Шарлотта Хобсон: Black Earth City: When Russia Ran Wild (and So Did We)

inostranets, inostranka —foreign man, woman

intelligent (pl. intelligenty )—intellectual, educated person. Pronounced with a hard g .

komendant —head of the hostel

kulich —traditional Easter cake

ladno —all right, OK magizdat —underground copying and distribution of music that sprang up under Brezhnev, the equivalent of samizdat for books

mily, milaya, milenky —dear, darling

mutny —cloudy, opaque

nichevo —nothing, it’s nothing

na brudershaft —from the German Bruderschaft . To drink a toast as brothers, with linked arms.

nu-ka, posmotrim —now, let’s see

otdykh —rest, relaxation, holiday

papirosa (pl. papirosy )—Russian cigarettes of black tobacco with a long tube of cardboard for a filter

Pobeda —Victory (a Soviet make of car)

privyet —hello

propiska —residence permit

pukh —fluffy seed from a certain type of poplar

salo —salted pig fat

Slava Bogu! —Thank God!

smetana —sour cream

sovok —someone who lives according to the old Soviet ways (derogatory)

s prazdnikom! —Congratulations on whichever holiday it might be—Border Guard Day, International Labor Day, or First Day back at school.

Univermag —short for universalny magazin, department store

vakhtersha —concierge, janitor

vodochka —the affectionate diminutive for vodka

vytrezvitel —lockup for drunks

yolki palki! —a jokey expression meaning “whoops!”

zakuski —snacks to eat with vodka

zefir —nutty meringues

Many people were kind to me while I was writing this book. I am grateful to all those whose spare rooms and kitchen tables provided me with an office: to my father, to Jonathan and Heather, to Emma and Giles, and to Alexander Hoare, whose view ensured that my progress was slow but enjoyable. Selina encouraged me to begin. Will, Emily, Roly, Claire, and Vitali took the trouble to comb through the manuscript in the final stages. Sara Bershtel’s and Riva Hocherman’s thoughtful, detailed responses deserve an Order of Heroic Editing. And above all, Philip’s staunch support, his tact, wit, and literary intuition, have helped me more than I can say.

As for my friends from Voronezh, both Russian and English, it is because of them that this book exists at all. Discretion has led me to change most of the names and some of the details; otherwise I have done my best to capture our life together accurately. If there are mistakes, I hope they will forgive me. Thanks to all of you, and in particular to M.P., to whom this book is dedicated with affection.

BLACK EARTH CITY. Copyright © 2001 by Charlotte Hobson. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address Picador, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

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Henry Holt and Company under license from Pan Books Limited.

First published in the United States by Henry Holt and Company

eISBN 9781466822672

First eBook Edition : June 2012

The author and publisher would like to thank the following: Nadezhda Mandelstam: Extract from Hope Against Hope , first published in the United States by Atheneum, New York, 1970 © Nadezhda Mandelstam. English translation © Atheneum, New York. Osip Mandelstam, The Voronezh, Notebooks Poems 1935-1937, translated by Richard and Elizabeth McKane, Bloodaxe Books, 1996. Penguin U.S. for permission to extract two lines from The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov, translation © Richard Peaver and Larissa Volokhonsky, 1997. Allan Sillitoe, “Love in the Environs of Voronezh,” Collected Poems, HarperCollins Publishers , Inc., 1993. Aleksandr Blok, “The Scythians,” The Twelve and Other Poems, edited by John Stallworthy and Peter France, Random House, New York, 1970. D. M. Thomas, for two lines from his translation of “Requiem” by Anna Akhmatova; Stanley Kunitz and Max Hayward, for “Voronezh” by Anna Akhmatova from Poems of Akhmatova, Collins and Harvill Press, London, 1974. Madame Jarintsov, for the extract from The Russians and Their Language, 1919. G. M. Hyde, for lines from his translation of “A Cloud in Trousers” by Vladimir Mayakovsky in How Verses Are Made, The Bristol Press, 1990.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Hobson, Charlotte, 1970—

Black earth city : when Russia ran wild (and so did we) / Charlotte Hobson.

p. cm.

Originally published: London : Granta Books, 2001.

ISBN 0-312-42061-7

1. Russia (Federation)—Social life and customs. 2. Russia (Federation)—Social conditions—1991—3. Hobson, Charlotte, 1970— —Journeys—Russia (Federation) I. Title.

DK510.32 .H63 2002

947.086—dc21

2001045031

First Picador Edition: March 2003