Off The Rails by Chris Hatherly

Author:Chris Hatherly
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2003-11-23T16:00:00+00:00

Riding the Taiga

Bratsk – Ulan Ude

Mid-Summer 2000

———

Tim

We drifted into the city of Bratsk amid haphazard traffic of Landcruisers, Ladas and trucks; they swerved about trying to overtake on a road without marked lanes. Every sign of civilisation, from bold advertising billboards to impatient drivers and towering apartment buildings, came as a welcome change to life on the BAM. The bitumen roads, mosquito-free air and abundant food were all we had dreamt of in recent days.

As usual at mid morning, my stomach felt close to total implosion. ‘Chris, let’s find a stolovaya!’ I yelled, as we rolled down the main street.

I don’t have very many bad memories of Russia, but finding a place to eat would have to be one of them. On many occasions we’d traipse up and down streets for hours, searching for a reasonable feed. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union many of the cheap stolovayas had closed. During the devastating economic downturn most people discovered that it was hard enough to survive, let alone eat out. With the rise of a wealthy class, cheap venues were replaced with exclusive restaurants, beyond the reach of the average citizen.

The cheaper places were usually hidden behind faceless doors, tucked away in student dorms, or down sidestreets in the basement of apartment blocks. They were relics of an era when advertising and customer service were almost nonexistent.

‘Hey, Chris, what about that place over there?’ I called out, excitedly. A painted sign had long since cracked and peeled, but the faded letters were an unmistakable clue: stolovaya.

We left the bikes opposite the stolovaya so that we could keep an eye on them while we ate. Inside we ordered borsch soup, macaroni with rissoles, pancakes, potato salad and tea. Beyond the counter each tea glass had a centimetre of sugar already sitting in the bottom. Sugar is obligatory with tea in Russia; it would just be nyepravilna, wrong, without it. It is just as nyepravilna as eating a meal without chunks of bread, or potatoes with the peel on.

Not long after we sauntered into the stolovaya, a shiny Toyota Landcruiser with tinted windows screeched to a halt and two men with short, waxed hair and black sunglasses stepped out, mobiles dangling from their belts. They wore crisp white T-shirts and dark jeans that had been ironed meticulously. Their shoes were pointy with slightly lifted heels. I thought they looked like city cowboys.

They approached our bikes with an air of confidence, touching the tyres and gesticulating excitedly. The larger man appeared to be scanning the surrounds for the owners. He paced up and down the street asking people, and for a while even stood checking his watch. Eventually, he strutted into the stolovaya.

‘Privet, I am Vladimir,’ he said, approaching our table. He then leaned over and squeezed my hand so hard that I could feel the pulse throbbing up my arm. The two men drew up some seats, took off their sunglasses and rested their shiny elbows on the table. Vladimir’s hulking V-shaped torso was formidable in the skin-tight shirt.

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