Archive
Marquez in the USSR
[Several days after the death of Gabriel José de la Concordia García Márquez, the literary world has been offering up its memoirs of the great author. Here are Tatyana Pigareva’s recollections of Márquez’s visits to the USSR, loosely translated from the article on Colta.ru. Cross- posted in JOST A MON.]
Our university days – at the beginning of the 80s – coincided with the Latin American boom, and among our classmates in philology there was a joke: ‘Whom do you love more – Borges or Cortázar?’ which was answered with ‘Márquez!’ The names of the ‘Holy Trinity’ were interchangeable, but the author of One Hundred Years of Solitude occurred more often not in the question, but in the answer. His fascinating and dramatic novel, appearing in Russia in the magnificent translation by Valery Stolbov and Nina Butyrina, read like a poem in one breath. It became not just a bestseller but a byword for an entire generation, which, having lived an entire age with Macondo, was not much surprised when the Soviet imperium would be ‘swept off the face of the earth by a hurricane’ but not ‘erased from people’s memories.’
In 1990, in Moscow’s Pushkin Square, a McDonald’s opened, and above it shone the country’s first advertisement for Coca-Cola. Festively honouring the end of an era evoked in the politically incorrect memoirs of Márquez – ‘The USSR: 22,400,000 square kilometres without a single Coca-Cola advertisement’ – we gathered in a company of Márquezomaniacs, and went to the Friendship Park by the Rechny railway station. There in 1957, the thirty-year old Colombian, deputed to the International Festival of Youth and Students, had planted a tree. Our idea of spontaneous performance concluded in laying a bouquet of yellow flowers (Márquez’s favourite bloom) at that same tree. The flowers could equally have been a tribute to Cervantes – in those years, the only monument in Moscow to a foreign writer was in the same park – but, of course, One Hundred Years of Solitude had long been dubbed the ‘Don Quixote’ of the twentieth century. We made merry, tossing quotations at each other; someone claimed that this wide linden was just like the chestnut of Jose Arcadio Buendía; but at that moment from the neighbouring treetop flew out a flutter of brimstone butterflies. Yellow butterflies – a clear sign from the wise Gabo – we unanimously decided to name this that same tree. On the way to the metro, someone cried out, ‘Look at the puddles – a goldfish is sure to emerge!’ The text of the ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’ was firmly rooted in our lives: the golden fish would first evoke Aureliano Buendía and, only much later, Pushkin’s fairy tale.
The appearance of One Hundred Years of Solitude coincided with a major shift in Russian consciousness. The final days of the USSR were upon us: mirages of history were sprinkled with ‘fallen leaves’, life was stuck in an ill groove, and nobody wrote letters to anyone, not merely the Colonel. Everything appeared all too familiar: the non-existent trains with corpses; the sleeping sickness that destroyed memory; the commands to paint all housesin blue; generals and patriarchs. But gradually the storied parallels fell by the wayside, like a ‘transparent or ghostly’ town, and the mythic reality became paramount: an idealised model of reality where any ‘big village’ from Moscow to the suburbs could be equated with the universal village of Macondo, and any history found itself mirrored in the alembic of Melquíades.
In the middle of the 1980s, I was a guest at the translator Ella Braginskaya’s. Behind the glass door of a bookcase was a photograph: Ella and Márquez in an affectionate argument. Such surrealism! ‘Yes, this was at Vera Kuteishikova and Lev Ospovat’s, in 1979 – he was exhausted from our discussions about his artistic plans and asked how we cooked potatoes. So we began to argue about national cuisines. His eyes just lit up…’ Then Márquez explained to Ella that his entire family used to live on potatoes while he was writing One Hundred Years of Solitude, and when he wanted to send the manuscript to the publisher, he need 160 pesos, while he only had 80, and so he had to pawn a dryer and a mixer. His long-suffering wife Mercedes sighed: ‘All we needed was for the novel to sink…’ Amazing shots from this first literary visit of Márquez to the USSR survived with Yuri Greiding, an adviser on Latin American literature to the Writers’ Union. He had accompanied Márquez and family, and fortunately didn’t abandon his camera: there were pictures of the meeting at the airport, of Yevtushenko, of signings, of the Pushkin Museum, of dinners with Hispanists, of meetings at the journal ‘Latin America’. In this journal appeared the only non-pirated Soviet edition of Márquez – the writer had personally allowed Lyudmila Sinyanskaya to publish the translation of Chronicle of a Death Foretold.
The third – and final – visit of Márquez to the USSR in 1987 was to the Moscow Film Festival. He refused to travel in an entourage, but he was happy with a promised meeting with Gorbachev. Following their interview, Márquez’s verdict was: ‘You have never had a ruler of such intelligence, of such measure.’ Gorbachev’s calibre left a special trace in my own Márquezian history. At the Film Festival, I worked with the Spanish delegation; we were dining at the Rossiya hotel, and examining the slogan that proclaimed that Communism was Soviet power plus the electrification of the entire country, and adorned the thermal power station across. The producer, Enrique Gonzalez Macho, now the president of the Spanish Film Academy, waved his hand, and we were joined by his friend of a somewha t gloomy mien. I continued my story about the slogan’s mathematical operations, and of my dream of living under ‘electrification’: Communism minus Soviet rule, nothing could be better. The grim Spaniard laughed with everyone else, his eyes brightened, and he announced that he hadn’t seen a crazier hotel in his life, and if private enterprise were allowed in the USSR, he would establish a taxi service to transport guests through its corridors. He apologised, said he was tired and that he had an unbearably officious press-conference to attend, and said goodbye. The Spaniards began to talk about unfortunate films based on Márquez’s works, and that’s when I understood that it had been him. That was the chronicle of an appearance unforetold. I remembered Ella Braginskaya, and that potato.
2012 was a triple jubilee for Márquez: 85 years since his birth, 45 years since the publication of One Hundred Years of Solitude, and 30 years since the Nobel Prize. In the Cervantes Institute, we decided to hold an exhibition of modern Russian artists on the themes of the novel One Hundred Years of Solitude. Honoured artists responded immediately, but the reaction of the younger ones, who had taken up the novel following our invitation, was surprising: ‘What a strange book… we couldn’t grasp it… tedious, exhausting.’ Was this a generational problem? The answer turned out to be simple and unhappy. Firstly, the classic translation of the novel was by Valery Stolbov and Nina Butyrina. They had worked for years on the complex text; all the items in their house had been named after the heroes of the novel: the armchair was Ursula, the massive sideboard was Aureliano Buendía; they had engaged with the characters and discussed them constantly, honing the rhythms and styles. That text sounded natural and poetic in Russian, and became the ‘real Márquez’ for several generations. In its early editions, there had been elisions of several sex scenes, but these were later reinstated. And then in 1997 the Rusiko publishing house printed a new translation by Margarita Bylinskaya with the surprising subtitle ‘A complete translation from the Spanish’.
The translator accompanied her publication with a series of articles in the press on the imperfections and sins of the previous translation, and also informed Márquez’s literary agent that the novel had been published earlier in an abridged Soviet translation, and that only now were its mistakes corrected. As a result, when the AST publishing house acquires the legal rights for the One Hundred Years of Solitude, the only version printed is that of Margarita Bylinskaya’s translation.
This is not the place for a detailed analysis of blunders and mistakes – these could happen to anyone. The tragedy mainly lies in the intonation and stylistic register. Recall the scene of the passing of Remedios the Beauty, who had inspired the love and caused the death of her beloved. Butyrina and Stolbov rendered it: The foreigners, who heard the noise in the dining room and hurried over to take away the corpse, noticed that his skin exuded the stunning aroma of Remedios the Beauty. Margarita Bylinskaya: The remaining uninvited guests, hearing the terrible noise, rushed out of the dining room, lifted the corpse and immediately realised how strongly it reeked of the breath of Remedios the Beauty. In the same translation, instead of ‘ants crawling on the body’ (original text), there appeared ‘flesh that bristled and burned’. In Márquez’s prose there is a poetic, musical nature; in it rings the voice of the narrator, archaic and fearless. And so the erotic texts, a particular standout in the ‘full translation’ of Bylinskaya had appeared in the original translation of Butyrina and Stolbov as a stylistic revelation for Russian literature. García Márquez himself had noted that he had always wanted the book to have a poetic rather than a narrative value. The Mozart of the Caribbean captivates the reader, and if this doesn’t happen, if the tonality of the speech is lost, then even One Hundred Years of Solitude can seem ‘tedious and exhausting’ reading. And so the novel should be sought not in bookstores, but only in libraries, in the old translation. Even though the AST publishing house has confirmed that the preprint of the ‘new old translation’ is ready and has shortly gone on sale.
