It was a proper Russian fairy tale, the way I told my Finnish friend Hannele afterwards. At least, from what I’d seen of the Russian façade – stark poker faces in public, unbreachable, and from the unfortunate novels I’d read, Anna Karenina, Crime and Punishment – I figured my life fit the genre.

"Just a second!" I hollered, trying fitfully to untie a recalcitrant knot. Finally it was out and I padded into the living room/my bedroom. She was lounging on the couch in front of the television, but when I came in, she turned to look at me.

"Iina, I have a question for you. I mean, you can go or not go, it’s the same to me. But you see, I have to go to Irkutsk. For work, you know. I have a project there on lake Baikal, and it must be done now in this part of the summer…."

"—so I can come with you to Irkutsk, if I want to?" Hannele’s roundabout way of talking could drive me insane sometimes. "Where is it, anyway? Far away? Past Moscow?" I had been to Moscow once, it was a few hours by train. A nice enough city, but not as friendly as Petersburg, somehow. Everything was huge, and I remembered being too afraid to enter a museum. Petersburg was already homey, comfortable, even after only three months. But I wouldn’t mind the change, I though, my mind skating over my life here.

It had been Hannele who introduced me to the group of kids I hung out with, mostly because if I were left alone, I would wander around all day and read in small cafes. They were about my age, students in university, and they were nice enough to listen to, over tea, in the stolovaya. Our acquaintanceship, however, left a lot to be wished for.

Igor didn’t seem to ever be attracted to girls. He was as enthusiastic as a ten year old, had about that much sensitivity and subtlety. He endlessly talked and Lena always laughed at him. She was capricious only in that, when I least expected it, she would be whiny and immature, or "have to go home." I guessed that we wouldn’t stay in touch if I left.

Hannele was watching me, quizzically, and I realised I’d been standing in the same place for a number of minutes, like a statue.

"Did you say something?" I asked, feeling a bit embarrassed. There was no reason to. Hannele was used to me and my drifting off in the middle of conversations. She smiled at me, and repeated, "Irkutsk is in Siberia. We have to take the train, for six days to get there. But it’s a nice city. Much smaller than here, of course. There is an apartment for us, as big as this one. I think you would like it. And it’s only two weeks."

Siberia. The word echoed in my head, bracketed by the idea of six days in a train. I was starting to be intrigued by this journey, by the crossing of nearly the entire country—

"So it’s on the entire other side of the continent, isn’t it Hannele?" I asked, my eyes brightening.

"No, not quite." She was laughing at me, I could see it in her eyes, the quiet way the Finnish people laugh. "I think it is another two days by train to the Pacific Ocean."

"Yeah! Yes, I want to go. Hannele, that sounds so cool. What kind of work are you doing there?"

"Do you know anything about Lake Baikal, Iina?" I shook my head.

"Well, it is a special lake. It is freshwater and very deep, and so the environmental organisations are trying to protect it. I will go and work with the environmental organisation of Irkutsk to test the water and some of the organisms in it. This happens every summer, so they can test how polluted it has become."

"If it’s special, why is it polluted—I mean, isn’t there government control or something?" I wrinkled my brow, knowing that my question was pretty stupid, but wishing that somewhere in the world, people had the sense not to pollute special places.

"You know the government here, Iina, you see what kind of priorities they have. The fact is, there is a paper factory there, and it produces very little of anything at all. Except it pollutes the lake of course. But the government likes it there, and so there is nothing anyone can do. Except test the water, like we are doing, and hope that nothing gets too damaged."

I nodded sadly, my mind floating off on the topic of governmental priorities. Not a priority: the happiness of the people, cleaning up the city so it was pretty, building things on empty lots, keeping the rivers in Petersburg clean. I was pretty sure that the government’s only priority was staying rich.

***

The train ride was uneventful. It was actually stultifyingly boring. Six days trapped in a little train with a whole million drunk Russians. I learned that Russians get drunk on long train trips, as a matter of course. The two men in the coupe with us were from the army, and they had come prepared with vodka and beer. Hannele sat at the tiny table in the coupe, ignoring everything around her and looking over complex figures that were written in Finnish. I alternated between lying on my bunk reading books and clambering down to drink with the crazy Russians.

"Wow, you can really hold your alcohol!" Boris proclaimed on the second. Then they started to play cards. I played a few games with them, and got bored, and went back to my books. And thus they played cards and were drunk, and I read and occasionally talked to them, the entire way there.

For the first few days in Irkutsk, I wandered. It was what I had done in St. Petersburg – wandering the streets through dead looking April, May when the trees bloomed, June when the tourists came. I had almost started to feel like a native, around the tourists. With Russians, that never happened.

