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that I had broken. Chris was dumbfounded but Vladimir was unfazed. '
Sudba
,' he
said. Destiny.
Vladimir decided on the next course of action: we weren't going anywhere until
we cleaned up. We returned to the judo club for the royal tour before being whipped
off to the sauna. Not only was there a sauna imported from Finland, but an indoor
pool-spa all set into immaculate white marble. It was simply too good to be true.
In the change rooms, Vladimir dialled a number. Ten minutes later a crate of
Bratsk beer arrived.
'Well, I am off; I have got a bit of business to do. I will see you boys in an hour
or so. Enjoy the sauna!' Vladimir boomed, before leaving us to it.
I followed Chris, close to skipping with joy, into the sauna. Once settled, we
watched the condensed water on our skin trickle down our tortured bodies, carry-
ing the grime from two weeks of riding.
We went in and out about five times, sipping beer and leaping wildly into the
pool at intervals. The change of temperature sent my heart racing and I fell into a
dizzied euphoria, viewing the world as if it were a dream. Only two days earlier we
had been struggling along the railway, drenched in sweat.
If the sauna was heaven, then Vladimir was our unlikely angel. I remembered
his use of the word
sudba
, and recalled how often Russian people used it. Lying
against the moist timber it occurred to me that our journey had indeed fallen se-
curely into the hands of Russia's firm belief in destiny.
But before we could give ourselves over to Vladimir's itinerary there were more
sedate tasks demanding attention. Chris headed off to find the Internet and I did a
little food shopping. We agreed on a time to meet, but when that time came Chris
was nowhere to be seen. I knew it probably meant he had caught Natalie on-line.
I bought two Bratsk ice-creams and sat on the steps of a department store, soak-
ing in the scenery. At first glance, everything about Bratsk looked a little dilapid-
ated. There were the odd patches of long seeding grass, crumbling walls, flaking
paint, rusty factories and streets filled with potholes. Stairwells were littered with
rubbish and broken glass; I knew from experience that they almost always smelt
of urine. Diverging from footpaths, pedestrians took the shortest routes. I watched
three babushkas follow a dirt track off the road, waddling along with shopping
bags, then ducking through a hole in a concrete wall and out of sight. In other cities
it was common practice to clamber over the railway lines.
A trolley bus jammed with passengers stopped in the middle of the street to col-
lect a woman who waved it down, even though it wasn't an official stop. Every