A few years ago in Guatemala I stumbled across a lump of ice at a beach bar. It lay on the hot sand, shimmering in a cloud of vapour. There they were, ‘ants crawling on the skin’. ‘Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.’ There is no greater wonder. To the question posed in 1979 in the journal ‘Latin America’ – ‘What do you believe in: magic realism or the magic of literature?’, García Márquez had replied: ‘I believe in the magic of real life.’ May there be with everyone that inspired solitude, with the cockerels of Ursula, the goldfish of Aureliano, the aromas of Remedios and the parchments of Melquiades.
[Also see Yan Shenkman (April 21, 2014), ‘Márquez was inspired by the Soviet Union‘, Russia & India Report.]
The House of Naked Writers
Sinayev-Bernstein’s friezes in an Arbat house, by Seva Kolosent.
This is an excellent example of eccentricity in Moscow, which is always good to show visitors to the capital: a house decorated with bas-reliefs of great Russian writers cavorting with various women. Conventional wisdom is that in pre-revolutionary times there was a brothel at this location, and that the bas-reliefs immortalise its VIP clients – Pushkin, Tolstoy, Gogol and others. In actual fact, this is a sculptural composition of Parnassus by Sinayev-Bernstein (‘ancient muses embracing great writers, artists, scientists, and so on’), which was to form a frieze in the Museum of Fine Arts in Volkhonka. The director of the museum refused the composition, and so Sinayev-Bernstein, in his grief, gave it to a certain Broido to decorate his private home in one of the lanes of Arbat. The frieze had to be chopped into parts so as to fit between the windows. To be fair, local historians do not believe 100% in this version of the story either, so you can make up what you will. The figures, unfortunately, are very fragile and soon there may not be much left to see.
Address: Plotnikov pereulok, Number 4/5.
[Translated from Bolshoi Gorod’s guide to Moscow.]
The Melnikov House
[THAT DELICIOUS MAGAZINE BOLSHOI GOROD HAS PRODUCED AN ONLINE GUIDE TO THE FINER-YET-LESS-KNOWN WALKS, SHOPS, CHURCHES AND RESTAURANTS OF MOSCOW. I TRANSLATED SOME OF ARTICLES I PARTICULARLY LIKED.]
Melnikov’s House, by Lidia Koloyarskaya. (2009).
In 1929, the architect Konstantin Melnikov constructed this detached house for his family: it was the most futuristic monument and the only private construction of the Soviet period in Moscow. The building is made of two vertical cylinders of varying heights and intersecting each other. From the positioning of the fifty-seven hexagonal windows, it is impossible to guess at the number of floors in the house: one cylinder has three storeys, the other two, and of course there is an open terrace on the roof.
Address: Krivoarbatsky pereulok, Number 10.
Need more? Check out this superb set of photographs by Igor Palmin of this avant-garde masterpiece.
You know, you really should go see this before it falls apart completely. A family feud and court cases mean that it is not being maintained, and is in danger of irreparable damage.
Vladimir Sarabyanov
[That fine magazine Bolshoi Gorod has frequent profiles of people who live in the big city of Moscow. The latest issue has an article on Vladimir Sarabyanov, a restorer and art critic. I have loosely translated it. The original text is by Elena Mukhametshina. Cross-posted at Art of the Russias.]
People of the Big City: Vladimir Sarabyanov
Restorer and art critic – on revealing XII century frescoes, footstools, the phenomenon of the sacred space, spasmodic state funding, and the tints of Titian.
On the specifics of working with Russian antiquities
A third of my life is spent in the studio, and two thirds on projects. We go on the road to restore monumental paintings in Novgorod, Pskov, Ladoga, Polotsk, Zvenigorod, Kirillov, the Trinity church of St Sergius. All of the ancient monumental paintings that we have in this country are religious, so we work mainly in churches. But there is far more: for example, in the Shulgan-Tash caves (the Kapova caves in Bashkortostan), there are a palaeolithic paintings from about fifteen or seventeen thousand years BC – scientists haven’t yet decided.
I love antiquity. The twelfth century is the dawn of Russian culture, and I have worked hard on it: the Yuriev monastery, St. Anthony monastery, St Nicholas cathedral in Novgorod, the St. George and Assumption churches in Ladoga. Mirozhsky monastery and Snetogorsky convent in Pskov – the latter, of course, is from the fourteenth century, but still a favourite. About seven years ago we began the restoration of the frescoes at the St. Euphrosine monastery in Polotsk, also dating from the twelfth century, which hopefully we will soon complete. This was incredible – it is an amazing monument, invisible, and we revealed it over a few years from under layers of oil paint. Such monuments are for me the most precious jewels in my work.
All the ancient churches of Russia, from the Kievan churches of the eleventh century to the seventeenth century churches at Yaroslavl and Kostroma – all of them were repainted. Between the seventeenth and the nineteenth centuries, they were never restored but merely renewed, with paint applied directly atop the ancient paintings. Sometimes they tried to correspond with the originals, and sometimes they didn’t bother. And sometimes the paintings would be broken up with a hammer, ‘to improve them, to beautify them’. The only exception is the Ferapontov monastery cathedral which has survived without renovations. Therefore, our restoration of monumental painting has some specificities unlike other countries of the world – we reveal art from under the works of later periods. This is quite specific to the Russian school of restoration. In Italy, for example, where there are large numbers of monumental fine art, it was very rare for artists of one period to overwrite another. It’s the same in Greece. In Byzantium, such stratification is rare. For us, though, it was common practice. Often there would be several layers. In Polotsk we revealed a twelfth century mural from under several layers of oils, in some places up to seven. Sometimes we soften the layers, exfoliate them, and where there are figurative elements, we transfer them onto a new foundation, while where it is just paint, we remove it. It is like a surgical operation.
On the sacred location
Stratification is a Russian cultural mentality. Nothing can be done about it. For example, the Annunciation cathedral in the Moscow Kremlin is the third cathedral of the Annunciation on that site. Where are the previous two? They were demolished because people wanted to do them even better. Well, if you want to do better, build it on a neighbouring site, as is done in any other European country. In some little French or Italian towns there are huge Romanesque-Gothic cathedrals that were built over periods of 200 or 300 years. In Russia, everything was done differently. They built, demolished after a hundred years, built again, and demolished a hundred years later, and rebuilt. And then they say ‘This is the Cathedral of the Assumption of the city of Kolomna from where the advance to Kulikovo field began…’ No, this is not that cathedral. This cathedral is from the 17th century. Of the cathedral from where Dmitri Donskoi went to war, not a stone remains. Intolerance to what someone has done before you lies deep in the Russian subconscious. If you want to do something, you have to somehow destroy all that was done by your ancestors. Why do all the nouveaux riches have to build their ugly towers necessarily in the centre of St. Petersburg or Moscow or another wonderful town? If you want to build a skyscraper, build it on a vacant lot. But they have to build it right where there already is something. In no civilisation is there a concept of a sacred location. ‘No, we have to build a church here.’ – ‘But why? There already is a chapel here.’ – ‘No, we must build it right here.’ – ‘Why?’ – ‘Well, now, it is a sacred spot.’ Sorry, this stinks of heathen practice, it’s not a sacred space. In Christianity, there is no concept of a ‘sacred location’, and yet we have it: we have a special Christianity, a special mentality, a special way about us. We are all special, with quirks.
Irrationality can reside within a person, but when it spills out into public life, and begins to determine the fate of the country, it becomes frightening. But I have an optimistic attitude to life. Firstly, no matter how bad it gets, we know that it could be worse. Secondly, we still believe for the most part in God, consciously or unconsciously, we live in hope. And this hope helps us, otherwise our country would long have ceased to exist. I am deeply convinced of this.
On training in restoration
I came into the profession in the mid-1970s, where you could hardly study the subject anywhere. There were no serious schools offering training in restoration, so I learned everything in the studio, and went to the evening courses at Moscow State University only later, once I had learned to work with my hands.
