I have just returned from a trip to Germany. I vividly remember a girl – a schoolgirl with a satchel on her back, who was walking through the fallen down yellow leaves, whirling them up with her feet, playing with them, forgetting everything around her – so absorbed she was in this game. And this was the moment the devil nudged me: you have to write this down! Tell them that they have an easy life there, like a game, gorgeously, colourful like the leaves of a maple or lime tree, not as colourless and dull as at home. Go away, I say to the dirty ghost. I do not want to make great play with this. I do not want to produce anything artificial about it, although you, Devil, are right to a certain extent. On my way to Pulkovo I was just thinking: dear me, all these shades of grey! I would be very interested to learn what are the reasons for it: traditions? The climate? Some energetic power?
1
When I came to Germany for the first time (in 1984) there was something I could not see enough of, which even made me stop between the entrance doors of a department store in Hamburg. I stared around wonderingly, without even recognizing that the people behind me started forming a long queue, because I was standing there and they could not get in. I leave it to you to figure out what would have happened in a similar situation on Moscovitan territory or in far away regions like Lipetsk, Omsk, Anapa, I mean - which would have been the reaction of the people there? ... However, let me cite the words which brought me back to reality between the doors of that foreign department store, when the patience of the people waiting behind me was exhausted ...
Excuse me, Sir, pardon me ... We do not want to trouble you, we understand that you are obviously deep in thought. Maybe your wife turned you out or some other very unpleasant thing happened to you. Therefore please do not feel offended, but we are in lack of time, we are in a hurry.
And this is why I began to tell this story about one of the most essential points that deeply impressed me during my stay in Germany. The people there simply ignore you – they do not want to annoy or disturb you, they do not even look at you (even in case you look beautiful and elegant), but make a tremendous effort not to confuse you with their curious glances, cause any state of unrest and limit your personal indepandance in any way ...
It means something different, when the person you met, shows an extraordinary intuitive understanding, thus accepting your wish to talk to him, to hold yourself apart from the other people around. Then he will certainly stop and say: I am at your disposal. I have the impression that you like to ask something, that you are interested to receive some information. Well then, go ahead, do not feel embarrassed, I am prepared to help you – as far as I can ...
I remember a student in Luxembourg, who, after having become clear about my educational background of the German language, put down her satchel on the pavement to free her hands and showed me with her stretched finger the direction I had to follow to the next object of interest: go straight, then turn to the right, to the left – and when you raise your eyes- you will find yourself directly in front of the cathedral ... Having picked up her satchel again, she slung it over her shoulder and completely confused me by her „gushing kindliness“: „Is this all you wanted to know? Don’t you have any further questions? If you have, then please don’t hesitate to ask – you don’t have to feel ashamed“.
Maybe it was mere luck that I had met such a good person?
2
Let me pass on to the next point, which fills a visitor of Germany with amazement. Even if you got well-prepared for this trip, having carefully read this and that about the country, you will be entirely surprised at the sight of the crowds of people in the street.
You read that the population of West and East Germany looks extraordinarily similar. To say it in simpler words – they are Germans. Of course, there exist national minorities: Danes at the Danish border, Dutch people not far from the Netherlands, an infinitely small number of Jewish families, who survived the time before and during World War II and gipsies ...
However, we heard nothing about the so-called foreign workers, who mainly came over from Turkey, Greece, Yugoslavia. But they are only guests, who are going to stay for a temporary period of time. Maybe this is what the Germans thought and expected, too. I do not know, whether or not they are sadly mistaken there. At least it turned out that they have not come over as mere guests at all – that’s for sure.
What you see in the streets of German towns is a motley crowd of people – as colourful as in Paris.
During the first days of your stay you still find a very simple explanation for this variety – they are probably tourists. But you soon start to sort the tourists out and distinguish them from the others: many of them walk in groups, every second holds a camera or a video camera in his hands, almost each of them looks were attentive, turns round again and again and glances at the buildings ...
No, you won’t mistake them for those who are rushing to work, those who are just taking a walk or sit down in a cafe to enjoy a cup of coffee with or without cake, a mug of beer or a drop of vodka ... Contrary to all rules I noticed couples already advanced in years modestly holding hands and young people, who were „high“ from some injection, a horde of children in a kindergarten and groups of football fans ... And I experienced a certain feeling of shame: who is the greatest internationalist then? I, who has been educated in this sense from early childhood, or all those who, unlike me, have not yet noticed that they are already living in the next century and are unable to distinguish white from black, brown from yellow, coloured from albino.
