Determination in the heart of the Russian Far East
Last Sunday, the penultimate of our ten days in Kamchatka, was ostensibly a rest day. Everyone was eager to relax and enjoy the glorious surroundings that we had spent the last week helping to preserve in countless meetings, seminars, and strategy sessions. We initially planned to spend the entire day traversing a local park on Nordic skis, but two of our local colleagues suggested over dinner on Saturday that we instead try our hands at dog sledding at the home of two members of a local native community organization.
Finding the home was an adventure in itself. Igor’s Hyundai carefully negotiated snowy forest roads as our guide led us down turns marked only with colored pieces of cloth tied to trees. The bumpy ride was worth it, though, as we emerged next to a lake framed by the massive volcanoes that ring Petropavlovsk. A group of Russians played hockey on the lake’s frozen surface. Standing at the car, I was awed and nearly overwhelmed by the mountains that seemed to loom in front of me.
After finding the house and riding the dog sleds (I was the only one to fall), our hosts invited us into their home for tea and borsch. They had originally lived in the city, they explained, but decided to build a house in the forest to raise their children and dogs. They live there now with no running water or electricity (our host prepared borsch on the same woodstove that heats the home). Amazingly, the family patriarch finds time every winter to travel among Kamchatka’s native villages, with doctors in tow, helping treat alcoholics and drug addicts. Even more impressively, he finances the trip entirely through local contributions. This family, a testament to the courage, adventurousness, and resourcefulness of the inhabitants of Russia’s Far East, also seems a confirmation of PE’s philosophy that local organizations are always the most capable of addressing their own problems.
Tags: community partners, Kamchatka, rivers, Russia, Russian Far East, Salmon
