Russian Oddessy

This is the story of one of our NYC Baha'is who traveled to the far reaches of Russia to meet the new members of the Baha'i Faith in those lands and to do musical performances for the public. Since the Baha'i Faith does not have a clergy, individuals are encouraged to use their vacation times to visit remotely located Baha'is. This is one such example.
-- The Webmaster

Preparations

Novosibirsk is the largest city in Siberia famous for “Academy-Gotrodok”, a scientific research “city” outside of town. There, the Soviet government concentrated hundreds of chemists, physicists, geologists etc … to focus research and development and lead the country forward. Since the end of the Soviet Union, budgets have been severely curtailed and salaries reduced. As a result, many scientists, among the finest in the world, have gone abroad to countries such as the U.S. and Israel for greater opportunities. Novosibirsk spreads out in large, open avenues, with traditional Soviet-style apartment blocs and a downtown of massive gray buildings. It boasts some excellent cultural institutions and a world-class orchestra. A prior summer I had the opportunity of sitting in on a chamber orchestra rehearsal; the young musicians, in torn blue jeans, sneakers and t-shirts looked more like a rock group as they chain-smoked but once they picked up their instruments and played, they transformed into a seamless and lyrical musical ensemble. In fact, the following day they left for a concert tour of Western Europe.

The activities of the local Baha’i community take place in an apartment near the edge of the city. A typical Siberian apartment with two back rooms, a living room, a kitchen and a bathroom, it functions as a community center for feasts, firesides, classes, assembly meetings, and a bookstore. Throughout the day and evening, people drop in there, and the visits become more frequent with the arrival of Americans. Such a convivial atmosphere would have distracted us from organizing and rehearsing our music so four of us gathered at a Baha’i's apartment. Our routine consisted of morning deepening on music and art and rehearsal and arranging in the afternoon. I was reminded of the depth of understanding of the Faith possessed by some of the Russian friends and their profoundly spiritual orientation and commitment. For our musical selections, we chose Baha’is songs from different languages and passages from the Writings that could be used as introductions and illustrations for these songs.

It was helpful that at this stage we were given the opportunity to practice some of the songs at a camp for children in the neighboring city of Birdsk. After a brief performance there, we made some adjustments to include more rhythmic material and some traditional Russian songs. We were joined on this outing by Eric Swift White Wolf, a Baha’i Native American from South Dakota.

We had to stay for most of the week in Novosibirsk because my clothing bag, guitar and gift of computers had been misplaced in Paris in transit. After one week of preparation and the miraculous appearance of my belongings at the Novosibirsk airport, we began our trip. Our itinerary? Go South and then East to places with some Baha’is and possible opportunities.

Barnaul

Our first stop was the city of Barnaul, capitol of the Altaiski Krai (region), where I had lived the previous summer. It’s home to several universities, among them Altai St. University and Barnaul St. University. At the latter university, a local Baha’i, Lena Sugatova, teaches courses on Russian culture and history. She lived in the professors’ dormitory with her son Igor. She was, at this time, moving to Novosibirsk to coordinate the regional training institute. An active and deepened Baha’i, she organized a presentation to a kindergarten and organized a fireside (i.e. an informal meeting to discuss the Baha'i Faith) for us at the Red Sail Club, a place that seemed to me to have been for retired military personnel.

Russian education begins with a strong kindergarten and evidence of this is everywhere --- decorated, clean and thoughtfully structured buildings with rich programs abound. The kindergarten in downtown Barnaul was no exception with its hallways painted in murals and its spotlessness. We played for a group of 18 kindergartners and had such a good time watching them respond that I don’t know who had a better time --- them or us.

At the Red Sail Club, we sat in the small main room with several other Barnaul Baha’is and some of Lena’s friends who knew something about the Faith. An interesting discussion ensued and a warm social time of singing and drinking tea. I was particularly happy to meet up again with Anya who had declared the prior summer. The evening finished outside the stoop of the club where we sang and played.

Novo-Altaisk

Close to Barnaul is the small city of Novo-Altaisk where an active Baha’i family lives. The father of the family had been murdered several years and the mother, daughter and son remained. A friend of the daughter, Katya, had become a Baha’i. We went to their home and spoke about the Faith with Katya’s mother and some young neighbors from upstairs. Earlier that day, we had visited a kindergarten and made a presentation on education and spiritual values, and we finished by playing music. The teachers, many of whom were cleaning and repairing the school, asked direct questions such as, “Why would you come here during your summer?” with great warmth and humor. The fireside that night finished with Sharona cutting loose with some dance steps.

