Russia Gallery - My Russian Taxi Driver

My trip to the Russian Federation had come to an end. It used to be the Soviet Union, staring back at the US on the other side of the delicate balance of mutually assured destruction, the quintessential threat to freedom and democracy. It seems that in the US politithink and its attending mainstream Collective Unconscious, the shift away from the Soviet Union was made in name only, and the fact that we are in a post-Cold War, emphasis on the post, era has not quite yet registered. Indeed, the current climate is as virulent now as it was then.

The official name is the Russian Federation, but you must admit, “Russia” sounds a lot better. Pronounced in a scary tone by a crazed politician, the sound effects make it much more ominous. Russssssiaaaaaa! The evil empire! “They” are out to get you! “They” will devour your children! Russssssiaaaaaa! Like a slithering snake hissing at a prey at the end of its poisoned fangs. Russssssiaaaaaa!

To me, it’s just Russia.

Russia, the land of Peter the Great, Catherine II (also Great), Ivan the Terrible. The home of Gagarin, Pushkin and Dostoyevski. And yes, the land of Stalin, Lenin, and Marx. The birthplace of exiles Nureyev and Rachmaninov and the prison of Solzhenitsyn and Sakharov. The bloodstained earth of the 1917 revolution and the slain Romanovs in a dismal Ekaterinburg basement. The terror of the KGB and the Gulag. The hypnotic Rasputin, the mysterious Khlysts. The stupendous collections of the Hermitage Museum and the excellence of the Bolshoi and the Mariinsky ballet. The Fedoskino and Palekh schools of miniature painting. And oh, the gloriously colorful domes of St Basil and the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood, the candlelit icons upon which lips and foreheads rest and Orthodox tears flow to this day, and the chants of a renewed faith rising in clouds of incense.

All the same, if I were to believe the rantings of western war-mongers and a whoring press, I had ventured into enemy territory, a hotbed of oppression and corruption under the dictature of the devil himself, the inscrutable Vladimir Putin. Yet, the Russian mob had not gotten me. I had not been poisoned by some fulgurantly acting nerve agent. I was getting out alive and unmolested.

Andres was driving me back to the airport. A little, nondescript, ill-shaven, awkward man in his late sixties. He smelled of cigarettes and, at this early hour, was not exactly bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

A far cry from the well-groomed man who, ten days earlier, awaited my arrival at Domodedovo airport. He grabbed my bags and, as we made our way through the chaos of the parking lot, he explained in excellent English that they were making some improvements. Indeed, improvements would be a leitmotif to my entire Moscow stay, and I must confess that it was somewhat of an annoyance, as a number of sights were either closed or veiled in scaffoldings for renovation, restoration and beautification. The city was abuzz not only with the renewal of spring after a long harsh winter, but with the feverish preparations for the 2018 FIFA World Cup. Vlad’s brand-new bright orange VW was wedged in a corner between vehicles. With the gusto and the skill of a seasoned rally driver, Vlad mounted and dismounted the curb, zoomed around and between obstacles, and deftly exited the parking lot. After that adrenaline rush, the drive into the city would have been mundane, had it not been for the thrill of discovery when you first lay eyes upon a brand new destination. He handed me his gleaming Samsung so I could scroll though enticing photographs of Moscow, and we chatted light-heartedly for the rest of the trip.

Glimpse of the bogeyman’s den (i.e., the Kremlin) on the way from the airport

In contrast, Andres got nervous as we hit a traffic jam, and he stuttered “It’s not normally like this”. Then, he couldn’t figure out which terminal my Aeroflot flight departed from, and he had to pull over in a thinly contained panic in order to fumble his way through a search for the needed information on his banged-up phone. Perhaps, it is merely that I felt sorry for him, but I found in this lack of smoothness a simplicity and an immediacy that touched me, and I don’t think I’m lying when I say that we hit it off.

His English wasn’t that great. My Russian is quasi-nonexistent. I can read the Cyrillic alphabet well enough to be linguistically dangerous, especially when augmented by a miming choreography that would put Marcel Marceau to shame. As a rule, I have noticed that whoever knows the most words from the other person’s language graciously surrenders their own in that conversation, so in our case English was the inevitable fallback.

He enquired as to how I liked Russia. I was happy to reply that after a most enjoyable maiden trip to St Petersburg, I had planned to visit Moscow next. We ran through the inevitable St Petersburg vs. Moscow compare-and-contrast exercise, a mix of social chitchat and academic reflexion. I wanted to do his country justice in the way that I observed and analyzed its complexities, because to me, that’s what travel is all about. Even though there are plenty of things I don’t particularly care for (as in every country I have traveled to or lived in), I do like Russia, you see. I like its rich history, its architecture, the art that it has generated. I am intrigued by its spirit that I, as a foreigner, cannot and will not ever be able to fully comprehend.

