Beautiful Khakasia

Our friend Sergei Glukhov from Abakan in Khakasia sent us some pictures that are worth sharing.  When I first went to Abakan with Tanya back in June 2006, we contracted with Sergei to drive us around, translate for me at meetings and organize some sightseeing.  Sergei is a wonderful young entrepreneur, Boston educated and a very capable translator.  He is also an outdoors-man, with a thorough knowledge of his homeland and an interest in a wide variety of areas.  If you want a holiday out of the norm in a unique and beautiful part of the world, ask me for Sergei's contact information.  Khakasia has rugged mountains, endless steppes, and thousands of years of history. Abakan is a 5 hour flight from Moscow. You'll need a visa.

Church in Abakan City

Yennessee river and Cyan Mountains

Yennessee river

Khakasian Steppes

Tree growing on one of thousands of Kurgans

Good fishing

Sergei is a wonderful cook

Freshwater prawns

Desert

Evening campfire

A real charmer

Sayano-Shushenskaya Disaster

Sayano-Shushenskaya Hydroelectric Dam is located on the Yennessee River in the Sayano mountain range in south central Siberia, perhaps 50 kilometers south of Abakan where Tanya's family live. It is the scene of a horrendous accident which has left 12 people confirmed dead. There is little hope for survival for another 64 more who were trapped in the turbine room when two water tunnels broke and flooded the area.

Downstream there is concern that the dam might give way however authorities say that this is impossible. The exact cause of the collapse of the water tunnels is not confirmed but has nothing to do with the structural soundenss of the dam.

Tanya called her sister this morning who said some people are moving to higher ground but this was likely just an intital reaction. She did say that all the bread immediately disappeared from the shops as people feared that lack of electricity would close the bakeries, however that is also back to normal.

I visited the dam when I was in Khakasia in 2006 so it has more meaning to me than just a news item.

The Old Swimming Hole

When we were in Siberia, Tanya looked up a couple of friends she had grown up with and we went for a picnic to the river by her old village where she learned to swim. The river where all the kids swam was a branch of the Yennessee, which formed a sort of delta in the area. Her friend Volodya waded into the river but said the water was about +4 C and so all declined the honour of swimming that day.

Her village was called Kalyagino but when she was 18, the government decided that a new dam created a flood risk and moved the entire village. People moved to a number of nearby villages and Tanya's family went to Belii Yar. Buildings were moved or demolished. In the case of log houses (most of them), they were dismantled with each piece numbered and then reassembled in the new location.

Every spring, all the women in the village took their mats, rugs and carpets to this rock and washed them in the stream.

This huge grain storage, handling and cleaning facility is typical of the Soviet technology that dragged their agriculture so far behind they had to import wheat from Canada to feed their people. Horizontal instead of vertical was the logic of the day. Why they didn't all starve is beyond me. Their agricultural scientists were useless, partly because they had no ability to travel and learn from the rest of the world and partly because the higher ups in the system took all the credit for everything, so why bother.

Family History Continued

Please read "Some Family History" as a refresher prior to reading this blog .


When we were in Abakan we visited Tanya's (Father's Cousin) Aunt Tonya (see picture bottom of previous history post). She is a very healthy and active lady in her very early 70's. She is going to Moscow to visit one of her daughters in August and offered look after Papa on the train on the way home so we have to get him to Moscow on August 17th. Tanya said when she was young she looked so much like Tonya's three daughters that everyone thought she was Tonya's kid.

I learned more about the Franskevich family while I was in Abakan. Great Grandfather Franskevich did come from Poland to Siberia in the mid-1920's. There was a picture of him, now lost, in Polish uniform. He had money when he came and set out to become a sucessful farmer, renting land, buying horses, a grist mill, a mower and a grain harvester (likely similar to the old original McCormick harvesters which were mfrd in the USSR until the late 40's). When Stalin collectivized all agriculture in the early 1930's, he lost everything to the new state farm created in the area.


Sometime during the Great Terror of 1938-1939, the KGB came one night to Kalegina, the village where they lived and arrested all males with Polish family names. They were never seen again. The KGB had gone to Tonya's father, who was the postmaster and demanded the names and addresses of all Polish people in the village. Because my Tanya's paternal grandfather was his brother-in-law, he left their name, Franskevich, off the list.

