Bury My Heart In Bilibino

My First Strange Journey

Wed. 6th. November 1996: Day #1
My first two months in Moscow were relatively peaceful and without incident. Apart from President Boris Yeltsin’s heart problems, nothing much had happened as far as international news was concerned. I’d had plenty of time to settle into a cozy, comfortable expat lifestyle; drinking and womanising with the lads on Friday night’s BNO (Boy’s Night Out) had quickly become a well-entrenched tradition. I’d managed to figure out how to drive to one of the western supermarkets, so gathering food and beer was no longer a problem. And I’d even acquired a beautiful ‘pillow dictionary’ so I was learning more about the real Russia. Life was good. Little did I know that this was just the proverbial calm before the storm.

The reds and browns of autumn were soon replaced by winter’s white blanket. On a quiet November afternoon, my tranquil routine was shattered; I was given my first real assignment. On a cold Wednesday afternoon at four pm, the call came through; go east young man, accompanied by your two journalists, Stefan Blowfart (Belgian), and Geert Beetrootkamp (Dutchman) on an expedition to Russia’s far east, to Bilibino, a one reindeer town in Chukotka, on the remote far eastern tip of Siberia, home to the ancient and mystic Chukchi tribes, Russia’s indigenous Eskimo people. Make this epic journey to shoot footage for a TV documentary on the deepening economic, political and social problems of this forbidding, forgotten Soviet outpost.

As there is only one flight a week, we hit the road within the hour. I frantically threw my Berghaus cold weather gear, Canadian snowboots and toothbrush into an overnight bag, and packed only the essential camera equipment so we could travel as light as possible.

We were driven in a mad rush through the chaotic rush-hour traffic to Vnukovo, one of Moscow’s smaller domestic airports. We made a brief stop on the way, so that Stefan could dive into a bank and exchange a few thousand US dollars for roubles, becoming an instant millionaire. This is the land of cash, plastic is not accepted or understood in the wild frontier that we’re plunging headlong into; on such trips the journalists must carry cash in dollars and roubles to pay for everything. Guess that made us his bodyguards.

It had taken me several attempts to remove all the metal objects from my pockets before successfully passing through the metal detector. Even though I kept showing the stern-looking woman that it was my belt buckle that was setting off the alarm, she insisted I go through all my pockets. By 1845 we made it onto the tarmac, where we huddled with the other passengers in the drizzling rain at the bottom of the stairs to the plane. As we stood there getting soaked, I wondered why they kept us waiting. But one does not ask why in Russia. Once onboard, we had to rush and grab the nearest empty seats – there’s no such thing as reserved seats on Russian airlines, even though we had seat-numbered tickets – it’s a mad scramble to claim your seat!

By 1940 we were airborne to the melodic strains of Glenn Miller, which put everyone in the mood. We were on a privatised Aeroflot service, so we were served with very basic food and complimentary drinks throughout the flight.

At 2320 we landed at Igarka, deep in central northern Siberia for a refuelling stop. This was a very surreal experience; in the middle of the night we were herded from the warmth and relative comfort of our seats onto the frigid -30C tarmac! I was curious about how it would feel. As I descended the stairs to the tarmac, it was like walking into a butcher’s cold room and then I noticed a strange sensation in my nostrils – I couldn’t inhale the frigid air through my mouth; my lungs literally froze. I realised that this weird feeling was the mucus lining of my nose freezing. Of course I was experiencing something that is familiar to anyone who is used to such conditions, and in fact, I later learned this is the body’s thermometer by which one judges temperatures – if you get that tickling, crisp feeling in the nose then you know it’s below -15°C.

We shuffled through the clouds of condensation billowing from our noses into the building that serves as Igarka’s transit lounge; a cramped, old building with worn seats and smelly, filthy squat toilets (how women cope with such primitive loos in all their coats and layers is beyond me). No kiosk, no coffee, no snacks, no nothing. We just sat around and stared at each other. Geert joined two guys nearby and began chatting – Stefan and I surmised that he had somehow spotted the deputy directors of Bilibino’s nuclear power station and one of the goldmines. This contact was to prove very fortuitous later on.

