A walk in the dark, a pleasant evening

Tuesday, December 06, 2005 9:26:12 PM

An interesting evening. Two whole days at work that I am working under regular pressure and regular hours. I take off today at 5. Ironic, we had a false fire alarm earlier in the day, and another at 4:55. So I just shut it down and split. Got back to camp and in my room right at 5:30. Changed shirts, put on some wool socks, and went walking.

Put on my fox sharka - the stereotypical Russian fur hat that makes a body look like a mushroom. It is HUGE in the mirror, but it is also deliciously WARM when you wear it! It has ear flaps. You tie these over the top of the hat for the coolest position, you pull them down around the back for the second position - warmer. And, for warmest, you would untie the ear flaps and tie them under your chin. This hat is a marvel of non-techno luxury all by itself. Most that you see are mink - very nice, presents a tighter profile and smoother appearance, and mink is renowned for it's smooth and warm quality. Mine is fox - bushier, more color. I looked for one with a good undercoat, and found one that is pretty good. But man, is it WARM. It is great when it is cold out, really cold, but once I get warm from walking, I have to open my coat entirely to vent enough not to sweat too much. And I still work up a good sweat!

Also put on my wool coat. I didn't wear my winter goose down coat - that would have been way overkill with the sharka - I would have cooked. So I put on my lovely wool coat that I really love. It is such a great coat. It only lacks one thing to perfection - its color. It should be red, or at the worst navy blue, but it for some reason it is royal blue. it is just so hard to find perfection. Hehe. Even in royal blue, this is one of my all-time favorite coats. I've had a couple that I have been attached to in the various stages of my life. The denim jacket with the Dartmouth protest fir tree stencil on back, and the embroidered dawn on the front. The red wool cycling jacket with the patches. The replacement for the red cycling jacket with patches that became almost as good as the first. And now my blue Woolrich.

So I was dressed for walking. I picked up my walking stick and headed downstairs. My timing was perfection. I arrived at 5:38. Tomas teased me about looking like the camp sheperd. I laughed and joked back. At 5:42 a bunch of guys came in from the site, and joked "Wow, now that is real road kill!" (the hat), etc. A couple comments about the stick. Tomas wandered off purposefully. It was fun. I waited until 5:45, then I split. Oh, in case you didn't know, 5:40 is the semi-official "walk" time for some people. So I was waiting to see if anybody showed. I had told one of the other walkers that I was going. I was tired of waiting, though, so I didn't waste any more time. I booked right on out of there.

I told the folks - meaning the counter attendant, and the guards at the entry gate, one hour. I set out in back of the camp - walking the field and river trail/road. Went north until I almost hit the woods. That took about 20 or 25 minutes, so I calculated a about a mile. Instead of turning back, I thought to familiarize myself with these roads a little, and took the next road right. This heads back to the west towards the dirt road, and just south of a small forest copse. Fields on my left, the river behind me as I headed west. The moon was out - just better than a crescent, and I think it is in the growth cycle. It was very bright. When I first left there was plenty of cloud cover, but it cleared some as I walked, revealing Cassiopiea, and then the Big Dipper and the North Star. The stars were fantastically beautiful. The quiet was wonderful, and for the first time in many many years, it was so quiet that when I stopped, the ringing in my ears was almost deafening.

It is a bit scary, walking at night. And here I was out in the middle of a set of big fields and woods, in the middle of winter, all alone. So I had a couple of nervous thoughts, or more than a couple, but nothing that paniced me badly enough to turn around. My feet crunched and squeaked through the snow. The snow was mostly fresh. A car had been by, probably during daylight. Somebody had walked here, probably yesterday. Lots of animal track, probably a day and half or two days old.

I check my phone for the time. I've been gone a half hour, then about 45 minutes, and, while I have been setting a track to loop me back towards my start, I think I am still about 30 minutes out. Hmmm. I said one hour, and now it looks like an hour and a quarter.

Regardless, I begin to pick up the pace a little. I have turned away from the river trail back towards the village Sovyetskaya, over the field roads. It is beautiful. After some time I reach a landmark I recognize - a single tree. I have no trouble at any time picking out the lights of the camp, so there is no question of being lost. I keep following the road, and it occurs to me that there is one weakness in my defense. I have based my defense on a few strategies - my departure days are not predictable, nor is my route, exactly. If I am cornered by a vehicle while on the river road, I can retreat across the river on the ice, or hide along the folds and trees of its banks. But now I am out in the fields. No one will come at me on foot, and if they do, I can handle a lot of people - most people - in a one-on-one. Don't forget I have my stick, and I know something about using it. But in the fields, if a car came out here and came after me, they could just drive anywhere I could run, and my footprints are as obvious as they could possibly be in this snow. Ironically, on realizing this, there is more auto traffic around Sovyetskaya than at any time since I have been walking. The village is still a half to three-quarter of a mile away, but I can see the car lights easily. One or two of the cars actually seem like they are using the edges of these field roads, and not the main road to Chumlyak. So I am a little more nervous, and I pick up the pace quite a bit.

