Southern Yakutia (Sakha)
In that part of Siberia known as the Russian Far East, flows the Aldan River. It is comparatively dwarfed by the Yenisei and Lena rivers, and Man has put it to use far less than the giant Amur River to the south. Even so, the river served as a lifeline for the idealistic young men and women who braved the ruggedness of the Russian Far East to build the railway lines and settler communities dotting that part of the Siberian wilderness.
They say the Aldan River has a forceful character in its
youthful stage and that it cuts an impressive mark on the topography as it
bubbles and hisses northwards down the mountains and hills, and as it flows
through the marshy plains of Yakutia before joining the Lena River that snakes
its way into the Arctic Ocean.
Boris Kukinovich Petrenkov happens to be one of those natural
souls who find the Aldan River's unique character enthralling. His log house,
which is on the left bank of the river, less than a hundred miles from its
source, is a beautiful three-bedroom structure perched on a knoll. One of his
pleasurable moments is sitting by his window in winter and basking in the
sunshine, with the view of the snow-capped mountains a few miles away. He often
does so in anticipation of spotting the polar fox, the almost extinct Amur
tiger, the agile snow leopard, herds of northern reindeer and even the
swift-footed Kulan donkey.
In summer, the valleys blossom with luxuriant flowers,
precious trees, and some of the peculiar grasses of the Taiga. This is the
season Boris loves the most in Southern Yakutia. He keeps an eye out for the
squirrel, mink and other fur-bearing animals that scurry around under the
soothing sunlight; and he often engages in bird-watching, which is a hobby he
is particularly fond of. He even takes fanciful rides on a Kulan donkey or a
horse from time to time, a refreshing experience, per se. Sometimes, he hikes
about in the mountains or accompanies herdsmen to remote areas as they tend
their herds of reindeer in search of pasture. However, it is his passion for
fishing that supersedes all the others. Hardly a week goes by without Boris
testing his lines or nets in the Aldan River or the numerous lakes, small rivers, and streams that dot the area.
Notwithstanding the above, Boris Petrenkov's deepest love is
for the people of Southern Yakutia. He visits the cottages of his peasant
friends every so often for chats and other discourses, an exercise that has
helped him over the years to master the tongues of the different ethnicities of
the region, much to the amazement of many and the bewilderment of a few.
If Boris Petrenkov’s detractors regard Siberia and the
Russian Far East as foreboding places to
live in, he does not share their view. Siberia—the landmass east of the Ural
Mountains that constitutes the northern half of Asia—is his enchanted kingdom.
It would be wrong to say that Boris is nothing more than a
lover of nature and people. After all, he graduated from Kazan University in
1955 with distinction as a civil engineer, and then went on to leave his mark
across the Soviet Union with remarkable engineering feats that still stand
today for people to marvel at.
Hardly anyone doubted the authenticity of Boris Petrenkov’s
commitment to the land, the people, and the communist cause that was
championing their development. But curiously enough, his devotion, loyalty,
reliability, steadfastness, and outstanding sacrifices in the Second World War
did not land him a distinguished political career. He just happened to be a
selfless public figure with a profound love for the practical works of life,
one of those rare men in life who never allowed themselves to be corrupted by
power. The above explains why this rare blazing soul prefers spending time
uplifting the common people rather than engaging in political intrigues or
regaling himself in obscure offices and dachas.
At six-foot-two tall, Boris appears burly with high
cheekbones, a broad nose, an upright frame, an unclassified complexion, and
wavy black hair that he rarely crops. His features give him a unique appearance
that makes it more difficult for anyone to determine whether he is Slavic,
Turkic, Lithuanian, Turanian or any of the ethnicities of the Caucasus. In
fact, he is a classic product of generations of inter-racial and inter-ethnic
mixing of some of the diverse peoples of the former Soviet Union.
Boris's solemn disposition, boisterous nature, and raucous voice make it easy for a
casual observer to view him as an autocrat instead of the democrat that he
truly is. However, most of those who misjudged him the first time turned around
and came up with different stories to tell after their second encounter with
him or after engaging him again in a deeper manner. That is why it comes as no
surprise that a good number of people who got close to his soul portray him as
a classic epitome of humanity.
Boris is also a fascinating character in the sense that he
possesses the Ukrainian gaiety, the Byelorussian modesty, the Cossack daring
spirit, the versatility and horse-riding skills of a Mongol, the argumentative
spirit of a Georgian, the neatness of an Estonian, the steadfastness of a
Russian, the good sense of humor of an Armenian, the easy-going nature of a
Kazakh and the respect for the elderly like an Uzbek. The fact that he is an
ardent believer in Soviet harmony partly explains why he feels more relaxed in
a multi-ethnic group than in the company of Eastern Slavs. That is even more
intriguing because the nationality on his passport identifies him as a Russian.
While acknowledging his humaneness, some of Boris Petrenkov's
friends readily admit his weaknesses too, pointing out that his unbiased and
self-sacrificing nature made it difficult for him to tolerate the feeble-minded
nationalists who caused the irrational upsurge of nationalism in the former
Soviet republics he had adored so fiercely.
A lot about Boris Petrenkov’s past explains his simple but
complex nature. He never declined assignments to work in the very distant and
remote regions of the Soviet Union during his active days building socialism in
that country. That does not mean his unwavering commitment to making life
better for the people blinded him to the prevailing reality of double-talk at
the time, or to the fact that some insincere party apparatchiks abhorred his
dedication and easygoing nature. A good number of these detractors even faulted
him for living below their standards and positions, and for spending more time
with the muzhiks than with the proletariat and the ruling class. Boris
good-humoredly called them “Infective Tarantulas” and never allowed their
actions to diminish his sense of self-respect. The truth is that many of those
pathetic fellows failed to understand that poor Boris never wanted to be
alienated from his muzhik friends because he thought the life of the favored
contradicted his views on the rightful implementation of the ideas of Karl
Marx, Friedrich Engels, and Vladimir
Lenin.
The bus that pulled up in front of him shortly after and
dispatched its passengers appeared to be in good shape too, and the two police
officers chatting and laughing next to their car also reflected the relaxed
atmosphere around. Crime did not exist in their part of Russia, or so he
thought. The people did not look like they felt threatened by the police or by
criminals, the way Russian citizens behaved in faraway Moscow and Saint
Petersburg.
One of the passengers who got off the bus was a babushka in
her sixties. She looked confident in her ways as she grabbed her seven-year-old
grandson's hand the moment the boy tried to step in front of her.
“Comrade Boris Kukinovich!” she called out the second she
spotted Boris. Then she stopped and regarded him with a warm expression on her
face.
“Zdravstvuitye,
Maria Feodorovna! It is you in person! A great pleasure seeing you again,”
Boris beamed, and then shook her hand before ruffling the boy’s hair.
It took Boris and Maria a little over ten minutes to exchange
pleasantries, share opinions, and update one
another on their lives and mutual friends. They even spared a few laughs with a
twinge of rue in their voices. All in all, the genuineness of their enrapture from
meeting again could not be missed. He learned from her that her grandson’s name
was Anton and that the boy’s mother, Elena,
whom he had carried on his shoulders when she was still a child, became a
mother of three a month ago. The gratified Boris promised to visit the family
the following month and even agreed to take little Anton fishing in the nearby
lake famous for its omul fish. By the time the old friends shook hands and
parted ways, their faces already had warm and satisfied smiles on them.
A lot was on Boris’s mind when he stopped suddenly, turned
around and regarded the retreating figures of Maria and Anton for a moment
until they stopped at a kiosk. Then he shook his head, turned around, and started
walking away with a sweet expression on his face, feeding on his memory of her
as a young woman when she first joined her husband in the Russian Far East two
and a half decades ago as a construction engineer herself.
Boris was about twenty-five yards away from the entrance to
the railway station when he thought he heard someone call his name. He narrowed
his eyelids and tried to get a clearer view of the person—his eyesight was not
as good as it used to be, but he hated using his glasses. He did not need them
this time around because he recognized the caller right away as Nikolai
Yurievich Platov, his former commander during the Second World War. Walking
briskly behind the septuagenarian were his two teenage grandsons. They were
wearing green Cossack costumes with black trousers, black op-cotton hats, and high felt boots.
Boris stepped forward and embraced his friend, hugged the
boys too, and then asked them about their progress in school and life. Sergey,
the oldest boy and son of a Malian
father, was graduating from High School that academic year and planned to study
Information Technology at the State University in Novosibirsk. Andrei, his
younger brother, bore markedly Mongoloid features, especially the epicanthic fold
that he inherited from his Buryat father. He told Boris of his plan to become a
medical doctor and laughed when Boris asked him if he intended to specialize as
a butcher, meaning a surgeon. Boris waited until the brothers had stepped aside
before he turned to his friend again with a smile on his face.
“I don’t believe you intend to transit Berkakit to your
settlement without stopping to spend some time with us,” Nikolai said in a
reproachful manner.
“Time, Comrade Nikolai. I am pressed for time. The train
arrives shortly, and I must get back home in time to resolve pertinent issues
tomorrow. Take my words seriously. I will visit you next month. It is a promise
I intend to fulfill a hundred percent.”
The friends chatted for a while, laughed, joked, and even
brooded to the point where they were oblivious to the fact that the boys had
edged away and were now by the entrance to the railway station. Then something
caught Boris’s eye. Seven lads dressed in black barged out of the building,
looked at Nikolai’s grandsons, then at one another before encircling the
brothers in a military-like manner, shouting 'Russia for Russians' for no
apparent reason. Boris knew what was coming and was about to open his mouth to
say something about it when the hoodlums attacked.
“Skinkhedi!
Britogolovie! Tam oni, Nikolai Yurievich; skinkhedi, britogolovie, britogolovie, skinkhedi, skinkhedi …skinkhedi,” Boris shouted and started
running towards the attackers even before his friend knew what it was all
about.
Andrei was on the ground; Sergey was aiming blows and kicks,
oblivious to the pummeling and kicking that he was receiving from every corner
in his effort to keep his younger brother covered. Boris kept shouting britogolovie, skinkhedi during his entire run to the scene of the
fighting. He grabbed one of the hoodlums and started pounding him, not
paying attention to what Nikolai was doing. He did not let go of the young man
as the two police officers ran breathlessly to their rescue. Other men and
women joined the melee from across the street and from inside the building too,
so that they overwhelmed the skinheads in no time, to the point where the
fellows started asking for mercy even before he considered the fight over.
Boris could not tell how long the attack lasted, but he
remembered that two of the skinheads escaped and that Maria Feodorovna was by
his side, asking him if he was all right. The brothers were bruised but not
alarmingly battered. Sergey was spotting a bump on the right side of his
forehead. However, he declined any medical assistance and kept asking if his brother was all right.
“My boys are fine and strong. They are true Cossacks who just
proved that they are capable of staying on their feet during a fight,” Nikolai
growled in his raucous voice.
