On our last day in Saransk, we decided to visit the Musum of sculptor Stepan Erzia. Erzia was of Mordovian origins but lived in Europe and Argentina for most of his life. Sculpting in a various materials from marble to concrete, he has come to be famous mostly for his work in the Amazonian quebracho wood.

The museum was a large, airy building dating to the 1970s with 90 sculptures occupying the top floor. As we wondered about the large open spaces of sculptures, it was a wonder to see how accurately Erzia captured emotions in the faces of his subjects. From terror to mirth, all human sentiments were captured with unique precision in the dark knots of the quebracho wood, or the white sparkling marble, or the perforated greyness of reinforced concrete.

After an uninspiring guided tour from a bleak middle-aged woman, I struck up a conversation with a museum worker who sat close by several sculptures of wildly dancing and swirling figures. To my astonishment, Ludmila Gregorievna was not only eager to talk about herself and ask me everything about my life, but also to reveal some fascinating secrets hidden in the works of Erzia themselves!

“I’m actually from Latvia, from a town 40 km away from Riga,” she said, “my husband was in the military, he was transferred to Saransk to serve in 1992, and I’ve worked in the museum for the past nine years. I didn’t know anything about Erzia before, being that I’m from Lativa, but since working here I’ve read plenty of books, and have listened to plenty of tours! A few years ago a woman from Yaroslavl even took an interview from me! She said she was going to write an article about me in her city.”

I informed her that I had the same idea, and asked her about her favorite work. “This one,” she pointed, “it’s called ‘The Dance’. But you know, it’s not really a dance at all. It’s the Fall of Man! ‘The Dance’ is just what the sculptor called it so that it wouldn’t be destroyed when he came back from Argentina to the Soviet Union in 1950.”

At this point she lowered her voice and continued in a hurried whisper: “When he came back religion was banned here, so he called it ‘The Dance’. But over there you can see Adam, and Eve is coming out of his rib, on the other side. And over here, with the head bowed, that’s a sad angel! It had big, big wings before but they were broken in the transportation. And all of them are falling, falling, falling down to the sinful earth! The real title of this sculpture is the ‘Fall of Man’.

“And this other sculpture over here,” Ludmila Gregorievna indicated, “called ‘The Ballerina’s Dance’, that’s no ballerina! It’s a witch’s dance! Look! She has hooves! I read a book where it was written that the real title was ‘Witch’s Dance’. See? You can see her wild, matted hair and she’s naked!” she said excitedly. “Our tour guides around here say it’s the ‘Ballerina’s Dance’, but that’s not true!”

“I like the ‘Fall of Man’,” she said thoughtfully, “I’m not sure why. Maybe I’m a superstitious person. I don’t know. But I feel some kind of longing for God in my soul, I mean I’m not saying I’m an avid believer or anything! There’s so much I don’t know! But still, this sculpture agrees with me the most. All the young women that come around here taking pictures, I lead them all to that sculpture. I tell them ‘Girls, take a picture next to Eve, so that you have success in marriage, and have kids, our human line started with Eve after all.’ And they all leave very happy!”

We had to pay 100 rubles ($3) to photograph in the museum, and technically we weren’t allowed to take pictures of the sculptures by themselves. But Ludmila Gregorievna whispered to my mother and I, “Listen, go pay, and then you can take your picture, just stand to the side a little bit but point the camera right at it. You don’t necessarily have to get the person in the picture.”

But the most fascinating exhibit at the the museum turned out to be the head of Vladimir Lenin which Erzia had carved upon his return to the Soviet Union. Unlike the flowing, naturalistic sculptures from the Argentine period, it was perfectly worked over so that no natural elements of the wood remained unaltered. This unassuming foot-tall replica of the Revolutionary leader’s head was in fact the very thing that killed Stepan Erzia!

“He was old when he died. He tripped on that sculpture of Lenin, and hit his temple squarely on its nose, ” Ludmila Gregorievna whispered again, “you can see his blood on the nose still! See the dark spots? He lay there for 3 days before they found him, the rats had started to eat him!”

