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Fall 1998

Siberian Essay Section

Marat Galyautdinov, a thirteen year old boy from the city of Irkutsk in Eastern Siberia takes a fresh look at an old part of the world.  His point of view is unblemished by political ideologies and agendas.  He sees his life in Siberia through the eyes of youth, and perhaps that is the most accurate vantage point of all.  Marat is in the eighth grade and is crazy about soccer.  His parents own a law firm.  He has an eighteen year old sister who is a law student.  Marat is one of Michael Divoryadkin's English students.

Eastern Siberia

by Marat Galyautdinov

Many people from Moscow and St. Petersburg think that Irkutsk, a city situated in Eastern Siberia, is some godforsaken, uncivilized town, surrounded by impenetrable taiga (forest), where wolves howl at night and bears pray on human flesh in dowdy streets that are lined with small rotten wooden houses, but this is as far from reality as Irkutsk, Russia is from Washington, D.C.
   Irkutsk is my home.  It is the metropolis of Eastern Siberia.  The historical center of science, culture, and sport, Irkutsk is home to many academies, universities, theaters, museums, and stadiums.  The people of Irkutsk have chalked up many achievements in sports, music, history, and poetry.  In fact, many well know poets reside here.
   The city of Irkutsk has done a tremendous job of preserving its heritage, with whole blocks of wooden ridge-roofed houses with elaborately decorated and carved wooden window frames and door posts.
   It is no accident that Irkutsk belongs to the Russian cities-museums, since it has worked hard to preserve the ancient architecturethat makes it such a notable city.  Irkutsk even saved the shining domes of the city's churches.  Irkutsk's streets are a combination of time periods, with historical areas overlapping each other.  In the center of the town you can find whole streets of log houses, and along with them, modern buildings of the new marketplace, Music Theater, stores, shops, and supermarkets stand in stark contrast to the historical roots of the city.
   Irkutsk stands on the Angara, a turbulent river with sparkling, transparent cold water.  The Angara River is the only river that flows out of Lake Baikal, although the lake itself has more than three hundred rivers flowing into it.  Lake Baikal is the world's vault of sweet water, containing one third of the fresh water reserves of the entire planet.  If you collate it with the fabulous grandeur of its nature and the fact that there are more than two hundred representatives of aquatic life that cannot be found anywhere else in the world, it is easy to understand why UNESCO called it a monument of the world's natural legacy.
   Regional aborigines have many legends about Baikal. One tells that old grey father Baikal had a willful daughter named Angara and he found a fiance for her named Irkut, although she loved another youth named Enisey.  One night before the wedding with Irkut, Angara ran away to her lover, but Baikal woke up and saw his daughter running away. Enraged, he broke off a peak of Sayan Mountains and threw it at his fugitive daughter, trying to block her way. But love is stronger than any barriers and she escaped all the same. Even now you can see the top of that rock thrown by Baikal right where the Angara flows out. It is called Shaman Stone.  But Angara continued her way.  Irkut tried to stop his unfaithful fiance, but when he touched her, he understood that he would never stop her. So Angara was united with Enisey, another big river in the Krasnoyarsk region.
   Irkutsk was built on this place where  Angara and Irkut met for the last time, the first town to appear on that Siberian river, seventy kilometers from Baikal.
   On the banks of the Angara, about thirty kilometers from town, my family has a camp with a Siberian banya.  My family likes to go there to relax, but my father and I enjoy it so much, we visit it year round.  The Siberian banya is slightly different from American saunas.  Our banya has two summer porches, one glass enclosed and the other open.  It also has a dressing room, a room to rest in, moika—the place where you wash yourself after the sauna  and, of course, the main room of the banya, the parilka.  Our main room or parilka is large enough to accommodate six or eight men at one time.  When we go into the sauna for the effects of its heat on the body, it is called hovering.
   The procedure for using the Siberian sauna is simple.  We light the fire inside a great iron stove filled with dry wood.  Once it has gotten very hot, so hot that the stove turns red, then it is ready for us to hover.
   In this iron stove are big yellow stones upon which we pour a potion made from birch twigs.  The vapor from this liquid fills the sauna and after a couple of doses of the birch potion, everybody runs out of the parilka.
   In the winter, when the Angara is encrusted with ice and the temperature is -30 to -40 degrees  Centigrade, my father and I break up the  ice near the shore.  After spending time  in the banya, where the temperature is  incredibly hot, we run out and jump into  the icy water.  Immediately, our skin turns  a bright red and we finish off the hot/cold  adventure with a hot lemon tea.  To  describe the feeling of exhilaration it  gives is impossible, and only one who  has experienced it would understand  what I am saying.
   At the present time, I am attending  School #44, one of the best schools in  Russia.  Every year Americans come to  our school.  We even have an American  club here called "Bulldogs".  We have a pool, computers, and an auditorium in our school.  School #44 is celebrating it's fifth anniversary this year.
    I have a sister, who is six years older than me.  She is presently studying to be a lawyer.  My mother and father have their own law firm Iliga.
   My infatuation is soccer, studying English, the Internet, and dabbling in journalism.  When I was a little kid I wrote short stories.
   Even though at times, because of the administration of my country, I want to leave here and go somewhere like America, the beauty of Eastern Siberia makes me reconsider.