Siberian Stories

.1

A Miraculous Rescue

In the central Priobye, where the city of Nyagan now stands, there was a small logging outpost called Nyagan in the mid-1960s, which was devoted to timber harvesting. In the spring, the forest was floated down the river, and near the settlement, At Vasykin Dacha, the timber was bundled and towed by boats down the Ob River, and then further on to Salekhard.

The work for the foresters was extremely hard; the men were rarely at home, always at work from dawn until dusk. The women either worked or took care of the children and the household. The school only went up to fifth grade, and after that, children were sent to a boarding school in the district.

The children were mostly left to their own devices. All games, activities, and fishing took place along the riverbank, where a campfire always burned, fish was cooked, they swam, went into the woods for mushrooms, and the older kids watched over the younger ones—really over everyone—and there were hardly ever any quarrels. Everyone knew each other—parents and other adults—by name and by sight, since the population was very small.

At the end of the 1960s, a rumor went around that they would be bringing a railroad to the area near the tar distillery (where they boiled tar), which was about two or three kilometers from the logging camp. And sure enough, soon construction began there. For us children, it was something fantastic: seeing a railroad in the movies was one thing, but seeing it in real life with your own eyes was quite another. In the village, everyone talked about how life would change once the trains began running. It was all exciting, but it was still hard to believe that trains would come to the remote taiga—it just seemed too unreal.

It was late September; at that time, I was in fourth grade, and we saw our teachers almost like parents.

One day, my friend Yura Klyapov and I came up with the idea of walking to the turpentine still to see the new railway. We decided to combine the trip with a hunt; by then, we could already freely take our parents’ shotguns, and it wasn’t really forbidden. We set out from the village early, while frost still clung to the ground. With us came an eight-month-old dog and a single-barreled shotgun, and we brought about a dozen cartridges.

The road was battered and narrow, twisting through the forest as it skirted patches of bog. There was plenty of forest game in those days, especially in autumn—the young broods were already on the wing, and our dog was almost always finding capercaillies or hazel grouse and barking at them. But since she was still young and inexperienced, the birds wouldn’t stay put for her; they kept flying off, and she would find them again and bark all over. We chased after the dog, trying to get within shooting range, and often wandered a fair distance from the road. We were dressed in warm jackets and had matches, a cartridge belt, a knife, and some food with us. Around midday, the autumn sun broke through and the weather cleared. It was the height of golden autumn, and the day became very warm. After some discussion, we decided to take off our warm jackets, rucksack, and heavy cartridge belt, and hide all our things in a noticeable spot by the road. Since it wasn’t far to the tar kiln, we could pick everything up on our way back. For now, traveling light, carrying only a shotgun and three cartridges, cheerful and full of energy, we briskly set out toward our chosen destination.

After walking a bit, we once again heard the dog bark and saw, just off the road to the right, not far away, that the dog was barking at a large capercaillie.

Excited by the hunt, we began to stalk the bird. Before we could get within range for a shot, the capercaillie took off from the tree and flew a short distance to another. The dog found it again and started barking once more; we tried to approach, but again, without success. The capercaillie was toying with the dog and with us—right before our eyes, the bird kept flying from tree to tree, never going far, but never letting us get closer. Caught up in the excitement, we wandered through the forest; luck seemed to be on our side as we tried again and again to get close, but all in vain.

Apparently, tired of us, the capercaillie finally took off and flew away for good.

Cursing under our breath, we made our way, or so we thought, toward the road. But after walking quite a distance, we didn't find the road. After talking it over, we changed direction and, quickening our pace, tried to find the road. So we kept changing course in vain, running aimlessly through the forest in search of the road, until dusk began to fall. The dog barked almost constantly at a bird, but by then we were no longer paying her any attention. When it was nearly dark, we realized we were lost. But there was no fear—just irritation at the dog and a quiet confidence that we would find the road tomorrow. After catching our breath and calming down, we realized that we were practically stripped down to just our flannel shirts; our matches, knife, food, and cartridges were all stashed by the road. That’s when fear, resentment, and despair hit us—how could we have been so reckless? To be left in the forest, in the taiga, without matches—that was simply too much. We became acutely aware of the trouble we had gotten ourselves into.