Boris Petrenkov’s flow of adrenaline had not fully subsided
when he heard the hissing sound of a train as it decelerated towards the
station. That, plus the arrival of more noisy townsfolk, the pleading hoodlums
and Nikolai’s angry rumblings about his Cossack roots, disheartened Boris so
much that he wished he could cry.
“This is madness, Comrade Nikolai! The skinheads speak with a
Moscow accent. What is Boris Yeltsin doing to the people of Central Russia?
Turning them against their own people just because they are slightly different
in appearance?”
“They were saying ‘Russia for Russians’! Hmm! Don’t you find
that worrisome, Comrade Boris?”
“It is not only worrisome, Comrade Nikolai! It is disturbing;
it is sad, abysmal, and retrogressive.”
“What do those half-wits know? They are the uncultured
descendants of former serfs we could not humanize during the seventy years of
the revolution. Look! See how I am built. I’m the proud offspring of Siberian
Cossacks who secured Central Asia for their czars and czarinas, and who opened
up the vast lands of Siberia, the part of the motherland that is going to save
Russia again as it did during the Great Patriotic War.”
“Believe me, Comrade Nikolai; it would never have happened in
the Soyuz Republic. Sergey and Andrei
have the qualities to lead there,” Boris said with a distant look in his eyes.
“What are you talking about?”
“I must go now. The train leaves in a few minutes. Everything
will be all right, Comrade Nikolai. The officers will get the other britogolovie. Take care now, my brother.
I promise to talk about this and other issues with you when I get back,” Boris
said haltingly, patted his friend on the shoulder, and then hurried away for
the train on the platform.
Chapter Two
Boris Kukinovich Petrenkov looked
unperturbed when he found out that the train would depart fifteen minutes later
than was originally scheduled. The expression on his face spoke of a man
grappling with worries that were beyond his control. Some of the people he
walked past greeted him with deep respect mingled with pity as if they understood the reason behind his lackluster
disposition. The only time he smiled broadly was when he helped an old babushka
onto the train. Then he too boarded it for the ride to the South, taking a seat
by the window.
A surge of exorbitant spirit gripped Boris the moment the
train hissed and jerked for the journey to the settlement of Nargonyy, located
a short distance from his station.
Boris thought it would make no difference if he died now. At
least his dream of opening up the Taiga was alive. Still, he wished he had died
a decade ago, at a time when he thought his major achievement as an engineer
would advance the lives of the people of Siberia and the Russian Far East. However,
the fact that the Soviet Union, which he had treasured all his life, never made
it to the next millennium and the republics that emerged from its demise were
in a pathetic state of decay under abysmal leadership, saddened him enormously.
He reclined in his seat and allowed his mind to reel back to
December 25, 1991, the day the last Soviet leader resigned. The memory forced a
rueful sigh out of his lips so that he
closed his eyes out of an impulse and moved his head backwards. Mikhail
Sergeyevich Gorbachev’s resignation was the last action that confirmed the demise
of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), a country his forefathers
fought to preserve in different forms for several centuries. He sighed again
and wiped dry the moisture in his eyes that the sad reminiscence was causing.
“You have failed, Boris. You have failed in your political
dreams,” he mumbled to himself.
That he had failed in his political dreams was basically
true. 1970 was the year the enthusiastic rising politician and highly skilled
civil engineer rattled some communist apparatchiks by embarking on a course to
revive the 1830s plan to construct a railway line from the northern shores of
Lake Baikal to the Pacific coast. It took him a while to convince many of his
detractors to see it as a project that would open up the northern sections of
Southern Siberia, improve transport facilities in the Eastern Region, create a
new source of raw materials and ease the pressure on the Trans-Siberian
Railway. The far-reaching union project was also intended to galvanize the
peoples of the Russian Federation, as well as the different nationalities and
republics of the Soviet Union.
Code-named BAM (Baikalo-Amurskaya Magistral---
Baikal-Amur Mainline), this
railway was to run for 3,145 kilometers to the Pacific coast and some five
hundred kilometers from the Trans-Siberian line. Boris Petrenkov’s reason for
calling for countrywide participation was simple. He expected the different peoples
of the different republics of the Soviet Union to develop a sense of solidarity
and common purpose while working together to develop the railway
infrastructure, agriculture, and industry of that area of Siberia and the
Russian Far East. He, too, had looked forward to the ripple effect of that
cooperation, envisaging the creation of a mosaic that would become the
prototype of the new Soviet man and new Soviet woman. The judicious plan to
build well-appointed towns for the different peoples along future lines meant
that the development of the vast BAM zone of 1,500,000 square kilometers had to
be done in a coordinated manner.
On the whole, it was a huge project that required an
extensive survey, the canvassing of political support, and the mobilization of
the workforce and machinery. A smile always creased Boris’s lips each time he
recalled the project's preparatory stage, especially the time that the
Secretary-General of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union designated him as
its non-titular head with a wide range of powers. He thought the launch was a
success because it took less than four years for the brilliant project to win
over a quarter of a million volunteers.
Boris stirred out of his thoughts when he heard the cheerful
call of his name, and spun around to find Taidje Khanilov, his ethnic Gilyak
friend, approaching him with a broad smile on his face.
“Comrade Boris, I’m privileged to see you again after such a
long time.”
“Come on, my friend!”
“I mean it. In this era of calamity, where constancy has
become a rare commodity, meeting someone you can open up your heart to is a
blessing. I didn’t even realize we were in the same compartment until I heard
our comrade neighbor whisper your name aloud to his friend,” Taidje said and flung
his arms wide.
“I’m glad too,” Boris mumbled, got up from his seat and took
Taidje in his arms. They hugged again and again, too choked up for words as
they tried to say something to one another.
“Hmm!” Taidje muttered moments after.
“Comrade Taidje!” Boris called as he sat back in his seat.
Taidje took the empty seat opposite his friend’s, crossed his
legs, and then smiled at him. “Yes, Comrade Boris! I can tell something was on
your mind a moment ago, something you wanted to share with me.”
“You interrupted my thoughts just now.”
“I apologize for that. Still, don’t tell me you have
forgotten the thought that occupied your mind before I disturbed its peace.”
Boris smiled and shook his head. “How can I ever forget the
Soviet Union? I was recalling the past when I first came here to lay the
foundations of this railway. Back then, our glorious Soviet Union was waxing
strong as a united superpower. Today I am riding on a railway we built,
ironically as a citizen of an independent country called the Russian
Federation. What a joke life is making out of dedicated union-nationalists or
union advocates like us,” he said with a note of rue in his voice.
Taidje rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand to stop the
hot tears of despair threatening to trickle out.
“Comrade Boris, life seems to be rewarding the
ethnic-nationalists in what was Soviet space not long ago.”
“You are right, my friend. As of now, we appear to be the
losers. I mean the civic-nationalists, or
better put, union-nationalists like us whose devotion and loyalty to the
geo-political entity we love or came to love always transcends ethnicity, race,
religion, and political belief; I mean people like us who embraced an advanced
ideal that focuses on the wellbeing of humanity. Today, we seem to be the ones
who are out of touch with reality because populists and ultra-nationalists are
the ones holding sway over our people, transforming their perceptions into
something I cannot recognize.”
“Boris Kukinovich, we shouldn’t dwell on the current state of
affairs in the former Soviet Republics. We are witnessing an era harnessed by
irrational and emotional men. Their blindness to the realities of progress,
modernity, freedom, and liberty is
bringing everything to ruin.”
“Thank you, Comrade Taidje.”
“Believe me, Comrade Boris! We should not cloud our minds
with the futile, dismal, and destructive thoughts of the works of the
feeble-minded. Our people were sick—sick of the Utopian notion of independence
that has only brought death, destitution, hatred,
and confusion.”
Boris waved his hand in the air, indicating a wish to move on
to another topic.
“How’s your beautiful Yakut wife doing?”
“Comrade Boris, she is doing fine. She is fertile.”
“What do you mean by fertile?”
“Comrade Boris, she is
a very fertile woman, just like a rabbit. She gave birth to our fourth child
last month.”
“Congratulations!” Boris applauded and nudged Taidje on the
shoulder, “Your small Gilyak population would multiply in no time if you and
other more committed men start asserting yourselves in the best way possible
and making it a point of giving this land a future,” he added with a smile.
Taidje blushed, “Thank you, Comrade Boris! I’m doing my
best.”
“I should be concerned,
though,” Boris said suddenly, shrugged, and then winked in a conspiratorial
manner, “Well, can you manage that much responsibility of raising so many kids
with the limited resources available, especially in a contemporary Russia that
has lost its way?”
“I’m trying, Comrade
Boris.”
“My point is that I’m
concerned about the uncertainties plaguing our land. In fact, there are so many
changes. The senseless and sensible things being introduced into our lives
every day dazzle me.”
Taidje laughed meekly and rubbed his hands together. “I don’t
care what direction those occupants of the Kremlin in Moscow are taking us.
Their narrow-minded judgments regarding affairs of the state and the people
mean nothing to me. Do you know something, Comrade Boris?”
“Not your mind, Comrade Taidje! It changes all the time like
a chameleon changes its color.”
“All I am trying to say is that those novices in the Kremlin
harangue about a free market and capitalism, thinking that committed socialists
stand to suffer if they destroy everything associated with the old system. But
they are wrong in their intentions. Our socialist solidarity was out of
strength and not out of weakness. We did not fail because we were lazy and
short of innovative ideas. We lost our way because we allowed uncommitted
people and saboteurs into our midst. Our inclusive path allowed them to
denigrate our ranks and defeat our purposes and our efforts.”
“But they won in the end. The Soviet Union is no more,” Boris
said with a shrug.
“Ach, Comrade Boris! Don't you see what they are doing today?
They are defying reality by imposing an alien system on us. They are doing so
assuming that committed socialists would be forced to crawl and live off their
handouts and soup kitchens. I desire to show them how dynamic a socialist can
be in a laissez-faire system. Mark my words, Comrade Boris! I will show them
how a socialist can prosper without becoming a thief in the name of
capitalism,” Taidje said scornfully.
Boris chortled. “I like your spirit, Comrade Taidje! You are
the fighting type; you are a survivor, my dear friend. Believe it or not, our
last Secretary-General leader has started voicing your thoughts, even though he
does so using words familiar to his ears.
Yes, Comrade Taidje! Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev plans to create his
foundation.”
“Forget about
Gorbachev,” Taidje said in a voice laced with exasperation, “See how detached
those renegades he allowed to power are, as they go about ruining this country.
Their uncompromising policies in managing state affairs bring out only chaos
and disillusionment everywhere, dragging most of our people deeper into
poverty. For the sake of humanity, they are too irrational.”
Boris regarded his friend for a moment with pathetic eyes.
