Life; Birth, Education, marriage and Death in Bashkortastan (Other locations...)

Member Name: Cammij

Product:	Other locations...
Date:	31/08/08 (56 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: See a different world

Disadvantages: so far away

In the course of life I have seemed to have settled down. While I used to travel the globe in search of debauchery and destruction I now live a calm and purposeful life. It was all about finding the right woman for me. Not merely a good woman, or sufficient woman, but that missing portion of my soul that when recombined elevates me to a higher plan of conciousness and awareness. Long story short- I live near Cedar Point Amusement Park in Sandusky Ohio USA and she was a Summer work-study-travel student in 2003. She went back home at the end of 2003 and we ended up married in November of 2006 and I know the rest is "happily ever after". So let me tell you about my various trips to her hometown of UFA, Republic of Bashkortostan Russia, I will call it Birth, education, marriage and death in the secular muslim world of Russia.

Ufa is the center and capital of the Republic of Bashkortostan (there are a number of 'republics' in the Russian Federation as well as 'Oblasts' which are states) a city of 1 million in a Republic of 3.5 million. 451 years ago (trust me we all saw the signs telling us 450 years last year) right after Ivan the Terrible conquered Kazan and forced the province into the Russian Empire, an event he celebrated by building the big Iconic cathederal at the Kremlin, yes- that one that represents Russia herself, the people of Bashkortastan, essentially the next place to invade, met and joined the Russian Empire peacefully. The people refer to Bashkortastan as Bashkiria, home of the Bashkirs, who had been a nomadic people of Asiatic origins who speak a Turkic language but the population is nearly divided, or rather united, as one third Slavic European Russians, One third Tatar, and one third Bashkir sprinkled with a handful of Jews. My wife is Volga Tatar, a tribe that has taken a long 4,000 year journey from apparently Northern Japan to Bulgaria back to Southern Russia along the way collecting the genes of all of Eurasia so that seeing a person with bright blue eyes and real blond hair but real Chinese facial features is not unusual. There is considerable competition between Tatar and Bashkir with one University dominated by each tribe, or a Hockey club or whatever and once the Bashkirs got their own theater then the Tatars got one too soon after. A person can not avoid noticing the ethnic conciousness or awareness, perhaps a better word is preoccupation, there is not open strife nor violence or anything but each group is obssesed with ethinicity and there is rare intermarriages. Meanwhile the Slavic Russians (all of which proudly proclaim a tatar great grandparent or two-Tatars are some 10% of the Russian population and the largest minority group) lump all of the Turkic language speaking people together and don't recognize the differences. Just for the record, the Turks who came and set up the Ottoman empire and put the Turk in Turkey were from this general area.

The strangest thing for me on my first (2006) of 4 trips to Ufa, and this is after extensively travelling the former Soviet realm, was that no one bothered to change the street names in UFA nor tear down the sundry Soviet statues. A person got a 100 foot tall reminder of who Lenin Street was named after, the newest and busiest temple of Capitalism, a mall is built, literally, right in the shadow of Lenin. The rest of the street have similar names October Avenue, Sorge Street, Revolution avenue, it goes on and on. This is a case where changing the street names would cause too much confusion as well as strife between Tatar and Bashkir so they remain.

I have to mention birth in Ufa since it is in my working title. In Russia halthcare is nominally free but if you have money and connections ("blat") you go to a private hospital. I was standing outside my wife's cousins apartment building, actually I do not think he is a cousin, in the Tatar language or culture, any member of your family of very close blood of your own generation is called your brothers and sisters, you refer to your parents generation's relatives as "aunts" and "uncles" and your grandparents generation gets another term for "old-uncles". There is no need to prattle on about second cousin twice removed. Blood does not require such fanciful desciption, you know who your kin are. I looked over and saw a building that was clearly a prison, stark worn brick, steel roof and concertina wire over tall brick walls. What prison is that I enquired, "It is the house of births" my wife answered and said no more. So it seems in the former SSR you came into this world already born in a prison.

