And my poem is my silence.
Jean-Pierre Simeón, This Is a Poem That Heals Fish
The morning started with the train-lady standing next to me, relentlessly poking me in my left shoulder and telling me to wake up.
It was still dark outside. No birches were visible, only the constant shaking and sound of train wheels hitting the rails were suggesting movement. I checked the Moscow time and found out that I still have 45 minutes until our arrival to Irkutsk. I wanted to sleep a little bit more but I decided to slowly roll down from the bed and prepare myself for the big day: First stop at Irkutsk.
After brushing my teeth and washing my face with freezing cold water, I used the last instant noodles package to treat myself with a Russian breakfast delicacy – instant noodles made out of a package. Looking back at my past 4 days, my diet consisted from a very limited assortment of food. Mostly eggs, dry bread, coffee, beer, horse salami. My stomach felt heavy and demonstrated its insufficient satisfaction with heavy noises, but I managed to somehow silence him with 400 ml of instant coffee. Just when I finished packing my luggage, I felt like the train slowly started to slow down. The timing was perfect.
I said my final farewell to Tatiana, she gave me a kiss on my cheek, and right when the train stopped I left the train to find myself on the Станция Иркутск-Пассажирский – Irkutsk station Passazhirskyi.
I felt great – I have just spent the past 4 days in a zen-like state, doing, seeing, and thinking things I would never do, see, nor think before.
It felt like being a hero who is writing his own life-story by simply living it and actually enjoying and liking it at the same time.
It was a unprecedented degree of control and mindfulness.
And now there was me – standing on the platform with all the people around me… who gave literally zero fucks about my 100% pure subjective hero-like story. But I gave zero fucks back to them so the balance was kept and I felt good.
On my way out of the station I bumped into one of the other Russian ladies I met in the train. She mentioned that her friends were taking part in a car-race on lake Baikal, that the ice is extremely clear this year, and that I should definitely go there if I can. She also gave me the combinations of busses and trams to take for the center we parted ways.
The backpack felt heavy again and my stomach was rebelling again, sending to my brain comments about crude breakfast, tough life, and unbalanced diet. I ignored him as I was looking forward to see the city. I took a marshrutka, a half-rotten minibus, to the city centre and went for a walk.
Once I read somewhere that in the late 19th century, Irkutsk was called the Paris of the Siberia. After a 1-hour long walk through the city I came to a personal conclusion that either Irkutsk has changed a lot in the past 120+ years or Paris in the late 19th century was a blatantly ugly city.
To be fair, Irkutsk left me with impression that it is trying. The combination of half-destroyed old wooden buildings, the cold Angara river with large blocks of ice floating on its surface, beautiful Churches, and numerous statues of lovely Lenin and Marx. Oh, and then there was the newly rebuilt commercial district called the 130 Kvartal.
As I found nothing else open, I entered one of the jazz cafeterias and ordered a big portion of very hot and very sweet Russian tea. Background was filled with a rather aggressive, yet playful version of Hancock’s Cantaloupe Island. The sharp sun was entering the room from a large wooden window, making the blank sheet of my diary glow. I splashed few droplets of brown tea on it and watched them to dry out. I took a pen and started to paint in the shadows cast by a large plant.
Joy from simple things. A big reentry to childhood. The world around me was very small, yet well defined and very satisfactory. I spent maybe one hour just watching how the droplets dried, how the sun played with the shadows, and how the music in the room slowly changed.
Time and context. Sometimes, our lives are maybe about just these two things and nothing, nothing else.
Warmed up, relaxed, and excited, I went for another walk through the city to find a place to stay at. After finding two of my best choices closed, I settled with a truly magical hostel called, unsurprisingly, “Magic hostel”.
I chose the biggest room (8 beds) to meet new random people and experience new random adventures. The room was empty and apparently was to stay empty for the next few days. Thin, plaster walls, cheap beds, virtually no furniture. Lovely place.
My backpack produced a strong “thump” sound when I threw it on the ground. The bed produced a weak “squeak” sound when I threw myself on it.
No movement. No sound of the wheels. No birch trees. I was missing them a lot, but there was one small thing that awaited me that at least partially made up for them.
Hot shower.