Realm of the Sacred Raven

1.

Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky is almost the same age as Petersburg. Both were founded by a decree of Peter the Great. My city just celebrated its 300th birthday. Petropavlovsk will shortly do the same.

But they also have their differences. Petersburg, from the beginning, was built to be the capital. Visitors were blinded by its brilliance. Yet, in Petropavlovsk, even just 40 years ago, dogsleds were the main form of transport along the city’s main street.

The city itself is like a thin sliver wedged between the bay and two volcanoes, as if spewed out there. There is no building higher than five stories or more than 30 years old. And not a single one looks as it if will be standing 30 years hence.

The buildings themselves are made of crumbling concrete. They have no windows on the side facing the bay, and their outer walls are covered with sheets of tin. Quite similar to prison barracks.

Such an architectural style is not surprising here. The city closest to Petropavlovsk is Magadan — built by prisoners of the Gulag.

Rare islands of life are tossed about the city unevenly. At certain intersections there are kiosks, music is playing, and well-dressed people are out and about. But between these islands is a deathly emptiness, buildings with snow banks reaching up to their third floor.

And yet, the people seemed quite presentable. The entire time there, I never saw any beggars.

Kamchatkan men were wearing ironed slacks, even with their high fur boots. On one woman, I saw the same pair of hi-heeled boots that my wife wears, and my wife does not wear just any old thing.

In fact, the women in the street here are tall, fair-haired and surprisingly beautiful. Like Cossacks. Or maybe it is a reflection of the healthy climate.

 

2.

There is just one large street in the Kamchatkan capital. But then, on the other hand, it is quite long: over 20 kilometers. The street runs along the volcanoes, then along the sea, and along its length changes its name eleven times.

Sidewalks and pedestrian byways were not foreseen on this street. Three-meter-high snowbanks line the street. Pedestrians walk along the tops of them.

The asphalt road is covered with a thick layer of ice. Here and there, huge potholes gape. Diving between the volcanoes, the bus delivers me to the city center.

Here is how the center looked.

On one side was a half-dilapidated movie theater. On it hung a huge poster: “Astrologist and Palm Reader Tamara.” And a smaller poster: “New Pentecost Baptist Church.”

On the other side was the gravestone of the English seafarer Clerke. After James Cook was consumed by the Hawaiians, Clerke sailed Cook’s ships to Petropavlovsk and died here.

On the third side there was the sea.

Piled up on the shore were several tires and some bundles of rotten cable. The beach was strewn with pebbles. A little wooden bridge rose up at one point. It began on the shore and went God knows where, because it had rotted away, collapsed and careened into the water.

In principle, this was the very center of the city. I sat on the little bridge and immediately began to fidget, thinking that perhaps one was not allowed to sit here. After 20 minutes, the feeling began to pass. In another half hour (during which not a single person came into my line of sight), the feeling disappeared entirely.

The sea was at most knee deep. Small stones shone white on the bottom. The water was very clean, as was the air. Six huge fishing boats floated on the water, along with one military ship, which was also huge.

They simply floated there. No one rushed to or fro.

The sky was grey. The bay was grey. The volcanoes were grey. Higher than the nearest volcanoes, were blindingly white mountains. Four parallel stripes.

Truth be told, I’m not a lover of landscape gazing. But the bay was truly beautiful. Sell the apartment in Petersburg. Buy a house in Petropavlovsk. Stare for hours at dawn over the bay. Live in absolute silence. Not even suspect that there is such a thing as MTV.

But then, what would one live on here?

 

 

3.

 

I lit a cigarette. A helicopter crawled diagonally across the sky above the bay. Soundlessly. The silence on the shore was like ... a vacuum. There was only the sound of the ravens, flapping their wings.

I have not seen ravens like this anywhere else in the world. They are huge, the size of penguins. With huge bony beaks. Quite similar, in fact, to the huge reptiles in Jurassic Park III. The ravens were using their claws to dig mollusks — long since decayed — from beneath the snow.

These fat creatures could not fly and only paced about, shifting their weight from leg to leg.

