On Leninskaya Street we came upon a statue, erected only in 2008, of Saint Nicholas the Miracle Worker. In accordance with church tradition, the saint faces east, but somewhat untraditionally, he holds aloft a sword in one hand and a miniature cathedral in the other. The message: the formidable holy potentate, backed by the true faith, is warding off invaders. (Legend has it that Saint Nicholas fended off the Mongols for a time.) The monument put us in mind of the aggressive angels who, so said local Solovetsky Islands lore, beat up a fisherman’s wife because she accidentally strayed onto God’s territory, and of the mighty bronze Saint Nicholas—also armed with a sword and a cathedral—rising above the Preloga River embankment in Kaliningrad. A ways farther down the street, an old, gray Stalinist behemoth of a building, decorated with red hammer-and-sickle flags, hosts both the headquarters of the Communist Party and the Gazprom Bank, the epitome of Russia’s capitalist wealth. This seems like a puzzling juxtaposition, but it is not: Gazprom, in supplying hydrocarbons to Europe, was a principle source of hard currency in Soviet days, just as it is now. Political power and money go together.
On our last day, we decided to do what most visitors do: take a boat tour of the coast. We discovered that Russia’s confused identity manifested itself once again in the tourist business, which now, privatized, operates solely for profit. Attracted by a sign showing a ship surrounded by cheerful dolphins and playful sea walruses and promising the “true Kamchatka fishing experience,” we stopped by a tour company office near our hotel and inquired about schedules for the morrow.
Departure, the young man told us, would be at 8:30 a.m., but “assembly” was obligatory at 8:15, and the cost was a mere $5 per ticket. He showed us pictures of what we would see. We thought we might check out other options—perhaps there was a later trip? We could book by phone at our convenience, he told us. This was fine by us.
So, a few hours later we called to make reservations.
“I can’t take reservations until I have copies of your passports.”
“What?” we asked. “Why? We’re not crossing the border!”
“You heard me, you have to bring me your passports! We will be sailing into the border waters of the Russian Federation!”
“But you said we could reserve by phone!”
“Of course! But you have to bring me your passports! And you can’t do that by phone!”
“Can we do that in the morning?”
“Must I repeat myself? I’m not going to spend all afternoon repeating what should be obvious!” he snapped. “I need your passports before I can guarantee you tickets!”
“Why are you being so hostile? We’re your customers!”
“Customers have to follow the regulations! We have to comply with the authorities just like everyone else!”
“We will bring you the passports.”
Passports are, indeed, a Russian obsession. You need a document to prove your existence—as Bulgakov once memorably stated, in the Soviet Union “if there’s no document, no person exists.” This goes for just about everything—from making a simple bank transaction to buying a cell phone to voting for president. It comes from the Soviet system of control, of the government’s efforts to keep track of its citizens. In 1991 communism disappeared, but the rules and mentality have remained. This was the case even in the Yeltsin years, and all the more so now. The state collects information not only for possible use; the constant registration of words and deeds required of citizens reminds them that the system is watching.
We stopped by the tour office a couple of hours later with, as required, passports in hand. When we tried to pay for our tickets as well, the man barked, as if we were requesting a special privilege, “You will pay on the boat, like everyone else! And don’t think of showing up for the tour without your passports. You have to show them or they won’t let you on board. Be at the mekhzavod”—fur-processing plant—“gate at 8:15 sharp! Remember, 8:15 at the mekhzavod!”
“The mekhzavod?” This seemed odd, but then not; furs were probably shipped here from other parts of the peninsula and unloaded, before being processed, made into clothing, and sent elsewhere.
“Of course! That’s where the dock is!”
The next morning a dense fog hung in the warm air, hindering visibility even on the streets. Down at the mekhzavod’s blue gate, passengers, some giddy with excitement, others lethargic from their early rise, huddled by our tour-company martinet and his female assistant, a young woman with stark red hair and a military bearing. She examined our passports and led us through the gates where border guards once again inspected our travel documents. Through a gangplank with a railing, we climbed aboard what looked to be a tugboat with an observation deck.