Just then, a strange feeling overwhelmed him to the point where he started
shaking his head and drumming his fingers on the arm of his seat without
meaning to.
“Comrade Taidje, there is confusion everywhere in the lands
that emerged from our great Soviet Union. Neighbors fight neighbors over
irrational anxieties that reflect the worst of our animal instincts. I’m
talking about greed and hatred here. People who for ages were living peacefully
together are now at each other’s throats. Demagogues are the rising stars of
the day. Former Soviet citizens who never wavered in their dedication to the
motherland now find themselves deprived of rights to the lands that they were
born in or call home. New confusions are arising every day, yet there are no
remedies in sight.”
Taidje regarded Boris quizzically for a moment, shook his
head, and then sighed. “Comrade Boris must have been in the dark while in his
log house in the mountains.”
“What do you mean? How was I in the dark?”
“I am talking about the meeting in Turkmenistan.”
“What meeting in Turkmenistan?”
“It is obvious you have no idea about the talks they are
having in Ashgabat, the capital.”
“Who is having a meeting and talks in Ashgabat?”
“Our people, Comrade Boris!”
“Are the Americans trying to win Niyazov over to their side?”
“That is not the case, Comrade Boris!” Taidje said with a
laugh, “The Turkmen president is too unpredictable. No Western leader can
afford to embrace him and expect to go about business as usual. A man must turn
around and look behind him all the time whenever he is dealing with Niyazov.”
“What is the meeting about?”
“I can’t say for sure, Comrade Boris. But reports from our
different media all point to the fact that the leaders of the spoils of the
Soviet Union are having a week of talks down there to strengthen the loose
confederation that they created to replace the Soviet Union. They plan to give
the central body more powers. Ach, Comrade Boris, didn’t they destroy the
Soviet Union?”
Boris laughed lightly and then
slapped his thigh as if smacking a fly. “It is so obvious?”
“What is so obvious?”
“Those knuckleheads who consider themselves the heads of
state of the republics that emerged from the Soviet Union they destroyed are
beginning to accept the fallacy of their judgment in tearing down what was a
great country. They knocked down a great superpower and created a lame-duck
called the Commonwealth of Independent States from its ruins. Yes, Comrade
Taidje! But what good did they do to the people or even to the new republics?”
“Nothing!” offered Taidje.
“Nothing good came out of their twisted decision to destroy
our great Soviet Union, even though it was flawed! Yes, Comrade Taidje! All the
republics lost from the fallout of the Soviet Union, and today, even Russia
stands out in history as a country undergoing peacetime demodernization. We are
losing our status as a technological and manufacturing power because we have allowed
buffoons to lead us. Yes, Comrade Taidje! Russia is deindustrializing at a rate
that risks making this land a banana republic that does not grow bananas at all
because of its frigid winter. Those buffoons are yet to get over their
nationalistic sentiments. Don’t you see? If they could not dwell on the common
purpose that the peoples of the Soviet Union shared at the time, then what makes
you think they can do so now?”
“Hmm! Comrade Boris is on to a touchy issue here! Who knows
what they intend to do?”
“What are the pinheads doing anyway?”
“You tell me.”
“You are likely to agree with me that they are drinking and
getting drunk with rhetoric over the creation of a dysfunctional Commonwealth
of Independent States when you, I and the
rest of the world know the depth of their selfishness, cluelessness and ego.”
“You are right, Comrade Boris. They deserve lengthy sentences
in a madhouse. Something else, Comrade Boris! They would be surprised to find
that I have been commissioned to be the guard there, responsible for beating
some sense into their heads.”
“I guess you would perform your duties with more relish than
the porter in Chekhov’s story Ward No.6.”
“Oh, you mean Nikita! Oh, yes! But at least, I would be doing
justice to a society that has been dismally abused by those fellows,” Taidje
said and nodded, “Ach, Comrade Boris,” he added and looked at Boris with the
expression of someone with a funny thought on his mind.
“What now? What is the explanation for your mischievous
smile?” Boris asked, dimming an eye at his friend.
“I was thinking. Your
position isn’t different from that of the doctor in the story. I mean the
doctor in "Ward No.6". He discerned it all; he saw the senselessness
of the path that the authorities were pursuing; he figured out the things that
needed to be done and found sense in talking to a brilliant mind that society
had rejected. In the end, the so-called blazers of society judged him and
concluded that he deserved to be in a madhouse. Why did he have to suffer such
a fate? I guess his only crime was the fact that he viewed life differently.
Also, he had an approach that was different from the way the others looked at
problems, others who go about resolving these problems in a listless manner.”
“You might have a point there, my friend.”
“I have been told the New Russians think you are soft in the
head for refusing to participate in their scheme to grab state assets.”
“I’m not a thief.”
“They do not consider themselves thieves either.”
“What are they, then?”
“They view themselves as partners in Russia’s wealth-creating
drive.”
“Baloney!”
“You and I think so, but a good number of people do not look
at things the way we do.”
“They are involved in wealth confiscation. That’s what they
are doing. They are confiscating the country’s cash cows instead of creating
new wealth or salvaging the failing enterprises.”
“As a matter of fact, they regard you in another light
altogether—they regard you as an obstacle in their plans to control things in
this region.”
“What plans do they have when they don’t understand how the
world works, when they have no idea of the hidden puppet masters? What would
they do after fleecing this region of its resources without creating
sustainable ventures for its people? Abandon us here and live an affluent life
in Moscow, Kiev, or Saint Petersburg?”
“I don’t think so, Comrade Boris. They are likely to head to
Los Angeles, New York, London, Paris, Barcelona, Amsterdam, Athens, Venice, Lisbon,
Miami, Tel-Aviv, Dubai, Hong Kong, Sydney, Melbourne, Nassau, Nicosia or even
Baku. Isn’t capital flight a curse of our days?”
“Ach, Ach, Ach…ach!”
Boris exclaimed, “Those at the helm of power in the republics are failures and
superfluous men. Comrade Taidje, the presidents of the new republics have
facilitated the emergence of a new breed of businessmen. These thieves in
businessmen’s clothing are the further ruin of our lands.”
“Superfluous men they are. I strongly agree with you on
that.”
“You may wonder why Boris Yeltsin and his gang in the other
Republics are engaging in futile talks now. I see it as a belated move to
correct their errors. Don’t you see it too? They are so shortsighted. They are
even incapable of understanding the simple truth, which points to the fact that
their current actions are errors in themselves.”
The friends dwelled further on the situation in the lands of
the former Soviet Union, and then went on to talk about their families, life and its uncertainties, and the mysterious
nature of the world. They also discussed affairs in other lands— talked
admiringly about the welfare system in the Scandinavian countries that they
viewed as a model for other peoples, states, and nations to emulate, and then pondered
their thoughts aloud about the greatly altered world politics following the
demise of the Soviet Union.
“Comrade Boris would
be surprised to learn that I left our outstanding Soyuzgrad for Chumikan,”
Taidje said suddenly.
Boris sighed and looked at his watch. An hour had already passed
since they left the Berkakit station. “Chumikan, Chumikan, Chumikan,” he
muttered finally. “I suppose it is in your homeland.”
Taidje nodded, averting Boris’s quizzical eyes. “It is the
fear, my dear comrade. It is difficult to be certain these days. It is safer to
be at home.”
“But we created a new home in Soyuzgrad, an abode of serenity
that is not discriminatory at all. Yes, Comrade Taidje, we have not experienced
any incident of discrimination in Soyuzgrad.”
Taidje nodded in agreement. “What about the attack on Comrade
Platov’s grandchildren you just told me about? Racist attacks like that one can
spread to every corner of the lands of the former Soviet Union.”
“Hmm, my friend!”
“You might not agree with me on this.”
“On what?”
“All I am trying to say is that it is sometimes important for
a man to know who he is, where he is coming from and be attached to his
ancestral land without being an exclusionist, without being an
ethnic-nationalist or simply a nationalist, as people prefer to call it
nowadays? Home is the last resort of refuge.”
Boris nodded too, not in acknowledgment of Taidje’s words,
but in the somber realization of the deep
mistrust gripping the minds of the nationalities of the once-envied Soviet
Union. “Perhaps you are right after all,” he said with a sigh.
“It’s a harsh reality we must not cringe from.”
Boris chortled. “It is so amusing. Where does a man like me
run to? To anywhere, yet nowhere! I have portions of my blood from at least
eight of our republics from the former Soviet Union, yet I have no retreat
where I shall be fully and happily accepted, except here in Southern Siberia.”
“Then stay here with us,” Taidje cried.
“Do you think I can find happiness living my last days in one
place, knowing that I’m doing so because I’m constrained?”
“Not when you love it here.”
“Please understand! Anybody can make a limited choice and be
contented with it. But that’s not all about it, my friend. We attain true
contentment only when we choose from our hearts the limitless options that life
presents us with.”
“You sometimes prove to be difficult, Comrade Boris.”
“Don’t force me to defend myself. Hmm! Perhaps you are right
in a way. Perhaps I make a conscious effort not to judge matters through
prejudiced eyes. Think of the great number of union-nationalists who came to
Siberia to make it the home of their hearts. Take it as my honest truth: it
wasn’t just Boris Petrenkov alone. Thousands of our citizens also stood firmly
behind the creation of Soyuzgrad, a union city by conviction, because it
embodies the best of the souls of Soviet Union-nationalists. I even envisioned
the creation of several such settlements throughout the lands of our people.
Believe me, Comrade Taidje! Had it come to fruition and had I breathed the air
of at least five of such settlements, then taking a ride now to the abode of
the dead would be a joyful thing to do.”
Taidje nodded. “Please don’t think even for a second that I’m
irrational,” he implored, “Actually, I left Soyuzgrad because of this
threatening problem. My wife had a Yakut childhood admirer who is very quick
with the knife. He was in Turkmenistan when we married. Comrade Boris, he
returned three months ago and threatened to obliterate my family. I must see to
it that my wife and my children stay alive.”
“Huh!” Boris grunted, looking thoughtful for a moment. “Does
Masha really love him?” he asked, scratching his head.
Taidje shrugged and then shook his head as if willing himself
to say something deep. “Nobody knows the real truth anymore. Certainty has
become a rare and expensive commodity in the lands of the former Soviet Union.
The most I can say for now is that her admirer is a demagogue who would not
spare a word that would assist him in satisfying his irrational desires. He is
even beginning to stir Yakut sentiments on independence.”
“I have never heard of him,” Boris stuttered.
“You have never heard of him! That shouldn’t be you, Comrade
Boris.”
“I’m speaking the truth.”
“I believe you. You know nothing about the fellow because you
deliberately stayed away from civilization, or life the way we know it today.”
“You missed a point, my dear friend. I took myself away from
your so-called civilization because I was trying to avoid the greed virus. I
don’t want to be infected by it. Your so-called civilization is a world that has fallen apart.”