But girls, you have to be quiet about this,” she continued “don’t tell anyone I told you! They didn’t talk about it on Moscow’s orders in former days, and they still don’t like to speak of it now. I only found out after seven years or working here! There was a Finnish tour here, and their guide was the head of the Artists’ Guild of Mordovia, and he was the one who said this. I watched really carefully when he was telling the story. You should have seen them! I thought those Finns were going to take that Lenin’s head and carry it off they were so excited! I had to get in there and keep them away from it!

I marveled at her story, and wondered why our tour guide did not say anything about it. “You know, none of the other tour guides have ever mentioned anything!” she said, sharing in my bewilderment, “I don’t know why! Go look at the nose! But by yourself, I’ll stay over here. They don’t’ like me to talk about it.”

“When he came back to the USSR, the soviet sculptors criticized him a lot,” she said at length, “because they thought that nature did more to make his art than he did. See, some of these works are just pieces of wood and he made but a few carved lines! But this is true talent! To be able to see and reveal the hidden natures of these wood pieces. See, this is Socrates, and in the back it’s just warped wood! Those who don’t have talent, don’t see the image. In Moscow, they made him make Social Realism, which was the norm at the time. But there he proved himself worthy as well. He worked on these later pieces until there was nothing natural left, there are eyes, and details of clothing, the hair, everything! But my favorite are the Argentine sculptures.”

Before long I was surprised to find myself talking about intimate details of my life with Ludmila Gregorievna. We talked about my family and she asked all about how we ended up in America. I did the same.

She admitted that moving to Mordovia from Latvia was a difficult transition for her. “We have so much culture over there!” she said, “but here, all the women drink, and all the men drink, and they all curse in the buses and all over the place! The Moksha and Shoksha people are pretty crude. They can say mean things and even push you! At first I’d go to the market and wouldn’t be able to get back, because I kept being pushed out of the way and couldn’t get on the trolley! In Latvia, the men let the women in first, and the women let the children pass. Here everything is backwards. The men are the first to push you out of the way! But with time, I got used to it,” she laughed, “and started to push as well!”

After a fascinating and enlightening half hour, I left Ludmila Gregorievna just as I had found her and she warmly wished me well. Passing Lenin’s head and the swirling figures of Adam and Eve, I wondered at the life with which the sculptor had endowed them. I thought of the years he spent carving at one of the hardest woods in the world, and revealing in it the depth of human emotions and tragedies. And the irony of Stepan Erzia’s story was that just as surely as he had made the wood, or stone, or cast come alive with the power of his art, so too was he killed at the hand (or more precisely at the nose) of his own creation.

The first thing my grandmother’s sister Luba said to me was “Well! You’re not nearly as fat as you looked on your pictures!” The first thing my grandmother said to her was “Luba! Aren’t you wearing a bra?!” After affirming that she was, Aunt Luba pushed us all into the largest room of her Penza apartment and started accosting my grandmother.

“I know you’re older than me Valia,” she said “but I couldn’t believe it when I heard that you were visiting our people in Saransk and you weren’t even planning to come see me!” This was true. Although the city of Penza is just a two-hour drive away, my grandmother had not originally planned to see her sister whom she hadn’t visited since 2003.

“You know my heart isn’t as healthy as yours!” she continued, “So as long as you’re able to, you’ve got to make the effort Valia!” The entire scene was made more humorous by the uncanny, twin-like resemblance of the two sisters. My grandmother accepted her younger sister’s scolding meekly and then waved her hand and proposed to move on to a different subject.

Aunt Luba and her husband Uncle Petia live in a small, Kruschev-era apartment in the center of Penza. There were carpets all over the walls and plants cramped everywhere throughout the rooms. Aunt Luba loves homeopathic medicine. From gigantic cacti to extensive Basket Plant colonies, she knows the methods of cultivation, extraction, and consumption of all of her plants and was eager to share her knowledge on how to cure just about any ailment.

