Visit to Chita Summer 2018, No. 4 Petrovsk IA

Petrovsk-Zabaikalsky: First visit.

Part A: Road and Recital

We were five driving southwest to Petrovsk-Zabaikalsky from Chita at 8:30 the morning of August 3rd: Victor and Elena, Olga Fleshler, me, and Janna, a publicist at the Academy of Health (“AZ”Akademia Zdorovie) in Chita, which has had a long relationship with the Children’s Home in Petrovsk. Janna is charged with AZ’s relationship with the Home and especially Zoya Chizhkova (13) and Vitaly Kolodeznikov (11) who continue to be in demand following their successes in the national children’s TV singing contest, “You’re Super!” in Spring 2017.

We stopped for breakfast at a highway cafe for Buryat dumplings (posi), blini and tea, stretched our legs at Lake Arei, which is about halfway there and where Chinghis Khan’s men also stretched their legs centuries ago, and then stopped again at a highway cafe about 45 minutes drive outside Petrovsk at the village of Khokhotuy (???????–I think it looks great in Cyrillic!) This one was so good, we stopped again on our way back to Chita!

Lunch on the highway outside Khokhotuy.
Back row: Elena, Victor, Janna, Olga.
Middle row. Herring Under a Coat, Shredded beet with garlic and Olivier salads.
Front row: that amazing bread, fresh sweet thin cream (“slivki”) for the soup (not yet served).

Elena with those fritters!

Victor gives the remains of his soup to a neighborhood dog.

The restaurant owner, master chef and baker with her young assistant (daughter? granddaughter?)

The highway, Federal Highway No. 6, was under construction in many places. At least six bridges were being rebuilt or replaced. The torrential rain of the last two months undoubtedly played a role in the quantity of repairs needed. Along the way, the many small streams that meandered across the wide prospects were swollen into the grasslands and reflected the low clouds as gentle gleams in this broad green landscape. Both major rivers that sometimes crossed or paralleled our route, the Ingoda nearer to Chita, and the Khilok closer to Petrovsk, were full and fast. I’ve made this trip by car four times in the last four years now, and despite the repairs, the quality of the road continues to improve. Russia’s famously strenuous drives seem to be becoming easier. Nevertheless, Victor assertively navigated the sudden problems expertly, from the washboarded dirt sections, and bridges not quite the same level as the roadbed that approach and leave them in the repair sections, to the frost heaves, to the potholes.

And Victor’s assertive driving was needed because we were trying to get there in time for a 3:00pm piano recital I was to play at the town’s music school. I think this recital was only recently scheduled for early August rather than when the tourist group visits in early September because that visit will be very full and busy with the start of the new school year.

We were only 15 minutes late, and after a quick change to my suit and a swipe of the comb, the recital began. The program: Beethoven Sonata in B-flat, Op. 22 (4 movements), the Menuet and Toccata from Ravel’s Tombeau de Couperin, and my own “Out and Around with Newton’s Apple”. This is a piece I wrote in graduate school, but never performed after that, because I never finished getting it down on paper and subsequently forgot the ending. Last summer, my long lost composer friend, Craig Pepples—we met again after 25 years—mentioned it, and I pulled it out at home. And lo and behold, an ending “appeared,” and I think it is close to the original one. My “Carefree” was then played on request, and it went better than the botched job I did in Petrovsk last summer at the gala concert for the “You’re Super!” kids!

Being presented with a flower during the concert.

A few people presented me with flowers—I love this intimate Russian concert tradition—and then Natalia Skliarova, director of the Children’s Home, the director of the town’s Decembrist Museum, and the director of the town Department of Sport and Culture made presentations.

Petrovsk received the largest single group of Decembrists sent into exile following their failed 1825 insurrection against the Tsar. 78 were sent here to work in the iron mine, around which this town was founded in 1789. Many of their wives followed them. Despite their aristocratic status, only two Decembrists of the entire lot chose to return to St Petersburg and Moscow after being given amnesty from their exile. The Decembrists are a deep part of the history of Russia, and of this region in particular, and are beloved for their humanity and democratic aims.

Link to short video in Russian of Natalia Skliarova’s presentation on behalf of the Children’s Home

The director of the Decembrist Museum presents “Decembrist Readings”, the publication of the 2017 conference held in Petrovsk.

I was presented with the book of Decembrist Readings published as part of last August’s 2nd international conference of Decembrist scholars and descendents in Petrovsk. People came here for it from as far away as France. The director remarked that my donation to the museum made it possible to publish such a book. That donation was quite modest, and I was proud to make it since I consider the Decembrists models for us all. But I was also shocked that such a small gift would be so cherished. They need more and better donors!

With Natalia Nikolaevna, Director of the Dept of Sport and Culture (and a really good singer). I’d already changed out of the sweated out suit and into the Children’s Home’s Rainbow Nation membership neckerchief!

The director of the Department of Sport and Culture presented me with a citation thanking Siberian Bridges for its attention to their town and its history, and for plans for future cooperation in our joint music project. This project was proposed last summer, and we made headway this weekend on the preliminaries. The basic idea is an orchestra—based at the Children’s Home, but including children from the town—as a supplement to the great dance and song work done with the children. The project will extend across five years and includes the purchase of instruments and pays for instrumental instruction. SB will work on raising the seed money (hint hint!). I’m personally excited by this project as it means for me a return to the very first notions of SB, whose name was originally “Musical Bridges” after all! More on this as we develop the details and the pitch!

After the recital and the music project meeting, we drove out the the Children’s Home’s camp, “The Friendly Republic” (as named on its entrance gate), but read about that in the next post.