Susie Herman

by Susie Herman

I went on a group tour of the “Stans” of Central Asia. Included in our itinerary were Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. These countries became independent of the Soviet Union only thirty-five years ago. I chose to visit them, because I was intrigued by their rich Silk Road history. I was drawn to the stunning Islamic architecture in the fairy-tale cities of Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva.

What I discovered, however, was an unexpected contrast to these cities once we veered off the Silk Road. There were still many vestiges of Russian life in the smaller cities and towns throughout the landlocked, largely bleak terrain of these countries. I found Brutalist architecture instead of Islamic, and spoken Russian language in lieu of the “new” languages of these young countries. Was I in the Stans or was I in the Soviet Union? Hard to tell, the romance was gone.

And so, one evening, I found myself in a hotel in a former Soviet sanitarium on Lake Issyk-Kul in Cholpon-Ata, Kyrgyzstan. It was a mystical place, Cholpon-Ata, where you might see a morning star. Lake Issyk-Kul is the second largest mountain lake in the world, second to Titicaca in South America. At dusk, looking out from the northern shore, there was a great expanse of blue; the sky and the water seemed to merge. This sight, after a long bus journey through the Steppes: semi-desert, grassland, no trees, monotonous. Farther north of us was Kazakhstan and then the Gulag: the unchosen penal colony, the final “prison home” of Alexei Navalny, known to us in the West as a heroic Soviet dissident and prisoner of conscience.

It was thus weirdly appropriate that I decided to forgo a mediocre buffet dinner, with the tour group, choosing instead to read Navalny’s diaries from prison. The diaries were printed in a New Yorker magazine that I had brought along to keep me company in the Stans. My room had no reading light. This hotel was the only one that I had ever stayed in that resembled a spartan cell more than an inviting restful space. I settled in to read, nevertheless, attempting to capture the last light from my window.

Did I unconsciously choose to bring this particular magazine on my journey? Did I unconsciously want to honor Navalny by making it clear that his voice had not been silenced here in what felt like the actual Soviet Union?

A surprise: It turned out that many of Navalny’s diary entries were remarkably upbeat, and some were even funny in an absurdist way. For example, he wrote: “Some people collect stamps. Some collect coins. And I have a growing collection of amazing court trials.” And “Today I went for a walk, got frozen, and thought of Leonardo DiCaprio and his character’s dead horse trick in ‘The Revenant.’ I don’t think it would work here. A dead horse would freeze in about fifteen minutes. Here you need an elephant. A hot and even roasted elephant. If you cut open the belly of a freshly roasted elephant and crawl inside, you can keep warm for a while. But where am I going to get a hot, roasted elephant in Yamal, especially at six-thirty in the morning? So I will continue to freeze.”

And so Navalny wrote, and wrote, and persevered. His voice has not been silenced in the Gulag. Reading Navalny here on Lake Issyk-Kul I felt close to him, which I was geographically, and I wanted to throw my arms around him with gratitude and comfort. Of course, I knew that he had already died.

Susie Herman’s travels have taken her far from home, but return her back home with a new appreciation of other cultures and societies. My choice of this submission to VOICES is in hope that it inspires you to see the world.

by Susie Herman

I am seated in 19C on the flight from Seattle to JFK when 19B, and his wife, 19A, approach. She is stunning and blond, her hair in a ponytail. She immediately places earbuds in her ears and enters the world of whatever for the duration of the flight. He, between us, pulls out his laptop, and is immediately immersed in his investments or someone else’s. Sometimes he switches over to his cellphone for texts, and sometimes for a game of solitaire. For the duration of the flight, five hours, he is always connected, doing something with one gadget or another. He never speaks a word to his wife. And yet, between them, there is no apparent tension. I notice a screenshot of her on his phone. Her hair is not in a ponytail. She is smiling and elegant. 19AB both wear wedding bands- his simple gold; hers simple but with a few diamonds. Midway through the flight he puts a sweater over his summer polo. He is eye candy for sure, right beside me. The fact that he barely registers my presence makes it even more possible to invent him.

He isn’t young; greying at the temples, tanned. His black eyeglasses give him an Alec Baldwin look. His features are absolutely perfect. Maybe more George Clooney. He sits there in 19B, never reacting to the toddler steadily crying behind us in row 20; impervious to distraction; hardly ever looking any further than his devices. What is his life like? Does he live in Seattle or NYC or somewhere else? Are there children, by now grown? A mistress? He focuses only on his cyberspace, alert, not daydreaming. But surprisingly, in the last 20 minutes of flight, he pulls out a book– the unlikely title: The Years by Annie Ernaux. What a choice for handsome laptop man! Did his wife recommend it? Men who live in their heads rarely read fiction or memoir, but I could be wrong. He isn’t very far along – will he finish it somewhere, on another flight, in another life?

Susie Herman: I often write about or photograph the ordinary moments in life. I think of those moments as unexpected theater. I thought this piece would bring some lightness in these dark days.