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Chapter 1 - The Nutcracker Ballet.The land of endless horizons is a land of ice, reindeer, and drifting snow. Certainly, this is how it appeared to me. The world calls the place Siberia. Some call it a land of death, others, a land of great plenty. To me, the word Siberia, stands for yet another beginning. We flew into Novosibirsk, Anton and I. Novosibirsk means interpreted, New Siberia. On the surface, Novosibirsk is just another city, like any other large city. In our experience, however, it came to light as an oasis, an outpost cultural center in a vast empty land that extends for over four thousand miles east from the Ural mountains, spanning an area larger in size than all of South America and Mexico combined. Novosibirsk is its center for art, theatre, music, and science. It is home to more than 20 research institutes. It features a suburban 'science city' that accommodates nearly 25,000 scientists. Strangely, in this frontier setting, Antonovna's short name didn't fit anymore, in spite of the great privilege that it represented. Life seemed too vulnerable for shortcuts to be appropriate, here. + + + Ushi had been right when she told me on the plane from Caracas to New York, that I would be invited back to Russia before the year is over. Except, this had been just a hunch. Now it was happening. Only a few months had passed after the last of us got back from taking part in Nicolai's world tour in support of Africa, when new marching orders were written for me. But how did Ushi know? She couldn't have known. Was she involved in something that Russia needed my help for? If so, why didn't she say it? The nature of the trip had not been revealed when the orders were presented. This strangely corresponded with what Ushi had hinted at. There was one thing, though, that she hadn't hinted at, that I would meet Anton again. The orders stated that I was to meet a certain Alex Koldunov at the Kremlin, to answer to some allegations about me having insulted the government of Russia during one of my remarks at the Caracas conference. I couldn't think of what I might have said. Indeed, it should have worried me, but there was this overriding feeling that Ushi had something to do with all that, in which case I had nothing to worry about. As expected, my orders were changed when I got off the plane. An agent of Alex Koldunov handed me a white envelope, which he said contained a dinner invitation from Nicolai Vasily Berendeyev, for 17:00 hrs. at the TV tower restaurant. I pulled the card out, opened it up. The information was correct. It was written in Nicolai's hand writing, and signed by him. The invitation was brief. It said nothing about any reason for it or anything about Antonovna. Still, I wasn't surprised to meet her there with Nicolai. In any case, I had planned to telephone her once I got to Moscow, which was no longer needed. While Nicolai took care of my coat, I asked Anton quietly if she knew why I had been invited to Moscow. She put a finger over my lips and gestured that I should kiss her. When we embraced, after the kiss, she whispered softly, "You must trust us on this." She stepped back a foot and looked at me and smiled as she had done so on many occasions in Caracas. "I'm glad you were able to come," she added quite audibly, now. As we were seated, Nicolai brought out a set of three tickets for the Bolshoi Theater where Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker ballet was performed that evening. "I have invited you here to give you a chance to discover the real Russia," he grinned, "and Antonovna will help you to find the best of it. This is my way of saying thank you for what you have done in helping to organize the international food aid for Russia." || - page index - || - chapter index - || - Exit - ||
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