It was about 3 years ago that I made one of my regular Saturday afternoon visits to my favourite second hand bookshop on Gloucester Road, Bristol. Looking for something a little out of the ordinary, I pulled up a stool and reached up to the top shelf, where I found a huge Russian map of the world and an old Russian book. I wiped the dust off the cover to find I was holding a copy of ?????? ????? ???????, (Russian city Voronezh). I had struck gold and ran home to open the map on my bedroom floor and see if I could locate Voronezh in the maze of cyrillics. I couldn't understand any of the book, but it did contain several photographs of significant landmarks around the city - buildings, monuments, parks and statues. And this is where it all began. Suddenly I knew that I had to go to Russia. My mission - to visit Voronezh, to see all the sites depicted in the book and then to return the book to its rightful home in Russia.
It was 7am when we stepped off the train and left our bags in the luggage room. We had no map of the city, but my determination was unfaltering, so book in hand I dashed out of the station, dragging a rather bemused Tasha behind me, and embarked in ernest on probably the most enthusiastic tourist venture Voronezh has ever encountered.
We started with the St Alexey of Akatov Womans' Monatery. It was a bugger to find, but we managed to get there just in time for an early morning service in which nuns sang long haunting chants and hymns whilst a bearded character did all the usual bowing and incencse burning before the iconostasis at the front. To add to the atmosphere, Tasha let out a really nasty fart - hardly suitable behaviour in a monastery - and then continued as normal hoping that any blame would land on one of the wrinkled baboushkas who were clearly too preoccupied with bowing and crossing themselves to notice Tasha's triumphant air-buiscuit. As the air cleared, the bearded dude came over to give blessings to those present. We watched as a man walked up to him, bowed down to touch the floor, then folded his hands together. The priest lifted the folded hands in his palm, kissed then, and then dealt a hefty blow to the gentleman's forhead, sending him reeling backwards a couple of paces. The smacking sound reverberated around the chapel. I looked at Tasha and she looked at me as the priest continued around the chapel, crossing the air and smacking people in the forehead. It was just before he reached us that we made a hasty escape, deciding that bruised forheads just weren't our thing.
The rest of the day panned out as a comical scavenger hunt, which involved opening the book to a chosen monument, stopping a local for directions and then darting around on foot and local transport until the monument had been located, admired and photographed. To add to the challenge, every photograph had to be taken from exactly the same distance and angle as in the book. I won't list all the sites visited, but I can assure you they were real gems - including a tank, an old MIG fighter and (of course) Lennin. To find the Old Town, we had to enlist the help of a local. We were sat in Peter's Public Garden eyeing up the locals and decided to approach the meanest looking dude on the patch - a young guy with skinhead haircut and goatee beard. He turned out to be perfectly pleasant, a 19 year old History student, and he walked with us across town chatting non stop about vodka and weed. Everything worked out just perfectly. I took my final photograph and then decided that Denis (that was his name) was to be the new owner of the book. I have no doubt that he will spend many a fascinating hour reading and learning about Voronezh, whilst the rest of his peers are out tipping vodka and smoking grass... Yes, this was my chance to make a positive impact on Russia's new generation, promoting literature and history and lifting at least one individual from the downward spiral of petty crime and points on his driving license. Tasha's brow wrinkled slightly as I thrust a camera into her hand and entered into the opening lines of my speech. At last, after 3 whole years, the official handover of the book was underway and Denis and I posed for the camera, shaking hands with the prize held between us. It was a moving moment for us all. What a mission! What a journey! and what a remarkable encounter for young Denis, who having never met a Brit, or an American, found himself humbly accepting a book about his own city, brought more than 5000km overland in my backpack to the one place which could be considered its home. It was all too much. Tasha's eyes welled and a small globe of briney water tricked down her cheek. A crowd gathered and trumpets fanfared in the distance. The sun shone brighter and even the trees bowed down until their leaves touched the ground, in reverence and recognition of the remarkable events that were taking place on the street below...
okay, I'm getting carried away now! Denis finally left and went back to his flat and we went back to the centre to eat hot dogs and contemplate a highly sucessful day.
An 18 hour train journey took us further south to Saratov on the Volga basin, from where we made a 3 day boat journey up the Volga to Kazan, the capital of the Autonomous Republic of Tatarstan. I won't do a disty on these.. once again time is short.