The Other Side of Russia: A Slice of Life in Siberia and the Russian Far East Volume 21

In THE OTHER SIDE OF RUSSIA, the University of Maryland University College has established a joint undergraduate degree program in business management with the Far Eastern State University in Vladivostok and the State University in Irkutsk. In the summer of 1993, author Sharon Hudgins and her husband, Tom, packed off to Siberia and the Russian Far East to serve as teachers in this cooperative venture, while the former was also Maryland's on-site program coordinator in both cities. This book chronicles their experiences from their arrival until their departure in December 1994. Whether she's describing the immensity of pristine Lake Baikal, the problematic living conditions in their high-rise apartment, local customs and food of the Buryat people, the vagaries and perils of shopping for household necessities, maddening water and electricity outages, local festivals, the growing pains of a free-market economy, the university students' learning ethic, or the conviviality and generosity of their Russian friends, Hudgins has a keen eye for small details, as when describing an open air market: "An Uzbek woman ... sold raisins and nuts in small paper cones made out of official forms from the Irkutsk Municipal Water Department ... In one part of the market, a pretty teenage girl, wearing a garish, flower-printed dress and a thousand-yard stare, held a handful of peacock feathers and sipped a can of Dr Pepper, while in another section two older women, both drunk, tried to punch each other out in a fist fight." I haven't been so engaged by a travel essay about Russia since Hedrick Smith's 1976 bestseller, THE RUSSIANS. My only criticism is the relative lack of photographs - only a couple at most per chapter. Luckily, Sharon's poetic prose paints pictures almost as effective as snapshots, as this from her vantage point on the Trans-Siberian Railroad: "A profusion of wildflowers carpeted the meadows, like an Impressionist painting exuberantly expanding beyond the limits of canvas and frame: undulating shades of yellow, gold, and blue, maroon and magenta, soft pink and pristine white, the pale purple globes of wild onions gone to seed, thousands of red-orange tiger lilies, whole fields of dark purple Siberian irises, and occasionally a single red poppy or two, like a stubborn symbol of politics past. Outside Chita a small lake glistened under the midnight moon." For me, a travel narrative is all it can be if it makes me want to go there myself. THE OTHER SIDE OF RUSSIA accomplishes that. Well, maybe for just a brief visit, perhaps, because I certainly wouldn't want to live there.

The Other Side of Russia by Sharon Hudgins Reviewed by Sharon Dirlam Eight years ago, when the Peace Corps invited me to serve two years in the Russian Far East, my first stop was the nearest library. There was precious little information about the place I was headed. "The Other Side of Russia - A Slice of Life in Siberia and the Russian Far East" fills this gap. More thorough than any guidebook about the area, and more personal than any travelogue, Hudgins' account pulls aside the curtain and offers a perspective on this vast and complicated territory. The book is admirable in a number of ways. Hudgins and her husband lived in Vladivostok (which some nearsighted travel writers have called "the San Francisco of the Russian Far East") and Irkutsk (dubbed with a wink "the Paris of Siberia"). Having shared many similar experiences during my Peace Corps years in Birobidjan, Russia, I can attest that Hudgins' account of life in post-perestroika Russia rings true. A chapter on getting to know the Buryats, and sharing with them an exotically basic feast described in exquisite detail, is worth reams of academic reports. Another chapter on the perils and curiosities of train travel in Siberia goes humorously further than most accounts. And Hudgins' view of Vladivostok documents that formerly closed city's transition from heavily controlled Communist secrecy to wide-open, anything-goes, free-wheeling corruption, to embryonic attempts to establish a social order starting from less than zero. Two other attributes stand out in this readable account of life in the territory of Russia that is light years away from Moscow. One is Hudgins' expertise as a food and travel writer, which gives her the ability to savor and describe the cuisines of the area in ways that are both interesting and authoritative. The second is what differentiates this book from others that have been written in the past few years: a laudable amount of research that contextualizes the Hudgins' experience in the bigger picture of Russia's recent history. For anyone drawn to read about Russia from the point of view of a thoughtful American who lived and worked there, "The Other Side of Russia" is informative and enjoyable.