I was able to get a first hand look at the higher education system in Bashkortastan. This was prior to my beginning my present academic work at Harvard University. My wife believes in me enough to risk her reputation as a scholar and professor to loan me out to various colleagues to spice up their classes by having me lecture. When my wife had to work I was passed around and asked to perform my tricks for the students. I prepared lectures on Spanglish and the infusion of Norteno Mexican terms into mainstream English, compared and contrasted Russian superstition with that of German Americans, an explored the concept of Neology, the creation of new words for enterprise. Each of my lectures was well attended by students and professors alike. For the most part I was the first opportunity students had to meet and speak to an almost-native English speaker (my grandmother from Hamburg sort of sullies my "pure" Anglophonic heritage). Teaching was a lot of fun and the student were very respectful and tolerant of me. My favorite lecture was not amongst the brightest and best students at the top university but in a class that my wife's friend, also a University teacher, taught as private English lessons to supplement her meager state wages. These were students that were paying money to learn English without getting credit or certificates or whatever else motivates stuents. One student, who I later found out was from a rich and powerful family actually begin to loudly celebrate if I undestood his questions, despite someone else already having asked the same question. Many of the students seemed to be young women intent on learning English in order to correspond online with Westerners. Their quesions included "Do you have a wife", "Do you have a brother?" "Is your brother handsome", "Can we have your friends e-mail addresses". The professor was humiliated. The best question came from a well dressed young man who had several bottles of beer with him. "Do you like Russian women (yes)", "Do you like Russian women in UFA (some)", "Do you like the Russian women in this class (yes, they are nice)" "Do you like the Russian women in the front row". I was told not to anwer this question and not to call upon Dima again.

Marriage in Russia in truely bizarre, or actually I was not exactly married there but took part in a "signing o the marriage registry". After the Commies became oil moghuls and the State was no longer the highest diety in the land no one could figure out an official wedding ceremony that would appeal to Russians that do not go to church and tatars and Bashkirs who do not attend Mosque, so they kept the Commie ceremony. It was beyond surreal, this severe and stern woman who had to review our paperwork a few days earlier now pointing with a purple plastic wand where we had to sign in the book while some fat guy with a cheap keyboard played wedding songs (50 rubles each 1 pound 10p). I got to hear how I can rely upon the state to ensure my happiness and give me prosperity and security. I am still mad at my wife since Her family is full of very powerful KGB types but she ws too embarassed to admit she was marrying me and never asked for thir help dealing with all of this paperwork required to get married. They had not met me yet and would have opposed the marriage and possibly obstructed it. Now I know I am part of their family and the love me ( they chain me to a stove while I am there and force me to cook 2 alarm 4 way chili and Frogmore Stew and I have half of UFA running round in American collegiate garments..I have won their hearts).

The funniest thing about the "wedding ceremony" is that they are all on Saturday morning, bam, bam, bam on after another, 15 minutes each. So you have 8 or 9 bridal parties jockying for a place to stand and take pictures in the hall of records or whatever "Zags" means. And you have 5 brides glaring at each other and each others hair and dresses while 50 Russian men elbow and push for a place to stand in their famously aggressive society. The brides look like they are ready to pounce on each other. It s funny.

Death in Ufa

I will try to explain an event only two weeks past with grace and dignity. It is something that affected me yet was so powerful and new and exotic and unusual. It is hard to imagine being present at an event that in retrospect seems like some exotic event you viewed on TV from outside looking in. I will try to explain this with class and dignity and if I fail I will delete it, but in death I see such a huge difference between the midwestern USA and Tatarstan.

