FAME
"The Oersquuat peoples of Russo-Finnish Lapland live a life of rigorous hardship. During the brief summer they are nomadic, and follow their reindeer herds as they wander foraging across the tundra in search of food.In the dark freezing winters they gather in small settlements and live communally in large, semi-permanent tent-like structures known as 'squarts' beside the White Sea, from whose inhospitable shores they scrape a precarious living bartering walrus products."
Hague Denman-Townsend: "Murmansk and Beyond" (London 1956)
Little Glumbulka trudged throughthe blizzard in her Father's footsteps. It was her turn to help milk the reindeer.
In the fitful moonlight between ice flurries, she caught glimpses of the featureless tundra waste, barren to beyond sight in all directions. She shivered despite the five layers of rough hide shewas wearing, and the rendered walrus blubber her Mother had so lovingly massaged into her skin.
Old Krotsch turned his head.
'Hurry, child. If we do not make haste, our reindeer will suffer from the udder gripe.'
'Sod the reindeer!' thought Little Glumbulka.
Then, as she tripped over another clump of frozen bog-moss, 'Sod the Tundra!'
Was this all life had to offer?
When, much later, Little Glumbulka and her Father returned to the squart, they found her Mother, Floggruppsa, ('Hairy Knees' in the Oersquat tongue), beside herself with excitement. Though she had prepared a nourishing black-ice bean and lemming casserole, she simply had to give the returning deer-milkers her thrilling news before she fed them, She put the skjipperns of milk into the fridgeto prevent them freezing.
The post had arrived - which it sometimes did as often as once a week if the dogs could get through - and Floggruppsa had won a competition.
In last year's sun-months, she had bought a packet of Hornflakes from a passing Manchegorsk sleigh-trader. A panel on the back of the packet had invited her illustrate, in no more than two-hundred Oerstglyphs, the use of her threefavourite reindeer by-products. A major prize (yet to be announced) would be awarded to the squart-frauken adjudged to have submitted the most imaginative selection.
Floggruppsa had waxed eloquent on the versatility if reindeer hide in the constructionof anything from squart cladding to buckets. She had praised reindeer antlers for theiradaptability as clothes hangers, pot holders, digging tools, weapons and objets d'art. The judges, however, had expressed particular admiiration for her advocacy of an ingenious utilisation of dried reindeer dung in the manfacture of thermal underwear.
She had won a 'Winter Wonderland Weekend' for two in St.Petersburg.
'You cannot seriously expect me to go with you.' said Old Krotsch.'The climate is dumplitck -soft down South. Why, the temperature sometimes soars to minus twenty. You will risk the heatstroke.'
'I shall take with me the child.'
'But, mine frauken, there is so much here at home to look forward to. We are but five weeks from sunrise. The sacred rites of the hoof-scraping are almost upon us. Our shamans will dance with the older stags.'
'Nonetheless,' insisted Floggruppsa, 'we will go.'
'With making me alone self-fending!'
'I shall leave for you cauldron of simmering klaubenfletz' (mixed offal and giblets). 'You will survive.'
Reluctantly, Old Krotsch performed the Dongg Danz for the blessing of their journey, and, barely a half-moon later, Little Glumbulka and her Mother took the two dog-day journey to the railhead at Schkunk. Fortified with a sustaining flask of Grandmother Ruptja's ughretch (Narwhal blubber broth) they endured 'The TundraThuderbolt's' erratic journey South.
St Petersburg was so big! So busy! So overwhelming!
And oh! The traffic!
The two travellers clutched each-other tightly in panic.
Little Glumbulka soon overcame her fear, but remained awestruck by The Peter and Paul Fortress, The Winter Palace, The Nevski Prospect, The Peterhoff, The Hermitage, taxis, crisp bed-linen, flush toilets...
On their second and final night in the big city, their host from Hornflakes Inc. took them to the Kirov Ballet.
Never had Little Glumbulka been so moved.
She was spellbound. Surely nothing could ever match such spectacle. Even the extravaganceof the Oersquats' Bjordnerkzt in obeisance to the midnight sun paled into comparative insignificance, and when the prima-ballerina, the great Getcha Legova, performed her famed interpretation of 'The Fading Goose', Little Glumbulka experienced emotions no Oersquat maiden had ever felt before.
The divine Legova danced into her soul.
Glumbulka began to cry.
Great gulping sobs wracked her body, and tears streamed down her swart cheeks. Audience members three rows away turned to shush her, but she wasinconsolable in her ecstasy.