The other thing she loves to do is hassle her husband, who has gotten used to it after decades of conjugal life and throughout most of our visit sat at the head of the table, cracking witty jokes and laughing at Aunt Luba’s beseeching.

Before retiring Uncle Petia was a highly prized worker at a factory in Pneza. He was even decorated by the Order of Lenin, the highest award given to Soviet civilians for outstanding service to the state. Large photographic portraits of him with his medals can be seen throughout the apartment.

Aunt Luba’s health has been deteriorating with age (despite her consumption of homeopathic remedies), and she often calls emergency medical services to her apartment. But in the room where she receives the doctors, a portrait of herself has been conspicuously superimposed on the portrait of Uncle Petia. “They told me I’d get killed for that Order of Lenin,” she explained, “if anyone I have coming in here saw that photograph. So I covered the medals with a picture of myself!”

At dinner we were joined by Aunt Luba’s oldest daughter and her daughter, as well as the cousins from Saransk. We ate family staples such as potato salad, meatballs, and aspic and listened to stories of Uncle Petia’s forgetfulness.

“A couple of weeks ago, he went to get his pension and after coming back home, he put the money and his passport somewhere and couldn’t find it!” Aunt Luba exclaimed.

“Why do you bring your passport with you?” my Mom inquired.

“Well, I needed to get the pension and they won’t give it to me without my passport,” he explained.

Their daughter Lena also chimed in, explaining that she even came over from work and helped her father look for the passport all over the house. “We dug all over the house! He even went to the police to put in a report, just in case it was stolen or something. Then, at 11:30pm he calls me up and says ‘I found it!’”

“Uncle Petia! You should just put it in the same place every time so you don’t forget,” my Mom advised.

“He knows perfectly well where we keep this stuff!” Aund Luba said, “In the kitchen, in a plastic bag, behind the butter in the refrigerator!”

It wasn’t really made clear by anyone why she keeps her important documents back there. The cacophonous discussion of the sisters’ money-storing habits, as well as the careless attitudes of the other family members towards them continued for some time. In the end Uncle Petia was the odd one out, as usual.

“You know, I looked it up in the encyclopedia, and I know what his problem is.” Aunt Luba concluded, “He’s got a bad head, that’s what they call ‘dementia’!”

The clearly lucid Uncle Petia only shrugged his shoulders.

Before leaving Aunt Luba initiated us into the methods of making Basket Plant extract which, as she said, “cures everything, and boosts the immune system.”

Basket Plant – (Callisia fragrans). Also known as золотой ус, or “golden whisker” in Russian – Extract

Take an odd number of runner segments (15 or 17) and soak them in 1/2 liter of Vodka, in a dark place for 2 weeks. Then strain and drink one teaspoon of extract before every meal!

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My grandmother was raised in a “5-wall” house at 70, Sovetskaya Street in the Mordovian village of Sabur Machkassi about 60 km from the city of Saransk. In 1926 Sabur Machkassi was considered a large village with a street and a half lined with houses and a large kolkhoz which employed virtually the entire population of the village.

My grandmother frequently remembers how hard everyone worked. Her grandfather was considered a kulak and was sent away to Siberia in the 20s. But as his convoy approached the prison camp Stalin’s article “Dizziness with Success” was published in Pravda, and my great-great-grandfather’s convoy was turned around. He came back to the remnants of of his large tin-roofed house which at the time consisted of a solitary corner of two white-washed walls.

My grandmother was baptized in the village church and she remembers her first communion. The bread soaked in church wine tasted so bad that she could not swallow it. “When I came out of the church, I spit it out and my mother slapped me so hard!” She also recalls how some time later, she watched as the church steeple was broken down and a granary was set up in the building by the local authorities. “I never understood why they had to break the roof, why they couldn’t have kept the building as it was and stored grain in it if that was so necessary…” she said when we came to see the now-restored church building.

