Stephan Orth - Behind Putin's Curtain - Friendships and Misadventures Inside Russia [aka Couchsurfing in Russia]

RENAT, MY HOSTin Makhachkala, is thirty-seven, an IT specialist, and has only had a driver’s license for three months. He is looking forward to practicing his driving, so the next day we set off for a spin around the nearby villages in his Lada Granta. First we have to pass the October Revolution canal, which is pretty stinky because of a mountain of garbage on its banks. “We can fly to space, have the best ballet corps in the world, but we can’t manage our own garbage disposal,” Renat grumbles. “That’s typically Russian; everyone moans about it and the next second they’re chucking stuff away themselves.”

Makhachkala is a monster of a city, a chaotic mix of stands selling shawarma and kvass (a beverage made of fermented rye bread), bridal gown stores, mosques, and colorful advertising posters. Only a few yards separate the drabness of Soviet tower blocks from the lively spectacle on the beaches of the Caspian Sea, with beach volleyball players, picnickers, swimmers, and brawny wrestlers all going about their business. The city has an official population of some 600,000, but according to unofficial figures it could be twice that size; they seem to have somehow lost count.

We head south. At first the countryside gets greener and greener, then more mountainous. By the roadside there is a police post. “Shit, they’ll stop us for sure,” says Renat. “That’ll ruin our whole day. They’ll want all the paperwork, ask about our contacts and what we’re doing here. They won’t believe us whatever we say. Simple harassment.” They don’t stop us.

Renat has black-gray hair, brown eyes, and a dark complexion. He used to live in Langenfeld, Germany, in an asylum-seekers’ hostel inside an ex-military compound. At that time many refugees were arriving from Dagestan because the region was affected by the Chechen wars. “I learned German from Jehovah’s Witnesses; they were so patient in conversations. And from WDR 4”—a German radio station known for its sentimental playlist. “‘Ich hab mein Herz in Heidelberg verloren’ and other such songs; the sentences weren’t too complicated.” A pragmatic guy. He has very positive memories of Germany—jogging around the lake, the au pair girls from his language course, the rectitude of the officials. Also, he enjoyed the freedom of being far away from the clutches of family. “Parents in Dagestan try to control you until the day they die. They’re afraid of letting go of their children, even when they are fifty or sixty.”

Renat sometimes lapses into a highly original mixture of English and German: “My Landsleute explained me what to say and we erfunden bad situation,” he says about making up a story for his talks with the asylum authorities. But when he went there, he got quite nervous: “I had the schlechtes Gefühl I do something falsch , and I think they haben es gemerkt .” His grounds for asylum were rejected and he was deported. “I was naive. If I had had internet at that time I would have gone about things more reasonably. Firstly I would have learned German and then applied for a place at university.”

He has given up on the dream of a new start in Europe and now just hopes that the tension with Moscow doesn’t intensify. “At the moment the situation in Ukraine is more critical, which is better for us; we are not the archenemy.” Five or six years ago the situation was more acute; every crime committed with the involvement of someone from the Caucasus became a political issue. Or was made into one. “I was in Moscow in December 2010 as almost six thousand people demonstrated in Manezhnaya Square. Later it became violent. I was nearby and was shoved around by a group of men.” The demo was in response to the murder of a Spartak Moscow soccer fan, who was shot during a brawl. The perp, a Caucasian, wasn’t prosecuted and, according to rumors, had bribed the police.

The case launched a chain reaction that culminated in the demonstration on December 11, which attracted a diverse mix of nationalist groups and soccer hooligans. The mood became increasingly ugly, to the point where some participants began a random hunt for people who didn’t look Slavonic. “Generally, it’s not easy in Moscow if you look like me,” Renat says dryly.

We drive on a dirt track between steep crags that rise from the grasslands like colossal fish fins. The road is lined by rainbow-sprinkled flowering meadows; the air smells of citrus fruits, the ground of cow dung. A huge eagle circles above us. Renat is highly demanding of his car, driving it through deep muddy pools and slaloming around rocks and small boulders. We drive with the constant expectation that we won’t be able to carry on beyond the next serpentine twist because we don’t have four-wheel drive. Shortly before the reception bars on my cell phone disappear, Vladimir calls to say that he pulled some strings and his contact is already waiting for us at the destination.

We reach Balkhar at midday. The village scores points for its spectacular setting on the mountainside and its quaint old men with hats sitting on a bench in the main square. Tiny, stooped babushkas return from the fields bearing wooden baskets full of tea leaves. Smelly cow pies are splattered on the stone walls of the houses to dry, later to be used as fuel. Donkeys, chickens, and cats roam around as a muezzin calls to prayer. I’m finding everything enchanting; Renat less so. “I don’t understand why in this day and age people live in such remote places,” he says. The locals belong to the Lak minority, who are well known for their handicraft skills, with a pottery tradition stretching back many centuries.

A sixteenth-century Russian book on household rules, which in sixty-four chapters details instructions on how a moral citizen should behave. It’s about godliness and obedience to the czar, but most of the rules are about living together as a family. For today’s readers this collection is more of a curiosity than a practical guide, as much of the advice is outdated: “A man who loves his son will whip him often… Correct your son, and he will be a comfort in your old age and bring delight to your soul,” or “A drunken man is an ill, but a drunken woman is utterly useless.” [3] The “Domostroi”: Rules for Russian Households in the Time of Ivan the Terrible . Edited and translated by Carolyn Johnston Pouncy. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994.

A man of around sixty called Abakan, wearing a checked shirt and black vest, is there to greet us. “Vladimir has already told me of your arrival,” he says, leading us to his workshop. On the floor there are enough brick-red pottery goats and horses to fill a medium-sized pharaoh’s tomb; nearby, two women sit at wheels making small pots.

“We sell our wares at markets in towns. It’s more lucrative than farming,” explains Abakan.

Soon rain clouds loom and it begins to drizzle. We decide to make a move before the return route becomes impassable. When I have reception on my cell phone again I get an automatically relayed storm warning message: “Beware of storms and rain in the mountains of Dagestan, wind speeds of 18 meters per second to be expected.”

Nevertheless, we stop one hour later in Shukty, another village in a sensational mountain landscape. The green areas beneath the craggy pinnacles seem so velvety and groomed, it’s almost as if a groundskeeper were regularly caring for them. There are only two irritating things: First, there’s an oil painting of Stalin at the memorial to the village’s eighty-three World War II victims, possibly signifying a yearning for the good old days (for some reason, the dictator’s forehead attracts many flies). Second, the whole slope is covered in three-story luxury houses—but 90 percent of them have neither doors nor windows, and it doesn’t look as if anybody is planning to continue building.