Home Again

When Tanya bought our Moscow Dnipropetrovsk tickets several weeks ago, the train was almost filled up with families headed to the Black Sea for holidays. The three of us got top bunks in three separate compartments but at least in the same wagon (car). Hoisting Papa up onto the bunk was no easy task but we got him there and he promptly fell asleep and stayed that way till Immigration stop in Bilgorod, Russia at 6:00 am

Clearing Russia at 6:00 am was no problem. I handed the nice lady my passport and looking as stupid as my picture, kept my mouth shut when she asked a question. One of the other ladies in the compartment, briefed by Tanya before hand, answered for me that I had been holidaying with my wife. Stamp, stamp stamp.

It was the *&%#$%@ Ukrainian immigration an hour later in Kharkiv that wanted to put me off the train because I had overstayed my three months and therefore couldn't enter the country. Tanya showed them my Ukrainian Permanent Residency Passport and they said it wasn't an official document. Tanya immediately called Oleg Nikolaievich, our Immigration Officer in P'yatikhatki (Thank God for cell phones as it was 6:00 am there.) who spoke with the border people and sorted it out.

There is always one more imbecile than you have figured on. Sometimes two.

We rolled into Dnipropetrovsk at 12:00 noon and Andrei was there to meet us and drive us back to Zhovti Vody. First stop in ZV was Roman and Lena's apartment. They got married and moved from Dnipro to Zhovti Vody while we were away. Watching Roman with his Grandfather was so sweet. He kept hugging him and patting him and just couldn't keep away from him. It had been 8 years since Roman had been to Abakan and 16 years since Papa had been here.

Not sure when Papa had seen Andrei last, he had never met Tanya nor Lena before. When Masha got out of Kindergarten at 5:00 pm we went and got her. She was so excited. Not only was her beloved Babushka home but she had brought Pradeduska too, whom she had never met. In Moscow when Pop's legs were threatening to give out, Tanya wasn't so sure that my insisting that Papa come to visit was a good idea but watching him and her family greet each other made it all worth while.

Every once in a while I do things right. Makes up for the rest.

He is 78 next week. That is old in this country. His birth certificate says he is only 77 but his mother fudged the date in later years somehow to keep him out of the army one year longer. If we didn't get him here this year it wasn't likely going to happen. His grandsons needed to see him again and his great granddaughter needed to know this man, if only to have a memory to attach stories to in later years.

Homeward Bound

Tanya, Pop and I left Abakan on the bus Monday night at 6:30 for a 400 km trip to Krasnoyarsk that was to take 8 hours according to the schedule. The fairly new Mercedes bus was off on sick leave so we made do with a fairly new 35 passenger Chinese bus. The seats were comfortable enough but the suspension creaked and groaned loudly and constantly. We made two pit stops at non-descript roadside cafes and I will never again complain about service station restrooms.

We arrived in Krasnoyarsk an hour ahead of schedule so by 2:00 am we were at the airport for our 9:00 am flight. The waiting area couches were almost all occupied but we found a place for Pop to lie down, in hopes that he would sleep. Like putting a four year old to sleep. Couldn't get him to shut up. Finally he sat up and Tanya slept for a while.

The 737-800 lifted off on time at 9:00 am and after a five hour flight, we arrived in Moscow at 10:00 am. Tanya was dead beat and so was I. Papa was all bright eyed and bushy tailed spry. That lasted until we had to drag him through the Metro. You don't realize how unfriendly it is to old people until you have to shepherd one along. By the time we got to our train station he was too tired to eat. I left him and Tanya on a leather couch in the restaurant and hope he laid down and slept before they threw them out.

It is 3:30 pm, our train leaves at 7:00 pm and I think we will sleep regardless of the bunks and temperatures either too hot or too cold. Two stops for immigration will be annoying but I hope nothing more than that. I got into Russia. The next trick is getting out.

Tanya is really very tired. As she said she has two "children" to look after. One old and one even older.

Bobik the Second

Sometime early Saturday morning between midnight and 7:00 am Zvonik disappeared. I noticed at daybreak when I went outside that he didn't crawl out of his nest to greet me but didn't look for him. By 7:00 Ksenia was hunting high and low for him. Papa said he noticed the gate was open. There was also a hole in the fence he could have crawled through.

The accepted explanation is that he was outside the fence when people in the town/village (Beli Yar has 12,000 people) were taking their cows to pasture and simply picked him up. It is plausable and I hope it is true.

