MOSCOW, May 21. /TASS/. Ivan Simonov, a cook from Petrozavodsk, every year spends a few months at a camp, which Russian polar explorers make afresh every year on an ice floe drifting near the North Pole. Ivan’s task is not easy - he cooks for a few hundred people, not to forget possible force majeure circumstances, since out there additional food supplies are out of question.
Barneo and Borneo - they differ in one letter only, but they point to either a hot island in South Asia or the freezing Arctic, right next to the North Pole.
Our character prefers the freezing. In 2011, he joined for the first time a camp, which the Russian Geographical Society has been organizing annually for recent 20 years.
While tourists from across the globe come to Barneo to drive dog sledges, motor sledges or dive under the ice, Ivan defrosts for them solyanka soup (thick, spicy and sour), makes dumplings and even organizes parties in the freezing cold - with no shops to be found within thousands of kilometers around.
How to enjoy cooking for travelers
Self-isolation has become a tough challenge for most people in the world. For Ivan, it is nothing extraordinary. He has got used to spending about two months a year at the Barneo camp, and two months every summer - sailing a yacht in the Arctic and another two months - in the Antarctica.
While sailing or drifting, he and the other three members from time to time welcome small groups of tourists. At Barneo, the team stays in the information vacuum for 21 days, and only rarely they may call relatives using satellite communication.
"After sailing, I come and for about two weeks remain at home, wouldn’t go out anywhere. To get used to people, as we sail near the areas, where there are no people at all," Ivan told us. "Thus, active communication becomes something weird to me, and it takes a month or two to get used to it."
Ivan was 20 when he joined Barneo for the first time. His father - a polar explorer Viktor Simonov - worked there as a guide and suggested the son competed for a position of the expedition’s chef. Ivan agreed. Back then he realized that changing places is the key component of a modern lifestyle, and the ability to drop everything and leave in an instant is a necessary skill.
This was exactly how ‘incidentally’ back in 2013 he joined a friend to go to Sochi, where they worked at a restaurant right before the Olympic Games in that city. Prior to that, it was his father again, who gave a hint to Ivan about taking a cooking course.
The father back then managed a summer tent camp for children in Karelia and invited his sons to be the cook’s assistants: to peel huge pots, to do whatever dirty work.
"I couldn’t care less - anyway, I enjoyed the leisure in the open after hours. Later on, I worked as a cook for a couple times, when the chef had to be away," Ivan said. "After summer, I returned to school. It was a class with a focus on chemistry and biology, thus in future I could’ve got trained to become a chemist, biologist or a doctor, but this was not what interested me. And at the end of that academic year, I decided to take a course in cooking."
For two years, Ivan got only As, but on the third year he was almost expelled, as at that time he began working. But there, in the city, he felt he wanted to travel, to gain new impressions.
"I think, I’ve inherited it from the parents," Ivan said. "My father was a tourist, mother - a tourist, and I have been hiking since early childhood."
Work at Barneo
Ivan left for the first journey at the age of 18, he was still a student. In the Czech Republic he took a traineeship course, and continued going there to 2008.
At that time, he said, it occurred he was able to survive without having caring parents nearby, he saw the that borders were open. In 2001, he joined the Barneo expedition for the first time.
Despite father’s experience in polar expeditions, the son did not expect much from life on a drifting ice. This is why probably he could not expect many stressful situations, hard work, or meeting different people.
"The emotional excitement remained for six months after the trip. I was telling anyone about how it was there," he said. "Nowadays, I just go there to work, I know what will be there, and I, unlike many other people, am prepared to what might happen there."
About a month ahead of the due date he begins buying food products and making preparations. He cuts, packs, freezes products to have them taken to the base by a helicopter. He may take anything there, with the exception for fresh fruit and vegetables. For one month, for 250-300 people he takes about one tonne of food and some extra stock in case weather conditions delay flights to the mainland.
At times, in bad weather the expedition could not prepare the runway, and once all the 50 people had to wait for extra 12 days.
"On the 10th day it was clear we were running of products. It was a tough season… we were lucky that an Il-76 dropped products. Back then, it was clear to me - in future I must take maximum products, which could be sufficient for at least an extra week. Plus a box with emergency supplies: in case we have to relocate the camp - this has happened. In such a situation you take everything from the kitchen and put out the stove; everything gets frozen in just minutes. Thus, the stock should include bread, sausages, and anything eatable without heating," Ivan said.
What’s on the menu?
The nearest shop is 2,500km away. Work at the kitchen never stops. Chef Simonov and his team can cook dishes for vegetarians, or even sushi. But the standard menu is: for breakfast - eggs, porridge, sandwiches, sausages and tinned food. For lunch - starters, some soup and a main course, and in the evening - a main course, salads and tinned food.
"Nowadays, we can offer different foods," the chef said. "Clearly, we can’t offer anything exotic, but we anyway try to introduce new dishes."
The polar base has a bar - it is the kitchen’s responsibility to resupply alcohol to serve tourists. Alcohol and beer - for guests only. The personnel are liable for a €500 penalty for drinking.
Drinking on the North Pole for tourists is expensive - one bottle may cost up to €100.
"When asked why so expensive, I say - the nearest shop is in 2,500km by plane - your choice," Ivan said.
Ivan has seen different tourists. On his first year, Prince Harry stopped at the base.
"Prince Harry was on a charity expedition. It was my first year at Barneo, and I did not understand much what it was all about. Right, he did come to see the kitchen. They came here and then left for the route. Next day, he left by plane," Ivan said.
VIP guests do not have any VIP menu: for anyone Ivan will cook what products allow. Naturally, he tries to meet a tourist’s preferences.
Working at the base, where you can meet people from anywhere, has ruined the myth that foreigners would not eat typical Russian dishes - buckwheat, cutlets or soups. "They do eat anything! They may not know what it is. When they try, they ask for more. Borshch and rassolnik are beyond their words," he said.
Anyway, now Ivan wants to add to the menu cream soups, which are more familiar for foreigners, and to buy warming ovens.
An equally important concern for Ivan is to cook diverse dishes for the team - the personnel remain at the base for at least 21 days, while tourists come there for two or three days only.
"For our guys I always keep yummies: waffle cakes, dumplings, we make pancakes. We want everything to be tasty," he continued. "We’ve always preferred Russian cuisine - anything we usually eat at home."
Enjoyable challenges
Whenever Ivan has some free time, he goes to the heli camp to drive a snow bike. Or simply reads a book or solves word search puzzles, which he normally brings to the base.
Ivan says, at Barneo he is always "on toes," and by end of every season he tells himself - this is my last trip.
"Any season is truly very tough. I come home thinking - that’s it, I’m not doing it again. But time goes by and I think - the preparations are about to start. And I wait for a call from Moscow - Ivan, come, it’s time for preparations. I can’t explain it. It is a place of power. It is the Earth’s center, nothing is above it. Snow everywhere, ice, the atmosphere is exciting… I always dream of going there again, and I can’t explain why.".