Seven days away they went,

In the countryside were spent.

Energies and thoughts could vent,

Their bliss naught could dent.

 

Here is the special edition blog, the special report, the extra-long newsround feature, about our little jaunt to the Caucuses and the small spa town of Kislovodsk.

 

 21^st – Monday – Escape

We all met Sergei in the gloomy rain outside the University at about 11 o’clock in order to take a bus to a dingy, grimy, forlorn little station about 20 minutes from the centre. We waited for about half an hour, our train pulled up with a ‘toot’, we boarded, got settled and set off. The train trip to Кисловодск lasted 22 and a bit hours so we had to provide ourselves with enough food for three courses. Our landladies plied most of us with bags of sustenance – sandwiches, eggs and fruit – though we also purchased masses of beer and water, then some crisps to keep us happy. One doesn’t need to buy much before hand though as the train does make stops occasionally where the passengers can disembark and buy more items from kiosks; many of which prepare fresh breads or pasties (хишчини) as the train makes its steady, determined approach through the Russian wilderness towards the platform.  Also on the platforms market sellers and farmers and gypsies come out to peddle their wears; dried fish, ‘fresh’ crayfish and warm meat and cabbage pies and drinks are all up for purchasing at knock down prices. Much drinking and feasting occurred on this train trip. The voyage culminated in a litre box of wine being plucked from a portable drinks stall. It cost three pounds, was the only wine there, was in its own plastic bag, was called ‘Vadge Russia’ and simply had to be bought. We drank the sanguine liqueur with haughty faces and all sang Beatles songs allegedly under the snug influence of alcohol.

 

22^nd – Tuesday – Advent

We arrived at the charming but blisteringly hot Kislovodsk station (30 degrees and sunny on arrival) clutching all of our bags, smiling at our new home and allowing our lungs to be caressed by the fresh air they so dearly missed – our alveoli having previously been smothered by dust. Our accommodation? It was interesting. At once atrocious, disappointing and disheartening, but at the same time value for money, endearing and comfortable mostly. We were staying at one of the many, many, sanatoriums in the town – Sanatorii Semashko, named after the Soviet party figure who set the whole lot up. Gazing lazily at my tourist map of the place I count maybe forty sanatoriums in total, sometimes six or seven along the same street. Some are very large (like ours) with bold, strong names such as Sanatorium ‘fortress’, ‘victory’, ‘beam’. Some have poetic names like ‘dawn’, ‘knowledgeable’, and ‘spring’. Some are named after places ‘Kavkas’, ‘Elbrus’, ‘Moscow’ and people. Then, there are the stragglers with unassuming names such as ‘picket’, ‘electronika’ and ‘express’. It’s very interesting really I assure you. 

Sorry to digress there, back to our sanatorium.

 

On the face of it, it looked nice. It was a complex of buildings; one main one containing the rooms and bar and club (the hotel bit), a restaurant building and some administrative ones. However it was apparently the busy season so none of us were in proper rooms. Some girls were downstairs either in ancient rooms, including room 101 (an omen perhaps?), or a converted children’s play room. Four of us boys were lumbered uncaringly onto the seventh floor…the top floor in a Кабинет Врача, which translates literally as ‘Doctor’s Surgery’. We thought it was probably a GP consultation room back in the day, however there were some alien looking plug sockets that we reckoned used to show broken Russian legs or splintered shoulders on x-ray light boxes. We had no shower on the 7^th floor, and were told we could use the swimming pool communal showers down on the 2^nd floor…bugger that. We managed, in shifts, to use the girl’s showers on the 1^st floor, despite there not being a shower curtain or door lock to ensure a stress free time.

After our paid-for lunch (all courses for all days were pre-paid), of usually a curd cheese substance called Tvorog, soup and then a sorry piece of meat and carbohydrate, we departed on our first excursion.

 

We traveled, by way of hired minibus, to what is called the Кольцо-гора (Kaltso-gora), which is a stone ring/archway on a hill (12 metre diameter). Walking up the hill path to the lidless, empty stone eye, you pass lines of Caucus gypsies selling scarves and jumpers and socks maid from the hair of sheep and camels. At the stone ring you have a breathtaking view of the town sitting silently 6.5 km away, nestling innocently amongst hills and trees. You then, as legend will have you do so very often, make a wish.