This section of the road takes longer than I remember, and has a couple of turns that I had forgotten. I will have to explore better on a future walk. I finally get to the footbridge. From here it is only a short distance to the hill behind the camp, and then I will be at the entry gate. The clouds are covering the stars again. I throw some practice strikes and blocks with the stick against a defenseless roadside post. Then I am walking up the hill to the guard's building at the entry gate. I enter, and pass through. As I exit, several of the guards are standing around, chatting, smoking, generally having a nice evening. I stop and pull out my phone - the only time-keeping device I have on me. I look at the time and say "Ahdeen chas, pyaht minut." They understand, and one of the guys says something about "sportif" something, but also whirls his hands like pedaling a bicycle. I think he recognizes me from when I was riding my bike. I say "da, da", and continue to say just "kholodna" (cold), then "dobre vecher" (good evening), as I walk back to the camp building.

I change shirts and pants, and hit the weight room to do some weighted squats for sprinting capacity. I do a few other exrecises, as well. Situps, a few weighted punches, not much more. Dinner is next, then I have signed up to use the sauna at 8. We chat a bit at dinner, and then I hit the sauna. This sauna was designed by a Swede - it is HOT. Hot, and dry. Nice fittings, very very nice - luxurious. But also coed, and I have already gotten accustomed to doing the banya nude. Fortunately there is no one else there at all.

I can't spend much time in this sauna - way too hot. Unlike the saunas in the public baths I've gone too, it is much hotter. The public banyas have had very nice saunas, just not quite the heat I learned to seek when I was a youth in the upper peninsula of Michigan. This sauna has every bit of that heat, and a touch more. It is damn good and hot.

I have difficultly lasting ten minutes the first time before I have to shower. I use this first shower to cleanse, then head back to the sauna. I am more comfortable, but I am by now also bored. I last for something between 5 and ten minutes, then add some water to the rocks. I lie down for another minute or two, but then I am absolutely bored and tired of it. So I leave the sauna. There is a Moscow Times and I read that as I sit and cool off for another ten minutes or so.

I head upstairs, and my legs are righteously tired. I think I will sleep well tonight.

It's been a while.

It's been a while since I posted - coz there hasn't been much to post. I can't imagine anybody is interested in reading about work, and I don't want to write about it here anyway. Life outside of work has been minimal and boring. Very boring. I have not had time nor the opportunity to do much of anything enjoyable.

Part of this is a direct effect of camp life. Imagine being on a tall ship as crew, or part of a lumber crew in the woods, or a cowboy on a drive. A modern navy vessel, or in prison. Mostly men, you wake and breakfast with the same people you work with, that you lunch with, that you eat dinner with, and who are at the bar in the evenings. Telephone connections are shoddy at best, internet connection is very very poor. Broadband is a dream. You don't have freedom of movement, because you have to arrange for transportation everywhere. The language is difficult, and even getting sufficient "tourist" phrases is a problem. At least, it seems harder than I remember Spanish being. Finding one's way around is also difficult because the alphabet is so different. So the last month has not been easy or fun. All work, no play.

We should be getting through most of the roughest stuff at work, though, so hopefully the work pressure will alleviate.

Back to Russia. The weather has been unusually warm for this time of year. Everyone is remarking on it. It is very slowly getting cooler. Here its is December, and it was only a couple of days ago that I first used my blue woolrich coat to the max, and that was when I chose to walk home from the site to the camp one night. It was about 7 PM, and so it was quite dark, well into night. And it was a bit nippy. Probably in the teens, in fahrenheit, and not even in the low teens yet. But I had to zip up the whole coat. This is not a heavy coat, more like a light winter, or 3 season, coat. Time, maybe, to finally get out the winter gear.

