the ‘khazyaika effect'

As most of you know, I’ve been in Tallinn for the last two months, just working and enjoying the beauty of this medieval Hanseatic marvel. I’m leaving today.

To tell you the truth it’s been kind of a lonely period in my life. That's partly because, within about a month of arriving, I’d more or less worked out that I couldn’t stay long-term, mostly for financial reasons. So I didn't see much point in trying to forge social ties.

Meanwhile, both of my existing friends here moved to other countries in that same first month, which isolated me further. I  therefore spent a lot of time being ‘one’* ... which of course has its up and its down sides.

Still, Tallinn presented me with quite a few great moments, and I’ll remember my time here with some fondness. For a start, any time I needed to de-stress I could just go for a walk through the atmospheric alleys of the Old Town, which was two minutes from the front door of my school. It’s amazing how much that relaxed me when I felt stressed &/or cheered me up when I was a little down. I don’t think I’ve been to many places that are quite as therapeutic as “Vana Tallinna” (Old Tallinn), and having it so close by allowed me to re-discover my sense of wonder on at least a weekly basis**.

I also really enjoyed my Russian lessons, which took place in a 400-year-old stone labyrinth of a building with an Orthodox Ukrainian church in the basement, in a wonderfully rundown and comparatively tourist-free corner of the Old Town, right next to the medieval wall. Quite inspiring surrounds in which to do battle with the insanely complicated riddle of the Russian language ;-)

On top of that, I found another wonderful group of crazy Russian teenagers to keep me amused and occupied. In some ways they were the best thing about my time here, and I know I'm going to miss them a lot.

Yesterday was our final lesson, and it was mostly taken up by a ‘Death Match’ between three creatures that my students (working in teams of “evil geneticists”) had created during the previous week. The idea was to see which of their monsters would kill the others and take over the world after humanity’s demise – but we couldn’t decide, so one creature went to live on the Sun, another on Mars and a third to a faraway galaxy. I love it when I find a class who is willing to do this kind of ridiculous stuff with me. Thanks, guys!

And then, last but not least, there was my Khazyaika.

Before I explain that sentence, two things about the word itself. First, it’s one of many Russian words that look much cooler in cyrillic script than they do when transliterated into Roman letters. So here it is in cyrillic: “хозяйка”. See?

The second thing: “хозяйка” translates into English as “landlady”, but I always find myself wanting to use the Russian word instead – not because it looks cooler, but because, in my experience, the role of a хозяйка is quite different to that of a Western landlady. She conceives herself very differently in relation to her tenants, often taking a far more ‘hands-on’ role in their lives.

Of course, this can be a bad thing. I had one хозяйка in Kazakhstan, for example, who I could happily have watched being run over by a truck – she was quite frankly an evil, rat-faced bitch, whose rude intrusions into our lives never failed to make me feel angry and disgusted. But generally the хозяйка experience has been interesting, and occasionally very rewarding. Easily the best example so far has been Natalya, who owns 'my' flat in Tallinn.

Natalya is (at a guess) about 50 years old, Russian, lives next door and frequently comes to visit. When I first met her, I thought she was going to kill me: she’s one of those Russian ladies who comes across as incredibly scary (and on occasion I did avoid from her out of fear), but who is actually hiding a warm, generous heart beneath her formidable exterior ... much like a crocodile scooped out and filled with runny marshmallow ... or a cuddly kitten in a cactus suit ... or, ummmm ...

[word nerd considers momentarily]
[sees no good similes approaching down adjacent synaptic tunnels]

Ok, might be best if you insert your own comparison here. Use whatever soft-and-pleasant-thing-inside-a-hard-and-scary-thing image you prefer :-)

*ahem*

Moving on ...

Every time Natalya came to visit, she would leave me feeling exhausted, but I’d always be better off than when she'd arrived. She spoke to me in Russian at about 700 miles an hour, which led to some funny/embarrassing misunderstandings – like a few nights ago when she asked me if she could come around and take some photos. I assumed she meant with me, because I was planning to leave, so I said “Oh no, I’ve just had a haircut and it’s a nightmare!” (True story.) Turns out I hadn’t understood the whole intent of what she’d said – she actually wanted to take photos of the bath! I guess she’s going to put it in the ad for the next tenant.