Without missing a beat he blurted: ”We’ve had many dead. We lost the most people during the war. Millions, millions dead.” I thought his statement rather uncanny not only because it sprang out of the blue but because, just before my departure, the war-drums had been beating rather loudly in the West, with the Skripal poisoning farce, the alleged Russian interference in the US presidential elections, and Putin supporting that “monster” Al Assad in Syria and flirting with Axis of Evil member Iran. The timing of the trip wasn’t the most convenient for me, but at the back of my mind, I feared it might be one of those before-the-war-broke-out trips, FIFA or no FIFA. And here was Andres, talking about war.

Andres belongs to a generation for whom the horror of the second world war at home is seared in memory. People forget, or perhaps they never learned in school that they had the highest number of casualties, both military and civilian: a total death toll estimated at 25 million. Compared to 8 million for Germany, 550,000 for France, 450,900 for the UK and 418,500 for the US, the figure of 25 million is astounding. When your country is under siege, when you know starvation and fear, it impacts the psyche of a people, even the ones born after the war. The wounds of the parents and the grand-parents who saw emaciated corpses by the side of the road and tried to protect their children and their elders from nothing less than death are transmitted to the following generations. A painful heritage, and I’m truly convinced that the last thing Russians wants is another war.

The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier containing the remains of unknown soldiers killed in the Battle of Moscow in 1941

As an aside, since the Civil War, the United States have never really seen war at home, have never experienced an invasion of its mainland by a foreign power (genocide of the Indians and slow colonization of the New World aside). Because all US wars are fought on foreign soil, most Americans cannot have any concept of what war truly means. On one hand, it is a blessing. I would not wish that knowledge close and personal on anybody. On the other hand, it makes of war some distant business that can be waged casually without much personal suffering.

Obviously these extrapolations weren’t part of my conversation with Andres, but I believe it is important to put things in context, especially as we visit another country and try to understand it, and sometimes the context extends quite a few decades back. As individuals, our attitude towards the world and others is not only predicated on the present moment, propaganda included, but it is also anchored in our earlier experiences and the legacy of our ancestors. So it is for nations. The tragedy is when we lose our memory and the records of the past and we fail to learn for ourselves. During world war two, the Soviet Union and the United States were fighting on the same side, against a common enemy. They were allies. Andres expressed his dismay at all the anti-Russian rhetoric in the West. “Why do they want war? Why do they not like us?”

Of course, the Cold War made enemies of the Soviet Union and the US. Andres did not even mention that. For him, the Soviet years were dark. Years of penury and control. The Soviet people was trying to survive. Forget hating the Americans, hating the French, the British. Ideally, they’d defect to their countries. Then chaos ensued after the dissolution of the USSR. More strife, more fear, thievery, corruption, obscene fortunes for a few while the majority struggled daily. And I must say, from what I have seen, it seems that this struggle continues, especially in Andres’s generation. Worn-out women begging or selling half a dozen onions on a kerchief on the sidewalk. Homeless men, drunk in a dark alley. A lifetime of toil, families gone, with despair and shame in their eyes, a stare hard to sustain, and I often did not, much to my shame.

In passing, before you go: “See, it’s a wretched country after all!” let me mention that I have seen more beggars and transients in the street of Paris than in Moscow. Last time I was there, a little less than a year ago, I saw sleeping bags and trash bags, and tents. And papers and dog shit and wrappers and cigarette butts among tall grasses (!) growing between cracks in the sidewalk behind the Invalides. In contrast, Moscow is a much cleaner city, spotless if I may. I guess some societies go down as some go up, in the constant ebb and flow of human civilizations.

Andres intimated that Russia still has a long way to go, but he was optimistic. He gave his due to Putin for taking the country in hand and lifting it slowly out of the post-Soviet turmoil. He had voted for him again, and knew many people who had too. He was grateful. He was excited about the world cup coming to his country. “America is not in the finals (or something to that effect, soccer is not my thing), but I hope lots of Americans will come to see Russia. They don’t know, I hope they come to see.”

Had I not been sitting behind him, I bet I would have seen a glimmer of pride in his eyes. His voice was a little brighter. Maybe it was because he had finally found the terminal, I’ll never know. I like to think that through him I got a glimpse of the Russian soul, deeply hurt, yet deeply resilient, a formidable soul. And who knows, if you go see Russia for yourself, he might just be the one holding a sign with your name at the Demodedovo arrivals.

Andres eventually got me to the right terminal on time!

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