Dear Mom and Dad,
It seems I’ve become rather used to the violent rocking to sleep of the train’s rattle, as I sleep more on the train than I do anywhere else. Though this is likely also because of the lack of alternatives on the steel caterpillars. As I said, I greatly let down my compartment mates in not partaking with them in “a bit of fun” as an Australian fellow-passenger who insisted on our friendship referred to it, though they instantly forgave me and got along just fine sharing in the liquid livelihood amongst themselves. One of them, noticeably better off than the rest, at one point made an excursion, for what reason I could not quite figure out, to the compartmentless cars, at which point he ran into the train’s stewardess, who playfully told him, “look here, don’t you go getting drunk anymore, or else I’ll de-seat you from the train” to which he protested that he doesn’t even drink(!!), a daring argument considering I could smell his breath from where I stood, 10 feet down the hall. Indeed, drinking your own booze on the train is not allowed, though, if you don’t make a ruckus and, all the more so, are of “respected” age as the Russians say, you can get away with it.
After a good ten hours of tumble-dry sleep, I stepped out into the hall to see our train passing over the Yenisei river. The rivers have been one of my favorite parts of the trip. The Amur in Khabarovsk, over which expands the nearly 4km long Khabarovsk bridge that the Trans-Siberian Railway itself exploits, the Chita in the city of its namesake (or the other way around, probably), the Selenga in Ulan Ude, one of those 330 tributaries into Baikal, the Angara in Irkutsk and now the Yenisei, the great northward flowing river, which is the largest river emptying into the Arctic Ocean, followed by the Ob, which is next up in Novosibirsk, and the Lena, after which Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov formed his new last name, Lenin, or “of the Lena (river)”, just as Stalin is the man “of steel”, stal’. People have said the same of Putin, that he is the man “of the way/path”, put’, though his past is cloudy enough at present for this to be unconfirmable it seems. Maybe just a happy coincidence. Life is chock full of them, I'm sure you know.
Coming into Krasnoyarsk, I had little to no expectation of what I’d be encountering. This is primarily because I do not do research before arriving in any of these cities. I glance at the map to see how to get to wherever I’m staying from the train station and that’s about it. Such an approach is motivated by the fact that I am often bothered by people’s inclination to define the present by the past. No matter what 23 & Me or whatever it’s called says, you are the same mediocre person you were before receiving your historically defined identity. I like to judge a person’s moral stature or a city’s inherent character not by what their grandpa did or who built the city, but by how that person or that city exists today. Perhaps greater a factor though, is my laziness. I’d rather spend my time reading Notes of a Psychopath. Include that fact in your moral analysis of my existence. No, not your moral analysis, Mom and Dad.
Once I dropped my things at my Airbnb room, I set off across town in my normal routine of dazedly glaring around, drinking enormous amounts of coffee and picking up food to be consumed while in motion. It wasn’t long before I noticed myself being pleasantly impressed by this Siberian city, the only thing of memory that I heard about was that they occasionally have “black sky regime” days, when the pollution from surrounding factories is so bad, people are told to close their windows and not go outside. Perhaps this has spurred a counterbalancing investment in public infrastructure, but the banks of the Yenisei looked a wetland heaven to me. And to the ducks. Kva kva as they say here.
Walking on I encountered a brand new pedestrian cable bridge onto an island in the middle of the Yenisei known as the island of “relaxation”, which has been fully converted into a park, with expansive bike and walking paths and spotted with lakes throughout. As I accidentally landed here in the fall, the falling leaves of the birches has turned so much of the city a gold the likes of which will never spell the word T-R-U-M-P. I was so enthralled I decided to trek across the entire island and make a big loop back to my room. The way back took me through some of the eastern side of the city’s heavily trafficked and less breathable streets, but even then I found a quiet trail along the cemetery wall that serendipitously led me out onto a war memorial that overlooked the city. By the time I made it back to my room, my big city loop had taken about six hours. But before I passed out I took another glance at the map.
While the rivers have been a central attraction of mine, finding advantageous vantage points also proved worthwhile both in Chita and Ulan Ude. Having taken notice of the surrounding hills, I thought there might be a similar opportunity here. Sure enough, the Torgashinsky Ridge on the south side of town seemed accessible via a few busses and a little walking and that’s the direction I headed the next morning.
After about an hour or so of busses, I began to climb up a mud road that took me up into a little house settlement, where I was questioningly eyed by all the dogs guarding this or that property, or at least making a good show of it. Eventually the houses gave way to forest, but the road continued a gradual ascent upwards. I passed a couple who looked like they were in for the same sights and continued onward to find a second, smaller settlement of houses right on the northern face of the hill with a view of the city below. I was wondering if this wasn’t what people came for, admittedly a little disappointed at the thought, before deciding to climb a little more on a faint path through the birch forest, as it appeared the trees thinned out ahead. This was, of course, the right decision as I eventually came out onto a path along the ridge of the mountain that offered a spectacular view of the valley below and surrounding peeks and once again I felt exceedingly lucky to have come in the fall. As I ran from overlook to overlook in ecstasy, the couple caught up, I shamelessly asked them to take my picture, to which the man readily agreed, while I saw in his wife’s eye a wary suspiciousness that I might steal some of her Insta-thunder.
I then made a quick descent as I needed to get back to my room across the city to make it to the train this evening to Novosibirsk. So I’ll be walking back to the train station soon to do just that. Just 12 hours this time.
More soon,
Alex
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