“I don’t care what you say about this, Comrade Boris! Hmm!
You know deep in your heart that I’m on your side. All I am trying to say is
that we need to adjust, we need to make accommodations for the unfolding
reality. We need to find a niche.”
“Comrade Taidje, I suppose you still remember the reason why
I prefer to call our settlement Soyuzgrad instead of the name it bears on the
maps.”
Taidje thought about it for a moment before he brightened up
and answered to his friend’s joy. “It is because of its heterogeneity. Our
beautiful settlement had most, if not all, of the diverse peoples of the Soviet
Union in it.”
Boris nodded. “Perhaps it was a dream. Still, I dreamed it
with my eyes open. I thought it would be a step forward in my far-reaching
ambition to create a sort of BAM America in the region. I thought at the time
that Soyuzgrad would one day emerge as the capital of the multi-ethnic region.”
“Pizdyets! Your vision was far-reaching. I
never thought of your plans as something more than a settlement of the Russian
Far East,” Taidje intoned.
“Adstoy! It was
even far more than you think. My hope was to see the BAM region mature into a
union republic, one where the different peoples of the Soviet Union could move
into and call home without blinking an eye. Back then, I also thought a time
would come when we would create similar republics along republican frontiers
throughout the Soviet Union.”
“That’s what I meant. Your plan was mind-boggling.”
“That was my vision—a vision to create a new Soviet people to
be called the Union-Muzhiks.”
“The scope of your vision is certainly breathtaking. You must
have canvassed political support from numerous camps,” Taidje said with a
bewildered expression on his face.
Boris smiled dolefully and clenched a fist. “The last comrade
who presided over Kremlin affairs endorsed one of the plans before the
uncertainties of the late 1980s, the August coup and finally the demise of our
great country killed the plan.”
“That man was a flop. Mikhail Gorbachev could not stop the
disintegration of the Soviet Union, even though he had the full powers and the
means to prevent it from happening. I feel oppressed each time I reflect on his
last days in power, scarcely believing that he failed to stop the leaders of
Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine from signing
the Soviet Union’s death warrant over bottles of vodka in Belavezha, and then waking
up the next morning unconscious of their actions,” Taidje said with bitterness.
“Please don’t blame him,” Boris countered with a sad note in
his voice, “He was the rare type, one of those leaders that are too advanced
for their age.”
“He was a flop, short and simple.”
“Think of him as someone who became a leader half a century
too early, at a time when the mentality of our people had not fully evolved.
Yes, Comrade Taidje! He is in the class of leaders who perform miracles when
leading rational minds. Not the type of people like us, my dear friend. Our
people are either too angry or they are too happy. You and I know that emotions
like those overwhelm reasoning.”
“You are recalling,” Taidje said.
Boris smiled ruefully and clasped his hands. “Why shouldn’t I
recall?”
“Ach, ach, ach! Comrade Boris knows deep in his heart that it
is not good to dwell on the past.”
“Ach, Comrade Taidje! It is obvious you won’t agree with me
on this one. Even so, I will go ahead and express myself. It is sometimes good
to dwell on the past, especially when the present is so depressing, and the
future holds little or no certainty. The memory of past joys and achievements
gives us the outlines of the path to a state of happiness. That memory is a
treasure that can never be taken away from us. At least we know where we were,
what we have lost, what we miss, what we want and what more we need to add to
our experiences.”
“I disagree.”
“Why?”
“Not on everything,
though. I beg to differ with you only on the subject of Mikhail Sergeyevich.”
“Why?”
“He is a flop!” Taidje cried.
“I pity Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev in many ways and make
the effort to comprehend his sorrows and regrets. Let me say this before you
make your point.”
“Go ahead!”
“Mikhail Sergeyevich would be remembered in history as the
man who did the most to kill authoritarianism in the world and allowed mankind
to dwell more on humanism than on ideologies for the first time in our long and
turbulent history. However, the world will also remember him as the leader
whose noble intentions, advanced ideas, progressive direction, and liberalizing rule brought about the demise of his
country.”
“He is a whim,” Taidje said with a note of disgust in his
voice.
An enigmatic smile spread across Boris’s face as he sat
back in his seat. “It is people like you who make us pity him even more. What
else was he supposed to do? The Constitution gave the Union republics the right
to secede. Even our revered Comrade Lenin wasn’t altogether against the idea.”
“Please don't go there. Comrade Lenin is far ahead of him and
others as a once-in-a-lifetime hero, a once-in-a-century pioneer or even a
once-in-a-millennium trailblazer.”
“Why shouldn’t I bring Comrade Lenin into this?” Boris asked.
“Comrade Lenin had great intentions. His actions were
calculated responses to the challenges he was facing at the time. He was for
humanity, but he was equally humane. He made mistakes that he admitted to as errors in his quest for good judgments
during life and death moments in the history of our people. His time was different, if not peculiar. And he
acted out of the exigencies of the time.”
“Comrade Lenin was humane, that’s for sure. Comrade Mikhail
Sergeyevich Gorbachev is like him in so many ways. Believe me, Comrade Taidje!
Comrade Lenin advocated for Finnish independence years before the revolution,
and today he is respected in Finland because of that. He was even against
Stalin’s brutality in bringing Georgia under full Soviet control.”
“But he was strong and wise enough to determine when the
general interest of the majority superseded the whims of egomaniacal
nationalists.”
“I know, I know,” Boris agonized, and then emitted a sigh.
“To be candid with you, not even a single republic tried to
secede from the Soviet Union while Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev’s predecessors
presided over affairs in the Kremlin.”
“Ach! Comrade Taidje, Comrade Taidje, Comrade Taidje!” Boris
muttered, thoughtfully shaking his head, “That was because past Soviet leaders
were intolerant of dissension. They dealt harshly with any form of disruptive
nationalism. What they had at their disposal that did the job of cowing
potential agitators into compliance were their big sticks and not their
persuasive tongues and noble intentions.”
“That’s how Mikhail Sergeyevich should have ruled,” Taidje
cried.
“You make me sad.”
“Please bear with me on this one. Most of our people do not
doubt the goodness of that man’s heart. But truth be told, he lacked a certain
force as a leader. Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev lacked the resolve to use a
stick after failing with words.”
Boris shook his head in disapproval. “He is one of those rare
and gifted men with the great ability to draw from reality. Using a stick over
legitimate, though irrational claims
would have only aggravated the tense situation in the Soviet Union at the
time.”
“He was afraid of using the stick, that’s all!” Taidje cried
again.
“What if he had sent in the tanks to crush the spoilers,
those who were trying to tear the Soviet Union apart? You have no idea of what
the outcome would have been. Think of the disaster that befell the former
Yugoslavia after its disintegration, and then multiply it by fifteen.”
“That’s a baseless assumption,” Taidje groaned.
Boris heaved out in exasperation
and then hit the arm of his seat. “Your judgment of him!” he muttered,
shaking his head, “You are so wrong, Comrade Taidje! Mikhail Sergeyevich
Gorbachev was an exceptional man. He talked so cleverly and proposed such good
ideas that the majority of our people, who are simple-minded folks with
irrational desires, could not discern his good intentions. He initiated his
reforms to bring out the best of the Soviet system, correct the errors and
introduce new values that would have advanced humanism and enhanced our
welfare.”
“He brought about chaos and nothing else, all because he was
incapable of controlling the pace of his reforms.”
“Ach, Comrade Taidje! We had chaos because we misinterpreted
his intentions. Maybe his reforms were not clearly spelt out. Perhaps he
allowed the worst to happen for the truth to reveal itself. Whatever the case,
our people could not make the best out of his reforms. They thwarted his
progressive plans in their efforts to cripple him, in their hatred and resolve
to weaken the Soviet Union that millions of our compatriots fought and died
for.”
“You can’t rule our people without using an iron fist.
Catherine the Great or Czar Paul must have used those words. Even Ivan the
Terrible began as a reformer, only to become an autocrat later in life out of
necessity. We are a people driven by an urge to test the limits. Yes, Comrade
Boris, we are extremists in our emotions. Such people cannot be led by soft men
who may even be soft in the head.”
“That’s exactly the line that
the conservatives used in their bid to cling to power by taking advantage of
the ideology they derailed. Yes, Comrade Taidje; they gave Communism a bad name
by adhering to the methods of the days of Stalin,” Boris said with a nod.
“Please, Comrade Boris. Don’t feel insulted if I tell you
that you are allowing yourself to be gripped by anxiety. You are losing your
composure,” Taidje said with a note of concern in his voice.
“Ach, I blame them,” Boris growled, threw his hands up in the
air in a dejected manner, and then muttered a deep sigh, “Yes, I blame those
conservatives, the Stalinists and the dumb-witted. I blame the stupid
republican leaders. I also blame our people, who in their moments of feebleness
betrayed the Soviet Union by allowing themselves to be carried away by their
nationalistic sentiments. I also blame people like you who give victory to the
narrow-minded nationalists by not being steadfast in your love for the lands
you free-heartedly called home back in the day of the Soviet Union.”
“You misunderstood me, Comrade Boris. You are wrong again, my
dear friend,” Taidje cried, “I never stopped sharing your union-nationalist
ideals. I’m a committed socialist in the deepest sense of the word. I’m not a
prostitute in my ideas like those conservatives in black and gray suits. You
know the depth of my heart; you know how flexible I am when it comes to
applying the ideas of Marx and Lenin. I always factor in the changing times. I
know the ideas of those geniuses are the only hope for the cheated, the
discriminated, the oppressed and suppressed people of his world. Comrade Boris,
don’t you think it is time to come to terms with present-day realities and
accept the fact that our past leaders betrayed the noble ideas of Marx, Engels, and Lenin?”
“You have a point there.”
“I know I do. Am I expecting too much by asking for realism
in whatever judgments we make?”
“Realism, pragmatism,
free will, et cetera, et cetera. Ach, my dear friend! People use those words
all the time as if we shall become better human beings at the mere mention of
them.”
“Comrade Boris, most of our people crave liberal socialism
because it is in our true traditions and our culture to care for one another.
We are concerned about our neighbors and consider the times we enjoy with other
people as our best moments in life,” Taidje stuttered as he tried to put more
sense into his words.
“Go ahead. I’m listening,” Boris offered.
“Now, wouldn’t you agree with me that we are instinctively a
communalist people?” Taidje cried with more earnestness in his voice.
“Ach, you mean liberal socialism, which never got
implemented. That should be reformed communism as we all know it today.”
Taidje nodded and closed his eyes. “It is sad. It is sad. It
truly is sad, Comrade Boris,” he said in a resigned tone.
“Everything around us is sad,” Boris said with a sigh.
“Perhaps things wouldn’t have become so bad had people like
us with genuine intentions, with concern for others and with realistic views
asserted ourselves and imposed our will for the sake of the Soviet people.”
“You are almost beginning to sound self-righteous, my dear
friend.”
