To Siberia and ZhorikMOSCOW, January 21, 2007 -- The Aeroflot TU-154 M with “Continental Airways” emblazoned across the fuselage below the Aeroflot logo (what the hell’s a Russian-built Aeroflot jet doing with “Continental Airways” painted on the side?) took off right on time for the four-hour flight from Moscow to Novosibirsk.
The Novosibirsk airport is at least as far from the city as Sheremetevo is from Moscow, but a cab clear to the other side of the city to Zhorik’s remote caserne cost only 500 rubles – less than $ 20 – compared to Moscow’s $ 50 from one terminal to the other at the same airport.
Zhorik looked handsome and soldierly in his uniform in the barracks in the outskirts of Novosibirsk.
Zhorik looked great in his uniform (see photo). It was very difficult to be circumspect in this sea of military correctness, but I managed to keep my hands off him.
He was waiting for his commanding officer, a colonel, to arrive to give him formal permission to be off base for my visit. I introduced myself to the colonel, whom his troops call “Papa,” and asked him if I could steal one of his soldiers for four days. He was jovial enough, and a few minutes later Zhorik and I were ensconced in a taxi headed for accommodations.
The apartment he had been promised fell through because they couldn’t register foreigners, but Zhorik said he had found a hotel which would only charge 3000 rubles -- 100 bucksi -- for four nights.
Me in front of the Novosibirsk Hotel in "the capital of Siberia." This monollthic Soviet relic is one of the four best hotels in the city. Not recommended.
When we arrived at the Novosibirsk Hotel 200 rubles (about $ 6) later, I gave the driver a one-thousand-ruble noble. “I don’t have any change,” he said. Zhorik went to the hotel registration. No change at a hotel registration desk?!!). Then to a money exchange desk. No change. Back to the hotel registration desk to ask about registering and maybe getting some change from them after they found out we would be staying there.
“We want to stay for four nights,” Zhorik said. “You said that would be $ 100.”
$ 100 for four nights? No, you must have misunderstood. Our standard rate is $ 100 a night!
Oh, fuck, is this the final “what if”? One I hadn’t even put into my panic file?
I don’t know how much money I’ve got, but I’m sure I don’t have $ 400 to spend on a hotel. And here we are in the middle of Novosibirsk, knowing no one except Zhorik’s buddies at the caserne, and the Russian army sure as hell ain’t gonna let us play house there!
Bathroom door with ancient peeling varnish and no handles. Door is held closed by a makeshift bandaid-like tape and gauze patchwork.
While I was breaking into a cold sweat, the registration clerk added: “But if you’re going to stay for four nights, we can make a special rate of 6000 rubles ($ 200) for the four nights. Quick calculation. That’s $ 50 a night for two people. Can’t do much better than that.
But they still had no change!
We still hadn’t paid the taxi driver. We had spied a supermarket across the street. “Go buy something and get some change,” I told Zhorik.
In the meantime, did I even have $ 200 left on my Raiffeisen bank account?
“There’s an ATM over there,’ the clerk said.
At last. I can find out how much money I’ve got left.
Wrong again! The machine wouldn’t do anything but dole out money. No account information. And by now it was 8 p.m. and god knows where there’s another ATM.
How much money do you want? it demanded unapologetically.
I punched 8,000 rubles – nearly $ 300 – and prayed to whoever might be listening. Click. Click. Whirr. “Please take your money.” There is a god.
So we were good for four nights.
This typical Soviet-style hotel bed that could barely house a sleeping Zhorik managed with a little persistence and positioning to accomodate us both.
All that was left now was to inspect what our $ 200 had bought (see photo). Big mistake. If there’d have been an option, I would have told them to shove their hotel up their ass. It was a Soviet relic, with peeling paint and varnish, ancient corridor rugs, no handles on the bathroom door, and worst of all, beds barely wide enough for one skinny guy (see photo). How the hell am I going to seduce Zhorik if I can’t even get in bed with him?
It was Zhorik’s first hotel ever, and it had to be this dump.
