Street Life: An optimist's guide to Russia: Part one

Street Life: SAMOTECHNY LANE, MOSCOW

I ALWAYS set out with high hopes on the roads of Russia. In this vast country, it seems, there is so much to be discovered. Never mind that every past journey has been tinged with toska or melancholy yearning. Next time I am sure to come to the Promised Land.

Thus, in hope, I set off from Samotechny Lane last week on the M7 to Vladimir, 120 miles east of Moscow. In the 19th century, when prisoners walked for months down this road to exile in Siberia, begging for alms as they went, it was the highway to Hell, effectively a sentence of death. But times have changed.

My cherry red Niva or Russian jeep bounced merrily over the potholes as I passed fields of sunflowers and settlements with quaint Communist names like Red Electrician. Impatient Mercedes drivers, hurrying to their cottagi (new brick mansions), overtook me on the inside. The narrow road became the slow lane, the ditch became the overtaking lane. Suddenly, we were all driving on the left, like in England. It was anarchy.

By and by, we came to Petushki, immortalised in Veniamin Yerofeyev's comic novel of the Brezhnev era, Moskva-Petushki. It is about a boozer from Petushki, who travels to the capital to see the sights but ends up in the buffet of Kursky railway station, drunk again. It is a symbol of the hopelessness of Russian life.

By the side of the road in the real Petushki, some drivers were having a picnic. Vodka bottles were arranged on the bonnet of a car. They were drinking the vodka from plastic cups. They were going to drink it all and then get back into their vehicles. Corrupt as they are, there are times when one should give thanks for the Russian traffic police.

I decided to rest, too. I did not fancy the kvas (drink from fermented bread) from the fetid roadside barrels or the delights of the Cafe Kormilitsa (Breast-feeding woman). Instead, I plunged into the forest, dry as tinder after the heatwave, and picked a handful of wild raspberries, in exchange for which I donated what seemed like a pint of blood to the mosquitoes.

Further down the road, I bought some more of these wild raspberries from an old woman. She had spent all day in the infested forest, picking them. She was selling them for four roubles per glass. I bought five glasses and still I had spent about 60p. She cried with gratitude, saying that at last she could afford bread.

Along its length, the road was lined with traders desperate to make a sale. Every village offered the same bizarre wares - towels decorated with the face of Marilyn Monroe, giant toy tigers, popcorn, electric fans and rubber boats, although there was no water in sight. Suddenly the skies opened and the villagers rushed to cover their goods, imported from China and brought here by the Moscow Mafia.

When the Russians brought down Communism, they carried placards speaking of "70 years on the road to nowhere". After the experiment with capitalism, they are still on the road, seeking a turning to somewhere.

My car lurched. The strip of asphalt on which I had felt confident to raise my speed came to an abrupt end and without warning I was back on lunar craters. Ahead, were the wrecks of a BMW and a Lada that had been in a head-on collision. The BMW driver was alive but I did not give much for the chances of those in the more vulnerable car.

The ambulance would come. I drove on. On, past a town called Gus Krystalny (Crystal Goose), where the glass-factory workers had been paid in kind. They were standing by the roadside, their chandeliers hanging up for sale in the branches of trees.

On through Pokrov (the Virgin's Veil), with its sleazy motel, and the towns of Noginsk and Lakinsk. All over Russia these shabby, inconsequential places are indistinguishable, with their war memorials, their chicken- coop apartment blocks, their rusty garages, their gardens with cabbage and phlox. Irreverent Muscovites call them Perdyulinsk (Fartville) and Mukhasransk (Flyshitville).

I was leaving them behind. The belching lorries and buzzing motorcycles thinned out and I emerged on to a plain of golden cornfields, lined with silver birch. On the horizon, glinted the domes of the ancient city of Suzdal. My destination. The New Jerusalem.

This was a city of the greatest nobility. Yet, its story too is a tale of Russian toska. Of wasted opportunity. Of endless sadness. I will tell it in the next episode of The Eternal Optimist's Guide to Russia.

Helen Womack