“Hmm, Comrade Boris!”
“Don’t dwell on the failures of the past, and don’t allow
yourself to live on your regrets.”
“No, no, Comrade Boris! I am trying to judge from it, that is
all. I’m trying to revive hope and expose the hidden light. Perhaps a time will
come when our people shall realize their errors, and then decide to come
together again. After all, the different nationalities of the former Soviet
Union share more in common than with others beyond our borders.”
“You mean others who care little about our interests, others
who now consider our current plight as evidence that they defeated us in the Cold
War?”
Taidje nodded. “They
don’t trust us. In fact, they don’t want us in their midst. And why should we
trust them while they snub us, even though we are on our knees, begging them to
become our friends?”
“Foreigners or people from the Far Abroad think former Soviet
citizens have little to offer the world other than raw materials, women, and crime.”
“You know that is not true! Comrade Boris, our scientists are
contributing enormously to the technological advancements we see in the West
today. Israel is leaping forward because our Jews are leading their
technological inventions,” Taidje quivered.
“You are right. But we lack people who can sell those points
to the rest of the world.”
“Leaders, you mean!”
“Comrade Taidje, our people have been hijacked by demagogues
who claim to be leaders. The buffoons I am talking about are making irrational moves
to consolidate independence, dwelling on rhetoric that stresses the differences
among our diverse nationalities. They are failing to build on our mutual
compatibilities and our shared history and interests.”
Taidje nodded dolefully and closed his eyes. “Comrade Boris,
I’m still trying to hope.”
Boris cleared his throat. “What are you saying, Comrade
Taidje? Are you hoping that the disintegration virus that gripped the different
nationalities of the former Soviet Union will be cured soon?”
Taidje nodded. “You can tell me. You have traveled far and
wide. You have met most, if not all, of the different peoples that resided in
the lands that were within the borders of the Soviet Union.”
Boris shrugged and then muttered
a sigh. “I was always a maverick. My party comrades even called me a utopist
behind my back. The truth is that none of them had the temerity to say it in my
face because they dreaded my fist.”
“I remember people talking about your memorable days as an
amateur boxer.”
“Yes, Comrade Taidje; I could make use of my fist back in the
day,” Boris said with a smile and a proud nod.
“Are you reminiscing?”
“I don’t know what you mean. But I know for a fact that I
have some memorable technical knockouts in my record. I even flirted for a
while with the idea of becoming a professional boxer, that is, until Hitler
invaded the Soviet Union, and I was forced to put that thought to rest as the
entire country mobilized to stop him.”
Taidje nodded again to show that he understood. “Still, I
need your view on that,” he said.
“You can’t mean it.
What is there for you to learn from my opinions, being the maverick some people
thought I was?”
“A maverick, they called you! That was because you defied
their negative intentions, which they tried to justify by clinging to the laws
of Marxism-Leninism, laws they had perverted for their selfish and egoistic
ends. You had an outstanding mind of your own, Comrade Boris. That is why you
distinguished yourself from the heartless conservatives and party apparatchiks
who discredited the noble ideas of Marx, Engels,
and Lenin. Every single muzhik respected your mind back in the day when
Soyuzgrad held so much promise.”
Boris sighed and closed his eyes. “Ach, you bring me back to
those beautiful times. Well, you can see the way I’m built. Genealogists will
call me a mongrel. Hmm! That doesn’t mean a thing to me. I’m proud to say that
the Boris Petrenkov sitting in front of you this very moment has several
nationalities in him.”
“Count that aspect of your genetic makeup as a plus.”
“A plus, you said. In other words, I can speak from within
the deep reserve of their feelings.”
“Say something then, Comrade Boris,” Taidje urged with a
broad smile on his face.
Boris rubbed his brows, sighed, and then shook his head. “You
want to know if our different peoples can forge their destinies together again.
Well, those nationalities that stretch across Republican frontiers are the
bonds that can be strengthened to reincarnate our union. These frontier muzhiks
need to do something to compel their obstinate governments to budge in their
divisive policies. They would have to force their governments to start engaging
their brotherly neighbors in a practical manner that recognizes their shared
history, culture, language, and their intertwined economies.”
“You sound very hopeful, especially since you and I know that
the presidents of the republics are destroying the things that our different ethnicities
and nationalities shared in common during the times of the Soviet Union, as if
the West will come in and fill the vacuum with new factories and
infrastructure. Hmm, Comrade Boris! I might be wrong about this, but I think
the West only needs us as a source of raw materials and a market for their
goods.”
“Don’t blame the West all the time as if we are innocent
victims, as if we don’t have a hand in all the ills plaguing our lands. Look,
Comrade Taidje! In life, there is a tendency among friends and even among
brothers to strive to have an edge over one another. So, why don’t you expect
something like that to be the case in a situation involving former enemies or
opponents? That is what competition is all about. Please, let’s stop blaming
others when we are responsible for failing to defend our interests.”
“You have a point there, Comrade Boris.”
“Now, let’s talk about ways of picking up the pieces of the
fallout of the Soviet Union so that we
can recover and catch up with the rest of the world in the race to make this
world a better place for man.”
“Tell me, Comrade Boris.”
“Let’s begin with the nationalities of the Russian Federation
still suffering from Boris Yeltsin’s manipulation. The citizens of Russia
became disgruntled because they were made to believe that they were bearing the
brunt of the sacrifice in maintaining the Soviet Union, which is one of the
many reasons why many of them resented the control of the Soviet central
government. Comrade Taidje, Russian citizens have come a long way. They have
come to realize the important role the Soviet Union played for the Russian
people. There are about thirty million people residing in the other former
Soviet republics who trace their ethnic origins to the Russian Federation. That
is the equivalent of about twenty percent of the population of the Russian
Federation. Russia has a lot to gain from forging closer relations with its
sisterly and brotherly republics, especially if Russia intends to guarantee the
interests of its population living as a minority in the other republics.”
“The Near Abroad, you mean?”
“Why not call it ‘The Other Motherland’. Believe me, some
Russians feel a lot more at home in the other republics than in the Russian
Federation. Take the case of Andrei Abramovich Yeremenko―”
Boris did not complete his analysis of the situation because
just then, the train hissed as it slowed down to a stop at the Nargonyy
station.
“Why did the train move so fast?” Taidje asked in a barely
audible tone, muffled by the sound of the whistling train.
“Comrade Taidje, my dear friend! We must see each other again
and talk our problems over as compatriots,” Boris offered with a note of
desperation in his voice.
A wave of emotion swept over Taidje, and he nodded effusively
without being conscious of it. Then he stood up and embraced his friend. “Tell
me, Comrade Boris, how many of us are still left?”
“You tell me! That is
a question I’m incapable of answering, for now.”
“Ach, Comrade Boris!
The fact that we must separate so soon depresses me deeply. Believe me, the
only time I found solace talking about the demise of our Soviet Union was
during our wise discourse today. You made me see hope on the horizon. Your
great ability to help people reason in a positive manner is an asset we need.
Yes, Comrade Boris, you epitomize the worthiness of the Soviet Union.”
“We shall see again,” Boris promised.
“Of course, we shall spend time together in the future. As a
friend and comrade, I can give myself the pleasure of bearing my heart to you.
I will do so because I know you won’t think I’m soft in the head.”
“You make me laugh, Comrade Taidje.”
“I’m about to leave you with an uncomfortable feeling that
you think I am a renegade. I’m even haunted by a greater fear that you might
one day call me a traitor to the real ideals we shared during the heyday of
Soyuzgrad.”
“Why?” Boris mumbled.
“I’m baring my heart, Comrade Boris. That is all! At one
point in our conversation, I thought about Stepan Bandera and wondered how
different I could be from him,” Taidje said with wistful eyes and a tilted
head.
Boris held Taidje’s shoulder and looked him straight in the
eye in a reassuring manner. “I understand why you had to move. We are sometimes
permitted to do things that are against our convictions for the sake of serving
a greater good. In your case, that greater good was your family. You may have
taken your only option,” he nudged Taidje on the chest, smiled, and then rested
his left hand on his shoulder again.
Taidje shook his friend’s hand forcefully, looking elated
beyond words. “I’m glad Comrade Boris understands me,” he stuttered, “I must
see you again. I suppose you are heading to Soyuzgrad?”
Boris nodded and lowered his head as he tried to shake off
the pathetic look on his face, all the while avoiding Taidje’s concerned eyes.
“Soyuzgrad is my dream, my heart, and my
most cherished sweat. Where else must I go? Maybe to…No, no, and no! It may
never be realized,” he said in a rueful voice and dropped his hand from
Taidje’s shoulder.
“Then expect me as your guest next Friday.”
Boris smiled. “You are a good friend. You are more like a
brother,”
Taidje laughed, looking abashed all of a sudden, as he
searched for the right words to convey his feelings to his friend. At length,
he smiled and looked Boris straight in the eye. “You are everything, Comrade
Boris—my father, brother, friend, and compatriot. You could even be a deity for
us.”
“That is a blasphemy even in Shamanism,” Boris warned and
laughed.
“Comrade Boris!” Taidje called, looking surprised.
Boris nodded with a smile. Then he patted Taidje on the back
and picked up his bag. “I must go now. Until we see again!” he said and hurried
out of the train, “Do svidaniye!” he said one more time before he
stepped off the train..
Boris arrived in Soyuzgrad and strode
home heavily clad. He was seen by a few and wasn’t recognized by anyone that
night. However, a quarter of an hour later, a curious settler saw the light in his sitting room and decided to
satisfy his curiosity by peeping through his front window. The smiling settler
knocked and entered to find the expectant Boris up on his feet to welcome him.
Ivan Mekhanov, an ethnic Uighur from Kirghizstan, was elated
in his gesticulations and effusive in his handshakes as he greeted Boris and
patted him on the arm. Then he bombarded Boris with petty questions during the
six minutes that they spent inside his home. At length, he hurried out of the
house and started spreading news around the settlement of Boris Petrenkov’s
return.
Boris started receiving the settlers of Soyuzgrad less than
half an hour after Ivan Mekhanov left his home. The men, women, and some children kept streaming in to
welcome the founder of their settlement as if he were expected to make their
evening a festive one. He exhibited genuine warmth as he received them. Even
so, he sensed the general air of malaise in the demeanor of some of the staunch
union-nationalists and was sympathetic to the scores who voiced worries and
concerns about the deteriorating state of affairs in the land.
