Orenburg - June 17, 1999

Photo: A tram in Ekaterinburg


Here’s a continuation of my report “Arriving in Russia,” June 17, 1999. This part relates our experiences on a trip to the city of Orenburg.

The flight to the southern city of Orenburg was okay except for the scheduling, which had us arriving at 00:30. Most domestic Aeroflot flights that I've been on use pilots on swing shift or the graveyard shift. I'm convinced that the pilots moonlight and have daytime jobs as well. I'm grateful for every smooth landing.

We were met as promised, then packed into a jeep with three other people for a long ride to the village of Tashla, where we were going for a weekend festival. It was a three-hour drive. The driver missed most of the potholes in the road, and after dozing off, I was awakened when the road stopped but we didn't. Actually, the driver decided to take a short cut by careening across a field, toward another road. As we pitched down the road embankment and bumped across the dark field, I regretted the lack of seat belts in the jeep. Yet by 3:30 am we arrived safely at our lodgings, an orphanage in the village of Tashla.

Tashla is not a town that is used to having visitors and it is too tiny for a hotel. The only spare rooms were at an orphanage, so that is where Slava and I stayed. As we settled in for what was left of the night, we were told that we'd probably find a few "tarakan" around, that is, cockroaches. Seeing the surroundings, I wasn't surprised. I asked about the location of the bathrooms. Our host led us across the property to the community outhouse. It was dark inside and out, and the smell was terrible. I couldn't bring myself to go near it. Surely I could find somewhere else the next day...

Hoping for something to look forward to, I asked Slava about the chances of getting a hot bath. "Well," he said, in villages people usually have banyas (Russian saunas). And they heat them up on Saturday nights. We just missed it for the week." Oh.

On a positive note, I'd like to say that I heard my first nightingale. When other birds have their heads tucked firmly under their wings in sleep, the nightingale bursts out in song. To tell the truth, though, it reminded me of a southern mockingbird.

We awoke the next morning to the sounds of the orphanage children doing their chores. They were tending the vegetable garden, carrying water in buckets. They were, I'm glad to say, doing their chores in the inefficient way of children everywhere, more interested in having a little fun than in getting the job done speedily. There were, we were told, about 50 children all together. The orphanage is definitely a home, with a kindly director the kids call "daddy." They seem to have a few shared toys -- a bicycle, a chessboard, and some other things, I'm sure. I doubt that they have many clothes. Yet they do have a roof over their heads, and all the vegetables they can eat.

After breakfast we attended an outdoor prayer ceremony conducted by a young Orthodox priest. It was held on the site of a church built centuries ago by the Timashev family, which once owned 65,000 hectares of land (and serfs) in the area. During the Bolshevik Revolution the church and the mansion and many other buildings were destroyed. Now that the Communist era is over, the people who live in the region want to see the church and the remains of the mansion rebuilt. Neither will happen any time soon, however.

The prayer ceremony was the kick-off to the day's events honoring the 200th birthday of Alexander Sergeivich Puskhin, and at least half the village turned out for the program held on an outdoor stage on the grounds of the Timashev estate. It caused quite a stir to have a real Timashev present. Slava was asked to say a few words, and later he was interviewed by an Orenburg TV reporter there to film the event. The program included, as one would expect, readings of Pushkin's poetry. There was also some poetry by Pushkin's friend, Ekaterina Timasheva, and local poets read their own work. Interspersed with the readings were songs by two Russian folk groups in colorful costumes. Afterwards the participants were all given books of one sort or another.

For lunch we joined a select group having a picnic in the woods above the old mansion. A long banquet table had been set up, and people were standing alongside, eating "shashlik" (shish-ke-bob) and drinking home-made vodka and mead. Mead is something for sipping, not for drinking in quantity. Because it's made from honey it has quite a bit of sweetness. I don't know if it was because of the mead or the vodka, but after a while I found myself singing with one of the folk groups and their accordian player.

Mellow from the mead, I received the good news that a local family would prepare a banya for Slava and me. It took them several hours to get it hot -- and they got it really, really hot. We were given birch branches to flail ourselves or each other, and I was given a basket of mint leaves for a mint facial.
This hospitable family invited us to share a picnic supper in their garden, at a table set for 12. On the menu was home-made noodle soup (the noodles having been finely cut by hand), wild goose, and an assortment of vegetables from the garden. There was a small plate of hard candies served after supper with the tea. Slava told me later that for village people, items such as candy, which require purchase from a store, are served only on special occasions. Russian village families have very little cash. Our host, who worked in an open coal pit, hadn't any salary for five months. His wife, a teacher of retarded children, was owed salary for 17 months.

