usb Sibria 1,2

Siberia

Siberia

    1.

Before his mind’ eyes faded away a black train into the forest of silver-twinkling birches, while he was reading a couple of passages, below, in a book titled 'East of The Sun':

........."Siberia" itself is a mystical term, derived from the Mongolian

siber ("beautiful", "wonderful", and "pure"), and the Tartar sibir,

which means "the sleeping land". The sleeping beauty at its heart was

Lake Baikal, the oldest lake in the world, the largest fresh-water lake

......It was revered by a number of Siberian tribes as "Holy Sea".

Even the Russian, who developed various superstitions

about its sudden, apparently willful storms

(whipped up by winds sweeping down from its volcanic ramparts),

would say that " it is only upon Baikal in autumn

that a man learns to pray from his heart."

Anyway Moon who liked to regard himself as a 'Bohemians' was driven

by the phrases in 'East of The Sun' to abruptly set out on a long journey

to Russia. Before flying on board a Moscow- bound Aeroplot,

he decided where to go: Moscow and Petersburg, and

Irkusk in Siberia as the final destination. Regarding Irkusk, the book

said to him that the city is not far from  Baikal. It was because

he was anxious to see the lake by it and smell the air in person.  

 In the airplane he would mumble to himself:

"What mysteriousness on earth does Baikal have in it ?"

"how powerful are the storms of the lake?"

" Now it is February. How different will the lake in spring be

from that in autumn?

 

The outskirt of Moscow laden with snow, seen through the window

of the taxi running toward the downtown, was in a sense a landscape 

in deep silence, in which there were nothing except the flat lands 

deprived of the light, trees bare of leaves, and the deeply cloudy sky  

A great grey-colored landscape realistically painted in inky black!

He wondered: What does deprived Moscow of the light",

Where is the light gone?" "Gone to the sea of Cadiz of Andalusia?"

 

The Moscow railroad station was one hour and more away on foot 

from the hostel where he stayed 2 nights. The hall of the station,

crowded with  a lot of people, seated or lying on the benches,

was comparatively quiet, After a while a man in black began to play,

unaccompanied, a tune which was thought to be a Beethoven

on the grand piano. Moon stood by the window side near the piano,

looking outside at the vertical top of a tower far away. with his ears

given to the overwhelming sound of the piano tune.

And three men fitted out as travelers stood separately not far from

the piano. one leaned his body against the wall, gazing at the pianist,

another was looking out through the window like Moon, listening with his

and the last standing with hands on his back seemed to concentrate

his mind and ears on the music judged by one of his hands moving,

as if it were dancing to the rhythm and melody.

As soon as the pianist was playing another tune, Moon began

to mumble in spite of himself:

Just a minute, familiar to my ears. It must be a Tchaikovsky.

Well ....maybe not. Judged by the tone color in deep solitude,

it might be a List or Chopin.

No...no, the tone color of the piece in a bit exotic atmosphere.

Could it not be a  Mussorogsky ?

You , Moon! What is the use of trying to know the name of the composer?

Just give your ears to the piece, the  unworldly touch, sweet and bitter.

He kept on saying to himself:

Hey! Look at the traveler with his hands on the back. 

his fingers are dancing in harmony with the rhythm and melody!

Oh.  It seems that I come alone to Moscow to experience

a spiritual shivering at the heavenly sound like this,

now in the station where there is none to know me!

 

The unexpected piano performance was finished and he had to be seated 

doing nothing in the hall for another 2 hours till the time when the train will

depart to Siberia.

So he began to beguile the tedious time thinking of his private feeling

about the hostels of the 2 cities he had spent a few nights each

'Vagabond hostel' in Moscow  of which he checked out this morning

was much more comfortable to stay in than 'Nord hostel', in Petersburg.

In the former hostel, he enjoyed breakfast and even internet free. 

There a young hosteller from London, kindly enough, presented him

a literary book about Russian history titled 'Russka'.  

More than anything else, the former hostel was like a home, compared

with the latter which was of business-like atmosphere.

 

And he kept on filling up the dull hour in the station by looking back upon

Neva River and Nevsky, the main street of Petersburg;

Nava river in the morning was all ashy.

In addition to that, Pellets of snow were silently falling down on it.

Then the water underneath looked dirty and muddy.

So I turned my eyes afar.

The river was rather a subject matter for impressionist painters

who would like to view from a distance.

hexagon-shaped structures of granite, straight line of the broad road,

the long embankment, and the river running

with a giant lump of ice embraced in it and on it the misty sun!