Zhorik hadn’t had anything to eat since noon, so the next move was to go back to the supermarket and buy something to eat. We opted for the old Russian standard – lunch meat, cheese, and bread, plus a carrot salad and a broccoli salad. And cocktails. And for Zhorik, candy bars and Coca-Cola.
On the train station across the street (see photo), we could see that it was -6 degrees centigrade – about 18 F. Not that bad, but there was a stiff wind which made it seem a lot colder.
Then unpacking and gifts time. I gave him the jeans, shirt, and vest I had bought in Ourense (see photo). They were the first civilian clothes he had put on since June. He loved them. But he obviously couldn’t navigate the January streets of Siberia in those. He needed an overcoat. I gave him the one I had bought for $ 60 in Madrid.
“But I still don’t have any shoes, socks, or hat,” he lamented.
Army boots?
“I can’t wear them with jeans.”
Okay, that will give us something to do tomorrow.
We drank the cocktails and about 11 p.m. decided to go to bed. Zhorik said he hadn’t slept the night before because he had been so excited, and I had had only had a couple of hours on the plane.
The hour of decision!
The Novosibirsk Train Station across the street from the hotel kept us abreast of the changing temperatures, which at 3-4 degrees below zero (F) weren't so bad. -50 (F) was forecast. Behind he train station is the Ob River.
When he had crawled into bed in his army long johns, I turned out the light and suddenly the bed that wouldn’t hold one skinny guy was holding one skinny guy and his not very skinny “grandfather.”
He immediately rolled onto his stomach. So much for my fantasy, I thought! But it wasn’t long before he was asleep and on his back. His Russian GI long-johns have an open fly wide enough you can put your arm through (see photo), and so I did. And very soon I was playing with his flaccid cock. I dozed off and awoke much later to find it bone stiff and erecting in my hand.
Curious to see how far I could go, I pulled the cover back and got his cock into my mouth, only to have him pull his knees toward his chest and block my access.
I was here to find out what our future life would be like, and I suspected I was beginning to find out: He wanted me to give him an education, a place to live, food, clothes; and what was he willing to give me in return?
Love and affection were all I wanted from him, but if this was any indication, I wouldn’t be getting it. But this may well have been an unconscious reaction. Let’s wait and see.
Zhorik wearing civivies for the first time in six months -- the jeans, shirt and vest I bought him in Ourense. The next day we added winter boots, socks, cap, and the coat I had bought for myself in Madrid.
The next day, Saturday, after a decent Russian hotel breakfast – lunch meats, cheese, muesli, tea, coffee, rolls, etc. -- we went shopping. For about $ 65 we found an excellent pair of winter shoes that he could wear with his jeans, and then socks and finally a cap. Now he was ready to become a civilian again. I also found a Raiffeisen Bank, the bank which had issued my card in Moscow, and discovered that I still had about 200 bucksi.
So we’re going to survive!
“I’m going to take a bath,” he announced about 10 p.m. after we had again eaten in the room.
“Do you want me to come talk to you?” I asked.
“You can if you want,” was how the invitation was extended.
At first I sat on the edge of the rub and massaged his back. When he slid face-up into the water, I massaged his chest and then moved to his inner thighs and again felt the long black silky hair emanating from the crack of his ass behind his balls. I then slid to his dick, which by his time was stiff; but after a couple of minutes, he began to get flaccid again.
Only one thing to do: I knelt at the side of the tub and leaned far enough over the edge to slide it into my mouth. It immediately sprang back into action. It was a very awkward and straining position for me, so I jerked a lot and only sucked when necessary to keep the action going. At last he said the magic words: “I’m going to come.”
So we “had fun” for the first time in six months. It was profuse. He said he didn’t remember the last time. Of course, there’s no privacy in the barracks, so he didn’t know when the last time has he’d jerked off.
Zhorik opening a bottle of champagne to celebrate Russian Christmas and his father's birthday. Six months in the army have considerably strengthened his neck muscles. Note the open fly on his army long johns, which occasionally provided a panaromac view of his bobbing cock and obligingly offered plenty of room for night patrol.
