Outward to Burgyzin

Meeting Misha and his UAZ 2206

I had met Misha a little over a week earlier outside the Buryatia Hotel, an almost modern Ulan-Ude high-rise. This was where my wife Desna and I joined a small group headed for Ust-Burgyzin, a fishing and wood-cutters village on the east-central shore of Lake Baikal. He nodded silently when introduced, grabbing our packs and losing them in the pile of boxes and duffles occupying the rear seat of the van. A UAZ 2206 is an unadorned, four-wheel drive, all-purpose mini-bus that looks exactly like a doped-up VW van. Misha was to take it places that I never imagined my VW going. At our departure, he deftly steered his way through a traffic circle leading to the central plaza surrounding Lenin's head, a colossal monument that had been described to me as the largest in the former Soviet Union.  There are so many of these heads around Russia I am unable to investigate the local hyperbole, but it is huge, so my informants may have spoken truthfully.  We were soon working our way out of Ulan-Ude toward Lake Baikal.

Lenin colossus at Ulan-Ude, Buryatia

On a clear June morning punctuated by bright clouds, likely an exceptional event given the typically dreary travelogue descriptions of southern Siberian climate, Misha transported us away from the grey-green, soviet-era block buildings of Ulan-Ude and climbed into a low range of tree-covered mountains. The dark green pine and white-stemmed birch forests were consistent immature stands replacing serial woodcuts that have long provided the products of the state forest industry. As the highway gradually climbed through the woodlands, small pastoral valleys open beyond lattice-work fences.  We passed through a regular palette of grey and green punctuated by bright blue and occasional white. The wood siding of buildings and fences, bound together in small villages, was rarely painted and left alone the wood weathered to a slate-dark grey. The early summer fields and woodlands provided a vivid green backdrop to the villages and all was framed by the resolute contrast of the day's sky.  On almost every small home, the blue of the sky was reflected in ornately-framed windows where bright blue trim and white lace curtains jumped from the grey wooden houses to which they were attached. This was the Baikal outback of village after small village with only the surprised appearance of a gold-spired Orthodox church breaking the pattern. It was a good day where the idyllic sun and cloud dappled sky masked much of the hardship of the ten-month winter and the contrast and warmth of summer colors hid the day-to-day struggle of the post-soviet economy.

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I had been wondering about our vehicle for a while. On our return from Baikal I climbed into the back lounging on a pile of luggage and watching the evening pass the windows. We speedily retraced our path through birches, pines, and grey villages on our way back to Ulan-Ude.  Our slow suffocation had begun before we climbed into the hills south of Baikal. As we climbed, the engine skipped a beat every now and then.  Soon, the every now and then turned into a rather consistent missing and back-firing. The small engine was struggling under the load of each climb, and even under the best of circumstances ventilation in the UAZ is a premium. Confined to the rear of the van, I slowly stewed in exhaust fumes. And still the air within the vehicle seemed to be getting worse; this was confirmed when I noticed Des snorkeling at a small window up-front. Finally, the tough little vehicle sputtered a last gasp and Misha surrendered to the side of the roadway. Birch forest surrounded us and I was actually relieved to get out in the quiet fresh air.

In the U.S., when most of us suffer engine trouble, we climb out of our over-sized, room-for-eight single-occupant vehicles and, maybe, we open the hood and for some unknown reason take the air filter out and look at it.  This is supposed to fix something. Misha had a much different strategy. He immediately began to remove the engine-cover located between the two front seats. Beneath the cover a greasy black engine, a thing of which I know very little about, loomed in the growing darkness. Misha grabbed a bag of miscellaneous-looking tools from beneath his seat and began dismantling the the engine.