"And all around you are walking the very people whose records you've only heard about"

Everyone who's heard of Mikhail Mishuris knows that he first became genuinely close to blues in Chicago, which is equivalent to learning the electric guitar straight at the Fender factory. But the details of that very trip are somehow hard to find. So we talked with Mikhail about the Chicago Blues Festival, America as a road movie, living in the same dorm with Lurrie Bell, and, unexpectedly, about french fries.

Exchange

In '97, times were such that it was very fashionable for exchange students to go abroad.

My mother just dreamed that I would go somewhere too.

But since my specialty was "Nineteenth-Century Russian Literature," it was completely unclear who I would even trade with and why.

Mikhail Mishuris on Wabash Avenue

That private university where I studied in Novosibirsk actually practiced those kinds of exchanges. I think all the economists eventually went to study in the US, and some of them even stayed there.

There was naturally nothing to do in philology.

And honestly, I wasn't really that keen on going anywhere else back then, which is strange to think about now. Things were so interesting for us at that time, and opportunities were just pouring in from everywhere.

Well, two of my best friends ended up in America, as it happens. One of them left with his parents as soon as it was possible, and the other went precisely on one of those exchange programs. He was planning to settle there, but in the end he didn't, though that's fine.

As you may recall, there were no mobile phones back then, and one time he called from America, but I wasn't home—my mother picked up the phone and convinced him to try to persuade me to go to America. And when he found out that I was into blues and was even playing something there, he sent me a fax at work.

A fax with the program for the Chicago Blues Festival. And it was a symbolic "Hundred Years of Blues." Three days of the festival, or was it two—I don't remember. And everyone was there, honestly, everyone I could possibly imagine. I got suddenly fired up about it, like, what if I just went and saw them all at once?

And really, I was just calling myself a blues fan back then. There was zero information. On one hand, blues was some kind of branch of jazz. Jazz enthusiasts had some Polish records with blues on them. Rock fans might have had something blues-related lying around too. But mostly it was reissues from the people's democracies. Yugoslav, Polish, East German records.

I used to go to record fairs. And I'm telling you, I never—not once in my life—saw a single blues record there. Same with soul and funk, nothing. It was all classic rock, classic rock everywhere. Nazareth—you'd look around and Nazareth was everywhere, Queen, that sort of thing.

Well anyway, I once came across a Richie Havens record at one of those record flea markets. Or rather, not me personally—it was our whole crew. We had this group of enthusiastic guys who would go around trading records. Anyway, never mind Richie Havens.

They convinced me to go to America after all. And I set off for an interview in Moscow.

To New York via Moscow

I had relatives living in Moscow, and while I was there for a week, I think, my cousin introduced me to the blues community, took me to Arbat Blues Club, and I met various people there.

One of the first was Petrovich. Petrovich took me to the Forte club, which had just opened around that time. And I was just amazed at how vibrant life was going on in Moscow, and here I was thinking I needed to go to America.

First Impression

A couple of years ago I found myself at Istanbul airport, and that's roughly what I expected from Kennedy Airport: enormous spaces, crowds of people. But I ended up in an arrivals hall that was quite modest, actually—nothing particularly different from Sheremetyevo, to be honest.

And there I sat and sat, my friends were supposed to pick me up, but they went off in the wrong direction somewhere. Anyway, they were about two hours late. I didn't know what to do with myself. Well, thank God they finally picked me up, everything worked out.

First we visited a friend of ours in New York, then we drove out to Niagara Falls, then to Chicago. It was a lot of fun, really. The road, all of it. What struck me was how much it all looked like it was straight out of a movie — the landscapes, the cars, all these characters at rest stops and gas stations, just like a road movie.

This is probably the most fascinating part of America, the one that made me actually fall in love with America.

Somewhere in Chicago, lost to the mists of time and unclear where

French Fries

I should say that it was a time when I had never eaten Japanese or Chinese food in my life. Not to mention Mexican.

I dealt with McDonald's in Moscow, but very superficially. And generally speaking, I didn't have much to do with fast food back then either—it was 1997, after all.