My pleasure in bringing him to orgasm again was annoyingly marred by his repeated insistence that, “I want a girl”; although at one point while I was sucking his dick, he said it was almost like fucking a woman. “Then what do you want a god-damned pussy for?” Nah, I didn’t really say it. But I thought it.
After his orgasm, still kneeling I jerked myself off while still playing with what was left of his cock. He tried to continue to erect it for me, but it was pretty much spent – although his efforts did produce enough of a response that I soon gism’ed a huge puddle of cum on the floor next to the tub -- the first orgasm since fantasizing about him in Madrid a week before.
Back in the room, he started his refrain again: “I really want a girl.” Oh, Christ!
“Do you know any girls?” I asked skeptically.
“Yes. Could you give me 500 rubles – 200 for a taxi there, 200 for a taxi back, and 100 for a box of candy.”
“Do you think you can come again?”
“I don’t know.
“Do not kick against the pricks,” Jesus advised; so I gave it to him.
He returned about 4 a.m.
“Did you come again?”
“No.” It turns out her father had been at home, so nothing had happened.
Toilet bowl was replaced at some point, but the floor was never retiled; and there's an open drain hole to the left of the toilet -- things you'd expect to find in a run-down southern motel in the U.S., not in one of the four best hotels in the city.
During the course of “having fun” the night before, I had managed to get a plug in: “When you come back to Moscow, I want you to sleep with me; I want to hug and kiss you; and I want us to “have fun” sometimes.”
“Okay.”
So that’s settled, at least. I don’t really care how many girls he has as long as he continues to have sex with me. As I told Ivan in Spain, “mine is not a selfish love.”
On Sunday afternoon, Jan. 7, Russian Christmas Day and Zhorik’s father’s birthday, we bought a grilled chicken for lunch. Then Zhorik lay down for a five-hour nap. In the middle of it, he got a call from one of his army buddies in the barracks.
“Do you want to talk to him, or do you want to sleep?”
“Sleep.”
He was immediately out of it again, so I lay down beside him and put my hand under his undershirt to massage his chest. He immediately jerked away.
“I just want to hug you,” I said, as I put my arm around him on the outside of the covers. He hunched his back to again thrust my hand and arm away. I was hurt and offended. When I later asked him why he did it, he said he didn’t remember doing it, which is quite possible because he’s such a sound sleeper.
That evening we bought a bottle of cheap champagne and a phone card. After wishing his father Valentin in Svetlograd a happy birthday. He again announced he was going to take a bath.
A bath was something you had to plan for in the Novosibirsk Hotel. Main problem was that it took 20 minutes to half an hour for the water to get hot up on the 15th floor. So first you waited 20 min. for the water to get hot.
In Madrid, in a preview of the world to come, there was a sign on the bathroom wall: There is a water shortage in Madrid. Please do not take a bath. Take a shower instead!
But this was not Madrid, and apparently no water shortage. So after 20 minutes of running the water to get it hot, you put the plug in and let the tub fill for another 20 minutes. Only then was your bath ready.
After he was finally settled into the tub, he called me for something innocuous. When I entered, we again chatted, and I again sat on the tub beside him and rubbed his back. We pretty much repeated the scenario of the night before, this time being really nonchalant, with neither of us getting a hard on.
When he spraddled his legs up on the rim of each side of the tub, I filled my hand with gel and massaged the coarse-haired limbs from the bottom of his feet to the upper thighs beside his balls. It was probably the most sensuous thing I had ever done with him, and both of us were enjoying it immensely, still without a hard on. But I could sense that all it would take would be a touch.
I sat down again and let my down-pointed fingers massage his stomach, down through his pubic hair to the top of his dick. After doing this several times, I let my forefinger and middle finger spread into a ‘Y’ and slide over the base of his dick, dragging his dick down with it.
By about the third pass, he was rock hard. I again knelt by the side of the tub, not looking forward to the awkward and somewhat painful sucking position of the night before.
Zhorik solved the problem for me: “Just jerk; don’t suck; it wasn’t comfortable last night.”