During dinner (and vodka) discussion got political. I found out that the group was interested in Slava's opinion about the United States, but not particularly interested in mine. One guest said that he didn't believe me when I answered a question of his as honestly as I could. The hostess was unhappy with his antagonistic behavior and said so. I later found out that people in the village weren't at all pleased when they first learned that a Timashev had married an American -- he should have been loyal to his roots. Nevertheless, the people who got to know me a little decided that I'm okay.

The next morning there was a work group that met to discuss what could be done to preserve the historic Timashev estate. We met over breakfast, which featured local produce, potatoes and vodka. It was served in the remaining wing of the Timashev mansion. Restoring the Timashev mansion, it has been estimated, would cost $1.6 million. That's a lot of rubles!

After lunch (vodka and potatoes), we headed for Orenburg, a city of 560,000. We stayed in a real hotel, a place with indoor plumbing and hot water. Our room had a soaring 12-foot ceiling, powder-blue wallpaper, and comfortable beds. It also had holes in the walls where radiator pipes ran from room to room, and carried every sound from our neighbors. It was lacking in a few things, such as window screens and a toilet seat. There were also no doornobs. The bathroom door had to be pried open with fingers, and the hall door could only be opened by pulling on the key in the lock. The worst thing, though, was that during the partial renovation that the hotel had had, the electrical work seemed to have been done by plumbers, and the plumbing by electricians. The beautiful wallpaper was marred by sloppy placement of light switches and electrical outlets. The bathroom flooded from a pipe at the sink when the shower was turned on. I took a long shower, anyway.

Slava and I went out for an evening stroll, taking the pedestrian bridge from Europe to Asia. There wasn't much happening in Asia, so we went back to the European side. Orenburg is at the southern end of the Urals, where the two continents meet. Orenburg also happens to be a transshipment point for cocain and heroin from Afganistan, headed for Western Europe. The unfortunate consequence is that nearly half the young people in this city use drugs of one type or another.

What seems so out of reach is something that was touted on a signboard at the place where Slava and I ate dinner: that is, normality. The place advertised that they served normal food, at normal prices, with normal service. And really, it wasn't bad.

The next morning Slava went to meet someone at Orenburg Technical University. I was shown around town by a local historian, a remarkable woman by the name of Svetlana. Like many Russian historians, she started out with a particular interest in the period of Pushkin's life, especially because Pushkin had once made a four-month journey from St. Petersburg to Orenburg and back. As she studied Pushkin's time in Orenburg, she learned about the importance of the Timashev family at that time, and she started researching Timashevs as well, back to the 1600's. It has become her specialty. And because of her campaigning, the city dwelling of the Timashevs is now being restored. Svetlana showed me the building, and also one of the local museums, then we met Slava for lunch. Our next stop was the home of a local artist who had done an oil painting on commission for Slava, based on an old, old photograph of the Timashev family estate at Tashla. We then had tea at the House of Literature, where an invited guest was another Timashev -- Alexander Timashev. Like Slava he's a big guy, tall and barrel-chested. Where their lines may meet on the family tree isn't known yet; Svetlana will research that. Alexander does know that he's from a lesser side of the family (a bastard son some centuries ago). Slava's roots may be similar; you never know what genealogical research will turn up. Anyway, the current generation of Timashevs is rather distinguished in accomplishments. Alexander has a brother who is head of a large construction firm, and Alexander himself is a doctor of reanimation -- what we would call intensive care.

From the House of Literature six of us went out for dinner together, Slava's treat. We had a full-course meal and plenty of vodka, all for just 350 rubles, or $14. There are some good things to say about Orenburg....

Alexander took us on a tour of the city the next day, with stops at an ancient mosque and a newly restored Orthodox cathedral. We then had a nice lunch with his family -- his wife, 16-year-old daughter, and brother Boris. Alexander took us to the train, and Svetlana appeared to say goodbye and to give me a bouquet of peonies for the trip. Twenty-five hours later, we arrived home.