The Russian Century

by a slim and graceful polecat. Sometimes, it would frolic in the sun. I have yet to see anything as delightful as its grace and lightness, its joyous rushes, leaps and rolls. But one had to lay in wait patiently for such a scene and I knew few people who managed to do so. Twisting in all directions, a water snake would swim by; a curious turtle would raise its head above the water. Close to the shore, a female hedgehog would prowl for mice and snakes, followed by her litter of young, whose needles were soft and not yet steel-gray, but brownish-green. Angling teaches a person two things—the discipline of endless patience and a profound sense of living nature.

From the beginning, the city to me was stifling, crowded and unpleasant, and the family home was largely alien for reasons I will explain later. I consciously fled both. What joy it was to steal away from the walls of the dull inhospitable house; to climb into a large boat at twilight, reach mid-stream and give oneself over to the will of the mighty current, imagining that we were being carried above buried palaces and tombs of Khazar lords, full of mysteries and uncountable riches which had been concealed by a shift in the river’s channel. And on a night when the moon was full, what could be better than to be enchanted by the moon’s sorcery as it lay down across the waters, a shimmering silver road barely trembling and wavering at its edges. And what an unimagined sense of vigor would flow into my heart as the big four-cornered sail billowed tautly in the wind and the boat would race against the current driving trees, fields, houses, and belfries backward.

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But the Volga was not always indulgent or obedient. Calm and magical on a quiet night, it would become inclement and threatening when struck by a moriana. That is what we called a severe and persistent windstorm from the sea, “the broad Caspian.” It blew from the south, but it was no southern breeze. It would make the enraged Volga rear up and whip its waves into whitecaps. Its raging was no joke. It would rip apart rafts of logs coming down from the Kama River and scatter the heavy timber like matchsticks. The steam ferries which ran between the high and low banks of the river, would not dare to venture out into the storm and would hunker down wherever they could when caught by the weather in the hope that the moriana would cease by nightfall and they could take up their whistling and huffing the next morning. Even the passenger steamers, wary of being smashed against piers, would seek a sheltered spot in the river and wait out the storm on all anchors.

Once two playmates and I almost drowned when caught by a moriana on the “other side” where our fishing passion had taken us. It seemed that my buddies in all our exploits were always younger than myself. I recruited them, was their leader, and they depended on me as their senior. At that time I was a bit shy of ten; one of them was nine and the other eight. A moriana sometimes struck unexpectedly, with a scant warning to the experienced eye that was a dark gray strip along the water to the south. I noticed it in time and we rowed ashore, having decided to get home on the steam ferry. But the ferry was not running at all that day. We were out of luck. The moriana stormed with all its might. Suppressing our disappointment, we decided to wait it out. And then, as if in spite, out of the undergrowth there came toward our beached boat four professional Volga fishermen. They were huge men and not cowed by the storm, having seen its like before. They were preparing to cross the river under canvas sail, the strength of which they trusted completely.

One of the men, noticing our envious glances, suddenly said, “Hey, lads, come with us. We’ll tow you.” He may have been half-joking, but we immediately seized the opportunity with joy. The oldest of the fishermen, clearly displeased, grumbled something to his mates. They seemed to pause, but the offer had been made and accepted. Their pride and self-confidence along with the Russian trust in the blind luck of “what if?” kept them from backing out. Once agreed, it was a done deal. A rope from our prow was tied to their stern and the sail was unfurled. Then everything followed with lightning speed. The sail billowed forward, and we took off. The shore quickly receded. We were in a happy delirium when suddenly a thunderclap resounded right over our heads. The trusted sail had split right in half, punished by the wind and the extra load. Suddenly the men’s faces darkened. They quickly glanced at each other, and one of them clearing his throat said: “Well, lads, we’ll have to take to the oars to get out of this one, but you had better go back, that shore

Viktor Chernov, Idylls on the Volga

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is nearer.” The rope was thrown back to us and we were left at the mercy of the raging waves.

I knew that we should not row back in a direct line because then we would be parallel to the waves and any one of them could overturn us. We had to go at an angle and slice the waves with our prow while slowly approaching the shore. I managed to explain this to my eight-year-old helmsman, but the rudder was mounted high on the boat and was useful only in calm weather. Now, every time the stern was lifted by a wave, the rudder spun uselessly in the air. Then we had to steer with the oars, and rowed with interruptions and half-effort. After all, we only had the strength of kids. The boat danced on the waves, but whether we were making progress or were being blown away by the wind, no one could tell. Shivering goose-bumps ran up and down my body. Nothing was helping, the only way out was to the bottom. I kept this thought to myself, pretending that everything was fine, but I think that the boys were not convinced by my show of courage.

Suddenly one of them, the one manning the second pair of oars, let them slip from his hands. He began to cross himself repeatedly and tell us in a breaking voice that all was lost, and that all we could do was get on our knees and pray to God. At that moment, my “helmsman” began to cry like a child and call for his mother. Aware that I was the oldest and responsible for them, I responded with some furious curse words and for some time desperately rowed for the three of us until they finally came to their senses and began to take part. I did not know how much time had gone by, but it seemed an eternity. To add to our troubles, water kept rushing in over the gunwales and had to be bailed out, but there was no one to do it. Vainly I looked around the horizon—there was no one in sight, no one was coming to help us. It was like being in a death agony.

Later we found out that my father, alarmed by my absence in such a storm, saw our misadventure with the strangers’ sailboat through his binoculars and hurriedly notified the lifeguard station. There we were spotted through a telescope and a longboat with hardy oarsmen was sent to save us. But then they noticed that we, totally unaware of it, were struggling toward a sandy spit, though at a snail’s pace. The promise of deliverance was becoming a reality. That’s how it came out. But finally when it came to jumping into the shallow water and pulling the boat ashore, I discovered that my arms hung loosely at my sides like ropes and, God help me, were totally useless. This was a reaction to what I had just lived through. Apparently for the last couple of dozen minutes I was functioning not on muscle strength, but purely on nerves which made the physically impossible possible. Later we had many other water-borne adventures. We were older, stronger, and more experienced, and when a moriana was not overly violent we would go out and test our skills in struggle

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with it. I owe much to the river, magnificent in its quiet flow and terrible in its violence. Those who were