<< Click on thumbnails for full imageMy Russia tour was definitely one of the highlights of the year, regarding culture and adventure. I went there for inspection of wild crafting activities - forest mushrooms and berries.
<< Click on thumbnails for full imageThe tour brought me from St. Petersburg eastwards, to the Vologda region, the origin of “Father Frost” and later to some very far edges of the world, some forests and swamps in Siberia, where we nearly got lost.
Arriving in St Petersburg after a long trip from Chiang Mai via Bangkok and Copenhagen I continued the trip by night train, the same day, together with Igor, my companion for the Vologda region.
Monastery
in Vologda
We spent three days in Vologda, mostly in a car, reaching several spots for inspection, but still I had the chance to learn something about Russian culture. In a forest Datcha near Vologda, I experienced my first Banya, the original Russian sauna. Banya is celebrated in a separate blockhouse with a firewood oven. In a Banya you get a combination of wet and dry sauna and also a unique treatment called Paritza, meaning that you punch yourself or each other (to be polite) with birch twigs, quite an experience! It doesn’t happen that often, that my clients beat me up naked!
After
the Banya we went swimming in a peaceful baltic lake. Beautiful country – at
least in summer! It was nearly midnight and still not dark. Days are long and
nights are short in summer here - and people make use of it! Probably they have
more time to sleep during the long winter.
Here in Vologda region, I also experienced my first introduction in Russian hospitality: “Vodka or beer?” was one of the regular questions. Alternatively you can get also “Samagon”, the local home distilled from beet sugar.“ Nastarovye!”
Another highlight of Vologda was the invitation to the house of one of the berry collectors we visited, where we got seated in a very small kitchen in her blockhouse, which was part of a small remote “picture-book” forest village. We were invited for “Zar-fish” and Samagon and I felt like I had undergone a time machine to the past. Nastarovye!
Another feature of this part of the trip was the wonderful voice of my translator. She sang melancholic folksongs, while we were driving through endless Russian landscapes.
One problem we faced quite often was the absence of petrol stations, and when there was one, than it probably had no petrol! Therefore we depended on buying diesel from truck drivers.
getting
diesel
They have more Vodka here than Diesel! Vodka they have always. The small shops (often hard to identify as shops from outside) use half of the shelf for Vodka, one fourth for beer and the rest is for canned food and cigarettes. Nastarovye!
We
passed (wrong! We didn’t pass, we stopped!) at a small "beer
station". This shop
sells beer from the tank and kefir (homemade). The place seems to be the local
for an area of approximately 5000 square
kilometer!
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But as fascinating Vologda region was, there is nothing in the world like Siberia, the next destination on this trip!
We (me and Dimitri, my companion for this part of the trip) arrived after a night flight from St Petersburg, early in the morning to Novosibirsk, where “our people”, Vitali and Alexey, our driver for the next days, picked us up for a long ride to Tomsk city. From there we headed further north.
On the way, at one of our spots for inspection, in Molchanovo, we met Mr. Vladimir Plashevski who organizes not only mushroom collection but also bear hunting. He was quite an interesting character, who spoke English very well and also had a sound knowledge in western literature. He came from Kasachstan as a student to Siberia and stayed. I couldn’t find out what made this well educated man a mushroom collector and bear-specialist in this remote village in Siberia. This story, he said, belongs to “another life”.
Many things changed in Russia the last ten years and so did the people.
In one of the forests was a railway trail for timber transport, build by prisoners, probably also war prisoners. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the villagers deconstructed the rail to sell the iron parts.
The landscape is endless wide and the houses are very small, mostly blockhouses with colorful painted and carved window frames.
Our next adventure was the ferry to Kolpashevo. This trip was especially daring on the way back, the next day. Too many cars where waiting for the ferry and there was no queue organized. You need a lot of patience in Russia. “Another beer?” “Why not!” “Nastarovye!”
The fight about who will get a place on the ferry was unavoidable.
While just starting to load the ferry, one truck got stucked and the procedure was blocked again for one hour. After three hours we got the last place on the ferry, just to realize that our captain was heavily drunk. Nastarovye!