The next morning 'The Tundra Thunderbolt' was waiting to take them back to the realities ofSchkunk station.
Her Mother thought the silent Glumbulka was sulking, but the child's closed eyes and deep frown were merely registering her determination to remember every nuance of every movement made by every dancer she had seen the previous night.
Back on the tundra, Little Glumbulka was restless and ill at ease. She would never again feel at home in her native squart.
Her discontent was palpable.
Her Father carved her an intricate nose-plug in walrus ivory.
The chief shaman offered her the coveted role of 'Keeper of the Magic Mushroom' in the forthcoming Dung Drying Festival.
Her gomforschktnit ('from-child-betrothed'), Young Burpik, gave her a pair of earrings he had himself constructed from the dried testicles of an Arctic fox.
Despite these blandishments, Glumbulka still felt alien and lonely in the now twilit tundra wastes.
Young Burpik spoke to her behind the mating sheds.
'Why so melanclitsch, she-to-be-wiife?'
'I can bide here no longer,' sighjed Little Glumbulka. 'I have seen Legova perform, and can no more rest with squart contentment. I am in yearn for the beauty of the dance.'
'In such case,' said Young Burpik,nobly, 'it must be I carry you to Schkunk.'
As she stepped down from Old Krotsch's dog-sleigh at the railhead, there was a tearful farewell.
Salty drops froze to each child's cheeks and the lead Husky, Yowdlingl, strangely moved, ate one of Glumbulka's mittens.
It was a sad little tableau.
Three days later she presented herself at the Kirov theatre.
'Give job,' she demanded. (Her Russian was quite basic). 'I strong. Lift. Push. Move. Help much.'
The startled management agreedto give her a trial.
She was indeed strong, and proved to be a capable set builder. To anyone who can erect a squart in a force ten gale,the building of Sleping Beauty's castle is a piece of cake.
She soon became a valued member of the stage crew, and, in less than a year, (after the set-gang leader discovered she had been sleeping rough in Trinity Square), she was appointed deputy assastant night-watchperson, and given her very own sleeping shelf in the paint cupboard.
Despite this mark of respect and appreciation, she was still not fully content, Deep in her heart she nursed a secret and fervent ambition.
She longed to dance.
Whenever she could sneak a chance, she watched the corps de ballet at their classes or at rehearsal. Then, night after night, she would creep out onto the huge, dark, empty stage and try to imitate what she had seen.
She would dance, with non-stop exuberance, right through to dawn and exhaustion.
As a special treat, towards the end of her second year at the Kirov, she was invited to attend the corps' Christmas party.
There was much excitement among the boys and girls, for it was rumoured that the famous choreographer and impressario, Digalav, may possibly pay them avisit.
As, indeed, he did.
All the youngsters performed their party pieces in the hope of impressing the great man. They glowed wiyh innocent delight whenever he applauded.
It was late into the night, after many Vodka toasts had been proposed and returned, when Little Glumbulka boldly stamped onto the stage.
'Now I dance you,' she announced.
There was a stunned silence, follwed by a few titters.
'I dance arrangement by me of famous dance from my people.'
And Glumbulka danced a truly astonishing version of 'The Lament of the Seven Elks' - madeall the more remarkable by her accompanying herself with a tuneless but highly rhythmic whistle through her teeth.
Though she had taught herself steps from the girls' routines shehad watched for nearly two years, her sturdy limbs and reindeer herder's muscles fitted her better for a more masculine repertoire. Her leaps, for instance, made even the great Nijinsky look earthbound.
Digalav was enthusiastic.
There is talent,' he observed. 'The child should dance character.'
Within less than a year, Little Glumbulka had become a featured dancer, much respected, much loved by the Kirov's regular balletophiles. She was frequently presented with bouquets of flowers, which, at first, baffled her, since she found them indigestible.
She danced witches, bears, old peasants, robbers, goblins, things that lived in caves.
With St.Petersburg's famous ballet company, she toured the world. Her reputation grew.
She reached the peak of her fame when Digalav commissioned his friend, the composer Musborsgy, to write a piece especially for her.
She performed 'The Troll's Birthday' before all the crowned heads of Europe. She was invitedto dance it at a special gala in Moscow to celebrate a visit fromthe President of The United States of America. (Kruschev is reputed to have danced on the table).
In those heady days, she becamea household name and the toast of her profession.
In the world of the ballet, 'La Glumbaba' was the first and onlyever internationally acclaimed Lapp dancer.
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