Midnight in Siberia: A Train Journey into the Heart of Russia (23 page)

But Anne found the boom ending, as the world was on the cusp of another economic downturn. “All of the signals of a crisis are here, but journalists writing about it have to be careful. Several local reporters are being investigated for what the prosecutor general calls ‘inflaming a mood of panic.’”

Not even realizing that we have reached the bus station—because our bus just stops in the middle of a parking lot—our driver yells “Chelyabinsk” and Sergei and I and a few other passengers are quickly ushered off by our friendly driver so he can continue his journey to Kazakhstan.

We are able to wave down a car, a red Lada, a Soviet make that ceased to be produced in 2012, driven by an easygoing older gentleman named Oleg. I immediately inspect Oleg’s dashboard and am disappointed not to see any videotaping device. And this seems an appropriate time to point out how so many vivid images of that streaking meteorite here were caught on tape, and beamed on the Internet around the world. It has something to do with Russians’ fear of trusting anyone. If Russian drivers are ever in an accident—even the smallest fender-bender—they will keep their vehicles right where they are, even if they are blocking traffic on a congested highway. This is to avoid the other driver fabricating what happened. What’s more, when police arrive, Russians doubt the cops will be fair—what if they accept a bribe from the other driver, or what if the other driver has connections with the police or local government? The solution? Many Russians install small video cameras on their dashboards to film everything. Sergei has one. I asked him about it once.

“So, how much memory do these things have?”

“Well, mine has about six hours. So it continuously copies over, but keeps the last six hours. So if anything happens, you can go back six hours and find the video.”

Voilà! When you have thousands and thousands of drivers on the roads around Chelyabinsk, and a meteorite happens to streak across the sky, chances are there would be some damn good images caught. But even more shocking than those images was the fact that there was very little screaming or yelps of surprise from the Russian motorists. The comedian Jon Stewart, in a segment on
The
Daily Show
, may have put it best when he aired one of the videos, noting the reaction from the driver—or lack of: “The dude in the car is completely unimpressed by a ten-ton death rock hurtling at mach 50 toward the city!”

And this made more sense as Stewart played a montage of more scenes captured on these video camera in Russia. There were motorists emerging from their vehicles after an accident, grabbing a baseball bat, and smashing up the windshield of the other car involved. There was a woman caught on tape stealing a bumper; a farm truck accidentally dumping a herd of cattle on the road; a Russian tank suddenly bursting out of a field and into the middle of a busy road.

It was therefore no surprise to Russians when a meteorite happened to land in the country—not even to me and Rose, then having lived there for just three years. Crazy shit just happens there. “Of course it landed in Russia,” Rose said to me on the phone from home, as Sergei and I were still in Yaroslavl: “Rose, we’ve got to go to Chelyabinsk.”

“Of course you do.”

We are driving toward a hotel. Sergei asks Oleg if the meteorite is still all the talk in Chelyabinsk, a week after the landing.

“Oh yes,” he says, chuckling. “There are still ads on television. One is for a new door. The ad has a wife saying to her husband—Honey, what are you waiting for to buy a new door? For the
next
asteroid?”

Oleg laughs at his punch line.

“I was home. My first thought was it was a missile. My second thought, maybe a plane crashed. My dog hid under the sofa. I couldn’t even woo her out with sausage.” (At least Russian dogs
are
freaked out!)

“There was no panic, no fear. A thousand people went to the hospital, but they are okay. There is a problem now, though—people are being arrested for selling fake space chunks on the Internet.”

Of course they are. What’s more, Russian scientists are coming around asking people to donate the remnants they’ve discovered for research—and evidently there’s been resistance because people don’t trust that the scientists are not frauds.

We pull up to a hotel. Sergei asks Oleg if we can hire him tomorrow to take us around and inspect the meteor zone. He’s thrilled for the business—and just a little stoked to be involved in our mission.

He picks us up at 9:15 a.m. sharp and suggests we visit Chebarkul, a small city situated on the lake where the meteorite evidently made landfall. The space rock flew over western suburbs of Chelyabinsk, shedding debris all over the place, then flew low over the city, shaking apartment buildings and breaking windows, before heading east and flying into the lake. Scientists have not yet found the largest remaining piece, but they did find a gaping hole in the ice, so the assumption was the meteorite plunged down deep into the water to its final resting place.