“Would you rather I’d jerk your dick with it pointed down, or pointed upward toward your stomach?”
“Upward,” in the same position he no doubt jerks off in – if he ever gets a chance.
It didn’t take long before he nodded to me. I bent down and took the end of it in my mouth and felt the sperm arc up into my throat and the roof of my mouth.
I again jerked myself off, this time shooting the sperm into the toilet.
I was just settling down for a quiet, contented, post-coital evening when he called his buddy Sergei in the barracks.
“Dane,” he turned to me when he finished.
“Could you give me 1500 ($ 50)? Four of us are going to go see a girl.”
Again? Good god, I gave you 500 rubles last night. You just came, for chris’ sake.
“I really want a girl. It will be my birthday present.” We had already talked about buying him a mobile phone – the last one I had sent him had broken, he said – for 2000 rubles. This would save me 500 rubles, and at the same time make him happy.
But I was still furious. I checked my blood pressure. It had been consistently edging up through the 140s, then 150s, but now it had shot up to 166.
He left. I downed three or four shots of pernod and water from the bottle I had brought back from Madrid. It helped me go to sleep, but I still woke up when he came in.
He was bubbling with happiness. He and four army buddies had fucked some floozy. He had been last in line, but it hadn’t diminished the pleasure. Despite my disgust and anger, I was glad that he had had such a good time. He was truly joyful. He said his buddy Sergei hadn’t recognized him in his new civilian clothes.
He went to bed and I again crawled in beside him – “just for a little while.” He went to sleep immediately. So did I, but when I woke up a little later and reached my arm through the gaping fly, he was stiff and erecting – probably re-living the fucking of a few hours before. I grabbed hold of my own dick and came again very quickly. Three orgasms in two days. I can live with this.
He had to be back at his barracks at 3 p.m. on Tuesday, and my flight left at 6:40, so we caught a cab that first dropped him off, then took me on to the airport for a long wait. By now it had dropped to -3 or 4 (F) despite the rare Siberian sun, which I watched drop below the horizon at 3:30 in the afternoon. In Spain the sun hadn’t set till 6:30 or 7.
“I already miss you,” Zhorik SMS’d from his barracks.
I still had some rubles left, so I did a little shopping at the airport emporium. I had been looking for some nice gloves, and found a very smart pair of fur-lined dress gloves from Pakistan for 500 rubles, about $ 17. I had searched every men’s store in Ourense and the only pair I found that I liked – almost twins to this pair – had been 250 euros!
But it’s been so warm here I still haven’t worn them yet.
So as a tourist what are my impressions of Siberia in Novosibirsk, its “capital”?
It’s hard to have impressions when all I saw was a six-inch layer of packed snow and the inside of my room in a third-rate Soviet hotel. But the first thing that struck me is that there were no beautiful boys. My peter meter didn’t trip a single time. I think I was right when I said all the beautiful Russian boys are in Moscow seeking fame and fortune.
Second impression is that it is a new city – built by Stalin in the ‘40s as the center of the war industrial machine too far to be reached by Hitler’s Luftwaffe. It is thriving – about 5 million people -- and relatively prosperous but drab and dreary.
Third impression is that it’s cold.
So who said I couldn’t write travel books?
From Novosibirsk to Moscow was a four-hour flight and a three-hour time difference. When I landed in Moscow an hour after I left Novosibirsk, sweet, adorable Igor was waiting to take my luggage off my hands.
My family seemed joyful to see me. Missy had grown alarmingly. They were all glad to get their slippers, and Igor was delighted with the sweater I had brought him.
We shared a bottle of vodka to celebrate my homecoming, and I went to bed around midnight. I woke up when Igor crawled into bed about five. My hands soon found their accustomed place. As I felt his dick getting stiff, I whispered, “Honey, from time to time I want to suck your cock.
He didn’t say anything, but rolled on his side toward me in the fetal position. My hand again found his dick, very hard. I played with it and massaged it. He rolled back onto his back. I threw back the covers and pulled down his shorts and started my routine. He was disappointingly non-responsive, even yawning from time to time.