I had told everyone I was going to buy a snowmobile. But, they are very expensive here, and I'm afraid I can't pull myself over the cost barrier. I'm seriously considering buying one in the states and shipping it here. It could be cheaper than buying here. Originally I estimated that they were getting a 50% premium over US prices, but now I think it is more like 100%. Which is nuts. I mean, we aren't talking an investment. We are talking about a vehicle, like a car, which is never an investment - it must be considered a toy. You ain't gonna get nothin out of it when you leave it behind. At best I can hope to cover some of the expense. Now maybe this isn't quite true, I may be able to loan out the snowmobile for "gas money" and even make more than my payments, but I don't really expect to be able to make a profit, and I don't think I should plan on one. So I'm changing my strategy, and I'm going to check out the cheap end of the market. I'm having one of our translators, a young Russian fella who has spent a lot of time in the States, check out what the cheap market options are.

I've mentioned the wine I can get at the stores before. It is harder to get decent wine out here at the camp - coz you have to go to Chelyabinsk. Chumlyak has some wines, but they are even cheaper than I consider very drinkable. They are only drinkable when there is no other choice. Altho they aren't UNdrinkable. But I have generally had some interesting choices. From the good ones, I've saved a couple labels and scanned them in. One is a Spanish wine - from Santa Cruz, no less, a Valdepenas. It was nice and dry, with a slight dustiness in the mouth. Excellent. The other is Russian, but I'm not sure if it is from Georgia or Moldovia or another province. Not quite as rich as the Spanish Valdepenas, but nicely dusty in the mouth, with good flavor. I often look for merlot here, since this is usually a dry wine, but often here it is bottled as semi-sweet, and tastes as though sugar was added to give it sweetness. Each new bottle is an adventure and a gamble. Some work, some don't.

Cheers!
Mark

Guess what?? It is still fall.

It snowed. The snow was on the ground. It melted. The ground was bare. It snowed. The snow was on the ground. It melted. The ground was bare. Which brings us up to today. Is it winter? or is it still Fall? I don't know.

What I know is this: dusk and dawn are long, drawn-out affairs. The sun may sink rapidly, but it stays light long after sundown. Looonnnng. The temperature is hovering around freezing. Daytime it is over, night-time it is just below - but the creeks, rivers, and marshes are freezing over. The roads are clear, but the shoulders are muddy. Since the roads are not very wide, and they are made more narrow by not being particularly useable, the muddiness of the shoulders greatly reduces the useability of the road. Greatly.

Last night we had a camp poker group. I was on my way somewhere else - to make a business conference call - and saw the game operating. I thought, "wow, great idea". As soon as the conference call was done, I went back to the poker table. Great. 500 ruble buyin. Great, perfect. I get in the game. Now, it is a typical "home" poker setup - lots of really stupid variable games. Hell, man, I don't give a good goddamn. I buy my chips and sit in. Enough cards go my way, and I fold often enough - that I end up 1k rubles ahead. Sweet. What was really great, tho, was that I could drop my worries, and have a good time, with the crew. Excellent, or aklithchna as we say over here.

Snow? No snow now!

So a couple of days after it snowed? It warmed up and melted, then rained, and then warmed up, and the roads dried off. Good. Now the roads are clear. That last business came down too soon, and the roads were not good. Today it is still clear, but close to freezing, and the ground is finally having a little time to freeze so that maybe the next snow won't be such a mess on the roads. The water tanks for cleaning workboots outside the offices had a thin crust of ice at 5 this evening. And so did the puddles. I was a bit surprised, because it was sunny, and the air felt warm to me - I had my window open for quite a bit of the day. It was nice out.

I saw a chickadee yesterday - but not an American one. This one was slightly larger and had black on its breast - like a vest. Still had the black cap - definitely a chickadee of some variety. Quite cute, actually. About wren size.

The weather says it might snow again tonight. It says "slushy" accumulation, but I hope they are wrong. Let's hope for good conditions!

Hello winter.

Yesterday it did get above freezing, and the snow melted a bit, but it started snowing again yesterday evening. Last night it chilled down again, and this morning it looks like winter. Grey and white. Hello winter.

There are a few inches of accumulation - the ground is covered, and the roads are ugly. The temp this morning - at 10:20, is -1 C. I think it's here to stay. So winter starts about a month and maybe 5 weeks before we figure on winter starting in the upper peninsula of Michigan. If I recall correctly.

I don't think there will be any more bike riding for a while. Sure I could ride in the snow - no problem for me, but the cars would have a hard time passing, and that would just be too dangerous.

I think it's real snow now.

Last night it started snowing for real, and this morning there is 3 or 4 inches on the ground. The weather forecast says it will warm up still today, and that later next week it will be above freezing and it will rain. I say "Ok, if you say so!" This is the first winter weather we have seen.

First snow

We got our first snow last night, but it is no more than a salting on the ground. It is soon gone during the day.