These days it’s better for restorers. There are strong departments at Stroganovka, Moscow Architectural Institute, Surikov academy; in St. Petersburg as well there are several schools. Firstly, the profession has come into demand. Secondly, towards the end of the 1970s and the early 1980s, it became clear that the restorers who formed the basis of our schools may have been great masters, but were for the most part, quite uneducated. When they were asked, ‘What kind of icon is this?’ they would hesitantly mutter, ‘From some time between the 16th and 18th centuries.’ It was a strange time: an eerie, inward-looking state, the rise of the Brezhnev era, absolute stagnation in all things, but somehow there sprang occasional shoots of hope. And one of these was the fact that the government’s attention was drawn to the serious lack of training in restoration.
On professional principles
Many people go into the profession out of a sense of idealism. In my studio there is a girl who has just graduated from the Stroganovka. She pursued a highly technical diploma for half a year at Polotsk, lived in a hostel for monastic novices and owned barely anything. And today she earns a very modest pay, because we ourselves, old men, are hardly paid. She could have gone into another ‘department’ of our organisation, where it is possible to earn 100-150 thousand every month – on demand, on expensive objects, where it is necessary to engage less in restoration than in renovation – to repaint or apply gilt. These days there are lots of such jobs in Moscow. But the girl didn’t go there. Out of six people in her course, four didn’t go into that line – they all work in my team.
The career of a restorer offers a wide choice. It is possible to get into the commercial, profitable way, where you needn’t work to the highest principles of restoration, but rather based on demand, working on everything that’s brought to you. But if you want to work with wonderful monuments and history, then step off the path of riches.
It is like with doctors: you can bleed your patients dry pretending to treat them, or you can actually cure them. The doctors call this the Hippocratic oath. Among restorers there are no oaths, but there are principles.
A specialist in monumental restoration needs hands, a head, eyes and a conscience. If any of these is lacking, the chain is broken. You can distinguish a good restorer from a poor one by the results. But the difference can be understood only by other specialists. The hoi polloi are far from this level of understanding.
Restoration – it is a way of life. It is better to ask my wife about this – she will eloquently keep silent on the subject. All my life I’ve spent either in the studio or on the road, on projects.
It is not necessary to equate restoration with the creative process. We do not create anything new; we concern ourselves only with the extension of life. The proper restorer thinks not of themselves, but of the object they hold in their hands.
Our team has a rigid principle – we restore antiquity, revealing it from under all the growths on top of it, and we present it to people in the way that it has been preserved. Not in the form that they want to see it – with little eyes and smiling mouths, little arms and legs; but rather in that authentic form that it has reached us from the past.
On stools and bureaucrats
It used to be that you would arrive in some Old Ladoga and you would be lodged literally in a hovel – no windows, no doors. And to begin work, you would have to make the doors yourself, glaze the windows, set up the electricity, build furniture from wooden boards. We used to go to Novgorod every year and we’d be settled in the empty chambers of the half-ruined Yuriev monastery. Floors were missing, the roof leaked, the windows had no panes – everything was smashed or burned. So we constructed beds and tables and stools and we lived there for about five months. We would return the following year, and again there was nothing around. Sometimes, it is true, we’d discover one of our stools in a neighbouring studio of some Novgorod artist who had taken it but wouldn’t admit to having done so. And we’d take it back from him in exchange for a bottle of port.
Recently, attitudes towards us and in general towards restoration have improved. That same Yuriev monastery where we long had a base for restoration and archaeology is now functional, in use.
The biggest obstacle today to the work of restoration is its financing. It is the most destructive force that puts a spoke in our wheels. Financing always appears at the last moment, because of which it is impossible to make plans for the year. It’s one thing if you restore an icon or a painting or a sculpture inside your studio. If you aren’t paid, you get up, go home and wait until they pay you. On the other hand, we have objects that are out on the street, exposed to the elements, interacting with the environment. You can work on them in summer, but not in winter. But this goes completely against the system of government funding. When it is warm – there is no funding. Maybe it is available where it is even warmer. But when it gets colder, the bureaucracy gathers in Moscow and begin to cluck: ‘Oh no, we really need to finish the project. Oh no, we did nothing for half the year.’ Or maybe they did something with the money – perhaps it provided for their presence in some warm clime. ‘Well, we got to do something. Let us hand out the money here and there.’ They do not consider that we would now have to work in subzero temperatures. But we need at least seven degrees Celsius for ordinary work in the interior of a church. Last year, for example, we worked on the southern facade of the Assumption cathedral in October, while the money for it had been granted at the beginning of the year. Sadly, this spasmodic regime of funding is the main problem today with the industry and, it appears, the whole country.
On Moscow art and Titian
In Moscow there are few ancient monuments. They are mainly concentrated in the Kremlin; there are some in the Novodevichy convent, the Trinity church at Nikitniki, and the Intercession church at Fili. All the restoration there was accomplished thirty or forty years ago, often done quickly, focused on some festivity or the other, such as the Olympics. Perhaps the only church that was restored according to scientific techniques is the Annunciation cathedral in the Kremlin. Three generations of restorers worked on it, the most recent contribution being our own.
Matters are not good at the Novodevichy convent – everything is covered with writing; it needs serious restoration. I would restore all the churches of the Kremlin too but this is not a pressing problem – the paintings there are in stable condition, not falling apart. They look somewhat unclear because the original is covered by the remains of overpainting and additions from previous restorations, but they can be handled in the future, there is no hurry. And anyway, these flaws are visible only to a professionally picky eye, like mine, for instance. I can scarcely enter a museum in peace because I see not art but its restoration. This is a professional defect in me. Everybody says, ‘Look, what a Titian!’ And I think, ‘Why does this Titian have such heinous tones? Who put them there? Tear off his hands.’
Olga Orlova and the Fields Medallists – Part III
The third meeting
Venue – Independent University of Moscow. November 2002.
There were three of us in the meeting with Laurent Lafforgue, with the interpreter Darya Sisoeva helping out.
OO: Monsieur Lafforgue, you are well-known as a patriot of French culture and language. You know several languages, including Russian, and have always defended the right of mathematicians to communicate in scientific circles in their native tongues. This position – is it the result of reflection, or a fruit of family upbringing?
LL: Since childhood, books have been the most important part of my life. From early on, I began to read not only French but also Russian literature. In fact, till I was about twenty years old, my main occupation was literature. I was also interested in history, which kindled in me an interest in other cultures. I didn’t plan on taking up mathematics as a career. I had a very good education, and I had a wide ranges of choices on what to do next. But I’m Parisian, and I wanted to remain in Paris, and so at the age of 19, I joined the École Normale Supérieure– the best school for mathematics and physics, completely unaware of my future career as a researcher. Only in the second year did I realise that I was attracted so much to mathematics. I began to read the works of Grothendieck – he is a French mathematician, and founder of algebraic geometry. That’s when I began my interest in algebraic geometry, because I found in it the sort of beauty that had always appealed to me in literature. I have always thought that in mathematics there’s a deep link to literature, just as with history. After all, mathematics is a collective endeavour. And if I count for something in mathematics, then surely I count for something in the historical process as well.
OO: Is there anyone you would like to share your success with?
LL: Certainly. There are people who supported me in my most difficult moments. In addition, having spent six years at University and in graduate school, when I was unable to write my thesis, I was admitted into a research group with some fellow investigators. Still, for two years I had no serious results to show. I was getting paid, but I just couldn’t complete my dissertation. This wasn’t the best time of my life. But the head of my group, Luc Illusie, not only believed in me but also took charge of my situation, and offered to change my supervisor. Now I understand that I just wasn’t interested in working on old themes. If you don’t like what you are doing, you can’t come up with any beauty in your work. Thus I got a new supervisor, Gerard Laumon, who then took charge of my fate.
He gave me a new topic, and things improved – I began to get good results. My supervisor, despite being a famous mathematician, took a lot of interest in me, uncaring of his own time. I owe him personally no less than I do professionally. And the next topic, the one for which I won the prize, was one he founded. But even here, things were not simple. I worked on the subject for six years, and as my research concluded and I began to present expository lectures on my work, I realised that I had somewhere along the line committed an error.
This was a deeply tragic moment in my work, because the error cast doubt on my entire research. I have to say that at that time not only my supervisor, but also all my colleagues at University understood the gravity of the situation that I found myself in, and all of them supported me. All of them.
OO: Are you from an academic family?
LL: My grandparents were uneducated, and my parents are physicists. I have two younger brothers, both of whom are mathematicians. One is a researcher, and the other a teacher.
