My horse is called Chalka and stops being indifferent far quicker than I would have wished. Piqued by an attempt at passing by one of his kind, the stallion lapses into something that to an onlooker probably seems like a pleasant trot but for me feels like galloping headlong into battle. After a mile (my perception) or rather forty yards (the perception of an objective observer; and no, here the truth doesn’t lie somewhere in the middle), my steed begins to calm down. Only in the coming hours do Chalka and I slowly become friends.
One of the first changes instigated by Vladimir Putin after his inauguration in 2000 was reinstating the Soviet Union national anthem. Or at least the tune, which is actually pretty good. The text, however, had to be reworked. Lines like: “In the victory of Communism’s immortal ideal / We see the future of our land”[9] were no longer deemed to be contemporary, and became: “Wide expanses for dreams and living / Are opened for us by the coming years.”[10]
In the evening we pitch our tents in a clearing and make a campfire. A little bit further up a slope the view is sensationaclass="underline" rows of hill silhouettes in shades of gray vanish into the distance in the evening mists like a theater backdrop. Nikita chops up wood with a huge ax and tells us a bit about his life. He started riding twelve years ago because there wasn’t much else interesting going on in his village. In summer there are groups of tourists and in winter, hunters. They have to apply for permits in advance for the numbers of stags, deer, or birds that they’re allowed to shoot. “But often they drink so much that they can’t ride, let alone shoot,” he says with a hoarse laugh. Nadya advises me to study him carefully. “You’d have difficulty finding a more perfect example of a young rural Russian,” she says. “A bit overconfident, a bit too cool, and always with a curse on his lips. But practical, not a slacker, gallant toward women, and kind to kids.”
For the evening meal there is Dushonka canned meat, slightly smoked pork with rice, and kognak. And raw bits of onion. Galina is convinced they’re the best food for campers: “You are guaranteed not to become ill on the trip.” Empty cans are simply thrown onto the fire. The seemingly endless availability of unspoiled wilderness beguiles Siberians into not being particularly concerned about the environment.
“In the winter a couple of hunters were surprised by a bear at night, right here in this camp,” says Nikita. “One of the men was dragged out of his tent in his sleeping bag, but then the bear decided to go for the food supplies instead and vanished.” Nikita prefers sleeping outside, but always has a knife and ax within reach. “Don’t wake me up without a good reason, okay?” We decide to let Nikita sleep.
The second day has three very different phases for me. In the morning Chalka and I are suddenly a wondrous unit; we sweep through the steppes like the Lone Ranger and Silver, like Napoleon and Marengo, like Alexander the Great and Bucephalus. I think about opening a horse ranch in Altai: every morning Nadya would make buckwheat porridge and canned meat for breakfast while Chalka would neigh impatiently in the paddock, and at some point the New York Times would call and publish an interview titled “Drop-Out in the Altai Mountains: ‘Horses taught me what’s really important in life.’”
Two hours later my daydream is about a stack of ultra-soft down cushions. With them I could make the saddle, which has along the way transformed from leather to stone, into something reasonably bum-compatible.
By the afternoon I see myself in a doctor’s consulting room; on the wall there are illuminated X-ray photos of my spinal column, one frontal, one lateral. In front of them stands an elderly gentleman in a white coat with an expression that even for a Russian would be considered deadly earnest.
Luckily it doesn’t come to that; an hour later we reach our starting point. The animals appear bright and cheerful, the humans somewhat battered. “It was great, but—never again,” says Galina. Yevgeni walked in front of his horse for the last mile because the jolting was causing him so much pain. Polya the Polo on a mogul-road is pure relaxation by comparison.
On the way back to Novosibirsk we listen to The Miracle by Queen and a miracle actually happens: Nadya and I are for the first time of the same opinion. “It was beautiful in Altai,” she says. Then she puts her foot on the gas.
ZHAROVSK
Population: 150
Federal District: Siberia
RELIGION REMIXED
IN TIBET, PILGRIMS circle Mount Kailash 108 times. In Japan they complete the 88-temple pilgrimage on the island of Shikoku. In Europe they tramp along the Way of Saint James to Santiago de Compostela with a scallop shell in their backpacks.
In Siberia, I take the 097C train to Krasnoyarsk (eleven hours, forty-two minutes), then the 124Ы to Kuragino (nine hours, fourteen minutes), and finally the 210 bus to Cheremshanka (two hours); from there it is another twelve miles by car to Zharovsk, where my next host lives. And from his apartment a ten-mile walk to “Sun City.” No one claimed the path to enlightenment was easy. At least on the way I have plenty of time to familiarize myself with The Last Testament, the transcript of all the wisdom and advice of the man I want to meet in deepest taiga.
“On the fourteenth day of January 1961 a predestined birth took place.”[11] So begins the text about the former traffic cop Sergey Torop, now known as Vissarion. Sometimes in The Last Testament he is simply referred to as “The Word” or “The Truth.” He gathered five thousand followers who consider him to be the reincarnation of Jesus in five remote Siberian villages, one of which is Zharovsk.
In his texts I discover a passage that I like, as it seems to describe my long trek here. “When a traveler is being impeded by the load on his back, and the precipitous ravines with sharp hedges [sic], and stones flying upon him. All these obstacles have to be overcome by travelers along the roads of the Universe.”[12]
The train to Kuragino takes more than nine hours to go a miserable 150 miles. I shall overcome. I arrive at four in the morning; I have to wait five hours for my connection. The ticket collector treats me as if I were trying to buy her six-year-old daughter rather than a ticket. I shall overcome. In the tiny café at the bus terminal the worst song in the world, “I’m a Gummy Bear,” blares out of the owner’s cell phone and her coffee tastes like Vegemite with sugar. I shall overcome. My host, Alex, a Vissarionite, had suggested a meeting place and knows my ETA but hasn’t contacted me for days. I shall overcome.
Vissarion’s doctrine is a kind of remix of the great world religions: Take charity and fear of the Apocalypse from Christianity, reincarnation from the Hindus, respect for all living creatures from Buddhism, and fatwa-like answers to everyday questions from Islam, then add a bit of hocus-pocus from esotericism and belief in extraterrestrial life from ufologists. And hey, presto! Thousands leave their old lives behind them, sell their houses and cars, move to Siberia, and join the community.
The underlying philosophy of a simple life in harmony with nature and the struggle against egotism for the good of the community makes this faith concept more mass-marketable than some others. Vissarion’s followers submit to strict rules, lead vegan lives, don’t smoke or drink alcohol, and try to eat only what they can grow themselves. As much as possible they try to do without modern technology or money.
9
“The Soviet National Anthem.” English translation from marxists.org/history/ussr/sounds/lyrics/anthem.htm.
10
Wikipedia, “National anthem of Russia.” English translation from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_anthem_of_Russia.
11
Vissarion.
12
Vissarion.