Boris’s front door stayed open for his friends until close to
midnight. In, they flocked: The Slavs—Slovaks, Sorbs, Czechs, Poles, Bulgars,
Serbs, Ukrainians (little Russians), Great Russians and Byelorussians (White
Russians); the Turkic peoples—Gagauzs from Moldavia, Meshkets from Georgia,
Adzarians, Azeris, Chuvashes, Turkmen, Kyrgyzes, Uzbeks, Karakalpaks, Yakuts,
Kazakhs, Kumyks, Uighurs, Tatars, Bashkirs, Tuvans, Karachays and Balkars. Also
present were some of the little peoples of the North—the resilient Turanian
nationalities of which he was so protective. Boris also accepted greetings from
Georgians, Armenians, Abkhazians, Chechens, Balkars, Ossetes, Karbadinians,
Ingushetians, Cherkesses, some of the numerous minorities of Dagestan, and from
several other nationalities from the Caucasus. He was a lot more emotional when
he received the Baltic guests—the Latvians, Estonians,
and Lithuanians—peoples whose nations were proving to be uncompromising in
their fierce nationalism. He deeply acknowledged the warm words and show of
emotion from the few Jews, Germans, Greeks, Magyars, Gypsies, Kurds, Serbs, Bulgars, and Koreans—all nationalities without
homelands in the Soviet Union that they had cherished.
The last man left Boris Petrenkov’s home in high spirits
early that morning, also convinced that the time was well spent. Boris saw the
guest off as far as the road and then returned to the sitting room, looking
relieved. A sigh escaped his lips as he settled comfortably again in his divan.
He went on to listen to music on the television for a while, but realized shortly afterwards that it
could not elevate his spirits. So, he mixed himself a glass of milk, ferreted
out an old Estonian newspaper from his pile of journals in the fir cupboard,
and then returned to the divan. He must have been relaxing there for an hour or
more when the cry of an owl outside jolted him. He sat up, held his breath, and
listened for a while. Then it crossed his mind that he had not bolted the door.
He rose to his feet and was about to secure it when he thought he heard
approaching footsteps outside. He stopped for a moment and strained his ears
for the sound. Yes, somebody was outside. A male voice called his name and then knocked. Boris’s mood turned
anticipatory as he opened the entryway wide and welcomed the visitor in.
“Old Comrade Anton is here! I hope you don’t plan to take
away the venison soup your wife brought for my sticky tongue,” Boris said as
they approached the sitting room together.
Anton chuckled. “Old Comrade Boris is still his humorous
self. I was wondering why she decided to purvey the best dish I have known her to
prepare since we married. You see, I was wondering why she had to do it only
today. It is as if she knew you were coming. And since I couldn’t imagine
myself going to bed without having enough of it, I decided to come here and deprive
you of your rightful share.”
Boris laughed too, looking bemused as he thought of a good
reply. “What do you expect me to say? You see, I knew you were coming, so I got
rid of the soup by storing every bit of it in my reserve tank,” he said and
patted his belly.
Anton guffawed. “That clears my worries about the dream I had
last night. It featured butchers who did a great job of replacing your guts
with those of a camel.”
“Did you say, butcher?”
“Yes, Comrade Boris. That’s how I refer to surgeons these
days, especially those who act upon their first impulse to operate. My son is
studying to become a butcher too, you know.”
Boris nodded. “He told me of your little fight a year ago.
You wanted him to become a Urologist.”
“The boy frightened me.”
“Frightened you?”
“Don’t look at me like that. I complained about a little pain
in my groin, and your Sakharov suggested right away that they put me under the
blade.”
“He was right, wasn’t he? He nudged you to have the surgery
that nipped the cancer buds off your prostate. And you had the surgery done in
time for that matter. Thank God he insisted.”
“Hmm! Comrade Boris, Comrade Boris, Comrade Boris! That’s why
I gave the young fellow my blessings to pursue his dream of becoming a surgeon.
He is good, like a true butcher,” Anton said, paused, and then added, “Why am I
here?”
“You tell me,” Boris growled and laughed, shaking his head as
he did so.
“Truly, Comrade Boris, I came here to convince myself that
you are back and safe from the harshness of Yakutia. I read in the papers the
other day that a snow leopard went berserk in your area. It devoured an old man
and a boy of eleven.”
“That was near my village,” Boris said somberly, “It was a
bad time those days that it roved free and wild. You can’t imagine our relief
when we finally trapped it in a cave in the mountains and then took away its
life. Ach, Comrade Anton, what an appalling experience we all went through
during those grim days that the leopard reigned and terrified the
feeble-nerved.”
“You are right because almost everything is appalling,
appalling, appalling! Everywhere you go in the lands of what was the great
Soviet Union, almost everything is falling apart. Winter is near, but we have
yet to determine if the supply of food will be enough. Our Gilyak kindred have been living with our Yakut friends and us
for centuries, but there’s growing animosity today between our peoples. Tell
me, Comrade Boris, what is becoming of our sense of humanity?”
Boris sighed. “We are sick. All of us are sick. We are all
sick,” he muttered, shaking his head.
The friends went on to talk about the good old days when the
central and eastern regions of the Soviet Union offered brave sons who fought
gallantly in the Second World War, otherwise called The Great Patriotic War. They reminisced aloud about the vigor and
solidarity with which their generation carried out the reconstruction of the
war-ravaged country. Then their discourse drifted on to the pressing
socio-economic and political problems in the lands of the former Soviet Union.
It must have been about an hour and a half after midnight that Anton sleepily
rubbed his eyes and then offered to go home.
“I have a letter for you,” he said at the door, and then took
out an envelope from his inner overcoat pocket.
Anton looked astonished when Boris grasped the envelope suddenly and then turned it over. “It has been
three months since I last received a mail,” Boris rasped.
Anton grunted. “You have nobody to blame for that but
yourself.”
“What do you mean?” Boris asked with a distant look in his
eyes.
“You promised to spend your entire vacation in your log house
and the village, but was that the case?
No! I checked on you three times, only to be told on each occasion that you had
ventured to Yakutsk, Vilyuisk, Verkoyansk, or God-knows-where. None of the
villagers could keep track of your movements. Even Nikitin, the old Nenet, was up
at your mountain retreat. Now, what did they tell the quivering fellow? Hmm! He
got there shortly after you had accompanied a group of Evenki herdsmen to the
north.”
“I’m a busy man,” Boris mumbled.
“A busy man whose selflessness leaves everyone mortified. By
the way, do you know how funny it is, each time I force myself to listen to
your complaints about not receiving a mail in ages? Eno Gudanov, our Modvinian
comrade, is keeping a dozen or more of your mails. This one arrived only
yesterday. I took responsibility for it because he wasn’t around.”
“You are a trusted friend.”
“Of course, I consider myself your trusted friend.”
“Ech, ech, akh! Come on, young
fellow! You are my friend,” Boris articulated. “Now, tell me. Where did Eno
go?”
“Not to Saransk, as you may fear. He went north to Magadan to
look into the situation of a fish processing plant that is likely to wind down
business, as if there are no hungry stomachs out there in the world that need
protein from our fish. He is still a committed union-nationalist, Comrade
Boris. And he is committed to the Russian Far East.”
Boris Petrenkov’s mind went adrift again as he started
mumbling to himself in a voice laced with emotion. “People still remember me.
The old Union-Muzhik is still considered alive even though the union of his
heart is dead.”
Conscious of the drift
of Boris’s emotions, Anton hastily bid his friend goodnight and then walked out
into the dark in anticipation of the inviting tranquility of his home and bed.
Back in his sitting room, Boris slumped into the divan and
opened the letter. Hardly halfway through the perusal, he jumped up to his feet
and shouted in an exalted manner.
“Old Comrade Andrei Yeremenko, my best friend! You finally
saw the fallacy in your decision to immigrate to Israel, exactly as I
cautioned. Make a quick return to Soyuzgrad so that we can sing folk songs as
we did in the good old days, so that we
can even dance Hora as we used to do in Birobidzhan. Wise Andrei, your nimble
wits will never fail to discern the shortcomings of the Western world.”
That early morning, Boris, the wavering deist, said his first
prayer since the collapse of the Soviet Union. And, surprisingly enough, he
sought the help of the lord in broken Yiddish.
Chapter Four
The sun was overhead that morning
when he stepped outside for a walk on the pleasant banks of the Olekma River.
He loved wandering in the Taiga Forest, especially the valleys around Soyuzgrad
with their mosaic of forest types abound with larch, birch, pine, spruce, and
fir trees.
The Olekma River had a lot about it
that animated Boris Petrenkov’s spirit. And the body of water always rekindled
his memories of the Ural River in its meandering flow through the lustrous
plains of the northern margins of the Caspian Sea. Boris loved the Ural River
city of Astrakhan and its vicinities—the area that embodied his childhood
exaltations when he worked with muzhiks on a collective farm nine kilometers
away.
Boris was not alone in his deep
appreciation of Astrakhan and its historic past. Even his friend Andrei
Yeremenko also viewed Astrakhan as the city that brought together the cultures
of Slavic adventurers and Turkic nomads. He appreciated the city’s rich tales
involving his pioneer forefathers who founded the surrounding Volga
settlements—the base from where Slavic adventurers pushed to the margins of what
became the Russian Empire in the east.
How he loved Astrakhan, the largest
Cossack group east of the Volga River. It was on the northern shores of the
Caspian Sea that European and Asiatic cultures merged to bring out a distinct
Cossack way of life that people came to romanticize over the years. He always
made an effort to point out to those who showed an interest in the subject that
the area deserved to be the true heartland of the new Soviets.
“Our eastern marginal lands are the
favorite retreats for our neglected peoples,” Boris moved his lips as he echoed
Yemelyan Pugachev's description of the area.
Still, he was ambivalent about Pugachev, even though he agreed with the Cossack
leader’s legacy as the vindicator of the famous Stepan Razin. His failure to
end Russian feudalism and monarchism by starting a revolution in the Volga
region stirred some questions in Boris Petrenkov’s mind.
Even so, Boris never doubted the
words of the Cossack revolutionary, especially his dreams for the motherland.
After all, America built upon its reputation as the retreat of the disfavored
in the past centuries by rising to become the envy of the world. Like Pugachev,
Boris came to believe that Russia’s eastern lands could one day utilize its
heterogeneity just like America, a sentiment that even the last Secretary-General
of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union also shared.
“How about carving out a new
autonomous republic from the northern lands of the Caspian Sea? This should
encompass portions of the borderlands of Russia and Kazakhstan,” he had
suggested to Gorbachev.
Boris remembered Mikhail Sergeyevich
Gorbachev’s assurance that the idea would be brought to fruition, and his
promise to consult with the Kazakh and Russian presidents about it. The Soviet
leader even went further by pledging to make the project a big all-union drive
to neutralize the destructive spread of nationalism gripping the different
Soviet republics at the time.
“I’m from nearby Stavropol. It is an
ethnically heterogeneous city, just like your Astrakhan. That’s why you and I
are ethnically blind at heart as unwavering union-nationalists,” the Soviet
leader had told Boris.
“I’m glad you support the project. If
you say so, I will go ahead and start assembling a diverse team to work out the
details. Believe me, Comrade Mikhail Sergeyevich, we stand to gain a lot from
the success of this venture,” Boris had said with an expressionless face,
fighting the joy in his heart at the same time.