We pulled out into the dense mist and began circling around Avacha Bay. From large speakers emanated a prerecorded spiel about the wonders of the coast, urging us to catch sight of them, to look right, look left, glance straight ahead. Yet there was only fog and the cries of birds: of cormorants as they dove into the sea, white with the fog’s reflection, of gulls as they circled above, and of orange-billed ducks as they paddled by—a lonesome litany of lyrical cries.
Yet soon the sun limned through the fog, clearing the air and leaving us to contemplate green rolling sopki, three stark rock outcroppings in the sea dubbed the Three Brothers—a legend has it that they defended the city from the deadly tsunami and now stand there to protect it from all misfortunes. Eventually the majestic slopes of three snow-mottled volcanoes—Vilyuchinsky, Koryaksky, and Avacha—opened in front of our eyes. We passed out through the bay’s narrow neck and into the Pacific, chugged along for an hour or so, and dropped anchor.
While we thought of cheerfully waving at Sarah Palin in her backyard on the other side of the ocean, the rest of the passengers tossed in their lines, at times retrieving flounders, a local delicacy.
Surprisingly, and uncharacteristically for events such as this (involving strangers, not just friends) in Russia, several of the young men among us stripped off their shirts and lounged back as they waited for bites, striking poses resembling those seen in photographs of Putin in the Siberian wilds, where just a few weeks before he fished bare-chested, his trip coinciding with our stay in Blagoveshchensk. They were, one could not help thinking, emulating the Putin power, the ever-cool James Bond hero of modern Russia.
The sun eventually waned past the meridian, the captain turned on the motor, and we chugged ahead, heading for the bay’s narrow mouth. We did not get far before halting. Instructions came over the loudspeaker telling us to fish once again: there would be an unspecified delay.
We waited and waited, floating within view of the volcanoes and rocks, as gulls flocked and cried out around us. Small private yachts buzzed, passing by us back and forth from the shore. One hour passed, then two. We mounted the stairs to the captain’s booth and inquired about the delay.
“For reasons of national security we have to stop here,” answered the captain. “We’ll be here as long as necessary.”
“Any idea how long?”
“As long as necessary!”
And so we floated. And floated. And floated.
Espying the young man from the tour office, we tried to pay for our tickets.
“Can’t you see I’m busy?” he barked. “Pay later!”
Two hours after that we pulled into port by the fur plant. The boat’s crew, including the tour-company martinet, dispersed, failing to collect ticket fares.
From what we had seen from Kaliningrad to Kamchatka, Bulgakov, were he alive today, would still have much to write about.
EPILOGUE
THE PAST OF THE RUSSIAN FUTURE
In order to be in control, you have to have a definite plan for at least a reasonable period of time. So how, may I ask, can man be in control if he can’t even draw up a plan for a ridiculously short period of time, say, a thousand years?
—Mikhail Bulgakov, Master and Margarita
Putin has failed to build us a great future, so
he has built us a great past.
—A contemporary Russian joke
Rising from his orderly desk in the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin picked up his navy blue suit jacket from the back of his chair and put it on. Ready for his fourth inauguration, he strode out of his office and down the long white corridors of the Senate Palace, occasionally glancing at paintings of Russia’s vast landscapes hung on the walls. He descended a red-carpeted, marble staircase under a magnificent chandelier and soaring ceilings adorned with gold trim. High oaken doors opened before him and he passed out into a courtyard, where he boarded the Russian-made Cortege limousine (instead of a Mercedes-Benz of previous, more Western years) that would take him, surrounded by motorcycles with flashing lights, across the Kremlin grounds to the Grand Kremlin Palace.
