Smashed in the USSR: Fear, Loathing and Vodka on the Steppes

by Walton, Caroline

  I am treated by a Doctor Djmil who convinces me that my visions of the last few days have been nothing more than products of my imagination. Except for the dancers, who were real and part of the Doctor’s attempts to give his patients a sense of normality.

  I calm down, although I crave a drink. After three days I discharge myself, thinking the best thing to do will be to start work as soon as possible. But my empty flat haunts me with reminders of my family. I run away, seeking out friends who drink.

  Two weeks later I return and spend the whole night sweeping up little black devils who have taken over the flat in my absence. There are several hundred of them, about the size of mice, running about the floor thumbing their noses at me and sticking out their tongues. They tease me for imagining my neighbour with a gun. I’m not afraid of them for they seem more mischievous than evil. I take a mop and briskly herd them into the corner so I can crush them all at once. I work as diligently as a woman mopping up spilled water. The task takes all night, for as soon as I have swept the devils into one corner they jump over the mop and run squealing across the floor again.

  When my strength gives out I sit down on the bed for a cigarette. The devils run up my trouser legs to my knees, tickling me with their tails. Pulling up my trousers I flick them off onto the floor like cockroaches. But I can bear it no longer and run from the house. I wander all night until my legs bring me back to the hospital. Djmil looks into my eyes and orders me to get undressed. He gives me a massive dose of aminazine and I finally fall asleep.

  Half the people in my ward are alcoholic and the rest insane. The alcoholics are treated with Antabuse. However we know that all medicines are poisonous and it is rumoured that Antabuse diminishes potency, so everyone tries to avoid swallowing their tablets. We hide them in our cheeks and then spit them into the toilet.

  The first person I meet on the ward is Ivan Shirmanov. A habitual patient in the hospital, he shows me around, telling me not to be scared of the lunatics. Like every supposedly normal person, I am wary of them, but I discover they are not frightening, simply unfortunate. In the course of my life I have met enough people who could pass for psychiatric patients, while some of the hospital’s inmates wouldn’t be out of place in the corridors of power.

  One of the patients has the apt name of Vodkin. He was a chauffeur until drink addled his brain so much he forgot the number of the car he drove. In order not to confuse it with another he would leave the starting handle in when he parked it. Vodkin’s colleagues used to take the starting handle and put it in another vehicle. Vodkin would then spend hours trying to start the wrong car. Eventually he was sacked and sent to hospital.

  The nurses take away Vodkin’s pyjama bottoms to prevent him getting out of bed, but he manages to pinch someone’s dressing-gown and wanders into the smoking-room where the alkies are gathered. His passion is draughts. Despite his imbecility he always wins so no one wants to play with him. To distract him from the board someone asks him to sing, kicking up his heels in a peasant dance Vodkin roars:

  We spent the night in Samara

  With the MVD

  They hit us on the neck

  We won’t tell anybody!

  To encourage him we all join in with the chorus: The storm raged, the lightning flashed… until an orderly comes to take Vodkin away and tie him to his bed.

  I would do anything to escape the horror of the dt’s so in the end I agree to take Antabuse. However, my previous experience has made me sceptical of the treatment. Dr Djmil lends me some books by famous psychiatrists but these only feed my doubts. “Doctor,” I tell him, “I have concluded that Antabuse is an unnecessary element in the cure for alcoholism. It works on the basis of fear rather than physiological fact. People who think they’re going to die if they drink on top of Antabuse probably will die. It all depends on your state of mind. Antabuse won’t work on me any more as I’ve stopped believing in its effect.”

  Djmil listens to my argument attentively, frowns and says: “Vanya, please don’t discuss this with the others. Come with me.”

  He takes me through the wards, pointing at drooling imbeciles.

  “That is your future if you continue to drink.”

  But scare tactics do not work with me.