But nothing much came out of that
talk. Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev became receptively non-committal afterwards,
as if Boris had a hand in his plummeting popularity.
“Work very closely with Kerbalay. He
is a realistic union-nationalist,” the Soviet leader had told Boris in a
surprise phone call one hot afternoon, at a time when he was beginning to think
that the plan could not be realized.
Boris had heeded his leader’s advice
and assembled a team. They had mapped out an area for an autonomous republic
from Russian and Kazakh territories. The plan was for Kazakh and Russian
authorities to jointly administer the new creation for ten years before making
it a full-fledged union republic. The idea was to make it a classic Soviet
experiment on ethnic compatibility. A land surface of fifty-two thousand square
kilometers was set aside for Soyuz Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. And
more than a hundred ethnic groups were expected to live within its border.
Boris finally caved in to pressure from above to have the capital named
Kukingrad in his honor.
“Boris the dreamer, Boris the
dreamer,” he mumbled to himself and sighed.
He was still in a pensive mood as he paced
about on the banks of the Olekma River, wondering if his senses were at their
sharpest as he savored the lushness of the plant life and marveled at the
sprinkling reflection of light on the rippling waters. The serenity with which
the fishes swam in the waters and the sure-footedness of the small animals
scurrying around uplifted his spirit even further. He engaged in sightseeing
for an hour, and then took a rest by lying with his back on the scanty
undergrowth shaded by some larches interspersed with Korean cedar pine trees.
Boris was drifting into slumber when
the distant barks of an approaching dog forced him to sit up abruptly. He
rubbed his eyes dry and threw back the strands of hair that had brushed forward
on his temple.
“Old Comrade Boris,” the owner of the
dog called out hoarsely.
Boris strained his eyes in the
direction of the intruders as he fought with his haziness. Then he saw them—an
enthusiastic Siberian husky pushing forward frantically, its owner restraining
the dog by the strap and chain in a half-running manner. The dog’s master
turned out to be Ivan Ivanovich Yukhanov, his ethnic Koryak friend who became
popular in Kamchatka for his guided tours and research on the active volcanoes
of the peninsula.
“Old Comrade Ivan still in his life
form,” Boris shouted back, rose to his feet, and approached his friend
enthusiastically for a hug. Their bellies met thrice, and then they patted each
other on the back.
“Yakutia has a magical touch on you,
Comrade Boris,” Ivan said at length.
“Don’t flatter me”
“I mean it. You look stronger and
younger than the last time we were together. I’m even tempted to recommend a
young Yakut woman for you.”
Boris chortled. “I don’t want
Nadezhda to stir in her grave. Ten years ago, while she lay dying on her
sickbed from cancer that was eating her
up, I promised her she would be the only woman that I would ever call my wife.”
“You were fiercely loyal, that’s for
sure,” Ivan said and scratched his head.
Boris smiled, nodded, and then sighed.
“She was such a sweet woman. Those days we drove together in troikas and walked
arm-in-arm in Gorky Park are still fresh on my mind. She often read the works
of Alexander Pushkin, Sergey Esenin, and
Anton Chekhov to me. I still get echoes of the sound of her voice from those
wonderful moments when she entertained me with the ballads of several of our
nationalities, sometimes to the pleasure of even the children. She was an
exceptional woman, my Nadia, the woman of my heart. She raised my taste so high
that I cannot think of another woman who can measure up to half of her. The
results of everything she got involved in were excellent. Ach, Comrade Ivan! She
taught me to love and accept nature the way it is. Were it not for her, I would
have become a man concerned only with his interest and survival like the many
grim-faced apparatchiks whose disconcertment caused the collapse of the Soviet
Union.”
“Well! What am I supposed to say?”
“Nothing!”
“I was joking about the Yakut wife
for you, that’s for sure,” the visibly uncomfortable Ivan said with a gasp.
Boris laughed
and then nudged Ivan on the back of his head. “I understand you were
joking,” he said, and then mused for a moment, “Ach! Besides, can our
protective daughter and two sons accept an active Yakut woman for a premature
octogenarian like me?”
“Be your own judge.”
“Comrade Ivan, we have to think of
children too, you know! She may want to bring one, two, three, four or even
more babies into this uncertain world. For all I know, Yakut women can become
addicted to children when they get going. They love children, you know.”
“I meant it as a joke, Comrade
Boris.”
“Huh, Comrade Ivan! As a husband, I
certainly would love to give her the joy of having children of her own. “
“Comrade Boris!”
“All I am trying to say is that a
woman deserves children if she is fertile and has a man who can give them to
her. Or, let’s say a woman deserves at least a child of her own to shower her
bountiful love on. I say so even though I’m against the idea of a man in his
seventies going down on all fours as he plays with his creeping descendant, who
is not even his grandchild or great-grandchild.”
“Comrade Boris!” Ivan muttered again
and regarded Boris with quizzical eyes.
“Besides, how do you expect my
grandchildren to use the word uncle or aunt on a baby they are older than?”
Ivan shook his head wonderingly. “You
have lost me on this one, my dear friend.”
“Ha-ha…ha!” Boris laughed, “The
expression on your face. I turned it around, didn’t I?”
Ivan smiled and heaved a sigh of
relief. “You have not lost your gusto, your joy of life, Comrade Boris.”
“And you find life so grim that you
prefer to have yours terminated right away. I had a hard time overcoming a fear
that gripped me after I failed to find you in the crowd that welcomed me back
home last night. I’m glad a bear didn’t devour you in Penzhino.”
Ivan guffawed and wiped his mouth.
“If my end is expected to come from their claws and fangs, then I’m glad to
tell you that I still have centuries to live for.”
“Say that again.”
“What else do you expect?” Ivan
asked, sounding gloomy all of a sudden.
The sudden transformation in Ivan’s
demeanor surprised Boris. “Well, well, well…well,” he exclaimed, not knowing
what else to say.
“Comrade Boris, the bears are almost
extinct in that part of the world. That’s what saddens me the most,” Ivan said
at length, narrowing his brows and clenching his fists as if getting ready to
pounce on an enemy.
“I know what you mean,” Boris
intoned.
“There is very little order existing
out there. Yes, there is very little order these days, Comrade Boris.”
“Uh-huh!”
“Poachers defy the laws everywhere,
every day. Poachers make a mockery of the law and act with impunity even in the
great Olekminskiy Zapovednik Nature Reserve, a place you and I know is a world
heritage site. Believe it or not, they even have their rifles slung around
their shoulders in broad daylight as they massacre the protected animals with
the open knowledge of authorities who should be safeguarding those endangered
animals. It is pathetic.”
“You are right, it is pathetic. It
saddens me too,” Boris acceded.
“Yes, Comrade Boris! It is pathetic
because our people know that the wideness of our soul makes it difficult for us
to accommodate disorder. Yes, Comrade Boris, the Russian soul cannot cope with
turbulence. With disorder comes total and complete chaos. That’s what we are
experiencing today. And it has paralyzed the Russian state and all the other
republics that emerged from the Soviet Union.”
“Except the Baltic republics,” Boris
interjected.
“I’m glad for them.”
Boris clenched his teeth in rising
infuriation. “What can be done? Do we have a way out of this? These are the
questions on the lips of our people every day. These are questions most of us
ask in different ways.”
“And what do you think is the
answer?”
“I don’t know. The most I can offer
for now is that an old order is dead, taken over by a new order that is failing
to mature with time. Comrade Ivan, this new order does not want a compromise
with the past. We are yet to witness more disorder and confusion than you have
ever imagined. You can’t eliminate the idea of three generations by simple
decrees.”
“You are talking politics, Comrade
Boris,” Ivan cautioned.
“Hear you bicker,” Boris shot back.
“It is not advisable for forsaken
muzhiks like us to delve into the subject of politics when nothing good can
come out of it,”
Boris laughed meekly and sighed. “Why
shouldn’t I talk politics all the time? In the past, we paid little or nothing
for food, even though the price for talking politics was high. Today, we pay
little or nothing for talking politics, against the price of food that has
become exorbitantly high. See how life has turned things around to make a joke
of us.”
The friends settled on a boulder on
the bank of the river and conversed for another hour before Ivan offered to
leave with his dog.
Boris got up and watched them
disappear into the Taiga with wistful eyes. At length, he sighed, made himself
comfortable again under the shade of trees, and then slowly slipped into a deep
slumber.
Chapter Five
The knocks on Boris's bedroom window woke
him up from sleep with a startled look on his face. He blinked several times,
and then opened his eyes and yawned, making an effort to shake off the
grogginess caused by the activities of the night before. He brushed off the
discomfort as he leaped out of bed. Then he put on his robe and approached the
bedroom door. He stopped midway for no apparent reason, thought for a moment
about the ridiculousness of his action, and then proceeded to the front door
and opened it. Standing there, right in front of him, with his luggage in both
hands and an uncertain look on his face, was his old friend Andrei Abramovich
Yeremenko.
“Old Andrei Yeremenko is back from Israel! I can’t believe it,
I can’t believe my eyes, I can’t believe…I can’t believe it!” Boris shouted
joyfully and took his friend in his arms as they bear-hugged like in the old
days.
“In Israel, I’m called Nahum Ben Sharon,” Yeremenko said,
threw his hands in the air and comically moved his head.
“Nahum Ben Sharon. The name sounds purely Jewish.”
“I changed my name to fit into the Israeli society.”
“Nahum Ben Sharon!” Boris muttered again and shook his head.
“I accept I’m a Jew, Comrade Boris, but I’m not a Zionist.”
“I’m not accusing you of anything or even trying to be
judgmental. Come on! You can’t blame me for being a little bit puzzled, can
you?”
“Then allow me to explain.”
“You don’t have to put yourself through that. Believe me, I
don’t hold the name change against you at all.”
To avoid wrangling over Andrei Yeremenko’s Israeli
commitments, Boris put his hand on his friend’s shoulder and beckoned him to
come inside. Andrei Yeremenko stopped at the center of the sitting room and
looked around, nodding his approval of
the arrangement of things inside.
“You are practical as usual. I see you haven’t altered much
around your abode since the last time I was here, except for the fact that your
bookshelf looks fuller, and you seem to pay more attention to Soviet artifacts
now-our-days.”
“I got myself a new coffee table, a lampshade, and a fan.”
“A fan too! Huh!”
“You know how hot the summer days in Siberia can be.”
“Hot?”
“Yes, hot.”
“Your divan is the same; your journal rack is full as usual
and…and. But everything is clean. Above all, the place smells of life. I am
talking about its joy and purpose, its accomplishment and acceptance.”
Boris regarded his friend closely for a moment and then shook his head with a look of
concern on his face. “You appear unhappy, old Comrade Andrei Yeremenko. You
look more pitiful in your emotions than I.”