OO: In earlier times, during the USSR, there were widely distributed scientific family dynasties. Following a career in science didn’t bring much by way of material gain, but much honour and respect. But in the last fifteen years, the situation has changed dramatically. How does a mathematician feel about himself in France? Is there a problem of ‘brain drain’ in your country?
LL: French scientists receive good money, albeit less than in the US, but overall they do lead good lives. Importantly, in France we have very strong mathematical schools and many famous universities. There isn’t much of a brain drain because the majority of French mathematicians want to work in their own country. Nor is there much unemployment because there are lots of places open to researchers. So we have not only Russian mathematicians visiting us, but also Americans. They are happy to lose monetarily because they are attracted by the high scientific level.
Undoubtedly, France has not been unaffected by the changes that have occurred throughout the world: the undervaluing of intellectual capability. Our youth prefers to entertain itself. They prefer sport or show-business, anything other than science. And that’s a pity. Young people do not want to occupy themselves with anything intellectual because there are no guarantees of any material fortune. But I have always sought beauty. In the beginning, in literature and poetry, then in history. I realised very late that in mathematics too there is an equal beauty. If you work in the fields of scientific discovery, this is always interesting. I felt this most keenly in the university when all around me were so many bright people, all of whom were inventing, discovering something new.
OO: In Russia, we have a joke: “An American university is where Russian instructors teach mathematics to Chinese students.” Don’t you think that in coming years, Russia might stop supplying mathematical brainpower, and the arena will be left open to that other scientific superpower, namely China?
LL: Of course, having been in Beijing, I am able to assess the level of state support for science. But I think such pessimistic forecasts are premature. In Russia, despite the poor funding for science, mathematics cannot really die out – after all, for seventy years, the Russian school has been the strongest. And other countries, too, won’t let Russian mathematics die out. For example, the Independent Mathematical Institute where we are now has been financed by the US.
OO: Our interview with Vladimir Voevodsky ended with his apocalyptic predictions about the future of mathematics in general as a fundamental science. In this regard, are you an optimist or a pessimist?
LL: As you prefer… Voevodsky is a representative of the American mathematical scholarship. That is a completely different world; true, they are paid a lot, but intellect in the US has never been particularly valued. My prognosis is more optimistic. Science with such a long history cannot die, and people will continue their researches. On my own part, I have two themes that will over the next thirty years interest a lot of people.
OO: Are you ready to return to this debate in thirty years?
LL: If we live that long.
[I translated loosely from Olga Orlova’s piece on Polit.Ru. It appears that in 2002, when she first wrote it up to link with the International Congress of Mathematicians at Beijing, the journal that had commissioned it, ‘New Model’, went out of business without publishing it. She and her editors decided that the content was still relevant in 2006, when the Perelman story was appearing in the world’s press in the run-up to the ICM in Madrid.]
Olga Orlova and the Fields Medallists – Part II
The second meeting
Venue – A Moscow Kitchen. October 2002.
Vladimir Voevodsky came to the interview not alone, announcing from the entrance that his prize should be shared with three people, of whom he couldn’t bring along the first and the third, but he had managed to snare the second.
VV: Let me introduce you: this is Yuri Shabat, Professor at the Moscow State University. If I make a mistake in something, he’ll correct me.
OO: And who is the first person?
VV: Well, actually even before him were the dinosaurs. When I was really little, I loved dinosaurs. And then books on chemistry began to fall into my hands; my mum brought them, she was a chemist. From theory I soon moved onto practice, and there were explosions in the bathroom, after which there were experiments with electricity, and then, going backwards, theoretical physics, which my father, a physicist, introduced me to. When I was seriously ill with pneumonia, my father’s friend Oleg Sheremetyev brought me a Rubik’s cube to distract me. There were no published solutions to the puzzle at the time, and I killed two days to crack it on my own. And then Oleg and I went on to solve more complicated mathematical puzzles. Oleg used to spend much time those days teaching mathematics to kids at the Pioneers Palace. He was the first to show me that mathematics could be interesting of itself, in a very pure sense.
OO: Volodya, you finished high school but you do not have a degree. Does that mean, by Russian standards, that you are under-educated?
VV: I was rusticated from Moscow University for academic failure. I was already interested in algebraic geometry, but attending classes seemed like such a waste of time. I took a break from academics, and began an apprenticeship at a vocational school where kids were being taught programming. One day, I found some scrap paper on a table with formulae scribbled over it – and immediately realised that there was someone around who thought just like me. I was overjoyed and went in search of the owner of that paper. And that’s how I found Yura Shabat. He didn’t deny it. “Yes,” he said, “These are my papers. So what?” Well, I said, I have also been thinking along those lines. It was very important to me that I had found him.
YS: Yes, and after that, we worked for a long time together.
OO: So what attracted you to algebraic geometry?
VV: Purely subjective factors, I have to say. At the time, algebraic geometry was being done by interesting people, such as Shafarevich.
OO: And how did the move to America come about?
VV: Even after returning to academics, I still wouldn’t attend classes. In 1989, then, obviously, everything collapsed, and such formalities as degrees seemed quite useless. After Yura Shabat, I began to work with Misha Kapranov, and we published several papers. Then he went off to graduate school in the States, talked about our work, and thanks to him, I became a graduate student at Harvard.
OO: Your relationship with America, it appears, was not entirely idyllic?
VV: To be honest, America impressed me at once. On the very first day I arrived at Harvard, I was handed keys to an apartment, to an office, and a cheque for a thousand dollars. And I was a mere graduate student! At the time, there were many Russian mathematicians on the faculty. Dmitri Kazhdan was Dean. I need to share my prize with him as well. He and his colleagues supported me at a period when I could no longer live in Russia, and I was still new to America. I remember, during my first Christmas in Boston, I got drunk and wandered into a black ghetto. There I was robbed, beaten and hurled into the snow. This, of course, added to my discomfort; but I was deeply anguished, missing Moscow, and thinking how much I hated their Christmas. I wanted my New Year [My note: Russians celebrate New Year rather than Christmas], with a fir tree and my mum and presents. I went to Professor Joseph Bernstein, and said to him – I can’t stay here. He answered me in one sentence, “Well, if it’s so bad for you here, then go home.” I am eternally grateful to him for this. I went to Moscow for four months, and he covered up for me, saved my fellowship and stipend. Then I returned and lived for a few months in my office, writing up my dissertation quickly. When I went in the mornings to brush my teeth in my sweat-pants, students would be coming into the department and looking askance at me. But Dean Kazhdan gave me the possibility to complete my work in peace. So I got my doctorate, but without any college degree either from Russia or America.
OO: Was such an option open to you in Russia?
VV: Formally, it wasn’t prohibited, but it is clear that the entire procedure would have been much harder, and taken much longer. There have been earlier precedents, but in my opinion, perhaps more often in the pre-war days than today.
OO: Setting aside material comforts, what distinguishes a scientist’s life in Russia from that in America?
VV: Everything. It’s a different professional environment. In my own field, there are ten times as many people working in America. There is the corresponding level of competition. In Russia there is no direct relationship between a scientist’s academic success and financial situation. If a person is comes up with an extraordinary idea, then everybody says, ‘Praise God, we are happy,’ but his salary is not going to go up from tomorrow. In America, it is likely to increase; but if you prove something interesting with your colleagues, at once the question arises – who did what first? Because the prizes have to be divided. In Russia, when people think up the same idea simultaneously, it is rather nice. There’s a professional collegiality. But in the US, this would decrease the material consequences of a scientific achievement. Although I have to say that in mathematics this is not as strongly felt as in biology, chemistry or medicine.
OO: Besides science, you have always had a wide range of interests. You have travelled the world, kept up your interest in history, followed politics. You live in the US, your wife is Egyptian, and you have friends of various religious persuasions. You have, perhaps, a nuanced view of events in the world.
VV: Undoubtedly, I have a cosmopolitan regard of current events as I do constantly listen to views of people from different sides of the barricades. And it is not difficult for me to note that not all of them are true. No less, it is evident nuclear weapons that used to be so difficult to obtain, will become quite common. And I don’t see any reasons that can stop those people who want to use them. Clearly, nuclear war awaits us in the coming decades. On the other hand, in American scientific journals, such as Science, I regularly read that its consequences are not as scary as we might imagine.
OO: Well, thanks for the consoling thought… And what will happen to mathematics in these projections?