By 0100 we were in the air again, bound for the eastern Siberian border town of Pevek. I managed some kind of tortured sleep in the cramped seat, and as the sun came flooding through the windows at 0300 I realised we had flown several hours into the future and caught up with the dawn of the 6th. of November. We were awakened for landing at 0420, and soon we found ourselves standing around the arrival hall, waiting to retrieve our bags and obtain the necessary permissions for us to continue onto Bilibino, which is closed to most foreigners. My TV camera was kept with me at all times as hand luggage, plus the loaded down camera bag, so that if our bags were lost, we could still shoot.

But we were screwed by the system that is still firmly entrenched since Soviet times. Because we were in a border zone, all foreigners (especially journalists) are required to be registered and the authorities require all sorts of information on what we were doing there and where we were likely to be going etc. Not necessarily to prevent us from going anywhere or covering any aspect of the local situation, but more as a habitual policy of recording all traveller’s movements, keeping tabs on our whereabouts etc. And, although we had all the necessary documents and permission, the border guards at the airport were completely unprepared; they had no idea how to process us – even though we weren’t the first foreigners to travel into the area, these guys had never dealt with all this red tape before. So we waited.

Geert kept talking and filling in form after form. The guards had to ring up their head office to try and figure out what they were supposed to do. Stefan enquired about the next leg, our flight to Bilibino. I stood around guarding our hand luggage. Then the directors Geert had been chatting to at Igarka offered us a free ride on their plane that was due to takeoff any minute!

Thankfully Stefan managed to grab our bags, and Geert told the guards that we couldn’t wait any longer – he grabbed our passports, visas and accreditations and we literally sprinted through the security check to the plane – an old prop-driven job, and this throbbing, droning old clunker carried us high into the night air. At this point the whole journey had the definite smell of an Indiana Jones adventure. The plane was freezing inside, our breath billowing out of our mouths, I sat there with my leather Russian helicopter pilot helmet on, it was a gift from a Russian friend years ago and it was very warm. When our pilot came onboard, he gave me a funny look. A few people laughed and then the joke became obvious. The pilot though that I was a fellow pilot but what was I doing sitting with the passengers? Eventually the heating came on and we could remove our hats, coats and gloves and relax. The passengers brought out their vodka and snacks as there was no inflight meals on this leg.

By now it was 1600 local time as dusk fell on the 7th. but by our body clocks it was 0700 on the same day, but without much sleep. I was losing track of time altogether, it was just too confusing. Just over an hour later we touched down in the dark again – I thought we had arrived at our destination and prepared to disembark, but we had touched down on a landing strip Somewhere In The Middle Of Nowhere to refuel. It was actually Cape Shmidt Airport, a former military airbase in Chukotka on the northern coast a million miles from Nowhere.

The pilot came through with a fistful of roubles – cash for the refuelling. Pilots on these remote runs sometimes get robbed because it’s well known they have to carry cash to pay for their fuel. Outside it was blowing a blizzard, and I could feel the plane being buffeted by a blistering arctic gale as the groundcrew struggled to attach the fuel hoses to the engines in the -25°C, but with the added wind-chill factor it would more likely be -45°C! Our pilot came over and showed them how to connect the fuel hose properly. Talk about a tough job! An hour or so later we were airborne yet again.

Another hour and a half passed and we finally touched down at Keperveem, a tiny airport town about twenty klicks from Bilibino. All that I wanted now was a nice hot cuppa tea and sleep, but we were separated from our hotel beds by a half hour drive. About twenty of us crammed ourselves into a small bus with our bags and endured the bumpy ride through the frigid night into Bilibino.

By 1200 our time (1900 local) we finally checked into the Northern Hotel, the only hotel in town. Although my single room was tiny, messy and without a bathroom, I was looking forward to bed, although now too jet-lagged to sleep.

After complaining about the lack of bed linen, the concerned lady night manager moved me to a ‘lux’ room on the floor above – it was exactly the same, but cleaner and with a bathroom and plenty of tarrakani (Russian for cockroaches) to keep me company – a word that was to become inextricably linked with this voyage into the outer limits.

Russia is so vast that it took fifteen hours flying time from Moscow, across nine time zones; we gained one day, and ended up one hour ahead of Australia! Moscow is eight hours behind Australia.