It looked like an impressionistic landscape.

 

As for the Nevsky street, thinking of the novel of "Nevsky Prospect"

by Gogol he went to the Nord Hostel, his destination on foot for

over an hour, in stead of going by taxi, in order to feel how the real street was

He had read the novel before starting his journey to Russia.  

 

The story of Nevsky Prospect begins by saying that there’s nothing

better than Nevsky—at least not in St. Petersburg—and the writer

quickly establishes it as a place where people promenade and

forget about whatever needs to be done. Though a part of everyday life,

Nevsky street is also apart from everyday life. At the end of the story,

he was instructed not to believe Nevsky, It’s all a (day)dream and

a deception, and a demon lights the lamps to show everything

in a false light.

 

And it was followed by a couple of differences between the 2 cities

he had read in his house through internet before his departure:

Officially the capital of Russia is Moscow.

However St. Petersburg is often called the Northern Capital.

This isn’t by chance.

These two cities came to prominence at separate times,

and they have been competing with each other for 300 years, beginning in 1703,

when Emperor Peter the Great founded St. Petersburg on the banks of the river Neva.

The reason for the confrontation lies in the fact that

St. Petersburg was originally built to be exactly what is: the opposite of Moscow.

Moscow is the embodiment of the Russian city;

St. Petersburg of the European city.

.............

The city is much smaller than Moscow. There a person wants to walk, not run,

although Muscovites don’t walk, they take cabs or the Metro

during the long winter. Muscovites accuse St. Petersburg of being depressing,

because the pace of life is too slow. This is partly because of the climate.

St. Petersburg lies much further north and the city is very wet and windy.

Muscovites often catch cold after visiting St. Petersburg.

The sun rarely warms the citizens of Petersburg, because of high humidity. 

Moscow is sunnier, and that’s why it seems smarter, than Petersburg.

But there is an eclecticism that is peculiar to Moscow. An antique building and

a glass skyscraper can be neighbors in Moscow, but not in St. Petersburg.

That’s why citizens of St. Petersburg say that the Muscovites don’t have a sense

of style, whilst Muscovites accuse St. Petersburg as being boring.

 

    

in Siberia

2

Trans-Siberian railway (usually called TransSib) is the world’s longest and the most famous train route. It crosses the whole Russia, starting in Moscow, passing through the European Russia, crossing the Urals mountains (which separate Europe and Asia), spanning further into Siberia’s taiga and steppes, ending in Vladivostok — the Russian Far East port on the Pacific Ocean

A train is moving through the endless landscape, the passengers and busy with their everyday chores, eating, sleeping, playing cards, drinking vodka, selling stuff to each other, and having occasional philosophical conversations.

Some people start wondering what’s outside of their carriage and what it is like outside of the train. Some venture to explore and find that not all carriages are the same: the posh ones towards the front of the train are more quiet and comfortable, the poor ones towards the end have no privacy and little space but are much more fun. Some of the explorers end here and start making business having learnt about the social discrepancy on the train (it turns out the poor ones are keen to trade their food for silver spoons from the 1-st class carriages). 

 Only a few do not stop there and try to find out what’s outside of the train. They have lengthy discussions about the possibility of jumping off or climbing outside to see what’s really going on. But they also realize the risks (one can easily fall off or be left behind). Finally, the bravest ones climb out on top of the train roof and realize that there’s a whole new world around passing by which they cannot really explore because they are on the train and that train ride is really their whole life. So the only way to discover the world passing around is to stop the train, to pause their life, to change the rules of the game, but that also means putting an end to their current experience… 

It’s better to leave the end of the story to those who want to read the book, but it’s even better to find out what it really feels like through taking the Trans-Siberian journey.

 

*As for him, He would like to draw a picture of his making a Trans-Siberian journey. In his imagination, he started the journey by crossing the Military Demarcation line, which divides Korea between South and North and of course prohibtts a common South Korean to go over to North , and at the station of Vladivostok he rode a night train bound for Moscow.

 

 On the running train which left Moscow Station for Irkusk, he stood leaning his body against the window frame, sipping hot Samobar teas. The snow-covered prairie outside with no hills, nor mountain seen above the horizon was like the silent and silver-colored sea, on which several islands of forests floated. Surprised and unbelievable at the fictitious scene spread before his eyes, he rubbed them and looked outside again, but it was the same as the scene seen before. 

