Gloomy Log of a Listless Voyage

There is not a great deal to do on a Volga cruise. The river is sluggish and rarely is it beautiful. The towns along its banks hide their history well behind the dreary monotony and squalor of Soviet urban-planning. The water is so polluted that only the foolhardy would swim. And even "luxury" accommodation on the river boats leaves the passengers feeling hungry and mutinous. And so, inevitably, riding the Volga must be a voyage of the mind. You must wallow in Russian literature and history while you contemplate the spilled milk that is contemporary Russia. And try not to cry.


Undeterred by this unpromising terrain, Lesley Chamberlain, a Welsh writer who formerly worked for Reuters in Moscow, set off on a Volga cruise in the summer of 1993 laden only with her love of Russian literature and language, and a little red dress for special occasions. Chamberlain travelled "with no preconceived inner purpose." Anxious to get to the heart of the New Russia, she chose to explore the Volga because she viewed it as the pulse of the country, the central artery which links or divides Russia's European ventricle from its Eastern one.


The Volga historically was the frontier that held back the Tatar hordes to the East, the Poles and the Germans to the West, and thus it is intrinsic to Russian national identity and a source of patriotism. Chamberlain argues that it can also be viewed as a memorial and a metaphor. The Volga's hydroelectric dams and canals -- the fulfillment of Stalin's grandiose plans to electrify the region and link land-locked Moscow to no less than six seas -- are an epitaph to Soviet national ambition. The environmental damage and historical vandalism that resulted can be read as a metaphor for the state of contemporary Russia, a place that has not come to terms with its history and remains spiritually polluted.


"Volga, Volga" begins early one August morning with a metro ride to the impressive, but crumbling Moscow river station, where a giant Amazonian statue predominates. Chamberlain instantly sets the tone for the book. She is a writer who is not content simply to observe, but always seeks to wrest significance and meaning out of the superficial appearance of things. "The age of Stalin loved this heroic style of womanhood as a symbol of political and military victory. A hellishly dark subway, alas, was the only way to reach her. The allegorical implications for humanity didn't strike me at the time. As a real woman I broke into a nervous trot. It was doubly good to be out the other side: I had survived ... which gave me the absurd hope that Russia would also survive its troubled time."


That is to be her first and last moment of fear on the journey. For once Chamberlain has embarked on the Nikolai Chernyshevsky, she finds herself cocooned in the protective care of her warm and attentive Russian traveling companions. And there is little to challenge her beyond the daily struggle to negotiate the culinary minefield of the boat's restaurant and get enough to eat. (Chamberlain includes the unsourced but fascinating statistic that 30,000 Russians died of food poisoning in 1992 alone.)


With so little opportunity to explore the towns where the Chernyshevsky might moor for as little as an afternoon, Chamberlain spends most of her time reading. This imposes a curious rhythm on the writing. For while much of what she has to say on Chekhov or Gorky, Stenka Razin (the 17th century Cossack rabble-rouser) or Shostakovich is interesting enough, it makes the narrative meander as listlessly as the Volga itself. One sometimes has the impression that the literary references are tacked on for lack of anything else to say, rather than growing organically out of the experiences of the journey.


Chamberlain is a sensitive and intelligent observer of Russia. She patiently and passionately wishes the country well. However, the further the journey progresses, the more the squalor, waste and passivity which she sees all around her begins to get to her. Hope and optimism turn to melodramatic despair: "No. Very little is good. It's like being summoned to the bed of a friend who has been disfigured in an accident and hasn't yet been allowed a mirror. I know everyone is unhappy here in Russia and they don't want me to say ... This is a terrifying country to be in, and worse to contemplate."


An account of a Volga voyage need not be so depressing. Or so long. Bruce Chatwin memorably condensed his lively and evocative impressions of a similar journey undertaken 10 years earlier into a tight, apposite 20 pages. And although it seems churlish to criticize a book that is so obviously well-intentioned and well-researched, "Volga, Volga" is a worthy, dull read. It makes you wish that Chamberlain had rationed her intellect, her integrity and her precise prose a little and made room in her bags instead for a spark of wit or a glimmer of light-heartedness. For perhaps it is only through laughter that the foreigner can come to terms with Russia.





"Volga, Volga; A Voyage down the Great River" by Lesley Chamberlain, Picador, 274 pages, ?15.99.