Moments

I've walked some ten kilometres around the Moscow centre. I end up to the Theatre Square, and sit down on an empty bench near the fountain. It's a working day and midday, so there aren't too many people here. A young couple is sitting on a bench to the left of me, she in his lap, on a bench to the right of me I see an old man drooping.

A limo drives to the place, out comes a newly-wed couple. The family members, armed with cameras, circle them. The pictures are of course taken in front of the gorgeous fountain. In Russia, this is the time of the year when everybody gets married.

It's a bit windy, but I have enough clothes on. The sun warms me up. All the sounds turn into a hum, the pillars of the Bolšoi Theatre disappear in an eyelash mist.

My fears towards the unknown country, the basic paranoia and caution necessary for a tourist, it all fades away. For a few minutes, I'm obliviously at sleep. Everything is here, and only here. And everything is good.

—

I'm sweating after a spurt to the Nižny Novgorod train. I squeeze my backpack onto an overhead shelf and sit down on my seat. It is one in a group of six, three against three. Four middle-aged Russian men are already there. Construction workers, I would presume. That one might be an engineer, perhaps their boss.

I nod and smile. They nod back. I'm shy as usual. What would I say without a common language? They take the initiative and find out I'm on my way to China, through Siberia. They continue their own conversation, laughing.

Just minutes after the train has left the station, the biggest of the men opens a huge bag. He digs up disposable cups, serviettes and plastic boxes. The boxes are full of sandwiches. Another one of them lifts up a bottle of vodka from his bag. And not just any vodka, but Beluga.

Before I even realize, I've got a ham sandwich and a small cup of vodka in my hands. Cheers, and bottoms up. I feel a terrific warmth in my chest. The tourist, having abandoned his vegetarian diet for the journey, bites into the sandwich.

After the first sandwiches, we'll have the second ones. And the second cups of vodka. Then the third and the fourth. After them big chunks of meat and, somewhat surprisingly, an apple.

The six-hour train ride goes pretty smoothly. I write a lot.

—

There's not a single cloud in the sky of Yekaterinburg. The sun is glistening on the slow waters of Olkhovka river. The story goes, the river was once mystically boiling.

We have just walked across a noisy bridge, dodging the busy bicycles on a narrow lane preserved for bikers and pedestrians. Kseniya has just described one particularly dangerous bike trip, I tell her about my own bicycle experience between an Italian highway and a pretty steep slope. I don't reminisce the moment exclusively great, but also a little bit frightening and stupid. Kseniya disagrees. You have to live.

We come down from the bridge to the river embankment. Kseniya spots movement underneath the bridge. I'm quite sure they are just maintenance men, but Kseniya wants to take a closer look. Once we get under the bridge, we see two boys, maybe 12 years old, hanging off the supporting structures. Kseniya asks, how they got up there. One of them shows us.

For a few moments, I'm dangling off some rusty iron beams, beneath me a three-metre fall and then rocks encrusted with metal debris. I fling myself to the other side of a thick concrete wall. A few steps up a steep, rough concrete surface, then another fling. I hop over an iron railing, landing on the mesh floor of the maintenance bridge.

A constant stream of buses and trucks flows over the bridge. It has been there for thirty years. Calm down.

I smell only rust and concrete. Olkhovka trundles below. The boy and Kseniya lead the way. The boy explains, how he and his friends jump off the bridge to the river in the summertime. Last summer one of them died, because stoned and drunk he couldn't make back to the shore.

We walk to the other end of the maintenance bridge, then back again. For some reason, my fear goes stronger on every step, though it's practically impossible to fall. Is this the rational fear that keeps you alive? Or is this the stupid kind of fear that prevents you from getting what you want, getting onward in your life? Or are they the same thing?

When getting back to the embankment, Kseniya says she feels more alive. Me — I just feel alive.

—

I climb to the highest point in Khužir, the village with its shacks and board fences is behind me. In front of me, I see Baikal. The beach is less than a kilometre away.

A very distinctive-looking cape sticks out of the beachline. A narrow neck of land, then two very high rocks. Shamanka, a holy place. The emblem rock of Baikal.

Lots of visitors have formed their initials out of small white stones onto the reddish, peculiarly striped rock surface of the neck. I strut to the foot of the rock formation. Under my shoes, crunching, there's a bayful of pebbles, all smoothened by the licks of Baikal.

I examine the boulders. There's a footstep. Little by little I find my way up and towards the crevice between the two big rocks. The last push. I sit down.

Between the huge walls I hear nothing but the wind. Every now and then, a whoosh caused by a bigger wave joins in from far below. I'm feeling somewhat cold, but nevertheless I sit still for almost fifteen minutes. The world is elsewhere.

—

The landlady of the guesthouse on Olkhon island shows me the banja. She asks, if I have any experience. I tell her that back home I have my own banja.

This one, however, is considerably larger. An oblong changing room, an oblong sauna room. The warmth feels nice. For the longest time, I just sit on the upper bench, doing nothing.

I try out some steam. The stones are in a hole behind a hatch, located in the middle part of the high, narrow stove. I open the hatch with a long-armed scoop. I ladle a scoopful from a bucket and aim my shot straight onto the stones.

I startle, when the hot steam attacks my legs and my face. Apparently you don't use this thing the Finnish way. I throw smaller splashes and close the hatch a little bit to steer the steam to the side. Perfect.

Why is it, that on this trip the moments of stillness seem to be the best kind? I smile, because I think I know.

After a fair half an hour, I finally start drying myself. I open the changing room door. The cold night feels incredibly good. My body looses its heat slowly. In the end, when I get dressed, I know that cold won't bother me tonight.

—

They are called Aliki and George. They are from Greece, and you really can tell. Their smiles, their talk and their whole being shine like the sun. Things are not too good in Greece right now, but that is no reason to over-burden your heart and mind.

They charm everyone just by being around, and they themselves are charmed by children. When returning from Olkhon island to Irkutsk, opposite to us and next to two Russian men there is a Burjatian woman with a small girl in her lap. Aliki smiles, the girls shies away. Aliki asks George, if this was a job for a balloon.

They find a balloon from their bag, Aliki starts blowing it up. With every blow the eyes of the girl get bigger. Aliki ties a knot with ease. The girl's expression is one of great wonder, when the pink balloon is handed to her. She takes it gently in her hands, like an archeologist might lift up a fragment of an ancient vase.

Moments later, George digs up a pen and draws a face onto the balloon. After this, the small human being is sold for good.

When the mother and the daughter gets off the car, the little one waves her hand for a long time.

I get a funny inspiration. A poem is born.

Some facts of life are told

When you give a child a balloon

It's delicate, it's bold

And it's over all too soon

You can fly, or you can sink

You will get both yin and yang

You can wrinkle, you can shrink

You can leave it with a bang

A breath of life was blown

So that you could smile and play

It's yours, and yours alone

Don't let it float away