Back in Makhachkala we pass a pub called Chende Choch, a Russian rendition of the German words for “hands up,” which every Russian knows from war movies. The sign outside is, fittingly, an illustration of a machine gun. Clever people would deduce from this combination that visiting is not a good idea. I, on the other hand, insist on going there at all costs.
Renat’s girlfriend, Katya, who has peroxide-blond hair, speaks perfect American English, and comes from Moscow, is all for it. A year previously she was his couchsurfing guest, and since then they have been a couple.
The pub is well patronized and smells of beer, smoke, and men’s sweat, and smoked fish is hanging at the bar near the entrance. Soccer club pennants, photos of samba dancers at the Rio carnival, and a color printout of a Wikipedia article on FC Barcelona serve as decoration; hardly a square inch of the wall is free. The European Cup final soccer match between Portugal and France is playing on a small TV screen. Looking around I get the impression that almost all the guests are male, broad-shouldered, and five foot six, and that they have all agreed to sit at the table with the same laid-back posture, manspreading at an angle of roughly seventy degrees. They are probably discussing who shot whom, but that, of course, is pure speculation.
The waitress brings some pints of watery Port Petrovsk beer, and we ask for food. “We have so many orders that the fries need half an hour,” she says. Behind her on the screen, Ronaldo is crying because a knee injury has forced him to be carried off the field. A short while later, a staggering guest is carted out of the pub by his friends in a similar manner; his problem is not his knee.
Food eventually arrives, forty-five minutes later. That time seems to have been spent continuously tossing the fries back and forth from salt to cheap cooking oil. Katya tries to make them a bit more palatable by digging for the deeper ones and wiping them individually on her napkin, but it doesn’t help. The horseradish bread crackers are also extremely salty, and pieces of the vobla fish have a nasty habit of sticking to the teeth. I check on Wikipedia for what happens when you overdose on salt and am somewhat reassured.
Truth No. 4:
“A fatal dosage of table salt for adults is roughly equal to ten tablespoons. It is unlikely that this amount could be consumed accidentally.”[4]
SO THIS EVENING ends with only two absences due to injuries. Portugal wins 1:0 but we decide unanimously not to make Chende Choch our favorite hangout.
ELISTA
Population: 104,000
Federal District: South Russia
RUSSIA
THE ELEVEN O’CLOCK bus to Elista is fully booked, says the dragon-like woman at kassa 1. Renat doesn’t believe her; he walks directly to the bus and asks the driver. The driver says there is room and that it must have been a computer problem. The less dragon-like woman at kassa 2 sells me a ticket: 815 rubles, or US$14, for a twelve-hour ride. “Write down your name and place of birth.” There you go.
The bus, from the Korean SsangYong group, visibly has more than two decades behind it. A fluorescent tube is attached vertically to the front windshield with adhesive tape; hopefully this is not a sign that the headlights aren’t working. Seating numbers are written on yellow slips of paper and stuck on the rows with Scotch tape. A pennant with the Russian flag on one side and a bare-breasted model on the other hangs from the rearview mirror. I say my goodbyes to Renat and jump aboard.
A man of around fifty in a khaki shirt and Basque beret is sitting next to me by the window chewing sunflower seeds. He has a wrinkled face, a fat belly, and a wart on his neck. “Germany good!” he says. “Dagestan: chaos and war.” He slams his fists together. The bus sets off and before even reaching the main road the driver has lit up the first of many cigarettes, despite the No Smoking sign. The smoke somewhat overlays the smell of urine and sweat inside the bus. It begins raining outside and water soon begins to drip from the roof window. A passenger slams it shut, but the drips continue. The good news is that only one of the sixty seats is affected; the bad news is that it’s mine.
Pretty soon my shoulder is completely wet. “Russia!” comments my neighbor, making a gesture as if throwing something away. Steady, large drops land on the headrest in front of me, exploding on contact into smaller drops and splashing me completely. It reminds me of an automatic sprinkler system, and watching it might be considered meditative if my shirt and pants weren’t the final destination of the water. The steppe landscape outside doesn’t offer much in terms of variety to distract me.
To my left my sunflower neighbor is spreading out; my right elbow is nestling on the sock of the sleeping man from the seat behind me, and because of the limited foot space there’s no way of stretching out my knees. The only possible contortion consists of leaning my torso some twenty degrees forward, which would then enable my back to become sodden.
One lonely outpost in the middle of the steppes consisting of a few container-like buildings and a john marks the border between Dagestan and Kalmykia. “Desolate” would be a euphemism for this place. In the kafe the light goes out at the very instant I order my coffee. Power outage. In the darkness the waitress indicates that she can do nothing about it. “Russia,” says the passenger next to me.
We continue for about fifty yards before the bus stops again. All passports have to be stacked at the front so an officer can check them. After a while, the bus driver suddenly shouts: “Shtefan! Nemezkiy!” That’s me; nemezkiy means “German.” I have to go to the police station. All the passengers’ eyes follow me. I walk to the hexagonal building through pouring rain. Inside, an official with neatly trimmed light-brown hair is sitting behind a grille, which is so low that you have to duck submissively to look through it. In front of him is the screen of the surveillance camera; in the background a tube TV is running a shampoo commercial. The man has a couple of questions.
“What are you doing here?”
“I’m a tourist.”
“And in Kalmykia?”
“Visiting a friend.” A bit of an exaggeration as I don’t yet know my next host. He demands her name and telephone number and writes both down on a list. Do svidanya, goodbye. I’m out of Dagestan.
The bus crosses the border to the only region in Europe where Buddhism is the majority religion. The driver starts a war movie. Dying soldiers on a tube TV; outside, Tibetan-looking stupas at dusk. The loudspeaker above me has a loose connection; the sound crackles loudly and from time to time cuts out altogether. Gun battle. Silence. Shouting soldiers. Crackle. Pause. “Russia,” says my neighbor.
CHESS AND ALIENS
ALTANA LIVES WITH her mother in a new housing development called Microdistrict 9. The apartment is so clean and perfectly tidy that I hardly believe my eyes when I notice a small kink in the Tibetan prayer flag on the kitchen windowsill. In what seems to be an antiseptic living room from a furniture catalog, I somewhat hesitatingly deposit my slightly dirty backpack, trying to consider where I am least likely to disturb the feng shui. “You can take a shower, if you like,” says Altana with polite urgency, opening the door to a bathroom composed of ceramics and brass that could well be used as the backdrop of an ad for faucet cleaner.
4
Wikipedia (German), “Speisesalz.” English translation by Jamie McIntosh. Retrieved from de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speisesalz.