I don’t want to be seen as someone who condemns Siberia as a backward land; because I’m not, and it isn’t. ‘People are people, and people have a right to life’, is another expression I heard in 2013. And though I heard it less than the anti-human views, it goes to show that there is hope. Though I occasionally like to think that I am more civilised, because I don’t believe in regular apocalypse, domovoi, or humans being ‘natural’ and ‘unnatural’, I too have been forced to admit that I have my own faults. Both Nastya and Siberia are equally responsible for this realisation of contradictions within myself, and I am a better person because of it.
As the plane began its descent into Krasnoyarsk, my feeling of gloom subsided. I was glad to be getting home. Krasnoyarsk was, after all, the place that granted me amnesty. If it wasn’t for Russia, Nastya and I would never have been able to live together, we might never have married and our relationship might have ended back in 2011. Though other people’s rights are not recognised in Russia, the right of Nastya and I to be a family had been. This is something I am ever thankful for. Though there is much room for improvement in Russia, there are many things that it gets right, and credit must be given where it is due. If it weren’t for Russia, not only would this journal have no reason for being, but my world would be so much smaller. I would be roughly the same person I had been before I left for Moscow in March 2011; because of all the things, people and possessions I left behind in Wales, what I miss the least is me, the ‘me’ of the past. When I first moved to Siberia, my biggest complaint was that I had to bring myself with me. I thought that the person I was could never be separated from the person I would become, that there would be so many trace elements it would be impossible to be anything other than precisely who I was. For so many years I often dreamt of meeting my past self, and giving him a kick in the arse. I wanted to change the man I used to be so much, because I couldn’t admit that I was still that same person. Today, if I were to meet my pre-Siberian self, I would probably have nothing to say to him; nothing at all. For we are strangers now.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to the archives and staff of one of Moscow’s museums, Marina Tsvetaeva; the poetry of Yevgeny Yevtushenko and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago – all so useful when researching this book. I also found the following websites invaluable during my fact-finding missions:
bbc.co.uk
independent.co.uk
siberiantimes.com
usinfo.ru
go2add.com
csmonitor.com
armscontrol.org
www.fas.org
state.gov
lonelyplanet.com
stolby.ru
ceuweekly.blogspot.ru
symbolic-mirage.blogspot.co.uk
memorial.krsk.ru
newworldencyclopedia.org
dommuseum.ru
rt.com
theday.co.uk
telegraph.co.uk
russiavotes.org
nytimes.com
forbes.com
metro.us
rferl.org
forbes.com
themoscownews.com
themoscowtimes.com
huffingtonpost.co.uk
theguardian.com
greenpeace.org
bellona.org
washingtonpost.com
projectavalon.net
perezhilton.com
Further Acknowledgements
For putting me up for the night or acting as a pillow or mattress, I would like to offer my most sincere thanks to Gaz, Alex Werner, Ryan, Brad, Guto, Ed, Mace, Sam, Ruth and Ed’s Crocodillo.
For looking at early chapters of this book I would like to thank Peter Brooks, Lynne Rees, Dad and Mali Evans.
For offering support, helping me out in a variety of other ways, and being nice when they could have been otherwise, I’d like to thank the following people and organisations: my mum, my dad, Lindsey and Jon, Siw Hughes, Parthian Books, Meic Birtwhistle of Trefenter, Susan and Etienne Evans of Abertridwr, JJ, Ruth Barnett, Chapter Arts Centre, Aeroflot, especially the pilots who could probably pilot a plane through hell and still land it safely, Russian Immigration, The Russian embassy in London, The British embassy in Moscow, Alun Burge, Alun’s neighbours, Evgeny Nikitin, everyone at Blown Magazine, Rachel Trezise for telling me ‘what not to write’, Zoë Brigley, Bill Rees, Katy Evans-Bush, Alan Perry, Jean Perry, Aida Birch, Amanda Birch, Siôn Tomos Owen, Siôn’s mum and dad, The Moscow Times, The Siberian Times, and everyone else who I can’t recall.
For giving me a place to sleep on a million occasions, generally saving my neck from ruin and death, and being a decent sort of fella, I offer blokeish manhugs to Torben Schacht. Without you, not only would it have been ten times harder moving to Siberia but I would have no cover for this book.
For their patience and supplying me with five different Russian visas, I offer huge thanks to realrussia.co.uk
I would like to offer extra special thanks to my wife, for being able to read my mind, general love and gooeyness, and inspiration; my mother and father-in-law, for their support, pelmeni, and for putting up with my Britishisms, and everyone I have met in Siberia this past year who have helped me forge a new life.
Lastly, I offer the biggest and bestest thanks to editor extraordinaire Susie Wild, for those nights in the Uplands, kicking me in the arse, and turning a pile of notes haphazardly written into… this. Without you, this whatever it is, wouldn’t be whatever it is.
About the Author
Michael Oliver-Semenov was born in Ely, Cardiff, but now resides in central Siberia. Since ditching his career as a banking clerk in 1997 he has published words and poetry in a plethora of magazines, anthologies and journals worldwide, including Blown, The Morning Star, Orbis, Ten of the Best, Wales Arts Review, Mandala Review and Ink Sweat and Tears. He divides his time between growing vegetables at his family dacha, teaching English and writing for The Siberian Times.