On a hot early summer afternoon in Russia, we push our bicycles into an expanse of grassland near a roadside cafe and set up our tents. In the distance, rising mountains ring the outskirts of Chita, the eastern Siberian city where we have just rested after cycling the first 2,000 miles of our trip. We left Chita so late in the day that we decide to stop at the city limits. Earlier, I wasn't sure we would make it out of the city.
That morning, we discovered that an eyelet, a small threaded fitting on the back of the bike frame, which the rear rack screws into, had broken off the bike. Our back panniers, the waterproof bags which we carry our food and clothes in, rest upon the rear rack. Unless it screws securely into the frame, the bike cannot be riden. We had to find a welder.
Scattered directions and good fortune eventually brought us to an auto garage operated by an expert bicycle mechanic named Alex, and his wife Victoria who studied in the U.S. for a year. Alex worked on the bike while Victoria interpreted for us. Alex welded the eyelet onto the frame and sanded the new metal. The bike was good as new.
"What do I owe you?" Ellery asked.
"Nothing," Alex replied smiling, "come back if anything else breaks."
Setting my tent up later that day, I notice a dark figure emerge from a small shack near the roadside cafe and begin walking toward us. With his back to the blinding sun, he appears silhouette-like. As the phantom figure nears, the shadows obscuring his face dissolve in the sunlight. A skinny man with dark skin and thick eyebrows bristling from under a downturned, red baseball cap materializes before me.
I imagine he has come to kick us out. Instead, he invites me to dinner.
"My name is Igor," he says in Russian.
Igor is one of many immigrants from the small country of Azerbaijan, which once composed part of the Soviet Union, who have moved to Russia to earn a better living. In Siberia, he runs a small stand by the road selling Shashlik, a Russian meal of grilled meat, often cooked on a stck, like shish kebab's. At his food stall, I watch as Igor grills meat over a woodfire while his son serves me tea from a samovar, a small Russian urn filled with water and heated by burning charcoal.
We eat in a cramped shack with scarcely enough room for Igor and I to sit down across from each hunched over a small table sitting on little stools.
"Yect, yect!" he demands. "Eat, eat!"
With bare hands, we devour large pieces of meat and raw onions together. Soon, Igor reveals a small bottle of vodka and several glasses so filthy they might double as ash trays. He pours us each a drink.
"Do people from Azerbaijan live in the U.S. too?" he asks.
"People from everywhere in the world live in my country," I reply.
A silence ensues while I formulate a question to revive the conversation.
"Did you come to Russia alone?" I ask.
"My brother and I brought our families here eight years ago," he explains, then pauses, pointing to one of the ubiquitous gravestones adorning the sides of Russian roads marking where people have died in automobile accidents.
"My brother died in a drunk driving accident there last year," he says, index finger outstretched toward the roadway.
I stop eating, both out of respect for his loss, and to not appear gluttonous in front of the feast before us.
"Yect, yect!" he yells again commandingly.
We eat until the food is gone.
The people of Siberia are known for their hospitality. The inhabitants of this harsh landscape must endure long and bitterly cold winters subsisting off few resources. Perhaps it is the difficulty of life here which inspires people to help passersby.
The following day, we cycle sixty miles and make camp in a field behind a truck stop with a small hotel. That evening, I meet a jolly man named Nikolai. His face projects a permaneant beaming smile; he talks in Russian with lively and passionate inflections, as if he were a native speaker of Italian. He is very excited to meet an American.
"I want to show you where I work," he says compulsively.
Nikolai keeps a giant coal stove burning throughout the night which heats the nearby hotel's water. He leads me to a small shed adjacent to the cafe. The smell of smoke wafts outside as he opens the door. Inside, chunks of coal and old tools cover the shed floor. Atop a small table rests a hotplate and large broken shard of mirror leaning against the wall. Nikolai opens another door inside the shed, revealing a smoke filled room where coal burns in a stove that he fills with a shovel. Coal abounds in the mountains of this part of Russia; below me, the fire glows like a dragon's nostrils.
"How do you make money to travel," Nikolai asks.
"I worked very hard, for a long time," I respond.
"I work hard too, but I have never left the mountains surrounding my village," he remarks casually. "I only have extra money for these," he admits, pointing to a lonely pack of cigarettes on the table.
In Russia, even brand name cigarettes, like Camel and Marlborough, rarely cost more than $1.
The next day, we learn that my bike has broken in the same place as Ellery's. We wheel it to a mechanic shop by the truckstop. A rough-looking man with serpentine figures tattoed on his arms clumsily attempts to reweld the eyelet onto my bike frame. I tell him that I can fix the bike in Chita, but a formidable combination of Siberian friendliness and mechanic's pride overtakes him, and he continues trying to fix the bike.
His work makes me nervous. Having a broken bicycle on an eight month bike trip feels like being entrusted with the care of a sick child: nothing but the best medical care will suffice.
"It is hard to watch somebody you love go under the knife, isn't it?" Ellery says jokingly.
The mechanic sloppily succeeds in welding the eyelet onto the frame and charges us nothing. We gratefully say our thanks, and, so as not to offend him, ride just up the road, and hitchhike back to Chita to have Alex reweld the bike properly.
When we return, the young couple offers to fix my bike, take us to dinner, and drive us back to the truck stop. When the bike is fixed, we go out to eat at the best Shashlik place in town with their family. The table is heaped with steaming plates of meat, cucumbers, small flat tortillas, and cheese. Victoria's brother-in-law makes sure everyone's beer glass remains full.
As we drive along the highway that evening, the details of the landscape I pedaled past a day ago, the cafe we camped near, Igor's red baseball hat atop his head bending over the samovar, and his brother's grave, meaninglessly zoom past the car window. While driving, images of small villages look like distant scenes captured in oil paintings. Traveling by car in a foreign land suddenly seems like wandering through a museum full of famous paintings without understanding the artists intentions.
The feeling and significance of what you are seeing is lost.
On the way back, Victoria tells us about her experiences in the U.S.
"I went abroad after the fall of the Soviet Union," she said. "Back then, we had frequent power outages in Russia, so we kept candles throughout our house. When I arrived at my host family's home in Texas, I noticed that they had candles too, and I thought they had the same electricy problems in America. Later, I realized they were just decorations," she relates.
"You know, America is very comfortable," she suddenly utters.
In many ways, her statement is true. As they drop us off, I wonder if maybe it is the lack of comforts in Siberia which makes people here reach out to one another. Here, smiles, compassion for strangers, and friendliness often make up for the lack of material comforts.
Two days later, the bolt connecting Ellery's rear rack breaks and we cannot pry the broken end out to replace it. A mechanic in a small town hacks off the old eyelet, and welds a nut onto the frame for a new bolt to screw into. His work proves highly functional.
My previous experience with mechanics has conditioned me to think that he will charge for the work, although I know he will not.
Still, I wonder if he will ask. The mechanic just smiles.
Comments
Hey Levi,
Your pictures are amazing! And I love reading about your adventures.
Take care,
Liz (aka Yiz Mornin')
and welds a nut onto the frame for a new bolt to screw into. His work proves highly functional.
