A documentary about survival. Part II - “Process Report”

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    In a previous article, I described the essence of the project. Now we will talk about the very process of survival.

    Survival

    …All. Let's go. Survival has begun.The composition of my means of survival was as follows: a knife, a flint, a re-cord, glasses in a case, an army flask with a bowler hat, a compass, a map, and a signal torch to scare away a bear. Immediately there was an ambiguous feeling of almost absolute freedom. It pleased and scared at the same time. From this, an incomprehensible emptiness arose in my head. There are no holistic thoughts, only scraps. I and nature, one on one, and there is nothing more. On the first day, I still did not quite understand what was happening and what was threatening me. I did not know what to think about, what to concentrate on. I tried to enjoy the beauty of nature and rejoice that I am here in Kamchatka - in this amazing and beautiful land. In the evening, I gathered firewood all night to keep the fire going until morning. Spent the night under the trunk of a fallen tree, slightly covering itself from the wind with its fragments. The first night was especially disturbing. I shuddered at every rustle, everywhere I could see bears. He slept quite poorly, woke up from the cold, when the bonfire burned out, he had to light a fire again. Feet froze. In the morning, Ivan tea was brewed and went on.
    The inner void was killing me, and I decided to choose a closer target for myself than the end point of the route. Survival is not one big task, it is a lot of small tasks and steps. According to the plan, I had to go a certain route, this imitated a situation when a person was lost somewhere far in the mountains. There were several lakes near my path, and I decided to get to one of them as soon as possible in order to try to fish in it and to hunt other animals on the shores. Near large masses of water there is always more life than on the slopes of the mountains.

    Second day
    The whole next day we walked and almost did not shoot. By evening, we went to the house. In the case of real survival, I would naturally spend the night in it and take advantage of what I found in it, but the concept of the film did not provide for such bonuses. I went to build a shelter.

    Day three
    The next day I got up late. Morning has become my favorite time of day. During the night I was exhausted from intermittent sleep, uncomfortable flooring, cold and fears. And in the morning, when the sun came out, it became warm and there was no need to follow the fire, I could afford to sleep a little without stress. The first thing I saw upon awakening was Serge with a camera. I realized that it’s been a long time and started to get up. In addition to Seryoga, I did not see anyone this morning, I decided that they linger in the house and then catch up with us.
    It was the third day. In the body, due to hunger, transients began, I did not think well and just walked on autopilot, dimly remembering the planned route. My head was completely empty. I was annoyed by the slow speed of our movement. Sergey’s huge backpack did not allow him to go fast, especially since we often stopped to shoot passages. For me it was unusual, I was in a hurry all the time. Opening wonderful views created an internal contrast to haste and irritability. Everything is mixed up.
    Toward noon, I felt completely uncomfortable. I wanted to fall and fall asleep. Rational thinking and rational activity during this period of time were completely absent, and this resulted in an incorrectly adopted important decision. A small ascent began (before that we were walking along a horizontal valley) and I mistook it for a key hill on the map, where I need to turn to the lake. This was a critical moment. I turned the wrong way, but I didn’t know it yet.
    We climbed quite high. Three of our companions were still not visible, I tried not to think about this problem, although deep down I understood that wherever they are now, they will not find us here. It would be logical to discuss this point, but it was impossible to communicate. We all walked and walked up. I began to despair, but struggled with this state of thoughts that, by and large, I do not care where to survive. But until the end to free consciousness did not give responsibility to the project. Without noticing it, we begin to communicate relatively much.
    Sergey told me that in reality our “friends” are not far behind, but left much earlier than us and informed that they would be on the pass. The experienced hiker Yura was very saddened by the pace of our movement, and the three of them (Ivan, Sergey and Yura) decided to go ahead to keep up with the schedule and collect photo material. “What nonsense ?!” I thought. After all, it is obvious that having split up in an unfamiliar area, then gathering together is unrealistic. For a long time I could not believe in such stupidity on the part of an experienced Kamchadal and an experienced tourist. All this greatly spoiled my mood, I was very disappointed in these people. And from that moment I thought of them as those who threw their friends in difficult times. Now we survived together alone, with the only difference being that Sergey had food, a sleeping bag, but at the same time 41 kilograms in a backpack.
    Mixed and contrasting feelings were at this time. Everything was not so bad, but a lot of things worried me. This is a difficult condition when you cannot completely indulge in one mood, so you had to make strong internal efforts to maintain yourself in stability.