We dumped our bags but Stefan and Geert couldn’t make a call from their briefcase satellite phone. They couldn’t orient the microwave transmitter with the satellite. We headed down the street to the only restaurant in town, the aptly named Polar Restaurant and had dinner, which consisted of vodka (we had to wait while their warm beer cooled outside in Nature’s Fridge, a term that Stefan coined for leaving food outside to freeze) pomidori (tomatoes) salad and pelmeni, a kind of tasty Siberian ravioli. It was an odd place to say the least – a sort of cross between a café and a disco, with a huge Hawaiian sunset poster dominating the back wall; although the place was almost empty, they insisted on playing awful disco music very loud. Average cost of our meals there was 70, 000 rubles each (US$13). Then at last, Mr. Sandman came calling… zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

8th. Nov. Day #2 (we lost a whole day travelling so far east!):

0800 – a nice hot shower. You quickly learn to appreciate small mercies here, especially after hearing horror stories of hotels without hot water. Since room service or meals in the hotel itself is an alien concept here, our breakfast consisted of coffee, tea and Pigface on bread (our jargon for corned beef, a term coined by the previous cameraman on such trips with Stefan) with Louisiana hot pepper sauce (my contribution) in Stefan and Geert’s room (which became known in the mornings as the Café Blowfart and in the evenings as Blowfart’s Bar – a play on Stefan’s real surname), and Stefan introduced us to the weird Belgium tradition of chocolate sandwiches – literally a slab of chocolate between a folded slice of dry bread.

Then Irina turned up; she was a nice middle aged lady who was our contact in the local administration. She organised our young driver, Volodya, a familiar form of Vladimir, and soon we were being driven around the town shooting general street scenes in the relatively warm temperature of -7°C. Actually the driver’s name was a source of amusement because the Belgians and the Dutch both have their own drivers in Moscow and both of them are called Volodya. Stefan remarked that the name determines the vocation.

Lunch at 1400 at the Polar restaurant again, tasted my first real borscht (a yummy cabbage and potato soup) and lots of juice made from local berries; one quickly becomes dehydrated in the dry air and warm clothing. The afternoon was taken up with shooting an interview at the local natural history museum with a nice chubby Chukchi woman named Larissa, the spokeswoman for the small peoples (the Eskimo tribes). I took shots of the exhibits, including a huge mammoth skull, while Stefan was cornered by several middle aged women desperate to tell him their life stories.

Back to the hotel for a much needed cuppa. Stefan and Geert still couldn’t get the satphone to work, so we trudged around the corner to the local post office and had to book a call to Moscow. We are so far off the beaten track here that there is no area code; that’s remote. Consequently most people do not have phones and must make their calls from one of the four booths in the PO, shouting down the line while everyone else listens in. As we waited for our call to come through, we giggled at this guy who was screaming down the phone to his mate, but everyone else seemed not to notice.

A quick beer in Blowfart’s Bar (because the restaurant doesn’t open until 8pm) and then dinner. Tonight it was the usual tomato salad, fruit juice and kebabs – very nice, it certainly hit the spot. Working outside in these arctic conditions certainly gives one a healthy appetite.

Back to the hotel and crashed, but woke at 3am due to jet-lag, so I decided to run a bath, but – no plug! Aha! The lid of the sweets container we were given on the plane fits perfectly! And yes, there was hot water! But the bath filled up with brown water and all this black sediment stuff, is it coming from me? No it’s in the water. Probably just minerals. Oh well, I still had a good soak as I listened to Radio Australia (Glenn Miller again) on my portable short wave radio as the roaches scuttled around the bath rim. I think I’ll give them names. After growing up down under, one gets used to living with insects very quickly. Even Russian ones. Somehow they made me feel at home, although these were only small buggers compared to the big black flying bastards we get in Queensland. Anyway I’m rambling, but I did find out that it was possible to shave with my eyes closed without cutting myself.

9th. Nov. Day #3:

Breakfast in Café Blowfart. This morning I had the sachet of marmalade I had saved from Aeroflot, pigface on bread with hot sauce, and tea.

We waited downstairs in the sparse room that serves as the hotel lobby but which has the decor of a parking garage, for the Governor of the region, who just happened to be staying at the same hotel – even though his body guard denied he was here earlier. He’s in town for some function or other. Geert tried to intercept him as he came through with his entourage of bodyguards and hangers-on, but he very arrogantly waved him aside and refused to give us the time of day. He said we should have interviewed him yesterday, but we were out filming when the message was left for us and therefore couldn’t make the time he’d set. We came to the inescapable conclusion that he is a small man overblown with his own self importance, as Dirty Harry would say, “A legend in his own mind.”