I am not going to add any knowledge of sociological or psychological research in this place. It is obvious that things are much more complicated than the visitor sees them. But my impressions, too, are facts. Germany is far ahead with regard to its internationalism. It seems to me, as if they were a whole decade ahead. I am astonished about the large number of Negroes, Arabs, Turks, Iranians, Albanians, Serbs and Croats, Bosnianas, Greeks, Spaniards, Italians, etc., in the streets of German towns. But the Germans themselves are not surprised at all. And I am aware of the fact that many Germans feel rather concerned about such a lot of foreigners in their country. And even more people simply take the view: „Germany to the Germans!“ Nevertheless these law-abiding do not take the liberty to hurt other people or try to limit their freedom in any way. It seems that the young people born into this world consider themselves as their masters, regardless of their fathers and mothers origin – they do not have any complexes at all, speak German very well ... Don’t mention the old people, who went on pension there in Germany – their fate is characterized by many bitter experiences; however, their children, and particularly their grand-children, take advantage of the sweet fruits of European civilization. I remember such a climbing frame made of welded pipes behind the kindergarten, which replaced a widely branching tree and completely satisfied the children’s passion to climb. Three little boys had just reached the top by using three different ways to get there. All three of them noticed that they were taken a picture of, but they would never have figured out, what had so magically attracted me, a racist: one of them was a blackamoor, who looked quite similar to Pushkin, the other seemed to be the incarnate goddess Lelvani (goddess of underworld and hell; translator’s note), the third one gazed around with the sparkling eyes of a squirrel. „Children of different nationality, we live and dream of the world“ – thus, it could have been written on a placard.
Potsdam – a deserted park, fallen off treetops, sculptures hidden in wooden cases standing along the staircase in front of the castle for wintering. There are two benches, two young people, about 17, 18 years old, sitting on them. They do not notice anybody and anything around. They sit opposite eachother, playing some funny game, communicating without saying a single word. They laugh happily. He starts guffawing, then she is laughing, then both in duet ... Love! I picture to myself that they ran away from their parents and friends in Berlin. Nobody is going to disturb them here. They decided not to visit Sanssouci in the first place, because they were not in the mood of making an excursion. But I, the baldhead, found something to be amazed about!
She was a Chinese, he – a German.
I do not take liberties to assume that they intend to found a family. However, one step into this direction has already been made – a love relation among different races is considered as antirely natural.
I do not dispose of any figures proving that the number of mixed marriages is, in fact, increasing very quickly. But there is no doubt that in the same way as disappear the barriers between the different religions (Catholics – Protestants, Protestants – Jews, etc.), tere will soon be marriages between German women and Turkish men, German men and Turkish women, Iranian or other Islamic women, Buddhists, Atheists ... maybe this cannot be expected today, but ... tomorrow, for sure.
3
Until now I had not „recognized“ the likes of us. It is difficult to find out. When my friends learned that I had met Russians five to six times in an hour (to be more exact, they were people of the Community of Independant States), they were very surprised and asked: „But where have they all gone to?“ Later it turned out that they could be found „in the district of Krepke (? – probably Kreuzberg?), maybe. And you better walk a little up and down our district. But don’t you dare to admit that you are a Russian, too, or they won’t let you leave from here till nightfall“.
We were, in fact, astonished: how many left the CIS to start a new life here!
I pass my childhood in review. On the 22nd of June 1941 I was almost four and a half years old. Some of the events that took place on this day I still remember very clearly. Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov appears on the scene stammering a couple of inarticulate words. Grandfather and grandmother, as well as many of their neighbours, have shown up in front of the big loudspeaker. Didn’t they have a radio set of their own then?
After Molotov had finished his stammering, the mother of my friends Alla and Zhena said:
- What will happen to us?
Her face was all tear-stained. And then she went away without keeping back her tears. After all neighbours had dispersed I asked:
- Why did aunt Dusya cry so badly?
- Well, don’t you understand? – grandfather replied, as if I were an adult. – They are Germans after all ...
Thus, the Germans had entered into my life, although, in fact, I failed to see what all this was about. Germans would usually speak German , i.e. they would use a language we could not understand. So what did Alla and Zhena and their mum have to do with it?