    Day four
    Hard night again. The firewood on the shore was raw, and a lot of effort had to be made to light a warm bonfire. Waking up at night from the cold, I spent about forty minutes on the restoration of the fire. By the end of the night, I didn’t even have the strength to blow on the embers. I could not wait in the morning to sleep a little without stress. But even here I could not calm down, constantly in a hurry and could not relax - I wanted to get to the lake as soon as possible, and therefore I constantly rushed myself.
    The place where we spent the night turned out to be a kind of trap. Physically, Sergei could not walk along the slope where I was walking. A huge backpack shifted the center of gravity and Sergey simply slipped off the slope, even if he crawled on all fours. And he periodically fell into a trap from the elfin - a backpack with a tripod stuck across branches, and he had to take off his whole burden and drag everything in parts. These 400 meters of trajectory and 300 meters of climb took us about 4 hours. At the same time, through force we forced ourselves to periodically shoot. I was again tormented by mood swings. Our pace depressed me greatly, circumstances pressed me, but looking at the surrounding beauty, I was delighted and rejoiced. Beauty saved me.
    Before going to the ridge, Sergey stepped forward to take my first impressions. And always, before a new view opens up for me, I waited for Serega to turn the camera around to take fresh and lively emotions. We went over the ridge. There was no lake behind him. I already understood my mistake in navigation and knew the necessary direction. I didn’t want to go down and look for the road, because planned to go to the coveted lake on top. Moreover, here, above, at an altitude of more than 1000 meters, the views were simply amazing. We went to the next lap, after which I, as before, hoped to see the lake.
    The Bucking Volcano was a good guide. I determined my location using the compass. Everything said that behind that visible shelter, the lake should definitely be visible. These thoughts were very encouraging to me, I was in a hurry, annoyed at our pace, really wanted to look behind the crest. And what was my disappointment when there was no lake behind the next shelving. Gradually, thoughts came about the inadequacy of the map, because I did not find relief forms corresponding to reality on it. I no longer knew whom to believe - my feelings or my card.
    The next log-off is also nothing. The contrasts became stronger: on the one hand, I did not see my goal, but the re-opening views were so pleasing to the eye that I forgot about many problems. It was the fourth day. It was already getting dark, it was time to go to bed. It was decided to storm the next log-off tomorrow. From far away we determine the place for spending the night. And then ... Bear! It goes to itself like a race where we planned to spend the night, goes into the distance. But that did not change our plans. Sunset caught us during the bivouac work. It was probably the most beautiful sunset for the whole trip. Around - sharp, contrasting cliffs, a cloudless sky of amazing color, the Bakening volcano, illuminated by the setting sun - I left all business, just stood and admired the sunset. I have not had such a good mood for a long time.
    The initially seemingly unsuitable place for an overnight stay turned out to be the best sleepover of all. Dry fires flared up quickly, there were many cones nearby that I baked in coals. From flat stones I built reflectors around the fire - it was much warmer from this. And before going to bed he put a heated stone in his feet, it was very pleasant to feel the warmth on the feet, which all the time froze on previous and subsequent nights. The morning was so beautiful that I had almost no thoughts. They were not needed. I kind of became part of all this. It was dissolved in nature. All the difficulties on the way to this place paid off more than sunset and dawn. I was so charged with current beauty that I soared and was in a fighting state of mind - to move on, forward, towards the goal!

    Fifth day
    Morning. We got up. Let's go. Behind the next postpone - nothing. No problem. I already get used to it. A much bigger problem was that the slope became so steep and loose that it was not possible to traverse it. Sorry, but you have to start the descent. And it was more difficult for us than the climb. Especially hard descent was given to the overloaded Serge. Sometimes he simply could not walk and glided along the grass of the slopes. The gorge around us was getting steeper. It was already starting to get dark, and in a day we went quite a bit. In the foreseeable space there was not a single suitable place to sleep, at least more or less gentle. There is nothing to do - we decide to spend the night on a slope in a small area of ​​the forest. As you have to.
    A terrible place - a steep slope, an irrational forest around. But I already began to notice such a feature: at first everything around was so inhospitable, the same and alien, but suddenly I chose a place, put things next to it - and it immediately became its own, native and comfortable. At night, in short periods of sleep, I even had time to dream. Oddly enough, I did not dream of food or a warm night, these were abstractions with a vague meaning.

    Sixth day
    In the morning we continued the descent. Streams, stones, impenetrable thickets - all this is already the norm. Due to the high vegetation, it is difficult to navigate, no landmarks are visible. I'm nervous. I begin to demand from Seryoga to look at the GPS whether we are going right. He refuses. I frantically look at the map every 2 minutes and do not let go of the compass. I don’t know who to believe. Believe yourself, believe the map.
    Suddenly we went on the trail. Her direction suited me, started walking along it and completely relaxed. There were a lot of big blueberries along the way. Hunger for a long time did not bother me, I ate berries only because I should eat, and, of course, because they are delicious.
    Sergey methodically goes behind the crests first to take off my emotions, if you suddenly have a view of something interesting. And suddenly, for the next drop, I see water! I could not believe that I had finally found the lake. I ran to him, in spite of fatigue and powerlessness. But again, disappointment awaited me - it was a very tiny lake, not at all the one I planned to come to. But I was not upset, the situation was changing in a good direction, before that I had not seen lakes at all. I planned to deal with navigation in the morning.
    Today “Meridian” - half of the survival time has passed, six days. In the evening, Serge makes me a surprise - shows on the map where I am. This tiny lake is on the map. I, as I felt earlier, passed the conceived goal and was much further than necessary. But this opened up the possibility of going to an even larger lake. And there one could already hunt and try to catch fish. Now all my thoughts are about how to get there as soon as possible.