VV: Nothing good is going to happen to mathematics, even if there’s no nuclear war in the near future. Mathematics has developed over a long time with lots of intensive research. But today’s mathematics requires immensely larger resources: of people, time, and money. You understand, in modern science we have a situation where the amount of time a person has to spend just to bring himself up to speed with an open problem is unacceptably long. I cannot explain – even to a very good student in his final year at University – the details of my work! Today, new people find it harder and harder to engage in the scientific process. I think it’s a bad sign. If mathematics does not turn to the practical needs of mankind, in fifty years it will no longer be in any form we can recognise.
YS: Well, here I’d like to object. I am well acquainted with the history of mathematics, and can say that apocalyptic predictions of its demise are not new. But mathematics, paradoxically, has always evolved in an irrational fashion. Its history is very similar to that of poetry. In some periods there is a crisis, and then there’s a period of barely discernible development in new directions, and then there’s a powerful creative explosion. Forecasting this systematically is impossible. I think than in fifty years mathematics will still exist as a fully-fledged science.
VV: Shall we bet on it? Let’s meet in thirty years, say, and examine the situation. We won’t wait fifty years – who knows if we’ll live that long?
Vladimir and Yuri made the wager, I excused myself. Time passed.
[To be continued.]
[I translated loosely from Olga Orlova’s piece on Polit.Ru. It appears that in 2002, when she first wrote it up to link with the International Congress of Mathematicians at Beijing, the journal that had commissioned it, ‘New Model’, went out of business without publishing it. She and her editors decided that the content was still relevant in 2006, when the Perelman story was appearing in the world’s press in the run-up to the ICM in Madrid.]
Olga Orlova and the Fields Medallists – Part I
Polina Zherebtsova’s Diary of the Chechen War – Part 4
[This is the final part of the translation of the extracts of Polina Zherebtsova’s Chechen Diary, originally published in Bolshoi Gorod.]
2 November
I argue with Mum. I tidy up. I get ready.
Yesterday, in passing, I saw Aladdin in the distance. He nodded at me. He wasn’t alone; he was with an older man and a young fellow.
In the evenings, I narrate to the kids the fairy tales of Wilhelm Gauf. He died so young, and yet gave the world so much! Everyone listens to me attentively. The kids are called Zara, Waha, Alissa. Alissa is a niece of Tamara, from the fourth floor.
In spring, I’ll turn 15. Of course, if I’m still alive.
Mansour, who lived with us with his family as a refugee in 1995, during the first war, told everyone in the yard that I was his bride. He explained to me, “I did it on purpose. So that they wouldn’t insult you or pester you.” And then he said, “But will you wait for me?” I nodded quietly. Such an idiot!
In the absence of his father, Mansour is like the elder in the family. He resolved conflicts between all of us in the military hostel more than once during that hard winter of 1995. We often quarrelled because of the cramped, closed quarters. We had had to sleep in turns – we couldn’t all have slept at the same time in our one-room apartment.
In 1995, we temporarily housed several more refugees in our apartment. I remember we had a neighbour, Olga Stepanovna, in our own entrance. Later, through snow-covered paths over a mountain pass, from the city of Vladikavkaz, her son arrived. An anti-war miracle! Whenever the reds or the whites, thinking he was a spy, wanted to execute him, he would repeat, “Guys! My mum is old. She’s all alone. It’s war. I’m going to my mum.” They’d then let him go.
And I can barely communicate with my mother. We are constantly arguing, quarrelling. Her nerves are shattered because of the crossfire. We managed to sell all the papers, except for four that were missing.
The bombing continues nightly. In the daytime it pretty much stops.
7 November
Yesterday, my ‘elder brother’ came by. He offered to teach me Arabic. He showed me the interesting alphabet – like drawings. I agreed.
No school now. As for History, I’ve read the textbook already. Twice!
The elder brother is, of course, Aladdin. He gifted us two frocks. One, a light blue one, he gave to me. A similar one, but green in colour, he gave to my mother. In addition, he brought me a large white scarf, imported from Mecca! I dreamed about such a thing for so long! The wealthiest women among us cover their heads with scarves like this! It is white, with white embroidery.
Aladdin brought books. Different ones. Many of them. He said, “You love to read books, and time passes faster when one reads. Here are some thrillers.” He is so … unpredictable!
These are events of yesterday. Today, I took out a notebook where I practise writing – and there was money in it! It all spills suddenly over me. I barely managed not to faint! All of 160 roubles! But what for? We are thrilled with him as it is. And we’ll be grateful all our lives to him for saving us. But this is unnecessary!
Can it be that he doesn’t love me at all? Aladdin treats me like I’m little. He is friendly, but that’s it.
There was bombing yesterday. Mum and I ‘went walkabout’ for bread. We came under fire. Came home safely. We started to tidy up the house. The painful fragment in me quietened down, gave me a moment’s peace.
Today is November 7, the revolutionary holiday of the former USSR. Maybe that’s why everyone is happy!
Budur of the terrible tales of the town of Grozny.
8 November
Yesterday evening there was a terrible fire fight. Missiles and shells flew into the yard. Thumps from mortars and machine-guns. The walls shook constantly. Everyone’s window panes blew out. We had sealed our panes with paper crosses, and so they remained intact.
When we were gluing the crosses on, some of the neighbours laughed and said maliciously, “Crosses, just like the Russians have on their graves!” Mum didn’t react. She tried to advise them: “Didn’t you see the films about the war with the Germans? For safety, everybody glued on the crosses. You should do the same.” All that happened was that everybody started referring to the Russian military as the Germans.
Aladdin came in the evening and began to teach me to read. He was amazed at how quickly I learnt all the letters; I write them easily under dictation.
Aladdin was covered in clay. He explained that as he was walking, our ruined district began to get shot up. He ended up lying in a trench with a gray cat. The cat was struggling to get away. She scratched him. It turned out that that was my tomcat – Chips! Aladdin was hiding with him?
We heated up some water so that our guest could clean himself up in the kitchen. We washed his clothes. Mum said that they were wet and that she wouldn’t let him leave at night. He declined initially out of decency, but his face lit up, and he stayed! Mum and I had to jostle for space on grandma’s bed, and we arranged the sofa for our guest.
Elder brother confesses, “My friends do not understand me when I tell them that I am looking out for a Russian family. I tell them of my friendship with you. That you are normal. But they do not believe me.”
Princess Budur.
9 November
My elder brother Aladdin spent the night at ours! We talked long into the night. He fed me candy, which he fished out of his pockets.
Aladdin made himself comfortable in the apartment, and generally behaved like a real brother or cousin. I learned a lot about him, about this childhood, his mischief at school, his friends.
Then he got fed up; his attitude changed dramatically. He started to scold me for not eating properly. I wasn’t wearing the headscarf correctly. I was putting the letters together far too slowly when I read. I understood. And my Slavic blood boiled.
Mum intervened. She announced, half in jest and half-seriously that he was pompous. “When a guest starts to criticise the host, it’s time to throw him out!” Aladdin was offended. He didn’t have any breakfast, and left. But I know that he will come back! He doesn’t want to get used to us, but still he does. Mum feels sorry for him.
In the morning I again went over the rules of the Russian language. Mum gave me a dictation. Mum is asleep now. I am sitting quietly. I found several old newspapers and am reading them.
A woman leaves Rais’s house, next door. She offered to sell some cigarettes (“Astra”), the cheapest and thinnest. In all, 96 packets at 30 kopecks each.
10 November
It snowed.
No, I wrote wrongly. It was a snowstorm like in February! All the trees are white. Mum’s heart is not doing well. She took some medicinal drops and went to bed.
There’s no bread, but there’s yesterday’s leftover dumplings with grass from the garden.
A man from our building stopped by to say good-bye. We don’t know him. He has a singularly yellowish pallor. He is missing a hand. He has fine, painfully thin facial features. Everyone calls him the Black Glove. His attention had been drawn to us several days earlier. He had chanced to see how I was carried out of the car, wounded.
He introduced himself, said he came from Greece. Black Glove learnt from the gossip of our neighbours that we did yoga. That we unravelled dreams. He wanted an explanation for what he saw: “Dogs chasing me! Big ones and small ones. They want to tear me limb from limb. I try to run, but can’t. There are many dogs, an entire pack!” We understood his dream as follows: “Enemies abound. To remain means death. One must depart quickly. The hunt approaches!” This man informed us that he works in Greece. My favourite country!
