Unfortunately, a minor disaster was to cut down our walking time. I fell on a treacherous strip of wet rocks near the otter observatory outside Kyle Rhea. One minute I was vertical, the next minute, flat on my face. With blood everywhere, I feared the worst — a broken nose or jaw maybe? But no, I had only put my front teeth through my bottom lip and snapped off one of my two front top crowns. We did get to see the otters, ducking and diving through the kelp, but for me it was through a mist of pain as I mopped up the many grazes on my hands, arms and face.
The cottage hospital at Broadford sewed up my lip and suggested a dentist in Portree, the main town of Skye. Portree straddles one side of a small natural harbour. It provides safe anchorage for many fishing and pleasure boats and the town provides the inhabitants of Skye with necessities such as supermarkets, banks, hotels, a school and, in my hour of need, a dentist. A solid line of brightly coloured buildings face the waterfront and it was here, in the ‘pink’ building, that I met Dr John Murray, the nicest dentist in the world.
I spent a morning and early afternoon chatting to this engaging man between being asked to open wide and rinse and spit. There was no saving or fixing the crown. Out it came and impressions were taken for a new crown to be made. The deal was, John would put a temporary crown in and then send the impression for a new crown to be made up on the mainland. The new crown was to be delivered to Pat’s and I would then present myself with it to a dentist friend of his who worked not far from where Pat lived in West Sussex. A disastrous situation just suddenly all got better.
After farewelling my new friend and sporting a shiny white plastic temporary tooth, I met Lindsay who had been wandering the little streets of Portree and checking out the surrounding countryside.
We left Scotland taking highway A83 past Loch Lomond and eventually on to the M6 till we reached the edge of the Yorkshire Dales. By the time we stopped for dinner in Hawes, it was late, it was dark and it was pouring rain. The last 20 miles into Kettlewell, where we were to stay, was a nightmare.
The Dales were, in their rock-strewn, windswept way, beautiful. After a few days at Kettlewell, we called in at Haworth to relive my memories of the Bronte books I so loved as a teenager. We did the obligatory tour of the rectory and walked on the moors behind. It was all very atmospheric.
Before heading home to Brambles, we had promised cousin Gwen that we would call in to meet as many of her family as we could. We arrived in East Leake at Gwen’s house late one morning. We were all to meet up at the local pub for lunch. There was quite a gathering at the pub with so many of Gwen’s family that I lost track of who was who. Once again, I went through my, by now quite routine, story of ‘How I Found My Family’. There was much to tell of what became of Uncle Len, and about our family and home in Australia. We listened to their stories, trying to commit as much as possible to memory. Lindsay tried valiantly to scribble notes on bits of paper and in the small notebook that lives in my handbag. Some of those precious notes survived, some didn’t.
It is in Gwen’s small neat back garden that one of my favourite photos of her family was taken. There we stand, a whole group of us huddled together, arms linked, all grinning at the camera. Once again I realise how agreeable it is to be with a family group who are as open and friendly as this lot.
Later that evening, after taking a tearful farewell from Gwen and Bill, we set off for Lincoln to visit Pat’s eldest daughter Angela and her family. We had met them briefly during our first meeting with Pat in 1993 and were looking forward to seeing them again, this time in their own home. We spent the afternoon with them and their daughters. Since that meeting, we have forged a close bond and have been in regular contact ever since.
It was now time to point Hilda in the direction of Brambles, put our foot down on the accelerator and head for home. We arrived very late in the evening, tired but happy that we had accomplished more or less what we had set out to. I bet Pat was glad to see her precious car come back all in one piece too.
Chapter 25
Russia, the first trip, 1998
We said our farewells to Pat and Albert as we boarded the train to London at Goring-by-Sea railway station. It was early September and the mornings were beginning to have a nip to them. Winter was just round the corner.
There had been some discussion at Brambles about the prudence of travelling to Russia at this time. Russia at the best of times was not considered an easy county to visit, nor a particularly safe one. Russia was, as history was to show over the next year or so, in both political and financial meltdown.
