Day 2. Feeling harmony in a pine forest

I am writing this post sitting on cone roots near the calm and quiet surface of the Volga River. Mother-river for all Russians. It is breathing with greatness and calm as if it had been an enourmous old giant watching some ants rambling along his possessions. It is also generous praising every newcomer with a soft touch of its water palm.

 

The river has not always been so wide in its upstream and here, on an island in the heart of the giant I learned its story: tremendous, breath-catching and fabulous.

The area was flooded in 1937 because of the need to create a water-storage basin to cool the engines of a hydropower station. That was a usual practice in the middle of the 20th century and the cost of such changes in the water mouth was life of hundreds and hundreds of villages and small towns. The dwellers had to move leaving all their possessions to rest with peace on the new bottom of the river.

 

Still there were those who refused to move chaining themselves to their houses and becoming eternal hosts of their shabby huts. Walking on the sandy shore I imagined those who ended their lives here standing proudly near their homes and looking at the water arriving. The old-timers said that even today divers happen to find the roofs of the buildings resting on the bottom of the powerful tsar. 

 

The story touched me and I went to explore the island equipped with a camera eager to unveil some of its secrets. Unfortunately there is hardly any place untouched by the distructive human hand. So I sat in a boat and floated to the middle of the river. Astonished with its beauty and magnificence I thought about its dark and frightening history.

 

It was already dark when I returned to the camp and tied up the boat. The fire was enlighting the faces of men and women sitting near the night sun and discussing the unbelievable nature of the Volga river. 

 

It was time to say good bye and return to the stiflig air of Moscow being fresh and renewed. So, good bye! I know we'll meet again, lovely mother-river.
Explore Russia, it is fabulous!