  During my stay at the hospital Djmil tells me about his passion for mountain-climbing. Like many members of the provincial intelligentsia, he understands very well the putrid nature of the society in which we live. He has found a hobby that takes him temporarily beyond the confines of our human world into a battle with the elemental forces of nature. I remember our geography teacher at school and his passion for hiking.

  My leg prevents me from hiking or climbing, so I can’t follow the path of Djmil and others like him. Other members of the intelligentsia go the way of Sedoy and it looks as though I’m heading in that direction too, not that I consider myself a member of the intelligentsia.

  I decide there is nothing more the hospital can do for me, and discharge myself. My first priority is to find Olga and Natasha. Ludmila steadfastly refuses to reveal their whereabouts although I pester her every day. Finally I spot a letter in her box on the ground floor. Pulling it out, I recognise my wife’s handwriting. There is no return address on the back but I manage to decipher the postmark: Estonia. I go home and check the atlas – three Estonian towns have ‘mining’ symbols beside them.

  The next morning I haul our washing-machine down to the yard by the rubbish bins and sell it to a passing driver. I buy a ticket to Estonia and set off on the 2,000-kilometre journey, fortifying myself on the way with beer.

  After three days I alight from the train at the town of Kivyili, the nearest of the three mining towns. It is five in the morning. I take the first bus to the far side of town to begin my search. I could go to the public health centre but I don’t want to embarrass Olga if she turns out to be working there. After my drunken journey I look repulsive.

  The weather is warm and I go into the park to take off my sweater. Just inside the gate is a photo display of buildings that have recently been constructed in the town. One of them is of a kindergarten built in an unusual style. It might be the one Natasha attends. After an hour of walking around the town I find it. It’s playtime and I catch sight of Natasha amongst the children. Making sure she can’t see me I wait until the end of the working day when my wife will come to pick her up.

  Olga cannot hide her shock and disgust at the sight of me. “I suppose I knew you’d find us sooner or later.”

  I assure Olga that her sister didn’t betray her. “All I want is to have a talk.” We buy bread and yoghurt and go into the woods. Our discussion is fruitless. It’s obvious to Olga that I haven’t given up drinking.

  “Look, Vanya, let’s give it a year. If you can stay on the wagon for that time we’ll come back to you. If not, I’m going to divorce you.”

  “Agreed. I’ll go back to my parents for a while, get myself straightened out.”

  We both know we are kidding each other and ourselves. Seeing that my journey has been pointless, I find out the time of the trains and tell Olga not to see me off. I have one rouble left in my pocket. I buy an ice cream for Natasha and cigarettes for myself, so that I won’t have to be in anyone’s debt by cadging them. It won’t be easy to leave Estonia without a ticket so I plan to hop onto a freight-train. I wait at the station till dusk, when I might be able to slip unnoticed into a goods wagon. However at around ten in the evening my wife appears. She’s guessed that I have no money and proposes that I come home to rest in her flat for two or three days until she gets her pay. Taking Natasha she goes to sleep at a friend’s house. Before she leaves I ask her to lock the door from the outside.

  The dt’s begin again that night. While I still have a degree of control over myself I look about for something to distract me. Like any woman, Olga has no tools in the house, but I find a manicure set and use that to take her iron apart and put it together again, over and over again. All night long the neighbours on the othe
r side of the walls sing abominations about me. This time the tune is from The Marriage of Figaro:

  He mends the iron,’

  he mends the iron,

  he mends the iron,

  the irrrrrron… he mends!

  Then the chorus joins in: Bravo, bravo, bravissimo…

  I find some cotton wool and stuff up my ears but it doesn’t help. I run from one room to the other and back again. I take shower after shower, I heat up a large pan of borscht, anything to distract myself from the horrors. Above all I’m afraid of touching the gas cylinder. I imagine that after the explosion everyone will say: “His wife had only just got settled when that drunken bastard turned up and blew the whole block to kingdom come.”

  In the morning Olga arrives to find me bending over the iron with cotton wool sticking out of my ears. She gives me some medicine that enables me to sleep a little. The following day she sees me off onto the train – no doubt wanting to make sure that I leave.

