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Letter from Russia
Fall 2002 |
Catherine Santore '01 was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship grant to conduct research in Moscow, Russia. Following her project, "Environmental Grassroots Movements in Russia: A Study of Civic Participation," she travelled through Russia and sent the email below back to friends at Dickinson.
Catherine is currently a freelance reporter for The Moscow Times, the largest English-language daily in Russia. She writes news, features and business articles. She is also teaching business English and planning her next trip to Siberia.
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I did it! 113 days of traveling through Russia and not one night spent in a hotel! That was my crazy goal in April when I set off. Hotels are more expensive and I'd just sit there by myself. Instead, I now have friends strung out across nine time zones. This was one of the best learning experiences of my life. The research/interview aspect was of course very interesting and helpful. But even more than learning about the environmental movement, I learned about Russians. Maybe one of these days I'll even unravel the secret of the Russian soul (beat that, Dostoevsky!).
Most of you have already heard about my Altai adventures on horseback. It's so beautiful there that I almost want to buy a little shack, plant potatoes and ride my horse all over the mountains. Maybe I'll fulfill that impulse by visiting my friend who's going to marry our horse guide and live in Altai with him.
My other adventures include Lake Baikal and Kamchatka. I was in Irkutsk for a week before I got to glimpse the lake. I spent a week and a half on Olkhon, the biggest island in the lake, with Natasha, a great girl who works at Baikal Environmental Wave. We caught a ride with the Greenpeace mobile. Eight people prepared for a two week international camp to clean up trash from the island. Natasha and I also hitched a ride back to Irkutsk on the return Greenpeace mobile - very convenient.
We rented a room from a local family, who was super nice. Most people stayed just a few days and I think we stayed so long that we became like wayward daughters. Their son and his wife, who live through the potato patch, invited me back as their guest. Most of our days were spent laying on the uncrowded beaches or sleeping - the perfect vacation!
After that I flew from Irkutsk to Petropavlsk-Kamchatskii. Several people in Siberia asked me why I wanted to go to Kamchatka, reachable only by airplane. But hey, plenty of Muscovites asked why on earth I was going to Siberia. And who wouldn't want to go to Kamchatka? It's one of the most accessible wild regions in Russia, with 29 active volcanoes, thermal springs, geysers and the second largest bear species in the world.
The main city of Petropavlsk has miserable weather - not too cold in the winter, but as if in revenge, spring begins in June and the growing season lasts only a month and a half before the first frosts. For most of August, one of their two summer months, the lowest clouds I've ever seen hung over the city, seeming to skim the top of the five story apartment blocks and the temperature averaged 12 degrees celcius. On the fourth day I was there, Nadya, the mom of a friend of a friend who entertained herself by hosting me, exclaimed that she saw the sun. I scanned the grey sky until I found a spot that was less grey than the rest. I guess when you have only five blue-sky days in August, you take pleasure in almost-sun sightings.
I did a lot more sitting around in the city than I would have liked. The first few days we spent calling all tourist agencies. I was appalled at the higher foreigner prices and the agencies' unprofessionalism. I know that this is Russia, but here it's much worse. I finally found a two day hike up at local volcano for about $50. Miraculously, both days were beautiful, the first good weather I'd seen. Avachinsky volcano is 2,741 meters high and it took us seven hours to climb up and three to climb down. There was a 61 year old Austrian guy in our group who ran up ahead of us, enjoyed the view, and ran back down to meet us when we still had two more hours to reach the top. His 57 year old wife climbed slowly and steadily. When I thought I could go no higher, I reminded myself that if someone more than twice my age can do it, so can I! The last 100 meters were the worst, climbing at least at a 40 degree angle up the snowy cone. I just wanted to lay down on the snow and let the wind blow me into the national par
k below when suddenly I was at the top, with sulfur fumes blowing into my face! I really enjoyed myself, but I was disappointed that the cone was blocked up by lava from a 1991 eruption. I wanted to look down in the roiling depths of the earth!
My other most interesting adventure was an 11 day hiking trip through Nalychevo National Park. I wanted a no-frills camping trip, but tour agencies offered only pampered tours for foreigners. So a friend of Nadya's introduced me to his friend who was planning to go camping. For the first five days, it was just Pasha, Gina the husky (named after a character on Santa Barbara, poor dog) and I alone amongst the volcanoes. I love hiking with Russian men! He always gave me his hand when he thought I'd have trouble, got his feet wet a dozen times crossing streams so I wouldn't fall in (he even took my pack across once and then carried my piggy back over a stream because he couldn't find someplace for me to cross by myself!) and even did all of the cooking. It was almost spooky.
Pasha wanted to try a different way to get into the park, which is ringed by volcanoes. He choose what looked to be the quickest, easiest way on the map and what turned out to be the longest and hardest. He thought we'd reach Nalychevo valley in one day. Instead, it took us four days of hiking and one day of waiting for good weather. After battling through low brush the first day because the usual riverbed path was wet, we spent a day sitting in the tent waiting out the weather. Pasha's tent was a piece of light material he propped up with sticks and covered with a plastic sheet. Not the warmest home. On the third day with the clouds covering the area like fog, we decided not to spend our whole trip waiting and set off for a 1,550 meter pass between volcanoes. Some of the hardest seven hours of my life spent stumbling through fog and rain (walking through the clouds is no picnic), made especially annoying because I lost a contact the first day and was wearing glasses. The view must be fantastic and I want to tackle the pass again on a sunny day because this time I saw only snow, fog and rocks.
Once we reached the valley, we spent the next five days soaking in thermal springs. Nothing compares to steaming in my bikini as the sun melts the frost off the surrounding fields. We soaked in the morning before hiking and in the evening before dinner. Mmmm. One day we followed a 60 year old man who hiked with us for five days up a volcano in search of a sulfur hole that was always just around the next bend. We wound up hiking 30 kilometers and going through a pass of 1,600 meters. It never felt so good to soak in a thermal spring that night! To leave the park, we hiked over a 1,100 meter pass which was a piece of cake especially since I could see what was in front of me. This was my first backpacking experience since I went on a two day trip when I was 12 years old and I want to go back for more!
My last trip on Kamchatka was to a town eight hours north of the main city. Half of the trip was over unpaved roads so bone jarring that I couldn't read because my book jumped too much. The city of Esso is billed as the Switzerland of Kamchatka. While a pretty village, someone has been doing some false advertising. At the end of August, the hills were already ablaze with yellows, oranges and reds. I met up with some people my age who took me on their fishing trip. Enough fish were caught to cook a soup over the campfire and the rest of the activity focused around eating, talking and drinking wine that strongly resembled vinegar.
Pasha invited me to explore another volcano with him, but I already had my ticket to Moscow. What a shock when I arrived to a city covered by a smog so thick that most planes couldn't land. Peat bogs have been burning around the city all summer, creating the worst smog in 30 years with visibility at less than 100 meters. Thank goodness that the weather has cooled and blown most of the smog away. A nice "welcome back to Moscow!"
My Russian level has improved so much, though I don't think I'll ever memorize all of their proverbs. It seems that they have one for every possible life situation. Here in Moscow my new Russian roommate, Tanya, moved in a week ago. She's really nice and I think we'll have fun living together. She used to work for an American-founded environmental organization in Novosibirsk. I think Russians may be easier to room with because they're used to bumping around 20 square meter rooms all of their lives.
That's my update. I hope my e-mail finds you all well in your different corners of the world.
poka,
Catherine
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