The slow train kept running into the prairie of Siberia through every station where it stopped and departed repeatedly. The next day on the train he wished to experience passing by train over the Ural Mountains , so he looked out again and again. He was informed that the Siberian Railway train starting from Moscow should go beyond the Ural Mountains in order to reach Irkusk located deeply in Siberia. Whenever some rather low ridgelines came into sight, he thought that they would be parts of the Urals, expecting to see the main body of the Urals. However, the view he could catch was only the sleeping sliver-colored sea, not the Ural. To him, the snow-covered horizontal prairie, with forests and the endless horizon, looked as if it were still the silent sea with islands, not the Urals. In other words, it seemed to him that he was aboard a ship on a voyage, looking out the sea with island, not in a train running through the prairie. He was for while in a optical illusion.  As you know, he has been influenced in spite of himself by the sea in his hand, the very sea which he used to live by in his boyhood. Anyway  he did come to realize the fact that when he mumbled to himself, “Why do the Urals reveal themselves where they are thought to be? “, he had passed over the mountains without knowledge of it.

 

The Siberian Railway train was as if it were a running hostel and the train compartment, which he was in, was also as if a hostel room with 6 two-story beds. As a difference between both sides ,he felt, was that in the compartment he could hardly understand others because between him, who was completely ignorant of Russian language, and the passengers, who was illiterate in English. It was was not a trifling thing, because he could not but endure the inconvenience caused by his ignorance of Russian all the time on the train where there could be no mutual understanding between both sides. So he frequently stepped out of the compartment into the empty space between the compartment and another. As for him, the cold space outside the compartment, which let him feel easy and enjoy seeing the landscape outside in spite of severe coldness. But he had to continuously rub away the ice on the window to look out.  

From departure to Irkusk, his destination, what he saw on the running train was the gray-colored sky, snow-covered earth wider than the ocean, silvery forests in deep silence. He tried to lessen the feeling of uneasiness owing to his inability to talk with others by sipping hot Samobar teas, with his eyes turned out on the landscape. He thought Siberia was worthy of the name. Though it was in the beginning of March, the land still was sleeping under the thick cover of snow drifts like in winter.

On the one hand, the next day after his first night in the coach, it was warm and carefree. Three men looking like manual laborers sat around a table, playing a card game and a dog sat unmoved under the bed at a corner in the coach. The carefree scene reminded him of a work of Cezanne’s titled “a card game”.

 

Then surprisingly, in the Siberian Railway train the 3-class passengers were not allowed to step in the dining car. Probably it would be for that reason that there were no one without a couple of bundles of something to eat and drink. To him it was not a trifling problem, because he prepared nothing to eat but a lump of Russian bread and a bottle of water before getting on board. First he was much perplexed at it, but soon had a mind to stand the difficult situation with the bread and water in his bag for 5 nights till his destination.

 

 Toward evening the train stopped for a while at the station in a city.  Tens of peddlers crowded into the platform with something to sell in their hands or on their heads. Most of them seemed to be Siberian common housewives. In a moment the platform turned into a special market for passengers to buy necessities in ! He felt very lucky that he met such a market there. Needless to say, he could buy some necessary foodstuffs and beverages plus a bottle of wine.

It was from then on that he could get more comfortable on the running train free of the obscure uneasiness. He again looked outside through the window of the running train to enjoy the panoramic landscape of the Siberian Taiga forests spread far and wide. In a way, the scene was a picturesque landscape caught in the consciousness of a foreign passenger aboard the train was dashing to the east through the Siberian Taiga forests,

with the Ural far away behind. In case of his Siberian train Journey, with Moscow Station as the starting point and Irkusk the final destination, the snow-covered prairie and forests was most impressive to this foreign passenger.

 At a time it was getting darker outside, he was reminded of the day when he set out on a trip to Russia. The day was also the moment to bid farewell to his son who was , for some days to come,scheduled to go to LA to live there, He had shared the precious time with his son for the last 7 days. He bid farewell to his son ,saying his son, “It’s time to say goodbye to you. Today I leave home to make a trip, and you leave home for USA to live in LA before I am back home from my journey, When can I share again in the future the happy moment like it with you.”And I should have added an advise, “Hey, boy! Regarding your goal for the future life,   whatever it might be, let it be a goal with obstacles before it which seem to be hardly possible for you to get over immediately’ . 

the landscape of the Siberian prairie spread wide and far before his eyes did not look intimidating contrary to it in his earlier imagination . It looked common and like a generous old man living next door, in spite of its great width and wildness. The prairie of Siberia was greatly different from the landscape of Rocky Mountains with a lot of sharp cliffs in harshness. It showed so stern a look that he as a backpack traveler , had felt scared, thinking that the mountains would not allowed any human being like him to blindly to come closer.

