Irkutsk - Springtime and Rebirth

It seems like springtime is finally coming to parts of Siberia. After a blustery first day in Irkutsk, I spent today toddling about the city in brilliant sunshine and pleasant breezes.

I wasn't the only one to notice. It seemed like the city came alive today - crowds of people in the parks enjoying the weather. Hordes of workers cleaning, sweeping, painting and generally trying to scrub away remnants of the winter. Flower beds and fountains being prepared for the real onset of spring.

But let's not jump the gun. It's still a Siberian spring, after all. No buds at all on the trees. No grass. So while it remains the perfect weather to optimistically buy an ice cream and walk through the park (it won't melt onto your fingers), or sit on a bench with a beer (it won't get warm before you finish) the really good weather is still just a little bit further into the future.

Irkutsk is a very pleasant city with a youthful, cosmopolitan air about it. There are lots of universities and institutes here, lots of business and industry, lots of hustle and bustle. But Irkutsk has always been an important place; and the city looks it. It has wonderful museums housed in impressive buildings, many theaters offering all sorts of entertainment, tree-lined streets with grand 19th century architecture, quiet sidestreets with log homes slowly sinking into the mud.

In the week after Easter, the background noise in many Russian cities includes the incessant ringing of church bells. All the belfries are open for anyone to come and toll the bells - all the better to spread the good news of the resurrection, so the tradition goes. I've been climbing steeples and belltowers for the better part of two days and happily clanging away at whatever they'll let me touch - and in one case, soemthing I shouldn't have touched. I strolled up, grabbed the clapper and let it have a good "bong" - the monk winced; "It's a really, really old bell," he said. "We try not to hit it so hard."

Several good things about this tradition in russia.

One; most belfries are separate buildings. That means a much shorter staircase than climbing into, say, a steeple at the top of a gothic church.

Two; Russians don't move the bell - instead, they move the clapper. That takes a lot less energy and allows even more cacophony.

Three; looking over a city and making noise is satisfying. It changes the nature of being in a belltower from passive to active. You're no longer looking at a city seething below you; you're adding to the din, noisily making a contribution signalling your participation in the whole mess.

Russia is coming back to life in so many ways this week. At the local art museum I blundered into an historic scene - the return of the Forbes Faberge collection to russia. The legendary collection was sold several years ago to one of the Russian oligarchs who decided to bring it back home and sponsor a tour around the country.

The museum was mobbed with people on a Wednesday afternoon. The tour guide used all the emotionally charged words the Russian language has for "homeland" when describing the prodigal nature of the luxurious items. And the locals ate it up, gawking at a part of their patrimony and cultural heritage that was overseas for so long.

When the sale of the items was announced a few years ago, I was a bit sad. The Forbes Collection was one of my favorite under-the-radar spots in New York. A jewel in my back pocket to amaze out of town guests, and never crowded like the Met or MOMA. But today, after seeing the grand tour of these items in the Russian hinterland and how the crowds uniformly reacted to getting a glimpse of these baubles, I've had a change of heart. Now, many more people are getting to enjoy this collection and to learn something about their own collective past at the same time.

So no matter how much I might miss the collection's presence in New York, I guess I can't begrudge anyone that.