August 29, 2017

The Last Hero


The Last Hero
A Bashirian sunflower field {Photo: Paul E. Richardson}

We take a day train from Samara to Ufa and revel in the changing landscape from the Volga basin to the wide horizons of the steppe. We are nearing the foothills of the Urals, and as we enter Bashkiria, there are rolling hills and mesa-like formations with light sprinklings of vegetation.

Ufa, our destination and the capital of Bashkortostan, is an oil-rich city that, when compared to gritty Samara, is very clean and well-kept. There are not many old, wooden buildings, but plenty of gleaming new skyscrapers and broad avenues. This is a town that west-Siberian oil and gas has rebuilt.

Sunset from the last car on the train to Ufa. {Photo: Paul E. Richardson}

Our Bashkir “hero”, Sabiryan Asfandiyarov, lives about 50 kilometers south of the capital, in the village of Sakhayevo. To get there, we drive over well-paved roads through rolling hills under active cultivation. In several places wide sunflower fields stretch to an aquamarine horizon. Every few kilometers there are pull outs for cars that offer covered picnic tables and views of fertile hills and fields.

A retired local journalist, Rashid, is driving us to Sakhayevo. Rashid’s presence is vital. This, our first male centenarian on this leg of the expedition, is not only completely deaf, but, we are told, speaks no Russian, only Tatar. So we have printed out our questions in Russian for Rashid to translate on the fly into Tatar.

Nadya, Paul and Rashid (second from right), work through some Tatar language source materials about Sabiryan with his daughter, Guzel, center. {Photo: Mikhail Mordasov}

But the first obstacle we must overcome is not linguistic but gastronomic. We are greeted by a table groaning with food. A bowl of homemade pelmeni is set down in front of each of us. “That’s how we do it here, 15 per person,” says Rishat, Sabiryan’s son-in-law. The pelmeni are incredible, but clearly we should not have eaten breakfast.

* * *

It turns out that Sabiryan can read Russian just fine with his one good eye, and even speak it, though in a very thick Tatar accent. So Rashid shows him the printed questions on an iPad and he offers long, fascinating stories in reply.

Sabiryan Asfandiyarov. {Photo: Mikhail Mordasov}

Wounded three times in the war, Sabiryan served eight years in the military, having been called up to serve in 1938, and ready to be mustered out when the war began. He drove tanks, including an American-made one, and lost his right eye under fire in Hungary in 1945. He at first refused to have the eye removed, thinking a one-eyed man would never find a wife, but eventually was convinced by a doctor it was the only way to save his other eye. Three days after finally mustering out, he was at work as a cashier on the kolkhoz.

A neighbor comes by and recounts how 360 men left the village for the war and only 120 came back, and now Sabiryan is the last one alive.

“He is our last hero,” the friend says.

That may be, but Sabiryan can’t seem to understand what all this fuss is about.

When we are done with all our questions, he says we are here asking him all these things about 100 years ago, but he has a question for us. All these journalists come around visiting, he says, but none of them can tell him what is going on in Loch Ness, and what it is that lives there.

We try to convince him it is just a myth, but none of us have any real facts to offer in our defense, and so it seems that Loch Ness will continue to bother Sakhayevo’s last hero for the foreseeable future.

Sabiryan and his immediate family, in the garden where he likes to sit in his greenhouse. {Photo: Mikhail Mordasov}
Like this post? Get a weekly email digest + member-only deals

Some of Our Books

The Samovar Murders

The Samovar Murders

The murder of a poet is always more than a murder. When a famous writer is brutally stabbed on the campus of Moscow’s Lumumba University, the son of a recently deposed African president confesses, and the case assumes political implications that no one wants any part of.
Russian Rules

Russian Rules

From the shores of the White Sea to Moscow and the Northern Caucasus, Russian Rules is a high-speed thriller based on actual events, terrifying possibilities, and some really stupid decisions.
The Latchkey Murders

The Latchkey Murders

Senior Lieutenant Pavel Matyushkin is back on the case in this prequel to the popular mystery Murder at the Dacha, in which a serial killer is on the loose in Khrushchev’s Moscow...
Bears in the Caviar

Bears in the Caviar

Bears in the Caviar is a hilarious and insightful memoir by a diplomat who was “present at the creation” of US-Soviet relations. Charles Thayer headed off to Russia in 1933, calculating that if he could just learn Russian and be on the spot when the US and USSR established relations, he could make himself indispensable and start a career in the foreign service. Remarkably, he pulled it of.
The Frogs Who Begged for a Tsar (bilingual)

The Frogs Who Begged for a Tsar (bilingual)

The fables of Ivan Krylov are rich fonts of Russian cultural wisdom and experience – reading and understanding them is vital to grasping the Russian worldview. This new edition of 62 of Krylov’s tales presents them side-by-side in English and Russian. The wonderfully lyrical translations by Lydia Razran Stone are accompanied by original, whimsical color illustrations by Katya Korobkina.
Murder at the Dacha

Murder at the Dacha

Senior Lieutenant Pavel Matyushkin has a problem. Several, actually. Not the least of them is the fact that a powerful Soviet boss has been murdered, and Matyushkin's surly commander has given him an unreasonably short time frame to close the case.
93 Untranslatable Russian Words

93 Untranslatable Russian Words

Every language has concepts, ideas, words and idioms that are nearly impossible to translate into another language. This book looks at nearly 100 such Russian words and offers paths to their understanding and translation by way of examples from literature and everyday life. Difficult to translate words and concepts are introduced with dictionary definitions, then elucidated with citations from literature, speech and prose, helping the student of Russian comprehend the word/concept in context.
Davai! The Russians and Their Vodka

Davai! The Russians and Their Vodka

In this comprehensive, quixotic and addictive book, Edwin Trommelen explores all facets of the Russian obsession with vodka. Peering chiefly through the lenses of history and literature, Trommelen offers up an appropriately complex, rich and bittersweet portrait, based on great respect for Russian culture.
Tolstoy Bilingual

Tolstoy Bilingual

This compact, yet surprisingly broad look at the life and work of Tolstoy spans from one of his earliest stories to one of his last, looking at works that made him famous and others that made him notorious. 
Turgenev Bilingual

Turgenev Bilingual

A sampling of Ivan Turgenev's masterful short stories, plays, novellas and novels. Bilingual, with English and accented Russian texts running side by side on adjoining pages.

About Us

Russian Life is a publication of a 30-year-young, award-winning publishing house that creates a bimonthly magazine, books, maps, and other products for Russophiles the world over.

Latest Posts

Our Contacts

Russian Life
73 Main Street, Suite 402
Montpelier VT 05602

802-223-4955