Clean water

It was impossible to get to Kamchatka without special permission. It was the border zone. Therefore, at the beginning of my last student summer, although I really wanted to work with a small group and earn a lot of money, I signed up for a regular size – twenty-something – construction brigade that was going to Kamchatka.

We flew for eight hours from Moscow to Vladivostok, losing a day, as we were going towards the sun, and from there – another three hours to Petropavlovsk-Kamchatka. Then by bus thirty kilometers to Elizovo area. A new water intake was located there, collecting water for Petropavlovsk. Our task was to cleanse the sanitary zone around this place and surround it with a fence so that nothing unnecessary would get into the pipes carrying drinking water for the capital of Kamchatka.

This water came from the Avacha River, flowing over the permafrost. In the area of the water intake, it diverged along numerous channels. We had to dismantle the tree blockages formed in these channels by the spring seething streams, pull branches and whole trees ashore, and burn them there. The water was very cold – no more than 10 degrees Celsius. Legs and arms started to numb after a few minutes.

But at the time of arrival, we did not know this yet. We looked at the luxurious greenery outside the bus windows and tried to notice something unusual. But everything looked almost the same as in the Moscow region. Only the trees were taller and thicker. Only a few days later we found wild strawberries the size of garden strawberries and mushrooms fifteen to twenty centimeters in size and without a single worm. And salmon, of course, with which Avacha boiled – pink salmon, coho, chinook. Full of caviar, the whole summer the salmon was going upstream to spawn. We ate it in all kinds of recipes, illegally, probably, I don’t know, but since then I have not been particularly interested in it – neither salmon nor caviar.

Finally, the bus stopped near a long one-story stone house that looked like a soldier’s barracks with – also stone and long – toilet, that provided its services to ten people at a time. In front of the barracks, there was a handwashing system – a wooden horizontally spread structure, on which cast-iron washstands were nailed: jars with a lid and a hole in the bottom, through which a long rod hung down. You tap this rod from the bottom up, and water flows into your hands.

This structure was put together by “quartermasters” – several guys from our squad who traveled here before us and arranged our future place of residence. In addition to the washing system, they also received and installed iron beds in the barracks, laid mattresses and bed linen on them, arranged our food supply, got what kind of tool we needed there, and, in general, stirred up the local authorities so that they were also prepared for our arrival.

The quartermasters greeted us with smiles and loud proclamations like “Kamchatka warmly welcomes the hardworking representatives of the Moscow region!” Indeed, the weather was wonderful. The sky was clear. The sun was warming up the ground, covered with snow just a month ago. It was dry already, although the underlying permafrost never let it be really warm. But, again, at that moment we did not yet know this and out of habit believed that since the sun shines so mercilessly, then everything around is as warm and comfortable as in those places where we were just a day ago. Therefore, when the quartermasters offered us to freshen up after arrival and take a swim, we readily agreed.

We were about to go to the river, but the quartermasters took us in the other direction – to the sedimentation tanks – oblong reservoirs, some thirty meters long, ten wide, and three meters deep each, although it was difficult to determine the exact depth. The water was so clear that every pebble at the bottom was visible in details as if there was no water there. The ponds were filled with gravel along the bottom and walls. And there was gravel all around so that less dirt seeped into the water.

The water, pure in itself, because it came from the melting snow of the hills, clearly outlined against the sky, in addition, was passed through sand filters before entering the sedimentation tanks, where its flow naturally slowed down and all sorts of suspended matter settled to the bottom. The pipes that took the water out of it were located in the upper layer. Not quite at the surface, so that any floating debris does not get there, but from a certain depth, but much higher than the bottom.

We spent the whole day on the plane, the sun was warming us up, there were well-washed pebbles and clean water around. This vision was like a mirage in the desert, seducing a traveler who drank the last drop from his flask three days ago.

The quartermasters called, “Who’s first ?!” and began to tear off their clothes. Well, of course, I was, if not the very first, then among several of those who jumped into the water first – forward and downward, stretching out, cutting through the water with my arms above my head in anticipation of the coolness and joy of life.

What I experienced made me – that was the feeling – jump back to the shore, bouncing like a flat pebble from the surface of the water, thrown by a skillful hand, or, rather, like a drop of water falling on a hot frying pan. I even hissed, I think. The breath stopped. I was only able to gasp for air again after getting to where I left my clothes.

