the bluff of the local authorities. They have this elaborate web of rules and
regulations set up to confuse and mystify, so they can come after her on a whim. Rather
than cave to that, she spends a sleepless night researching every detail she can to learn how
to register a foreign guest at her hotel. She works overtime to figure out how to design a
fire escape that will pass muster in any inspection.
Her strategy is time consuming, expensive, and not fool-proof. But she's trying. So was
Andrei, when he fought off the local prosecutors who were ready to throw his father in
prison and call it a day.
Publicity was our protection.
I wonder if these are the smaller battles that could someday begin to create cracks in the
entrenched foundation of power in this country.
I REMEMBER true low points while covering the power structures in Russia. In the summer
of 2010 wildfires ravaged parts of central Russia, destroying entire villages. Critics quietly