MOSCOW, May 11. /TASS/. Iraida and Vasily live in the very heart of the taiga, in the upper reaches of the Yana, amid mountains and near three lakes. Vasily is an Even, Iraida is Russian. They met in Tula (Central Russia), then together they moved to Yakutsk, from there to a small village and then, finally, to the taiga. Their close neighbors are nomadic deer herders. Almost 200 km of forest and mountains separate them from a big settlement.
Writing on snow
Their house is amid the mountains, lakes, a large forest, hundreds kilometers of uninhabited land. "Our taiga," Iraida points promptly to the location on the map.
She came to the taiga for the first time in 1992. To pastures near lakes Kimpiche, Dyaybalakh and Mereti, Vasily’s granny used to take her deer. Our communication is in exchanging notes. Irina writes in her own manner, very accurately, taking every line on the page from a grid box notebook: "In summer in June, on horse, to visit granny, taiga. I strange, how granny, very slim, often smoke pipe." At times, Iraida is too emotional to wait and switches to using gestures. Further on, we will write - that is how talk - on anything: on the snow, on our palms, on food packages. Very soon I will forget Iraida and Vasily are deaf and dumb.
Life in taiga is the ongoing routine of surviving. You stop - everything around stops in response. You need water - take a sack and an ax and go to the lake. Or you won’t have tea or sauna. No cut wood - no heating the oven.
In the past, here, at the family plot, Vasily at the age of five started herding deer. Until the age of eleven he did not go to school - father was against it. After school, the young boy was sent over to a college for deaf and dumb in Tula. There, in the park, Vasily met a Russian girl, Iraida.
"He’s kind, sharing, attentive. Every day he meets me. Fell in love with me, Russian. No fights, no rude. Understanding. We’ve lived for 35 years," she told me. "All school friends divorce, quarrel."
Iraida and Vasily never quarrel. She explained: "Quiet. Taiga."
She does not miss communication, city, cinema, caf·s or conveniences. She says - the nature compensates for everything. There are things she never has time to think over - too much work.
"Russian as if Yakut"
Iraida and Vasily have a house in the Batagai-Alyta village. They have the Internet. Next to them live friends, who often come to see them. However, Vasily and Iraida still prefer the taiga. They say - it’s too noisy in the village, while in the taiga they have no limitations - only the absolute freedom. When in the village, they dream to return home - to the mountains and lakes.
They visit the village very rarely: to resupply food, to meet friends, to buy spare parts for the snowmobiles. In winter - by a Russia-made Buran (snowmobile), in summer - on horses.
Now, in spring, we will have to go almost 200km across the taiga to their forest house. This is a temporary road. Very complicated: sharp turns, then steep banks of streams and rivers, ice, and open water.
The drivers (Iraida, Vasily, and their neighbor Fedor, an Even, who lives a few kilometers from them) drive in turn, they change each other every few dozen kilometers. Buran’s steering wheel looks rather like twisted horns of the Chubuku stubborn mountain ram. Irina’s hands are aching - from driving and from tough conditions. Only not so long ago she used to draw quite well, and learned to become an artist. She hasn’t touched a brush for many years, she said regretfully.
On reindeer sleds and snowmobiles Iraida and Vasily used to travel to Tiksi, on the Arctic Ocean shore, to visit relatives. Almost one thousand kilometers away.
"The people see and get surprised: they say, Russian me am like Yakut. Strong me am, they say, go that far without roads. I love traveling the tundra and taiga."
We are lucky to have good weather: the sky is deep blue, the sun, the dazzling white snow. In the afternoon, the temperature is above zero, at night it drops to minus 20 degrees (Celsius).
Mountains run on either side of the snowmobile road, which sometimes is named after Buran (‘snowstorm’ in Russian) snowmobiles. Early in the morning, the sun warmth touches mountain peaks covered with transparent forest. With every hour, this warmth is moving downwards - towards the foot. The snow keeps a net of footprints. Some are neatly round, moving almost in a continuous chain, - that was a partridge. It must have sheltered inside snow. Others are oblong - must have been left by a lynx. Animals may share some trails: a young wolf’s prints are above the feline ones - the wolf must have been saving strength.
At our stops, Vasily explains to us the taiga’s book of mysteries. He checks the sleds and the cargo. Allows the snowmobiles to cool. Vasily uses the family technology to made sleds. In some aspects the technology is similar to the process of making a bow, in some - of making the Pomors’ sewn boat - a karbas. Vasily used to sell sleds, exchanging them for deer.
Snow here is so different. It can be like a white velvet, which is so nice to touch. On stones - the snow is like sugar icing on top of an Easter cake. Matte. Sparkling. Dense and fragile at the same time - like homemade meringue.
Here is the turquoise Hobol River, which resembles Arctic or Baikal ice. The sleds drift on the ice. Our caravan slows down. The place is dangerous - the ice is slippery.