18 years later, with the university diploma in my hands, I happened to get to the region where my fellow-countrymenand friends had become Germans again. They usually did not speak German at all. They were people who had been sent away from the front, deported persons, exiles, survivors of the „labor armies“, who had succeeded in getting out of the Norillag and other camps or ... their grown up children ...
However, I do not intend to write about the history of the Norillag, and I have only a limited interest in the Germans of Norilsk. In the year 1959 (according to the results of a population census) there were thousands of them in Norilsk, dozens among them even belonging to the executive staff. A little later there were two Germans among the eight deputies of the director of the Norilsk Combine, V.I. Dolgykh – Leonhard Bernhardovich Wid (a yound specialist, who later became Chernomyrdin’s right hand) and Alexander Ivanovich Scherer, who belonged to the group of those, which had gone through the Norilsk camp. And around them – Miller and Weber, Richter and Kust (or Küst), Walner and Bauer, Rekot and Wenter, Emerich and Gorr ... They worked in entirely different fields of activity – one of them was a senior geologist, another an economist; there was a head book-keeper, a metal-working experts, a mechanic, a power economist (working for the enterprise), the head of administration. All kinds of jobs were represented here, from tunnelling in the pits up to trading. I leaf through some of the old telephone directories. Maybe I am wrong when supposing a Latin or Jewish surname to be a German one. But there are many more of those Germans who had to „dye their name a different colour“, as did Sidorov by adopting the family name of his mother or others by using geographical names borrowed from the environs they lived in. The goal-keeper of the camp representative team, who later became the senior director of the local television, Hans Wilhelmovich Münzenmaier, also changed his name: some time or other he became Gennadiy (Wasilyevich), as well as many of those who had previously been called Heinrich ...
It is quite understandable that I deal with names in this place, but without the slightest artificiality or intent: in actual fact, there were only three Schmidts in the history of Norilsk, the metropolis of nickel, and not every inhabitant of today’s Norilsk is convinced that Mount Schmidt with its huge coal mine situated in the environs of Mount Rudnaya – received its name to the honour of the scholar who (in 1866) visited the first coal and copper mine of the Dudinsk industrialists Sotnikov (at the same time he taught the people how to exploit mineral resources). The first Norilsk Schmidt was called Friedrich by his first name, or Fyodor – Bogdanovich.
Otto Yulevich, a great polar explorer and head of the Main Administration of the Main Directorate for the Arctic Ocean Sea Route, put the so-called „Norilsk question“ to dicussion on the occasion of the session of the Politbureau of the Central Committee of the All-Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks), suggesting that he should become the main builder and coordinator of all the turning up work, starting from the geological tasks. (His proposal did not find Stalin’s approval, who decided to give preference to the NKVD). Schmidt considered Norilsk to be his „baby“. He was convinced of the splendid future of all deposots, but had to hand over on a compulsory basis his complete documentation about the mineral resources of the region to Yezhov’s People’s Commissariate.
There was another Schmidt yet, a professor and mathematician – Jakob Sergeyevich (?), who gave lessons to the future bosses of the Norilsk industrial plants at the technical school of mining engineering and metallurgy (opened in 1944), since, as it was said, the pedagogoc staff was intended to come up to the standards of the University of Cambridge.
And there was an entirely modest man, too, the official responsible and expert of the Geology Commissariate, - Alfred Karlovich Gidivius (Hidovius). He came to Norilsk in an alrady bad state of health, bt he ran to and fro, always trying hard not to betray his tiredness; he used to study all specimen and asseys by microscope, whereby he would simply push his spectacles to the forehead, so that it would not disturb him from examening the various objects of interest.
He would probably have become a great geologist, who would have made mention of in an encyclopedia. A remarkable, experienced deputy with a tremendous institution. He still succeeded to say: „Yes, a great thing, indeed. It is worthwhile to invest money in it“. And then he died.
There was another man yet, who always said the very opposite. He was very modest, too, but also extremely insistent: „No! It is not worthwhile at all to put a lot of money in this matter. It’s to no vail“. He lived on for a long time, became a university man and somehow appeared in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia.
In 1935, when the whole Soviet people was still enthusiastic about its Chekists and behaved quite bad towards the Fascists, the GULag administration appointed V.S. Matveyev as the director of the Norilstroy (and of the camp). He was a Russian and had been a manufacturer of leather when he was young. He had become an orphan in his early childhood and only felt himself a human being after the revolution.