  As we part I reassure her that everything will be all right, but in my heart I know we’ll never be able to live together again. Olga can’t live with her guilt for sending me to prison and I have no right to inflict my drunkenness on her and Natasha. I can’t even bear to see them around me; they are a constant reminder and reproach. Even if I stop drinking I will always feel guilty before them. The only thing to do from now on is get used to living apart.

  I am depressed by the thought of losing my daughter. Although I’m of little use to her, she jumped for joy to see her drunken father at the gates of her nursery. And that is no bad thing.

  Fifteen minutes into the journey and I’m drinking in the company of three girls who are looking for a fourth to make up a hand at cards. They are already drunk. It would be the grossest indecency to pretend that I don’t drink, especially as their invitation coincides with my wishes.

  ***

  Dobrinin pours another glass for my mother. It doesn’t take much to make her drunk.

  “You can give me all the vodka you want,” she shrieks, “but I won’t keep quiet. I know you’ve been with that whore again.”

  Dobrinin smirks and walks out of the flat, leaving the front door open. He returns with the neighbours from across the landing. They stand in the doorway laughing.

  “In case you were wondering what all the noise is about, there you are,” he points to my unhappy mother sprawled on the divan. She snarls and tries to fling a book at him but it lands at the foot of the divan.

  This is too much for me. I shoo the neighbours out with my stick. Then I turn on Dobrinin and push him against the wall. He sinks to the floor, winded. I go to bed.

  “I’ll fetch the police. Why did you take that bastard in?” I hear Dobrinin in the next room.

  “Shut up. Leave it to me. I’ll sort him out.”

  In the morning my mother looks at me with hatred in her eyes: “What the hell did you attack him for?”

  “How can you let him laugh at you like that?”

  “It’s none of your business. Get out!”

  I had moved back to my parents’ flat while trying to decide what to do next, Now my decision is made. I move into a hostel and start to drink in earnest with the men who share my room. Others turn up, for we offer warmth and companionship without wives or mothers-in-law threatening to call the police.

  I begin work in the DDT factory. My wife’s brother is a technician there and he keeps her informed of my condition. Hearing that I’m drinking again she puts pressure on me for alimony, promising to pay it back if I stop. I resent her for trying to control me, even from a distance. In any case I have nothing to send her. My pay-packet comes with the cost of visits to the sobering-up station already deducted. Then I have to pay off my debts. It is impossible to break out of this vicious circle. I cannot afford to rent a room of my own, but to live in the hostel and not drink is beyond human endurance. I try to spend my free time in the local library reading-room, but when I go home I always have to tip someone off my bed.

  In the end I decide to leave town. I have an invitation from a former boss, Gantimirov, to go out and work for him at a chemical plant in Chimkent in Kazakhstan. There’s nothing to keep me in Chapaevsk. I am tired of that damned hostel, of shop No. 28 and the sobering-up station. I’m sick of my companions, too. They’ll forget me soon enough.

  I pack a change of clothes and a supply of cigarettes. My younger brother Sashka gives me a tape-recorder and some Vysotsky tapes. Early one morning in the spring of 1968 I leave Chapaevsk on a southbound train.

  21 Alkash (plural: alkashi): street-drinker, wino.

  22 In the 1930s a Soviet pilot called Levanevsky disappeared while flying over the newly-opened Arctic. His plane was never discovered. It became customary to say ‘he’s done a Levanevsky’ when someone disappeared without trace.

  6

  Central Asia

  I am awakened by a gentle tap on the shoulder. A policeman stands before me. “It is forbidden to sleep in railway stations, Comrade. Kindly sit up.” Giving me a smart salute, he walks off.

  Checking my head to see if it has sprouted a crown overnight, I turn to the dosser beside me: “Did you see that? Am I dreaming?”

  “Didn’t you hear what happened here last year?”