Anyway, Natalya duly arrived the following night with her impossibly cute six-year-old granddaughter Dasha***. While she took photos of the bath, Dasha and I did some impromptu ‘language exchange’ – I taught her a few English words (like “cow”) and she chatted to me in Russian about her playhouse. Then Natalya (her breath smelling a little of whisky) gave me a shopping bag full of apples from her sister’s dacha, and we browsed Google maps together for about an hour while she told me amazing stories about her many journies through various parts of the USSR. It was a pretty cool part-of-an-evening – almost as cool as last night, when Nataliya came around to work out the electricity, gas and water bills with me, and then proceeded to bring my living room to life with her impersonation of a group of baby hedgehogs, who had followed her daughter Masha home once after losing their mother.

That might not seem like something worth re-telling, but just try and picture it for a moment. Conjure up your most stereotypical image of a stern-looking middle-aged Russian woman, with the cardigan, her hair wound up around her head several times, and a look of defiant self-determination on her face. Focus on that for a moment, and now imagine her in your living room, telling you a story which she punctuates with uproarious laughter and “Eeek! Eeek!” noises, as she holds her hands up to her face in the shape of baby hedgehog paws.

Would that not cause the needle on your surreal-o-meter to quiver?

Oh, and I want to tell you about the apples, ‘cause that became almost a custom between Natalya and I. It started one morning when she called me to find out if I’d managed to buy a good winter coat yet. (See what I mean about the difference between a хозяйка and a Western landlady?). I said that I had, and she insisted that I come in to her flat and model it for her. Of course, Natalya felt a duty to spend the next few minutes telling me all the reasons why my coat was rubbish. But she didn’t stand around idly while she was criticising my purchase; instead, she loaded up three full shopping bags with apples from the dacha, and gave them to me to take home.

I had no idea what to do with so many apples, so I looked around on the 'net for recipes. The upshot: I spent most of the following Saturday night baking an enormous German-style apple rum custard cake. After saving myself a generous-sized piece, I took about 2/3 of the cake to Natalya, to share with Masha and Dasha. My Russian teacher got the rest.

After that, I could scarcely lay eyes on Natalya without her foisting more apples onto me. In the end, the vegetable crisper in my fridge was full of them … I couldn’t keep up!

Anyway, as I said, I’m leaving Tallinn today. As I was doing the last of my cleaning, I got a phone call, and I knew exactly who it would be. “Anton!”, said a stern voice. “I invite you to breakfast!”

It was clear that this was not so much an invitation as an order.

”But Natalya, I’ve already had breakfast. I could come for coffee, though.”

”Anton, you know that they never feed you on those aeroplanes!****. If you want food, you have to pay a lot. That’s why you need MORE breakfast today!”

”Yes, I know, but …”

”So you’ll be here in 15 minutes? Good. That’s all.” And she hung up.

And so, my last half an hour on Sikupilli (my street in Tallinn) was spent in Natalya’s kitchen, eating her home-made pancakes with – what else? – apple sauce. She was in full flight, telling me about all the places I MUST visit in the next year, and about the genealogy of her family going back to the 15th Century. So I just sat back, shut up, ate my breakfast and enjoyed the whirlwind one final time :-)

Then she said “I’m coming downstairs with you!”, posed for a photo, ordered me into her car and drove me to the airport. Again, I didn’t have a choice. Natalya threw her car violently around the road like a Central Asian man while wondering aloud whether or not she actually knew the way, and for a moment I thought we might end our journey under a truck or wrapped around a traffic light. But somehow we made it, and I tumbled out onto the roadside with all my limbs attached.

As her car pulled away, I felt quite sad to think that I'll probably never see my хозяйка again. But hopefully she won't be the last – I'm not even close to being done with the former USSR yet, and I'm sure to meet my next landlord or landlady before too long. I can only wait and see what the Xозяйка Effect will throw my way next ...
 


*In Russian you say not “I’m alone” but "Ya adeen" – which literally translates as "I am one". I think that’s a nicer way to look at it, don’t you?

** Btw, the two-month period I've described in this entry was in fact my fourth time in Tallinn. As I've said elsewhere on this blog, I've actually visited the gorgeous Estonian capital more times than I've been to Melbourne! So I didn't sprinkle this page with pics of the Old Town etc., 'cause I did that three years ago after my first awe-sruck visit.

To see some of my original "Tallinn rocks!" photos, you can go here:
http://rantingmanor2.blogspot.com/2006/02/land-of-eeks-and-baars.html

*** A curious fact that you may not know: almost all people in the world called Dasha are extremely nice. I have no idea why, but I must’ve met at least 20 Dashas by now, and I get along really well with nearly all of them. Plus, at least one of my all-time favourite humans is a Dasha. (Привет, Букаш!)

