Soviet Haircut

 

In 1985 my father went on a three-month exchange visit to what was then the Soviet Union. It was a farm exchange program as my father was with the Department of Agriculture and it was meant to foster goodwill between two previously "enemy" states. I was fifteen years old and desperately wanted to go with him, and as the exchange roughly coincided with my summer holidays from school, he tried to get me included in some form of exchange program as well. After much delay, and against the wishes of my mother, I got accepted as a part of a youth goodwill group and I was going too. It was all a bit of a rush at the last minute, but come the day I was on the plane with my dad flying into the unknown territory of a Soviet farm tour.

Though it is hard to picture it now, the Soviet Union then was very different from what it is now. It was still a very rigid and hostile society and the "goodwill" tour was very carefully stage-managed. We could only go to certain places with special tour guides and follow a strict regimen of activities. Still it was a great experience, especially for a kid like me who had grown up in a modern, well off society where all needs could easily be met. The Soviet Union was very primitive in many ways - the people lived very simple lives with few consumer goods, few experiences beyond their immediate locale, and they dressed and looked like people from a long time ago. One of the immediate things that struck me was that they looked very roughly put together, with none of the slick considered veneer of my own country.

The first few weeks of the tour were in the big cities - Moscow, Leningrad - and there we met officials and bureaucrats who all seemed to be called Sergei or Leonid. The days were pretty full. One of the things I had not been able to do before leaving was to get a haircut, things had been such a rush. Dad thought it would be a good idea for me to get a haircut (as we were going to the country regions next day) and asked one of the officials where a barbershop was. The official arranged for us to visit a shop between official appointments. We got out of the car and walked across to the door of the shop. We both looked in, and dad said,

"Oh they're all busy. It will take too long to wait." And we got back in the car and went on to our next appointment.

The next day we flew to a part of the Ukraine. As the plane took off, dad ruffled my hair and said,

"You might have to be a long hair for this trip."

My hair wasn't very long, and I liked to keep it reasonably well trimmed, a neat taper you might call it. I usually had it trimmed every few weeks at the usual salon near my school, but otherwise I didn't think much about it. Getting a haircut was just one of the things I did every now and then.

In the Ukraine we stayed on a collective farm and that was much more interesting. The people were even rougher, but gentle and kind, and very generous with their hospitality. The image was very different from that we got at home of Russian people, or even what it was like in the cities. The weather was very warm and the days were relaxed and fun. I really enjoyed this part of the trip. Then one day, the most amazing thing happened that has affected me for the rest of my life. Of course it had to do with a haircut, and it happened to me.

We had been out on a Saturday morning visiting a section of the farm devoted to intensive agriculture. I was pretty bored, as it was more talking heads talking to us through our interpreter. About two in the afternoon we left and headed back to the house in the car. The car stopped at the side of the house, we got out and rounded the corner, when I stopped dead in my tracks. There on the back porch of the house we were staying in, one of the farm workers named Sasha was giving a boy a haircut. I had never seen anything like it before in my life. The boy, whose name was Michael, was my age, and he was sitting on a stool outside the back door.  He had a white cotton sheet pinned tightly around his neck, and Sasha was standing behind him using a pair of clippers I had never seen before clippering the hair on the back and sides of his head. I must have just froze looking at him. There were a few other men standing around this scene, some talking, others watching the haircut. Suddenly my dad was standing next to me looking at this fantastic scene too.

"Look at that," my dad said to me. "I haven't seen handclippers for a long time."

"Is that what it's called?" I managed to stumble out. "What are they?"

"They're hair clippers, but they aren't used much any more," dad said. "Everything is electric now"

"Yeah," was all I could say. I couldn't take my eyes off the haircutting scene in front of me. Sasha's strong hand was placed firmly on Michael's head, which was tilted right down to his chest. The clippers made a strange "clacking" noise as they traveled up his head, and the hair peeled off and fell onto the sheet. Sasha's big hand operated the steel arms of the clippers with ease, and he stared intently at his work as he repeated the clippering action over and over again in a steady rhythm. The clippers left an even shorn path as they completed their run up Michael's head.

"This reminds me of the old days," my dad said as he looked on.

"How do you mean?" I asked.

"Your grandfather used to give me haircuts with those things when I was a kid, "he said, and smiled at the memory.

I looked at my dad.

"Pop used to cut your hair?" I asked taken back. "When?"

"When I was younger than you, back in the fifties," dad said. "He was a pretty mean barber. He loved hair to be real short. He used to give me and your uncles regular short haircuts with his clippers just like those ones."

Before I could stop to think, or stop myself I said to dad,

"Why didn't you cut my hair when I was young?"

Dad looked a little embarrassed and I think I must have gone red. The idea had never occurred to me before and I still don't really know why I asked him that. But I meant it anyway.

"Well." dad said, "times have changed. We were poor and dad saved money by doing our haircuts. People have changed now. we don't need tobesides your mother wouldn't have stood for it."

Kolya, our interpreter, said something to Sasha who stopped cutting, smiled and looked at me. He said something back to Kolya.

"You want to be next?" Kolya said to me.

"Me?" I asked shocked.

"Sure," Kolya said. "I asked Sasha and he said he would do your haircut if you wanted him to."

"I don't think so Chris," dad said. "We'll find a shop somewhere."

"I'd like to get a haircut here, dad, if that's ok," I said. "I need one and it's too hot to let it grow any longer."

"It's a bit rough though," dad said. "It will be the shortest haircut you have ever had."

"It didn't do you any harm," I said. "And it's only hair. It'll grow back."

