Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
sembled. My luggage rack needed some minor welding and our equipment in gen-
eral needed a thorough overhaul.
I reached tentatively into one dark pannier and pulled out a heavy jar of peach
jam. The contents had frozen in the intense cold and looked like an alchemist's jar
of preserved brains. My cycling sneakers had frozen solid as two boards, and Tim's
gear and brake cables had completely iced up. We sat rebuilding our bikes in one
of the unheated back rooms, rugged up against the minus ten degree Celsius chill
and listening to Smashing Pumpkins on Tim's walkman.
We visited our friends and most nights enjoyed a fresh round of enjoyable but
less riotous parties. The long, dark winter had taken its toll on the people and I got
the impression that our friends were running low on energy reserves. It seemed that
everyone was waiting patiently, biding time until the spring sunshine returned to
rejuvenate their lives.
One major deliberation we faced was in choosing a suitable present for Baba
Galya. Like most pensioners in Russian villages, she lived on a government allow-
ance of only a couple of hundred roubles a month - thirty or forty Australian dol-
lars. In practice this was paid irregularly and never in full. To survive, she had to
rely on her own labour: picking and preserving barrels of berries and mushrooms
from the forest in summer, growing as many potatoes as she could fit into her plot
of land and chopping tons of firewood to see her through the winter. She had put
all this on hold to look after us like royalty. We felt we owed more than we could
ever possibly hope to repay.
The most precious thing in Baba Galya's life was her daughter, Irina, who lived
in the Ukraine on the Black Sea. They hadn't seen each other in years because of
the prohibitive price of the train fare - a $100 for us, yet an almost unattainable
fortune for the average Russian. We wanted to give her the fare, but were uncer-
tain as to whether she would accept the money. We decided to offer her half, with
explanations on the tip of our tongues in case she refused. But, to our surprise, she
accepted the gift straight away. She saw not the cash we were offering but the face
of her daughter. She grabbed the notes at once, bursting into a flood of embarrassed
tears.
I went to bed feeling horrible. The sight of the brave face she had put on when
she realised that we had not given her enough was still clear in my mind. I waited
until I was certain she was asleep then had a hurried discussion with Tim. We found
the place where she kept her valuables and added the balance to the little pile of
money.