My wife's 23 year old cousin, a fantastic young man full of life and vigor, love and beauty died while we were in Russia. He was simply a golden child, happiness was a halo that shined above him. 5 time boxing champion of Bashkortostan, 1 time all Russia. I was lucky that I only ever met this boy in happy times, feasts at their home (in my honor) and our wedding reception (which took place in August 2007 not immediately after our wedding). As much as our own selfish needs beg us to exagerate our own loss and draw pity from others, I can not say that I had a long and strong bond with him, but when I review our wedding reception pictures or the pictures I have from Russia he is always beside me and we are always hugging and so happy. I know if chance and fate had differed that we would be friends forever and close. My wife was devastated. She loved him so much. So much of our time in America we would talk about his family and how much we missed them and how we would go to their apartment and eat each others food and we would guess how many servings the father would eat and this boy. Half way across the world they were a very real part of my life. And they would sen pictures, how proud they all were of their Kansas State shirts. I can hardly cry for my own loss when his family, such beautiful people are suffering. So I was just there in this trance, shielded by the language gap as the events unfolded around me.
In Central Asia there is no simple way of calling a one stop Mortuary Service who will take over everything and allow the family to grieve, rather the family must immediately begin dealing with the situation and preparartions amid their pain. I am in no way judging their system or way of death and mourning, I see the value in the grief process and the closure that it may lead to, yet I am just astounded that the loved ones have to rise up and perform these duties.
Truthfully I lost track of days and hours and the exact chronological order of things. I remember this band of boys, his friends and students, arriving at their 9th story flat with him in the casket and they placed him in the center of the main room. The mullah came and said prayers in Arabic and Tatar and they placed a pair of scissors on his chest. The mullah brought a roll of fresh clean white linen and cut off many pieces that he measured against the body. I was always confused, always wondering what my role should be, I was raised Christian but at this point in life am not entirely sure who Jesus is. I did not want to taint the ceremonies with my ignorance of their traditions or customs yet I got the impression that I was really part of the family not the novelty and distraction I had been before. People started coming to the flat and for some reason we were wearing shoes inside for once. I would sit and watch the Olympics with the uncle. Then boxing would come on and he would begin sobbing and show me all of the sons certificates and trophies. I broke down so often, not for my own loss but just the gravity of pain covering this family. My own sister and mother had just left for America a few days earlier and we had so many happy times, all I ever saw of these people was happiness and celebration that was now grief and mourning. I was so confused, so afraid my tears I was shedding for these people's pain would somehow being misinterpeted as self pity when I was just beaking down by seeing such magnificent people suffering. They had so much work to do and my wife was constantly in and out and my only job was staying with the uncle or staying beside the body which can not be left alone. Somehow in the midde of all this they were organizing buses and buying a plot and preparing a feast for the mourners. I read Economics at Harvard, and everywhere I go I am always telling people how this, that, and the other thing could be done more efficiently or profitably the American way, now I had to sit back in wonderment and keep my mouth shut and respect their traditions and appreciate the beauty of their culture. My mother-in-law, thank God she was already there from Kazakhstan (to see us), stayed up all night next to the departed with his mother sewing this burial shroud out of the linen the Mullah brought. I just cannot fathom this. I do not think Americans could ever endure the pain of remaining beside a corpse and sewing all night long. Then at some point his friends and Mullah came to ritually clean the body and dress it in the shroud. I remember wanting to walk to the cemetary with the crowd of his friends but I was in a bus with the family. I had been instructed to obtain a thick role of 10 ruble notes (25p) and at the gravesite I had to go around and pass them out to everyone, some other men did this too and somewhere along the line the women passed out bars of soap, towels, and handkerchiefs. The people are supposed to use the money right away and in his honor. Free money attracts drunks to the graveyard. Had I known such people would have been there I would have brought several small bottles of vodka to give them to leave us alone. The burial was so much more interactive than anything American. Two of his closest friends actually climbed into the hole, in their best clothes to lower the body into the ground in just his shroud. Then, while my wife informs me that this is not tradition and just "happened" as the casket was only used to get him to the 9th floor and not a usual part of a funeral some of his friends savagely and brutally assailed the casket and busted it into small pieces that were then tenderly laid upon him. Then the women who had been waved away came and we all threw earth onto the grave. Now that I think about our staid and calm funerals in America I can not help but thinking how false and empty we are in the moments we should be expressing emotion. Somehow our dignity is maintained by how well we conceal our emotions. Somehow we retain respectability by how much we hold back when we say good bye to our loved ones? I appreciated the wails of those women. It was like the crescendo and climax of the ill fated opera that was the soundtrack of a 23 year old boy's life. After the funeral so many people crowded into their home for an absolute feast. My wife, her mother and aunt had the humble role of serving all the food. I wonder why the mother herself was doing this work. Not because they could not hire someone or some other tatar girl would step forth to do it, I understood that this was what is normal and expected, this was part of life, this is what they do.

It certainly is strange to finally encounter some bounderies in this world. My whole life is wrapped up in eliminating ineffciencies and improving operations at a fortune 300 corporation. My mind is so dedicated to constantly improving processes to be more efficient and profitable and to relax and know I have to "sit one out" and not tell people how they could do something so much easier or better. I have not been a spectator for many years and I think I found a bit of my own humanity when I let go and quit being the consultant, critic and analyst. I realize the absurdity and arrogance of my own people, 300 years as a nation, exporting our ways to a culture that has endured 4,000 years. Even at the graveyard, celebrating life through a window of death all the kids were wearing American clothes, ameican shoes and so many of our words ave entered thier language, I just hope that while the world may unite in peace we never lose the flavor of diversity and discard our individual cultures.

Summary: Seeing life far away teaches us lessons