So we moved on and interviewed a reluctant ecology inspector about the environmental problems affecting the region. The Russians are not known for preserving the ecology when there’s gold or oil or diamonds to be mined. In this case they’ve taken to using large amounts of cyanide to extract the gold, a sure recipe for disaster for the flora and fauna. But although this guy was nervous about going on record, we convinced him it was the best way to get the message across to the rest of the world. He hadn’t been paid for five months, a story that was becoming all too familiar.

Then we drove to a farm on the outskirts of town where a very enterprising farmer has made a living out of his produce, all the more remarkable when you consider the harshness of the climate here. I filmed him watering his pomidori in his greenhouses, and in his very smelly pigsties surrounded by snorting porkers and squealing piglets. The things one has to do for this job.

Because of the extreme variations of temperature between inside and outside in these situations, we had to wait for a few minutes each time we came indoors to film; because the camera is ice cold, its lens elements completely fog up with condensation. After we interviewed the farmer, he very hospitably invited us in for a lovely lunch. I hadn’t realised how hungry and thirsty I was until I had scoffed a plate of tasty meatballs, a sort of pickled cabbage salad and yummy green pickled pomidori, home made bread (like Mum used to make) and four cups of tea!

I shot more footage around the farm, then at 1600 we drove to a lookout overlooking the town and shot some views of the nuclear power station that was built to supply power to this region, but the expansion has reversed and the station is only running at 20% output. The people are leaving the area in droves as the Russian government is not ploughing any of the profits from the goldmines back into the area.

Another bizarre fact; the phone to the nuclear station has been cut because they can’t afford to pay their bill. Yet another sign that the local infrastructure is collapsing.

While at the lookout we filmed a glorious sunset. Because of the sharp angle at which the sun sets, it takes longer than normal to actually set, and twilight lasts for well over an hour.

Mr. Antlers

On the way back to the hotel, Volodya stopped off and presented Stefan with a magnificent set of reindeer antlers still attached to the animal’s skull and upper jawbone! This gift soon acquired a personality of its own and was dubbed ‘Mr. Antlers’ by me – I sensed it had mystical Chukchi powers and would appear in Stefan’s and Geert’s dreams as it lay in the corner staring at them during the night – so they put it in the bathroom because it was stinking up the room. We speculated that Geert would look good if he arranged the Persian rug as a tent and danced around Mr. Antlers. Well, you had to be there. There is a certain level of madness on these trips. It helps one cope with the bureaucracy, the endless waiting and the weird locals.

As we were quietly quaffing cold ale back in Blowfart’s Bar, things became very weird in a Twin Peaks way (maybe it was the effect of Mr. Antlers?); first one of the local policemen arrived on crutches to politely officially register us in the area. He spent ages meticulously filling in forms and copying details from our passports, visas and accreditations, then presented us with our documentation that gave us permission to stay in the area for the next 3 months. We all looked at each other as if to say “No way!”

After he hobbled out, we sat around chatting and next thing I knew we had all drifted off into deep sleep. Then a very strange thing happened, at least I think it did. Two hours later we were rudely awakened by an old man who marched into the room led by his shaggy, very smelly dog – he (not the dog) barked in Russian “Is this room 324?”

Stefan just stared at him in a glazed dreamlike way and replied “No … ?” and the chap promptly did an about face and marched out. Stefan looked at me (I thought I was hallucinating as the whole scene had a peculiar dreamlike quality to it) and shouted after him “And take your smelly dog with you!” There was a pregnant pause as the three of us just looked at each other and burst out laughing.

By 2045 we were having dinner at our usual place, still debating who would have the guts to try the ‘meat surprise’ – we decided to leave it until the last night. The staff still hadn’t worked out that we travellers from far off liked our beer ice cold, so again we had to wait, but this time we put in a request for them to chill beer now for tomorrow.

As we ate our pomidori salad and plov, a tasty rice and chicken dish, we noticed a strange old moustachioed man sitting alone at the next table. He took one and a half hours to eat his salad, seeming to prefer to stare at it as if he were absorbing it by osmosis. Every few minutes someone would turn up the crap music to a deafening level, and the strange man would jump up and start shuffling around the dance floor in what we decided was a Chukchi dance, but which was probably in all reality the pathetic gyrations of an alco who thought he was Fred Astaire. Anyway it was entertainment of a kind, and for this we were grateful. Where is David Lynch? He must be hiding nearby as I have a distinct feeling we’ve wandered onto his set by mistake. I’ll bet there’s a dwarf waiter lurking around here somewhere…

The music got to me eventually, and I complained in Russian with Stefan’s expert tutelage. The volume dropped, and on came The House Of The Rising Sun followed by Hotel California – all very appropriate we agreed.

