The Babushka
This is another of my old slides from 1989.
We were traveling back to Moscow on the Siberian Express. We had been scheduled to go through Mongolia and into China, but then Tiananmen Square uprising happened and China closed the border.
Did you know that the width of the railroad tracks changes between Russia and China? If we had been able to continue on, we would have had to change trains. The idea is to keep invading soldiers from arriving by the trainload. It works in both directions.
The trip from Irkutsk took three long and rather boring days. The main entertainment was jumping out when the train stopped to take on passengers or supplies. The stops were never long…at the most 15 minutes but usually 5 minutes. I’d get out to look at the people and grab a few shots.
There would be vendors, mostly women, selling homemade food. I don’t remember buying any, but the Russians on the train did. There were carloads of them and they didn’t have a dining car like we and the commissars did.
I noticed this woman and she noticed me noticing her. She turned her head but didn’t try to hide herself. She had to sell her salads. I sensed that she was a proud woman and that she felt embarrased that a foreigner was taking her photo as if she were an animal in a zoo. I wanted to have a photo of a typical Russian peasant…which she maybe was or maybe wasn’t. But she looked like one to me, straight out of Gogol or Chekov or Dostoevsky.
I’m into stereotypes. Why photograph someone who looks as if they live down the street from you? Let’s show something different. She was genuine. I found Babushkas all bundled up just like her 20 years later when I took a trip to Northern Russia.
Look at those things on her arms. They are to keep her sleeves clean. I think my Grandmother wore those. And look at her hands. They are the hands of a farmerwoman, blunt, strong hands that can plant and harvest. Hands that can plait a child’s hair or soothe a bee-sting. Hands that can do what needs to be done. The hands of Mother Russia.