My mother and grandmother and I took the trip from Saint Petersburg to visit my grandmother’s sister’s grave in Sabur Machkassi. Aunt Tonya was the oldest of the four girls in my grandmother’s family and passed away in August. Since the time of the WWII Sabur Machkassi has seen a slow exodus of its residents to nearby towns and to Saransk, yet traces of the old village, and of my family, still remain.

After seeing the haphazard village cemetery, in which all of the grave markers were painted in light blue, we visited the home of my grandmother’s cousin’s daughter Lusia. She was a woman in her late 60s with magnificent, crystal-clear blue eyes. Lusia took us around her impressive household which included a large house, land with an orchard and vegetable patches, and an array of animals including cows, goats, broiler hens, rabbits, and a pig who we only heard grumbling in the darkness of its pen. At dinner we were joined by her daughter-in-law Lena who is a teacher at the village school.

“I teach at the elementary school level, 1st through 4th grade” she said, “all the subjects.”
The village school has ten teachers and nine grade levels. There are 30 students at the school. This year there were five graduates, and four new students came in. To complete all eleven grades and obtain a high school diploma, the most motivated kids have to finish school at a nearby town. “Those who do well go on to study at the university in Saransk,” Lena said, “others go to the vocational school in Komsomolskoe.”

“My husband used to teach history but he doesn’t any more. When he left the school we had very little money, and small salaries,” she said. Her husband Slava now works at the cement factory nearby which has replaced the kolkhoz as the largest employer in the area.

“The factory is in disarray right now, lots of people have been laid off. It’s horrible! They do pay regularly, but the salaries have been cut. It all has to do with the crisis probably.” She paused for a while. “Or maybe there’s no crisis at all, and they’re just making a big deal over nothing. I don’t know.” There are no strikes however and the population lives more or less at the mercy of the factory employers.

Lena was born in the larger village of Chamsinka close to Sabur Machkassi. “I finished college in Saransk and then was sent over here to work in the school. I worked for a year and then Slava came to work.” Now she lives with her husband and two kids in the same house as Lusia.

I wondered out loud at what life must be like in such a small village, with its one-and-a-half streets, simple wooden houses and gradually aging population. “It’s not so bad!” Lena and Lusia both said laughing. “If only there was steady work! Otherwise things here are good. It’s calm,” Lena said.

After dinner we all took a stroll down the main street of Sabur Machkassi and came up to number 70. “It looks pretty much the same,” my grandmother confirmed. The current occupant of the house came out at the moment and watched us from the porch. To my disappointment, however, we did not talk to her or ask to see the place. The house now belonged to someone else and even my family’s memories did not give us the right to claim it any longer. As we turned around my grandmother pointed out little concrete shed overgrown by tall grass and lilac bushes. “This is where they used to make us kids sleep in the summer!” she remembered.

Soon after that we left to go back to Saransk and drove past the giant complex of the cement factory with signs that read “MordovCement: Outside of Time.” That evening I mused about our day, visiting relatives living and dead, and about the vast, lush expanses of the Mordovian countryside.

Over the past eighty years these places have been transformed by ideological revolutions, wars, and technological advances. Computers can now be found even in the village homes. The population has been employed by a variety of corporate structures and has seen beaureacrats’ titles change. Religion has been abolished and restored, and people’s lands were taken away only to be re-given. Yet some things remain as they were when my grandmother had to sleep in the shed. The same houses stand, the same wheat is grown in the fields, the church is as it once was, and the grave markers in the cemetery are still blue.

A friend once pointed out to me that in Slavic homes things are always ticking. This is true. Pretty much every Slavic home I know has a clock that ticks in almost every room. That evening, as always, I found the ticking mollifying. At the end of the day, when the house fell silent and sleep was creeping through the rooms, I felt at ease, alone with the relentless, steady, quiet ticking of the passage of time.

There’s something very romantic about traveling on the train. Perhaps it’s the explicit sense of journeying: watching landscapes creep past and change, the rhythmic clanking of the wheels, stopping periodically and seeing old ladies sell pies, beer, and fish. Food on the train always seems to taste better and tea is served in metal podstakanniki, or glass holders. These are the things I imagined before taking the trip to Saransk and my expectations were pretty much on point. The train was actually cleaner than I expected and our companion much more interesting (see story below).

