Sibir (35 page)

If I could not visit the region in person, I was at least able to gain some knowledge of it from a number of Chukchee friends. Not least of these was Anna Dmitrievna Nutegryne, a very attractive thirty-eight-year-old Chukchee woman who has been Chairman of the Chukotka National District for several years, as well as being a praesidium member of the Supreme Soviet in Moscow. In 1969, Anna was in Leningrad taking a year’s leave of absence from her job in order to complete her studies for a degree in history. She was an old friend of Yura’s and we foregathered in his apartment where I heard a great deal about Chukotka, old and new.

I was intrigued by the structure and nature of the Chukotka National District. National Districts are transitional arrangements intended to preserve small native groups, but they are in no sense reserves in the image of Indian reservations in North America. They were designed to prevent the dissolution of small native populations and their cultures while at the same time encouraging them to develop a modern social, economic, and political structure.
In the Soviet Union the native peoples have no choice as to what that structure will be; however they do have the opportunity, and encouragement – accompanied by lavish material assistance – to build it by and for themselves.

As the people of National Districts master the complexities of modern existence, they qualify for recognition as Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republics, of which there are now twenty in the
U.S.S.R.
In theory, at least, the next step is to achieve complete equality with other states as a fully fledged Soviet Socialist Republic.

The Chukotka National District occupies the whole northwest peninsula of continental Asia and comes under Magadan for external administrative purposes; but within its own borders it is to a very real degree self-governing. With a population of just under 80,000 people, over half of whom are non-natives (mostly miners and new townsfolk), it has its own capital at Anadyr and its own District Soviet of which Anna is the “President.” The District Soviet has direct control over most local activities and over most of the renewable natural resources, but has little to say, except in a consultant role, about the new urban-type European-dominated communities or about the development of mineral resources. Nevertheless, a reasonably high proportion of the profits from mineral development in Chukotka goes into the district treasury in the form of direct payments; while the Soviet government heavily subsidizes the entire gamut of district activities and enterprises.

It is a good sign that the natives of Chukotka – roughly 20,000 Chukchee; two thousand Eskimos; two thousand Evenk, Yakut and Koryak; and about eight thousand “Old Russians,” including people of mixed blood – are by no means satisfied with their share of the income from Chukotka gold, mercury, and tin and are vocal in their demands for a bigger cut.

The whole system of National Districts, of which there are now ten in Russia, inevitably breeds nationalism.
Because it does so it is viewed by some autocrats with a hostile eye. The international battle between the “lumpers” who would do away with all small national entities in favour of “one world” agglomerations of people, and the “splitters” who believe mankind would be healthier and more likely to evolve in a viable direction if we preserved at least the best of the differences which distinguish neighbouring groups, still rages in Russia as it does almost everywhere in the modern world.

Nationalism, born out of Lenin’s original concept of encouraging the preservation of significant cultural characteristics and racial unity within ethnic groups, has become and remains a potent factor in the Soviet Union. Distrusted by some, stubbornly defended by others, it is a fact of Soviet life. Anna Nutegryne sees it this way:

“We Chukchee feel a great warmth and loyalty to the Soviet State. It has given us the right to remain Chukchee, while at the same time becoming full Soviet citizens. Our pride in our own race has not lessened our feelings of pride in the State. When we became part of the modern world, we were not forced to do so at the cost of losing ourselves. We were not submerged in the huge sea of Soviet peoples. No, we were helped to build a strong ship called Chukotka, and we sail on that ship in a fleet of friendly vessels, all heading in the same direction. Sometimes, of course, one of the bigger ships may take some of our wind, and then we have to struggle amicably for our rights. But we have the freedom to struggle, and we can win because we Chukchee are all together.”

Doubtless Anna’s analogy is oversimplified, but it accurately reflects the attitude of most of the Small Peoples.