Arriving at the Grand Palace as the Kremlin bells struck noon, he exited the Cortege and entered the lavishly decorated halls, where a six-thousand-strong audience of ministers, top businessmen, Orthodox Church leaders, and other members of the country’s elite applauded the sixty-six-year-old president as he set off down the red carpet toward Andreyevsky Hall, where the Supreme Soviet once met and where he himself had thrice taken his oath of office. The hall was also the site of festivities for the coronation of three czars. Every channel in Russia was broadcasting these momentous, thoroughly choreographed moments, some set to a song from Mikhail Glinka’s patriotic opera, A Life for the Czar.
Amid such palatial grandeur the newly reelected president looked small but by no means humble. He certainly looked in charge. Before his previous inaugurations—in 2000 and 2004—Putin, dressed in a leather jacket, had traversed the Red Square, the very image of a young leader destined to modernize Russia. In 2012, following widespread demonstrations against his return to the presidency, his large motorcade (“like Stalin’s,” some commented at the time) sped through a downtown Moscow blocked off and emptied of pedestrians, presumably to thwart protests.
The inauguration that Russia’s state-controlled television stations broadcast aimed to display the lavish traditions and continuity of Putin’s presidency. Clever web enthusiasts set the president’s walk to the Bee Gees’ song “Staying Alive,” showing Putin was more of a survivor than a savior, anxiously maneuvering among the pitfalls and perils of Russian politics.
Indeed, Putin’s next term, scheduled to last until 2024, could be a dangerous one for him. Segments of the economic elite, hit hard by multiplying Western sanctions, have been grumbling louder than ever, although Putin might find ways to appease or undermine them, as he has before. So far, the 2014 drop in oil prices and the sanctions have not shaken the system, but they may, especially if the economy slides. After all, growth has only twice approached three percent since 2008.
For now, the president’s control over politics, the economy, and increasingly society appears secure. However, his growing reliance on authoritarian measures and propaganda may begin to diminish the public mandate he has enjoyed almost since coming to power. State control of television, from where most Russians get their news, has given him an air of omnipotence—he is, truly, as television would have it, the Russian Santa Claus, the miracle worker who has “raised Russia off its knees.” Although the Kremlin has failed to prevent tragedies—tragic fires and plane crashes, among other things, show this—the president has certainly restored Russians’ sense that they belong to a great world power. The public perception, enhanced by the news reporting, is that the governors, mayors, and other regional authorities, and not the president, should answer for calamities.
Notwithstanding the quasicoronation described at the epilogue’s opening, Putin’s grip on power might weaken. He has so adeptly manipulated the country’s political and economic oligarchs that this hasn’t happened—at least openly. Who might replace him, if he gets ousted or quits because he’s tired or just plain bored? The names of defense minister Sergei Shoigu or Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin have been mooted, although equally as potential candidates for losing their jobs instead—both may have gotten too much power and visibility for Putin’s liking. Dmitry Medvedev, the 2008 Putin pick for president and now the prime minister, may be a safe choice that Putin would favor as a replacement once again.
The Russian constitution bars Putin from seeking another, fifth term in office, and no one has talked seriously—so far—about amending it so that he could run again. In any case, should Putin choose to leave the presidency voluntarily, without installing an obedient replacement, he may find himself in jeopardy. He certainly knows the fate of previous KGB leaders. Stalin’s dreaded secret police chief Lavrenty Beria found himself, after the dictator suddenly died of a stroke in 1953, sentenced to death for “spying against the state.” (Stalin’s other two secret police heads met similar ends.) With the exceptions of Khrushchev and Gorbachev, all Soviet leaders died in office; Yeltsin, the first president of Russia, survived by handing power over to Putin.
In his years in power the Russian president has consolidated and strengthened the security forces, intimidated and jailed opponents, and muzzled the media and courts. If he steps down, the system he has created may turn against him, using his own methods.
