Roman Chebunin's stories.

Summer 1999.

I should admit that the most significant pole of the story is our crossing one of the rivers on the way to the Gramninskie lakes.

I wasn't in the mood to do anything on the day my friend Romka rang me up announcing that we were going on a hike. He appeased me saying that it might take about two days. This Romka is a very interesting person. His motto is that the best remedy for any illness is a huge knapsack and extremely steep mountains.

So we risked putting his method into practice. Crossing the Goudjekit river turned out to be the only hurdle we had to face on our way. I was hooked and tied to a hawser and sent to another shore relying on my fortune. Everything was supposed to go by the book but…when I was on just on the verge of reaching the destination it came to light that the security cable was half lacking. That is to mention, I was feeling like an underdog hanging over the river being over tightened with belts, which resulted in my swelled legs and being unable to move a little. My heart was neither here nor there. Fortunately, the torture got eliminated as soon as the guys wove another cable that was to assist my releasing. In a couple of minutes I found myself standing on the firm ground and smiling.

The next thing to do was carrying over the river the entire useful load we had, which included Romka and Zhenka's knapsacks. Zhenka and the bags seemed to be destined to get to that shore without any incidents but the towing of Romka caused more difficulties. All of a sudden the roller started to slip off the cable. Nevertheless we managed to keep the situation in our hands and transported poor Romka over the river.

To put it honestly I still regret my failing to take a picture of his facial expression, which conveyed a lot of deep emotions and philosophical thoughts. He was calling bloody murder, as the crossing over the river happened to be an extreme experience.

This is a water passage between the lakes. As you see, it is quite easy to ford. Fording is really apt for transporting girls and craven boys because the procedure bounds in comfort and dry conditions. Anyway my lot was to carry filthy and damp backpacks. I remember Romka and I crossing some small stream but I had no rubber boots at that time. I enjoyed my dry and comfortable conditions, as for Roma he made his mind up to ponder over the life again; some "sweet" words filled the air petrifying everything and everybody.

We can see highly pleased Roman Karpov in this photo. He simply can't feel differently because he has picked up so many mushrooms- we couldn't help composing a tune on that, which sounded similar to "The Old Raven". We were busy with composing that tune all night and next morning a photo titled "Morning preparations" came to being. Romka is happy hanging and idling but I had to take pains to get this bulky "bear" on the shore. The photo concludes our two-day hike.

A few words about a different hike

Now, I'd love to mention another adventure of ours, which was a completely different one. It happened to be rather serious. We set out to have a breath of fresh air and pick up some useful plants before our departure to Krasnoyarsk. So it was almost evening when we got off the local train at Daban, a small station, and headed up the hill. After having climbed and got rather exhausted we started musing over setting a tent and having some respite. All of a sudden it began to downpour, which made us soaked to the skin. This joke of nature seemed funny indeed and added romance to our trip. It rained that heavily for about 2 minutes and then everything stopped. We rushed to lay out our camp and set a fire to dry ourselves and eat. Songs were our constant company so the second thing to do was singing, which expressed our spiritual state. Nature, mountains, fresh air contributed to our fun noticeably!!!

Next morning we get down to picking plants and taking pictures. Unfortunately, mosquitoes spoiled everything. It was cloudy and drizzle appeared from time to time. This was all those terrible killers wanted-good climate and tons of meat. Our pretty pets fell in love with us and didn't feel letting us alone. Poor Zhenka was on the first stage of committing a suicide to free her of those bloody flying objects. She was photographed for memory. The photo "I'm just from the woods" shows all the side effects of our race through the forest being attacked by our beloved flying chasers as no remedy had been found to stop them. Any ointment mingled with our perspiration turned into diabolic bait for the mosquitoes getting them to an express elevator to Pluto. They were becoming more and more brutal.

The next photo shows Zhenka's and my swelled but happy faces. It is somehow cool to have been almost devoured by mosquitoes. We were washing before returning. Romka took a picture of us with a small waterfall in the background (first adn second). While he was operating his camera Zhenka and I were trying to have a good deal with the same hungry stuff from taiga. So we are rather shrunk in the photo. Then we ran to a local train still singing songs. The pleasure couldn't last long because as soon as we opened our mouths wide kilos of mosquito meat rushed into them. We were completely full.

These are the adventures we happened to experience. Surely, everything was more serious and it had nothing to do any cloddy stuff. We had minded all sorts of precautions. All in all, we spent our time greatly!!!

Translated by Kirill Ponomaryov
Tomsk State University

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