“It is very beautiful here at Yermak, a gilded cage. The real world is far away. For many years, the Tsar used this house as a place of exile for dissident intellectuals. If we were working-class troublemakers, we’d be in a forced-labor camp – or executed. But because we are all well-connected people, they feel obliged to treat us decently.”
I ask him “What will happen – now that the Bolsheviks are in charge of Russia?”
He looks out of the window, across the lawns, before answering me. “Maybe they will set us all free. But I don’t hold my breath for that happening.”
“Really?”
“I suspect that I may be kept here for some time – or moved, to somewhere worse. I used to read Lenin’s publications, when he was in exile in Switzerland. To be honest, his ideas scare me. Nor do I trust Sokolov: he used to work for the Tsar, but now he works equally happily for the Bolsheviks.”
Mr Sokolov acts as a kind of host, and an entertainments manager. He is genuinely enthusiastic about literature: some evenings he reads aloud to us – chapters from Pushkin and Turgenev, and poetry by Longfellow and Wordsworth. One afternoon he arranged for a choir of local schoolchildren to perform for us, and another evening he invited a chamber orchestra from the nearby town of Kungur. Another night, we even had a performance from singers from Perm, performing arias from Mozart, Rossini and Verdi. Mr Trifonov boycotted all these events, declaring the music to be “unlistenable bourgeois decadence.” All the residents, except Dr Günther, hold strong political views, and there are often heated debates, in which Emily is as involved as the rest of them. I hardly speak: I just listen to the discussions, and wonder to myself whether any of their elaborate political theories could possibly work in practice.
Although all the residents despise him, I think Mr Sokolov actually does a good job of keeping us all physically and culturally nourished. Every Saturday there is an “excursion”. The first was into Kungur town, a pleasant, traditional small Russian city with a bustling market. We were each given an allowance of money, to stock up on warm clothes for the coming winter. On our second trip we visited a breathtakingly beautiful monastery called Belagorsky, its tall white towers topped with golden domes that glittered in the pale November sunshine. And, letters are coming through to me – from Ma and Pa, from Abe, and from Professor Axelson. I have no idea when I will escape this strange exile – but in the meantime, I see no point in complaining.
It’s a Friday evening in late November. I’m in the main sitting room with the other residents, writing a letter to Yuri, to be sent via the Moscow police. Mr Sokolov says that all my letters are forwarded to Yuri, but we have not been told where he is imprisoned, or anything about the progress of his trial. As I write, and try to describe to Yuri my visit to the monastery, I can hear the usual political arguments raging around the room. Mr Sokolov puts his head round the door.
“Miss Agnes, Miss Emily! Might you both be free for a chat with me?”
We accompany him to his office, a tiny place like a broom-cupboard with a desk and a bookshelf in it.
“Firstly, I have some good news for you. Your associate Professor Axelson is now in Moscow, preparing for his rail journey into Siberia. He will join us very shortly.”
I don’t know whether to be pleased that I will soon see the professor again, or sad that he, too, has not yet escaped the control of the Bolsheviks.
“And my second piece of news concerns the weekly Yermak residents’ excursion, which is of course due to take place tomorrow.” Mr Sokolov pulls a slim volume from his bookshelf, and reads to us.
He looks up at us, smiling. “That poem is by a famous English poet, a Mr Samuel Coleridge. But Kubla Khan was a real person, the Emperor of China and all Asia. Perm, Kungur and all these lands, from Siberia and the Urals to the Caspian Sea, were part of Kubla Khan’s empire – the realm of the Golden Horde of Tartary. And here, not far from Yermak itself, is where Kubla Khan had his caves of ice!”
Despite his over-enthusiasm, I’m intrigued. Emily looks less impressed.
“So why are you telling just us two about this? What about the others?”
“The other residents have lived at Yermak longer. They have all been on an excursion to the ice caves already. But you American ladies have not, so I have arranged a private trip for you. The caves are some distance away, in the deep river valley beyond Kungur, so an early start will be needed tomorrow.”
Day is dawning; the early light through the drapes is oddly luminous. I get up and draw them back, looking out of the window onto a different world.
“Emily!” I look over to the other twin bed in the room. “Wake up! We have snow. An awful lot of snow.”
The rising sun illuminates a land of icing-sugar: the first snowfall of the Siberian winter. But it’s the window itself that holds my attention: the sudden intense cold has created extraordinary ice-patterns, like giant crystallized ferns growing across the glass.
We go downstairs for the early breakfast Mr Sokolov has arranged for us. I expect him to tell us that the trip is cancelled due to the weather. But he appears at the door of the dining room, as eager as ever.
“Today, you will see the caves of Xanadu!”
Emily looks less excited. “What about all this snow?”
He laughs, trying not to appear sarcastic. “Here in the Urals, snow is as natural as sunshine! The sleigh has already been prepared ready for your journey. You will enjoy it – Yermak has the use of a troika.”
Emily nods, but it’s not a word I know; I look at Mr Sokolov in puzzlement. He explains.
“The troika – no visit to Russia is complete without a troika ride, Miss Agnes! A fast sleigh, pulled by three horses. Now, enjoy your breakfast.”
There’s another mild surprise inside the dining room. The long table where we eat breakfast every day is completely covered in stones, except for our two set places at the far end.
Emily glances at them. “Fossils. Dr Günther must have been sorting out some of his specimens last night.”
Each rock, I notice, has a little paper label glued to it. Looking closer, I see the fossils embedded in the rocks. I pick one up; it’s a tiny, perfectly preserved fern. I think: millions of years later, the very same pattern can be found in the ice formations on my bedroom window.
I can’t help looking at the carefully-written labels stuck on each fossil, detailed the location Dr Günther found it in. He clearly travelled a lot before his capture: Perm, Yekaterinburg, Omsk, Tobolsk. One specimen catches my eye “From Kungur Ice Cave: purchased Kungur Town, October 1917.” I feel surprised that Dr Günther bought this fossiclass="underline" I wonder why he didn’t collect his own specimens when he and the residents visited the cave.