**** Incidentally, it’s true in this part of the world – Air Baltic and Estonian Air both charge for food and drinks.

khan you believe it?

The sun had set over the desert, signalling that our journey had taken us a full day. As our taxi driver pulled into the town, the near absence of street lights meant that we got only brief glimpses of our new surroundings. People strolling through the darkness would come into the range of our headlights for a second then disappear again; fragments of old mud-brick walls would loom up and then fade; rubble on the streets would appear suddenly, and we’d swerve to avoid it. This was exciting, tantalising … and a tiny bit scary.

As we stopped outside our hotel, we could see only silhouettes of the town in front of us – a softly illuminated minaret, the outline of a dome that was a little darker than the sky around it, and the shapes of low, square buildings. Turning off the engine, the driver pointed to a disheveled, overweight man lying sideways on some street furniture, looking a bit like a homeless person resting on a park bench. “That’s your hotel manager”, he said.

On the way here from the local airfield, our driver, Bahatir, had overtaken almost every other vehicle in sight, which had ranged from donkeys to Chevrolets. We knew we’d be seeing more of Bahatir, because he’d asked us about our onward travel plans, and we’d subsequently arranged to meet him again in three days’ time. He’d agreed to drive my father, my uncle and I across a six-and-a-half-hour stretch of desert for US$100, to our next destination after this.

As we were unloading our bags from the taxi, I asked Bahatir for his number so we could call him to confirm the pick-up. He responded with a question: “Do you have the Lonely Planet?”

“Er, yes.”

“Well, if you
  have the
  Lonely Planet,
  you have
  my number.”
 
He wasn’t lying.

And that, in a nutshell, was our introduction to the ancient Silk Road city of Khiva.

This word “ancient” is one of those (like “literally”) which sees far too much use nowadays, but in this case I’m definitely not exaggerating. A fortified citadel, built in an oasis near the rugged frontier separating Uzbekistan from Turkmenistan, Khiva celebrated its 2,500th birthday a few years back. And to be honest, it looks its age.

Mind you, nearly all of the original city is long gone. The walls, for example, are about sixth generation; they were first built in the 3rd century BC, but everyone from Chingiz Khan* to The Red Army has queued up over the millennia to try and destroy them, and some have succeeded. The desert itself has also engulfed the walls a couple of times, forcing Khiva’s inhabitants to start almost from scratch. But despite the reconstructions, you definitely get the feeling that this place has been around more or less forever, and will probably outlast a few more empires before it finally sinks into the sand.

The old city is an incredible network of avenues and alleyways, absolutely packed with historical sites. The Four Ms (mosques, madrassas, minarets and mausoleums) are here in huge abundance, along with some tumbledown dwellings and the palaces of the Khans who ruled this place for five hundred years or so up until the 1920s. And the whole place positively drips with history. Past rulers have included Tamerlane (one of those guys who you don’t hear much about in the West, but who had the third biggest empire in the world in his day), the Kungrad Sufi dynasty, and the caliph of Arabia. Then of course you had the khans – descendents of Chingiz – and later, the Tsars and their Bolshevik successors.

Politics and religion aside, there are also echoes here of the amazing scientific revolution that spread throughout the Middle East and adjacent areas in early medieval times. For example, the mathematician Al-Khorezm was a native of Khiva, and you might notice a resemblance to the word “algorithm” in his name. That’s because he was the guy who basically invented algebra (and yes, you can feel free to hate him for it if you want, but hey … obviously not a stupid man!). So algorithms are named after him.

Just a little more historical blah, then I’m done. I wanted to mention that, under the Khans, Khiva became the centre of the slave trade in Central Asia, which was rather brutal (almost as brutal as putting your wife into a sack with a wild cat, then beating the sack with big sticks – which, incidentally, was the penalty for adultery here at around the same time). The Khanate forces tended to bring back great herds of people from their various campaigns, including many thousands of Russians. These people were sold here at the market.

As it turned out, this provided Russia with a perfect excuse to move on the Khanate in the late 19th century, before the British (who also had their eye on it) could do likewise. So indirectly, it was slavery that ensured Khiva, and the surrounding area of Khorezmia, would become part of the USSR. Had things worked out just a little bit differently, this part of Uzbekistan would probably have been a British colony, and instead of enjoying a leisurely game of nardiy** in the streets at night, guys here would be playing cricket.