Sasha had put the big clippers down now and he was attacking the top of Michael's head with the scissors and comb. He would gather up a bunch of hair with the comb and then snip it off, it falling onto the sheet that was covered in Michael's black hair. My heart pounded as I watched Sasha straddle Michael's legs and snip his hair with gusto.

As Sasha cut, Michael looked at me.

"Hello buddy," he said. He always said that. I smiled at him.

"Hey buddy," I said back. "You look great."

While Sasha was finishing I noticed a few of the other guys standing around had also new short haircuts. Sasha must have done them all, and I began to regret that I had wasted the entire morning looking at tractors while I could have been here watching Sasha cutting these guy's hair.

At last Sasha put down the scissors and brushed the hair off Michael. He looked critically at his work, picked up the clippers again, and pushed Michael's head right down. He clicked the clippers up the back of his head several times. And then it was over. Michael straightened his head and Sasha undid the sheet from around his neck. The hair tumbled to the ground, joining all the other hair gathering there. Michael got up rubbing the back of his head. It was so short you could see the skin, and the clippering went right up almost to the top of his head. But he looked fantastic.

Someone said something in Russian. I looked around and it was Sasha. He was pointing at the stool that Michael had been sitting on.

"You're next," Kolya said.

My hear was beating so loud I thought everyone must have heard me as I walked over to the stool. Sasha flicked the sheet to clear it of hair and it made a strong sound. I turned around and sat down. My dad was looking at me, and he looked very strange.

Suddenly Sasha flicked the sheet over my head and it settled around in front of me. He pulled it tight around my neck and then pinned it closed. He started to comb my hair. The sheet just covered my knees as I tucked them onto the footrest of the stool. Sasha rubbed his hand up the back of my head.

"Too long," he said. He reached down and picked up the clippers, took hold of my head with his other hand and pushed it right down so my chin touched my chest.  He began to click the clippers behind me, then they stopped, and I felt the sensation of cold steel at the base of my neck Then he began to operate the clippers for real and move them up the back of my head. I could feel and hear them bite into my hair, and he kept going higher and higher. I had never felt such a great sensation in my life. The clippers stopped near the top of my head and he took them away, still clipping them, and then started another furrow at the base of my neck. On and on it went for what seemed like hours, and I drifted into a dream like state. It felt so wonderful, sitting on this hard stool in a Russian farmyard, with a sheet pinned tight around my neck, with this firm hand on my head and the breeze tickling over my newly clippered head. I didn't want this ever to stop.

Then I realized something. Dad's strange look as I walked to the stool was a look of pride, not fear. And I thought of something else. When we stood in front of that barbershop in Moscow and dad said that it was too busy, he wasn't telling the truth. Sure the shop was busy, but there were at least two empty chairs in the shop that I could see. The thing about it was that all the cutters were women, stern looking women in white smocks, bored and waiting for another customer. Dad had been looking at them and decided not to take me in there. All my life I had had my haircut by women, and my mother had been the one to take me for a haircut when I was young. She had made the appointments with her favorite stylist every few weeks. Dad had never taken me for a haircut in my life. I had never actually been in a REAL barbershop, though dad only ever went to barbershops for his haircuts. And when his one chance to take me for a haircut had happened, he wasn't going to take me into a place where there were women doing the haircuts.

Now I knew why. And I felt a lot closer to my dad. If things had been different in a different time, this would have been my dad standing behind me with the clippers. Just like his dad had done.

Sasha moved his hand on my head and tilted my head up and to the side. He was starting to clipper the sides of my head. I saw the clippers moving up the side of my head, and then dad standing right in front of me smiling.

"How old were you when Pop gave you your last haircut, dad?" I asked.

"The last time he cut my hair was just before my fifteenth birthday," he said.

"My age," I said.

"After that he would give me money to go to the barbershop, though he still cut my brothers' hair until they turned fifteen."

"Were you glad he stopped?" I asked.

"No," he said. "I missed those haircuts." And he laughed. "I never told him that of course. I grew my hair long and didn't get it cut for months. It drove him crazy."

He went silent.

"I think I wanted him to order me back into the chair and give me another haircut. But he never did."

The rest of my haircut went in silence. Sasha cut off far more than I had ever had cut off before. When he took the sheet from around my neck and flicked it loudly, I stood up, rubbing the back of my head. It felt like sandpaper. Sasha rubbed his handiwork, the clippered back of my head..

"Good," he said. And then said something to Kolya.

"You can come back for another haircut next week," Kolya said to me.

Everyone laughed. And dad ruffled my short hair.

"Looks great Chris," he said. "Just like Pop used to give me."

There is a short footnote to this story. Needless to say I developed a love of short haircuts after this real haircutting experience and kept it short, especially when shorter hairstyles came back in fashion. When I was at College in the early nineties I had a short crewcut, and had bought my own clippers to keep it trimmed. Dad came to visit me where I was living on his own one time and I was due for a haircut that weekend. On a Saturday afternoon I surprised him by asking him to cut my hair. He looked a bit taken back, but I insisted. I pulled a stool over into the middle of the kitchen and sat down.

"There's a sheet in the top drawer," I said. He got out the sheet, flicked it over my head, and pinned it tight around my neck. He picked up the clippers and looked at them.

"We should have done this a long time ago," I said. He smiled at me and turned the clippers on. They hummed quietly as he took a hold of my head and stared running them up the back of my neck.

"I wish we had Chris," he said quietly. "Thank you for this."

And the clippers dug into my hair and the hair tumbled onto the white sheet and then to the floor.

"Thank YOU dad," was all I said.