10th. Nov. Day #4:

0830 breakfast at café Blowfart’s as usual, but we’re becoming very creative. To our pigface and hot sauce on dry bread we added frankfurts ‘cooked’ by running them under the hot water tap, slices of fresh green peppers given to us by the farmer and handfuls of pickled cabbage salad with our tea. Yum! Normally I never have much of an appetite in the mornings, but working in these arctic conditions makes me ravenous.

 

A particularly dense haze lay over the town, it was probably -30. At that point, no matter how warmly you’re dressed, the cold eats through everything, numbing even your thoughts. In just a few minutes outside, all your extremities have lost all feeling. The dogs just lie there balled up with their noses tucked into their bellies.

Today Geert will try again to find a helicopter that will ferry us inland across the tundra to one of the Chukchi villages where we hope to shoot footage of them living in their traditional ways. We only have a budget of a thousand dollars for the trip, but the cheapest we can find is two thousand. The pilots know if we really want to go, we’ll pay. Such is the lessons they’ve learnt from dealing with the outside world. They know how to exploit their monopoly here. But so far, no luck. We were looking forward to the chopper flight into the frozen wastes of the tundra, but it just isn’t meant to be.

While waiting for Geert, I filmed some dogs howling outside the post office.

Then, as I waited with the gear in the lobby, a jubilant but very pissed bloke began babbling to me in Russian and waving his arms around like I was his best friend. Indeed once he found out I was from Australia I was instantly his best friend! Seems he’d never met an Aussie before. Stefan returned just in time to translate; this guy was a plastered helicopter pilot with some very definite views on the expansion of NATO. When I said that Australia wasn’t part of NATO, he just went on and on about how we were not neutral because we had taken part in the Gulf War, and at that point Stefan dragged me away. I tried unsuccessfully to appeal to Stefan’s sense of adventure, to convince him that here was potentially a golden opportunity – we could just pour some black coffee into this nut and he would probably fly us deep into the tundra for free! But Stefan didn’t see it that way – his keen sense of self-preservation was on red alert – the idea of us three intrepid adventurers hurtling into the icy wastes with a drunken Russki chopper pilot was definitely a suicide mission! Maybe he was right, but I would have given it a go.

Anyway two minutes later the pilot was back again, and he handed me 100,000 rubles as a gift! (about US$18.50) Stefan said he was giving me the money as a token of friendship and that if he was ever down under, I should look after him. OK I replied, and off he staggered.

Stefan looked at me aghast. “I don’t believe what I’ve just seen! You’re the first person who’s made a profit out of travelling in Russia!” he exclaimed, “A complete stranger has just given you the equivalent of about two week’s salary! Amazing!”

“Happens all the time.”

No sooner had we began to shoot more street shots, when another drunk wandered up and began happily babbling to me like I was his best buddy. And, as Stefan and Geert were laughing at this, I tried to move the tripod but the drunk thought he had disturbed me and kept forcing the tripod back to where I had just been filming. Jesus! How do I attract them? Then I was informed that today was Militsa Day, a special holiday for all the police, maybe that had something to do with it, I don’t know. Each profession has its own holiday here, which as far as I can make out, is just an excuse to get pissed. Speaking of which, the Polar was closed for lunch, so we dined at Blowfart’s Bar.

Afterwards, we shot street interviews or vox pops (TV jargon for vox populi, the voice of the people) in the main street in the crisp, sunny, biting -25°C afternoon air. While I was filming, a playful dog collided with my tripod. Packs of dogs roam the streets here, including beautiful husky/white wolf types because the departing population have left them behind.

Numerous abandoned apartment blocks stand in

mute testimony to Bilibino’s dwindling population.

Later, I shot Geert’s stand-up in front of an abandoned building as he was talking about the flood of people leaving the area. in the freezing conditions. He kept stopping because of sound disturbances; every so often a vehicle would roar by, or someone would walked past and their footsteps made a loud crunching and squeaking that was audible through his microphone. Sometimes the cloud of steam billowing from his mouth would completely engulf his face and we’d both collapse in hysterics. The worst scenario for ituations where the journalist is trying to sound serious is an attack of the giggles.