“What makes you think so?”
“You are my friend and more. You are like my twin. Please
make yourself comfortable while I put your bags inside your room. I will get
you some coffee afterwards. I need one myself
if only to help me find out whether I’m dreaming about this or not.”
“I will go with you,” Yeremenko offered, grabbed the other
suitcase, and followed Boris into the third bedroom meant for guests.
There was a light smile on Andrei Yeremenko’s face when they
walked back into the sitting room and settled into the divan.
“Oh, the coffee!” Boris exclaimed and rose to his feet again.
“Stay here with me for a moment. The coffee will become more
useful after I’m settled. Comrade Boris, you said a while ago that I looked
unhappy.”
“But…but,” Boris said with a shrug, “You look different now.”
“Comrade Boris, Israel is not for me,” Yeremenko assented,
and then shook his head ruefully with a sniff.
Boris had nothing to say for a moment as he fought with a
sudden eruption of emotions in his bosom. When he tried to speak again, his
face was not unmixed with disdain and pity.
“Didn’t I tell you not to go to Israel? I pleaded with you to
stay here with us and breathe the air of our new republic as a Union-Muzhik,
but you opted to leave. Now you have returned as a downcast man with regrets.
What should I say after you pathetically tell me that Israel is not for you?”
“Comrade Boris, my old friend!” Yeremenko called, shaking his
head pitifully, “I came back because I became convinced that if the world had
only one person left who would understand me, you would be that individual. I
thought you would put on your Cossack hat and discern my mind in the blink of
an eye.”
“What makes you think I would understand when you, my best
friend, disappeared from my life at a time that we needed each other the most,
just when we were beginning to realize our dream of a new republic of muzhiks?”
“I know! I was naive at the time. Yes, I accept. I deeply
regret my decision to leave.”
“You deserted me,” Boris cried.
“Sentiments aside, I had to leave. It made sense at the
time.”
“Why?”
“I left because of the uncertainty, Comrade Boris. The clamor
of nationalism, the rising Jew-baiting and anti-Semitism were all threats to a
Jew after the collapse of the center. I left, old comrade, because I had to
save my hide in a post-Soviet space gripped by random xenophobia.”
Boris laughed meekly as he sat back and rested his head on
the divan. “Do you think those are unfamiliar words to my ears? Respected and
staunch union-nationalists have used similar words before, in their efforts to
express their loss of faith in humanitarianism, especially when it comes to our
people.”
“Perhaps their words didn’t come straight from their hearts,”
Yeremenko said with a note of desperation in his voice, “I returned to my
ancestral homeland because I had to do something to save my hide and the hides
of my family members. I wanted to find the last
resort of refuge. I wanted to let my rational bearings survive in a rapidly
rising nationalistic land.”
“I have heard words like those spoken before. Comrade Andrei
Yeremenko, don’t you think those are the powerful and developed traits of
self-centered creatures?”
Yeremenko looked bashful as he turned his head away and
sighed. “I have realized myself, Comrade Boris. That’s why I’m back—back to the
dreams we shared, back to our Soyuz
Republic. Don’t you get it? We are together again. We shall breathe the
soothing air from the Caspian Sea; we shall wear Astrakhan coats as our
forefathers did; we shall ride our favorite Akhal-Teke horses from Turkmenistan; we shall dance folk songs with
our fellow Union-Muzhiks.”
“I can see you didn’t like Israel,” Boris said, his gaze
tentative on his friend.
“Israel is a beautiful country,” Yeremenko mumbled.
“Then why did you leave?”
Yeremenko shrugged. “Israel is a beautiful country, all
right. It is a place where nature is more jealously guarded than anywhere else
I know of, better than anywhere else I can think of. Notwithstanding that, I
can’t pretend that the way of life of the people over there doesn’t frighten me.
You will find anger and hatred all around you all the time, even though you and
I know that the purpose of life is to nurture joy, which involves those aspects
of humanity that enrich the soul. How then do you expect a man to enrich his
soul in a place abounding with hatred and danger?
“Hmm! Hatred and anger!” Boris mused.
“Yes, Comrade Boris. It is intoxicating.”
“The results of fear, incomprehension,
and separation,” Boris said and nodded, looking thoughtful as he regarded his
friend.
“Tell me, Comrade Boris! How could I be happy in a country
where I take a bend to find myself face to face with a fanatical Arab
brandishing a scimitar, swearing, cursing, and threatening his Jewish
compatriot? I move ten kilometers east of Jerusalem to find Jewish settlers
walking around with their Uzi rifles slung over their shoulders. I go to a
cafeteria in Beersheba and observe Falasha Jews pointing enviously at me
because I have blonde hair and I’m supposed to be living affluently. I’m hated
by my Arab compatriots, lukewarmly accepted by the Druzes, doubted upon by the
Sabras and distrusted by Ashkenazim, Mizrahim, Temanim, Sephardim and other
Jews. Yes, Comrade Boris, they act that way simply because I’m from Russia.”
“I see!” Boris commented tersely as he rubbed his chin with
his right thumb and index finger.
“That’s the Israel I discovered, Comrade Boris. The Druze
doesn’t truly love the Jews, but he despises the ways of some of his Arab
brothers a lot more.”
“You make Israel sound so complex.”
“Believe me, my dear friend! The land between the
Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River is complicated. It is very disturbing.
It has been brushed over by history so many times that the people can’t really
tell who they are.”
“What did you fancy yourself to be while you were over
there—a historian or archaeologist of some sort?”
“Do not laugh at me, I implore you. Before I get back to the
case of my Jewish people, I want us to delve a little into this. Who are the
Palestinian Arabs?”
“You tell me. I’m a Union-Muzhik, and my turf is the mighty
part of the Eurasian landmass roved by the Russian soul. What incentive is
there for me to complicate my life even further with a land that has never seen
real peace for more than four thousand years?”
“I’m trying to engage you, that's all! I’m trying to grapple
with some of the conflicts in my soul.”
“Then tell me what you have in mind.”
“Okay, Comrade Boris!
Before that land became Hebrew-speaking, other people or peoples were living
there. That means it took decades and even centuries for the Hebrew culture to
dominate the people’s everyday way of life. The point is that non-Hebrews were
assimilated over time.”
“By force, you mean.”
Yeremenko nodded. He didn’t want to argue about that. “Yes, Comrade
Boris, they became the people of Israel both by coercion and by persuasion. You
must have heard at some point about the history of Assyria’s invasion of the
land.”
Boris nodded. “The invasion and exile of the Northern Hebrew
kingdom of Israel, you mean?”
“Yes, Comrade Boris. The Assyrians conquered and exiled the
northern ten tribes that constituted the breakaway kingdom of Israel. Now, I
know it is impossible to move an entire people, so I am sure the Assyrians
exiled the northern elites only or the northern elites mostly—that is, the
wealthy, aristocratic and royal classes. I am also sure they created a new
ruling class in this area from those who were not compelled to leave and from those
whom they introduced into the conquered territory, mostly their own subjects.
That is my theory of how the phenomenon of the Samaritans came about—people who
identified with their Hebrew lineage but accepted the external elements in
their new identity.”
“What is your point?”
“It is simple. After the Assyrians, the Persians, the
Hellenic powers and right up to the times of the Romans, the Hebrew people of
the land became Jews and Samaritans, based mostly on religion and its
corresponding connotations. And they spoke both Hebrew and the Persian-imposed
Aramaic, with Aramaic dominating in the north, in the hills of Galilee and
Samaria. You know, Aramaic was the dominant lingua franca at the time in the
Levant.”
“What is the Levant?”
“That is the territory comprising today’s Syria, Lebanon,
Israel, West Bank, Gaza, and Jordan.”
“You have an interesting concept. What about the
Palestinians?”
“Interesting, you asked. Palestine was the name the Romans
gave to the Holy Land, almost two hundred years after it became a constituent
province of the Roman Empire. They changed the name to Syria-Palaestina to
spite the Jews after the Third Jewish Revolt.”
“The 132 AD Bar Kokhba Revolt, you mean?”
“Yes, yes, yes, Comrade Boris! Hmm! You amazed me with that
piece of information!” Yeremenko exclaimed, carried away by the flow of the
conversation.
“I see!” Boris said with a hazy look on his face.
“Yes, Comrade Boris, even the Arab invasion of Roman or
Byzantine Palestine in 634 AD changed little of its genetic makeup. Armies of
men are always marginally small in comparison to the populations they occupy.
There is something else, Comrade Boris. Invading armies always leave their
seeds behind, that’s for sure. Even the Arab armies from Arabia acted like all
the other invading armies that ravaged the land during previous invasions and
occupations. To all intents and purposes, they did not invade the land with
their wives strutting behind them.”
“Hmm!” Boris muttered, and then nodded, wondering what else
his friend was about to say.
Andrei Yeremenko smiled warmly, made a gesture with his hands,
and then continued. “I’m creating a parameter here, my dear friend.”
“I’m listening,” Boris said with a serious look on his face
this time around.
“Now, if there were Jews and Samaritans of Hebrew origin in
Palestine before Jesus Christ came into the picture, then we can say with
certainty that the added element of Christianity created another set of people
who identified themselves as Hebrews or Jews in Roman Palestine, but who,
besides Greek, which was the official or administrative language of the
Byzantine Empire, spoke mostly in Aramaic. It tells us that the Arab or Muslim
invaders found religious communities of Christians, Jews, and Samaritans when they got there. It is obvious that the
Arab invaders made it their business to convert the population there into
Islam, which was the norm at the time.”
“What is your point?” Boris asked with quizzical eyes.
“Try to think about it. The only difference between the
peoples of the land during the Arab invasion was in the different religions
they identified with. They all spoke Aramaic with a Hebrew content and
identified themselves as adherents of Judaism, Christianity,
and Samaritanism. True, the Samaritans were repressed more than the Jews and
the Christians and lost a great deal of their population when they revolted
against the Byzantine Christian rulers. But their near-disappearance as an
ethno-religious entity only accelerated two hundred years later, when they lost
the majority of their population to the Islamic faith in the aftermath of the
Arab conquest of the Holy Land. Even so, Christians and Jews were still the
majority when the Crusaders invaded and founded the Kingdom of Jerusalem that
lasted from 1099 to 1291 AD.”
“What have you become? Are you trying to tell me that you are
now a historian of the Middle East? You amaze me, my dear friend.”
“Call me a puzzle-head or whatever appellation you choose
that would fit me into a box that you are comfortable with; I will be fine with
it. But there is a point to my inquisitiveness or my madness, as some of the
right-wingers called it.”
“I’m receptive, Comrade Andrei Yeremenko. There is always a
grain of truth in the legends and myths that abound in this world.”
“Thank you, my dear friend. Irrespective of the angle you are coming from, one fact is obvious: The Crusaders left their seeds behind, which affected...
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