Click, click, clicking high heels of smartly dressed women step-stepping away hastily from their rural past. Smoky corners of golden churches, distilled in sunlight, pulsating to the Slavic sounds of Holy pleas'... slatke Boze-sweet Lord, molitve-hear our cry...cry, cry, cry to the smoky Heavens of gold, longing, humbling, never ending rounds of song...songs of tight jeans and slick haired youths worshipping the rhythm of drum- a prayer to the gods of modernity.
In Moscow we stayed with N., a Russian woman who grew up in the Crimea, an area which is historically Russian but became part of the Ukraine 50 years ago. She described the tensions in the Crimea between the Russians and the Ukrainian Tartars (who settled in the area after the Mongolian invasion in the 13th century), as 'gunpowder' waiting to blow.
Several years ago her mother, who still lives in the Crimea, took part in a political demonstration against the government. Some time later she was visited at home, where she lives alone, by police men who interrogated her about her involvement in the rally. N. described the democratic system, in which the citizens are governed by fear, as a 'kind of a theatre'.
She also talked about the time at which the Ukranian language was suddenly and forcibly reintroduced to the Crimea. Her brothers who were at school at the time described how teachers in their science classes had made up words on the spot to fill gaps in the long redundant language. In a country where the majority of citizens are Russian, her Russian speaking friends are unable to attend higher institutions in their own language.
Despite all this, N. described the beauty of the Crimea, saying that she wouldn't choose to have grown up anywhere else. Several months ago she went to a Ukranian party in Cambridge, with her Russian boyfriend. Removed from the divisive suspicion which breeds in the Crimea itself, 'We got on really well', she said, 'These are the problems of politicians, not people."
Stalin has gone but his legacy of suspicion lives on. Old women guard the soviet concrete blocks. Suspicion runs as high as the grey towers. We forgot our keys one day and faced the wrath of a bulldog woman guarding her territory, her ample body soundly blocking all entrance to the flat and our bags, with only hours left until our train left from the other side of Moscow. After a panicked phone call to our friend we were grudgingly let in... but the watching eyes refused to remove their guard....just in case we were (god forbid) 'strangers'.
Her eyes were closed. Maybe because she was blind. Maybe to block out the intimidating crowds ahead. She was dressed as she would always dress, oblivious to the days weather. This was her uniform, her testimony to the days of old where the weather was always cold, the climate always harsh. She seemed determined to ignore the day's heat and comfort, a betrayal of the survivor spirit they had been proud of. And so, headscarf and all, she hunched on the edge of the thronging mass, one in the click and clack of their passing steps. She stood alone, eyes closed, and opened her mouth to sing.
It was not beautiful....it was not entirely audible, but it caught you. Her notes leapt free from her crooked body, across the crowded hall and pierced the sky-rise defences. They seeped through the pin-striped armour and flowed down to the polished heels, causing them to falter in the rhythm of go. And who knows? Maybe every now and then they even reeled in an unwilling hand of silver, momentarily defenceless against her song of the old. Like a fisher women, she cast her net blindly and sang some fish back home..
No comments:
Post a Comment