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

by Walton, Caroline

  The local Cossacks treat us cautiously at first. Like all country people they do not broadcast their scandals to strangers. I soon notice they steal everything they can carry. At five in the morning they stumble out of their huts, stuffing empty bags into their pockets. They pile into buses that roar off down the sawdust-strewn road. In the evenings they return with bags full of feed, corncobs, or what ever else they’ve been able to lay their hands on. They say that a wife won’t serve her husband dinner unless he brings at least a couple of planks or a piece of fencing back from work with him.

  Looking at me sympathetically, one of the Cossack women sighs: “Oh, you poor man!”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “How d’you survive with a leg like yours?”

  “I get by, always have and always will.”

  “But you can’t ride a bicycle.”

  “Why the hell would I want to do that?”

  “But you can’t carry much away on foot!”

  “But I don’t need anything.”

  She gapes at me as though I was a simpleton. Later I learn that the first thing any peasant does is buy himself a bicycle. Then he goes to the driver of a combine harvester, slips him three roubles and fills up a bag of cut corn-cobs. Even one sack is hard to carry over the shoulder, but two or three can be hung from a bike. He sells the corn in the market for 15 roubles, making the bicycle a machine for printing money. If he does well he uses his profits to buy a motorbike with a side-car which enables him to steal a lot more.

  They say that if you stick a shaft in the Kuban soil in spring you’ll have a cart growing by autumn. But this fertile agricultural region is going to waste because of the collective farm system. The more intelligent peasants leave the farm for the towns; the more artful join the Party and sit at conferences where they assure each other that everything is under control. The simpler people stay put and drink everything they can lay their hands on.

  It is not true that people only work for money. If someone is paid to dig a hole every day and fill it in again he might work for a while but in the end he’ll rebel. That is why all our years of communism have produced only 200 million thieves and drunkards.

  I sleep in a five-room hut with four other single down-and-outs, plus three families. One of these consists of a couple of drug addicts that we nicknamed Codeine and Codeina. This pair wander around the farm like somnambulists. They have a baby who sleeps all the time, probably addicted through its mother’s milk. The couple are supposed to work in the chicken sheds. At night when the birds are blind Codeina grabs half a dozen, binds their beaks with thread and takes them off to Slavyansk to trade for pills with pharmacists.

  Codeine takes alternate shifts with me as a night watchman. He often comes over to play cards with us and drink chefir. He gives out pills to those he trusts. The codeine makes us itch and scratch ourselves compulsively.

  Amongst us is a young man who is hiding out on the farm for some reason - you don’t ask why. Born a Carpathian peasant, he understands everything that concerns agriculture; as regards anything else, he’s as thick as a tree stump. Seeing us scratch ourselves, he goes into the next room and painstakingly examines his clothes for lice.

  ***

  I wake up after a long card session and stumble out of the hut. Bumping into Klava, a neighbour from another hut, I ask her the time.

  “Eight,” she replies.

  “How come?” I’m surprised. The sun is already high in the sky.

  “With me it’s always eight o’clock,” Klava bellows, turning her back to me, bending over and throwing up her skirts. Between her bare buttocks she presents me with two holes, one above the other like the figure eight.

  Every day Klava and her husband battle each other with pitchforks and mallets. It’s amazing that neither manages to kill the other. When drunk Klava bursts into our rooms, throws off our blankets and tries to climb onto one of us. I keep a hoe by my bed to drive her away. When the lads reject her advances she stands outside cursing and throwing stones at our windows.

  As a Heroine Mother of the USSR Klava doesn’t have to work. Her husband turns up in the fields now and again, just to see what he can steal. The couple have countless children. The little ones crawl around the farm, putting everything from apricots to dog shit in their mouths.

  Still, I’m in no position to judge my neighbours. I drink every day. Samogon is as copious as the waters of the Volga. The local peasants distil it from tobacco. In the morning it makes your head ache unbearably, so you have to take a hair-of-the-dog immediately.