Lucky for them the Russians got here first – I mean, throwing women into sacks with angry cats is pretty damn cruel, but condemning an entire culture to cricket is just downright inhumane ;-)

So yeah, that’s the guts of what we managed to pick up in two days. We spent the first day walking around by ourselves, just going “wow” and “ooh” and “Hey, look at that!”. Then on Day Two we scored ourselves a guide, who led us through the Four Ms, the palaces, the local harem and a sackload of other places that left us open-mouthed.

Amongst all of this serious historical stuff, we had plenty of time to explore the amazing architecture, relax in some cool outdoor restaurants, and say “hello” to about fifty thousand Uzbek children (see below.) We even found real, ground coffee, which was quite a feat in this dyed-in-the-wool tea culture. Needless to say, our first sip of coffee for days was a blissful moment!

And what was the coolest thing I saw in Khiva? Hard to say. I’m still digesting it all, and actually I’ve re-written this entry three or four times, trying to give a sense of how it felt to be there, but falling short each time.

Probably the best place to start is the silliest, so let’s try that. One thing I loved about Khiva was the fact that you could stand around admiring the ancient mud-brick walls of an Islamic fortress while crappy old Soviet cars drove past. As many of you know, Anthony says a big “yay!” to the crappy old Soviet cars; the only things I’ve bothered to become a ‘fan’ of on Facebook are Bill Bailey and Lada, and I’m proud to be associated with both :-) So that was really cool … it was like a living collage of elements from different cultures that you previously thought of as being completely separate.

What else? Oh yeah, the tapchan. I have to tell you about that – it may be the greatest piece of furniture ever invented.

See, the weather in Khiva – as you could probably have guessed – is frighteningly hot. Walking around without a hat for just one morning, I got such a bad case of sunburn that I was concerned it might have permanently scarred me … and that was on a mild day! Bahatir (the taxi guy) told us that, four days before we arrived, the temperatures had hit 50C. We were dealing with 35-40, and only just coping. At one point, it got so bad that I actually bought a baseball cap to protect myself … and wore it! Now that’s desperation, wouldn’t you say?

Anyway, in conditions like these, people tend to spend a lot of their evening time outside. So as you walk around town you find beds in the street, and there are more on the rooftops. But the tapchan is much cooler than a conventional bed; it’s a platform raised about 40cm off the ground, large enough to accommodate a whole family and strewn with silk rugs (a specialty of this area) and cushions.

A lot of families in Khiva have one outside their lounge room, with an electrical cord running out to power the TV and a small dining table in the middle. So they recline together on their tapchan, chatting and watching football or soaps or whatever, as bats and insects swoop and dive around them. And let me tell you, these things are amazingly comfortable. I sat on one tonight whilst having snacks and coffee with my father and uncle***, and after an hour on the tapchan, I was so relaxed that I could’ve been fined for it in some of the world’s more uptight countries. And so I’ve decided: if I ever have a house with a yard (which is doubtful, admittedly), I’m definitely placing an order for one of these things. They’re just awesome.

Two more things to mention, and then I’m done. First, the Uzbek people. They’re quite devout Muslims, from what I can see, and of course we Westerners are socialized to think that many devout Muslims harbor a certain antipathy towards the West. Come here for a week, and you’ll see how absurd that is. I’ve never had so many people randomly say “hello” to me on the street as I’ve had in Uzbekistan. Ask someone for assistance here, and they’ll do everything in their power to help you get what you need. Of course they often don’t succeed, ‘cause there are certain things which are just a lot more difficult here than in other places – like getting money, for example. (At one point we wandered into the National Bank of Uzbekistan and were told “Sorry, we have no more money today.” Two cash machines were sulking in a corner, unplugged, and the tellers were all standing around going “Hmmm, what now?” It was a real Central Asia Moment.)

And the police, who I was warned about so sternly by Lonely Planet and other ‘authorities’? Well, they’re definitely curious about foreigners, and also rather ‘enterprising’, let’s say. They have a habit of standing near the entrances to off-limits areas of historical sites – like the section of the Emir’s palace in Bukhara that was bombed by the Red Army in 1920. It’s basically rubble now, and rightfully barred from the public, because there are deep shell craters and no barriers around the high walls. But for 2,000 Uzbek Som (about US$1.50) you can ‘bribe’ a policeman to let you in, for a truly spectacular view of the city that you can’t get anywhere else. As far as their scary reputation, though, I’d have to say it’s just more Western paranoia. Crack a little joke with a policeman, and suddenly he’s flashing his gold teeth and wishing you many grandchildren.