We would be arriving in Russia as the rouble was about to go into free fall. With the financial collapse came political instability. The Russian President, Boris Yeltsin, who had begun to lose his hold on power as his health and the country’s economy deteriorated, dismissed Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin and his entire cabinet. The political crisis of 1998 had come to a head. So here we were, heading to a country in both political and financial flux. We did not speak or read Russian, did not even know the Cyrillic alphabet and had no friend or even acquaintance there to give us guidance. It was a case of fools rush in … and hope for the best.
We had started the lengthy process of obtaining our visas for our trip to Russia when we had first arrived in London in early spring. Back in London we checked at the embassy, and there were our precious visas waiting for us. That was the final decider. We would go despite any problems we might encounter. We would tread carefully, be prepared for the unexpected but ultimately put our trust in ordinary Russian people. We were never to be disappointed.
Back in 1991, the disintegration of the structure of the Soviet Union, the secession of the Baltic republics and the displacement of the Communist Party all culminated in the formation of the Commonwealth of Independent States. With the political changes came bureaucratic changes, mostly for the good for tourists, but there was now a new set of rules, a new way of doing things. The seeds of ‘glasnost’ and ‘perestroika’, Mikhail Gorbachev’s twin concepts of ‘openness’ and ‘restructuring’, had led to major changes in Soviet society as well as profoundly changing the world balance of power and East–West relations. However, Russia was still not an easy country to visit or travel through.
To obtain a visa one still needed a sponsor to ‘invite’ you to visit. We got around this bit of bureaucratic mumbo jumbo because the people at the St Petersburg Youth Hostel were happy to sponsor us. As for money, we decided to play it safe by taking US dollars and our credit and debit cards. We were to find this combination useful, but on some occasions, not foolproof.
Although we only had a few days in London we did manage to meet up with my cousin Eileen for lunch at old St Mary’s church where we had first met back in 1993. After lunch, we spent a quiet afternoon walking and talking as we strolled along the embankment beside the River Thames. Although we kept in touch, this was the last time we were destined to meet. After a short illness, Eileen died in 2013.
We flew into Russia a couple of days later, arriving at St Petersburg airport at 11 at night. We never take taxis when we travel but we made an exception that night as the buses had stopped running. The youth hostel that so kindly ‘sponsored’ us was in the process of being refurbished — and it needed it! Our first night in Russia was miserable. I had a heavy cold coming on and our room was dusty and dank. To top it off, our backpacks had not arrived with the plane so we had no towels, toiletries or pyjamas for the night. We had just the clothes we had flown in.
By the next morning, things hadn’t got a whole lot better; only my backpack arrived by taxi mid-morning, so I at least could clean my teeth, shower and change my clothes. Lindsay’s backpack, our airline said, was still missing.
When we struggled out to do a bit of sightseeing, we realised it was not only the hostel undergoing renovations — by the look of the main street, Nevsky Prospect, the whole town was. Through the smoke haze, we found that the street was being resurfaced and many of the buildings facing the street were having a
face lift with paint and high-pressure water sprays. Through red-rimmed eyes, my first view of Russia was not promising. With some alarm we realised, after a visit to an ATM to extract some roubles, the exchange rate was fluctuating on a daily basis. After discussions with our airline, we were told Lindsay’s backpack had found its way to Lisbon and would not be arriving back in St Petersburg for a few days. Not a good start.
Finding a shop was our next challenge. In a city such as St Petersburg that should be easy. But in those days the Russians hid their shops behind facades of imperial buildings. We discovered even the big department stores did not go in for large display windows but tuck themselves away behind ornate large timber doors, colonnades or small stairwells that lead round the back or underneath many of the ornate buildings lining the main street. Once you get the hang of it, it all becomes quite easy.