I had been reading for awhile when a shadow went over my page. I looked up. Blue eyes stared at me, and he said, "It’s impolite to sit in public like that." I was lying on my stomach along the length of the bench. I stared back at him, shocked. No one had ever randomly approached me before, except raving babushki and raving drunks.

"Oh," I finally collected myself and shrugged. "Thanks for telling me." I didn’t move. He didn’t move either.

After a pause, he said, "So may I sit here?"

It took awhile to register – I got the impression my brain wasn’t functioning too well today. Finally I heaved a sigh and sat up. He sat down. Russians have never impressed me by being the least bit friendly to strangers on the street. Particularly in this little city – people still remembered that in communist times it was virtually illegal to smile. I wondered what was wrong with him.

"Do you mind if we talk?" he asked.

"No, I don’t mind," I answered slowly. He leaned back comfortably. I was trying very hard not to admit that he was good looking. He had dark hair and piercing blue eyes. The lines in his face were sharp, but they conveyed intensity, not starkness. I couldn’t have guessed his age very well, but I thought below 30, at least.

"So you’re a foreigner?" he asked, his eyes staring into mine. I nodded.

"Yeah," I said.

"From where?"

"From the United States." I got the impression that I wasn’t making this easy for him. But his eyes widened, as he repeated "You’re an American?"

"Yes."

"You have very good Russian, for an American. How long have you been in Russia?"

"Three months." I replied

"Here in Irkutsk?"

"No, in Petersburg."

"What are you dong there? Studying?"

I shrugged. "Sort of," I replied. "Learning Russian. Watching people."

He shifted on the bench. "My name is Valera."

"My name is Iina."

"Is that a very American name?’

"No. Just a nickname." It was Hannele who had taken to calling me Iina. She said it was a Finnish name, and she was from Finland, and I took to it because of the novelty of choosing myself a new name.

Valera was still thinking. "Nice to meet you," he said finally. "Walk along the river with me?"

**

We walked along the river. The next day he took me around town and told me history of the buildings and streets as we passed. Things I would never have guessed alone started to bloom under the sight of my new knowledge. I wondered how much I missed of St. Petersburg by not having people tell me these things about it. My guidebook sketched out lines, but it took people who cared to show the life in history.

Along the river was a path with a park, crowded with throngs of people, and with tents as makeshift cafés. I vaguely wondered what it looked like in the dead of the Siberian winter.

At night we bought beer and sat along the path like herds of other youth I could see. He kissed me, and I felt surreal, floating away from myself. I kissed him and hoped I wouldn’t regret it, while somehow expecting that I would.

Then Valera decided that I needed to see more than just Irkutsk, and so another day we drove to a little city nearby to visit some friends of his. It was built in the 60’s, a completely planned Soviet city, Valera said. I expected it somehow to be ugly because of that stigma, but I was wrong. There were nice parks, with seas of birch trees. The stark blocks of the apartment buildings somehow fit into the scenery. They were spare, simple, unextravagant. We spent hours in a museum of watches, craning our eyes at the tiny pieces and I wondered at mechanics, electronics and science in general.

"What does ‘shesternya’ mean, Valera? What is the placard talking about?"

"It means gear. It is just explaining the workings of the watch," Valera explained with great patience.

"What is it saying?"

"First, that this gear must connect with that copper coloured one above it, and then it tells about this man who thought it up."

"Why don’t they have these things arranged differently, chronologically or something?"

Valera shrugged. "They just don’t want to." He was brittle, somehow, when it came to issues of creativity. He reminded me of Lena: they both accepted the status quo and were satisfied with whatever they got, even if they deserved better. He didn’t seem to accept responsibility, either – like the times when Lena missed appointments and just shrugged it off.

There was a dent in Valera’s car, and I asked once how he’d gotten it. A pause.

"Oh, that’s life, you know," he said casually. "No one in the city knows how to drive." I thought privately that maybe he ought to learn to drive a bit better himself, before making that judgment.

Visiting Valera’s friends, I was an observer, as always. Their relations complicated and subtle, my Russian twisting my tongue; I always felt that I appeared about twelve in groups. I had nothing to add to their conversation anyway when they discussed times and places I didn’t know.

The weather got hot, and of course we had no air conditioning, so we spent afternoons swimming in the river. The first time, I had to coax Valera in. He stood on the shore and watched me as I butterflied out to the horizon.

"Come on! You scaredy-cat, get in the water!" I hollered at the top of my lungs, splashing him until he came in after me, swimming to dunk me in the depths of the freezing cold river. I felt exuberant and exhilarated, freed by Russia this once, and fully alive.

