Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
in amazement at his mirror-gleam shoes; they seemed to have an uncanny ability to
repel the dust they trod upon. His face was wide, with cheekbones that panned out
like two inverted frying pans. His nose barely rose higher than his cheeks, and his
eyes resembled slender crescent moons. The curvature of his eyebrows equalled a
mouth that constantly cut an arcing line beneath his heavy features. Meaty fore-
arms and legs complemented his thickset torso.
He cast a proud figure, yet seemed humble. What I didn't know was that he was
almost sixty and a grandfather. The couple ushered us into the home, tut-tutting, as
if to say, 'don't be silly' when we proposed taking off our shoes. Not for the first
time, I was left wondering whether I would take someone off the street with such
ease.
The man's wife was also thickset and muscular. Her agility and thick black hair
were deceptive - she was almost sixty.
It wasn't long before we were seated in the kitchen. Although we had been
showered in meals and hospitality all through this journey, I never took them for
granted. Even a day on the bicycle, let alone a week, made a home-cooked meal
hard to resist. Along with the meal, of course, came the ubiquitous bottle of vodka.
On this occasion Chris and I felt that alcohol could only prove beneficial. If our
hosts wanted to celebrate, then damn it, we would too!
It turned out the man was the former director of the collective farm. He had
worked in the fields with sheep, and in the office with local government. As he
drank, his smile grew. He told us again and again of his Mongolian friend, a cosmo-
naut. Family albums by the armful arrived and we spent an hour flicking through
the black and white photos. They had four children and nurtured high hopes for
their futures. It struck me that these concerns were no different to those of parents
in Australia.
But then his smile was crossed by a look of anger. 'It's all messed up now; no
one knows what tomorrow will bring,' he said, lamenting the changes that had be-
fallen his country. Looking at the photos and listening to his heartache, we were
in no doubt that the Russia we were experiencing was a very different Russia to
that of ten or fifteen years ago. The glossy photos of cosmonauts and rockets with
the USSR symbol gave the impression of a time of glory, optimism and excite-
ment. Compared to those glory days, our friends seemed to be living in a country
shattered to pieces. Nowadays, it seemed that Russia was still reliant on systems
set up during the Soviet Union, even though those very systems were falling apart.
