ZDRAST-vuyt-ye (hello) from Russia

I came to Moscow by way of the Trans-Siberian Rail. Traveling 6000 kilometers through 5 time zones gave me a chance to appreciate this land of Chekhov and Dostoevsky, Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich, a country rich in resources, art, and history.

While every Siberian town still had a statue of Lenin with one out-stretched arm and the main drag to town center was always "Lenina" for his namesake, other icons of the USSR could only be found in kitschy "Soviet-themed" restaurants with painted red interiors and the hammer and sickle displayed as a joke. When I asked a young Russian what his generation thought of Lenin, he shrugged and said, "We don't." Though extinguished with a vengeance under communism, both religion and Russia's imperial past are coming back full force. Tsar Nicholas II and his family, killed by the Bolsheviks in 1918, are now revered as saints by the Russian Orthodox Church. In Yekaterinburg, a brand spanking new cathedral honor them where they were murdered and a lovely set of 7 monasteries in the nearby woods (one for each member of the family) mark where their bodies were disposed. Churches and cathedrals used as cinemas or converted to public swimming pools in Soviet times are now filled with prayer and incense and women with their hair wrapped in silk scarfs as a sign of respect to God. Meanwhile, state museums such as the dazzling Amber Room of Catherine's Palace in St. Petersburg and the staggering collection of masterpieces at the Hermitage testify to how incredibly opulent the Russian Royal Court once was. But in addition to awe, walking through those gilded palaces also made me feel a tremendous sense of waste. While such beautiful objects were crafted and collected for a few to enjoy, the entire country was oppressed and impoverished to the point of radical revolution. How selfish and short-sighted those monarchs were. And how tragic for the Russian people to move from imperial autocracy to communist totalitarianism.

There were other somber reminders of Russia's recent past. In the charming Siberian university town of Tomsk, I visited a small Oppression Museum housed in a former prison used by the KGB. It displayed the stories and personal items of those who were killed and tortured in the gulags of Stalin's reign. As vast as the Soviet Union was, a map in the museum showed how the gulags dotted every part of its territory. No one was spared its terror. I was filled with admiration for the people, who with courage and integrity, merely 15 years after the fall of the Soviet Union, founded this museum so that the world would not forget.

Throughout my Trans-Siberian journey, I met Russians who offered me uncommon kindness and generosity. Discard what you've learned about Russians watching American movies in the 80's, for example, the scary guy in Rocky IV. Here are some real Russians:

While in Greymachinsk, a tiny Siberian village on the east coast of Lake Baikal, I was caught in a sort of bind. The hostess of the homestay I pre-arranged did not meet me as expected. I was dropped off by the side of a dirt road, which I later gathered was the village center since the T-intersection had its only restaurant and grocery store. After 2 hours of waiting and exhausting several other plans, I stepped into the grocery store with my Russian phrasebook and the intention of imploring whether there may be somewhere to stay for the night. The storeowner, a jolly red-haired woman, was very patient with me as I read from my phrasebook. But my pronunciation was too horrendous for her to understand, so I resorted to showing her the book and pointing to the sentence I meant to speak. She promptly volunteered herself. She led to her log cabin, showed me where she hid her spare house key, and the sofa-bed where I was to sleep. That night, her sweet and very pretty 15-year-old daughter made the best potato au gratin I've ever had for dinner. We had agreed that I would pay 200 roubles (less than 8 USD) to stay the night. The next morning, when I wanted to give her more for basically saving my hide, she refused. Instead, she made me cranberry juice, with berries picked fresh from her garden, so that I would have something to drink during my dusty ride to Ulan-Ude.

On the train to Irkutsk, the cultural center of Siberia that flourished when the Decembrists of 1825, gentlemen rebels and the women who loved them, became exiles there, I met a nice Russian young man in his early twenties. He was traveling 4 days on the train straight to Moscow where he was about to graduate the most prestigious law school in Russia. We happily chatted in English and he urged me to share the cucumbers and tomatoes grown from his mother's dacha. When I told him I was a surgery resident, he said that he had wanted to be a doctor as a child. "That's o.k.," I teased him. "Lawyers make more money." "Money?" he answered. "What is money? We live for our parents and for our children. Not for money." The frankness and simplicity with which he said it was quite wonderful.

On another leg of the journey, 3 Russian women I met on the train found out I was going to spend the day visiting their home town of Krasnoyarsk. Whatever plans they had themselves originally that day was changed into being my personal tour guides through their city. From the train station, one of the women took us to her apartment and before I could protest, a lunch of bread, cheese, and vegetables was spread before us. They then took me to all the sights of the city, including the chapel featured on the ten rouble bill. Through their broken English, my essentially non-existent Russian, and flipping back and forth a Russian-English dictionary, somehow we communicated. They had many questions about San Francisco and longed for the opportunity to travel abroad. That evening, they came back to the train station with me to see me off on my onward journey. We parted ways on the platform with hugs, kisses, and a lasting impression.