Chukotka has had a peculiar history. Throughout modern times its Eskimo and Chukchee people (who speak a different tongue but are culturally very similar) had a much closer relationship to North America than to European Russia. In Tsarist times they were thought of as the only unconquered people in the entire country.
They paid tribute to the Tsar only on a voluntary basis as “gifts to the poor white chief.” From about 1880 onward they came into close contact with white traders from Alaska and the northwestern states of America, and the seeds of capitalism were sown in a society which was originally more truly communistic than the one devised by Marx and Lenin. During this period the Chukchee even produced a few “kings,” local entrepreneurs who allied themselves with the foreigners, engrossed the once communally held reindeer herds to their own use, and controlled trade between their people and the Americans. The last of these was a man called Armavargan, who thought of himself as brother to the Tsar and fully his equal.

The Revolution did not really touch Chukotka, except in token form, until 1928. As late as that time most of the Eskimo and Chukchee on the northeast coast spoke English, not Russian, as their second language. Primitive socialism had been replaced by mercantile capitalism and they were well started along the road which the Alaskan Eskimo have since followed.

When the first Soviet proselytizers arrived amongst them, there was hell to pay. The shamans and the chiefs united with the foreign traders to resist the newcomers and to block any reversion to socialism. Stories are told of American traders supplying free arms, including old brass cannon, to the Chukchee chiefs in an effort to persuade them to resist the Soviets by force of arms. Luckily the Chukchee and Eskimo are not warlike, and they declined the honour of dying in what would have been, for them, a hopeless struggle.

The New Life (as the Revolution is known in Chukotka) did not really take hold there until people had become literate. This marked the turning point. By the mid-1930s socialism had been sufficiently well established so that the Chukotka National District could be formed and allowed a measure of self-government.

Today, according to those Chukchee and Eskimo I
talked to, this little “nation” is well on its way to achieving recognition as an Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. Its native peoples are mostly employed on collectives and state farms. Reindeer herding has proved to be extremely profitable, and a major sea-mammal hunting operation (primarily for whales and seals) is conducted by a score of shore collectives. Chukotka has its own radio system and television studios broadcasting in native languages. In Anadyr it has its own publishing house, producing books by local writers as well as translations from the Russian and from foreign languages. By 1969 the district had produced twenty-one fully qualified Chukchee and Eskimo doctors, enough native teachers to staff all forty of its primary and secondary schools (this figure is exclusive of schools in the new cities) and a number of specialists, including Vladimir Rentirgin, a Chukchee who is Chief of the Research Institute for Gold and Nonferrous Metals in Magadan; and Ivan Leekay, of Eskimo and Chukchee blood, who was recently elected to the
U.S.S.R.
Academy of Sciences as a philologist.

The Eskimos of the town of Uelen maintained direct contact with their Alaskan relatives up until 1956. Parties from both sides of the Bering Strait used to meet on the winter ice off the Diomede Islands and camp together for days at a time. This happy leak in the Cold War wall was eventually plugged – not by the Russians but, according to Yura, by the Americans, possibly, as he suggested, “Because they not want their Eskimos to see and hear truth about life in our Chukotka.”

The Chukchee are a lusty people and Yura and some other Chukchee friends gave me considerable insight into the current state of love and sex in Russia.

Despite what we read about Russian puritanism, I am able to report that sex remains alive and well in the Soviet Union. There is, however, an old-fashioned sense of propriety
amongst European Russians which insists that people preserve a rather Victorian appearance of prudery, which perhaps explains the disgruntled comments of some western journalists who, after a few months in Moscow, begin to react like Pavlov’s dogs who hear the bell, but can’t quite run it down. I am sorry for these gentlemen and I pass on to them some reflections on the matter from a charming young Muscovite whose job brings her into frequent contact with westerners.

“It is so very strange the way many foreign men behave. If they have a few drinks with you in a café, or take you to dinner or a dance, they take it for granted you will go back with them to their hotel, or let them go back with you to your apartment.

“Don’t they know there is more to it than that? I will go anywhere with a man I love, and I am proud to take my lover to my place; but there
must
be love. If I just slept with a man in a hotel or at my flat, people would think me stupid. They would despise me; and they would be right. There must be love before love-making. But, in Russia it is possible to fall in love in one minute … if only both people will allow themselves to do it.”

