LEAVING PLYOS

Next morning I set out to photograph more of those bold slashes of fall
colors and use my camera as a memory device, a simulated version of the beauty that had so motivated Levitan and others. The gold strokes, containing aspen and other leaves, flutter against the morning's foggy sky and run down the hill to the Volga. The sun is at work burning through the early fog. The trees also pile up in rows, alternating with tall dark green firs, on the Volga's other bank. The fog is soon
gone. It's a fine sunny morning and the colors are at maximum bright settings
to the eye. The air is polished and dry, breathing is a pleasure in itself.
Some cottages on the slope puff smoke out their chimneys. Eventually
I start looking for Anna's cottage, using the address she gave me. I make
inquiries, everyone is helpful but no one knows. One elderly babushka, already
dressed as if for winter, uses my question to lapse into a long remembrance of
people who used to live on this little road. One young guy, with implied curiosity, tells me I speak in a different "dialect". (Actually Plyos natives have
an accent different from Moscow and use some unusual idiomatic variants.) And eventually I find Anna, behind a high gate, her apples spread out on the ground to spell out Plyos. She's pleased that I've come, and just begins showing me her small garden plot, when Anatoly appears. He's come to help her repair the stove. He's a retired policeman and before that was a petroleum engineer from the Stavropol region, bordering the Caucasus, but came here about 25 years ago, because his wife's from here. She's a nurse and works at the local TB sanatorium. And he's excited about meeting an American for the first time, is constantly joking, asking me questions with a broad smile that shows his many gold teeth and twinkling eyes.
Anna gives me a tour of the cottage--two rooms, including the kitchen with
it's massive cermaic Russian stove, explains its workings to me, shows me
the iron rods used for handling pans and skillets deep inside the stove, the little
ladder that she and her siblings used to climb up to the top of the stove
where they slept ("it held three of us"), the tiny bedroom/living
room. This is where her grandparents raised 10 children. She makes oatmeal
for me since I've had no breakfast and begins bringing all sorts of food
out of the cabinets, even another little bottle to Balsam. The three of us
toast our new friendship and soon finish off the bottle. Anatoly asks me
many questions about the US, my opinion about everything in the world.
What my impressions of Russia are is important and I try to give an especially
truthful and balanced answer. He seems pleased that I'm not under any
illusions about how people really live and that I see their day-to-day problems,
undazzled by the bright lights of Moscow. He jokes with black humor:
"Life in Russia is bad, but it won't last long!" He and Anna complain about
"Moscow"--the binary metaphor for the government and the wealthy class it
favors. "Moscow" (or more literally, "Ivanovo", the large industrial city
that is capital of this county or "oblast'"), is buying up choice property in
Plyos, they tell me. One example is the huge brick house neighboring Anna's
cottage--three stories, insulated windows, decorative grill on the roof,
a typical "palace" of this period, similar to the many surrounding Moscow, but
now "Moscow" is building farther out and in small towns and villages with
pleasant natural surroundings like Plyos.
We go for a long walk, slowly making our way through the birch groves,
see the wooden church on the hill that Levitan used as the subject of one
of his most famous pictures. "Do you have a good governor?" I ask Anatoly
as we look for the best path to take through the muddy road, "anybody
who does anything for the village?" "Ha!" he laughs sardonically.
"The ruling powers! They're all the same, all bad." "Do YOU have any
good ones (in the US)?" I let his question go, as I think about our complaints about our state Governor and other officials, and while silently wishing they
were better, but I can't say they are calloused, corrupt and far removed
from the realities of genuine problems like the ones here. The mud, the
lack of gas lines (Anatoly and Anna joke that the country is able to supply
natural gas to half of Europe but not to its own people: in this village
almost everyone heats and cooks with wood). The wealthy newcomers
are putting in gas lines for themselves and there may be a side benefit
to ordinary folks, who can tie on to their lines.
My bus back to Privolzhk (then from there to Kostroma) is leaving soon, in early afternoon. Anna and Anatoly have dropped everything to see me off. Anna has stuffed my backpack with apples, Anatoly gives me some of his own, a different sort, she
gives me a big package of cookies, a box of candy, some of her own pictures of
Plyos and everything else she can find that fits the occasion. On the way to
Hotel Natalia and then the bus, we stop at Anatoly's--a modest but spacious
three room house, and a large garden plot that a wealthy new neighbor hankers after
and has offered Anatoly a large sum for, but he's hanging on to it for a while.
He'll leave it to his granddaughter. His two sons are dead, and I ask how
that happened. Anna quickly interjects that it's better not to talk about it, it's
too painful. Anatoly scoffs, "No, why not talk about it! One shot himself.
He was determined to go to Moscow, finally did, got a police job, his
wife left him and he used his own gun on himself. The other just drank
himself to death."
Our farewell lasts awhile, and we meet some of their acquaintances as we
wait for the driver to start the bus. A talkative and friendly former policeman, and a young pyschiatrist - a little tipsy, who asks me to translate into Russian the English nursery rhyme "Pussy
Cat, Pussy Cat where have you been?.. ", which he recites in entirety, and when I do, proclaims me a "genuine Englishman," then offers me a swig of his beer, and a very cheerful woman mail carrier wheeling a bicycle, one of Anna's schoolmates friends who after retirement from some professional career has come back to Plyos to live. All are surprised and pleased to meet an American, all ask me to come back--often, cheering me on my way. Anna and I exchange addresses and agree to try to meet in Moscow.
Then, I'm gone, back along the bumpy road to my stop where the bus to Kostroma is supposed to come. Soon a a private Volkswagen mini-van stops, asks only 100 rubles for the ride to Kostoma and in half an hour I'm back at my previous hotel on the Volga. The driver regularly transports visiting German businessmen with factory projects in Ivanovo, himself runs a small dairy farm that produces special milk.
He's very upbeat, but tells me that "Moscow" has bought up most of the old
factories in Kostroma and closed them down as tax write-offs or anti-competition
stratagies so now the city is mainly just a trade center. He invites me
to call him next time I want a ride, even could pick me up from Moscow.
That night I'm back at the Philharmonic Hall listening to a stirring Romantic
program of all Russian music and invited for a private supper in the director's
study for the soloists and conductors. Sometimes just being a Russian speaking
American brings sudden if undeserved fame, but I'm happy to be wined and dined
and to hear all about the current Russian music scene with some of the
masterful musicians of the region. Together we plan strategies for setting
up an exchange with the Albuquerque Symphony Orchestra. The
world really is small--and full of chances for happy relationships.
Russia has the paradoxical ability to make you simultaneous darkly pessimistic about politics and government, but euphoric about personal relationships and individual
human connectivities.