Rossiya
leave Ulan Ude to Rossiya , the train connecting Moscow to Vladivostok. Through the window, a profusion of still water that reflected the sky and the forests, but many of the conifers are sick. For the seven hundred kilometers railway runs along the Amur River, which is the border with China. This region was occupied by the Russians in the forties of the nineteenth century, when they discovered that the Chinese had left unguarded. Until a few years ago, the compartments with foreigners on board were darkened and locked.
also through the Jewish Autonomous Region, a state created by Stalin in 1927 to provide a "home" to the Russian Jews. We settled on 43,000. Anti-Semitism of the thirties, however, led to the banning of the Hebrew language and the closure of the synagogue. In 1991 there were still 22,000 Jews, which fell to 4,800 after the reopening of relations between Russia and Israel and the consequent emigration to other Jewish state.
The train enters the station of Vladivostok on time, the 9289 km Trans-Siberian. Once out on the forecourt, we see that here all the cars driving on the right. What in Moscow, Ekaterinburg and again, it was an isolated event has gradually become more frequent, to be the norm. The reason is understandable: it is used Japanese cars that come by ship to Vladivostok and here they are resold at discount prices. Not explained, however, because the authorities tolerate the phenomenon, given the high number of motor vehicle accidents that seems to be common in Russia.
rent a car to drive on the left to go to meet Gaivoron Victor Yudin. It is a scientist who, with his wife, keep animals in danger of extinction and then rid the forest of Primorije the puppies can be born. A house of Dr. Yudin there are also children of the local elementary school. Evenly split their curiosity among animals and the three strange people who speak an incomprehensible language instead of Russian. Victor shows us two Amur tigers with their puppy about a year, a family of bears from the collar, a pair of lynxes, foxes, wild cats and raccoons. A bear and a lynx have lost a leg in a trap. Poachers are, in fact, the mortal danger to these animals, especially tigers, sought by the Chinese to manufacture products of traditional medicine.
Animals and Russian men seem to have shared the fear of the Chinese. Estimates official Kremlin talk of a million Chinese have settled illegally in the Far East Russia, compared to four million Russians. Independent sources, however, argue that the illegal Chinese migrants were already a million and a half. Alex, our guide and interpreter on this trip, we did find, Vladivostok and Ussurijsk, which markets the Chinese invasion, both of sellers of goods, total. Meat, fruit and vegetables are imported from China and the wide spaces between one city to another are not cultivated or pasture. A little 'because it is cheaper to import Chinese goods and a bit', according to Alexandra, for decades the Soviets have eradicated the desire to work. The Soviet period did not like it at all, even if born in the early eighties. Near Ussurskj we moved next to a monument that celebrates the ultimate victory of the Red on White in 1922. Alexandra said that this region of Russia had no need of communism, as area was developed thanks to strong foreign investment. Japanese and Americans supported the Whites, but in the end, he concludes, "we lost."
On the way back once again admire the monumental stones, concrete and metal, which mark the beginning of the city. Along with the coats of arms are an area in which the Soviets excelled and of which traces have been valuable. For the rest, Siberia seems to me that almost nothing remained of the seventy-year history of the USSR, even if they have gone only fifteen of its dissolution. There are no statues of Lenin, the names of some streets and buildings of the popular suburbs, in addition to the nostalgia of a few people like Olga. For all other Russians and for all aspects of daily life, the world seems started ten years ago. Some items, like the samovar, give the impression to exist forever, while everything else is made in Japan or made in China in 2000.
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