Another funny incident happened at the hotel in Kolpashevo. When the woman at the reception realized that I'm a foreigner she was panicking and called the police: "A German just arrived, what shall I do?" But finally everything got settled and they accepted that I'm not a soldier nor a spy and that this is not the beginning of the third world war.
Now we had to manage the worst part of the road. Some parts where so muddy that they used tractors to pull the cars through, one after the other. Waiting again, “Vodka or Beer?” Nastarovye!
Somehow we really arrived in Kargasok, at midnight, after two days and 800 km road - sometimes not the best road (7 hours for the last 200 km).
Kargasok is the place where the street ends, but not our journey!
Arriving in Kargasok at midnight, I was really looking forward to a hot shower - but our “hotel” (definitely the best in town – the only one) had no hot shower - it had no water tabs at all! The toilet, outside, behind the hotel was, what we call in German a “Donnerbalken”, a wooden construction on top of a hole and no flush. When I asked, where to wash, I was brought to the kitchen, where they had a small basin connected to a water tank, which was regularly refilled with the help of buckets. Enough to wash my hands, but what is with the other parts?
No problem! Friends of a friend of my companions knew someone, whose friends had a Banya! So we spent the time between 1 am and 3 am in the Sauna and….Nastarovye!
We came back to the hotel and I slept like a stone to realize the next morning that my companions continued at the local discotheque until 6am. Nastarovye!
What shall I say: At this part of the world they have discotheques open until 6am and in Bangkok they have to close strictly at 2am!
Alexey, our driver explained that the girls in Siberia are special. He used the expression of “Milk and Blood”.
Siberia after Perestroika
bakery truck
butter factory
The economy of Kargasok consists of two sawing mills (one government, one private). In “soviet time” there was a factory for fresh water fish processing and a butter factory. Both are shattered since the collapse of the Russian economy and Perestroika. The population decreased from around 16,000 to approximately 8,000 people. People here depend on the unstable and declining timber industry and on the collection of mushrooms and berries – their only hope. That’s why we are here.
It was planned to go on a small plane in Kargasok to reach the areas for mushroom collection further in the north. This plane, constructed similar to a German model from the second world war, leaves normally from Kargasok twice a week, to connect the remote settlements with the rest of the world, but didn’t go this time, - no petrol!
Why no one invents a plane engine, which runs on Vodka!
While my companions tried to find another possibility to continue our trip, I stayed at the hotel, where I started to write this text.
It started to rain and it became cold. My companions came back at noon with the news that they found a possibility to continue the journey. They hired a boat, which would bring us to Nevodka, our next destination. So far my companions have been always in a good mood - but now ... from their faces I could read that the “smooth part” of the journey was over!
We went to different places where we bought food, drinks (definitely) and loaded different goods and spare parts for the stations in Nevodka and Kievskiy.
Four other people came to our group: The administrative chief of Kievskiy, his son Kirill, one woman who came from Novosibirsk to visit her parents in Kievskiy and Dima, an engineer from the government land survey office who came with us to measure the land of the two stations for the issuing of the first land titles in these areas.
Our boat had a small cabin with approximately five square meter space and two plank beds, where we found shelter from the rain and expected to stay for the next 8 hours or so. It started quite cozy. We adults had some beers while nine years old Kirill was allowed to take the place of the captain. At least we had a sober captain for a while!
Nastarovye!
On our way there was only one village where we stopped to buy tasty smoked fish. The village of Kazaltsevo can’t be found on any map of the world. It does officially not exist and has no administration. People live here on their own risk and make their living from fishing, raising sheep and collecting what the forests provide.
Somewhere in the middle of the night I woke up. Something was missing and I needed not long to find out – the hammering sound of the diesel engine was gone! We had enough diesel but the cooling system had failed and something in the starter got melted.
Our captain tried to repair the machine but it didn’t work. The boat had no radio devices and mobile telephones do not work in this part of the world.
We were lost in the swamps of Siberia! There was nothing that we could do but to wait until someone missed us and started to search for us. So we were trapped in our 8 cubic meter cabin and had to wait for a rescue team. At least we had some food and drinks. Nastarovye!
In
the morning the rain stopped and we could go out onto the deck. No helicopter and
no boat so far. I had this strange idea about a hot cup of coffee but we had
none.
