A day off staff casting lesson with Alexei Sidenko and Ruslan Ryadovkin on the Purnache.
It’s a cozy, rainy morning here in Ryabaga Camp. Anglers are on the river, the kitchen team is busy in the kitchen creating their delicious concoctions for lunch and dinner, and the mechanic team is busy making certain everything is staying dry.
There’s a saying here in Russia: ‘There is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing’. The statement proves its worth here; no matter what the weather, we all bundle up and soldier on. Tasks have to be completed, supplies, unloaded, fish caught. It’s a strange little circle of life here in the tundra.
The staff here is what really makes life at Ryabaga special. True, the scenery is incredible and the river still takes my breath away every time I lay eyes on it, but at the end of a long day it’s the people that make getting four hours of sleep a night worth it. This morning I was able to sleep in a few extra hours and on my way to the shower block got two enthusiastic greetings from kitchen staff sticking their heads out of windows and doors to say “Dobre ootra!” (good morning). The people here carry such enthusiasm for the job they do and take incredible pride in their work. Yes, much of the care and energy put into work here is for clients but I can’t shake the feeling that much of the staff is chasing a personal best, as it were. They want to do excellent work.
Trust me when I say this makes for a very unique work environment.
We’re all united in life here; we all wear the same clothes over and over again, eat meals together every day, and work alongside each other day and night. Living day in and day out with the same people creates a level of familiarity that otherwise would be difficult to achieve and I can’t shake the feeling most days that we are like one large and, at times, slightly dysfunctional family. But it is a dynamic that works.
Much of the time I feel like I’ve stumbled into the pages of some book I would have read back in the States. Getting compliments from an Mi-8 crew on my driving skills in the Polaris, talking to the Kolmac River Guards on their supply days in camp, and making sure a camp holding an average of 60+ people runs as it should has suddenly become my life. It’s surreal.
But at the same time it feels very natural. My very limited grasp of the Russian language is increasing and with it my ability to communicate with many of the people in my daily life. I’m adapting to the slowness and moodiness of satellite internet and am growing used to hearing various helicopters taking off and landing.
Ryabaga Camp in Spring color.
The pace of life here does not leave me missing the one back in the States. Life runs at a driven pace and we all work like mad but there is something simply good about hearing the sound of boat engines in the evening and knowing that the “boys” are back. Thursday nights we all listen in anticipation for the sounds of the Mi-8 returning from its supply run. Once the tell-tale whoop whoop of the helo is heard, the evening descends into a pre-dinner rush of unloading supplies from the helicopter and into the vehicles, driving it down the hill, and then unloading each vehicle and moving supplies into the kitchen and alcohol room. The guides and mechanics all chip in and typically we are finished before dinner.
The Ryabaga Camp Mechanic Team and their vehicles.
I’ve come to believe that with all of the skills present in this camp there is little that we cannot accomplish out here. The mechanic team continues to impress with their skills for everything from hauling logs out of the river and prepping them for firewood to making sure the boats and vehicles run as they should. The kitchen staff creates things that simply are hard to believe exist here in the tundra – last night’s dinner started with a seafood soup and ended with a ricotta panna cotta. And the guides are continually keeping clients happy on the river – taking care each day to pack the items necessary to cook a good hot lunch on the river and tucking hot chocolate and cookies into their bags as treats for the clients.
I’m convinced that if the end of the world came, we here at Ryabaga would be among the last standing. There’s something to be said for ingenuity and the crew here displays it to a level I have never experienced. It’s a unique grouping of people from all over the world, and in another place, another time, most of us never would have met or interacted.
But Ryabaga is a special place.