They say that ravens can live 300 years. It is therefore not unthinkable that some of these very birds can still remember when “Voron-Kutkh” [Raven-Kutkh — mythological creator of the world] was the supreme deity in these parts.

Before the arrival of the Russians, Kamchatka was populated by several tribes which are now all but extinct: Koryaks, Chukchis, Itelmans, Evens, Ainus, Eskimos ... All bowed before Kutkh, a god which hid behind the mask of a raven.

A wooden statue of the raven stands right here, on the beach. The wood has blackened from moisture and time. Several empty vodka bottles are strewn about its base.

Further on, past Kutkh, stood a statue of Lenin. It was a bit taller and not made from wood, but metal. There were no vodka bottles strewn about its base.

 

 

4.

 

At night, reading the local paper in my room, I read that one hour outside Petropavlovsk a volcano had been erupting for two weeks. The notice was tiny. It said that cinders would not reach the city, only the local military base, but that the troops there were used to it.

Ah, routine ....

On the comparatively small peninsula of Kamchatka there are almost 3000 volcanoes. In the entire rest of the world, there are only a few more than this. And there is an active volcano — Avachinsky — at the very edge of the city.

I asked some Petropavlovskians:

“Aren’t you scared?”

“Nah. It sends up smoke. It doesn’t bother us.”

“Vesuvius also did not bother the residents of Pompei for quite some time.”

The Petropavlovskians shrugged their shoulders. They have never heard of Pompei or Vesuvius.

The residents of Kamchatka are so sluggish and incurious that the main tourist attraction on the peninsula, the Valley of the Geysers, was opened only a few decades ago.

On the entire Earth, there are only six open concentrations of geysers. And there are none anywhere like this.

The valley is five kilometers of a purely lunar landscape. From the charred, broken, grey surface, steamy fountains burst skyward, full of mud, water and steam.

In the valley, before a dumbfounded audience, volcanoes are born and oil is created. In just a half-million years, this oil will power your car.

The ground here is constantly snorting, whistling, spraying dirt, puffing and chomping. This is how the world looked, just moments after its birth.

It is said that the valley is damnably beautiful in winter. But I did not see it myself. A helicopter tour to the valley cost $230, more than I could afford.

Instead, I went to Paratunka, another valley which is also dense with hot springs, bursting up from beneath the earth. Around each of them is a small guesthouse or rest home.

This is the locals’ favorite place for relaxation.

 

 

5.

 

It was the coldest day of my entire visit in Petropavlovsk. I left the hotel, buttoned all the buttons on my jacket, pulled my fur hat down over my eyebrows, and fisted my hands inside my gloves.

The steam poured from my mouth. The stubble on my upper lip was immediately covered with a dense layer of frost.

I walked to the main road and boarded a microbus. The radio was blaring. A chipper DJ shouted:

“The temperature outside is -17^o C. You see, real spring weather!”

Next to me sat a woman in military uniform with her small daughter. The woman had on a thick winter uniform. Earrings poked out from under her cockaded hat.

Local distances were something I was not used to. Three stops on the bus and you are at the city limits. Three stops in the other direction — the city limits again. Half an hour on the bus and you are in a different town. It was more than an hour’s ride to Paratunka.

The surrounding volcanoes were impressively substantial. Like the muzzle of an elephant. It was strange to think that there were places in the world from where you could call your wife. In general, it was strange that there was anything else in the world other than this volcanic emptiness.

At first, the road was simply covered with a layer of ice. Then it turned into a slippery, snow-white crust. As best I could understand, braking on such a road is quite simply impossible.

There are no GAI [traffic police] on Kamchatka and there never will be. But drivers follow the rules of the road thoroughly. It is a question of survival.

Sitting in the microbus, I asked the driver where it would be best for me to get off. He said nothing. I decided the fellow was not in a good mood and did not insist on a reply. It turned out the driver was just thinking.

Forty minutes later, he motioned with his chin and simply said:

“Right here.”

“Right here?”

“It’s the best place for swimming.”