It had already grown dark and cold in the forest, and we had to find some way to make it through the night. We began breaking off spruce branches and making ourselves a bed. Lying down on the branches, we pressed close to each other and heaped more branches over ourselves, but none of it helped—we shivered from the cold. Teeth chattering, we cursed the dog and our own foolishness; when it became truly unbearable, we would jump up and try to run around our den, then lie down again, and so it went on all night. It seemed as if this night was eternal, that it would never end. We spent the whole night tossing and turning, unable to sleep. Sleep-deprived, exhausted, and dazed, we greeted our first morning in the forest with great joy and hope for a successful adventure. There was another frost in the morning, but by midday it was very warm, and the sun shone brightly.

Having chosen our course, we pressed on, no longer paying any attention to the dog's barking. By now, we had begun to notice that the taiga, the forest, and the very landscape had changed. Hills rose in our path, and between them lay steep hollows; the distance between the hills was quite substantial—about 1.5 to 2 kilometers. It seemed to us that if we went down into a hollow and climbed up a hill, we might catch sight of the peaks, or the railroad, or the village, or the Nyagan River. That was our hope—our idée fixe. Stubbornly, with all our strength, we clambered up yet another hill, only to find nothing but another forested hill, with broad hollows in between, and this went on endlessly. We didn't come across any swamps. The forest was cluttered in places, especially in the hollows, but sometimes there were patches of lichen where the woods were clear, and walking was easy.

We were only truly hungry the first day; we satisfied our hunger with berries, which were abundant. The lingonberries were large and cherry-colored—a whole handful from a single bush—but soon we grew sick of them, and it became hard to keep eating them. We switched to rose hips, found pine cones, and more than once came across chipmunk caches filled with choice nuts. We tried to eat the roots of grasses we knew—sedges and the like. Sometimes we found untouched blueberry bushes, but we never came across any cranberries. All in all, our hunger was curbed, and we almost stopped thinking about real food.

We decided not to use the cartridges, since we were afraid of bears and kept them in reserve for that reason. Someone suggested we take it out on the cause of our troubles—the dog, to shoot her. But we had no matches to cook the meat, no knife to skin her, and by then we were fully aware that we were in real trouble.

We met each new night with dread—this was our greatest ordeal, a nightmare, something unbearable. The cold wouldn’t let us sleep; the night stretched on endlessly. Every so often we would slip into oblivion, but the cold would wake us, our bodies shaking as if with fever. It was all terrifying.

By the second night in the forest, exhausted and unable to sleep, we finally drifted into a deep stupor toward morning. When the cold and our shivering bodies woke us again, we found ourselves lying covered in snow—it had fallen during the night. It was overcast and cold during the day as well—there was no sun, so we had to keep warm just by walking.

Sleepless and hungry, we had no strength for a brisk walk; we crawled through the forest like cockroaches, starting to skirt around fallen trees. Apathy set in, indifference—we pressed on only because we needed to stay warm.

Once again, we were seized by a single idea: we had to find any stream, follow it down to some forest river, and that would eventually lead us to a real river—maybe even the r. Nyagan—let's build a raft and let it carry us wherever it may take us. Now, looking at the map and knowing the area where we wandered, getting out was impossible for dozens, even hundreds of kilometers. It was dense taiga, with no signs of habitation at all. It meant certain death, even for grown adults. The situation was catastrophic, but we didn’t know it. So we kept wandering through the forest, hoping that any moment we’d find a way out.

We were frightened both by the bear tracks we kept coming across, and by the thought that all the men from the logging site had dropped their work to search for us—and for that, we’d surely be in big trouble.