He got married to a mechanic called Lisa. Both worked for road-building projects in the north and south and brought two children into the world - both girls. The four of them set out for Dudinka (with the first lot of construction workers – prisoners).
The head was not a brutal person at all – quite the reverse; in Moscow they even were of the opinion that he was by far too liberal in many respects. However, if necessary, he was very well able to show a very strict and uncompromising behaviour:
- Thy increased the revolutionary watchfulness and are going to exterminate our people under the leadership of the Lenin-Stalin Party till the very end – these mean Trotskyist-Bucharinist spies of the Fascist intelligence services ...
He succeeded to do a lot. Many things, however, he did not manage to do, because he neither disposed of a specific education nor the needed experience. Lisa tried her best not to add any sorrow and trouble to their life, by keeping away from him all kinds of conflicts arising either at home or in the administration office. By the way, she, the qualified mechanic, was the woman who copied by typewriter the very first order given for the construction of Norilsk – Elisabeta Karlovna Metveyeva. Her maiden name was von Ross. She was the daughter of a field officer of the Kronstadt fortification infantry battalion, who had been promoted to the rank of a first lieutenant in May 1913 (following his duty, he had moved with his family from Kronstadt to Gachina, from there to Tambov, later to Arkhangelsk, Samarkand, Voronesh, Piatigorsk). He met Lisa von Ross in Samarkand, where she was typing out secret papers for the local Cheka.
... During World War I 300.000 Rissian Germans were fighting at the German front The Tsar, obviously, did not fear that any of them might betray him or the fatherland.
Stalin did not trust a single people. Maybe, he had problems to understand the proper meaning of loyalty and devotion.
Elisabeta Karlovna prayed for the victory over the Fascists, as did millions of other people, who had german blood in their veins. I do not remember the name of our neighbour, who – on the 22nd of June 1941 – whispered the words: „What is goung to happen to us? How will all this end?“ I also never met her daughters Alla and Zhena again. However, fate presented me with the friendship of Elisabeta Karlovna and her daughters, who went through all kinds of ordeal and reverse of fortune. I often recall them – in earlier times, as human beings who suffered an undeserved lot; every now and then, hwever, all of a sudden, it seems to me, as if they were people who, in fact, yearned for an undeserved merciful stroke of fate.
Maybe I am completely wrong. For this reason I do not want to condemn. Life is only given once to a human being. Pepole are different from each other – their lives proceed in entirely different ways. Some are swept along by the current, others swim against. I am talking about those, who tried to reach the opposite bank of the river.
... „A group of tourists is arriving from Novosibirsk. I run my eyes over ther scene, enter into conversations. The people talk to me in an absolutely common Russian colloquial language, the mode of expression of simple people, who do not stress the words correctly and sometimes use typically Siberian expressions. The definition of „emigrants“ matches with them as does the word „professional“ with the football players in the backyard. Or do I understand by „emigrants“ exclusively those, who swept over by the first wave of departure?
The brother has been living in Hanover for 7 years now. He is very content.
- And what about you? Did you come to Germany for a visit or are you going to stay forever? I ask this question, having a feeling that „forever“ irrevocably means – till they will be carried to the grave. Maybe, I had better said „are you going to stay in this country?“
- Forever.
Judged from the outer appearance and the way they are talking, most of them are farmers, mechanics from the countryside, construction workers ..., people who are used to work hard, who did their military service, among them hardly any alcoholics, but ... they have no idea about commonly practiced social manners. Their children are not accustomed to take off their caps. Well, this is not really imperative here; it is just a fact that the caps and peaked caps on their heads are something they are utterly familiar with. These people do not make any difference, do not behave in a different way – they do not react to glass walls and marble columns.
Their new house will be as it is; hopefully, it will not be worse than the one they lived in before, in Russia – the house they left behind. It will be better, for sure. Nevertheless, they are slightly worried, although there is no way back: they made the decision to depart. They will never return, no matter what expects them here, what is going to happen. And so I felt some kind of resolution and a great amount of confidence in these people, these Sibiryaks, who were soon going on board the plane to break new ground and start a completely new life.
A-Lvov
„Zapolyarnaya Pravda“, Sept. 13, 1999, No. 140 (12177)
(newspaper published in Novosibirsk)