Babushkin

Babushkin is not a tourist trap. Three people get off the train from Irkutsk at the station where a revolutionary was shot there in 1906. It is this man who the town is now named after, though the station retains its original moniker of Mysovaya. The reason I am in Babushkin is to Lyuba and Anatoly, freinds of Andrey and Sasha in St Petersburg. This meeting had been beset by problems however, largely geographical. In St Petersburg I had mentioned I was stopping at Listviyanka and Sasha had mentioned that I should stay with some friends of hers who lived there. Unfortunately the e-mail that had their number went astray so I only got this when I was in Irkutsk. This number didn't work but I figured I could ask around in Listviyanka. Unfortunately, no-one there knew a couple called Anatoly and Lyuba, even though the town is fairly small. Slightly more worryingly no-one seemed to know about the village of Babushkin. I assumed I'd got the name wrong, as I was repeatedly asked whether I was trying to visit my grandmother (Babushka), or that the village was so small and so close that people assumed it was part of Listviyanka. Then I recieved a text with Lyuba and Anatoly's mobile which I tried. Lyuba asked when I would be arriving. I said as soon as I knew their address I would pop straight over, this evening perhaps? She sounded sceptical and asked where I was. Just nearby in Listviyaka was my blithe reply. A short silence.

"You need to take a bus to Irkutsk, then it is five hours by train. Head to Mysovaya."

This was confusing but I took it in my stride. Maybe not this evening, I said, actually it might be better if I come in a couple of days. I went to the infamous tourist office, though this was back when I thought they were right about everything. I'd asked about Babushkin before but had drawn a blank, this time however I knew I was looking for something a little further away. Relative to St Petersburg, Babushkin is actually quite close. However, here at Baikal "quite close" becomes 70km directly across the ice. No one is driving across that distance now, not with the lorry lying on the bottom so close by. So after returning to Irkutsk for a night, long enough to see the bizarre Sinn Fein graffiti on one of the advertising boards, was on my to Mysovaya/Babushkin.

Watch Update: Yesterday my watch gave up the ghost and the screen went blank, perhaps after the intense sunshine. I was philosophical and began making plans for my fifth one. However, while today I am still feeling the effects of yesterday's weather on my sunburnt nose the watch has miraculously come back to life again. While mentioning strange and trivial occurences, the penny that has been in my right boot since December has disappeared. But weirdly it has been replaced by a rouble in my left boot. No word of a lie. It may be the work of the same pair who left some notes in my bags in Krasnoyarsk. Who knows...

Did a couple of interviews on the train but perhaps the most interesting story on there was that of Kyrie, a Russian orthodox monk and he didn't want to speak on tape. His journey is an awesome one all the way from a monastery near Volgograd in the West all the way to his home on Sakhalin Island in the Far East, beyond Vladivostok. Kyrie is the name he took after becoming a monk, before he was called Alexander. He buys some squid strips and offers them to me. I share them because the conversation is interesting, not because I'm a massive fan of the taste. He also enjoys a very unmonastic beer but I think this must be allowed in the Orthodox Church as no-one bats an eyelid. He has been a monk for 7 years and this is the second time he has travelled home. It will take a week for him to get there, he will stay a month and then he will return. We talk about a wide variety of subjects, the differences between the different branches of Christianity and other religions, the Iraq War, squid strips but he speaks no English and sometimes his long but subdued Russian speeches are hard to comprehend. He has unbelievably piercing blue eyes and a long wiry black beard, streaked with grey. If I'd been making a Russian language movie about Rasputin I'd have cast him on the spot but I think the genre has probably been sufficiently covered. I want to take a photograph but he doesn't want this either.

Now I'm in Babushkin, waiting by the statue of the town's namesake for Lyuba to arrive. Anatoly wanted to drive but one of his friends had a birthday lunch, largely liquid, and now driving has become a little hazardous. When we arrive we sit down for kalbasa (Like salami), soup, gerkhins and cheese. I thought that with this old couple I might avoid vodka but even though its not long past noon Anatoly and share a bottle, while Lyuba sips wine. After lunch Anatoly unsurprisingly falls fast asleep.

Lyuba and I take a walk through the town. I'd had a nap too but when I woke Anatoly was still snoring peacefully. This side of of the lake is not quite so impressive, perhaps because I have seen alot of the ice in the past few days. We walk to the lighthouse, the bottom of which is covered with artlessly scrawled graffiti. Lyuba met Anatoly when they were working at the mining town of Talnak in the far North of Russia. They moved down here two years ago, as it is Anatoly's hometown and it makes a pleasant change from the months of darkness and cold that characterised winter within the Artic Circle. They have a book about the town, that was created in 1965 and in the summer it does look quite beautiful but though these photos dominate the book, its only for one short month of the year. Perhaps a better illustration of life there is a photo of children standing in goggles and pants in front of a sun lamp while at school, to simulate, for one lesson at least, normal daylight in the winter. As we walk through the train yards and on past the station to the village centre, Lyuba talks very frankly about the plight of pensioners in Russia and of her dislike for the current regime. Much of this I get later in an interview. Past many sad looking buildings, we pass the cinema. On the ground is an unrolled spool of film, torn and dirty. The near identical frames are all of David Bowie singing. Lyuba is surpised when I pick up a piece and I feel that under her gaze I can't take it to her house and keep it as souvenir. I wait for a bin and throw it away. Lyuba suggests we walk on the pavement, because of drink drivers. A woman was killed here last month she says. The road parallel is the ubiquitous Utilitsa Lenina. This is part of the road that runs all the way to Vladivostok. Many people buy cheap Japanese cars and drive them back to Moscow through here. Anatoly is very proud of his new SUV, also bought in the East but brought here on the train. At three in the morning he is wide awake and alert, a different man to the one I had seen up until now. He drives us to the station in his pride and joy. We wait a while in the cold then the train rushes in, pauses only briefly so I and a several others can scramble on and then it is leaving. I wave goodbye to the elderly couple on the platform and promise I will return when it is summer so I can appreciate Babushkin at its best.