Bidding us farewell at the door, the man whispered, “I will come back. Maybe in five or six years. My family is there…” On the table, we saw a few bars of chocolate.
I am filled with a giddy hope that all will be well! This is like the hope of kids awaiting New Year’s presents from Santa Claus. Or the hope after a ship sinks when, through the veil of rain and storm, people espy the shore. It is not far! Just a little effort and everyone will be saved!
Mum’s heart is bad. It is 2:35 now. Mum took her tablets, but they do not help. Her lips and hands and legs are cold. I keep telling her that she needs to sleep. I give her a hot-water-bottle in place of a heater. Before my eyes is an imaginary Aladdin. I am having an imaginary conversation with him.
I’m sitting on the sofa. Gunfire from afar. Near the factory ‘Grad.’ It’s the third time it is being strafed. The weapons used are like the Katyusha rockets of the Patriotic War in 1945. We didn’t go out for bread.
I hear the howl of aircraft. The sound is approaching us.
Icicles drip outside the window. Small stalactites. The sky is clear, blue.
At night I had a dream: in a dark basement I am fighting a battle with Death. She is black, in a long coat with a hood; in her hands is a mace. Beneath our feet is a swamp. And so many people are already in the swamp to their chests; they cannot escape and save themselves. I swing and hit Death with a cane on the head. It was a palpable blow, as though I had hit something real, alive. She recoiled, and I managed to escape from the cellar.
I described the dream to Mum. She laughed and said, “This clearly means that in this war you will certainly not perish!”
Princess Budur.
Polina Zherebtsova’s Diary of the Chechen War – Part 3
26 October
Early in the morning when there were few people about (I am reluctant to walk with a walking stick), Mum and I went to the market. I looked at the remnants of the missile. It was huge! Boys were climbing all over it. They announced that it was ‘infectious’ and had to be removed. The missile had destroyed everything around.
Some of our acquaintances arrived to trade. Mum wanted to sell on our ware, so that it wouldn’t get lost. But people were scared to oblige. “There’s a lot of theft,” they explained, and said it had gotten worse after the explosion. Twelve people had been shot on the spot for stealing. Looters were at it day and night. They took things off the dead: gold, raincoats, shoes, clothing, cosmetics. They did this under the guise of locating their family members. Some came with their children to steal. A father with a kid ‘searched’ for the mother. And the mother with her other offspring was, at the same place, looking for the father. The guards didn’t cotton on immediately to this trickery.
One of our neighbouring traders showed uncommon courage. After the rocket exploded, she dragged an injured Chechen woman to safety; at the same time, thieves ran off with her entire merchandise. But she had no regrets. I spoke to her. She had done well!
Our market has shrunk now. In the morning there are hardly two rows. Tables have been placed along the Mir Prospect. People have decided: here will be the cafe, here the barber, and here the entrances to the residences – it would be easier to seek shelter.
Seeing me with my walking-stick, passers-by and the traders joked, “A youngish grandmother!” Everyone wished me the speediest recovery.
The loudspeaker in the Mir Prospect area that used to play music throughout summer now repeated the same thing over and over: “500 people are missing; 1000 people are wounded. There is no count of people taken to villages and rural health centres.”
We burst into tears on hearing that at the candy store, a girl was killed – she was my age. Her elder sister and her mother were both wounded! Our neighbour Rosa was also killed while selling cabbages. She was eight months pregnant. Her seven children are orphaned. There are many such others.
We bought bread and went home. We were not the only ones wailing in the bus. Got home and boiled up some tea. Almost at once Aladdin appeared. I didn’t feel like talking at all.
Aladdin began to take his leave. Mum was taken aback when he put an envelope in her hands: “For the operation and medicine,” he said, “Or for food, in an emergency…” “We’ll pay it back!” I called out as he left. We were embarrassed. We knew that it wasn’t good to take money from someone we scarcely knew. But we had no way out. Without money, there would be no treatment. There were almost 200 roubles in the envelope! Aladdin asked me to call him ‘elder brother.’ I liked the idea and agreed.
Polina's House
27 October
In the morning, Aunt Maryam brightened our mood. She lives in the apartment next to ours. Ever since Mum moved into this house in December 1986, she and Aunt Maryam have been friends. Maryam kissed me and promised, ”You’ll be right as rain soon! Just bear it a little longer.” She gifted me a head-scarf, a cream coloured one with a delicate border. And powder! We had breakfast together. Maryam warned us that she would move a part of her property to her relatives in Ingushetia. And she would lodge a family from the house across to the next-door flat on the first floor. We wouldn’t be alone anymore! And if she could find a way, either she would come or send one of her sisters to help us leave as well.
We sealed up a part of the window with pieces of wood, to block shrapnel. Zolina’s little daughter came over to play with me.
28 October
Mum got ready to go to the market. She decided she would trade till lunchtime and then buy some food. Our larder is empty. Again we’ll be spending instead of saving! We quickly finished our breakfast and took with us in two light packages a few magazines and newspapers. Maybe someone will want them? Mum is a naive person.
And then began a terrible shelling! It thundered everywhere from the direction of downtown and the marketplace. The sky turned red from the fire. Mum was, like, who cares? She said it was all rubbish. Just then a woman carrying pickled cabbage in a bucket ran toward us. She was crying and talking to herself, “Everything is bloodied again! Everything has been bombed! The market is aflame!” Mum stopped her, offered her water to drink. The woman caught her breath at our front gate and said, “This is not weapons fire. It’s an aircraft! It bombed the market! There are many dead! The bomb fell at the corner by the House of Fashion, where women were selling bread!” She left, crying.
Mum collected herself. “Chop chop! We have no food. Our area is still calm. Let’s go to the nearest market, the little one, to the Beryozka stall. We’ll buy some produce.”
Mum is very stubborn. I got ready quickly. I didn’t take the scary walking stick. The road is not far, barely one stop on the bus. I went, leaning on mum.
We passed our yard successfully. We crossed the road. And we began to move through someone else’s yard. And then the airplanes roared into view. Bombs exploded. We threw ourselves across the road. We found a basement but it was quite small, there were already five people standing in it, crowding into each other. No space to enter. Back out again! Now we were at the entrance of an apartment building! Excellent, it was not locked. We squatted in the corner, under a door.
An explosion! Another explosion! A man screamed from the house opposite. The upper storeys were aflame. Another man spoke comfortingly to the injured one, “Take it easy, take it easy, I’ll just tie it up.” But the wounded man continued to scream terribly. The airplanes headed in the direction of the private sector and began to drop bombs there. We went out onto the street.
The building to the right of us was missing a corner. From below its roof, black smoke streamed out. The house across the one we had hidden in was on fire on the upper floors. The shrieks came from there.
Still driven by Mum’s obstinacy, we went further to the little market. There were goods in the stalls but no sellers or buyers!
“They’re in the shopping gallery,” guessed Mum. We entered it.
Inside was a crowd. Adults with kids, preschoolers. People sat by the marble columns and prayed. The entire floor was covered in glass. The windows had been smashed into smithereens. Some of the buyers and sellers went into the basement. We also went there.
Ovens were burning in the basement. Civilians sat around on empty wooden and metallic boxes. Women offered each other nuts and water. People prayed in Russian and Arabic. They decided: “If we have to spend the night here, we’ll give our clothes to the children. We’ll spread them out on the floor so the kids can sleep.”
It was cold. People talk to each other in low voices, as though they might be overheard. Mum and I sat around for an hour or two, for as long as the bombing went on. Everyone was frightened. Nobody wanted to go upstairs to the first market hall, let alone the street, as long the bombs were falling. At last, we came out.
We bought all that we could. And headed home on the lower side of the road, where the shopping gallery was, so that it would be easier to hide in case the bombing started again.
People came over and told us that the missile that had fallen on the market, the one that had wounded me, had been launched from the Caspian. Journalists had uncovered this news. Within only five days, the Russian army had admitted it. They had aimed the missile at another target – at the stock exchange building – but they missed. It fell on the peaceful market.
I just cannot believe that this is the third war in my life! The first was in 1994 (I was nine years old); the second, in the summer of 1996 (from 6 – 22 August; I am 11 years old) – how many neighbours perished then! And here’s the third one. Autumn, 1999 (I am fourteen).
What to do? Aladdin hasn’t come.