  I feel as though I’m being sucked into quicksand. A little while longer and I’ll never be able to tear myself away from Red Shaft Collective Farm. My pay is better than it was in any chemical factory and there’s not much work to do. I enjoy plentiful food, lots to drink and girls as sweet and strong as apples.

  The girls came to us from the Cossack village of Petrovka that lies twelve kilometres to the south. They have their fun with us away from the eyes of their fathers and brothers. In their community they count for damn all. Since early childhood they’ve had to work like donkeys. The breadth and strength of their arms deceives anyone who wants to be deceived. Sometimes in the morning I discover that the girl I’ve spent the night with is not even 16 years old.

  I get caught in a storm while bringing in the horses. In a few seconds I’m soaked to the skin. I develop pneumonia. The farm’s doctor wants to take me to hospital, but I refuse.

  “You’ll be dead by tonight.”

  “All to the good.”

  “Do you know what you are saying?”

  “Yes. I have to shit, and you’re preventing me.”

  She withdraws. Somehow I make it to the bucket my friends have supplied and then I sleep. In the morning I awaken feeling weak but well and flooded with happiness. I have a strong urge to visit my daughter in Estonia.

  A week later I leave the collective farm, taking only the watch they award me for my labour. I don’t even collect my wages. Money frightens me.

  27 Prison records were written in internal passports which had to be shown when applying for a job or a place to live.

  28 After ten years in a hazardous job a worker was entitled to early retirement.

  29 A Christian sect that had its roots in Catherine the Great’s reign. Followers led a nomadic life in the forests of Russia, refusing to co-operate in any way with the civil and ecclesiastical authorities.

  30 ‘Spetsialnii priyomnik’: a lock-up for petty criminals.

  31 Tales of a Sufi wise man called Hodja Nasreddin, believed to have lived in the thirteenth century, are part of the folk wisdom of Turkic speaking peoples. In this case Ivan and Tambov Wolf are telling each other that they are vagabonds.

  9

  Georgia

  I want to see Natasha before she forgets who I am, so I set off for Estonia. A tractor drives me into Slavyansk and I walk to the station. The conductor of a westbound express is happy to give me a berth in exchange for my Red Shaft watch. I travel as far as Rostov; after that I make my way northwards on local trains, keeping an eye on schoolboys who always know when the conductor is on his way. When the train halts and they jump off I limp along after them, climbing into carriages that have already been checked. All the same I’m caught a few times and put off the train. From Rostov I go to Taganrog, and then across Ukraine through the Donbass and back into Russia, through Belgorod, Kursk, Oryol and Tula.

  The whole way I keep as sober as glass and on constant lookout for the police. My jacket is only distinguishable from a convict’s by its collar, my shoes are falling apart and I sprout a beard. I have only to step into a waiting room for the attention of all uniforms to fasten upon me like a magnet. In Tula I am accosted by a guardian of law and order: “Where are you going?”.

  “Home.”

  “And where’s ‘home’?”

  “The collective farm.”

  “Which collective farm would that be?”

  “What d’y
ou mean ‘which’?” I look at him with the eyes of Saint Francis. “Ours!”

  I tell myself not to overdo it, for the policeman probably left the collective farm himself not so long ago.

  “And where is your farm?” he spits out the words like pieces of shit from his mouth.

  “It’s in the Kuban,” I put on a southern accent.

  “Do you have your documents?”

  “Well of course!” I reach into my jacket and pull out a package wrapped in old newspaper. The policeman looks on with distaste as I peel off the paper. My new passport is already stained and the residence permit almost illegible.

  “Sorry… I didn’t know that it was leaking.”

  “What was?”

  “The lamp!”

  “What lamp?”

  “The kerosene one. The electrician was drunk and burnt the transformer.”

  “Get the hell out of here! If I see your stupid face again you’ll go straight into the spets.”

