Cheboksary
My Cheboksary experience was just plain strange. But first let me tell you about the train ride. It was one of those classic Russian train rides you hear about from other travellers. True, it’s one out of three for me, but still. The St. Pete-Moscow train left at midnight and the first thing my cabinmates did was go to sleep. The train from Moscow to Cheboksary left at quarter to nine and the first thing my cabinmates did was crack their beers. That’s more like it!
So I got some beer, they got some vodka, arranged a little food. One of them had spent some time studying on Long Island so he was able to converse and translate. At a station stop we grabbed some more beer and some moonshine vodka. I can still see, don’t worry. Many of the products sold at the station stops were tea sets and ceramic and glass trinkets. I thought that rather odd – surely they’d do better selling booze, cigarettes and food, right? Well, it’s that they work in a factory that makes those sorts of things and get paid in goods rather than cash. For cash, they must sell the goods. Since Russians have no qualms about buying anything anywhere, it works out in the end.
Now it gets odd
So as I said, the train ride was awesome. Nikolai, Valeri and Mikhail decided to help me on my mission – I came to Chuvashia for its beer culture. They took me to the Yantar Brewery, who were unable to help, then to the Hop Grower’s Association, who subsequently called SUN-Interbrew’s local facility at Novocheboksarsk.
SUN-Interbrew tells me that they’ll help me out. I think they were confused because the first thing they did was book me into the most expensive hotel in town – on my dime, by the way. Then I sit and pick my nose for three hours waiting for them to call back with their help. They called and rather than helping me with what I wanted – brewery visits, hop farm visits, traditional Chuvash beer – they proceeded to interrogate me. The Soviet days aren’t done in some parts of the country apparently, as they found it entirely implausible that someone would show up out of the blue wanting to learn about local beer. Anyway, having determined that I did not work for the New York Times or other such paper, they proceeded to lose interest in me, which was fine because after the interrogation I was happy to see them go.
and Odder
I go to the Beer Museum. Some bottles, photos, newspaper clippings, and the like for a couple of floors and then a bar on the top floor. They have a lot of different local beers there, all produced by big breweries. Nothing traditional. But I meet a couple of guys who say they can help me. We’re hanging out for a while and go back to Yantar. Some drunk then decides he needs to be best friends with the American (me, I guess). He gets way in my face, too, and won’t bugger off. I had to leave.
My escort takes me to a brewery tap for another company and then they start getting weird. We’re drinking and having a good time and the next thing you know it’s all about how we need to grab some bottles and go back to my hotel room. Cultural catastrophe maybe, but to Canadians it’s very rude to invite yourself to another person’s home so I was a bit annoyed. When I started throwing out other suggestions, a big hissy fit ensued and that was the end of that. I was gone. Great hospitality on one hand, very strange locals on the other.
Tags: Russia, Travel
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