By noon he was replaced by the next door neighbours' spare 6 month old puppy and named Bobik. By Sunday night he had explored the entire yard, was thoroughly at home and practicing his bark. I ignored him. He barked at me. He barked at the cats. He stole a shoe and chewed on others, not significantly, just enough to be noticed. He slept in the shade all day and when I went out at night, came bouncing up to be played with. He will do.

More cuteness

Not puppies, this time. Kids.

Ksenia is Luda and Valerie's youngest. She gets her almond eyes, freckles and mischief from her father, her boundless energy from her mother and Aunt Tanya and her leadership and determination from her Aunt Tanya. She is 7 years old, 16 years younger than her brother, and will start Grade 1 this fall. (Kindergarten is part of daycare not the education system but she can read and write and do math at what we would consider a grade one level. Highschool finishes at Grade 11).

Ksenia lives to draw, dance and sing. She was lead dancer at the Kindergarten Graduation Exercises, which was the day before we arrived but we watched the video. A couple years ago she said to her grandpa "If you are alive in spring, will you buy me a bicycle?" He was and he did. She disappears in the morning and appears only to eat and go to bed.

Uliana is 4 years old, with a 4-year-old's energy. She is the granddaugher of Tanya's late brother Sasha. As she has no grandparents at all now, Luda and Valerie (mostly Luda) have become surrogate grandparents. Uliana comes after kindergarten until her folks get off work.

Zvonok, the puppy.

Luda's family has a new puppy named Zvonok, which means ring (sound of a bell) or chime. The name made no sense to me until Tanya translated it as "Doorbell".

When we arrived on Saturday, he was so sick, we didn't think he would live. It was like he was coughing, gagging and heaving all at the same time. He may have swallowed a chicken bone as he was bringing up small amounts of blood. We took him to the vet on Monday. She said all we could do was wait. She said to give him two spoons of water from boiled rice about four times per day and two spoons of buttermilk. She also told Ksenia to keep the cat food where he can't get it as that was likely where he found the chicken bone.

Next day, he was much better, running around and bright eyed and cold nosed. He is still heaving a little once in a while but body functions seem normal. He is the kissingest, chewingest puppy since Vicki. I love him to bits.

Moscow

We left Kyiv at 7:00 pm on 25th and crossed the border into Russia, stopping for Immigration at 1:00 am on 26th. So we could have left a day earlier. Our best information was that if we left on 24th we would hit Russian immigration at 11:30 pm, which was 30 minutes before my visa was good on 25th. They could have refused me entry, kicked me off the train, if they wanted to be ignorant about it. Ignorant being the prime requirement for duty as an immigration officer in all countries, we decided not to risk it. Better a day late than kicked off the train.

We got to Moscow at 9:00 am, checked our bags and killed time till 1:00 when we went to meet our friend Galina who teaches English at an Institute near a metro stop so was easy to get to. After coffee, we went to her Institute and met some of her colleagues and students, then headed for the airport at 4:30, via Metro and Express train.

Moscow has a huge metro system with quite a number of fabulously decorated stops. It is a tourist attraction in its own right. But also complicated to get around on if you are not familiar with it. We took 40 minutes by non-stop train from the Metro to the Domodedevo Airport.

The last time I was in Domodedevo Airport was 1991 on my way to Kazakhstan with Tim Marshall, Sydney Palmer and several others on my first international venture. Tim had warned us about Domodedevo. Imagine a bus depot in the poorest part of a big city and you are close. Air and rail travel cost the same in Soviet times so planes were full and anyone who could get a seat could afford to fly. Bus depot, full of bus people. And a toilet to discourage anyone from any unecessary calls of nature. Imagine the worst outhouses ever and multiply the smell and filth by 10 or 20. Tim just laughed at us. There were no seats in the waiting area, so we sat on our bags. No plane, so we slept on them too. Five hours late we were finally in the air, about 4:00 am. Soviet flights were at night, so no one could see anything out the windows. Security you know.

Today, Domodedevo is a shiny new international airport of world standards and world scale. In all respects. Our plane left at 10:30 and by 7:30 am we were in Krasnoyarsk. Five hours flying and four hour time change. Valerie and Luda were waiting for us. It took an hour to get our bags, an hour to drive from airport to the city and an hour to get my presence registered by a hotel at the local OVIR so I met the terms of my tourist visa. Then off to Abakan.