In order to somehow earn money for food, Oleg offered to go to the station - unload the wagons. But not here - it was ("Here you have Asia, not Siberia," - correctly said "Siply"). Arriving at the station, we saw a brigade of quick homeless people unloading a car with meat carcasses. Approaching their Russian "brigadier", I asked how much the car was worth and offered its services to the loader. He reacted very sharply: "10 rubles for the car, but you guys, you better get out of here, for good - great! We do not need competition. Go to the second platform, where today the fish is unloaded, but only the prices are very low - only 4 rubles per car. " But even for such money, for these unfortunate 4 rubles, us and from there resolutely pogled the local, threatening to pound well.
There is nothing to do - there was only one way out - it is, after all, to try to find our only Savior Raphael. And again we went to the house we already knew, cherishing the secret hope with the help of the Tartar to get to our native Siberia, after all. We walked along the avenue dotted with white petals from cherry blossoms and apricot trees (all the same it is amazing - in March, in an instant, as if by magic, to move from the cold Siberian winter to the warm Asian spring, almost Siberian summer!), When Saw a young Uzbek with a knife sticking out of his belly. Uzbek with a suffering view was directed directly to us. In the head immediately a scary legal reality about the detention on suspicion of the murder of a local resident of two incomprehensible "chalcedons" appeared, it is not known why and to whom the money arrived to Uzbekistan without money. We, frightened by such a prospect that there is spirit, "hurled" through the avenue from the wounded man into the Uzbek stomach, periodically looking around and horrified to see that he, as before, is running after us. This time, fate was more favorable to us - our kind genius Rafael was at home. "Guys, how lucky you are! After all, today we all gathered for two days to go to the dacha! "With great sympathy, Rafael listened to our sad story of an unsuccessful voyage to Samarkand (we concealed only the shameful fact of the game of cards, saying that there was an ordinary theft in the train), but especially pitifully and Gently looked at us by his 18-year-old daughter Dinara - a charming Tatar woman, looking at which I suddenly clearly understood that I had to "get my legs off faster", otherwise I risk staying in Tashkent forever!
Raf without excessive questions allocated to us from the family budget 100 rubles, which we will send him by mail immediately upon arrival in Barnaul; We bought two tickets for the train to the "capital of the world", and another huge fragrant melon "Torpedo" - for what, I will say below.
The Tashkent melon "Torpeda" was intended for one wonderful, very talented tailor - Oleg's distant relative on the maternal line - a huge two-meter-tall Jew with magnificent Persian eyes and inordinately large Morfan hands, with which he cut a thick double-layer cloth with tailor's scissors easily, like cardboard paper. And Oleg's idea was the following - he started after awarding the diplomas "a campaign of the century" - rafting along the Peschanaya River on a catamaran consisting of two nacelles filled with inflated condoms. It was Korobkov's know-how; It, simply brilliant, engineering thought - the gondons performed the role of compartments in a submarine, making the catamaran practically unsinkable. When we explained this idea of the rafting to the tailor, he laughed for a long time, and then suddenly became gloomy and said, already in a sad tone: "Guys, I will not take this job - I do not want to take sin into my soul. After all, you will drown in this terrible mountain river! How can I look after Auntie Lena (Oleg's mother) in all eyes?! "Here Oleg showed all his gift of eloquence, convincing him, nevertheless, to sew to us from a strong canvas fabric these two coveted gondolas. To give greater strength to this unreliable, from his point of view, design, the tailor folded and stitched the tarpaulin in two layers (then, on the river, we often remember the kind word of this remarkable man who, for his titanic work, except melon, We are not a penny).
June 25, 1986, the second day after the delivery of university diplomas, our "expedition" started.
The Sandy River of the third category of difficulty for the alloy we chose, of course, is not accidental. The fact is that on this river there is everything that makes up the "blue" dream of a real waterman: in the upper Peschanaya you can completely relax in the absence of rapids of any complexity category and enjoy the "mattress" tourist, sweeping with great speed and laying bends, like A real racer, on a winding, rushing down river route.
But there is also a special place, which attracts even the real "water leopards" (it is customary to call experienced pilots in the tourist world), hungry for another portion of adrenaline. It is a 23 km canyon - a canyon near the village of Solonovka, at the very bottom of Peschanaya, whose banks are dotted with numerous sad crosses erected here in memory of the water workers who gave their soul to God in this picturesque place. Arriving with their huge "trunks" - easel backpacks (the author - only in the backpacks on the aluminum frame can accommodate a large water tourist equipment) in Biysk, we were met there by the permanent director of the tourist center