  So I continue northwards, trying to ride by night when ticket controllers are sleepy. By day I wander around towns, collecting empty bottles for a couple of roubles to buy bread. I bum cigarettes, or pick up dog ends and roll them in newspaper. Sometimes I share a cigarette with another vagrant, sitting by his side smoking in silence, feeling as close as brothers.

  I reach Moscow, cross the city, and head northwards. As I near my destination I feel my courage fail. I long to see Natasha, but will she be pleased to see her father, especially in his beard and filthy clothes? At Bologoye I wait a whole day for an Estonia-bound train, sitting on a cold platform lost in thought.

  As night falls I rise, cross the footbridge and take the next train south. I return to Moscow and then jump trains to Tambov, Rostov and finally to Sochi. I am relieved that I made my decision in time. If I’d seen Natasha I might have done irreparable harm.

  ***

  “Kind people! Answer me anyone who hears!”

  “What d’you want?” I call out.

  A blind man taps his way towards my voice. His face is exactly as I imagine Blind Pew’s in Treasure Island. He doesn’t wear dark glasses, perhaps because he wants people to see the cruel livid scars around his eyes.

  “Brother!” he cries, “Help me get a bottle. I can hear a whole crowd of people around me. I’ll be trampled.”

  Not waiting for my reply, he pours some small coins from his pocket into his cap. “Get us a couple of bottles.”

  “But I haven’t enough for one myself.”

  “What the hell are you talking about? Take as much as you need! And a bit extra for yourself. My trousers are sagging with the weight. Perhaps you need it all?”

  I come out of the shop with three bottles and catch up with Blind Pew on the corner. With his cap held out to passers-by he whines: “Help me good people. I was burned in a tank at the battle of Kursk.”

  “I see you waste no time,” I say.

  “Ah, you’re back. Well, what are you dithering for? Slurping up the snot dripping from your nose? Where shall we drink?”

  “It’s all the same to me.”

  Taking my arm, Pew directs me to left and right, until we reach an obscure beer stall tucked away under a railway bridge. They instantly lay out glasses for us. Placing a finger across the rim of each glass in turn, Pew carefully pours the wine.

  “I grew up in Sochi. I was blinded a few years ago when I fell into a pit of quicklime. Usually I take someone along with me to keep an eye out for the police and to buy bottles. I used to have a girlfriend but the police picked her up in Sukhumi.

  “The cops can’t do much except give me a kicking, but I’m scared of being sent to the invalid home. It’s worse than strict-regime prison. They take your pension and the staff steal all the food. Anyone who still has legs runs away.

  “Of course if you live rough you’re caught between two flames. In railway stations there’s plenty of folk around, but you have to look out for the police. In quiet places you get beaten up and robbed by thugs. They know we won’t run screaming to the law. Anyway, where are you headed?”

  “Central Asia.”

  “Why not stick around with me? You’ll see how much we can make in a day.”

  “Sorry, I’ve made up my mind. The police here are getting on my nerves.’

  “Well I want to get to Sukhumi to find my girlfriend. Let’s go together.”

  I agree out of curiosity. Sukhumi is in the right direction.

  After we’ve finished the wine we go to work. Blind Pew directs me to the centre of town and tells me to stop outside the department store. Taking off his cap and putting a sombre expression on what is left of his face, he begins to sing:

  The bright moon shone

  Over the old graveyard

  And the judge wept

  by a grey tombstone.

  A crowd gathers to hear the sad song of the boy sentenced to death by his own father. I walk from one street corner to the other keeping a lookout for the cops. From time to time Blind Pew tips his takings into his pocket so that people do not think he is making too much. When he points his index finger downwards it means it is time for a smoke-break. Finally Pew says: “Greed killed the friar, let’s stop now.”

  We fortify ourselves with wine and count our takings. A Moscow diva would envy us. In two hours we have made thirty roubles.

  “But you only sing one song,” I complain.

  “It’s the only one I can remember.”

