BRUNCH WITH HUUN HUUR TU

Despite jeans and t-shirt, Kaigar-ool, the elfin lead singer of Huun Huur Tu (on the lower left in the photo), has the face and lithe compactness of a horseman from the Central Asian steppes, which befits his name (Kaigar-ool = Little Horse Thief). Eventually, I’ll watch him in action in Tuva. But for now we are breakfasting on mutton and rice at around noon in the basement restaurant of this bizarre place where Sasha has put us, a sports complex on the outskirts of Moscow built for the 1980 Olympics. Sayan Bapa, the English-speaking brains of the outfit (upper right corner), joins us and orders a beer.

To reach this restaurant you descend a musty stairwell, traverse a dimly-lit passageway passing a “Dive Shop” where people in goggles are trying on fins. Through a nondescript doorway marked simply “Restaurant” is this eatery, decorated with leftover gaiety from its Olympian era including an imitation Cadillac grill on one wall with framed automobile advertisements from long-extinct magazines. Windows look out onto a parking lot empty but for a white stretch Lincoln limo that never moves from the spot in the three days I’m here. Sullen, tattooed waitresses in mini-skirts bring us beer. Large-boned swimmers and chiseled wrestlers hunker over their meals at nearby tables. Somehow, it all makes perfect sense – but maybe that’s because I took LSD back in the Sixties, which will turn out to be the appropriate preparation for this trip to the Russian Federation.

Sayan and I click instantly. Though he comes from Tuva, one of the most isolated places on the map, he has traveled all over the world performing with HHT. He can talk just about anything, from where to get the best burritos in Ensenada to Robert Johnson and blues music arcana. Kaigar-ool takes off and Sayan asks if I want another beer, “You’ve read the book?” Sayan says. He’s referring to “Where the Mountains and Rivers Sing,” by Theodore Levin, a Dartmouth professor and scholar of Tuvan throat-singing.
I said yes, I had. “I mean, the end of the book?” he says. That’s where Prof. Levin describes Sayan Bapa as an alcoholic and quotes Sayan’s wife saying that her husband drinks to relax. “I’m relaxing,” he grins. I say, “So am I.” He laughs and we order two more beers.