Gallery | Rostov

About the Author / Photographer

Michael Simpson is a writer, photographer and graphic designer from Toronto. He makes music under the artist name 'Mikooshka.' This is an account of a trip he made to Russia in August 2008.

Part 1: Rostov-on-Don

Herring and Hangovers

e’re standing at a busy intersection along Prospekt Stachki and watching for our bus. A mixture of Volgas, Ladas, Fords and Hyundais barrel past, mingling in the road with a rainbow of trucks, taxis, and smoke-spewing buses. I’m feeling curious and a wee bit sick: My condition’s a disorienting cocktail of road fumes, jet lag and hangover. We spot a bus heading downtown and climb aboard, handing over our nine-rouble fare to the driver. Minding the advice of the Moscow travel guide about loose manholes, I delicately step past the square grate-like fixtures on the floor and proceed to the back of the bus. Surveying the signage I notice it’s ‘nye parusski’- not in Russian - and ask my girlfriend what she makes of it. She explains that the buses here in this southern Russian city are hand-me-downs, often decades-old buses from abroad – and this bus, with its soiled, faded, brown and orange interior, has signage that looks to be Scandinavian. On closer inspection I make out a logo that reads "swebus." Ochen interesno… very interesting…

Irina spent the afternoon entertaining relatives she hasn't seen in the seven years that she's been in Canada. After a little too much herring, open-faced meat-cut sandwiches called buterbrods, Olivier salad, and the omnipresent vodka, we plotted our escape from her family's little one bedroom apartment. We walked down the five flights past graffiti and plumbing odds-and-ends and into the late afternoon playground hive. Children dash by kicking balls on asphalt and gravel. Crickets are sounding off in a forest of weeds. The little spots of grass here and there are sun-burnt and thin. The stray cats and dogs I’ve heard so much about are still here. Carrying on we chatted about how much Russia might have changed – and not changed – in the time since she’s been away.

We are traveling east across the city, parallel with the river, crossing over the massive railroad which employs many of the families who live in Zhyaleznodorozhne (“Railway area”). At the end of the line, we get off and are greeted by a rainbow of products and vendors, alcohol and shawarma kiosks perfectly golden in the fading daylight. Irina explains that the streets and place names here are often references to Soviet heroes – the main drag here was called "Engels street” during Soviet times. It has reverted to its pre-1917 name, Balshoya Sadovaya (“Big Garden”). Another main east-west avenue is called “Red Army”. My favourite, a rare pedestrian friendly ‘mall,’ is the long avenue called “Pushkinskaya,” named for the national hero and poet, replete with a giant-sized statue of Pushkin looming over the locals under classical buildings topped with Coca-Cola and Samsung billboards. I contemplate how much upheaval has taken place here in the last 100 years. Remembering images I’d seen of Lenin statues abandoned and piled in vacant lots, arms still raised and outstretched, I nod and hold out a stiff arm to the future – Irina laughs, takes my arm and we stroll.

We take the pedestrian passage under an intersection a few brave souls are trying to cross on foot. Pedestrians here are a target for fast-moving aggressive drivers. At first I am a little bitter that we are forced to negotiate these underground passages under the intersections but when I do a new world opens up. I pose alongside Soviet mosaic tile work and absorb the bright parade of knick-knack shops selling bras, colognes, batteries, soaps, and sports memorabilia. It’s nothing like the slick marble underground plazas back home in Toronto. It feels like a flea market, or better yet, ‘bazaar’ and it’s a novel distraction for the two minutes it takes to cross to the other side.

Clambering up the stairs and reaching the top we come upon a public notice-board with hundreds of mostly handwritten ads and continue another twenty meters down the block to avoid jaywalking near the ever-present militsiya – the local police. They are busy waving batons at large sedans, and shaking down the drivers for ID and small bribes. (I will learn later that in Moscow, a city of twelve million, 700 police officers were charged with corruption in the last year.)

The square next to the cathedral bustles with women coming to and fro wearing platki (headscarves), and we spot some homeless milling about on the fringes of the square. We take photos of the statue of Saint Dimitry of Rostov and I marvel at the amazing onion-dome topped Nativity Cathedral. It’s not clear to me how religious the local citizenry are – after perestroika church became almost trendy – but despite the Soviets clampdown on religion, the Eastern Orthodox Church always flourished underground. At any rate there is still a flurry of activity as women transform themselves at the gates, wrapping headscarves, making the sign of the cross, walking determinedly into the Cathedral. There are few men here it would seem. Most of the men close by are beggars just outside the gate. After a few minutes we are walking away, embedded in the hustle and flow. Kiosks selling mountains of DVDs and CDs were blaring hip-hop, babushkas spread green garden produce and dried fish across little tables and the last of the day crowd. biznessmeni in sharp suits, briskly scattered. Soon I guessed there’d be no one here but the bums and the babushkas.

I feel as though I’m at the intersection of old and new, a meeting of worlds – all of it worlds apart from Canada. As night falls, and I buzz with the exhilaration of exploring, we make our way back to the bus loop and grab a bus back home. I undress and fall into the luxury of the pull-out-couch bed, staring at the glowing TV tower that dominates the scene outside our window. The city is silent save for the occasional car using the lane below as an after-hours autobahn. At around eleven the tower's lights flicked off, but I had already fallen off to sleep. Deep in a dream I processed a whirlwind twenty-four hours in Russia.

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Header: "Stella" monument detail - in commermoration of WW2 victory /liberation