I am currently reading Steinar Wikans "Kola", about the Kola peninsula in Northwestern Russia. While hunting in 1992, the author stumbles over a small cabin, thirty kilometers (twenty miles) from the closest road, inhabited by Gennadij (64) and Faina (65). When the Soviet Union fell apart, so did their plans about retiring to Fainas apartment in Latvia, which the Latvian government gave to somebody else. And Gennadij got ill from inhaling the fumes in the industrial arctic town where they lived. They did what it seems quite a few Russians are doing, they built themselves a small cabin and lived mostly from what they could fish, hunt, gather and grow. Bear in mind that this is close to 70 degrees North.
They had an old russian Buran snowmobile and a generator to power some lights, but no chain saw. Wikan had dropped by some years later, and learned that Gennadij had drowned while fishing, but Faina was still living there. (Both photos by Steinar Wikan.)
3 comments:
Incredible, I have to read that one day..
amazing folk,makes us softys feel quite pathetic,you read some good stuff,i recommend `the town under the ground` history of edinburghs once underground city,unral reading about how folk lived in "the good old days"
i serien bøker om russland, jeg fant: Sten Bergmann's På hundeslede gjennom kamtchatka(Steensballe forlag) Emil Moestue a/s fra tjueåra.
Anbeflat lesning. Mitt eks er på langtidsutlån til Ketil Reitan, trolig fpår jeg den aldri (?) tilbake, men jeg fant den på et antikvariat uansett.
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