Our neighbour, Uncle Valera, had a surprise for me. He handed me some gifts from Muslim, a chap who lives in the first entrance to the building. A white scarf with a blue border, and gray autumn boots. Muslim is a relative of a very kind woman, Zulai. I have spoken to him all of one time. Long ago, last spring. Muslim met me on the way from school. He told me that he liked me more than Hava, his neighbour. He understands that I need to study! But if I completed 16 years of age, then we could get engaged! That’s the custom here. I had been amazed.
And now, unexpectedly, I received his short note: “If you remember me, please pray for me!”
I closed my eyes and at once saw him. A gentle face. Light eyes, dark hair. Muslim always stood in the doorway of his entrance, neat and modest. I wanted to cry. My nerves! Absolutely useless. “In vain did you, Muslim, worry about the opinions of the elders in the yard! You feared their judgment! All because my mother is Russian,” I muttered to myself, and stared at the gifts. I thought we might have become friends! Seeing his note, I felt so good in my heart. At once, I could breathe easily and freely. “Muslim! I will not forget your name in my prayers!” I promised silently. “But, forgive me, the shoes are too small for me. I gave them to Mansour’s mum. I only kept the head-scarf.”
Budur.
Polina Zherebtsova’s Diary of the Chechen War – Part 2
22 October
My mum and I were wounded on 21 October, Thursday.
I saw: a woman, killed, sitting at a table. The wounded sought shelter in the cafes and at the entrances to houses. Volunteer rescuers gathered up the victims of the crossfire, and carried them off in vehicles. Those with the worst injuries were taken away first.
Suddenly a bright flash lit up the entire sky. A loud thunder followed. Frightened, we rolled behind our stall, hiding between its iron pillars. There was no other cover nearby. An explosion! And another… It felt as though the same explosion was repeating itself over and over. We ran, discarding our stock, to the courtyard of the House of Fashion. This was the very centre of Grozny. Rosa Luxembourg Street. As I ran, an huge piece of the last explosion whistled over my head.
At that moment, time stopped and moved in slow-motion, as in a film. I realised suddenly that nobody, not mum, nor anybody else would be able to save me from death if I were to cry out for help. It made me laugh; I no longer desired anything – belongings, bags, valuables. I realised that I could take nothing, absolutely nothing, with me There.
The shrapnel glinted and time returned to normal. Swishing over my head, it caused sparks to fly from the brick walls of the house it struck. My legs were suffused with agonising pain, a metal rain, but my momentum kept me going.
I collapsed after a few further steps… But then I was raised off the ground.
We threw ourselves into the doorway of a house, but instead of a door there was an iron grill that allowed nobody past. We ran back into the courtyard again, and in shock, darted into yet another entrance, where used to be the shop ‘Fisherman’. When I sat down, huddled in a corner, the agony in my legs made itself known again. Mum and Kusum pushed into the entrance, throwing aside a young Chechen woman. The woman’s knee was smashed; I could see at once the exposed white bone.
There were other women and children in the entrance. Mum said that there was a hole in her pocket and that her thigh was burning a little. She found another piece of shrapnel in her pocket. When some men looked into the courtyard, everyone shouted that the young woman without a leg should be taken away first. She had lost a lot of blood. She looked to be 17 to 20 years old. The men took her away.
The volunteer rescuers looked into the courtyard again. They were young fellows. Among them was Aladdin. They decided to take me for bandaging to a pharmacy on Victory Street (which used to be a bakery). Aladdin carried me in his arms, whispering to me, “Don’t cry, my princess! Don’t be afraid! There will be help.”
As I was carried under the crossfire, I saw three dead. They were lying separated from each other. Someone had covered them with a cardboard. One was a woman, another a man, and I couldn’t make out the third.
At the chemist’s, a woman I didn’t know pulled out the fragment out of mum’s thigh. They could only bandage my legs, as the shrapnel had embedded itself deep inside. Aladdin consoled me, stroking my head and chewed on a cupcake.
They decided that we should return home; the hospitals were overflowing with the injured, the marketplace having been filled with women, children, and the elderly. There were few men there, hardly any. We had been far from the epicentre, almost three blocks away. How many had been killed there?
We were given a lift home by some strangers in their car. Frequently I had to clap my hands over my ears – there was a ringing noise and a feeling that I might faint any moment. Everything around me appeared to swim… Did I have a concussion?
I heard someone repeatedly say, “Whoever does good to Polinka will see it; whoever does ill to Polinka will see it.” I guess it was part of a prayer. Actually, it goes like this: “Whoever does an atom’s weight of good will see it; And whoever does an atom’s weight of evil will see it.” (Sura 99) But there was ringing in my ears and in my semi-delirium, I heard my name repeated in these lines.
In the morning, the pain in my leg worsened. No sooner had we had breakfast than my mum began to beg the neighbours to take me to a doctor. The tenants on the top floor agreed. They took me in their runabout to the hospital ?9, our main hospital. The doctors immediately said, “You need an X-ray. We don’t have it. There’s no mains electricity, and the generator has been misplaced in all the confusion.” Still, I was sent to the operating theatre.
A striped cat roamed around the dark and dirty operating theatre on the first floor. He rubbed himself against the table legs and purred. At the threshold of the open doors stood weeping people. Everyone was covered in blood, their clothes torn, some draped in sheets. People ran around looking for their relatives and friends. Those with mild injuries were sitting on the floor or on chairs; they had been awaiting their turn to be examined by the doctors since the previous day. Muffled moans came from the loved ones of those who had died within the hospital walls. A Chechen woman screamed loudly: her children had been killed. A middle-aged woman asked for money for an operation on her son and for medicines. People gave her what they could.
The doctor who examined me was exhausted. He could barely stand. He told of how at night during surgery the electricity had been switched off several times as hundreds of people were being operated on. Many perished.
A young German journalist, wearing glasses and a checked shirt, asked the doctors about the numbers of casualties during the nights. What sort of injuries predominated? He asked me if I had been frightened. The doctor quoted some figures. He said that everyone couldn’t be accounted for in the confusion, because of which many people couldn’t locate their missing kin.
They forgot to anaesthetise me when they treated my wounds. I screamed, although I was ashamed of it. The doctor collected himself and gave me an injection. He looked for the shrapnel but couldn’t find any. “Without X-rays, we can’t help,” said the doctor. “We are needlessly traumatising the leg. You should go where they have a working X-ray machine.” They could only take out minor fragments. At that time, mum’s leg was bandaged. But she was able to walk.
We purchased painkillers, lots of bandage, surgical towels and antiseptics.
23 October
Yesterday a wonderful thing happened! In the latter half of the day, we had unexpected guests. Kusum and Aladdin! The same Aladdin who had carried me through the yard of my childhood! They hadn’t known our address. They found us after asking about victims. They only knew which district of Grozny we lived in, and had to search for a long time. Both were exhausted.
Mum made tea. Kusum had brought fruit. Aladdin gave us 70 roubles for bandages; he didn’t have any more money. He was silent throughout. I didn’t speak either. We didn’t look at each other; we averted our eyes. Only the adults talked – mum and Kusum.
25 October
I am crying. My wounded leg hurts worse in the evenings. All these days, the neighbours have been going into town at night. Many talk of a large tail-less rocket. They say that there is heavy radiation where it lies.
There are lots of foreign journalists in town. They managed to get through! Someone measured the radiation with a meter. People are specially coming to the market to look at the death-rocket. I ask my mum to persuade the neighbours to take me there. I want to see the filth that has brought me pain.
The Russian side refuses to comment on the bombing of the marketplace. But the Chechens do not have such large rockets. It is said that those who were near the rocket were torn to pieces; now their loved ones recognise them by the remnants of various things: buttons, shreds and pieces of clothing.
Mum bought a few loaves of bread. She distributed them ‘for my well-being’ to the neighbours who crowded around our entrance.
Mum found a walking-stick that belonged to grandma Yulia that she had bequeathed to us. It is a brown wooden hooked stick, sort of like that of Baba-Yaga. I’m learning to walk with it around the room. I repeat that I want to see rocket that killed all those people and injured me. Mum whines that we have already spent all our money; there’s none left for the operation and the medicines. Today she was at the stall for twelve hours, and she saw the rocket!
Polina Zherebtsova’s Diary of the Chechen War – Part 1
[This is a loose translation of the original Russian diary, an abridged excerpt of which appeared in the journal Bolshoi Gorod on 30 September 2009. Part 1 here, others to follow.]
24 September 1999
We were bombed a little today. The neighbours did not go to work, they were so scared. Mum and I are off to the market – to sell our wares. I help her. There’s talk that my school is closed. Everybody says: War.
