February 21st
15 km south of Chirpolay, in the taiga
-25 degrees Celsius

“Of course it was much better for us during the Soviet times”, Nadia told us whilst sitting at her kitchen table in the only room of the log cabin. She added, “There´s nothing good today.”

Nadia lives with her partner, Ganya, in the village of Chirpolay most of the year. Even though they have an apartment in Arkan, they much prefer life out here, far from any people.

“There´s too many people in Arkan”, Ganya told us; “And there´s nothing to do. It is boring. But out here in the nature, there´s always something to do.”

At first it was hard to persuade Nadia to be filmed and interviewed, as it has been with all the women on this trip. The reason has aways been the same, they don´t feel like they´re at their best at this precise moment and that their good looks are not appearing as they should. Finally, she agrees, and if it is one thing I miss during this trip, it is the ability to get closer to the few women we come across. With Vika, who´s doing such an extraordinary job in every way for so many men, basically cooking day and night, bits and pieces comes out. So I was happy when Nadia started to talk.

“Of course it is hard being a lone women out here among all men”, she said with some laughter; “I am eternally cooking, mending clothes and gear and servicing the men.”

“Why do you think so few women want to live out here in the taiga?” I ask her.

She replies that she has no idea; “I have been living out here since 1978.”

Back in the year that she started her life out here Chirpolay was a kolchoz under the Soviet system, which included everything from a wage to a holiday every two years and lots of reindeer, not as few as today.

“So since the age of freedom which appeared with perestroika”, I said, “Is there anything which is better today?”

Both shook their heads and said almost in unison, “Nothing.”

“It is actually getting harder every year. Our income from a small pension and selling meat and fur is the same, but the cost for food and other items just get more expensive by the year.”

Nadia had also worried quite a bit the last few months, since she had read in newspapers and heard on radio, that doomsday for the world was on its way. It was a frequent topic on the radio the Eveny use for communication. This radio is often the evening entertainment out here, the gossip of the day. She missed books and if she had books, she loved reading. Everything from detective novels to old classics.

I went fishing with Ganya two days ago, caught a few great mountain chars myself, but not as many as Ganya, who know the game of this elusive fish.

During this trip, Yura Stepanovic, my photographer, went through the ice and something happened with the camera. It is partly paralyzed one could say, so right now, we only have 240 minutes left on our CF-cards and that is kind of a slight disaster, even if we have a backup camera, a small XA 10, the one I used in Yemen, a great little camera, but it has no external buttons, so one has to work through the LCD screen, which is extremely difficult, if not impossible, in this freezing cold. We are slowly closing in on Arkah where it seems like our reindeer trip will reach its end (either due to the fact that there´s no snow south of the settlement or that our Eveny members will take their yearly holiday there and don´t want to continue). For this reason, I have been out skiing the last two days, about 32 kms. It feels genuinely great to see if i can do 30 kms a day for 4 days to reach what was our proposed final goal, Okhotsk.

Right now we are kind of all sitting around in this smokey log cabin, waiting for the Eveny to gather the reindeer again, so we can leave. We are all anxious to get away. Egor needs to go back to sort out his business in Yakutsk as soon as possible. The old sergeant is doing a great job keeping it all together, especially on the time issue, since when it comes to this item of life, we are two very different cultures, the Eveny and the four of us!

I want to leave because I am no fan of sleeping inside these log cabins. The Eveny smoke day and night and play extremely repetitive Russian music, which is a bit too much for old men like Egor and me!

UPDATE! We just have arrived and set up camp in the taiga, just 15 kms south of Chirpolay after a roller coaster start with new reindeers. It is quite warm for us.