That night we went to Valera’s house for tea, so I could meet his parents and little sister Masha. Their apartment looked like all Russian apartments. Nondescript linoleum, carpets both hanging on the walls and covering the floor. Plants everywhere. Trinkets everywhere, bookshelves full of hardcover, matched sets of Pushkin, Tolstoi, Chexov. Two housecats.

They asked me questions. I felt like I was being grilled in the Lubyanka.

"What do you think of George W?" they asked. "What did you think of the election? What do you think of Putin’s new plan? What do you think of Lake Baikal? …oh, you haven’t been there? You really must go. It is the most magnificent place here. What do you think of this city? You must miss America a lot. Where are you from there? What are you studying here? Why Russia?"

The questions came so fast that I could barely think to answer them all. I didn’t have answers for half of them, not used to being the center of attention. Finally they settled into their tea, and Masha smiled shyly at me over the rim of her teacup, and asked, "Would you like to speak English with me? I study in school now." I smiled hesitantly, probably more afraid than her.

"Sure, Masha. How much English have you studied?" I cast a glance at Valera, and after a few minutes he started gathering the dishes so we could leave.

"About six years now. I will try to get into the Translators University next year, if I am lucky." I nodded sagely, figuring that the Translators University was a good place. "Has Valera not told you, that he graduated from there last year? He was one of the best students in English and French." My eyebrows went up in amusement. Valera must speak pretty good English, I thought, and I would never have asked.

He was studiously watching me talk to his sister, having cleared the table, and I looked up at him inquisitively until he kissed his parents goodbye, and we were shuffled out the door.

Hannele left, to do on-site research on Lake Baikal, not to be back for days, and without her the apartment felt empty. I felt sorry for her in this weather, and then I contemplated Lake Baikal, the magnificence of which I had not yet seen. It must be quite a wonderful lake, I thought, to attract so many people. Naturally the Irkutskians would like it, after all, it’s the only interesting thing anywhere around here. But for Finnish environmentalists to be working on this lake, it must be like the best lake in the world, I decided.

Then I wondered at myself what game I was playing, sitting around while Hannele changed the world. I stopped wondering when Valera rang the doorbell at noon. He taught me three Russian card games and then, stir crazy, I suggested that we go outside and puddle jump. Valera looked at me, bewildered.

"It just means what I said." I explained hopelessly. "We go outside and jump in all the puddles until we are really wet and all the neighbors think we’re cuckoo. That’s the whole point of it." Valera laughed, and followed me outside. I stomped in the puddles meaningfully, drenching myself and Valera in the process until he started drenching me as well. We stayed outside until we looked and felt like drowned rats, and returned feeling euphoric.

I was euphoric because of the novelty of watching Valera turn into a drowned rat. I hadn’t expected him to agree to my proposition. I pictured him as somehow too well dressed to stoop to such a level of immaturity. When we returned we put our clothes on the heaters to dry and he made some fried chicken dish for dinner. It was wonderful.

The next day he left to do something. Work, he said. The sun was back; I took my book and went to the park. I arranged myself unpolitely on the park bench. I ended up people watching more than reading. Russian people are very amusing as long as you can keep your sense of humor around. A certain sense of déjà vu hit when I looked up and saw Valera coming in the distance. I watched his approach, wondering if I really knew this man at all. Probably not.

I made him spaghetti with tomato sauce for dinner and then laughed when he thought it was bizarre. Laughed, but wondered if I would always be the bizarre one.

"What is your friend Hannele doing," he asked, "on Lake Baikal?"

I chewed a bite of spaghetti thoughtfully. "Testing the water, she said, to make sure that it’s still clean."

"What do you think of the lake?"

"I haven’t gone there yet," I said woefully, and his expression made me laugh. "I haven’t been here that long, I mean!" I tried to justify it.

So the next day we went to Lake Baikal. I jumped out of the car the minute the lake was visible, at a small drive by place where people were selling fish and all sorts of things. I ignored them and draped myself over the railing by the water. It was the very beginning of the lake, where the Angara river begins (or ends? I wasn’t sure) I could see across to the other side, and although Valera insisted it was 30 kilometers across, the mountains were as clear as day. It didn’t seem nearly that far. We drove on, further until we were alone on a small overlook near the lake. I could see in both directions, to my right down to the south end of the lake, where Hannele had said the paper factory was, and then the left, all the way blue and sparkling and incredible looking forever. I felt as though I could touch the opposite shore, and I felt as though I could jump in the wonderful clear blue water and swim forever.

"It’s like five hundred kilometers long, Iina. Isn’t it incredible?"

