Share
Ekaterina Karavaeva, 25, is co-editor and project coordinator of tak-tak-tak ( www.taktaktak.ru), a Russian social network dealing with human rights. Her hometown is Novosibirsk, in Siberia.
Q. What does "tak-tak-tak" mean, and what is your Web site about?
It's kind of like, "Well, well, well," as in, "Let's start the conversation."
It's people stating their problems and getting answers from experts and others on different matters. Someone got laid off without being paid. Some writer whose rights were violated, or maybe an investigation into video cameras taping people during medical checkups when they're not wearing their clothes.
The most common problems concern jobs and housing.
Q. Are most people who visit the site from Siberia?
They're from all 40 regions of Russia, but mainly from Siberia, where we started promoting the site and where it began. But we have people from far eastern Russia as well as Kaliningrad (on western Russia's Baltic coast). We're really proud of that.
Q. Where do you live, and what do you see out your window?
I live in an apartment building, on the ninth floor. It's almost a suburb of Novosibirsk - an "academy town" where research institutes are located. The building is 20 years old, and my father participated in building it.
Outside my window I can see about a dozen birch trees, a queue at a bus stop, a hospital and other apartment buildings.
Q. Is your family from Novosibirsk?
We moved there at the end of 1989. My father is from there; my mother is from Norilsk, which is to the north. They lived in Kazakhstan, then in Moscow. When they married they moved to Novosibirsk.
My father lives in Moscow now. I live with my mother.
Q. Your folks lived through some very tumultuous times. They grew up during the Soviet regime, which ended in 1991. Parents often reminisce about the old days. What do yours talk about?
Mainly the good old days - remembering their days in college and how much fun their lives were. How much they traveled around. Their friends. The times when I was very little and said stupid things that were pretty funny.
Q. Americans familiar with Siberia sometimes liken it to the Wild West - a kind of frontier spirit. What do you think?
We don't carry guns or ride horses. But to some extent, maybe that's true.
Novosibirsk used to be called the "Chicago of Siberia" - about 1.3 million people live here. The city is on the right bank and left bank of the Ob River; the sides are connected by two bridges and a subway bridge. Near the river, the subway train comes above ground and crosses over the river on the bridge. They claim that it is the biggest bridge in the world.
Q. Back in Soviet days, wasn't Novosibirsk a "secret city" where Westerners weren't allowed?
The area where I live in the city is still a little secret - there's a nuclear physics institute and some other things. Maybe military factories. There used to be more of that. Novosibirsk is much more open now.
People who don't live there are more likely to ask about the weather. On average, it can be minus-20 Celsius (minus-4 Fahrenheit) in winter, and there are two or three weeks when the temperature is minus-26 to minus-36 Celsius (minus-14.8 to minus-32.8 Fahrenheit). Summers are pretty hot, but short. There's about a month and a half when it's really hot: 25-35 Celsius (77-95 Fahrenheit).
Q. Big cities in America that have cold winters often link skyscrapers with skywalks. Do they have skywalks in Novosibirsk?
Not at all. We know what winter is and we try to find shelter that time of year. We have homeless people, but not that many get frozen.
We just dress in layers: something of cotton next to you, a really warm sweater; jackets filled with duck or goose down are popular now. And of course, there are fur coats. You usually have boots with thick, nonslip soles. Inside the boots, you wear socks made of wool.
That's how you usually dress, but not always. Young girls sometimes ignore this. They want to look fancy, and you can look fatter in winter because of all the layering.
Q. With such severe winters, is it hard to have pets?
No. I have two dogs, a briard - a French shepherd - and a white West Highland terrier. It does get hard to take them out when it's minus-35 (minus-31 Fahrenheit), but the dogs will torture you forever. If nothing else, being outside in the cold is a good way to get yourself awake in the morning.
Q. Is there a regional style of food in central Siberia?
With weather like this, we want to eat meat. We also have a kind of dumplings called pelmeni. And we eat soups.
Q. What's the most common question non-Siberians ask you?
If we have bears in the streets. I even hear this from people in Moscow. They want to know if it's true.
No. There are no bears in the street.