Chebarkul has a small downtown, with clothing stores, mobile phone outlets, and older people bundled up in fur hats and coats selling fish. We approach one woman, who introduces herself as Polina Skorobogatova.

“I saw it!” she says, knowing full well that this American radio crew had not come to ask her for directions to the
banya
. “It was heading over that building. It was a ball. I thought it was just the sunrise, but then”—she
claps
her hands together once to re-create the loud boom she heard—“and there was just black-and-white smoke. I was afraid. But just for a moment.”

We ask if the community has recovered.

“I think this was actually a message from God,” she says. “A message that our community is nice and deserves some attention. We have enjoyed the attention.”

And Polina has moved on, suddenly far more interested in my clothing choices. I am not wearing gloves or a heavy coat. She suspects vanity.

“There are just old guys around here—no one to fall in love with you,” she says. “Get a hat on, kid.”

Sergei and I move on down to the lake, which seems surprisingly peaceful for the very spot on Earth that just swallowed a meteorite. We find one guy walking down a snowy path along the lake. Yes, he saw the meteorite. No, he wasn’t stunned. No, he hasn’t found any debris. No, he doesn’t know where we might find some—but he suggests a village eighty miles away, back on the other side of Chelyabinsk.

Done.

Sergei and I climb into the car and ask Oleg to set course for Yemanzhelinka. The place is barely a village, more a depressing settlement that makes Sagra seem well developed. There are perhaps three or four feet of snow on the ground. The homes are wooden and uncared-for, painted in light blues and greens, with dark gray metal roofs sagging under the weight of the snow. This dying little place is sadly common in Russia, villages with staggering poverty, unpaved roads, rampant illness, alcoholism, and dwindling population that are largely forgotten by the government. We drive slowly through the village. I ask Oleg to stop to chat with a teenager who’s passing by.

Sergei asks if he’s seen any space debris.

“Oo-meenya, yees [I have some]!” he says, digging into his pocket, then opening his hand to reveal a small black pebble, perhaps the size of a marble. I am not going to lie. The fact that this is—or at least may be—a chunk of extraterrestrial debris seems pretty cool to me.

“What are you going to do with it?”

“Show it to my friends. Keep it as a memory.”

“Would you sell it?”

“Well, there are rumors that some guys are paying one thousand rubles [thirty dollars] per gram.”

We learn his name is Viktor. As we talk, a few more young men saunter up the street, exchange firm handshakes, and inquire about the fuss I’m causing.

One of the guys, Ivan Kichilin, throws me an accusatory glance.

“You know, I have a friend who asked if the U.S. knew this meteorite was going to hit Russia three days ahead of time—and didn’t say anything.”

I make clear I know nothing about that. And Ivan flashes a half-joking smile. He’s twenty-one with closely shaved black hair, an easy smile but dark, tired eyes.

“Seriously, some guys are doing some shady business trying to sell fake pebbles.” Ivan is speaking to me but directing his message to Viktor, almost fatherlike, suggesting
he
not get into any shady business. I’m impressed with Ivan and begin to sense that he is a guy who could teach me a thing or two about Russia.

“Sergei, can you see if we could meet Ivan for tea or something tomorrow? I’d love to talk to him more.”

Sergei translates. Ivan thinks it over, looking me up and down, then agrees. “There is one little café in town—maybe you saw it coming in. I’ll meet you there.”

We exchange phone numbers and plan to call Ivan in the morning.

I was beginning to feel I had exhausted my interest in a meteorite—strange as that may sound coming from a
Star Wars–
obsessed child of the eighties. And while I don’t necessarily believe God sent this thing to southern Russia, I get a weird feeling that trailing this space chunk brought me into contact with Ivan for a reason.

14
•
IVAN

C
ALLING IT
a café is generous.