Marushka

We continued South into “deep Russia” and the village of Marushka that was within an hour’s drive of the City of Bisk. Being a city-person, this was my favorite stop. We went there to spend time with Nellia, a young Baha’i who would be entering college. Her parents lived there in a bright white house; her father worked as a farmer and her mother as a teacher. Both received us with characteristic warmth and kindness; neither was declared Baha’is. They worked continuously on the house’s plot on which there were pigs, rabbits, chickens and assorted vegetables. After a day in the field, he would return to fix-up things around the house. So self-reliant was he, that he had built his own tractor out of parts. As someone who struggles to open cans, this filled me with awe. Their home sat in the foothills of the Altai Mountains and its gentle, undulating countryside.

We organized a presentation/concert in the local auditorium, a stone and wooden structure surrounded by grazing animals. The day of the event, over 60 villagers came; there was little competition. Inside the electricity did not work but, as we began to play, large slats were opened and daylight flooded into the front of the auditorium. Later that afternoon, about 12 villagers came to the house to speak with us. In her own warm and solicitous manner, Lena spoke with the villagers. If one is not from a village, the requirements of speaking to rural people, such as mediating shyness and wariness as well as concerns about reciprocity, can be difficult to meet. Lena was able to strike this difficult balance, and they stayed for several hours. When we brought out tea, chocolate and other food, everyone left because of the reciprocity requirements

We passed invigorating hour in their personal banya, the sauna that is one of rural Russia’s reassures. It got very got very hot as it was well built and retained the heat and so the ice water refreshed. A feeling of relaxation and exhilaration followed that banya. We then sat down to a meal of fresh potatoes and cold milk right from the cow.

Gorno-Altaisk

We traveled a few hours South by bus in the Altai Mountains to arrive at our next destination, Gorno-Altaisk, capitol of the Gorno-Altai republic, a small hilly area on Siberia’s Southern edge. This small city consisted mostly of a main road with several side streets. Sasha, a young man who had moved there specifically for the purpose of establishing the Faith in that area, had started an active Baha’I group there. Before becoming a Baha’i his life had been tragic and self-destructive, and the changes that he had undergone testified to his spiritual transformation.

In Gorno-Altaisk we met up with Eric Swift White Wolf and Natasha from Omsk, a good friend and relatively new Baha’i. We decided to rent a hall in the theater and German and I began the practice of buying ad time on radio and television that came at low cost. This time Eric would perform Chippewa dances in ceremonial dress and Nadia, a Baha’i from LA would do some Persian dancing. In terms of response, this turned out to be our most well attended performance. All week we promoted in town. Many native Altai people came to the theater, including well-known Altai artists. They enjoyed our music, but Eric’s [passionate dancing elicited an equally strong response from the many Altai in attendance. Prior to the concert, when the hall was still empty, a lone actor from an Altai company strolled in and performed a scene from an adaptation of Dostoyevsky’s Notes from the Underground that entranced us with its conviction.

Earlier that week, we gave a performance at a children’s camp. These camps remain a positive legacy of the Soviet era and provided many children with meaningful summer activity. Most interesting for one was the opportunity to meet Nicolai Gregorivich, an older Baha’I man who had survived years in Stalin’s horrific gulags. His zest for life --- he shared with children his love for geology --- gave me an indication of what he has survived those camps.

Kemerova

Getting to our next stop, Kemerova, required a 24-hour train ride, though the distance was not all that great --- a few hundred kilometers --- but it sat in one train yard for many hours and stopped at dozens of villages. We slept in an absolutely empty car for the entire trip. As a non-competing enterprise, the Russian railroad has inefficiencies though its trains are very well built and good for long travel. In fact, the trans-Siberian travels more than 7,000 miles though China, Mongolia, Siberia and European Russia --- an outstanding feat in and of itself.

A kind of sulphuric smell pervades the industrial city of Kemerova due to its chemical factories. The buildings along its main avenues resemble the high style of St. Petersburg; they had been built like this on Stalin’s orders.

Chris Tara-Brown, pioneer from the United States and Auxiliary Board Member for that area, and his Russian wife, Svieta Jurakova, a member of the Russian National Assembly, recently moved here for his work, and we had the opportunity to stay with them and be the recipients of their loving hospitality. They organized a fireside with the local Baha’is and some of their friends. We gathered in the home of a newly declared Baha’i couple who were unique among Baha’is as they were well to do. Their home reflected this with its high ceilings and ample-size rooms.

We performed some songs and music and spoke a little about our trip, our lives and the Faith. But the gathering found much more intimacy and opportunities for speaking about spiritual matters when we broke up for tea and conversation. At this gathering, I met for my first time a Baha’i from Tajikistan; Tajiks had been moving up into Siberia in recent years due to the civil war in that country.