  We buy some bottles for the night. I take Pew home to the basement where I’ve been dossing but this turns out to be a mistake. His snores not only keep me awake but they must have awoken everyone on the floor above. In the early hours of the morning the police arrive and haul us off. Luckily they give us nothing worse than a beating. We have 24 hours to leave Sochi.

  Reaching the station, we walk along a platform and force open the pneumatic doors of a local train. We lie down in an empty carriage and Pew is soon snoring again. A couple of hours later the train jerks and begins to move, taking us towards Sukhumi. I check the adjoining carriage before returning to give Pew the all-clear. He stumbles down the carriage, singing a song I taught him the night before, one I remember from childhood.

  Allow me to introduce myself:

  my name is Nikolai Bottle

  Everyone points their fingers

  and calls me ‘drunk’ and ‘wastrel.’

  At work they laugh:

  “Bottle’s drunk all day!”

  The boss picks on me

  but I’ll make him pay!

  Again the dt’s torture me,

  my family’s gone; the street’s my life.

  Vodka is my only friend,

  Who introduced us? My wife!

  I do not stand with hand held out,

  No – I walk through the bazaar

  Crying: Good people - buy my soul!

  But who wants the soul of a drinker?

  My song is a success: people laugh and give Pew money and a glass of chacha.32 I make no sign that I know him.

  By the time we reach Sukhumi, Pew is rejoicing over the money he’s made. He asks me to accompany him further, explaining he’ll forget the song by tomorrow morning and will need me to teach it to him again.

  I decline. To me, begging is degrading, and besides, I don’t want to be supported by Pew. When we alight at Sukhumi he directs me to the bazaar. A group of alkashi has gathered by the entrance. One of them, a bloated, ragged woman, gives a screech. Detaching herself from her comrades she runs up and flings her arms around Pew. Together they stagger off to the station to work the train again.

  I wander off to try my luck in town. I’ve never been to Georgia before and I feel out of place. People are better-dressed than in Russia and I sense they’re looking down their noses at me. I spend the day wandering through the town drinking nothing but Turkish coffee. The streets are full of men kissing each other and talking across every doorway.33 Many people have photos of their dead pinned on their lapels and most women wear m
ourning. Two men begin talking behind me and I step to one side, thinking a fight is about to break out. Cars career like rabid dogs, paying little attention to lights. Drivers stop to chat to friends, ignoring the angry queues behind them

  I spend the money Blind Pew left me and then wander back to the bazaar. A market woman beckons me over and asks me to help carry her baskets of peppers. Happy to earn a bit of cash, I begin hauling baskets over to her stall.

  “If we see your ugly face again you’ll spend the rest of your life working to buy medicine,” a voice growls in my ear.

  I turn round. A group of Kurds are glaring at me. There is nothing left to do but get the hell out of here.

  I haven’t gone far before a pot-bellied policemen hisses through gold teeth: “You, Vassya! Come here!”

  This is the end of my wandering, I think.

  The police station is piled to the ceiling with confiscated mandarins. Three other vagrants are loading them into cars. The police order me to help them. When we’re done the cops give us each five roubles and a bottle of chacha. I walk out of the station shaking my head in bewilderment. “I won’t be able to tell anyone about this,” I say to one of the other tramps. “They’ll think I’m a compulsive liar. Russian police would sooner hang themselves with their own belts than behave like that.”

  A dark man approaches me. “Want a job Vassya?”34

  “What sort of job?”

  “Building a fence – three or four days.”

  “How much?”

  “Ten roubles a day and drink.”

  “Where d’you want me to go?”

  “To the village. I’ll drive you there and back.” The man points to a car.

  I haven’t much choice so I go along. It’s dark when we arrive at the man’s village. He takes me to his farm and directs me to a barn where bunches of bay leaves and eucalyptus are drying. He warns me not to smoke: a spark could send the whole place up in flames. I lie down and sleep in the sweet-scented air.