27 September 1999
In our Staropromyslovsky district, the station ‘Beryozka’ was bombed – it’s right by us. They’ve been bombing it since morning. I am going to read Shakespeare. Our library has twelve of his books. These are old books, printed early in the 20th century. My grandfather, the journalist and cameraman, bought them. He was killed in a crossfire in 1994 at the beginning of the first war.
I have terrible dreams at night.
Update: it’s evening. 420 people were killed. Many injured. Hospital №7 has been bombed. Mum and I were in the market, selling.
29 September, Wednesday.
Bombing. My favourite neighbour, aunt Maryam has left for Ingushetia. No other news.
30 September, Thursday.
They were bombing bridges. On the radio we heard that the tanks of the federal forces will likely be advancing on October 10.
I thought about it and decided that since it’s war, I should go and buy some black lingerie. It won’t need to be washed as often.
Huge queues for bread. People seem to have gone out of their minds.
1 October
Yesterday and the day before, there was bombing.
The city is rife with rumours. Often these pieces of ‘information’ contradict each other.
There would be a new round of war in August, we had been told by Professor V. Nunaev – the famous cardiologist. We hadn’t believed him, and bought new stock. On August 6, we found out that the widow of the late President Dudaev had fled from Grozny. So much information! We can only believe those who have seen things happen with their own eyes. And under no circumstances can we trust what we hear with our ears!
In the market, people were exchanging addresses, befriending each other. If there’s heavy bombardment or damage, perhaps they will have a place to go to, to stay. Nazar gave us his address. He and his wife sell all sorts of produce. Kossior Street, №8, apartment 66. A Russian woman, too, gave us her address. Her name is Lelya. She said to us, “If you are downtown and there’s an air-raid, run to Victory Prospect to house №5; we have a big underground shelter in the courtyard.” To die, I guess, is not scary; what is scary is to lie wounded amidst the ruins and die slowly.
I thought about the various religions. They are all good, except that people are remiss in following the laws of God.
At our neighbour Fatima’s, her son died. He was only a little boy.
Polina's Diaries
5 October
Alive so far!
There’s been no cooking gas for a long time. The drains still work.
Bombardment. Our four-storeyed house has been subsiding under the vibration. In my room, the walls have separated from the ceiling.
Airplanes circled above the market today. Many people fled. Among them was that bright fellow called Vandam who studies at the Law school. Occasionally he allows me to sell from his wooden kiosk. It is convenient when it rained. But I don’t like him.
At home we boiled potatoes in the electric kettle. The gas supply has been cut off to minimise explosions and fires in the houses during cross-fires.
11 October
The fighting continues. From afar we hear rumbles like thunder. We decided to sell more newspapers. We have no way out. Nobody is buying our wares. We don’t have enough money to eat. The day before yesterday I went and met the wife of Sulim, the man who buys newspapers and magazine in bulk. She introduced herself – Sonia. And at once she gave me magazines on account.
Yesterday, our neighbour in the market, the one who sells medicines, came up to our stall with some colleagues of her son. One of them, whom I didn’t know, presented me with a beautiful little book. The woman is called Kusum. She wants me and her son to become friends. Her son is very tall, and so he stoops. He is modest, shy. His name is Daud. He attends training courses at the Petroleum Institute. There are always chemistry texts in his hands.
Daud is 21 years old, and I am 14. Mum says it is too soon for me to get married. She insists, “She must study!” Kusum is offended and says,”You are the only girl whom my son has eyes for. If you officially become his fiancee, we shall wait till you finish your ninth grade at school.” By Chechen standards, this is a flattering offer. I can see that he is a good fellow. But I like his friend better – the one who gave me the book.
Daud’s mother bought me a lovely summer shirt and solemnly handed it to me. She explained the gift thus – “To the first girl my son ever liked!”
Our neighbour, a merry fellow nicknamed Pinocchio, has not been seen for several days. He is a wonderful narrator of books and films. He sells music cassettes not far from us. He lends me cassettes to take home, to listen for free. He lives in the town of Urus-Martan.
12 October
I don’t go to school. There are no classes. I am helping mum.
Some idiot in the pouring rain doused a tree with kerosene and set it on fire the day before. The result was a massive bonfire. Just then an airplane flew over and began to circle. Everyone was terrified – what if they drop a bomb? But nothing happened.
The woman who sells medicines introduced me to her sisters. She says that everyone has taken a liking to me. But I must wear a scarf so that nobody knows that my mother is Russian and will treat me better. These adults are chatty. They are always handing me little presents. Maybe now I will have some friends?
I love scarves and shawls. I don’t like the emancipated women of the West. Any dress with a scarf to match is romantic and tender and mysterious. A friend of my mother’s advised her to make me wear a scarf. He explained: “I’ll then be able to look out for you. You will look older – you need protection!”
They don’t know that my father’s father was a Chechen. And so if you consider the male line, I’m Chechen as well. My surname is my mother’s because seven months before I was born, my mum separated from my father. She didn’t want to be reconciled with him. It’s true that I have never seen my father. I know that he has a son with his first wife, also a Russian. The woman is called Tanya. I’ve been told since I was little: “Your father is dead!” But I want to believe that this is not true.
Today my favourite and dearest aunt Leila came to our stall. Leila has always helps us. At one time she used to work with mum at the big factory, the “Red Hammer”.
No sooner had she come near us than she began to beg us to leave Grozny. My mum paid hardly any attention. She said, “I don’t know what kind of people there are elsewhere. How do they live? They have no customs or rules. I have no close relatives anywhere. No acquaintances either. I have lived here all my life since I was fifteen. Here I have the graves of two relatives – my grandmother and my father. I own my house – that is very important. Ruslan is here. So what if it’s not an official marriage? I still have support. If I leave with the child, what are we to do? Am I to live alone?”
I was very offended by that Chechen fellow, Vandam. He saw me in my scarf and burst out laughing. “Why are you all dressed up? Where are you off to?” he said. Then he spat, the swine.
Once he sent his aunt over to us to get acquainted. His aunt made much of my mum, gave her treats. This is customary in the East, to get acquainted and to introduce a boy and a girl to each other. She even openly asked for my hand in marriage to her nephew. But she concealed the fact that he already had a wife. We learned this from some other folk.
13 October
At night we listen to the booming guns. In the daytime, we ply our trade. Sonia’s attitude towards us has worsened. I don’t know if I have offended her with my frequent requests. Or have our competitors said something to her?
These days I wear a scarf like Aunt Kusum. She often praises me. She sits next to us in the market and brushes my hair. She says, “Come on, let’s get you a perm!”
Daud’s friend came over again. He bought me an ice-cream. Does he like me? I heard this from Aunt Kusum, Daud’s mum. This chap asked me, “How old are you?” When he heard that I was only fourteen, he was surprised. “You are so small! I thought you were older. You know, you look so much like Princess Budur in my favourite fairy-tale.” I laughed and declared that he was Aladdin! We looked at each other for a long time in silence. I was taken aback at my own courage. Previously I would keep quiet in the company of boys, and only listen; now here I was – talking.
Aladdin has lovely eyes. His hair is black, curly, down to his shoulders. He is definitely like a prince. I remembered that I saw him once in a dream. It was a long time ago, when I was a toddler, before I went to school.
Polina's Diaries
Aladdin told me he is 23 years old. His father has another family. He has his mother and his sister. They live in a village. Suddenly shy, he stared for a long time at his shoes, and left without saying goodbye.
14 October
Our business is barely alive. We have money to buy food, but we can hardly save anything.
The papers have troubling news about how escaping refugees have to go half the way on foot, how they are freezing, and how vehicles carrying them are shot at on the roads. The way out of the city is very dangerous!
In the morning I went to school. Perhaps there won’t be classes till spring. All the youngsters are wearing military uniform. Many are being called up. No weapons in hand as yet, only radio-sets. The adult men have automatic weapons. Whoever is thirty years or older is armed.
Kusum is in tears, says that her son has left home. She wants my mum to help her bring him back. She begs permission to say that I will agree to marry him. If only he would abandon his new friends and come back! We support Kusum’s idea. I warn her that I would definitely help her, even if I left later. In the event, Kusum didn’t dare take me with her and went by herself. But she came back without her son. Daud said he trusted his companions and wouldn’t leave them till the end… We all wept.
Sundry Translations and Other Tangentialia 