The air was cold and very clear. On the horizon, I could see very high, white mountains. Directly in front of me was a dilapidated building.

The tree branches were covered with frost, like sugar-powdered straws in a cocktail glass. It was so cold that I could hardly feel my legs. There was not a single being around. Just a hairy sled dog warming himself up in a snowbank.

Seeing me, he tried to yelp, started to crawl out of the snowbank, but, freezing, decided he didn’t give a damn, and went bank into hiding.

This was how the best place for swimming on Kamchatka looked.

Rotting metal letters on the building’s façade declared that before me stood the Kostyor (“Bonfire”) Guest House. I walked past the dog, making a wide circle. Large dogs scare me.

The inside walls were covered with wood, the staff smiled widely, and I had no idea how to get out of here. So I had to stay. At least for one night.

A tall, pretty female administrator chatted with the clientele. A room with a double bed, she said, cost $25 in their guest house.

“I do not need a double bed.”

“What, are you alone?”

“Alone.”

The woman worried over me for a long time, shook her head and said that it was bad for a person to be alone. Then she decided that, for another $12 she could slip a pretty girl into my room, and seemed satisfied with that.

 

 

6.

 

The radiators were burning hot. They were probably filled directly from underground springs. Could it ever be cold in a guest house sitting directly on top of a volcano?

About a half-an-hour later, the cleaning lady delivered my bed linens: a pillow as thick as my hand and two sheets. I said “thank you,” lit up a cigarette and stood in front of the window.

It was very quiet. Putting back on my hat and gloves, I went to check out the swimming pool.

The path from the room to the pool passed through a small, plywood paneled gallery with a ping pong table.

The pool itself was in the open air. It was a vat of grey, cracked and crumbling concrete that smelled of sulfur. A threadbare carpet lay before wooden steps that led into the water. The branches of a tree drooped toward the water and were covered in icicles.

Removing a glove, I touched the dirty water. Fairly warm. Body temperature. My cheeks were stung by frost.

I sat on a bench and took out a cigarette. The walls were covered with 5 centimeters of ice. The cold radiated up from the bench and into my bones.

There was no way I was going to go swimming. But I considered whether I had it in me to take off my shoes and stick my naked feet into the pool.

Steam rose up from the water. It was so thick that only when I had just about finished my cigarette did I realize that a young couple was kissing in the pool. Only their heads stuck up out of the water: she was a blond, he a brunet. Icicles glistened in their hair.

The woman laid her naked arm on the man’s shoulder. The lovers spoke quietly. What I could hear was nothing like cooing. In his conversation, the young man used words which would be embarrassing for me to pronounce even if I dropped an axe on my foot. Profanity in these parts is a means for discourse.

 

 

 

7.

 

Paratunka is where Petropavlovskians go to cut loose. I told people that I planned to spend a night there, maybe even two, and they looked at me with a mixture of envy and disgust. The way they might look at a guy who announced that he was sleeping with his sister.

Around five at night, the guests started to trickle in. After paying for their rooms, the men immediately asked where to find the bar.

My room was not far from the entrance. Through my door I could hear the squealing and giggling of the women.

Pulling on my coat, I left my room. Friday night. Party time. The Kostyor Guest House assumes its true form.

The paneled room was full of smoke. The ping pong table was covered with vodkas and large jars of pickles. Nearby, two unbelievably fat women were … dancing. An ancient old man was dozing cross-legged on a stool. His jacket was pinned with military decorations. A Belomor cigarette hung out of his toothless mouth.

Outside, at the swimming pool, the radio was playing. Under a black, polar sky, it was strange to hear a beach song about dancing until dawn. The Kamchatkans communicated by yelling over the sound of the radio:

“Whose beer is it?”

“Drink! It’s everyone’s!”

In the pool itself they were playing volleyball with an inflated child’s ball. Everyone was drunk, so they played badly. The men, for diversion, threw snowballs at their girlfriends, who shrilly squealed.

The Kamchatkan men were fat and pale. They had navy or army tattoos on their shoulders. One tried to climb up the slippery steps out of the pool, stumbled, and his huge naked body flopped on to the snow.