So yeah … the Uzbek people get my ‘thumbs up’. Very relaxed, down-to-Earth, and just nice. The only downside: they’re nowhere near as pretty as the Kazakhs. Less than a week outside Almaty, and I’m already missing the princesses.

*sigh*

Oh ^deer^ … so superficial.

The final thing I wanted to mention is something totally incidental, but nonetheless very cool i.m.o. In Khiva our guide took us to the mausoleum of a local hero called Pahlavan Mahmud. After the tour, as we were sitting in the mosque and watching the Imam pray for a married couple who had come in, something caught my eye. About three feet to the left of the Imam, a cat lay sleeping on the plush, carpeted floor. The Imam seemed to know he was there, and obviously didn’t mind.

I asked our tour guide about this, and she told me that The Prophet was often accompanied by a cat when he prayed, so now every Mosque has a cat that hangs out with the Imam during ceremonies.

This struck me as cool for three reasons. First, it’s a cat in a house of worship, and the presence of a cat anywhere is a good thing. Second, the kitty was totally uninterested in all the human business – as cats are wont to be – and far more intent on his nap. This seemed to me the perfect reminder that, while we humans are going about our rituals, there’s a whole world out there that continues doing its thing regardless of what we believe or don’t believe. And third, Imams are sustained by the food that people bring them, and some of that food goes to the cat. As our guide tells it, Mosque kitties are very spoiled indeed. I like that :-)

So … if I had to choose a ‘favourite’ among the five major world religions, right now it would be Islam. Nothing to do with the theology, of course – I mean, I try to respect all religions except Catholicism, Scientology and the other clearly insane ones, but at the same time I know that none of them have anything relevant to say to me personally. No, I just like the fact that Imams spoil their cats. To me, that seems a very appropriate thing for a ‘spiritual’ person to do.

(Later postscript: after my friend Ally read this, she told me that Muslims believe the 'M'-shaped stripes on a tabby cat's head come from Mohammed. They're echoes of the Prophet's fingertips, where he used to stroke his tabby. How cool is that?)

Anyway, we left Khiva a couple of days ago, and took the aforementioned drive across the desert. That was an experience in itself. Probably the highlight was the bridge which took us across the Amur-Darya river. It was an extremely makeshift-looking construction, with steep ramps at either end and various sections imperfectly fitted together, each at a slightly different angle to the horizontal. I asked Bahatir about the bridge, and he told me “The Red Army built this out of old pontoons, to get their tanks to Afghanistan”. Er … wow.

I’m currently in Bukhara – another ancient city of decaying mosques and madrassas, darked-skinned desert folk with oodles of gold in their mouths, and more outmoded Soviet automotive technology than you could shake a can of leaded petrol at. Being here, and in Khiva even more so, has re-kindled my enthusiasm for Central Asia. In the last week or so, I feel as though I’ve had a little ‘wake-up call’. By that, I mean that what I’ve seen so far in Uzbekistan seems like a first taste of the diversity that exists in this part of the world. In that respect, getting out of Almaty for a while was probably the most sensible thing I’ve done in ages, ‘cause I was never going to see much of that diversity while I stayed put in one city. Wish I’d done it earlier.

Incidentally, one of the smaller but more well-restored madrassas in Bukhara is called Mekhtar Ambar. It’s over a thousand years old, an elegant two-storey hexagonal structure with low, elongated rooms ranged around a central courtyard, with a shaded stone terrace on the rooftop. I mention this one specifically because it also happens to be our hotel. I’ve never stayed in a former ‘academy of Islam’ before. It’s pretty damn cool.

Tomorrow we take the golden road to Samarkand. Truthfully, I’m finding it difficult to believe that we’ll really be there in less than 24 hours – it’s one of those city names that has a slightly fantastical ring, and it seems unlikely that the place actually exists and functions the way normal cities do. But we’ll see.

I’ll keep you updated as much as possible in this land of unreliable internet access. Meanwhile, take care and avoid pushy taxi drivers :-)

Anthony.


(*Known in the West as “Genghis Khan” for some reason. I’m not sure why we can’t seem to cope with the real pronunciation of his first name – it isn’t difficult!)

(**The Central Asian equivalent of backgammon – extremely popular here.)


(***How my father and uncle came to be here with me in Uzbekistan is another story in itself. I’ll tell you about some other time.)