Because I was wearing my leather fur-lined Russian pilot’s helmet, Geert kept thinking how silly I looked in it and bursting out laughing half way through his standup, which set me sniggering while we were recording, and so what would normally take five or ten minutes turned into a half hour marathon with over thirty takes in the frigid -30° C air.

Eventually we got it in the can and struggled back to Bloomfart’s Bar for a welcome cuppa and chocolate. Then a nice lady from the local press turned up to interview us for a change. Not much happens here so a foreign TV crew was big news.

Stefan and I went for a walk and bought champanska and postcards. As we toasted the weirdness and the relative smoothness of the shoot so far, we wrote out our postcards, intending to send them as an experiment to see if:

(A) they are actually delivered.

(B) how long that will take.

I was betting that mine wouldn’t reach Australia and the UK before Xmas!

We had a brief visit from the deputy head of the nuclear power station; it seems he still needs to get official permission from Moscow before we can film inside. How unusual.

Off we trudged to the Polar for the usual feast. Tonight, as the strange dancing man cavorted round the floor with his imaginary partner, Stefan risked food poisoning by trying the meat surprise, which turned out to be chicken we suspected. Maybe it was dog, who knows? I was getting used to this weirdness. It almost seemed normal. I had brought the camera with me so I have him on tape, proof that I was not hallucinating.

11th. Nov. Day #5:

0830 – Breakfast as usual. Things are grim; it felt like day #84. I shared the last frankfurter with Geert, ate it on dry bread with hot sauce and a handful of pickled cabbage. A piece of chocolate and the last teabag. Geert is starting to lose it. He suggested we make a soup out of Mr. Antlers. How long before we start eating each other?

Today Larissa the Chukchi lady joined us and Volodya drove us through the bright dawn to the Chukchi shantytown of Keperveem near the airport. As we drove into the town, I had a cosmic experience, one I’ll never forget. Through the front windscreen I saw a flash of what at first seemed to be a rainbow – then I saw something else, something that made me shout “Stop!”

I leapt out of the still moving van, pointed my camera at the sun and began filming a miraculous sight. Geert brought the tripod and I continued to film. They thought I had gone mad. They did not see what I was seeing, and I didn’t have time to explain – this rare vision could disappear any second.

Stefan wandered up to me and pointed to the horizon “Oh look, two suns!”

I pointed to the right, “No, three!”

Then he saw it – two perfect mirror images of the sun reflected either side where the rainbow touched the horizon! Ice crystals, known as angel flakes, were falling in the -35°C air, flashing in the sunlight like tiny sparks in the air; their reflective prismatic quality combined with the low sun was the cause of this spectacularly beautiful phenomena.

I felt the presence of an ancient Chukchi entity. Or maybe it was too much alcohol and not enough sleep. Within minutes this mirage faded as though it had never existed – but I had it on tape, I had proof that we had not shared some collective hallucination. Meanwhile, the townsfolk went about their early morning routines unaware of Nature’s cosmic display. I assumed that this was a common sight at these latitudes, but Larissa said she had never seen this effect before.

Stefan interviewed some of the Chukchi elders who had turned out in their tradition garb of reindeer fur coats, pants and boots – they were oblivious to the frigid air. Although I was wearing gloves, my fingers became so painful that they ceased to work, and I had to leave the camera running while I put on my thick ski gloves. We filmed the local boarding school, and were kindly provided with a much needed lunch and several cups of tea.

We drove back to Bilibino and picked up the deputy head of the nearby gold mine, who showed us the way to the mine itself, about half an hour outside the town. By now the setting sun had tinged the mountains with a beautiful salmon pink glow, making them look like a giant’s desert of strawberry ice cream. We must have spent two hours crawling through the deafening, hot and smelly gold processing plant, scrambling up and down narrow staircases to for high angle shots of the gargantuan crushing machinery.

Back to Blowfart’s Bar for a cuppa and a much needed shower, then off to Larissa’s flat for dinner; her hubby and young son Philip came to escort us to their place only five minutes walk away through -35°C. We were treated to a lovely Chukchi meal of moose meat (just like steak), potatoes, bread, red caviar on boiled eggs, many vodka toasts, champagne, chocolates and coffee, as we watched their home videos of a visit to a former Stalinist prison camp and a Chukchi gathering of tribes celebration, which included wrestling on the snow and reindeer races. A wonderful evening, but our beds soon beckoned. We were given lovely polished crystal rock samples as gifts as we staggered out into the frigid air at midnight.