The women did not shy from changing their tops in front of everyone. When they smiled, almost every beauty showed a metallic row of front teeth.

The staff of the guest house included an organizer-humorist. The fellow tried to give the impression that the guests were not there simply to drink vodka, but to relax in a cultured manner. I could hear his cries:

“The next competition! We will compete at undressing! The winning team will be that which undresses quickest and forms the longest garland from their underwear!”

I moved over into a corner and started to watch. A guy came up to me. The kind, you know ... bent and crooked ... with a contemptuous, protruding lower lip.

“You come to bathe?”

“Too cold. For now, I’m just watching. You?”

“Bathing should be done at home. In the bathroom. I came to relax.”

We fell silent.

“Over there, see? Her name is Ira. The cleaning woman says that she is one of those ...”

“Those what?

“She puts out! ... Shall we?”

“Not interested. I’m married.”

“Pooff! I’m married too. What does a wife have to do with anything?”

I finished my smoke and returned to my room. As we parted, the crooked fellow said that he and his buddies were in room 9. If I changed my mind, just knock.

 

 

8.

 

The time zone upset my body clock. Several days in a row I fell asleep at 8 pm and woke up at 3 am.

Take today. I nodded off with the lights out. Then with the lights on. Outside, it was quiet. Almost quiet, anyway. Only the voice of a woman explaining to someone that, if the client is drunk and falls asleep, then it’s not important.

I lit up a cigarette and spent some time just looking at my room.

The room was superbly renovated. Expensive wallpaper. Stylish chandelier. On the floor, instead of a bed, was a mattress. On the mattress, lay I. On the carpet, near my head, were two Winston-Light cigarette butts. Remains from the room’s previous occupants.

I stood and looked out the window. Outside was a wild, snowed-in world. It was the wildest and most snowed-in place I had ever seen.

The natural environment was beautiful. So beautiful that even I grasped it. And the people here never even look at the nature around them.

I put on some pants, locked up the room and went to wash up. Most of the revelers were sleeping. A few were even sleeping directly on the floor in the corridor.

In the shower room there was a trash can full to overflowing with empty vodka bottles. I turned on the light and a herd of cockroaches scurried away. Where could they come from? Here, almost in the tundra?

The water smelled of sulfur. But it was really hot. For the first time since arriving in Kamchatka, I was able to totally undress and stand under a shower.

After the shower, I wanted some coffee. I had brought a can of Moccona and some sugar. All I needed was a cup and some hot water. The woman on duty directed me to the kitchen. A short little woman sat there.

She was tired. Just sitting there. Very short. Her hair had been highlighted with peroxide. I offered her some coffee. She poured herself a full cup, but hardly touched it.

She said she was 27 (she looked 22). She had an 11-year-old son. Of course, she had no husband. She did have a boyfriend. He was 23.

“You know, I used to live in the city. But there it is all emptiness, wasteland. I can’t live there.”

“In which city? Petropavlovsk? Emptiness?”

“You know, here in Paratunka it is quiet. When we want to have some fun, we go to the next village. 18 kilometers. You get there and it’s like it’s happier ...”

“And what’s there, in the next village?”

“Nothing. We just go there. Buy some cigarettes.”

“Aren’t there any cigarettes closer?”

“Sure, but what’s the point of that?”

It finally was getting light outside. The day was beginning. It looked as if it would be grey. A light snow fell from the sky.

9.

Across from the guest house jutted an anonymous volcano. It was beautiful, like a Japanese postcard with a picture of Mt. Fuji. A flat white cone. It was crossed midway up with a thin line of white clouds.

I was nearer to Fuji than to the place where once I had seen those Japanese postcards.

The whole world surrounding me was beautiful and unpopulated. It probably looks like what the world would look like if God had decided not to populate it. Believing this was hindered only by the Kodak advertisements poking out of the snowbanks.

I had airline tickets in my pocket. Tomorrow morning I would get on an airplane and fly from Kamchatka, bringing an end to the flying portion of my trip.

The rail portion would begin.