 

Then, remarking upon the loveliness of the day, our guide decided that we push on to another landmark that would have been saved to a later day. We entered an autonomous region (a sort of Catalonia-Spain relationship), through an armed border crossing of sorts, called, I believe, the Карачаевский (Karachaevskii) region. We journeyed through hilly, shiny-green countryside in our tour bus to a little place hidden in the valleys and ravines called Медовые Водопады, which translates deliciously as ‘Honey Falls’. Honey Falls is a small area along a gash in the Earth with a sequence of five sweet waterfalls. The day burned hot and bright. The tumbling waters glistened and shone, and the spray cooled our red, unprepared faces. Watery beads of light hung in the sky as rainbows crept out from nowhere. It was literally breathtaking. Having walked through the river bed on wooden bridges and walkways, we climbed some steps to a café, lodged in the side of the valley wall. We drank ice cold Russian beers to the view.

Pool and drinks back at the sanatorium made a fine end to an exemplar day.

 

23^rd – Wednesday – Milling

The exploits today weren’t as spectacular, but were instead local and interesting. We took an excursion of the town with the same guide from the day before – she had impressively hairy legs. We visited a massive bas-relief of Lenin, and a sculpture of an eagle looking over the countryside and a monument called Cascade Stairs – a semicircular colonnade that had thousands steps running down from it – in a lovely park. Also in the park were tame red/grey squirrels that, on filling one’s palm with seeds, would jump on the hand and nibble contentedly before leaping back onto the tree eagerly awaiting more. I held one, stroked him on the back and head, and promptly added him high up on the list of charming wildlife experiences.

We also drove to a restaurant in the hills, where we had beer and observed the builders making a hotel in the style of an English castle. In the same hills we tasted sulphurous spring water, which, as waters go, left a lot to be desired.

We came back, ate lunch, relaxed and debated on our next course of action. The next move was buying wines and playing card games with some of the girls in the balmy but crisp evening. I purchased a local red wine, which was 17%, tasted more like a port and cost three pounds. Satisfied, I shared some with Sergei and proceeded to lose horribly at all the card games we dabbled with. Some of us then went, on a whim, for a шашлик (shashlik), which is barbecued meat that is so very popular in Russia.

 

24^th – Thursday – Tolkien

Today we awoke at 6:30 for our three hour bus trip to a snowy mountain range centered around the biggy called Домбай (Dombai). The scenery on the way was enough to rouse me from my droopy eyed state; it looked like the rugged wild of Wales around the Brecon Beacons or Snowdonia. The sanatorium had also kindly prepared us with comical, and very Russian, packed lunches: three tomatoes, and hunk of bread, a wedge of cheese, a slab of greasy chicken, three hard boiled eggs and some biscuits. I must admit, although some of our class were either put out at it’s simplicity/shoddiness or just couldn’t be bothered/didn’t know how to deal with it, I attacked it with glee. Gnashing off mouthfuls of bread and then cramming the mild cheese in too. Then, with my hands, butchered the chicken with a childish delight, and delicately de-shelled my eggs for minutes before stomaching them in seconds.

 

We arrived at the mountain region and were blown away. The wilderness and scope was like that of Canada; waterfalls spat out of arms of ice, pine trees hiding the shadowy contents of the forest, peaks splashed with snow and daubed with white.

To ascend the mountain we initially took a cable car, then later on, when it was decided that we were allowed to use the old, battered ones, we took chair lifts (the newer ones had stopped working). My lift buddy was Nat, a fellow lover of all things natural and scenic, and our joint enthusiasms mounted until, in a very childish and cheesy way, we shouted with joy into the wild wind; uncaring that the chair lifts on which we sat looked like they had been made with pritt stick on Blue Peter.

To describe the view is hard, as it was all view. Tolkien did it well enough in Lord of The Rings – It looked like Caradhras. We were surrounded by a crown of jagged peaks, all laden with snow. It was dramatic and massive and all-encompassing. It made the heart soar and laugh and you couldn’t spend enough time drinking it up with your eyes and camera. The sky was also cloudy, but cloudy above the tops of the mountains, so one felt boxed in by the beauty. We took a couple of chair lifts to the top, passing a mid-level area with stalls selling woolies, men offering rides on their snow-mobiles for money, and cafes where one could buy глинтвейн (Glintvein), a.k.a. Gluwein, a.k.a Mulled Wine, and we did buy, and drink, and giggle.

