Siberian Sabbatical

Hello to all. It seems amazing that I have been living away from home for almost four months now. Time flies. When I first arrived here time seemed to movie agonizingly slow. I constantly thought, “How am I going to get through these eleven months in Siberia?”

However, I have gotten a grip on life and now I am very surprised how time seems to slip through my fingers. At school it blows my mind that it is almost semester time, as here school ends in May.

This month I was given an unknown treasure to foreigners, I was able to tour a Russian prison. In Russia it isn’t what you know but who you know. My biology teacher at school, who has taken a liking to me, as she was the teacher I went with to China, has a brother who is a captain at the prison. She called me one day and told me to meet her at the grocery store. I had no idea where we were going but I had an idea that it was going to be somewhere interesting, as she had a devilish grin on her face when I met her.

“You want prison?” she said in broken English.

It turns out we were bringing lunch to her brother in prison. After buying some sandwich materials – the preferred sandwich meat here is horse – we walked on foot to the prison. I was surprised to find that after five minutes of walking we reached it. I had no idea that a prison was located so close to my house. I was also surprised about how little it was fortified. All we were met with was a large wooden wall. The entrance wasn’t even locked and we entered by ourselves. The first thing that met us was this huge 200-pound dog. I supposed that it was trained to eat people like us, and I feel that if it weren’t chained up it would have done just that.

My mind was eased a little when I saw that before the wall to the outside were two other fences topped with razor wire, between which were maybe 10 of these huge dogs at strategic locations. This, along with guards in watch towers at every corner who where told to shoot to kill anyone who got passed the second fence, made up the defenses.

The teacher’s brother came to meet us right away; I think we might have tripped some alarms. He showed us the guard towers, and that was as close as we got to the inner complex. It truly looked like a gulag in Siberia; I think this is as close as I will get to one. After showing us the complex from the towers we walked around the perimeter of the prison and reached the guardhouse on the other side. While we were walking he said that running wasn’t allowed because the dogs would become crazed, he told me that they keep the dogs hungry and when they see someone running it initiates their natural instinct to kill.

We were lead into a regular old building, in which we thought we would need to fill out a release to view the rest of the prison – wrong!

We entered and there to greet us was the prison’s entire supply of automatic weapons – AK-Ms, AK-74s, and sniper rifles. The captain proceeded to show us how to field strip the guns and promptly left. Before he left he shoved an AK-M into my arms and said, “Clean!”

We spent the next hour and a half cleaning these guns. It is amazing how standardized all these guns are. Once you know how to take one apart, you know how to disassemble all of them. I am pleased because I now possess the knowledge of how to disassemble, assemble, and operate all of the Russian military’s automatic weapons. After cleaning them, the captain returned and inspected them. He told us it was satisfactory and led us to the door. My teacher said that I would never be able to return to the prison, it was truly a once in a life-time opportunity.

Along with observing the gulag, I also have been observing the holiday season. There is only one problem, there aren’t any. You must remember that Russia is still very much the good old Soviet Union and that American holidays are rare. That means no Halloween, no Thanksgiving, and unfortunately, absolutely no trace of Christmas. Right now there is absolutely no holiday cheer on the streets of Irkutsk, or anything else for that matter besides cold and snow. It is interesting to note that the usual festivity and anticipation that I have for Christmas is nowhere to be found. I hate to say it but I have all but forgotten about Christmas.

Not all hope is lost for celebrating, though. The New Year replaces Christmas. It is probably the biggest holiday all year. Even as the biggest holiday it doesn’t get much attention. There are a couple of banners around the city wishing a happy New Year but that is about it.

My host mom has eased my homesickness a little. She put up a Christmas tree and decorated the house. She says she does it every year, but I think she did it just for me. I think back to home and think of all the decoration and preparation we do for the holidays compared to here. It is basically like comparing my three-room apartment here to my 30-room house back home. Besides the lack of decoration, I think I’ll be having a good time around the 1st of January.

So four months are just about up. It frightens me to think that the half-way point is in sight. I have absolutely no idea how I am going to leave. I think of how dirty it is on the streets, the corruption, not being able to walk alone at night, and for some weird reason I love it all. I look back on these last four months and think about what I have accomplished. Taking a trip to China, going to a Russian prison, flying halfway around the world by myself, and not to mention being the first American in a countless number of places. I can only imagine what these next seven months hold in store for me. So till next month, I hope you had a merry Christmas and a happy new year.