Some people you encounter on the streets are impossible to forget. They leave an indelible impression on you that long lingers. For instance, just two days ago on a carriage (Amer. car) on the Moscow metro a man dawning a Spiderman suit sprang into action, performing all kinds of stunts between the seated passengers. He started to leap around, swing from the bars and do all kinds of acrobats. The carriage was transformed into a momentarily circus. It amused and astonished the passengers. They had never seen anything like this. The performer just managed to avoid clashing into one seated young woman who jolted back.
I once watched a lookalike Lenin who posed for photos with tourists around Red Square for a fee. I witnessed him having to flee from angry female Communist party members who accused him of being 'a speculator' who was abusing the memory of Lenin. I recall him arguing with some of the Communists by claiming, "I respect Lenin a lot and like Lenin. Like Lenin I adore playing chess!" I felt the street scene had turned surreal!
One homeless person I could not help noticing on the streets I called 'The Drummer.' That is because despite witnessing his performance over the past ten years or more I never learnt his name. I only learnt his name a few days ago. The man was an alarming but lively spectacle. You would be strolling along the quiet streets of Moscow until suddenly a loud rhythmic thundering beat would erupt. And you'd see a man dawning an old velvet hat with two feathers protruding from it.
The drummer did not have any sticks but was pounding his hands on an improvised cardboard drum. His hurt hands were dressed with bandages. Yet he made some money.
Years have gone by. And he is still drumming. I have seen him drinking with a group of friends. At times, I'd give him some cigarettes or money for the performance. But I often found him very reserved and understood he cherished his privacy. I learnt that sometimes the friends he had did not see him for days. I wondered if he was a kind of 'lone wolf.' Then he just vanished. I thought he had utterly disappeared from the face of the earth. I thought that perhaps he had succumbed to some illness, frozen to death over the winter or moved to another city.
But then, only a few days ago he miraculously surfaced on an under- passage of a motorway. He was seated and begging. For some reason he remembered my face. I noticed that he had a newspaper next to him with a front page photo of a carved wooden sculpture of Christ on the cross and seemed very taken by it. He was well dressed in a new set of clothes which included trainers, a jacket and a cap. He had lost the feathered hat. I was invited to sit down with him. It was the first time I had a real conversation with him.
He told me his name was Yuri Petrovich and that he had a grown daughter. He seemed to have grown up in the locality of Sokol. He even told me he had studied at the technical institute which we could both see a few meters away. He told me proudly that "When I was 17 years old I played as a professional footballer for Dinamo." So he seems to harbor some pleasant memories. Suddenly for some reason he became more animated and talkative. He told me "I'm a monk! I believe in God and that he judges us very differently from others. I can tell whether a person has bad or good intentions and can see through them. I believe in the existence of demons and know that they are underneath us." He pointed to the ground.
It was the lunch hour, so people were rushing by. Yuri told me "I know all the people going by and have seen them many times. They know me well. They pass by me every day." Some of the people passing by pretended not to notice Yuri or shot him an uneasy stare. When he greeted some of them they would not always greet him back.
As one person passed, Yuri sat up straight. He told me "I know this man. He is a priest on his way to church." He greeted the priest who just rushed by as if we did not exist. There were some people who found Yuri 's presence either embarrassing or awkward. But the workmen nearby answered Yuri's greeting and one man tossed a coin into his cap.
Yuri began to tell me about the role of monks. "I am a monk. A monk is a kind of spiritual warrior. So I try to fight against spiritual evil." He started to speak about famous saints such as Saint Seraphim of Sarov who is one of Russia's most revered saints. He told me he had lost his Bible or at least the New Testament.
Saint Seraphim of Sarov
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That brought back a memory of how in the 1990's a homeless boy we played football with told me that the police had stopped him and taken his Bible and destroyed it for some off reason. But in this case, I think Yuri could easily have simply mislaid it. I noticed Yuri had a broken nose but the one striking feature about him are his eyes. They are very alert, attentive and lucid. You obtain the impression that he notices everything. Indeed, I wager he has witnessed many profound events in his life.
It did not surprise me at all to hear Yuri describe himself as a monk or preach about his religion. When you often give money to beggars in Moscow they politely thank you with "God grant you with good health" as if reciting a kind of prayer. They often appeal to alms in the name of Christ. I see some female beggars sitting surrounded by many icons singing hymns.
In Russia beggars were once deemed sacred. Not to give them alms was considered a great sin. The folklorist and writer Andrei Sinyavsky once stated “The keepers and conveyors of folk religion were often beggars” {see pages 243 to 262 of Andrei Sinyavsky's book “Ivan the Fool, Russian Folk Belief: A Cultural History, 2009, Glas, Chicago}.
The beggars, like Yuri, compared themselves to warriors. They would recite special poems with religious themes called 'Spiritual Verses ' and wander all over Russia. Each week I pass by another man in an underpass near Gorky Park who recites long prayers and passages from the bible as a beggar.
An old friend comes up to us. He looks an elderly man whose face seems gaunt, worn out and furrowed by deep anxiety. "Where have you been, Yuri? Do you know how much I worry about what happens to you?" He tells us that he had been visiting his parents but he has not been there for around 3 weeks. "They don't have anything."
Then the two start talking about recent events. I still don't know exactly why Yuri is on the streets. He never clearly explained but hinted that he could have been tossed out by people. He spoke to me about some kind of family rift. I held back from asking too many questions in case it upset him…
In the past, I found that some homeless can burst into tears when they tell me their life story.
But Yuri like many people on the streets remains inscrutable. I tell him I am surprised he is still alive. He proudly answers, “Yes, I am a great survivor. I know how to live." I finally say farewell to him and tell him I'll see him again. What will become of Yuri? Where he will go and how he will fare? Nobody knows. But there is something special about him. He partly reminds me of the character Vladimir of Beckett's play “Waiting for Godot” who tells his friend Estragon “'Yes, yes, we're magicians.”
In the case of Yuri he can make a drum out of cardboard and use it. But this time he won't need to use just his hands. He showed me two drum sticks which were in his coat pocket. Things might just be looking up for the drummer!