12th. Nov. Day #6:

We’ve eaten everything. We may have to make a soup out of Geert’s socks. Mr. Antlers is starting to look mighty tasty…

I shot Stefan’s standup plus some more street footage while Geert checked up on the status of flights to Moscow. The lady in the local shop where we had shot an interview yesterday came up to us in the street and presented Stefan with a beautiful stuffed owl (who became known as Mr. Who). We decided he should go to Girt, who is the bird fancier amongst us – the feathered kind that is.

We found out that yesterday’s flight south to Magadan, the nearest major city, was cancelled due to bad weather and was resheduled to take off today! We’ll have to fly to Magadan today, stay overnight and catch a plane to Moscow tomorrow. We threw our stuff together, checked out of the hotel, bid farewell to Bilibino, and beat a hasty retreat to the airport at Keperveem, half an hour away. We waited in the shack that serves as the departure lounge for the flight to be announced. And waited.

I shot some footage of the plane sitting on the snowbound tarmac. And waited. At last the flight was announced and we could buy tickets. The price of our freedom? The flight cost us 2, 300,00 rubles each! (US$426) Stefan and I went on an excursion into Keperveem to forage for food – mainly beer. I looked for the three suns again, but it was not to be repeated. Maybe I had imagined the whole thing. Eventually, after trudging through deep snow and across creaking footbridges into the deserted town for half an hour in the freezing cold, we found a shop that was open for business.

We bought chocolate bars and instant noodles, but we couldn’t find any beer. In vain I shouted “We need beer!” to the empty buildings, but the wind carried my lonely echo into the distant tundra and started the local dogs barking.

As we sipped our noodles in silence back at the airport, the kind ladies at the ticket office took pity on us poor pathetic stranded foreigners and treated us to some Russian hospitality – so it was coffee, cognac, champagne and chocolates in their office. After half an hour of this frivolity, we checked in Mr. Antlers and Mr. Who and boarded the plane at long last.

The interior was freezing until the heaters eventually warmed up. It was a dry flight, no beer, no real service as such, but we enjoyed views of the savage white wilderness as the tundra slipped away beneath us. Four hours later we touched down in Magadan, which, compared to Bilibino, was a sprawling metropolis.

We grabbed our bags and stored most of them (including Messrs Antlers and Who) at the airport, and walked to the nearby hotel with no name but which was in fact the airport hotel. Rooms were 200,000 rubles each (US$37) plus the 7000 rubles (US$1.30) local registration tax. The rooms were nice and clean, mainly due to the place being relatively new. Beers at the tiny airport bar, followed by Pilmeni at the airport café. We fell into bed at 2200ish.

13th. Nov. Day #7:

Surfaced at 9ish for breakfast in Stefan and Geert’s room. Coffee, tea, a currant bun each followed by cuppa soup, cheese and bread.

Girt and I waited for 1½ hours at the ticket office while Stefan changed some dollars into rubles. Nothing was happening. Although the flight had been announced, no tickets were being sold. Stefan had a bad feeling about this, said it reminded him of Soviet times when one would queue for hours and still not get tickets. So he checked up and found out that another flight was scheduled for the afternoon. PHEW! He managed to secure three seats for us at a cost of 1,634,000 rubles each (US$302).

Then it was beers at the café, we checked our bags and trophies in, and then hung around the huge dusty hangar that was the departure lounge. At 1400ish we took the bus to the plane and scrambled aboard to grab three seats together. Good service by pretty young stewardesses, and free cold beer made the trip a breeze.

Somehow Mr. Antlers ended up on top of some bags on a seat at the front of the plane. From where we were sitting, it looked like a bald elk was flying to Moscow. That’s how it is sometimes in Russia: priceless.

Seven hours and fifty minutes later we were back in Moscow, exactly a week since we left. I’ll never accuse Moscow of being cold again, for now I have tasted real flesh freezing way below zero cold. And ever since that trip I have always wanted to return to that remote and rather special part of Russia.

A month or so later, to my surprise, my postcard was delivered to my mother in Australia! Wonders never cease.