Near the Arctic Circle - 1999

In just two posts today I'm going to try to convey something of the range of life experiences in Russia. There's more to Russia than the city of Moscow, which is the place from which we get the most news. This first post is "Life Near the Arctic Circle," written on July 28, 1999.


Just in case you ever find yourself near the Arctic Circle in summer, I have some advice: don't stay in a room on the west side of a hotel.

Slava and I went to Arkhangelsk in June, about the time of the summer solstice. He had a conference to attend; I had curiosity about life near the Arctic Circle. The longest day of the year, I thought, would be a cause for celebration there -- but it wasn't. Really, it is kind of maddening never to have it dark when you're trying to sleep. Our hotel room had thin panels of cloth hanging on either side of the window, rather than draperies, and at midnight the sun blazed into our room. At 2:00 am it was still light enough to read by.

Our trip to Arkhangelsk started with the alarm set for 4:30 am so that we could leave by 5:10 for the airport, and catch a plane that left at 6:45. (When the alarm went off at 4:30 I noticed that the sun was already up, so it didn't seem quite so early as it was.) We flew on Aeroflot and had for breakfast what many Russians eat in the morning: leftovers. Of course, I can't say for certain that Aeroflot was actually feeding us leftovers, but it seemed like that to me. Although Russians do have some favorite breakfast foods, they're just as likely to have something left over from supper. Like what we had -- coleslaw and cold cuts. With that we had our choice of red or white wine. Slava and I had juice.

When we had a change of planes in Moscow, Slava dangerously thought like an American. I remembered to think as a Russian. Slava assumed that since we had a connecting flight, Aeroflot would transfer our luggage for us. Wrong. By the way, we arrived in Moscow at 7:00 am, just about the same time as our departure from Ekaterinburg. We had flown for two hours and had two hours of time zone change. The flight to Arkhangelsk was another 1 1/2 hours, in a northeast direction.

We arrived in Arkhangelsk by mid morning local time, and went directly to the hotel where reservations had been made for us. While we were checking in I made a mental note not to have any fried food in the restaurant -- the smell of stale grease permeated the whole first floor. As we got into the elevator to go up to our room, I observed that it would hold no more than two people and one big suitcase. Our two little bags barely made it with us.

Our room was clean and fairly nicely decorated, but the plumbing had the mark of Soviet craftsmanship. Although the hot water faucet is usually put on the right in Russia, that's not always the case. The hot water faucet was on the right at the sink, and on the left at the shower. The toilet ran continuously, but not with an irritating drip -- it sounded more like a roaring waterfall. Water usage isn't metered here, so there's no particular incentive to spend money for repairs. As a client I didn't feel that I had the right to complain, for our bed and breakfast was costing us only $4.50 per person, per night.

In the afternoon Slava went to the conference being sponsored by the Russian Academy of Sciences. The theme of the conference was geodynamics // geo-ecology. Slava's work with geopositioning systems and map-making is rather tangentially related to the theme of the conference, and the institutes represented there couldn't afford his map-making. Frankly speaking, Slava was more interested in the site of the conference than in its theme. You see, near Arkhangelsk is a fabled place called the Museum of Wooden Architecture. It has over a hundred log structures made over several centuries. There was, of course, a field trip to this location, and we took lots of pictures.

Near our hotel, in the middle of the city, is the most unusual wooden structure of all. A New Russian ambitiously planned to build the world's tallest wooden building, and to get into the Guiness Book of Records. He did. His creation is ten stories high, and it hulks over the one-story houses in its neighborhood. Each story has its own style, making it look like it was designed by a committee of architects who didn't talk to each other. Bay windows and overhangs stick out at various angles, and from a sturdy base, the structure gradually narrows into a tower. It is still unfinished, and it may remain that way. The New Russian who commissioned it happens to be sitting in jail for doing several of the things that "New Russians" do to make money.

The conference group also had a steamboat ride one afternoon, stopping for a picnic lunch. The Russian requirement for soup every day was well satisfied by kettles of sturgeon cooked in broth over an open fire.

Arkhangelsk is an interesting place to visit, but you definitely wouldn't want to live there. In the winter it can go below -50 degrees Centigrade. The local people are grimly aware that if the city doesn't get enough fuel in the fall, when winter comes they could literally freeze in the dark.

Ah, but it's summer now. There's plenty of sunshine and flowers...