Home is Where the Crowds Are

Somewhere between my 9th and 10th city I decided I was an expert on a lot of things. It happened while writing on a train speeding along the shore of the Volga. "I'm no expert..." the note began; but it stopped there.

Between my education and practical and professional experience, I really do have a lot of things pretty well figured out. Sometimes it even borders on the eerie - like a sixth sense. For example, today when I passed a bored traffic cop on the side of the road. The look on his face, the way he wore his hat, the way he idly swung his useless baton on a traffic-thinned holiday afternoon, the way he looked at me on the sidewalk. All of it screamed 'document check'.

Bang! Right on the money! So I congratulated myself as he flipped throuhg my passport and looked for local Kazan registration. He was a bit intimidated by the purple blur of registration stamps on my immigration card. At this point in my travels, even my registration stamps have registration stamps - post-it notes stuck onto forms to provide more room. I pointed out the Kazan stamp and he silently, expressionlessly, and brusquely, thrust the passport back at me.

I know of only one other person who has been 'pulled over' for a document check by a traffic cop (an entirely separate police force here). So I now have the honor of belonging to a very small, and apparently suspicious-looking, group of people.

I must admit, however, that for all my supposed expertise, I can't figure out why the conventional wisdom is so wrong about one thing in particular - the widespread belief that people in smaller population areas are more friendly than people in cities. My travels so far have taken me from Moscow - population over 15 million - to Ust-Bargusin population 8000. And I've found that the exact opposite is often true.

So, here comes the theory. In smaller towns, people aren't used to seeing anyone different let alone a total stranger who looks and dresses differently. In cities, the population is accustomed to seeing strangers with strange ways on a daily basis. They may glance, but are too busy and too inured to bother much. In small towns, though, they stare and talk about you to their friends and speculate on where you're from and where you're going and sometimes stop and watch where you're walking to next. And then one of them hits you up for change or cigarettes.

By far the friendliest people have been train conductors and museum staff. Both are groups that, in my opinion, have every reason to be blase about both strangers and foreigners.

There have certainly been exceptions, and I'll be the first to admit that my theory needs a lot more work. But in the meantime, it feels pretty good to be back in a string of major population centers.