It`s summertime, and as Gershwin put it, ”the living is easy.”
Passengers lounge in deck chairs, soaking up the Siberian sun, as the Austrian-built Demjan Bedny carries the first foreign tourists 1,547 miles along the Lena River.
We`re six time zones from Moscow, smack in the middle of primeval taiga
(forest), where winter temperatures of minus 60 degrees are nothing to record in the almanac. We`re pioneers, `80s style, crossing frontiers in comfort, exploring the touristically unknown, opening the doors for generations of travelers.
Those of us who long to see the world`s hidden wonders need our modern trailblazers, like Lars-Eric Lindblad, to cut through obstacles and clear the path.
When Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev, in a May, 1987, speech, indicated the Soviet Arctic might soon open up, Lindblad rushed to the Telex. Talks that followed led not quite as far north as the Arctic (yet), but to the Lena River in the Yakutsk Autonomous Republic.
Twenty-eight hundred miles long, the Lena is the sixth longest river in the world. Our journey starts in Yakutsk, capital of a republic that encompasses one-seventh of the Soviet Union`s land mass.
The town started out as a fortress in 1632 as Cossacks, seeking riches, crossed the Urals and founded settlements farther and farther east. The Yakuts, dominant people of the Asiatic Far North for a number of centuries, initiated several uprisings, but these were easily quelled.
The Czarist government`s system of exile furthered contact between Yakuts and Russians as thousands of educated, professional newcomers were mingled with the local people.
OLD GIVES WAY TO NEW
Today, Yakutsk boasts a population of 200,000, up from 5,500 at the turn of the century. Concrete apartment buildings, sitting atop high concrete piles, are going up everywhere. This construction technique provides ventilation for the land beneath-and guards against foundation slippage when the layer above the permafrost melts each summer.
This means visitors probably have only a few more years to see the city`s beautiful old wooden houses. Often sinking into the ground at strange angles, most homes have been lovingly detailed with carved fretwork and colorfully painted shutters.
Our group visited museums devoted to geology, hunting and fishing, and natural history. One of the town`s original fortification towers stands on the grounds of the latter.
At the Permafrost Laboratory, we descend almost 40 feet along a tunnel, whose walls glisten with ice, to stand on permafrost more than 980 feet thick and 10,000-15,000 years old. We leave with a greater respect for Yakutia`s unique geology.
While several of Yakutsk`s Orthodox churches ”don`t work anymore,” as a guide put it, St. Nicholas the Miracle Maker is only five years old. Built of larch with multiple cupolas, its icons date to the 17th Century and were willed to the church by ”believers.”
To round out our stay in the capital, we`re bused to a ”pioneer camp,”
where the youngsters present a friendship program complete with American flags and paper doves. The evening brings another song and dance performance, this one by the internationally recognized Yakutsk Dance Company.
After the folkloric program, we joined the company in the theater`s impressive mezzanine for smiles, handshakes, photos, and an impromptu circle dance.
LIFE ON THE RIVER
Each day of travel soon develops a nice mix of the familiar and unexpected. Mornings begin with ”Radio Natasha” announcing, via cabin intercom, the day`s activities. Hearty souls head to the upper deck for exercises, accompanied by lively tunes on an accordion, and coffee.
The Soviet Union has never been known for its cuisine, but food aboard the Demjan Bedny wins only praise. Meals are varied, tasty and served by a corps of personable young women, reminiscent of the college students who wait on tables in U.S. resorts during summer vacation. Good Soviet wines and champagne are available.
Unlike the food, shoreline scenery doesn`t vary all that much: forest (95 percent larch), forest, forest, occasionally broken by villages. Although we pass one other cruise ship, most river traffic carries cargo, taking advantage of the few months the river is navigable.
Each day offers a full schedule of activities. Since this is a cruise for ”tourists,” as opposed to ”vacationers,” they`re of the learning variety. Soviet authorities on current affairs, zoology, and geology give lectures, as does Peter Alden, an American naturalist.
Our personable Intourist guides-two from Moscow, two from Siberia-hold round-table discussions. There`s no doubt glasnost lives as they take on questions dealing with private enterprise, problems in Armenia, nationalism in the Balkans, shortages, alcoholism, divorce and male chauvinism. Often, they refer to their own lives for illustration.
Daily shore excursions are full of pleasant surprises: strolls through flowering meadows; a climb up the towering sandstone formations known as Lensk Rocks; a look at a prehistoric dig in progress; shashlik and bliny picnics complete with samovar; vodka; and an Easter parade, Siberian style, of veiled headgear (a fashion statement dictated by resident mosquitoes).
EAST WELCOMES WEST
Best of all, we visit villages whose people have never before seen Westerners.
Peleduy, a 55 year old town of 6000, is typical. Accompanied by a retinue of local officials and kids on bikes, we walk along the main dirt street, grandly named Centralnaya. Several in our group buy sailors` hats, then accessorize from an array of medals, stripes and braids. Doug, an archeologist from Santa Fe, becomes an instant captain and is laughingly saluted by villagers.
Peleduy`s wooden houses boast carved and painted trimmings, geraniums in the windows and huge stacks of firewood in anticipation of the long winter. There`s a statue of Lenin reading with two children, and, as always in the Soviet Union, a memorial to the fallen of World War II. While Siberian land may have been spared, its citizens suffered their share of losses at the front.
At the cultural center, costumed women treat us to a program of song and dance, accompanying themselves on painted spoons, an abacus, and a curious instrument made of rectangular wooden strips on a string. Hopes of a group photo fail totally when Moe, a good-natured Long Island fellow, brings out the Polaroid. Socialist discipline doesn`t stand a chance.
Several houses have been opened to receive us, another first. Although Intourist had no doubt worried we would find these rural homes ”poor,” we are, on the contrary, very impressed with the level of comfort, which includes electricity, color TV, sewing machines and beautifully woven carpets used as wall hangings.
A HARVEST FESTIVAL
Our itinerary is planned to bring us to Neruyktai village just in time for the Ysyakh festival, an annual harvest celebration. Before the coming of the Russians in the 17th Century, people prayed to the gods of nature for good weather and crops, a formidable challenge to any deity in such a land.
Most people, young as well as old, are dressed traditionally, meaning heavy use of fur and an incredible variety of headdresses. After a ceremony involving fire and water, wooden cups of humys , mares` milk, are offered to each of us. A high pole on which Soviet and American flags have been drawn, is raised, a totem for the `80s.
Friendly curiosity reigns on both sides. Not a tourist returns to the ship without a collection of mementoes that have been thrust into his hands during the day: headdresses, fur leg wraps, medals with ”Yakutia” or
”Siberia” in Cyrillic, candy bars, dolls, coins, a souvenir address book complete with pen.
These are but the tangible memories of our brief experience as pioneers in Yakutia. More lasting are the beauty of this vast land, the warmth with which we were welcomed, the camaraderie of crew and passengers, and as Lars-Eric Lindblad put it, ”the feeling of participating in a great event.” –
