A SPIRITUAL JOURNEY

London, UK. 1990
TJ was a music producer and a man of spiritual inclinations. I was an illegal alien.
TJ was permanently stuck in the process of Awakening. I was busking in Soho and didn’t care much about anything.
Our meeting was set up by divine forces beyond our control and understanding.
I came to London to play a gig and to visit a 221 Baker Street. After the gig everyone went back home and I decided to stick around. I wanted to jam with local musicians. I didn’t even know you need a permit to work in UK. I was clueless.
I was squatting in Brixton, busking in Central London and playing gigs in a Jazz club in Chelsey. My UK visa was long gone, but it didn’t mean a thing. I was having the time of my life.
One evening TJ came to the club. He stormed into our dressing room. He brought a bottle of vodka. He said ‘Privet Tovarisch’, ‘Spasibo’ and ‘Perestroika-Gorbachev’. He said he loves Russia. He sang two lines from ‘Ochi Chornie’. He did a bit of Cossack dancing. Then he said we have to have a drink. Like real Russians do – straight from the bottle. I didn’t drink from the bottle and I didn’t know how to do Cossack dancing. TJ looked disappointed. Then his face lit up. He said he has a recording studio nearby and we absolutely have to go there right now. He said we have to record ‘something’ for his album. He said it will be ‘Otlichno’. ‘Yes, sure’, I said, ‘let’s go’.
We went to the studio. I recorded ‘something’. TJ was ecstatic. He invited me to come again. I came and I stayed for a week. I recorded keyboards on one song, a bass solo on another, re-arranged couple of other tracks, wrote a new tune and eventually re-mixed the whole album. I practically moved to the studio. I learned how to work with MIDI, I learned basics of sound recording and ended up upgrading their recording setup, fixing their computer, painting walls, building shelves, repairing a broken lock, installing security cameras and doing million of other unrelated things. In other words, I got myself a proper if slightly chaotic job. After a while I got a nickname ‘Mr Shelves’ and a contract with BMG UK. I was busy and happy.
TJ was happy as well, because for the same amount of money he got someone who can play violin and fix toilets at the same time. A story of my life, this.
We were a little busy team working away, all looked good, but something was definitely off there. TJ was acting strange. Couple of times I caught him staring at me with weird intensity. It looked like he was waiting for something to happen. I couldn’t understand it. I thought it was another ‘London thing’, so I just ignored it.
Many years later we bumped into each other at one of the Edinburgh Festival gigs. We decided to go for a meal for old times sake. We went through the ‘do you remember such and such’, routine and at some point I asked him what was happening and why he was acting so weird. He laughed and said, ‘Oleg. Honestly? I wasn’t weird…. You were. You were wrong, you looked wrong, you behaved wrong. I didn’t know what to make of you. You were not like your average stereotypical ‘Sovok’. (Someone who was born and raised in the Soviet Union).
I wasn’t ??? I was neurotic, opinionated, moody, unpredictable, judgemental, defensive and aggressive. In other words, I WAS a stereotype, so to me, it didn’t make any sense.
We had another glass of wine and TJ has finally opened up. He told me about his epochal visit to Moscow. I tried not to laugh but I couldn’t help it. TJ got offended, but at least I understood what was going on.
Here it goes.
‘A spiritual journey’.
TJ was considered to be an expert on Russia. I met quite a few of those so-called ‘experts’ in UK. A strange breed they are. They have books of Solzhenitsyn, Karl Marks and Lenin on their shelves, an Oxford Russian/English dictionary and a photo of them posing in a Red Square while wearing a fur hat. Drunk. On their fireplace you’ll find a ‘Matryoshka’ doll, bought for 70 dollars in the tourist’s shop and which you can buy for 10-15 cents in a supermarket around the corner. They say, ‘Vodka’, ‘Spasibo’ and ‘Na Zdorovje’. They are considered to be true experts on anything Russian and especially on a subject of a ‘Russian soul’.
All of this after one visit to Moscow and some vodka.
TJ was different. His experience was deep, and so was his understanding of Eternal Enigma – a ‘Russian Soul’.
There was a time when TJ was young and innocent. He wanted to see the world, he was fed up with London and so he went and booked himself on a flight to Gao – a hippy paradise in India, to hung out and to ‘study spiritual life’ (in his own words). In Gao he bought a coloured shirt, leather sandals, a wooden necklace, a nasty bamboo flute and spent rest of the money getting high on various substances. He didn’t remember much about his last days in Gao. He only remembered that it was highly ‘spiritual’, which means he smoked a lot. Soon there was no money left and he decided it was time to go home.
