First Kayak Trip
Once, around the age of 12, poring over a map of the Shatura district, I discovered that four lakes – Sokorevo, Ivankovskoye, Shagara and Svyatoye – are linked by channels and form a ring you can begin right from the riverbank by the village of Velikodvorye, where my family spent every school break and weekend.
Back then I happened to be obsessed with building rafts, though without much success: one raft sank, and the second, I think, was never finished. The idea of completing the loop across the lakes took full hold of me; I drew "blueprints" in my notebooks of a raft made of plastic bottles, convinced such a design would be unsinkable. On the raft, like the famous Kon-Tiki, there would be a hut and a mast. I should say that, like many 12-year-old boys, I devoured adventure fiction: Jules Verne, books from the Library of Adventure series, and much more. One of my favorite books was Senkevich's account of the voyage of the Ra.
Such were the premises. But I ran into an insurmountable problem – I couldn't fasten a large number of plastic bottles together reliably enough. On top of that, I wasn't keen on rummaging through dumpsters to find the quantity of bottles I needed. And then I got busy with something else and the idea was forgotten, while my craving for adventure found an outlet in my university years, when I went into the mountains a great deal.
In 2007 I discovered a real "Prostor" sailing catamaran in my parents' storeroom. I was genuinely indignant that I hadn't known about it sooner. In the autumn of 2007, in the company of Vova Vakhrin and Phil, I set off to my parents' place to assemble the catamaran and launch it. But that summer had been dry, and Lake Svyatoye, where we put the catamaran in, turned out so shallow that we had barely covered 2 kilometers before running aground. We had to turn back empty-handed (though we did have a great trip to the banya).
We meant to come back at the spring flood the following year, but for various reasons it didn't happen the next year, or later. For the record, since 2007 the water level never rose to an acceptable height even at the flood, and a scouting trip in 2009 showed the reed thickets were passable only in flat-bottomed boats. Still, I didn't want to let go of the idea.
And so, over the May holidays of 2013, Dasha and I went out for a boat ride on the river. I told her this story, and Dasha suggested doing the route by kayak. From that moment I couldn't think of anything else – we simply had to come back for the second May weekend, ready and with a kayak! I had only 4 days in Moscow, and I could barely force myself to work. Finding a kayak wasn't easy either, since over the holidays everyone who can heads out on trips. But I found a Nalim-150, a fairly small craft; we bought the missing gear like dry bags, and on May 8 we set off again for my parents' place.
May 9Sokorevo · Ivankovskoye · Velikoye
The next day we got up at six in the morning and were on the water by half past seven. The trouble started right away, since I had never paddled a kayak, and Dasha's experience was limited to one short outing — and an inflatable kayak, especially such a short one, behaves abominably, eager to spin around at our every careless move, and our moves were more than a little careless. We were lucky that the first stretch went with the current, but for all our lack of coordination we hardly paddled faster than a kilometer an hour, so mostly we were just carried along slowly.
Closer to Lake Sokorevo we finally began to feel the boat and each other, and just as we got into a decent rhythm we hit a headwind current that we'd have to fight for a good while yet – half the way. Paddling instantly became very hard. That was when we truly synchronized in the face of a common goal: by Yandex Maps the loop was at least 35 kilometers, and we had covered only 14. Hardships are far easier to overcome together, and, each lost in our own thoughts, we paddled steadily, stopping now and then to watch the kayakers coming toward us.
At noon we stopped for lunch, dried off, bailed out the water (the Nalim is built so that water runs into it off the paddles) and pushed on. Paddling was hard, and on top of that we got into a labyrinth formed by overgrown shrubs. It became clear that at low water many parts of the channels could easily be walked on foot. Moving against the current, and constantly searching for a way through, did nothing for our speed, and now the only way to rest was by holding on to the bushes — luckily there was no shortage of those. Having reached Lake Ivankovskoye with difficulty, we took our fill of its beauty, and besides, the current on the lake barely made itself felt.
The 2007 plan had been to enter Lake Velikoye and, after a paddle around it, spend the night on a little island. But the island was flooded now, and we decided to carry out at least part of that plan. By seven o'clock we had entered Velikoye and found a place to camp on the shore among the birches.
May 10Shagara · Svyatoye · finish
A pleasant night's rest to the singing of frogs, the booming of a bittern and the distant sounds of a village celebration restored some of our strength, and the next morning at seven we were already heading into Lake Shagara, and going briskly too, for we had only some 6 kilometers left to reach the current — that thought warmed us and spurred us on. We stopped on the shore to admire the large ruined church in Yalmont and came out onto Lake Svyatoye.
A strong wind had blown since early morning, and it showed itself in full that day. On Svyatoye we were met by a headwind driving a good swell. Paddling was no easy matter. We crossed Svyatoye to the bridge at Evlevo and entered the channel with the current. We were already seized by joy (premature, as it turned out) that the last stretch, about 7 kilometers, we'd cover with the current and could rest, since our arms still ached from the day before.
But nature had other plans: it switched on a fierce headwind that instantly pushed us back the moment we stopped paddling, and tried to spin us around at the first opportunity. Even the narrowed channel was all waves, so the story of the first day repeated itself — only now we dreamed of paddling against the current, since paddling against the wind turned out to be far harder. Though I have to admit the weather did spare us after all. The forecasts had promised overcast skies and rain, but we had sun the whole time, so at least we were relatively dry.
We decided not to stop for lunch and just make it to the end, especially since the banks were so overgrown with brush that there was no way to pull ashore. The last kilometer was especially grueling; the wind chose to show its strength and drifted us off course like never before. With all the weaving and route-finding, it turned out we'd covered 50 kilometers instead of 35. Fifteen hours of paddling (9 the first day, 7 the second), almost the entire time against the current or the wind. We crawled out of the kayak tired but content. It turned out this ring is a well-known route, but people paddle it clockwise, not counterclockwise as we did. Still, we went the way that had been intended from the very start.
It's sad to admit that doing it by catamaran is impossible. The bridges standing on the lakes are too low, with very narrow spans (for some reason I'd never thought about that at all), and the channels are so overgrown that even at the flood it would most likely be impassable.
The best part of the journey was probably Dasha, who came with me and made it to the end, for the going was very hard. And she also cooked a wonderful piece of roasted meat that splendidly replaced our tinned stew.
And that's how a dream more than a decade old came true. I won't say anything in my life changed dramatically. It just felt more joyful inside. We also got to know the very beautiful nature of those places near which I grew up but, to my shame, had never been. So there you have it.