What we saw during our travels through Russia’s eleven time zones gave us little reason to predict doom for Putin, or for the country, at least in the immediate term. People are, as a rule, living better than ever before, freer than ever before, and—where public finances allow—local governments are overhauling infrastructure and bettering life for their citizens. In any case, more than twenty-five years of capitalism and, roughly, a decade of prosperity under Putin have done much to transform Russia from the broken-down, chaotic wreck of a country it was during Yeltsin’s time. The people we met criticized Putin or praised him to us, in most places without apparent fear of being monitored by the authorities. (Broadcasting such opinions via the media would probably be another story.) Almost all seemed resigned to Putin’s domination of the political scene; in fact, politics, unless we brought it up, was not on people’s minds, as it often is in Moscow or Saint Petersburg.
But tentative harbingers of change are appearing—namely, the many anticorruption opposition centers Alexey Navalny has managed to establish around Russia in recent years. Traumatic memories of economic hardship and international humiliation suffered during the Yeltsin years once mobilized people in support of Putin, but they have, naturally, faded with time; his success abroad, such as in Syria, and his much-lauded annexation of Crimea will eventually lose their capacity to inspire.
Despite Putin’s lasting popularity, the Kremlin has certainly recognized the emergence of discontent and its potential for the negative consequences to his power. Hence growing restrictions on the internet and attempts to block social media sites whose traffic the security systems cannot monitor. The police, in curtailing unauthorized demonstrations, have used violence and arrests far more frequently than they did in 2011–2012, when far more protesters turned out. In the last decade, the young in particular have begun to believe that society has not changed in accordance with their expectations, which led to disappointment. In recent years applications for immigration to the United States alone have tripled in number; the American Embassy has received more than 2,500 in 2017, the highest number since the early post-Soviet years.1 Whether to stay or leave Russia is a frequent topic among members of the middle class, especially in Moscow and other big cities. Even some of those accepting of Putin’s policies seem to be yearning for fresh faces. We heard this in Omsk, we heard this in Magadan.
In his brief inauguration speech the president offered the young “a new quality of life, well-being, security, and health.”2 He even ordered the government’s youth agency Rosmolodezh to report directly to him so as to court this youth away from Navalny. That move has further disclosed the Kremlin’s hypocrisy. During his swearing-in ceremony when thousands of those young came out to protest the president’s more years in power, they were brutally beaten by the Cossacks. These descendants of the militant conquerors
, who once served the czars in defense of the throne and imperial expansion east, today have no formalized role but are used by the Kremlin as a historic militia of sorts. The Cossacks claim a role of policing patriotism, performing the violent jingoistic pro-Putin duties when the actual police are still restricted by law.
At the same time, Putin’s vision of a Great Russia remains enormously popular. If he were to disappear, his policies would likely survive. Russians have long believed in the “great man” theory of history; they remain convinced that individuals at the top more than circumstances or trends below determine the course of events. Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace, which describes how the Russian empire repelled Napoleon’s invasion in 1812, typifies this kind of imperial thinking.
The well-known Russian tolerance for repression has baffled Western journalists, economists, and political consultants for decades. As they suffered through tyranny inflicted on them by some of the worst despots in world history, Russians, one can say, developed an almost apocalyptic fear of change—and especially changes of power. A regime’s demise births not hope but dread. Among Russia’s ruling class, this has encouraged, almost more than anywhere else, a reliance on inertia—just the right environment for autocracy. Stalin could count on this; this was also the secret behind the reelection of Boris Yeltsin, despite his abysmal popularity ratings. “Better the devil you know” may be a cliché, but it applies to Russian voters.
If Russian rulers are expected to act in the interests of the country, the Russian people, too, bear a responsibility—to serve their God and their czar. In this, Russia has followed the Byzantine tradition, in which there was only the ruler and his serfs. The ruler provides not guarantees or laws, but gives amnesty, mercy, and the forgiveness of sins. The de facto absence of the rule of law in Russia and the overwhelming influence of the Supreme Leader over one’s freedom or lack thereof—even, in extreme cases, over whether one lives or dies—has left Russians ever in search of the Good Czar, whose reign would usher in, if not paradise, then prosperity and justice for all. Yet, with the state unrestrained by institutions, with civil liberties weak and the czar presiding over all, the result of such an approach to governance is often less than paradisiacal.
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