My mother said that the trains were in much better condition than when she used to travel in the 80s. But the window in our compartment was not functioning well and our inability to close it was cause for calling train maintenance.

“I’ve been working on this railroad for a long time, and this kind of stuff happens all the time!” said our car attendant, Galina. The train we were on was old, and small repairs such as ours were left up to the reluctant work of the sour maintenance man who took a very long time in coming. “He does stuff but it’s almost impossible to get him to help out when you need it, he whines all the time!” Galina said.

“The trains to Moscow are better, they try to put better cars on the rails, and we get whatever is left over,” she explained, “I think that these are the same trains that Lenin took to see Krupskaya! You know, some are ok, everything works well and they have modern windows, but this one’s an old lady.”

Galina services the line from Saint Petersburg to Tolyatti, on the Volga River in the Province of Samara. “I used to go to Moscow, then to Adler (in the Sochi region), but I can’t go to Adler any more, I get headaches, it’s too hot and I don’t handle heat well. It’s hot on this line too but it’s still not the south.”

She has been working for Russian Railroads since 1988 and she talked a little about her life in this unusual profession. “You can say nothing has changed [in the past twenty years]. Things used to be simpler,” she said nostalgically, “the railroad is more or less kept up but now with the crisis they’ve stopped maintaining anything at all. Before things would be changed, repaired, and now…there’s no money, no resources…”

Galina was curious about us as well. It seemed that our compartment companion Vladimir Vasilyevich told her that my mother and I had come from America. “The grandpa in your compartment said you guys are coming from America?” she asked and became slightly flustered at my affirmation.

“I’m just asking because I’m thinking you’re probably in shock due to our transport! I told the others, I said ‘they must be shocked! Over there it’s not like it is here!’ It’s probably more civil over there in America…”

She added: “I’m ashamed! Goodness! I said we should be ashamed in front of these people! But then I think ‘Well, they’re ours, they’ll understand their own! They’ve come home after all!’ I already yelled at [the repair man]! What is this!? I was like ‘We’ve got Americans on the train!’ Don’t tell them over there in America about these trains of ours! It’s a shameful sight!”

After this lament about the state of her work place, Galina told me about her schedule and prospect on the railroad. She travels for five days and then has three days off at home in Tolyatti. She gets a 28-day vacation and a free round trip ticket on the train every year.

“But I’m sick of it!” she said, “I have 6 years until retirement, but I don’t know if I’ll work that long. Our medical commission is very hard to pass.” To continue working on the railroad, the attendants have their vision, hearing, balance, vibration and heat sensitivity tested. They also receive an electroencephalogram. “They check us like we’re going into space, and if anything little thing is off, that’s it, we lose the job!”

Those attendants who fail to pass the commission sometimes defer to the few private railroad companies which have appeared in recent years. “I work for Russian Railroads, it’s a state company, it’s a little more serious than the privately owned ones, and we get paid a little more. But even so, we’re not paid very much, especially with the crisis. We used to get a 50% bonus and now it’s down to 20%. At the beginning of 2008 we were getting 17,000-18,000 (about $600) rubles per month, now it may be down to 12,000 (about $400). And I don’t even know how much the retirement pension is.”

It was not always Galina’s dream to be a train attendant. “I’m from Siberia, from the Novosibirsk region,” she said, “then my husband got a job in Tolyatti. First I worked at AvtoVAZ, and then as a secretary, then at a milk factory, then got this job. It seemed so romantic back then! And now I’m so sick of it all!”

Despite this Galina seemed upbeat and caring for the passengers. Eventually, the grouchy, overweight repairman showed up wearing a mesh tank top and dirty pajama pants and fixed our window. We could not open it again until we reached our destination in Saransk, one of the last stops before Tolyatti. Galina hassled him the entire time he was working, but thanked him once he was done. To this he only replied “‘Thank you’? That’s not any kind of currency I’m familiar with.”