  “No.”

  “Chimkent exploded. It began when the police arrested a lorry driver on his way back from a party. The driver’s wife went to fetch his workmates. By the time they reached the station the police had beaten the man to death. They claimed he dropped dead from alcohol poisoning.

  “By evening there was no Soviet authority left in Chimkent. The drivers hijacked bulldozers and flattened the police station. Rioters ran through the town killing any cops who got in their way. They sent in troops and in a few days the shops filled with scarce goods. The town calmed down. Then the MVD went round asking questions and people began to disappear. The cops who killed the driver were transferred to another area; their chief became head of a prison camp. You can guess the fate of the rioters who were sent there. Komsomol volunteers and troops kept order in town. We had no police for several months.”

  I laugh and settle down to sleep again. The next time a cop wakes me I tell him to book me a hotel room; he leaves me alone. A lot of people have moved into the station. At night we gather in the waiting room and listen to Vysotsky; by day we go about our separate business.

  I have no luck finding work. Gantimirov is away on a business trip and the plant won’t take me on without his approval. I try other factories. There are a lot of jobs going, but none of them provides accommodation. I look for a flat but am offered grim cages so far out of town that I refuse them.

  My money is melting like Tien Shan snow, although I’m not drinking and barely eating. In the end I take a train to Tashkent and then jump another to Fergana, where a cousin of my mother’s lives. As everyone knows, the tongue leads to Kiev and I find my relative by asking around. He helps me get a job in a chemical factory and the plant gives me a place in a suburban hostel.

  The area of Fergana where I live is modelled on the Cheryomushki district of Moscow, with rows of five-storey brick blocks, barren shops and dusty roads. Irrigation ditches run along the streets but these are choked with dead dogs and condoms. Each year new saplings are planted, only to wither and die in the smog of the huge new chemical plants whose chimneys smoke day and night, covering the Fergana valley with filth. In short, the town is not very different to Chapaevsk.

  My work is easy enough, but I sweat and chafe in my protective clothing, rubber boots and gas mask. In my free time I hang around the hostel growing bored as there is no TV or other entertainment. I notice the lads who share the hostel never go in to the factory yet they come home in the evenings laden with food and drink.

  “Here, Vanya, have some dinner with us,” they offer one night.

  “No, it’s okay, I’m not hungry,” I lie.

  “Try it, it’s dog meat.”

  “Well, I’ll just take some salad.” I know peo
ple sometimes eat dog meat as a cure for tuberculosis but I don’t fancy it. After the lads and I have sealed our acquaintance with a bottle I ask how they managed to live so well.

  “We only took a job at the plant to get these rooms and a residence permit. We wouldn’t work for the pittance they pay there. Come with us tomorrow and we’ll show you how to make some real money.”

  In the morning we walk down to the railway line. Some men are unloading planks from a goods-wagon, throwing them down as carelessly as if they were shaking matches from a box. Without asking anyone’s permission we set about stacking the planks; at one o’clock some Uzbeks arrive to find us leaning against a neat pile. The Uzbeks, who are building a private house, ask us to load the planks onto their cars. When we finish they pay us and treat us to dinner. I earn more for that day’s work than I would in a week in the factory.

  I come to a decision. From now on I’ll give up regular work and become a vagabond. It will be easy enough in Central Asia. If you try to live rough in European Russia you usually end up with a camp bunk as your bed. In Asia you can doss down under any bush and there is plenty of casual work to be found. I’m excited by the prospect of living without the blessings of regular work, the bathhouse on Saturday, and political meetings on Tuesdays.

  My new friends and I travel on to Bukhara and Samarkand, picking up work as we go. I make adobe bricks, dig foundations and paint roofs. We spend our nights at chaikhanas, sleeping on low-slung cots that double as tables. In the mornings we drink bowls of green tea as we wait for the wine shops to open. Despite being Muslims, the Uzbeks are fond of alcohol. They also like to sit in circles smoking hashish.