Sharipova

We hired a taxi in the morning to take us to the “new” city of Sharipova. In Southern Krasnoyarski Krai (region). This city was built from scratch to be a part of the largest power grid in the world--- a mammoth Soviet building project. The project ran out of funds and now there remains a city in the middle of the countryside with no material reason for being there. The city consists of large, Soviet-style apartment blocs that seem to have been dropped into the middle of this valley. Elena Gruzkova, the Russian counselor, had explained to us that in Siberia there were old, traditional cities and then these newer ones like Sharipova and that the latter tended to have people who were more open minded and receptive to new ideas. The Baha’i community of Sharipova is filled with such people ---open-minded and receptive. Our group slept in the small apartment that was the Baha’i Center, and the local Baha’is came to see us on the first evening. One of the men in this community was unusual among Russian Baha’is as he was from the working class and most Baha’is were students, teachers, and doctors. He was a devoted Baha’i as were his wife and two daughters.

We rented a small theater and gave a performance a few days later that was attended by the Baha’is and others. At the end of our concert we were asked several challenging questions, including one to the effect of, “If there was world peace and unity and no more war and pestilence, wouldn’t the world become overpopulated?”

Minusinsk-Abakan

Our next stop were the twin cities of Minusinsk and Abakan on the border of the Krasnoyarsk Krai and the Republic of Hakasia. Russia is made up of regions, states, autonomous regions and republics. The Republics function in a semi-autonomous fashion with their own legislatures and presidents. To get there we hired a taxi for a four-hour drive through rugged, open landscape of brown hills and grasslands. Occasionally, I saw wild horses and an isolated rock marker that looked like an obelisk; later I found out that these were tomb markers of nomads who had passed by this area in previous times.

We stayed with a friend of Lena Frolova’s, Olga, who was a violinist. She had played with the prestigious Novosibirsk state orchestra and was now trying to find a way to join an orchestra in Western Europe as it was hard for her to make ends meet in Russia. With her help we organized a concert in a library in her neighborhood in Minusinsk. She played for part of the program and then we did. Her playing was magnificent, and her friends and teachers from the neighborhood were enthusiastic in their support of her. The evening ended with an in-depth discussion on the Faith punctuated by a little boy who walked up to us, asked for reading materials and then promptly left with his mother because it was his bedtime.

Our other concert that week was in a hall that we rented in Abakan. To get it we had to meet with a government official for religious affairs. He was a blustery outgoing man who smoked continuously in his closed office. He had a whole file on previous Baha’is who had come to Abakan to found Baha’i communities, and he bluntly pointed out that no effort had been successful and was puzzled as to why we continued to try. He kept us in his office for several hours while we talked and the room filled with smoke; he seemed to mostly enjoy the company and, in the end, gave us permission to perform in the city. The concert, as he had predicted, was poorly attended but there was a journalist from the local radio who came, taped the whole event and then recorded interviews with several of us. We hope that this got heard around Abakan. A Baha’i from Sharipova, Tatiana, had come with us to make another effort at establishing a Baha’i community in Abakan.

Kyzyl

Our last stop on this tour was Kyzyl, the capitol of the Republic of Tuva. The drive there passes through the rugged beauty of the Sayan Mountains. The city sits in a vast brown valley that gives one the feeling of being at the edge of the known world. It is a few hundred kilometers from Mongolia and is the geographical center of Asia; there is a monument to this effect.

The Tuvan people are of Turkic descent and as we drove into Kyzyl, we saw a “Turkish-Russian” school, which surprised me as we are so far away from Turkey. I later found out that the Turkish government had made efforts to reach out to all people with languages of Turkic origin such as the Tuvans. Tuvans are a semi-nomadic people with an ancient culture who were subjugated by the Russians; at its core, Tuvan society was a nomadic-pastoralist one. This area has been contested by Russia, Japan, and China. Recently they have gained some fame internationally for the throat singing, which I first heard in Town Hall in New York City. Tibetan monks brought this style of singing to Tuva.

A Russian Baha’i Eduard, had moved there to found a Baha’i community but the handful of Tuvan Baha’is who lived there were not permitted by their families from having contact with him. It had been very lonely and difficult for him --- he had been mugged several times --- until he met and married a local Tuvan woman and was able to establish himself. He was very appreciative of our visit. This was the only strop where we had to stay in a hotel. In the hotel we found several European travelers including a woman from Denmark who was doing some kind of ethnographic studies and was traveling alone.

Most of our week was spent visiting and having fellowship with several Russian friends that Sharona had made when she had spent the summer in Kyzyl. They were wonderful, dynamic schoolteachers, one of whom ran a kindergarten that had been rated the finest in all of Russia. In seeing her positive and energetic attitude, I could see why she was so successful. The thousands of dedicated women such as her hold Russian education together despite the tremendous economic difficulties. Our week ended with a concert in a library that no one came to. We found that there was a great divide between Russians and Tuvans and that the Tuvan society was largely closed to outsiders.

Our summer trip ended with a return to Novosibirsk. We agreed that it had been an exhilarating experience for each of us and we parted with great sorrow.

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