CHITA, July 16. /TASS/. A tourist from Germany has had to survive in an underground hut beneath a tree in the Siberian taiga for three days without any supplies after her kayak overturned during a kayaking trip down Chara mountain river in a remote and hard-to-reach area in the north of the Russian Zabaykalsky Region, the tourist herself told TASS on Tuesday.
On July 13, reports emerged that locals had rescued a German tourist who was kayaking solo down the Chara River and spent three days in the taiga after her boat capsized. Regional official Pavel Romanov then told TASS that hunters and fishermen had found the woman by chance.
"I am over 50 years of age, and I’ve been doing river boating for almost 30 years, primarily in sport catamarans down up to class six rapid rivers. Most frequently, I kayak down Russian rivers and before I have had solo trips down the rivers of Vitim and Kalar in the Zabaykalsky Region. Until recently, I didn’t have a single accident," tourist and schoolteacher Victoria said, asking not to mention her last name for personal reasons.
She started her solo kayaking in the Evenki community of Chapo-Oloye, 50 km away from the Chara railroad station. She needed to kayak for 900 km until the town of Olekminsk in the Yakutia Region, where she had planned to arrive by August 7. "I registered my route in the rescue regional team and in the Yakutia’s regional branch of the Russian Ministry of Emergencies, as it is supposed to be done," she emphasized.
The accident took place on the 154th km of the trip at the most difficult obstacle along the Chara River, Torsk rapids. "At the last rapid, when I already started thinking about the rest I am going to get in the calm waters, my kayak got into a powerful backwards flow and I capsized. I was not injured, but I failed to beach the boat with all my food supplies, clothes, equipment, money and documents. I got to the beach coast and started digging a hole underneath the roots of a fallen tree under heavy rains so that I don’t freeze," Victoria said.
The tourist specified that she only had on a soaked neoprene suit, a rescue vest, gloves, a wind jacket and a helmet. "I also had a lighter, but it also got soaked and started working only on the third day, when the rain stopped," she explained.
The coast, which the German managed to reach, is surrounded by 400-meter tall cliffs, and climbing would be very dangerous in rainy and foggy conditions.
Keep moving to survive
"I realized that if I stopped moving, then I could get hypothermia, become ill and catch pneumonia. And even though the thing that I wanted the most was to just lie down and curl up, I was talking to myself inside, forcing myself to do something. First, I was burrowing a den, where I had to live, and then I covered it with branches like a hut. Then I was laying out the words SOS on the beach made from rocks that I was pulling out of the river," the voyager said.
According to her, the biggest difficulty was overcoming everything psychologically. "At the same time, I had no sense of fear, probably because I was doing my utmost to constantly be moving around," she specified. Cold, rain and many mosquitoes and gnats were making her life even more difficult.
I was drinking water from the river and, strangely enough, wasn’t hungry at all. It turned out that it does not matter in such an extreme situation," Victoria said.
The sun came out on the third day after the accident. Victoria’s lighter finally started working, she managed to build a fire and dry her clothes. The same day she was seen and rescued, totally by accident, by locals - geologist Dmitry Voyakovsky and emergency ministry employee Albert Yerokhin, who were rafting by. They were returning to the Chara village after spending some time out in the taiga.
Note to future explorers
It took Victoria another 36 hours to get to the village of Chara, where she was taken into care of the regional officials, who supplied the woman with a place to stay and everything needed. She contacted her relatives in Germany, who sent her money, applied to the German General Consulate in Novosibirsk and is now waiting for her documents to fly back home.
"Unfortunately, the outdated equipment in service of the rescue team in the area drew my attention. They do not have motorafts needed to pass river rapids. It is only possible to rescue people, and the travelers here are not only from Russia, but from other countries as well, by carrying out air rescue operations, which entails big costs and dependency on the weather conditions. Helicopters can’t take off on rainy or foggy days and can’t land on my sites," Victoria lamented.
She pointed out that she would like to draw attention to the technical insecurity for the sake of the future tourists, who might end up in the same situation. "I was so lucky, but not everyone might have the same type of luck. And I would love if the situation that I found myself in would help to put the spotlight on the needs of rescue teams and re-equip them. This is important so that everyone who travels down the rivers in the north of the Zabaykalsky Region knows that if they get into trouble that help will definitely come," the tourist concluded.