From 1993 to 1995 Sharon Hudgins and her husband Tom lived and worked in post-Soviet Siberia, teaching at the university level through the University of Maryland's overseas programs. Originally from Texas, they had formerly worked in Germany, Spain, Greece, Japan, Korea under the same program in which he taught economics and she taught cross-cultural communication. Ms. Hudgins was particularly interested in Russia and her first master's degree was in Soviet-US relations. Both she and her husband had also learned the language, which made communication possible. This book is about the two years they spent in Siberia, specifically in Vladivostok and Irkutsk.Ms. Hudgins' descriptions are rich with detail and the book is full of anecdotes that transported me immediately to the world she describes. I had always heard about the inefficiencies and breakdowns that were common in Russia. But after I read about their living conditions, the reality of it hit me immediately. In both cities they lived in high-rise apartment buildings, a commute of 1-1/2 hours each way to their jobs. These high rises were built with shoddy material and shoddy workmanship and were nowhere near food shopping or any other conveniences. The elevator never worked and they would have to walk up and down eight floors. But the worst thing of all was that heat, water and electricity were intermittent. They would suddenly be without heat in the middle of a Siberian winter. And even when the undrinkable and polluted water did come through their pipes, it could be cut off at a moment's notice. Same with electricity. As a result, they learned to be very creative, especially in their preparation of meals.Speaking of food, in addition to all Ms. Hudgins' other accomplishments, she is also a trained food writer. And so her descriptions of food were some of the most memorable parts of the book. She and her husband are experienced gourmet cooks and befriended some Russian people who were also good cooks. There's a lot of interesting food descriptions and I was fascinated by the time and trouble they took to prepare even the simplest meal. One incident in particular stays in my mind. They went out to countryside to buy fresh milk at a farmers' market. In this Siberian area the farmers milk their cows, fill a pail and leave it outside to freeze. However, they put a branch of a tree upright in the pail. Later, they lift the frozen milk out of the pail. It now looks like a huge popsicle. These "popsicles" are then loaded on a wagon and brought to market. The Hudgins purchased milk this way, carried it home on public transportation and it actually stayed frozen the whole time. Naturally they had to boil it before they used it. But they said it was delicious.Another area which particularly interested me was the education system. Formerly, it was all about privilege and favoritism. People paid teachers for good grades. Bribes were considered a fact of life. And students themse

This extraordinary work is quite a bit more than "a slice of life." It's more like a seven-course meal replete with a different wine for each course topped with cognac, coffee, tea and cigars--not to mention a steady stream of songs, dances, toasts, speeches, gossip and other staples of Russian life east--far east--of the Urals. Relying on her experience as visiting professor at the Irkutsk State University in Irkutsk and the Far Eastern National University in Vladivostok during the years 1993-1995 when the fledgling Russian Federation was crashing headlong into the realities of the new market economy, Professor Hudgins has penned an amazingly detailed, colorful and often painfully vivid reminiscence of life in a place she and her husband Tom rightly dubbed "Absurdistan."Much of the book chronicles their day-to-day life amid the dreary poverty, the revolting filth, the depressing pollution, the mind-altering inefficiency, the endemic corruption, the physical danger and the stubborn backwardness and Big Brother paranoia that still characterized the Russian reality. Living in a drab high-rise "village" often without electricity or running water, with elevators that seldom worked, in small rooms often without heat in below zero temperatures, where toilet paper typically consisted of pages cut from Soviet era books, subsisting on their wits and craftily purchased food and drink, Sharon and Tom made an adventure out of what most of us would rightly experience as a horror story.Consider this from Chapter 7: "The water that ran through our taps...ranged in color from clear to amber to orange to purple to black, with accompanying aromas of petroleum, sewer gas, ham, rotten eggs, or fish." Consequently they pumped all their water for drinking, cooking, and tooth brushing through a portable filtration device they had brought with them. When the electricity was on they used the opportunity to boil water for future use, storing it in plastic bottles and an emergency 10-liter plastic container. They saved and used and reused plastic bags for many purposes, including carrying home fresh meat from the market that was cut from the animal and placed in their hands. They even reused the foil from Cadbury chocolate bars since there was no aluminum foil available.Siberia is a cruel place, one must conclude from reading this book, yet a place where people survive in a hardtack economy buffeted with long cold winters and brief, sometimes sweltering summers, away from the dependable comforts of our world, a place pitifully short on glamour and indoor plumbing, a place I would rather read about than experience first hand.That Hudgins did experience this first hand surprises me. I wonder why she did it. Part of the reason was her love of adventure no doubt, and part was to write a book about a country that she had been interested in since childhood, and part was to experience a culture in transition.Central to that experience was her love of food and drink as e

Sharon Hudgins and her husband took teaching jobs in Irkutsk and Vladivostok, two major cities in Siberia. They had to adjust to life in post-Soviet Russia, a far cry from the way things were at the University of Maryland, where they held teaching positions.Hudgins is a food and travel writer, so there is much detail about the food, cooking and grocery supplies in Russia. In fact, several chapters seemed pretty much one party after another with the hospitable Russians, who love a get-together with good food and drink, and party hard all night. It's a good way to ignore the intermittant electricity, lack of running water and other infrastructure problems that plague the crumbling post-Soviet urban landscape. The most interesting part of the book was a stint in Ulan-Ude, capital of the Buryat Republic. The Buryat are a Mongolian people, cousins of the Mongol Horde of Genghis Khan. The only Tibetan lamasery (monastery) is in Ulan-Ude. The Buryat Republic borders Lake Baikal, the deepest, oldest lake in the world, home to unique species of flora and fauna and a fascinating place to read about.This is a fascinating travel book, with a lot of fun anecdotes and stories about horrific train rides, scary food (a sheep's head with the wool still on it, and blood pudding in a sheep's stomach, no way to say "no thank you" to the amiable hosts who are putting on a real spread for their guests.) If you are interested in Russia, in a part of Russia most Westerners never visit, you should read "The Other Side of Russia."