Finally, I said, “Is this bothering you? Do you want me to continue or would you rather I wouldn’t?”
“It’s up to you,” he said.
So I continued. Periodically he would grow flaccid and I would have to bring all my art to bear.
Finally, his dick found a new burst of energy and he got very, very hard and at just one minute short of an hour, he came.
It was later in the day that he told me he hadn’t slept for two nights and had been extremely tired when he came to bed. Since then, he has also been affectionate and solicitous in the extreme. On Sunday night he had been drinking a lot, and he told me I was the best friend he had ever had, that he was very happy that I was his grandfather, and that our relationship would last forever. He repeatedly kissed me in the lips on the street!
He wants us to go to St. Peterburg in the “Men’s Day” holiday in late February, and to visit his home in Moldava together on the Women’s Day holiday in March. His mother is already sending me “best regards”.
At the same time, he’s been adamant about not coming to bed while I’m still in it. He stays up all night watching TV or playing computer games, and comes to bed only after I get up. It not only annoys me in the extreme, but I suspect it’s also causing me stress which helps account for the recurrent 160’s systolic blood pressure -- despite adding Norvask to the Prestarium, which my doctor Anna told me to do if my BP was over 140 for several days.
Norvask in Russian looks like Hopback. So I’m now taking Hopback and Prestarium.
So what am I to make of these mixed messages: “I love you, but don’t touch my cock”?
We had a rare chance for some pillow talk Thursday night after he had talked with his mother in Moldava. She had no money and nothing to eat, and he had asked if we could send her $ 100. Of course, I said.
“Igor,” I said, “apparently we have a problem. I can’t sleep without you and you can’t sleep with me.”
“Yes, I can,” was his surprising answer.
“Honey, I love you very much. I’d like to play with your dick sometimes.”
“Anytime you want,” he said!
“Ask and ye shall receive,” Hay-sus said, but I didn’t think it would be this easy!
“I won’t now, because I know you’re so tired,” I said.
But I did give it a test two nights later when he came to bed while it was still nighttime.
His friend, Seryozha, was here and was going to sleep in Denis’s bed and Denis would sleep with us when he finally came to bed, but he was playing on the computer.
“You said I could play with your dick anytime I wanted,” I reminded. “Can I play with it now?”
“If you want.”
He was wearing running pants. I first massaged it through his pants, but then slipped my hand under the draw string. It very quickly got stiff. I played with it and began jerking.
“Do you want to come?”
“Denis is likely to come to bed soon,” he demurred.
I kept jerking, and I could feel his head grow engorged and tumescent.
“Do you want me to suck it?”
“Denis might come.”
So when it became apparent that he couldn’t come under these circumstances, I took my own dick in the other hand and blew a wad of cum in my shorts while I was stroking his cock.
I slept blissfully until 10:30 this morning. My blood pressure was 136/87.
So what else has happened since I returned? The weather continues to be relatively warm. The first light snow since New Year’s fell this morning. And while apparently America has been hit by freezing cold and blizzards, Moscow has continued to loll in annoyingly warm mid-30s weather.
My new class at Potemkin U. is peopled with a whole flock of gorgeous 18- and 19-year-olds, including pretty little Gavril, who was in my mass media class in the fall. I’m going to enjoy this class immensely.
Zhorik has had another bout of bronchitis, and I sent him another $ 50 to buy more medicine. He spent the $ 50 I sent last time on pills after the army diagnosed the bronchitis. The Russian army provides free medical care – and useless Russian medicines. If a sick soldier really wants to get well, he has to buy Western medicine and pay for it himself.
It’s not uncommon for those with pneumonia, for instance, or other diseases responsive to powerful antibiotics, whose families can’t afford to buy them, to simply die. In Russia, the term “cannon fodder” is not an idle appellation.
Zhorik at first denied, then finally acknowledged, that he had been the victim of traditional Russian army hazing: frequent beatings, he said. They particularly liked to pound on the brown oak-leaf shaped birthmark on his chest. But the hazing stopped when he transferred to Novosibirsk, and the bruises have all disappeared.