In general, I had to get used to all of this, especially when I ended up staying in America.

And on the very first day we arrived, we first hung out in New York, and then went to sleep at a motel.

The motel was actually in a different state to make it cheaper. And that's where I came across a Wendy's burger place, which later showed up in Moscow too, by the way.

And that's where I had my first independent experience ordering food at a fast food restaurant, because all my travel companions were asleep, and I climbed out to take a look at Pennsylvania.

There's green grass everywhere, long-haul truckers, and this burger place, and I was sure I could handle it. And they almost understood me.

Besides the potato moment. I hadn't heard anything about french fries either.

I started demanding some french fries, and they couldn't figure out what this guy needed, what free fries. I felt like a complete idiot, couldn't even place a simple order. And yet in New York they would've sorted it out in a flash—they see all kinds of people there.

And this was Pennsylvania. A frightened Black girl ran to get the manager. A white manager showed up and started speaking to me syllable by syllable, some words—talking to me like I was mentally disabled. I still didn't understand anything. Anyway, I was really upset until I saw that very potato they were handing out to someone. I said: "That's what I need." Well, everything became clear, everyone laughed, and everything was fine right away.

Everyone started patting me on the shoulder, saying, "Nice work, man." And this Black girl called another girl from the kitchen, come look, some guy from Russia showed up.

Everyone came to see me, but there was this Black farmer sitting there in denim overalls, just like out of a movie, wearing a baseball cap, everything exactly as it should be.

He was finishing his coffee, and he clearly disapproved of the whole thing—apparently thought they were making fun of a foreigner. But then, after I'd already sat down with my tray and was finally about to eat all this stuff, as he was leaving, he came up to me, put his hand on my shoulder in this affectionate way, and said: Welcome to America. Have a nice day!

Apparently, he decided to smooth things over.

For me, the main impression from America is that it's actually just like that, you know? And all the people always tried to help me.

I tried to communicate there with our émigrés, but they seemed absolutely dreadful to me. Thank God, I didn't have any real need to interact with them.

With Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown at Buddy Guy's Legends

Chicago Blues Festival

So we went to Chicago for the festival. It was free — I think it's the biggest free festival in America. Everyone was really there, you just had to run from stage to stage.

I got used to the music gradually, because to be honest, I'm not very good at listening to live music in general. For me, live music is something you experience in a bar, when you're relaxed, with a beer, and then you like almost everything. But here it's an open-air festival, and it's hard to concentrate.

And so the impression came later. But here I was simply impressed by the scattering of names and possibilities in itself.

Buddy Guy performed on the big stage. Rufus Thomas impressed us with a big band, also on the big stage. But on the small stages, there were some really talented people performing.

On other stages Charlie Musselwhite sat with his harmonica, then old John Brim, and Homesick James was there too, also getting on in years.

Anyway, everything on the main stage had big lineups with horns, and I pretty much liked it all, though I was sitting pretty far back and couldn't really see much of anything. But between the smaller stages, I had to keep running back and forth.

I missed a lot of good things too.

In the evenings we went to clubs, but the clubs were packed with people during the festival weekend. For the same reason, it was impossible to find a place to stay in the city. We did the same thing we'd done in New York—drove to some other state to sleep in a motel. So I was completely dependent on my companions. They'd say we're exhausted, that's it, and just like that, the nightlife would end and we'd start looking for a bed.

People played in the clubs in the evenings too, some of them pretty well-known, but like I said, it didn't make much of an impression on me at the time.

I was impressed by the wealth of choice, and the fact that all these names—ones I'd only heard about, or heard that records existed, records I'd never even held in my hands—here they were, walking around, and you could even get an autograph or take a photo, but somehow I was afraid to.

I only got a photo with John Mayall, because I really didn't expect to see him at all.

He was my biggest idol back then, because in Novosibirsk I could get his recordings. There was this enthusiast there who would record everything for me.

I got Mayall's autograph, took a photo with him—that was my main achievement.