The water was icy! This sensation hit me so powerfully and mercilessly that even my thoughts got frozen. There was exactly the feeling of a hot frying pan. That is probably what experience those who go to hell. A person who has gone through this once becomes a righteous person, trying to avoid that place by any means.

Those who jumped with me were also already standing on the shore, looking around slowly with wide-open eyes, in which one could clearly read horror.

And the quartermasters, holding their clothes in their hands, writhed with laughter at a safe distance. They probably also experienced something similar when they had arrived here and fully appreciated our feelings.

All this was a long time ago. But I still cannot forgive them for this prank.

The next day we began to pull heavy, wet trunks and branches out of the water and stack them on the shore. At first, we thought of letting them dry so that we could burn them later, but we quickly realized that they would dry up to a combustible state until the end of summer. Then we pulled them into one big heap, poured them over with gasoline – we were provided a railroad tank car of gasoline for this – we carried it in buckets, picking it up from the tap under the tank – and set it on fire. The gasoline burned out, but the trees remained wet and did not catch fire at all.

The most experienced of us have realized that diesel fuel has a higher combustion temperature and burns longer. So, we were provided with several barrels of diesel fuel. But you can’t light it up with matches. Then we added gasoline and things went better. Gasoline caught fire from a match easily and then heated the diesel fuel enough for it to ignite. The wood began to char and even burn out a little but stopped doing it after the diesel fuel burned out.

Now, the very logic and the success of the previous solution led us to the question, what burns even longer and at a higher temperature? The answer was easy: bitumen. We were given several rolls of bitumen, wrapped in paper, looked like barrels. We smashed them into pieces and threw them in the woodpile in different places. By the way, all this time we continued to pull the wet forest out of the water, and by this time our pile had grown already five meters in height and fifteen meters in diameter at the base.

Then we poured diesel and gasoline over the pile again and set it on fire. Bitumen did not want to burn. But we added diesel fuel and even gasoline sometimes – it flared up, threatening to scorch the guy who splashed gasoline from the bucket (we had no any safety precautions) – and gradually the bitumen caught fire, and then the firewood dried up and also started burning.

When the whole heap was aflame, one could not stand the heat twenty meters away from it. But it was necessary to throw in new wood pulled out of the water. To start a new bonfire was too early since there was still a lot of wood in the water near the first one. So, we have worked out the following technique. You throw a wet bag over your head and run to the fire with a wet log or branch in your hands, quickly throw your load into the fire, and then rush back in one breath. The bag almost completely dried out during this time.

I once ran up to the fire with a log, but I stumbled and literally dived into the flames. Fortunately, I didn’t let go of my log. It lay across the firebrands, and I leaned on it and was able to push back and run away. The bag, however, fell off me, and for a long time, I was proudly exhibiting an image of a pilot who jumped out of a burning plane – without eyebrows and eyelashes and with scorched hair – those that stuck out from under my baseball cap. But the skin was not damaged.
 
One day a local foreman ran up to us and shouted that we should gather immediately. Well, we crowded around him. For some time, he was seething and swearing and could not start talking in decent language. Then he cooled down a little and told us that one of our squad went to get gasoline. And all would be fine, but on the way, he lit a cigarette. Many of us smoked back then. It was sweet to do it while taking a break from the icy water. So, this was not unusual either. But this knucklehead did not put out his cigarette, as he approached the tank, and simply clamped it with his lips in the corner of his mouth and turned off the tap.

– I almost lost my mind when I saw it, – said the foreman. – The tank is half empty. There is a lot of gasoline vapor in it. If it flares up, the tank will explode like a fragmentation bomb. And not only this brave fool will be torn to pieces, but also me and everyone nearby. And the distant ones can get it too. So, I tell him in a calm voice … so that he doesn’t jerk and don’t drop his cigarette butt or ash into the gasoline … I say, put the bucket on the ground, move away, my friend, and put out your cigarette. And he grins to me, Why? And then he pulls this cigarette from his mouth as if he was going to shake off the ash. Luckily, I persuaded him to leave the bucket and move away.

He took a breath. We, too, breathed a sigh of relief. The guy who did it smiled embarrassedly but with the understanding that he did not do anything special, like a humble hero.

– What are you?! Babies?! What don’t you understand?! – the foreman soared again and swore for another twenty minutes until he got completely exhausted.

