...after two days on platskart, we arrived in Tomsk with Leah & Kara, two Americans we met in Irkutsk. even though our preliminary investigations into finding a bed were met with naught but failure, we figured that in a city, we might be able to find somewhere to sleep and that nectar of the long distance platskart traveler, a hot shower...alas, it was not to be. Seemingly every hotel within our budget was completely booked up. We learned later that Mariah Carey was to be performing in Tomsk, consequently filling up the beds with flouncy appreciators of insipid soul, and giving me an actual concrete reason to dislike her.
In despair, exhaustion and clouds of B.O, we decided the only course of action was to go to the pub. Luckily for us, this establishment closed at 3am, so we could drink our woes away, stay up all night and get a train to somewhere else first thing in the morning...beer of course changes everything...adrift and sleepy, after three hours of expensive procrastinating, the idea struck that maybe we should try to find a bed in whatever mystery city we ended up in, so off we went to an internet cafe.
Laden with rucksacks, clearly exhausted, sweaty and consulting our guide book, we hardly looked inconspicuous. It was then that we encountered a group of students who spoke really good English, offering to help us...it seems that ordinary Russians rent out apartments to people at roughly the same cost as our budget, and our mysterious benefactors were ringing round the city, each with an identical I-phone...finally, one of them named Artor found one, and escorted us to his car...what I know about cars could be measured in millilitres, but it was clear even to me that his vehicle didn't come cheap.
Off we cruised in this financial impossibility for any other twenty year old student I've ever met, round the streets of Tomsk to the sounds of Russian hip-hop. Finally, we arrived in a residential area that at first glance looked a bit ropey.
"Stay in the car!" commanded Artor to the girls. "Don't open the door! Come with me." he said to me, so we stood outside, waiting for the man we'd be renting from.
At this point, the street gradually went on to display a variety of souls, possessed, if one were to make assumptions, of dubious character...it also occurred to me that what we were doing was actually pretty dangerous - here we were, getting into the car of a stranger, in a strange country, exhausted, vulnerable...where exactly does he get his money from? Who is waiting for us in this apartment? How can we trust anyone? Images of Lilya 4 ever flashed through my mind, and nor was I alone in my paranoia. The girls, securely in the car were having similar suspicions...sharing them with each other didn't lighten our mood.
"No good," said Artor, "let's go."
"Where are we going?"
He chuckled "To my grandmothers'."
I doubt any of us believed him. Yeah, your "grandmothers."
"Is it safe?"
He chuckled again "Yes, it's very safe."
Ten minutes later, scared out of our wits by our own imaginations, we met his grandmother, who provided us with tea, biscuits, that all-important shower and bade us goodnight. We sat round the table, nursing our cuppas, scarcely believing what had just happened. Indeed, if a gang of grizzly cossacks armed with knives had turned up, demanding our passports & cash, we wouldn't have been surprised. We finally succumbed to sleep, hoping that the next day, things would start to become a bit more normal...
...they didn't, but in a bizarre way, they made more sense. Artor came round for us in the morning, telling us we were going on an excursion...so off we went to his fathers pharmaceutical company...after a hearty breakfast in the company canteen, we found ourselves in blue lab coats, wearing hair-nets and plastic bags on our feet, wandering around a colossal pill factory, just as bewildered as we were the night before, but nowhere near as terrified...the next day was spent riding a seemingly endless wave of Artors hospitality, which he wouldn't accept anything for...he took us to an abandoned chemical factory now used as a paintball arena, the edge of a city cordoned off by barbed wire and soldiers which was a "secret" in Communist times, the oldest part of Tomsk, and our first student party for a long time...of course, all his friends have identical I-phones...
We doubt we'll see him again, as he didn't divulge his email address, and he can't actually leave Russia, on account of his not having a passport because he doesn't want to join the military, but we're deeply grateful (and a little shamefaced at our paranoia) that he gave us some of the most memorable experiences of the trip.
