The Mind Creative
than four thousand, concentrated in the administrative capital
Birobidzhan and the nearby village of Valdgeym. According to a
recent official census, only 312 of them speak Hebrew and 97
speak Yiddish. After the collapse of the USSR in 1990, over a
million Soviet Jews emigrated to Israel. They now constitute a
large political bloc in Israel.
After two more stops, at Nizhni Novgorod (formerly Gorky) and
Vladimir, our train arrived at Moscow’s Yaroslavsky station on the
third morning. I bade farewell to an elderly lady with a proud
demeanour who sat in a separate cabin but had been in the train
with us from Irkutsk. A doctor herself and the wife of a geology
professor, she was visiting her daughter in Moscow, as she does
every year. I didn’t consider it prudent to ask her if it was the fear
of flying or the cost that compels her to endure three nights in
the train in both directions every year.
At the station to receive
us was our Moscow
guide. I have already
mentioned that our
Mongolian guide in Ulan
Baatar
was
an
extremely
amiable
woman and our Russian
guide in Irkutsk was a
thorough gentleman. I
should add here that
the guide in Beijing, a
young Chinese woman,
A Siberian river
was courteous but a bit quiet and aloof. But the one in Moscow
was stern to the point of being rude. If one asked a question which
had already been dealt with by her while one had veered off to
take a photo, the questioner was rudely reminded of the need to
stay close and listen.
On two occasions the guide asked people who did not form part
of our group, but were momentarily seen to be listening in to her
talk, not be “freeloaders” and to move away. During my many
independent trips I have often listened in to other group guides,
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