Going to Magadan. Part two. +12
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Magadan turned out to be an unexpectedly rich and pleasant city. Solid low-rise "stalinkas" in the center, the monumental buildings of "Dalstroy" and the Drama Theatre.
Sturdy new buildings on the outskirts. Wide avenues and boulevards. Slow pace of life. In short, I expected to see the epicenter of the Kolyma horror, but I saw a kind, comfortable city for life.
But I especially remember Magadan for two unusual things. The first is a very strong and constant wind that blew through the city from Nagaev Bay to Gertner Bay. As the wind blew at my back, I unbuttoned my jacket and flung it open with my hands. And the wind carried me along the icy street for 200 meters.
Don't laugh, but the second unusual thing is the local mayonnaise. It was made on the basis of unrefined oil with the smell of seeds. The taste is strange and strongly for an amateur. Maybe there was normal, familiar mayonnaise, but in the hotel restaurant, salads were dressed just like that.
The next day was Saturday, and the regional administration decided, just in case, to respect the guest from Moscow itself. An official from the protocol department contacted me and said that we had an event scheduled for tomorrow, which will spill over to the day after tomorrow. And I can take some friend or acquaintance with me. Because of the acquaintances in Magadan, I only had a pathologist, who, fortunately, had already flown home, I said that I would be alone.
In the morning, a right-handed Nissan Patrol drove me to the hotel and we rushed west towards Yakutia. Four people were already sitting in the car: the official himself and his friends, whom he registered as persons accompanying me.
Everything was great, but a bit redundant. Sometimes on the verge of a foul. The SUV flew 200 kilometers along a dubious road at a speed of 120-130 km / h. At dinner in a cottage owned by the administration, there was food as if there were not five of us, but at least 20 people. There was generally a killer amount of alcohol. Then the snowmobile races "Buran", which ended in tears for me. I fell into a ravine, rolled over, lost my camera and broke my watch. There was also gunfire at iron barrels. Another bath, heated to the temperature of a blast furnace. Well, and so on. I don't remember well. It seems that there was also a fat deer there for coloring, which lived in a paddock and I tried to feed it with kelp salad. And already falling asleep, I seemed to hear a woman's laughter. But it probably did. Where are the women from?
In the end, I woke up on the floor, on the skin of an incomprehensible animal, covered with another skin.
In general, the reception of the Moscow guest was a success.
By the way, if the work of that official of the protocol department consisted of such meetings of guests, then this is a dream job. The main thing is to have enough health.
On the way back, we stopped by an old Yakut who was a local fish guru. He had fish in various ways smoked, dried, salted and dried. Having learned that I had a long journey to Moscow, the Yakut advised me to buy fish prepared according to old Yakut recipes, which could be stored for 10 years. I bought three. The old man wrapped each one in a bag and then put all three in another bag. They put my purchase in the top trunk and we drove to Magadan.
In the hotel, it turned out that the fish did not fit into a small refrigerator, and I hung it out of the window in a bag. (I will explain later why I am writing about this fish in such detail. )
I slept off and in the evening, putting a bag of fish on top of my travel bag, I went by bus to the airport.
I'm driving. . . And I notice that people on the bus are starting to crawl away from me. Unclear. Yes, there is a strange, creepy, suffocating smell. But not from me.
Alas, from me. More like fish. I later learned the secret of long-term storage of this fish. The Yakuts smear it with the fat of some marine animal. The fat goes rancid, hardens and keeps the product edible. But the stink. . . I won't even describe it.
And here I am sitting in a far, deserted corner of the airport and waiting for a flight to Moscow. The bag with the fish lies at a certain distance and the stink explains to me that you can’t take it on the plane. No way. Even in luggage, because it is not humane in relation to the luggage of other passengers.
I'm sitting and sadly reading a newspaper. And I read an article about the life of the American military at a base in Kuwait. Interesting article. It's about how they eat, sleep, have fun, train, store their weapons. . .
Stop!!! … "To keep their M16 rifles out of the sand, American soldiers put condoms on their rifles at night. "
Brilliant! I went to a stall and bought three Koh and Nor Made in India condoms. Then he hid in the farthest corner and began the process of packing the fish. He constantly looked around so that no one would notice. How else? We, Muscovites, outside the Moscow Ring Road are already considered, ahem, eccentrics, and if one of the locals saw how a Muscovite pulls a condom on a fish, then this would be another reason to consider Muscovites also perverts.
I was in a hurry. I broke two of the three contraceptives. Went back to the stall. The saleswoman looked at me with respect and offered to immediately buy a blister of ten pieces.
Everything worked out. I pulled it on, tied the knots, put the resulting three pink torpedoes on top of the bag and went to land.
And when I was already in line for registration, a sad Chukchi approached me and asked me to buy fish from him. Very, very cheap. And then his pipes are on fire. I don't know why, but I bought it.
It was a big fish. If you put her muzzle on the floor, then her tail was just waist-deep. Realizing that there were no such condoms, I did not pack it and so went to the control. With a bag in one hand and a huge fish in the other. But it was the Magadan airport and there were no questions.
In the cabin, afraid that this fish would be as smelly as the first three, I tried to hide it somewhere. But there are no secluded places on the plane. When I put it on a hanger in the compartment where the crew's outerwear hung, a flight attendant shooed me from there. There was nothing left but to come to my place and confess to the neighbors that I was not alone. I'm with the fish. And maybe smelly.
The girl at the window blushed deeply and said nothing, and the heavily tattooed man with scars on his face, who was sitting by the aisle, said to me: "Take off the zema. I didn't smell like that. "
The fish was shoved under three seats at once, but its head still stuck out a little into the aisle, attracting the attention of a couple of dogs that roamed freely around the cabin. The creepy neighbor had fun all the way, driving them away. He made them a "goat" and promised them all sorts of unusual copulation positions.
And so they flew. Unfortunately, not without adventure. As it turned out, the flight attendants were handed a note demanding to fly to Turkey. We were kept locked in a stuffy, hot plane for two hours, but then they began to let us out after the brutalized people began to beat the stewards in the face. Then there was a long and boring check of all luggage, down to the last sock. And then we were told that it was a false alarm. That it was just a drunk vocational school student who decided to have fun. But the plane was actually preparing to take off towards Turkey, and only a riot of passengers stopped this process.
The men later lamented: "We shouldn't have.
This is such an eventful trip.
I hope that all the unpleasant bad luck will end soon and it will be possible to write fresh stories about impressions, and not delve into memory, remembering long-past travels.
Good luck and health to all of us!