"And how deep?" I asked.

"I don’t remember exactly. It is the deepest freshwater lake in the world, I think it is maybe 1600 meters?"

"There is a paper factory on the south end of this lake, isn’t there, Valera?" he nodded. "Doesn’t that bother you?" Now he shrugged.

"What does it have to do with me?" he asked, and I felt weak and fragile, wishing I had the power to protect this beautiful landscape from the people who didn’t care enough. "But don’t you want it beautiful? Don’t you worry that it will be ruined for you children?"

"Iina, this is a strange and wonderful lake. They say that it is the purest water in the world, and they say that even now, after there has been horrible pollution. It is because of the creatures that live in the water, those that are too small to see. They keep the water clean. It will always be so."

"But what if it’s not enough? What if it becomes dirtier than they can clean up?"

"They will do something before then. It will never be so bad."

I tried to let the discussion go. I didn’t think that it was possible to convince Valera of this, if he didn’t care enough.

"Can I swim?" I asked, and then as he looked at me with an odd smile on his face, I realised the idiocy of my question. "Oh," I said. "The water is very clean. So I can swim here, it’s okay."

He smiled further, and motioned to the edge of the cliff. It was only 8 feet or so to the water, an easy dive. I stripped off my shirt and shorts, and gracefully swan dove into the lake.

And I knew I was about to have a heart attack. There was no way I could survive. I was not going to make it. I felt myself catapulting into the freezing cold water, and I was certain that this was what Siberia felt like. I could certainly not move. In any direction. Ever.

I felt myself reversing directions, heading up, up vertigo and cold until, suddenly I burst free of the water and screamed as loud as I could. It was a scream of the freezing water as it petrified me, but it was also a primal scream of purity and wonder and this very moment. My scream echoed, it seemed, across the mountains that were so far away and looked so close. Perhaps it echoed all the way to Hannele and her boat of ecologists; I never asked. Then I collected myself and swam to shore, breathing the wonderful fresh air and reveling in it. Valera was still laughing at me when he met me with a towel.

"We do swim sometimes here," he said. "But only around the other side of the lake, where it is shallow. That part gets warm in the summer. Here in the deep parts it is always cold. About 6 degrees Celsius, I think."

I jumped up and down to warm myself, and contemplated six degrees Celsius. That was still 46 degrees warmer than the average January temperature, which Valera had said was ‘about –40.’

Minus forty is the same in Fahrenheit and Celsius. I had never in my life experienced anything remotely close to minus forty. The nearest I had gotten was 23 degrees Fahrenheit, on school mornings waiting for the bus. And this water, I assured myself, had felt much colder than that.

We lounged in the sun for a few more hours, idly talking and then reading. Valera had brought some work with him. With a smile, he apologised. "You know, the work never ends. Even in the summer." Then he thought for a second, and said, "Anyway, if I don’t know some word, then you can help me." I smiled at the thought, and turned to my book, feeling the sun creep into every corner of me and warm my Baikal frozen skin.

After awhile we put the literary pursuits away, and went hiking until the sun set. I knew I would never forget this view or this wonderful lake. I didn’t want to leave this remote piece of nowhere. I wanted to stay and make sure that Baikal was the same forever.

I changed my mind the next morning after tea. I knew that Valera would go live at home again sooner or later, or his parents would fret. But I still didn’t expect what came. Valera put a book on the table. A new Russian novel, by all appearances.

"Here," he said, "Keep reading on benches. It’s good to be weird sometimes.

I felt like he had missed the point. I sat that way solely out of comfort.

"I wrote my email address down for you. Keep in touch, okay?" He gestured to the book with his teacup, sucked down the final sip, and with a muffled thump set the cup down. I didn’t say anything as I shut the door behind him. Valera had come, and so Valera left.

I spent the final few days in museums, one after another. Luckily, Irkutsk has many museums and I walked to nearly all of them. Time, I had.

I wandered around the city taking black and white pictures of what I dubbed "Russia’s reality"-- depressed people, fires, garbage and unhappiness. I sat in parks where I hadn’t been before, and pretended that I wasn’t feeling desolate as I fed the titmice and chickadees with sunflower seeds from a street vendor.

I found my favorite park on the last day before we were to leave. It was a bit of a walk out of the city, but it had been built on a graveyard by the communists. I coaxed up a faint smirk at the irony, and took a few more photographs, and then was mistaken for a Russian on the bus on the way home. Finally, I was like one of them. Finally, sunk deep enough in unhappiness to look poker-faced Russian, and too unhappy to be uplifted by the thought, I took my new novel and draped myself artistically over a bench until it was too dark to read.