closed-mouthed Russian named Omitri Pudovkin, Mitya as we usually called him. His assistant was an Englishman named Willy Smith, who had married a Russian woman before the war and become a citizen. His wife, Lena, cooked, served, and presided over the table, but otherwise had nothing to do with me, and as far as I could tell with Willy Smith either.
The two men had run the mine when the British owned it and continued to run it after the government took over, except that their roles were now reversed. Pudovkin was superintendent, Smitty the mine manager; but nobody seemed to mind.
That winter, I spent much of my time poring over the Russian grammar I had picked up before leaving New York, trying to retain words and phrases in a language that seemed impossibly bizarre, formal, elaborate, brutal, without those connections with other European languages that might make you feel you were not venturing into totally unfamiliar territory. Mityaâs broken English was hard to follow, but Smitty had a Yorkshire accent so thick that I had almost as much trouble understanding him as I did Mitya. The Russian words I picked up were those that came out of the job. The words for adit and stope, mine opening, shaft, drill, explosive, you name itâproduction, shift, worker, timekeeperâso that, even if I could get by in Platinumgrad, nobody anywhere else would know what I was talking about.
Smitty spoke no more Russian than he had to, and the miners didnât always speak Russian either. A good half of them came from barbaric places on the northern slopes of the HimalayasâTien Shan, Sayan, and Alma Ata, ranges nobody else ever heard of, places with exotic names like Kazakh, Turkeman, Kirghiz, and Uzbekâand they knew even less Russian than I did, spoke their own languages and communicated with Smitty through the foremen who actually ran the mine and who could generally make sense of their dialects.
You were no longer in Russia, in Europe, you were in Asia on the eastern edge of the Siberian steppe that rolled endlessly beyond the hills that closed the valley in on the east. Nothing was quite familiar. There were mornings you were awakened by the Muslim call to prayer, to submission to Allah, and you would see the men dropping to their knees, pressing their foreheads to the frozen earth, humps and grumps of skins, furs, and cloth.
The workers lived in barracks, with maybe fifty to seventy people apiece, and most of the larger barracks had a Red Cornerâa sort of assembly hall that was also used as a classroomâto teach those who couldnât to read and write and those who didnât understand the social system and the principles of Marxism on which the new system was being built. In the evenings, the Red Corner became a sort of nightclub or dancehall, with the workers providing their own entertainment. Vodka had been outlawed during the revolution, but the workers made an acceptable substitute out of potatoes or grain, a sort of Russian version of bathtub gin, and though it was cloudy rather than clear it packed a bigger wallop than any of the legitimate vodkas Iâve ever tried.
People played the guitar, the balalaika, and the accordion, and everyone sang and danced. I would often go down to the nearest Red Corner and sit in the shadows for hours listening to sounds that Iâd never heard before. Frantic, frenzied, passionate, barbaric. The excitement was palpable, compounded of noise and energy and alcohol, and for a time you almost stopped feeling the cold, forgot that you were trapped there, at the edge of the world.
The officials who now ran the mineâthe directors, I suppose, of the operationârepresented the local soviet, or town council, but they ran the mine just as it had been run before the Revolution, except that socialist thugs replaced capitalist bullies, with no appreciable improvement for anyone. The managers still retained seigniorial rights over the women and
The two men had run the mine when the British owned it and continued to run it after the government took over, except that their roles were now reversed. Pudovkin was superintendent, Smitty the mine manager; but nobody seemed to mind.
That winter, I spent much of my time poring over the Russian grammar I had picked up before leaving New York, trying to retain words and phrases in a language that seemed impossibly bizarre, formal, elaborate, brutal, without those connections with other European languages that might make you feel you were not venturing into totally unfamiliar territory. Mityaâs broken English was hard to follow, but Smitty had a Yorkshire accent so thick that I had almost as much trouble understanding him as I did Mitya. The Russian words I picked up were those that came out of the job. The words for adit and stope, mine opening, shaft, drill, explosive, you name itâproduction, shift, worker, timekeeperâso that, even if I could get by in Platinumgrad, nobody anywhere else would know what I was talking about.
Smitty spoke no more Russian than he had to, and the miners didnât always speak Russian either. A good half of them came from barbaric places on the northern slopes of the HimalayasâTien Shan, Sayan, and Alma Ata, ranges nobody else ever heard of, places with exotic names like Kazakh, Turkeman, Kirghiz, and Uzbekâand they knew even less Russian than I did, spoke their own languages and communicated with Smitty through the foremen who actually ran the mine and who could generally make sense of their dialects.
You were no longer in Russia, in Europe, you were in Asia on the eastern edge of the Siberian steppe that rolled endlessly beyond the hills that closed the valley in on the east. Nothing was quite familiar. There were mornings you were awakened by the Muslim call to prayer, to submission to Allah, and you would see the men dropping to their knees, pressing their foreheads to the frozen earth, humps and grumps of skins, furs, and cloth.
The workers lived in barracks, with maybe fifty to seventy people apiece, and most of the larger barracks had a Red Cornerâa sort of assembly hall that was also used as a classroomâto teach those who couldnât to read and write and those who didnât understand the social system and the principles of Marxism on which the new system was being built. In the evenings, the Red Corner became a sort of nightclub or dancehall, with the workers providing their own entertainment. Vodka had been outlawed during the revolution, but the workers made an acceptable substitute out of potatoes or grain, a sort of Russian version of bathtub gin, and though it was cloudy rather than clear it packed a bigger wallop than any of the legitimate vodkas Iâve ever tried.
People played the guitar, the balalaika, and the accordion, and everyone sang and danced. I would often go down to the nearest Red Corner and sit in the shadows for hours listening to sounds that Iâd never heard before. Frantic, frenzied, passionate, barbaric. The excitement was palpable, compounded of noise and energy and alcohol, and for a time you almost stopped feeling the cold, forgot that you were trapped there, at the edge of the world.
The officials who now ran the mineâthe directors, I suppose, of the operationârepresented the local soviet, or town council, but they ran the mine just as it had been run before the Revolution, except that socialist thugs replaced capitalist bullies, with no appreciable improvement for anyone. The managers still retained seigniorial rights over the women and
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