Now that their daughters were grown, Lyuba had gone to work with Sergei at their company, where he was president and she was director of finance. With 170 employees and dozens of big clients, the company provided the couple with a very good living; as Lyuba told me, “We can afford to buy anything we want.”
This included a new dacha, or country home, which the couple designed and had built near Lake Chebarkul, about 50 miles west of Chelyabinsk. The dacha was massive: three stories tall, with an indoor swimming pool, a banya, and a gazebo in the rear yard. The family had also traveled extensively over the last decade, going abroad twice a year; they’d been to Turkey multiple times, as well as destinations all across Europe. Masha had lived in both France and Germany, and she was now finishing up graduate studies in Moscow. “Should we buy you an apartment there?” Lyuba asked her casually, over dinner.
Yet just as they had in 1995, Sergei and Lyuba still insisted that money hadn’t changed their lives. Sergei even said it in almost exactly the same way: “In the Soviet Union, we felt like everything was fine. And now we feel like everything’s fine.”
“We still have the same circle of children, family, and friends as before,” Lyuba added. “We’ve had the same friends for 25 years! Even without the dacha, the swimming pool and whatever, we still have normal relationships with people.”
David and I unfortunately didn’t have time to go out to the dacha, but we did manage to set up a photo shoot with Anya and Masha on Revolution Square. In 1995, the square had been a mess, undergoing a renovation that had torn up the sidewalks and public areas. The corner where the Communists gathered had been in the shadow of a boxy, abandoned building, which now, in 2005, housed the Museum of Applied Art. Everything was spruced up, and pedestrians bustled across the square, heading into the vast underground shopping mall. As Masha and Anya posed for photos in their designer jeans and fashionable coats, I noticed plenty of passersby stopping to stare.
Smart, beautiful, wealthy, and speaking perfect English, these two young women had the world at their fingertips. As I prepared to return to Chelyabinsk ten years later, I wondered whether they’d still be there, or whether they’d have left for a more cosmopolitan destination such as Moscow or St. Petersburg—or perhaps Paris, London, or New York.
“Wow,” I said to Anya, after we hugged at the Tankist. “You look amazing.” She smiled, even blushing a little bit, then quickly regained her composure.
“Where would you like to eat?” she asked. After some discussion, we settled on the nearby Turkuaz Grill House, a steakhouse with high ceilings, big booths, and a giant wall sketch showing the beef cuts of a steer. A server hurried over to take Anya’s coat, and we settled into a booth for what turned into a nearly three-hour lunch.
I’m not sure whether it was her perfect English, the fact that she’s traveled so much in the West, or a simple question of chemistry, but I found it easier to talk with Anya than I did even with some friends back home. Within minutes, we were sharing intimate details of our lives, with Anya telling me about her marriage and divorce, and me telling her about my wedding, and even showing her photos on my phone. I told her that so far, everyone in Russia had said they didn’t mind gay people, though others might. She laughed and replied that she didn’t think Russians in general had a problem with it, “even older people.”
“Oh, really?” I asked. “Like your grandmother?”
“Well…” she said, and shrugged.
During the week that David and I had stayed with Anya’s grandmother Valentina, she’d been a scowling presence, openly suspicious of us, and as intimidating as any septuagenarian under five feet tall could possibly be. She’d been so unpleasant that just before we left Chelyabinsk, I’d asked David to take a photo of us together, just so I could remember that scowl. The picture, in which she and I are both staring grumpily at the camera, is one of my favorites from the 2005 trip.
I told Anya this, and she laughed. “Do you want to see her? We can go to her house for lunch.” I said yes, that I’d try to overcome my fear enough to face her.
Anya gave me updates on the rest of the family. She told me that Masha was married and had a five-year-old son, and that she stayed home to take care of him. Both sisters were still living in Chelyabinsk, though apparently Masha had returned from Moscow only reluctantly, when her husband got a job working for Sergei’s company. And Masha’s husband wasn’t the only one in the family business: Anya, too, was employed there. So, the family was wealthy, but not so wealthy that they didn’t have to work. As Anya told me, “Really rich people don’t have to keep track of their money. We’re not that way.”
I asked Anya whether she’d been to the United States, and she said, “Just last month, for the first time!” She’d gone to Miami Beach, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas, but when I asked how she liked it there, she wrinkled her nose. “Not so much,” she replied. I asked why.
“My expectations were too high,” she said. “I really thought I was going to love it.” She’d liked the beach in L.A., but the traffic was terrible, and overall it wasn’t as nice as what she’d seen in the movies. In Vegas, she’d stayed at the Wynn and the Venetian, and while she liked the hotels, she’d gotten bored after playing a little roulette. And in Miami Beach, it rained the whole time. All in all, she’d felt disappointed in her U.S. experience.
“Come again, when I’m there,” I told her. “You have to see more than just Vegas and the beach.” I wanted her to like America, and was convinced she would if I got a chance to show her around. But she told me that many of her Russian friends who’d emigrated there didn’t like it, and some had returned to Russia.
“They say it’s hard to make friends with Americans, because they’re not really interested in having Russian friends,” she said. “So, the Russians all end up sticking together.” I’d never thought of this before, but realized it was probably true. Even I, a lifelong Russophile, didn’t have any close Russian friends in Los Angeles. And most of those I’d met—particularly the older women I’d spent time with over the summer, when I was trying to improve my language skills—tended to socialize only with other Russians. In fact, many spoke English quite poorly, even if they’d been there for decades, because they never got any practice.
“I like Europe better,” Anya told me. “It’s more culturally similar to Russia.” She felt most at home in France, though she liked Italy too. “My sister loves it there,” she said. “It’s the only place she ever goes on vacation.” At my look of surprise, she laughed. “Seriously, the only place. It’s a little… monotonous.”
I got the sense that Anya and Masha weren’t close, though they saw each other regularly, often out at Lake Chebarkul, where Sergei had built two more giant dachas—one for each daughter. The family had also constructed a new Russian Orthodox chapel there, so Lyuba would have a place to pray. I desperately wanted to see all this, but it seemed impolite to ask for an invitation, so I just hoped that Anya would suggest going.
We were more than two hours into our lunch when Anya’s boyfriend Max showed up. He was a compact, muscular young man with a big smile, but though he clearly adored Anya, her demeanor changed when he sat down. We’d been having a chatty, intimate, girl-talk lunch, but now Anya emanated a slight chill, though Max didn’t seem to notice. The two of them were going to see an afternoon movie, but she invited me to come to their apartment for dinner that night, and I eagerly accepted.