We did not stay at the hostel for more than a few days. Friendly people and an obliging manager didn’t make up for the sad state of disrepair, and my sneezes and snuffles demanded an altogether more comfortable place in which to recover. We moved to a monstrous eight-storey edifice on the corner of Nevsky Prospect. By rights, we should have alerted the authorities that we were moving, but we figured that with all that was going on in Russia at that time, no-one was going to worry about a couple of elderly Australians changing hotels. And we were right; there never was a ‘tap on the shoulder’ by the authorities and our movements around the country, much less changing hotels, were never questioned.
Once my cold improved, Lindsay got his jet-setting backpack back and I worked out how to get hot water from our bathroom taps, things improved and we started to enjoy this new environment. We set ourselves to learning the Cyrillic alphabet — this was to be of great importance during our stay as it helped with interpreting maps, road signs and indeed any Russian signage. We learnt which ATMs would still give roubles, which restaurants were cheap and served good food, and we still had time to do the traditional tourist thing. We did a great walking tour with a young Russian who spoke good English (his day job was a journalist). We explored, as all good tourists should, the Hermitage, the Winter Gardens and the magnificent Cathedral of the Saviour on the Spilled Blood.
One of the most memorable days we had was our trip to Peterhof, Peter the Great’s summer palace and gardens in the outer suburbs of the city. The fast way to get there was the hydrofoil across the Gulf of Finland. There was a light mist that morning that had settled over the waters of the Gulf. The mist and lack of wind kept the visibility down and made the water smooth as glass. As we pulled into the jetty, we could only see a few hundred yards ahead of us, but as the mist gradually lifted, a magical place revealed itself.
The palaces, formal gardens and parks of Peterhof are spread over 600 hectares. With its mighty Grand Palace and smaller palaces such as Monplaisir, Marly, the Hermitage (not to be confused with the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg) and the Cottage Palace, it took us a full day to just scratch the surface of what there was to see. There are 173 fountains in the Peterhof gardens all fed by underground springs. There are ornately laid-out gardens, orchards and parklands, pools and cascades — a truly enchanting place. The main palace, known as Empress Elizabeth’s Grand Palace (after Peter’s granddaughter), was being restored at the time so we could not see inside. It didn’t matter as we ran out of time anyway and missed the last boat home. That didn’t matter either, as we took the slow way home via a late bus to the city and saw parts of Saint Petersburg we would not have seen if we had returned by hydrofoil.
We dined that night on borscht and cabbage-filled pancakes at a small restaurant near our hotel. Very tasty — we were starting to acclimatise and appreciate Russian food.
We were to make the journey to Moscow on the overnight train. During our stay at the youth hostel, we had met up with a couple of young Brits who were ‘doing’ Russia on the cheap. We had agreed to travel with them on the night train so we could all share a four-berth cabin. They suggested this was the safest way to travel as they had heard alarming stories of tourists on train trips being robbed as they slept. This was the first and last time we travelled in Russia in the so-called safe way. They were a couple of pleasant young men and it was nice to have English speakers to chat to, but from then on we were happy to do our own thing in our own way and luckily, never had a problem. Our accommodation on the train was very up market. The bunks were made up and breakfast packs were ready in the morning. This was the first of many train journeys we had in Russia and our first taste of the very refreshing practice of being served strong black very sweet tea served in decorative pewter holders at regular intervals during the journey. We soon became Russian-style tea addicts.
We all arrived safely in Moscow after a trouble-free night. No robbers or pickpockets on that train; well, not in our compartment anyway.
Moscow is big, very big; and like most cities, an acquired taste. The youth hostel would only take US dollars, and by now we did not have any left. So out came the Lonely Planet guide book as we checked other accommodation for the night. Money was starting to become a real problem. With the rouble fluctuating on a daily basis and many ATMs running out of cash by mid-morning, it became a daily struggle for Lindsay to find ready money for the day. Most places would only take roubles, but some would only accept US dollars. Most mornings would see Lindsay doing a round of the local ATMs looking for cash. He very quickly got to know all available ATMs in walking distance of wherever we happened to be staying.