So we stuck to beer. Please, no vodka for breakfast! Nastarovye!
At noon, our captain managed to boil some river water and found some tea in his luggage. So we got also something non-alcoholic to drink.
We started to catch fish and soon had enough for a fish soup. Our captain even had one onion. So it tasted exactly like a Parisian fish soup “Soup de Poison”. I have to admit, I never liked "Soup de Poison" before!
Still no rescue team. The afternoon went by, but still few beers were left! Yes, in Russia you need patience! Nastarovye!
In the late afternoon we heard the sound of a small motor boat. Soon it appeared and it had enough space for 3 more people. So the village headman with his son and the women left us. Soon the second boat, with our colleague Slava came from Negotka. Normally a boat like his can transport three people and there were five of us now with all our luggage!
We
left the captain with some of the luggage at his boat and headed with tempo 12
km/h towards Negotka. Slava was really happy that he found us. We had the
brandy with us! Nastarovye!
On the way we had some boat engine trouble but fortunately we were already near Negotka and got some help from some of the Slavas neighbours, who came by with another boat. Dima, the land engineer, changed to their boat so we could drive a little bit faster as well.
We arrived in Negotka at around 8pm and had dinner, but our friend Dima, who was on the other boat didn't come. What happened was that the other boat ran out of diesel shortly before they arrived at Negotka. Therefore he had to walk the last three km.
Now we had to start with our work. It was only the night left to do our job, because the next morning we had to leave for the long journey back, hoping that we still have a chance to get our flight from Novosibirsk on Friday evening. Beside Negotka we had another station to inspect in Kievskiy village, which we could reach on a 40 km forest track from Negotka.
On
the way we also passed the “airport” of Negotka, where we should have
landed IF the plane would have had kerosene (or IF it would fly on Vodka). But
this seems already a long, long time ago.
After inspection was finished in Kievskiy, the couple in charge of the station invited us into their house for some moose head meat balls and… - now after all work was done and we had reached the final point of our journey, I really felt like having a drink, but suddenly the question was: Tea or coffee? I couldn’t believe it!
In the entrance of the house, they kept the fur of a colossal bear. The bear was shot this spring by our host after the bear killed several cows in the village. As a present we got a bottle of bear fat, which shall have several medical or magical purposes.
And around 2am, after work was done and we were back in Negotka, we finally had a late Banya and… Nastarovye!
our
guesthouse in Negotka
At
the next morning, our friend Slava organized two boats for the trip back.
With the boats, lighter now, we left Negotka with tempo 30km/h but after
ten minutes the second boat was lost. Where are they? The engine was broken!
They managed to start it again but only on one cylinder. Therefore we headed
back to Negotka to change the engine and where I had the chance to take
some more pictures. But after that we could drive on
for a while.
The
house and the wife (with her breakfast beer) of our second boat man
We passed our stranded boat again. The captain standing in his underwear on the deck and was happy to see us. We left him some bread and brandy. He ordered more Vodka from our boats men and seemed quite ok. I wonder what will happen to him and his boat? I have this vague idea, if someone will bring him enough vodka, our "Robinson" may still be fishing here at the same place, when I would come back next year.
Someone needs patience in Russia and Vodka! Nastarovje!
The boats left us somewhere at the shore of the Ket river, where we walked to a small forest trail, where a car (!) waited for us to bring us to another village at a side arm of the Ob river. This was organized as a shortcut to avoid following the meanders of the Ket river very much eastwards until it meets the Ob river.
Tymsk
In Tymsk village we had to organize two boats again. To find two boat owners and the bargaining needed some hours, but finally they brought us in only four hours to Kargasok.
One boat engine
failed on the way but could be fixed in a short time (just enough time for a
beer). Nastarovye!
In Kargasok, Alexey, our driver awaited us to bring us back to Tomsk and from there to Novosibirsk, within less than 24 hours. Besides the obligatory search for diesel and a flat tire we had no further problems. We even slept three hours in a hotel in Tomsk.
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Back in St Petersburg, I had one and a half day holiday for myself, in this city so rich in culture and architecture. I spent the time with sleeping, sightseeing and a visit to the famous exhibitions of the Hermitage.
What a beautiful, great country – and such wonderful people!