In contrast to Rocky Mountains, this horizontal prairie of Siberia with no barrier to prevent his view toward the line between the sky and the earth did not get him scared. This wild being , in spite of its hugeness in size, hade an intimate look which made him feel   easy. Though he felt severely cold stepping out of the train whenever it stopped, The wide prairie with no visible end to any direction from him on the train, it never threaten this stranger. It never made him nervous or psychologically uneasy. In a sudden the Siberian landscape looked as if it were the bosoms of mother.

It was a moment after he passed a coupe of nights on the train.  Knowing that the next station the train was to stop at was Omsk.  he was reminded of a sad scene of a prisoner and a dog, embracing each other in order to endure loneliness, despair and the bitter cold, in the Omsk Prison in “The House of The Dead”. The novel was one of Dostoyevsky’s which he had read in his high school days. As the writer himself was thrashed at the Omsk Prison, it was thought that the novel was of his own life. Other novels like “ Crime and Punishment

‘ and  “The brothers of Karamazov “ by the writer was the popular novels among most students in Korea at that time when he was a student.

Anyway the names of Siberia and Omsk has been familiar since then and he came to understood more deeply about how was the lives of the Siberian exiles through  George Kennan, an American historian who remarked as follows:

“There is no other boundary post in the whole world that has seen so much of human suffering and so many broken hearts. More than 170,ooo exiles have traveled this road since 1878, and more than half a million since the beginning of the present century. In former years, when exiles were compelled to walk from their places of arrest  to the places of their banishment, they reached the Siberian post only after months of toilsome marching along muddy or dusty roads , over forest-clad mountains, through rainstorms or snowstorms, or in bitter cold...... Some gave way to unrestrained grief; some comforted the weeping; some knelt and pressed their faces to the soil..... and collecting  a little earth to take with them….. crossed themselves hastily , and with a confused jangling of chains and leg fetters, moved slowly away past the boundary into Siberia.

...........'

The train stopped at the station of Omsk. It was the very place of exile where , it was said, Dostoyevsky had spent 4 years in prison, he got down and walked on the snow-covered platform, picturing in his mind the scene regarding how did the exile and a dog share their reliance on each other, described in his novel as follows:

 

 The exile, who accidently meets a dog in the prison,

is overwhelmed with pity for it and comes nearer to it.

The dog first stands very cautious, snarling at him ,

but after a while gets ready to receive his mind.

As an abandoned dog with no person to rely on,

it has been hungry for friendship with a person whom it can trust,

He caress the dogs’ head. He gives the bread for him to the dog

The dog which turns docile wags its tail looking at him. The dog has outlived there with no person to take care of itself for a few years.

Since then the dog is sure to be where the exiles is.

Now finding out him waling alone in the forest, it barks and runs to him.

He squats to embrace it in his bosom. It puts its paws on his shoulder, licking his face.

 

 

On the passenger train there was a Russian woman, loudly dressed, looking in her 40s, who shared with him the two-storied berth. The lower berth was where she was . She had her own way in such a narrow space, paying no attention to his feeling. She giggled with two men passengers  next to them. She even revealed her hostility to him by complaining to him on the upper berth that a part of the bed cloth above gliding down was unpleasant to her eyes. He disliked her attitude but could not but say sorry. When the train stopped at a station, a young woman passenger got on, with a newborn baby on her bosom, and took her seat on the lower berth near them. Then the baby began to cry and would not stop it . The mother tried in vain to get the baby calm down. At the right moment the woman loudly dressed got out of her berth and approached the baby and held it in her bosom, lulling the baby to sleep. All of them there including him felt greatly relieved to see what she did.

On the third day at dawn the woman below began to get her things together and put her overcoat on . He kept watching in the darkness what she was doing still in bed on the upper berth. The train was coming  closer and closer to a station . When the train stopped, he quietly came down from his berth and helped her by carrying a bigger bags of hers out of the train.  He was looking at her walked away into the dark coldness .    
In the beginning of March it was severely cold outside but not so severely. HeThe Siberian landscape wasw시베리아의 3월 초 새벽은 가벼운