We keep walking through Lenin Square and finally I realize what’s been bothering me about Lenin: he is sitting. As if the über-revolutionary was so confused by this place that he was forced to sit down. In all other cities I’ve visited he is always depicted standing, with a variety of gestures—enough to fill a self-help book on body language for managers and state leaders. The Mirny statue wouldn’t make it into the book; here he sits lost in his thoughts, left forearm resting on his knee and slightly bewildered facial expression. The leader as thinker, with shoulders sagging; the pose has nothing dominant, nothing authoritative about it. The longer I look at him, the more he looks like someone hunched on his polished pedestal, asking the question: Is this really what I wanted?
Marina sometimes asks herself the same question. She dreams of getting away from Mirny. To Moscow or Saint Petersburg. Her parents are against it, though. “They say, ‘You’ve got all you need here.’” She has been to England once, for two months, to take a language course. She liked it there; liked how the people interacted positively. “Russians are always very serious, weighed down by something, maybe money problems or bad business deals. Europeans seem happier,” she says. “Since returning from England I laugh a lot more; some people think I’m crazy. How are the Germans?”
“Not really famous for their cheerful nature,” I reply. “People complain a lot, especially about the weather.”
“Oh, that’s also a national pastime here, especially in winter.”
“But I believe deep down inside that Germans get a sense of pleasure when they can complain about something. I grumble, therefore I am.”
“I think our countries have a lot in common. Have I already told you that I learned German at school?”
“No.”
“We mostly sang songs: ‘Die Biene Maja,’ ‘Mein Hut, der hat drei Ecken,’ ‘Deutschland, Deutschland über alles,’ such songs.”
“Interesting mixture.”
We say goodbye in front of a hospital with a larger-than-life mural of Yuri Gagarin. “We’ll pick you up at home in two hours and then we’ll party,” she promises.
“Home” for me is an extended two-story wooden house, a residential facility primarily for teachers, who can live there rent-free. Room 11 is free at the moment because one of Marina’s friends has just married and moved in with her husband. Inside it’s extremely hot, although the heating device isn’t on; there seems to be some sort of additional central heating. In winter it’s probably a good thing, but now I have to open the window to avoid sweating.
A number of heavy jackets are hanging on a clothes rail, but no furs; the owner had probably taken them with her. Bookshelf—negative. A matryoshka doll of Obama, which, of course, out of curiosity I have to open. Inside it there is George W. Bush, then Bill Clinton, George Bush senior, and a tiny little Ronald Reagan. All the hated leaders of the traditional archenemy, so arranged that the successor contains his predecessor.
At the end of the corridor there is a washroom, shower, and communal kitchen. Teachers here seem to live a simpler life than people working for Alrosa or the municipality. As part of their salary they even get a kind of hardship bonus because of the living conditions in Mirny. Marina has sixty-five vacation days a year, plus nine official non-business days, and every two years her employer pays for a free holiday flight.
At Easter, cakes and eggs are decorated with these Cyrillic letters. ХВ stands for Kristos voskres—“Christ is risen.” A particularly tasty specialty is the kulich, a sweet cake made with raisins, vanilla, and cardamom, which also bears the symbol ХВ. They can even tell you about the future. If the crust doesn’t crumble and the dough is well baked, you will have a good year.
I hear a song I recognize coming up from the street—“Brodyaga.” “I’m penniless but have the most wonderful wife,” and so on. The song was playing in the student’s Lada on the trip from the airport to Mirny. At the same moment I get an unnecessary text: “We’re waiting for you at the front door.” I go down and climb into the car with Marina, Juliya, and the student, whose name is Igor and who is once more in the mood for dancing. My greeting committee from the first day is complete. It’s astonishing how quickly after arriving at a new destination you begin to feel like part of a clique.
Igor puts his foot down and turns up the music so loud I can feel the thousands of tiny hairs in my inner ear disappearing forever. “You should come here in winter, then I’ll teach you all about drifting,” screams Igor. What he means is death-defying spinning and sliding techniques when driving on ice.
The Globe is hidden in a nondescript industrial building and has two rooms, one for eating, drinking, and talking and the other for eating, drinking, and dancing. We start off the evening in the talking room with an electric shisha that was supposed to be orange-flavored but tastes like citrus bathroom cleaner. To make up for it, the water container has a purple glow.
More and more beautiful women, dressed to impress, flood in amid clouds of perfume, and we talk about the worldwide number-one nightclub topic: the search for a partner.
Marina: Her parents want her to marry as soon as possible, at the very latest at twenty-five. They want to have grandchildren; preferably their son-in-law should be from Azerbaijan or Georgia, and he should definitely be a Muslim.
Igor: His parents want him to marry a Russian and his friends agree. By Russian they mean Slavonic, so no one from Sakha and not a Muslim. He knows many young athletes and they all have problems on the marriage market. “They don’t smoke, don’t drink, don’t party. This apparently makes them boring,” says the twenty-year-old. “But when they move to other cities they quickly find stunning girlfriends. A friend of mine has just married in Novosibirsk—a super girl, slim and domestic, and she makes the best pancakes.” Igor is secretly in love with a woman named Lisa, but she is eight years older and completed her studies a while ago. “I’m a student, I have no money and no house. I have nothing to offer her,” he says.
Juliya: Her parents have almost given up. She is slim, tall, and beautiful but at twenty-nine she already feels that the choice in Mirny is limited, if she doesn’t want someone too difficult or too young, as most people marry in their early twenties. She is out of the question for Igor’s athlete friends as she comes from Sakha and has Asian facial features.
There must be a simpler way.
The traditional reindeer nomads in Sakha did things differently. When they met men from other regions, the outsiders were cordially invited to get the nomads’ wives pregnant. In nomadic communities, almost everybody was related to one another, and they knew that different genetic material would guarantee healthier children.
After the theoretical part of the evening we’re ready for the dance floor in the other room. Disco ball, brick walls, a brightly colored neon sign advertising cocktails. It smells of alcohol and garlic as here, too, hearty meals are served.
At the moment there are only women on the dance floor; the men need a few more drinks. Russian dance-pop seems to be the most popular genre; when Shakira or Beyoncé is played, the dancers return to their seats or to the bar.
All of a sudden it’s break time for the guests when a strongly built man, light on his feet and with a proud swagger in his shoulders, showcases a Caucasian dance. Every step and every turn embodies an amount of anger and resolve that would intimidate even Maori haka dancers. Only his glassy eyes don’t quite match the precision of his movements. Finally the man clenches a schnapps glass from the floor with his teeth and, without using his hands, knocks it back before tossing it behind him with a whiplash movement of his head. For the rest of the evening you can hear the sounds of glass shards being trodden on by high heels. “Not a marriage candidate,” muses Marina, who herself is a fantastic dancer.