The romantic approach is generally the correct one in the Soviet Union. There are, however, certain practical difficulties to overcome. One is the lack of privacy, particularly in the major cities. In summer this poses no great problem … the birch glades surrounding Moscow are hospitable to lovers, and easy to reach by public transport. In winter things are not so easy. Hotel rooms are almost impossible to get unless you are from out of town. There are no convenient motels. But there
are
the cosy sleeping compartments on Russian trains. A friend of mine who travels frequently between Leningrad and Moscow estimates that nearly half the weekend rail passengers are lovers making the most of the overnight run between the two cities. “You have no idea how strong the romantic flavour is aboard the Friday night
train to Leningrad. I have had to stop using the weekend trains. It is too upsetting for an old man like me,” he told me somewhat sadly.

Love finds a way even in Moscow, where young men band together and acquire, by whatever devious methods, a room or a flat whose facilities they share in common. A friend of Yura’s explained the system to me. “What we do is make little badges – like this one I am wearing – and we wear them when we are on the subway or at a party. See? It says on it, only,
I Have A House
. It doesn’t guarantee any girl will become your friend; but if a girl you meet begins to fall in love with you it tells her that her love won’t go to waste. Here, take my badge. And here is the address. But, please, telephone this number first. Nobody will answer but if it stops ringing, wait for an hour and then try again. If it rings more than a dozen times it means you are welcome to use our room.”

Because I am not about to snitch on any of my Russian friends, I can use no names, but both Claire and I were astounded at the multiplicity of romantic entanglements which seemed to surround all our companions. They kept falling into and out of love with a frequency and ardour that left me exhausted just thinking about it.

As might be expected, attitudes vary in different parts of the country. In Georgia or Armenia, for instance, the direct approach to a woman is acceptable. In fact, give a Georgian a few litres of his native wine and any other approach becomes unthinkable.

I remember a night when we were driving back to Tbilisi after a country outing culminating in a party at a vineyard worker’s house – a party that lasted for nine hours, and during which incredible amounts of new wine went down the hatch. There were two carloads of us weaving down the highway toward the distant city. Claire and I shared the back seat of the rear car with a young Georgian interpreter. Sitting up front with the driver was one of the most distinguished literary figures in the
Georgian Republic, a fine old man with a pointed white beard and the dignity of a Khan. Our own interpreter, a young Muscovite named Sasha who had a low tolerance for Georgian wine, was driving in the lead car with Yuri Rytkheu.

Halfway home the lead car screeched to a halt, a door swung open, and someone fell out into the ditch. Our car stopped too and I jumped out, suspecting that all was not well with young Sasha. All was not well. He was rendering unto Georgia what was Georgia’s.

When I returned to our car Claire had a wild-eyed look, and she pushed so close against me that the young Georgian was left with most of the back seat to himself. However, I was preoccupied with Sasha’s problems and did not correctly evaluate the undercurrents.

We had gone only a few kilometres farther when the whole scene repeated itself. This time Sasha refused to get back into his car and began crawling around the ditch on his hands and knees. Yura joined me and we discovered what was wrong. Sasha possessed two solid-gold front teeth of which he was extremely proud. They were no longer in his mouth, and he was dumbly determined not to leave the scene without them.

Walking back toward our car I met Claire running toward me. She looked as if she had been in a football scrimmage.

Later, in our hotel room, she unburdened herself.

“The first time you got out, the Georgian interpreter grabbed me as if I was his long lost love and kissed me so hard I nearly suffocated. I thought I was going to strangle. Then you came back and I had a chance to catch my breath and collect my wits. I didn’t want to say anything to you, because … well, it would have been embarrassing. Then, before I could stop you, you jumped out again. I was just going to jump after you when old pointy-beard turned around, grinning like a goat, and pushed his paw up under my skirt. It took me two seconds to get out of the car but they were the longest
two seconds in my life. Georgian men! Don’t you dare get out of arm’s reach again until we leave this place!”