There had already been a case like this: once, the whole village searched for a teenage mushroom picker for several days. Nobody worked, and when they finally caught him—he had been running away from people—he was covered in mosquito bites, completely swollen, and not quite right in the head.

So, we reasoned that even if we found our way out and were rescued, if they found us, we’d be in a world of trouble. That next night, we caught the dog and, holding its paws, laid it on top of us. Yurka held its hind legs, I the front ones, and, pressing close to it, we managed to doze off for a while. At first, the dog resisted and snapped at us, but after a few whacks—and having felt the warmth of our bodies—it stopped struggling. It was a relief to us.

Doggedly making our way through the forest, by evening we reached our old campsite and stood in shock—after struggling so hard all day and spending so much energy, we had ended up right back where we started. Our strength had left us; we dropped to the ground, and I realized I could no longer fight fate, wander, or walk through the taiga anymore—nor did I want to. Complete indifference and apathy set in. At night it was no longer so cold; there was no fear, the creatures no longer scared us. We stopped talking, stopped making plans—a crisis had set in.

In the morning, we decided not to save cartridges, but to try to start a fire and roast the dog.

We took the shot out of the cartridge, gathered dry twigs, mixed them with rotten wood, birch bark, and dry grass, laid it all under a dry stump, pressed the shotgun barrel against it, and fired. The blast of pure gunpowder scattered our whole pile, but we couldn’t find even the slightest spark or wisp of smoke. It became clear—there was no way to get fire this way. We didn't argue, didn't cry; we had lost all sense of danger, lost faith in a happy outcome, and no longer wanted to resist the sad end.

Yurka was a red-haired boy, lean, even scrawny, but he turned out to be stronger than me, both physically and morally. He insisted that we keep moving and, so we wouldn't walk in circles, check our direction by the sun.

To this day, I'm surprised that at school, knowing we lived in the forest, no one tried to teach us the basics of navigation, survival, and the like. Similar incidents happened regularly, even in our logging camp, and sometimes even adults lost their lives. We wandered through the forest like blind kittens, without even the most basic knowledge or sense of direction in situations like these.

After four days in the taiga in a daze, having lost all hope for a good outcome, we would sometimes call out, 'Hey! Hey!'

By the end of the fifth day, the landscape changed—the mountains and hills vanished. We trudged across level ground now, the forest thinning out, and we could see far ahead.

Climbing onto a fallen tree, I shouted 'Hey-hey' once again, without any excitement or hope. But then, after a while, a reply sounded from far away. It was as if we’d been struck by lightning—we stared at each other, wondering if we’d misheard or were losing our minds. We fell silent, unmoving, but suddenly we noticed the dog had stopped running and was staring in that direction. A little later, a clearer 'Hey-hey' reached us.

At that moment, we jumped as if lifted off the ground—both of us shouting 'Hey-hey-hey!' at the top of our lungs, and we rushed in that direction: two crazy teenagers and a dog. As we ran, we could clearly hear a voice calling out to us, guiding our way. 'Hey-hey!' Wildly running, out of our minds, we suddenly came upon a man. He was a man with a double-barreled shotgun, no dog, a backpack slung over his shoulder, but there was nothing about him that seemed like a hunter—he was dressed differently, not like one of us, not like a hunter at all, and he was a complete stranger, even though there wasn’t another soul for dozens of kilometers around. We threw ourselves against his chest and broke down in tears, talking over each other as we tried, through our sobs, to explain that we had been lost for five days. But the stranger's face was expressionless—not a face, but a mask of indifference. He took off his backpack, pulled out only some bread, and gave us each a small piece. We swallowed the bread immediately and fixed our gaze on him, silently asking for more. The man, still expressionless, explained that we couldn't have much. Then, without saying anything else, he walked on, and we shuffled after him. After a while, we came out into a clearing—it was clear that logging had been done there—and then onto an old road that hadn't seen any traffic in a long time.

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