TJ had to change flights in ‘Sheremetyevo’ airport in Moscow. It was February, it was cold, it was dark, and it was not particularly friendly. It was Russia. An airport PA system wasn’t working and there was no gate information available. Some passengers were late for the flight, some were lost and one got arrested. It was TJ. He was arrested because he lost his passport, because he looked like an idiot in his Indian attire, and because he was in a totally and utterly unresponsive state. Even by Russian standards. Also, he smiled a lot. You don’t smile in Russia in February. Especially if you are a stoned British bloke with the flute. Not a good idea, this.
Police officers were tired and irritated. They couldn’t understand TJ because they didn’t speak Yorkshire, and TJ didn’t understand anything because he was high. He decided to bring some positivity to the environment, so he took the flute out and played a song to the police lady. She got very upset. She brought him to a little room, slammed the door and left. TJ fell asleep. When he woke up, he decided to find a bathroom. He got out, turned left, then turned right and got completely lost. Somehow he managed to get into the meeting area, where he was promptly kicked out on the street by two grumpy security guards wearing felt boots and heavy overcoats. If TJ had any idea of what could happen to a stoned foreigner in Moscow, he’d turn around and run back. He didn’t. He started walking. He didn’t even realise he was in Moscow. He was tripping.
It was snowing. It was very cold. Streets were empty. TJ started to shiver in his shirt and sandals. His chemically challenged brain started to freeze. It would’ve been the end for our friend TJ, but Shiva, or Krishna, or Buddha….someone or something divine was watching over our friend at this particular time. At first he heard voices and then he saw a group of natives – a bunch of hippies heading his way, carrying shopping bags and singing, ‘Hare Rama, Hare Krishna…’. They were as high as kites.
TJ thought it was a sign, so he joined the procession. No words were exchanged. Nobody even looked at him. He was accepted. Someone gave him a ‘kossyak’ (papirossa filled with marijuana), someone put a coat on his shoulders and someone put a hat on his head. In a few minutes they stopped in a front of the building with no lights and rows of broken windows. They entered through one of the windows, one by one and in total silence. They went through the labyrinth of dark rooms and corridors, filled with rubbish and broken furniture. They finally came to the room decorated with candles and some mattresses. There were three or four girls sleeping on blankets in a front of a massive fireplace. The room was warm. It was a paradise! TJ decided that he wants to stay in this room for the rest of his life. He walked to the fireplace and sat on the mattress. He said ‘Hi’ to the girls and consequently lost his innocence.
In the meantime, shopping bags were emptied. Someone gave TJ a bottle of fortified wine called ‘Bormotukha’ and a chunk of ‘Kolbassa’. (Don’t even ask.)
So…. TJ spent four or five days in this room, smoking dope, drinking ‘Bormotukha’, eating ‘Kolbassa’, singing ‘Hare Krishna’, playing his flute and learning the ancient art of love. TJ felt understood and liberated. He fell in love with Russian people. He wanted to apply for a Soviet Citizenship. He became a devoted communist. He finally understood the true meaning and purpose of Socialist Dogma.
At some point in time and space he was woken up. Someone was licking his face. It was not a girl. It was a dog. A police dog. The room was in total chaos, everybody was shouting at each other, running and barking. It was ‘Oblava’, a regular cleanup of the ‘Properties Illegally Occupied by Antisocial Elements’.
TJ wasn’t an antisocial element. He was a reformed person who wanted to join Soviet people in their crusade against a Western materialistic world. He tried to explain this to the police, and then he tried to explain it to the dog. Nobody listened. They dragged him out, threw him into the police car filled with his compatriots and brought him to the police station. Soon they realised that TJ was not of this land (at this point he was not even of this planet). Somehow they found out he was British. Two hours later, TJ was extracted from the ‘Kamera’ and brought to the UK Embassy. He was told that he nearly caused an international incident. He was forced to take a shower, as combined aromas of ‘Bormotukha’, ‘Kolbassa’ and unregulated love started to get unbearable. It took them a day to disinfect TJ, to organise a temporary passport and to kick him out of the country. He didn’t want to go back to UK, but they had enough of him at this stage. They had one of the junior officials to escort TJ to the airport and to make sure he leaves Russia without causing any more problems. He got sick in a car on the way to the airport, and fell asleep the moment he entered the plane.
He told me there were the best few days of his entire life.
Of course he couldn’t figure out what was going on in the studio. Of course he was suspicious of how I behaved. To him, it didn’t make any sense. He was watching and waiting for my true Soviet nature to come out. He was hoping to re-live those glorious days of camaraderie, silent unity and enlightenment in the true Soviet fashion.
I was a huge disappointment, I am afraid.