That’s right, folks! He’s back and he means business! Sergei
finally popped the question and asked me to meet his parents. This meant a 5-hour journey further north, to the charming town of Kalpashevo, sliced by the
River Ob and surrounded by the Taiga, Siberia’s famously dense and enormous
forest. To get an idea of where this is in the world, take a look at this link
and zoom out…
You may also be wondering just who this Sergei character is. Well, if the
picture below doesn’t give you the measure of the man, flick back to my post
from the 6th October. (http://alexmarrow57.blogspot.ru/2013/10/we-need-to-talk-about-sergei.html)
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| Sergei's idea, I promise. |
Anyway, Sergei kindly invited me to the countryside with
him, and what a weekend it would turn out to be. We arrived late in the evening
on Friday night, amid a tremendous snowstorm. Biting cold and piercing snow
welcomed us to Kolpashevo, a pleasant town of 30,000 inhabitants. The wait for
the ferry to take us across the river was apparently too long, so we walked
instead. Sergei passed this off as completely normal, but his mother’s shriek
of horror when she hear what we’d done was probably a sign that even for
Siberians, 16cm of ice isn’t quite enough for a man of my keeping. The
experience was fantastic though. Being a river, there are of course no trees,
so the landscape was a bleak, desolate wasteland, with crouching figures
shuffling through the wind. I was given a brief tour of the town on the way to
Sergei’s mother’s bungalow, before being plied with food and cognac and
eventually a place to sleep.
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| A not fully frozen Ob. |
The following morning I woke up late, much to my annoyance,
especially as my hosts had waited to have breakfast with me. I felt rather
embarrassed, but they insisted that this was absolutely fine. After a large
breakfast of porridge and four eggs, we started preparing pelmeny, my favourite
Russian dish, basically a small amount of mincemeat in a pocket of dough and
boiled. Sergei was very keen to give me an authentic Siberian experience, which
was most welcome. Pelmeny is fantastic. Homemade pelmeny is even better. It’s
fair to say that that evening’s meal was most enjoyable.
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| Hard at work, a chef in the making? |
However before I could enjoy the pelmeny, I had another banya
experience to look forward to. I was slightly apprehensive beforehand, knowing
that Sergei is both touchy-feely and not averse to wearing few clothes. As has
happened countless times out here, I knew that the best course of action would
be to just grin and bear it. And so, a few hours after lighting the banya, I
yet again found myself lying on a wooden bench, very naked, being thrashed with
the leaves of a silver birch tree. Three times I endured the treatment,
Sergei’s whipping reaching such a climax that I have a few bruises on my side.
After ninety minutes of lashes and chat, we washed and exited. Every time, the
banya still takes me by surprise, but every time I understand that this really
is a very normal, genuine tradition.
Sunday was simply marvellous. Fresh snow had fallen,
covering everything in a layer of white gloriousness. Another trip round the
town was sandwiched by more Siberian meals. The first was a breakfast of
blinys, basically pancakes, dipped in sour cream, melted butter or honey. The
taste was lovely, but the quantity was just too much. Russians believe that one
should eat until they are full at breakfast, in order to have enough energy for
the rest of the day. I of course embraced the challenge, but fifteen blinys in,
I noticed that Sergei’s mother was preparing a fresh batch and declared myself
unable to continue. For lunch, I tried akroshka, which really didn’t sit well
in the stomach. Akroshka is salad, meat and potatoes boiled in kvass (an
alcoholic beverage made from bread). I’ll be honest; I thought it was quite
revolting, but am willing to suspend that judgement until summer because
apparently it really comes into it’s own then.
After this lunch came the highlight of the weekend and
arguably, one of the highlights of my life to date: driving a snowmobile
through the Taiga forest. One of Sergei’s acquaintances was a “businessman”
(outrageously fishy), who had bought a $10,000 snowmobile. His son gave me a 40
minute tour of the surrounding forest, which was just spectacular. We found
ourselves in an enormous clearing and he revved it up, clocking speeds of
60km/h in waist-deep snow. How do I know it was waist-deep? Well… My guide bit
off a little more than he could chew on a more intricate section, losing control of the machine and causing us to capsize. Indeed, the sensation was
more similar to being on water than on land. It was alright for him, dressed in
full waterproof snow gear, but I was wearing a pair of maroon chinos and long
johns! And so, dressed poorly for both the conditions and fashion, I found
myself waist-deep in snow.
My chance to drive the snowmobile was the realisation of a
dream. I have driven some pretty cool things before, but this probably tops the
list. It was made all the more wonderful by our discovering later on the news
that a hibernating bear had woken form his slumber (no word of a lie) and was
hungrily roaming the forest near Kolpashevo. Unfortunately, or perhaps
fortunately, I didn’t encounter said bear. But I did think that if there was
ever a good time to meet a hungry bear in the Siberian forests, then it’s when
you’re armed with a 10000 CC, bright yellow snowmobile.
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| Simply spectacular. |
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