    Seventh day
    In the morning, during the training camp, we heard screams somewhere in the distance. We thought it was ours. At first they didn’t even want to respond, there was still a strong resentment from that act with separation on the route. But then they still started shouting back. It turned out that this photographer Ivan shouted and was looking for us. As it turned out later, all these days when we were apart, he was the only one who at least somehow cared about our search, daily dragged firewood to the pass and burned signal fires. Wherever they went, he left notes, strained the Kamchatka people to look for us too. Kamchatka, when they saw us from the pass, said the following: “Well, that's it, they were found. We went further along the route. " Surprisingly, they did not have the idea that maybe we need help or a disaster happened to us. They just left, leaving Ivan a piece of polyethylene, taking the tent with him. Ivan stayed with us.
    Big lake! Finally, shore, and water! It came true like a little dream. I had strange mixed feelings at the moment when I literally jumped into the water. It was cold, there was no reason to get wet at all, but I was so morally longed for it that it was necessary for me. I wanted to feel the water and understand that this is not a dream, and I'm actually here and now. Everything is the main goal at this stage. Strange, but I did not feel the joy of achieving the goal, but only felt some relief, mixed for some reason with anxiety.
    Today, aesthetics prevailed over common sense: for a long time I was looking for a place hidden from the wind, but in the end I built a hut on the lake. This is an open and more purged place, especially since the water is always colder. But by that time I was so tired of sleeping in all kinds of thickets that even to the detriment of heat I wanted open space and beauty. I wanted to wake up and see this beauty, not branches and thickets around me. I wanted to feel the space, not the crampedness of the next asshole. I wanted to sit by the fire on the lake and admire it.

    Day eight
    The responsible eighth day arrived. The main purpose of coming to the lake is hunting and extraction of animal food. There is fish in the lake, and ground squirrels live in the glades around. I made myself a spear from a knife and a stick, and, gaining confidence, went hunting. Decided to start with gophers. At first, nothing was visible except the holes, but then suddenly a couple appeared and the gophers themselves. I walk slowly so as not to frighten off. The spear is ready. Throw ... past! I chase after him, but he eludes me in a hole. I try to smoke them from there, light a fire from above the hole, blow the smoke in and look around - if they are running out of emergency exits. But in vain. Obviously, these animals are too cunning and agile for me.
    I caught fish in the place where the lake passes into the river. Huge fish were visible under water. Here it is, food! But getting close to them was very difficult. When I approached five to seven meters, they began to swim away, and it was unrealistic to get my spear from such a distance, especially since I held the spear for the first time in my life. It didn’t work too long to wait in one place - the water is very cold, and I have so little strength. But I kept trying. They guarded them on a stone, tried to drive them onto themselves, throwing stones on the other side of the flock, went deeper, went from the other side. But when the fish is not spawning, it is agile and smart. The cast ... I hit the fish on the back, I see that it wounded her, but she still floats away.
    Suddenly, standing on the shore, I see: a large fish is swimming, very close to the shore, in shallow water, barely weaving, obviously tired of a long swim. This is a chance. I panic, I frantically throw the spear - by. Rybina, a little worried, swims a little faster - I throw myself at her and try to grab her hands - she slips out! Heck! Again I throw a spear - by, and in the meantime the fish begins to go into the depths. Throw a spear - past. Everything ... went very deep ... Damn! What a pity, it was a real chance, and I missed it. I desperately hoped that there would still be such, I waited, walked along the coast, looked out. But to no avail. This was the last chance.
    With a feeling of complete devastation, I went back to my hut. It was very sad that I did not catch anything today. Spent so much effort to nothing. The only thing we have today is the dead fish, which Sergei found on the shore. Together we decide tomorrow to devote another day to the hunt. The weather began to deteriorate, the sky tightened, and sometimes drizzle fell. He’s sick at heart. And the point is not that I couldn’t eat fish or ground squirrels today, but that I wanted to include the shots of successful fishing in the film and saturate it with dynamics.
    There was a fire at night - the grass that dried up on the hut caught fire, and I woke up in the ring of a burning exit. Put out. But even this event with a fright and adrenaline rush did not remove my drowsiness, I was so exhausted that I immediately fell asleep further.