Since then, we smoked only far from the gasoline tank, sitting on one of the huge logs that we had pulled out of the water, but could not burn. They were later loaded onto a truck with a flatbed by crane and taken away somewhere.

Having finished with water purification, we started building the fence. This required thin logs for the posts, and we were taken to the port, where the timber was brought by ships so that we could choose what we needed.

The huge territory was covered with tall – like a three-story house – mountains of logs. They were just piled up and not fastened in any way. So, we – young, carefree and, of course, immortals – climbed them in search of thinner trunks. When we found one, we would point it to a local worker on a tractor, who pulled them with a noose rope.

The log shouldn’t have been tightly jammed, of course. Therefore, we looked more closely at those that lay on top or under one or two layers of other logs. Sometimes we triggered a “landslide” in order to free the lower log. Several times I was caught by such a landslide, and jumped on the logs rolling down, trying not to step between them. Apparently, I did suspect some kind of danger. But all the same we climbed up again and pushed and jumped. The bad things can only happen to others, but we were special. Look how dexterous and jumpy we are.

And the man on the tractor saw much worse things. This kind of work was usually done by the prisoners. We saw them there too. Quite daring folks. We are no match for them. So, our fresh air gymnastics didn’t bother anyone. Fortunately, everything went without a hiccup. A couple of times someone’s skin on the leg was peeled off by a log, but otherwise, everything was fine.

During the construction of the fence, I and another guy with the amazing nickname Franz were sent for a week to walk along the future high-voltage power line, that was under construction, and clean the threads on thick rods sticking up from the concrete base. Later the twenty-meter steel pols with four “pows” would be lowered onto them by helicopter. Each paw had a hole. It was through these holes that threaded rods entered and tightened with large nuts.

Franz and I received one such nut, to which two long handles were welded, and a can of machine oil. We had to clear the thread with this nut, so that there were no problems during the poll installation. This nut actually was not quite an ordinary nut. It was made of a harder metal, and its thread was cutting so that it did not get stuck but cleaned the thread on the rod. Also, there were cuts on it, through which dirt and debris – peeled off rust, for example – were falling out. And if it was difficult to turn the nut, we had to add machine oil there.

Franz and I walked from one concrete base to another, moving further and further away from any sign of civilization. I don’t remember at all what we ate and how we slept. But the mighty forest, fields of wild berries and mushrooms are still before my eyes. And big birds – eagles, probably – floating in the sky. And the air was so rich and pleasant that one could cut it with a knife and eat for breakfast.

Sometimes in a berry-bearing meadow, we carefully “ate away” a spot, so our pants would not be soaked in the berry juice and sat down in it and gorged ourselves to the brink, almost not moving anymore. Then we would lie down in the cleared from berries area and look up at the sky, at the clouds, eagles, and we felt so good that it is impossible to convey.

Sometimes bears competed with us, especially in raspberry bushes. But we were told that they avoid the smell of machine oil. The main thing, we were advised, not to tease them and not to get between the mother-bear and her cub, which we observed rigorously.

I also remember a trip to the Paratunka River, to the hot springs. Boiling water was coming out from under the ground boiling, forming the first – very hot – pond. One could boil eggs in it. From that pond, a stream flowed out and into the next pond, which was a bit less hot. And so on, until after a dozen of such lakes, water enters the river, where the temperature is already twelve degrees Celsius.

The technique to enjoy this setting was as follows. You steam up in hot ponds, moving up against the water flow to a temperature that you can only withstand for a very short time, and then get out of it and run back, and plunge into the river. The body, shocked by the cold river water, begins to sharply increase the temperature, while you get out of the river and radiate such heat that one can even light a cigarette by touching the skin. A very strong sensation. Any fatigue evaporates immediately. Only energy remains that fills your light body. You feel you can float. The procedure heals any decease. Besides, there is also radon or something in this water that produces a healthy, so they say, radiation. After this trip, my body retained a liberating feeling for a long time. I can evoke this feeling even today.

We did not earn as much money on this trip as we would like. But we collected impressions for a lifetime. I brought back to my parents’ house a backpack of freshly salted salmon and two three-liter cans of red. I also brought with me a stuffed northern deer head with huge horns. It still sticks out on the wall. How I managed to carry everything, I have no idea.