Having comfortable accommodation, meeting a few friendly people and knowing your way around a place really helps in determining whether you are going to like the place or not. Moscow in September was, in 1998 at least, flat, dusty and lacking in tree-lined streets or green spaces and seemingly filled with stern-looking people. This unfortunately coloured our perceptions of what is in fact a fascinating city. With its magnificent Kremlin, imposing squares and elegant buildings, there was a lot to see, but the further out you went the shabbier the buildings became and the more deprived the people looked. With limited funds and no assurance we could find an ATM that dispensed roubles, it was the cheaper, poorer outer suburbs for us.
We found a hotel right next door to an outer suburban Metro station. Despite a few cockroaches glimpsed scurrying for cover across the floor as the lights were turned on, it wasn’t too bad. The beds looked clean and there was hot running water from the bathroom taps so we settled in there for the rest of our stay in Moscow. Looking from our bedroom window, we could see miles and miles of market stalls selling cigarettes, clothes, hardware, livestock, meat and groceries. In marked contrast to our shabby run down hotel, just around the corner was the Radisson, a five star hotel that was so large it seemed a city within itself. Nice, we thought, very nice if only we could afford it.
Over the next few days, we travelled the underground on the highly efficient trains that tunnelled their way from one side of the city to the other. The Moscow Metro is state-owned. It is the world’s second most heavily used underground metro system after Japan’s twin subway. Its stations have often been called ‘the people’s palaces’, for their elegant designs and lavish and profuse use of marble, mosaics, sculptures and chandeliers. Opened in 1935, it is famous for the beauty of many of its stations, which contain dazzling examples of socialist realist art. The murals, statuary and lighting are breathtaking in their scope. Using the Metro is cheap, a few kopeks per ride, easy, once you have worked out how to buy your ticket, and fast. Trains run every few minutes and almost all inner city stations are mind-bogglingly flamboyant. As trains are so frequent, there are no timetables; you just stand on the platform and a train appears.
In the autumn and winter of 1941, during the siege of Moscow by the German army, metro stations were used by the people as air-raid shelters and the Russian Council of Ministers moved its offices onto the platforms of one of the inner stations. Even in those times of privation and horror, it must have been reassuring to huddle in the warmth and security among those ma
rble pillars and frescoes of triumphant Russians.
After our sightseeing trips and constant checks for roubles at ATMs or US dollars at the big hotels, we spent the evenings trying out Russian fare at small cafés in our neighbourhood. Pelmeni, a sort of Russian ravioli, borscht, a rich beetroot soup and pirozhki, little balls of dough wrapped around a meat filling and baked until golden and crispy — all very different from anything you would find in Australia. We were beginning to get a taste for the rather heavy style foods of Russia. Looking at the passing parade on any Russian street, particularly in the outer city areas and in the country, it is obvious that older Russians love their food and that the carbo-loaded diet so good at keeping out the bitter cold of winter takes its toll on the human figure. Solid comes to mind, as I would watch a couple of hefty looking babushkas (grandmothers) shuffling past, each with a stick of bread under her arm and capacious shopping bag stuffed with market goods. Very solid.
Luck was with Lindsay on our last day in Moscow. He left early in the morning do his usual rounds of the money machines and came back at 11.30 triumphant. He had found an ATM that spat out roubles and a large hotel that was prepared to change some of our $US travellers cheques. Hallelujah! We were solvent once more.
After buying food supplies for the trip, we said goodbye to the friendly but elusive cockroaches and caught the overnight train to Saratov. We were heading out of the big cities now and making our way, slowly but surely, to a town on the mouth of the Volga River — a town that I hoped would prove to be my mother’s birth-place. The train was wonderful. Our compartment, a four-berth cabin, had green silky curtains and comfortable looking bunks. The staff were both friendly and helpful, making up the beds with basic but clean linen and providing us with the ubiquitous steaming cups of black sweet tea and not a cockroach in sight.
Whatever Remains Page 28