SERGEI - Midnight in Siberia: A Train Journey into the Heart of Russia - page 9

“David, a Russian may work in agriculture and have a job digging mud,” Sergei tells
me, as we both lean against a wall near the ticket counters. “But if it makes him enough
money to buy a fancy car he is happy to boast about, so be it. It's not about what business
you're in. It's about whether the business makes you the money you need to drive the car
you want.”
Status is everything, a reality that often becomes comical. I recall once marveling at it
inside a wine bar in Austria. Rose and I were on vacation and told the bartender we were
living in Russia. He told us he just had a table full of Russian businessmen who asked for
his most expensive bottle of Austrian wine.
“I told these guys that my favorite bottle is actually cheaper—the pricey one is really
not a good year,” the bartender said. “But they almost sounded angry, and cut me off. They
said just bring us your most expensive bottle.”
Arrogant as this behavior seems, there's also something melancholy about it. Russians
spent so many years in a rigid Communist state with no personal wealth and little freedom
to make decisions on their own. Now, people who have money are adjusting to the experi-
ence, flexing muscles for the first time. In fact my father, a physician, told me he wonders
whether Russians in post-Soviet times are like patients emerging from a coma. “When you
wake up,” he said, “it's not like you can use all your limbs again immediately. It takes time
to relearn how to move your arms, your legs.” It's a metaphor that could apply to more than
money. As Shishkin writes, Russians for generations looked for direction from leaders in
an “unconscious slavery” that was “bitter for the body but life-sustaining for the spirit.” As
some Russians experience an awakening, in a society that's evolving, their behavior can
seem erratic and unfamiliar to outsiders. I repeatedly reminded myself of this during my
time in Russia: Culture and history matter. They've shaped people here, including Sergei.
I ACTUALLY FELT Sergei and I would have grown even closer as friends had culture and his-
tory not stood in the way of our truly understanding one another. We traveled everywhere
together—to cover violence in Dagestan and Kyrgyzstan, discrimination in Estonia, envir-
onmental and political disputes in Siberia. Our friendship was cemented several years be-
fore any Trans-Siberian trip. It happened in Ukraine, the place that taught me that vodka
and journalism don't mix well.
Rose and I had begun settling into our new life, and it was time to get to work. Getting
over the initial shock of moving to Russia? Check. I no longer considered calling an ambu-
lance when the cold froze my nostrils shut and eliminated air flow there. Russian language
training? Check. After three intensive months, I could now ask for the check at a restaur-
ant ( shchyot ), buy tickets for the subway ( bilety ), and offer my tea preference ( chyorny s
limonom —“black with lemon”). It was time for my first reporting assignment as NPR's