All of a sudden, Vasily together with the snowmobile, sleds and attached dogs falls into the river. The water is knee-deep, or even higher, it keeps flowing onto the ice. The thin ice cracks and wouldn’t let him out. It takes us a few hours to rescue everyone.
Hunters’ houses are scattered across the North - from the Arkhangelsk Region to Yakutia. It is a tradition, based on a rational approach to safety - they are public houses, where any traveler may take a quick rest. Those houses are built by hunters, fishers, deer and horse herders.
The daylight is fading away. We stay overnight at one of those low house, made of logs. Inside the house there is everything a traveler may need to have a snack and to relax. Firewood, clean ice on the bench by the house, the oven, tea, dishes.
The house warms up very quickly. All of our clothes which need drying are hung up by the ceiling. Deer skins cover the benches. Early in the morning, dogs will bark to prompt - horses are walking by.
Hunters’ shelter
The house, a warm garage, a sauna, an ice house (to keep frozen stuff), a house on high pillars to store food - all these Vasily has built by himself.
In the guest house, the wood and wood sticks have been put carefully into the oven. After the second part of the tiresome route, what matters to us is to heat up hands by the fire. All other troubles are to the next day.
Through the window we see a larch forest. The mountains keep changing colors as the time goes by. When in the taiga, everything unnecessary disappears. Everything here abides by simple, strict and rational rules. Things - only what’s necessary, transport - only reliable and easy. And people, with who even the silence is not boring.
At night, stars crumble across the sky.
"I love you"
White-sided 11 year-old Bekka is snoring under the bench. She is both a doorbell and alarm. When dogs in the street are barking, Bekka is messing under the feet, signaling to the owners - something is happening over there.
Vasily is getting ready for fishing. Self-made wooden rods with fishing lines. He inserts them carefully into a case made of elk kamus (skin from the animal's legs).
The wind is drawing patterns on the snow. As if sweeping up the prints.
Vasily finds thin ice, makes a hole (with a long stick, which has a metal ending). He unfolds the rods and immediately takes out the first fish. In short intervals, he pulls out from water a dozen graylings. He is disappointed: "bad" fishing, not enough fish.
Inside open "windows" drilled in the ice, noisy water is rolling above small stones.
Iraida was about to bake bread. Vasily helps her with the dough - it is too tough.
Iraida leaves the dough by the oven, and later on distributes it into metal forms. Vasily takes the forms outside - to put them into a special oven for making bread.
The warm aroma is flowing acrossing the taiga.
We are running out of notebooks, and continue writing on margins, or between the lines. Iraida is scratching words in the silence. Then, we tell each other what Iraida has written, and she "tells" to Vasily what we have said in response. Sometimes she pronounces "True!" - she does it very clearly.
In the place, where Iraida and Vasily live, strong frosts never happen. This part of the taiga is surrounded with mountains.
Between 1991 and 2001, she did not see parents. She was too busy about the house, about the animals. Nowadays, Vasily and Iraida do not keep deer. Only three horses and dogs - when the couple is traveling, friends can take care of them. In a year, they plan to visit Iraida’s relatives in Tula.
Iraida brings photo albums. Black-and-white pictures: Vasily’s strict grandma Melaniya, granddad Yegor, mother Lidiya, father Ivan. Iraida’s parents: Maria and Vasily. Also gratitude certificates, and letters.
In twilight, the mountain peaks become pinkish. It is getting dark inside the house. A few times a week Vasily starts a generator. Turns on the light, charges the cell and accumulators for headlights. Iraida and Vasily make many pictures and videos. It is another option to communicate the world: Iraida sends pictures to her sister, shows to friends and rare visitors.
Dogs outside are silent - it’s safe. Iraida tells us animals often come to their house. She has seen bears, wolves and a lynx. In the taiga also live wolverines, foxes, stoats, Arctic foxes, and in the mountains - that very stubborn Siberian bighorn ram - Chubuku.
"August weather is hot, time for berries, mushrooms. We dry, pickle them. Every day in summer man and I fish char, grayling and burbot. In September I crop lingonberries. Make drinks and jam. From black and red currants — drinks, jam. Dry rosehip. Blueberry — I love it very much. Cloudberry is a soft, red berry. We salt wild onion," Iraida lists what she is doing in summer till late autumn in order to survive long winters.
Transparent ice is melting in a pot on the stove. Vasily pours boiling water into a thermos - to be able to have tea any time.
The family will go to the village next time only in November.
As if casually, seemingly without noticing it, Iraida and Vasily care about each other. "He loves me very much. Help in all. Teach me taiga. Chief wife. Till Death Do Us Part," she explained.
Vasily waits patiently to learn from her what we have written about. He listens, nods. Takes the palm to his lips, then to the heart - this is a gesture anyone is able to understand.