One Steppe Beyond: Across Russia in a VW Camper

202 Pages·2011·1.24 MB·English

by  Wheeler Thom

ONE STEPPE BEYOND
Copyright © Thom Wheeler 2011
Map by Georgie Fearns
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Map
Prologue
CHAPTER ONE: PÄRNU
CHAPTER TWO: TALLINN
CHAPTER THREE: ST PETERSBURG
CHAPTER FOUR: VOLOGDA
CHAPTER FIVE: THE GOLDEN RING
CHAPTER SIX: THE TWO STANS
CHAPTER SEVEN: ACROSS THE URALS AND INTO SIBERIA
CHAPTER EIGHT: HEARTLANDS
CHAPTER NINE: TOMSK
CHAPTER TEN: KRASNOYARSK
CHAPTER ELEVEN: LAKE BAIKAL
CHAPTER TWELVE: CHITA
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: THE FAR EAST
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: VLADIVOSTOK!
For Jo

Thom Wheeler studied Russian at university and returned to live in St
Petersburg for several years after the 1997 trip, earning a living teaching and
guiding, while also reviewing bands for the Russian Big Issue; he then lived and
worked in Ukraine, Estonia and Georgia. He is now based in Brighton, where he
teaches drama.

PROLOGUE
St Petersburg had been a cold and bleak place when my sixth form history
class and I arrived during the last days of the Soviet Union, its real identity
disguised under its Soviet name Leningrad and several feet of heavy February
snow. The city’s residents were generally reserved and suspicious, or,
conversely, overly friendly in an attempt to sell Red Army uniforms, Soviet
badges, or cheap Sovietskaya champagne. Our itinerary had included the usual
suspects on the tourist route: Alexander Nevsky Monastery, St Isaac’s, the
Hermitage, but also we were ‘very lucky’ to be taken on an excursion to a
local school.
On arrival at School No. 81 on the Petrograd side, the district north of the
Neva River, we were given a short tour around several gloomy-looking
classrooms with dull lighting and bare grey walls, before congregating in a
small hall, where some of the more senior students joined us. As a gesture of
fraternity we had brought with us a loaf of bread, painstakingly sculpted to
depict flowers and birds in bold relief on the top. The procedure planned was
that one member of our party would step forward and formally present the
symbolic loaf to a representative from the school – a simple enough task,
which is why I had no misgivings when it was decided that I would take on
the job of official diplomatic bread hander-over.
However, as this ceremony drew closer, I found myself unable to control a
mounting fit of the hysterics, not helped by winks and nudges from other
members of the group. The Russian recipient of the loaf stepped forward, a
girl of about sixteen called Katerina. Katerina contributed to my barely
suppressed hysteria by the fact that she herself was suffering from an all too
obvious fit of the giggles coupled with mounting embarrassment. Her cheeks
were reddening to such a shade of crimson that they looked fit to burst, her
clear discomfort at being centre of attention adding to her awkwardness.
Then came the moment for the loaf to be exchanged. During the split
second as it left my hands and was about to arrive in hers, it somehow slipped
and merely clipped across the ends of Katerina’s fingers. It then seemed to
hover in mid air for an eternity, before commencing its downward plunge,
performing a couple of somersaults before impacting on the floor. The