The parking lot is empty, and the gas pumps haven’t worked for years. There is a one-story wooden building, with a ramshackle outhouse attached. Sergei and I walk inside to find four wooden tables, no customers, and a woman watching an old TV behind the register. She and another woman back in the kitchen look up at me and Sergei as if we’ve arrived from outer space. Think old Western movie, where a stranger arrives in a dusty town and walks into a vacant bar, feeling very out of place, fearing a duel at any moment. Except here there’s no sunshine or tumbleweeds, just bitter cold and giant heaps of snow. I try to act natural, inspecting a pink, creamy salad that’s available for purchase in a glass case. Sergei tells me it’s a Russian dish called “herring under a fur coat”—it usually has herring, mayonnaise, beets, egg yolk, and garlic. The salad is wrapped tightly under plastic wrap. A handwritten note says, “Don’t touch with your hands.” Wouldn’t dream of it, actually.

As we are at the counter, the door swings open and two young men walk in, with the casual, careless strut of guys poised for a fight but wanting to show no fear. One is Ivan, the other a young man I don’t recognize from the day before.

All four of us silently shake hands.

“Ivan, thanks for coming,” I say. Sergei translates. Ivan nods. I ask if everyone wants tea. Nods all around, and I order four teas from the woman at the counter.

I felt a personal connection with Andrei Gorodilov in Sagra. He is my age, a businessman, world traveler. There’s no natural connection here.

“This is my friend Evgeni. I asked him to come with me.”

“Of course,” I say.

Ivan is wearing jeans and a sweater with thick black-and-white horizontal stripes. He seems nervous. Evgeni is wearing an all-black coat, zipped up to his chin. He has a menacing look and snakelike eyes, light-colored with small dark pupils. In fact both of these guys seem menacing at first glance—and very much like young men across Russia. On the streets in Moscow and elsewhere, there’s a certain look to many young men: strong, tough, intimidating. I have interviewed some, but only now realize I’ve shied away from many, feeling no welcome mat.

Often it has been younger men who ask that I don’t use their last names on air, for fear of retribution against them or their families. Before the recent election that would return Putin to the presidency, I spent time in Tver, a gritty railroad town north of Moscow. A twenty-eight-year-old named Pavel was working as a veterinarian but driving a taxi on the side to make enough money to survive. He was excited to vote against Putin—but frightened that being quoted saying so could get him punished at work. “It’s time for us to have new leaders,” he said. “These people are in power too long, and they’re starting to get brazen.” I also met a forty-two-year-old factory worker named Mikhail. He said he sleeps better the less people know about him, so he also gave just his first name. He makes seven hundred dollars a month building railroad cars and lives with his wife and two daughters in an apartment assigned to the family during Soviet times. Life is fragile, he said, but he gets by and doesn’t want to mess with a good thing—well, a workable thing. That’s why he was ready to support Putin. As he put it, “It’s better to have someone who is tested, or else someone will come along and start making a mess.” I recall thinking in Tver how younger Russian men display this certain toughness. In some cases maybe it’s a veneer. Whatever it is, Ivan and Evgeni developed it at a young age.

The woman brings four cups of hot water with tea bags to the table. The cups have cranberries and green leaves painted on them.

“Sergei, let’s just start with the basics. I want to hear about Ivan’s life.”

Sergei dives in, and Ivan—speaking softly and methodically—begins to speak.

“I grew up here. I know everyone here. Never thought about leaving, and don’t like the fuss of living in a big city. You know, we are interested to know about the USA. We know it from films. Are there villages, places like this?”

I now see that curiosity was one reason Ivan decided to come.

“My wife is actually from a village about this size,” I tell him. “In a state called Ohio. And she often talks about how much she liked growing up in a small, friendly place.”

“You know, when we were young, there was another life here. The tractor factory was busy, people were rushing around. Something has changed. Now people try to live in the big cities. But my friend Evgeni and I, we stayed. I’m not leaving this place. It’s my motherland. I was in the army. I served in the North Caucasus. Many of them would say how much they love living in the big city. My grandmother always used to tell me people here live a friendly life, live in houses in a village, know people. But we are losing that Russian spirit. You have to understand, there used to be stability. Now I don’t have this feeling.”