On the very top, hopelessly unequipped for the cold, Sean and I went for a walk in the snow as the others warmed their collective cockles in the summit café. We, Sean in his corduroy trainers, me in my Blue Harbour moccasins (left my boots at the sanatorium didn’t I), slipped, sank and slid our way along a ridge to get a view. Then our guide for the day, hairy legs’ son, came up, jokingly called us the two kamikazes, and led us to an awesome viewpoint. Thoroughly frozen and red-faced, we went back to the café and had a beer from the region; our hands and cheeks fuzzy and prickly from the temperature change.

Happiness bulbbing away within, we came down a level from the summit. We boys bought brightly coloured balaclavas to become the gay Chechnyan power ranger terrorists; Sean had pastel pink, Tom yellow, me baby-blue and Chris red. We kept them on for while, much to the enjoyment of the locals coming the opposite direction on the ski-lift. We do try and bring some humour to these people; we know they want to laugh. If the only time they’ll let themselves go is on a ski-lift on a mountain, then fair enough.

The drive back was snug and sleepy and without problem – apart from being pulled over for speeding at one point. At the midway toilet stop – a shed in the middle of a mountain viewpoint – the gold-toothed Caucus couple who were running a little pasty stall gave us some free food and drink (the drink being Ayran, which is a sort of sour yogurt/milk stuff), which was remarkably sweet of them.

Home, we played games, pool, table tennis, had some drinks and went to sleep.

 

25^th – Friday – Stagnation

The excursions on Friday seemed boring and puny compared to the giants of the day before. We saw an ‘underground’ sulphur lake, which materialized as a pool in a hole. I did like it though, the smell and the colours were bewitching, and the tunnel we walked through to get to it added an iota of drama, however an anticlimax did linger. Outside was the brightly coloured, bacterial, underground run-off coming out as a hot stream. Some Russians, sporting hideously minute speedos, lingered languorously in the natural pools, not minding the people looking at them.

We visited the spot where Lermontov died in a duel.

Then we left the spot where Lermontov died in a duel.  

Went to a disappointing park, which apparently sported English Style buildings, but actually sported buildings that were about as English as a Frenchman eating borsch, listening to Pavarotti, whilst mumbling to himself in thick, rural Chinese. Did have a nice ice-cream there though.

Was also the birthday of the Estonian boy, Allar (unfortunate name yes), so we went to an abysmal one room club called Космос (Cosmos), after spending time in the bar, for about 40minutes, as the sanatorium shut at one in the morning and we were somewhat disinclined to the idea of sleeping outside.

 

26^th – Saturday – Equestrian

On this day, another magnificent day, we rode Caucus horses through the countryside for two and a half hours. My horse was called Shartan, although I didn’t realize this until after we finished, so I had dubbed him Charlie-boy (Laura named hers Ewan to match). Riding a horse for the first time, unaided, I felt an intoxicating mix of caution, power and respect. My horse was lovely and obedient to me. He only almost flipped out once when another horse kicked him for getting too close (Meg’s slimy horse Diego), but when he reared slightly, a quick pull on the reigns and a ‘sshhh’ and a pat on the neck sorted everything out. Dismounting, the pain in my groin was outstanding and I now sympathetically understand the cowboy walk.

Back in the town, we went for a little stroll down ‘resort boulevard’ and flittered amongst the stalls and sights. We saw an eagle, owl and peacock combo that was used for tourist photos. We stumbled upon them at the end of there time outside. The little old man, dressed in brown, camera round his neck and flat cap on top started to pack them up. He had a taxi. He popped the owl and the eagle, an interesting union, in the boot and the peacock amusingly in the back. It was a strange mild mixture of shock and funny disbelief that we felt. He clearly liked his birds by the way he minded the peacocks tale and head but it still seemed unfair treatment of such fine creatures. As he drove away we chuckled at the silhouette of the peacock gazing in the staccato, avian, darty-head way out of the taxi window. One wonders what the passers-by thought…or what the peacock thought. And let’s spare a thought for our winged friends in the boot.

 

27^th – Sunday – Homecoming

Took the train home after buying unhealthy supplies in town.

 

So in a large nutshell, that was the Caucus trip. I pray thanks, if you’ve made it this far, for your patience in reading and hope you located yourself a faint morsel of interest.