    Day nine
    Toward morning I jumped from the fact that my pants lit up on me. He moved too close to the fire. Now on one leg there was a big hole, and on the second there was a fused section. By some miracle, I did not burn myself. This event upset me on the one hand, but I feel sorry for the clothes, but on the other, it was a good moment for the film. Drama, you know! Here in the morning Serge will come - I will tell him everything.
    Despite the ups and downs of the night, I tried to get up early. I noticed that a large fish swims right next to my camp. I will try to fish here on the remains of the dead fish found yesterday. The big fish was still afraid to get close, so I made an impromptu trap. He took the upper hand from thermal underwear, inserted elastic thin branches inside, tied a rope from both ends - it looked like a net. I put all this to the bottom and put a piece of fish in the center.
    The idea was that the fish attracted by the smell of the bait would float over this trap - at that moment I had to pull the ropes. The net would be straightened, and the fish would be inside. While I was installing the whole thing, I managed to catch a small fish directly with my hand. ABOUT! How I caught fire! Despite its tiny size - it was bigger than a fish, it was a distant hint of luck! I decided to cook it right there - tore off the first large sheet that came across, wrapped it and put it in the coals. The time before its preparation seemed to me an eternity. And here it is - baked. This smell is driving me crazy. Having bitten off the first piece, I felt how time stopped. “Divine,” is all I could say. And that was actually so. “I have never eaten anything tastier in my life,” I said, already licking my fingers.
    Excited by this luck, I began frantically to fish with my hands and trap. But he was able to catch with his net only two more small fish. Toward noon, the fish became rare and nimble. I was completely frozen standing in the water and stopped fishing. Already out of the context of survival, we tried to fish on a hook tee, but also unsuccessfully. Nibble is over. For the rest of the day, we again unsuccessfully tried to catch gophers. And in the evening I returned to the most ancient way of feeding a person - collecting. I collected a full pot of blueberries with water drops, ate part of it, and knead the rest and heated it on a fire - it turned out to be something like jam.
    Despite today's catch, the mood was to hell. The main task - the extraction of animal food was not completed. I wanted to catch something significant not so much to satisfy the hunger, but to saturate the film with events. It really upset me. Well, in addition to everything, I didn’t get along very well with the camera - I said a lot of wrong and wrong things.
    For the third day I was sleeping on one side, from this the whole body ached. Apparently, I caught a muscle on the thigh, from this I felt a burning sensation in it, sometimes not allowing me to fall asleep. For unknown reasons, the hand swelled up greatly, it bothered me, I was afraid that this was an infection. He went to bed completely morally and physically broken.

    Day ten
    It was drizzling all night, and the morning did not meet us with a sunny dawn. It is time to return. I left my little camp with a sense of unfulfilled duty and thoughts that I would need to return here again and finish what I started. The remaining time will be fully devoted to the return, and nothing interesting is likely to happen. I already really felt a breakdown - guys with heavy backpacks were going up the hill faster than I was light. Due to wet shoes, all the scuffs and wounds on my legs worsened, it was painful to walk.
    By evening, we managed to get to the house that we found on the second day of survival. Everyone is terribly tired. Naturally, I was not allowed to spend the night in the house, and moreover, I could not even use the last place to sleep, because this place has already been shot on camera. The drizzle did not stop all day and, apparently, was not going to stop at night. I was already thinking about spitting on everything, falling somewhere under a tree without a fire, and simply enduring the night cold. But still I find the strength in myself to collect firewood and build a shelter.
    This evening a feeling of terrible loneliness swept over me. Yes, I was not alone in this campaign, but I was completely alone regarding the conditions of my existence, my problems and my inner world. I noticed that I began to talk with myself and with surrounding objects - with trees, with firewood, with a forest, with a fire, with a river, etc. I came close to the brink of a radical internal change.

    Eleventh day
    Gloomy morning. Serega woke me up with a camera, who came to shoot a traditional morning interview. I don’t remember what I said, but this was the first interview in which the idea “How did all this bother me” was traced. It was the eleventh day. In theory, I was supposed to survive 12 days, but another overnight stay would not have changed anything, and the remaining time would not have contributed anything interesting. Therefore, we decided that if we go out on the road today, we will complete the survival and go home. This decision made me happy. I’ve been living in the regime for several days: "the main thing is to hold out a little more."
    We went out on the road. Sergey announced the official end of survival. And I went into a state of phlegmatic and fantastic calm. That's it - I survived, I managed, now I'm not afraid of anything!
    The guys offered me to eat mashed potatoes, but I refused, I wanted the first thing I would eat was something else. I’ve been thinking for a long time what I would most like, and came to the conclusion that it’s just fresh bread. We made a small fire and began to catch passing vehicles to Petropavlovsk. They shot some more videos. In the end, a regular bus picked us up and our wandering was over.

    Read the interview with the hero of the film :)

    PS
    There are a couple of posts about this adventure with photos in our photo- blog blog : one and two .

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