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

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

Survival

…Everything. Let's go. Survival has begun. The composition of my means of survival was as follows: a knife, a flint, a power cord, glasses in a case, an army flask with a kettle, 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. Me and nature, one on one, and nothing else. On the first day, I still did not quite understand what was happening and what threatened me. I did not know what to think, 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 collected firewood for the whole night in order to keep the fire going until morning. He spent the night under the trunk of a fallen tree, slightly covering himself from the wind with its debris. The first overnight stay was especially disturbing. I shuddered at every rustle, bears everywhere seemed to me. I slept pretty badly, woke up from the cold, when the fire was burning, I had to light the fire again. Frozen feet. In the morning I brewed Ivan-tea and went on.
The inner emptiness 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 stages. According to the plan, I had to go through a certain route, it imitated a situation when a person was lost somewhere far away 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 catch fish in it and hunt on the shores of other animals. Near large masses of water is always more life than on the slopes of the mountains.

Second day

All the next day we went and almost did not take off. In the 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.
')

Third day

The next day I got up late. Morning was my favorite time of the day. During the night, I was very exhausted from intermittent sleep, uncomfortable flooring, cold and fears. And in the morning, when the sun came out, it became warm and no longer needed to watch the fire, I could afford to sleep a little without tension. The first thing I saw on awakening was Serega with a camera. I realized that already quite a lot of time and began to get up. In addition to Serega, 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, transients began because of the hunger, I was ill-thinking and just walked on autopilot, vaguely remembering the intended route. My head was completely empty. I was annoyed because of the slow speed of our movement. Sergey's huge backpack did not allow him to go quickly, especially since we often stopped to shoot passes. It was unusual for me, I was in a hurry all the time. The wonderful views opening up created an internal contrast to haste and irritability. Everything is mixed up.
Towards noon I felt completely uncomfortable. I wanted to fall and fall asleep. Rational thinking and judicious activity were completely absent during this period of time, and this resulted in an incorrectly adopted important decision. A small ascent began (before we walked along a horizontal valley) and I mistakenly took it as a key hill on the map where I need to turn to the lake. It was a critical moment. I turned the wrong way, but then did not know it.
We climbed quite high. Three of our companions were still not visible, I tried not to think about this problem, although I knew in my heart that no matter where they are now, here they will not find us. It would be logical to discuss this point, but it was impossible to communicate. We all went and went up. I began to despair, but I struggled with this state with the thought that by and large I don't care where to survive. But until the end of the release of consciousness did not give responsibility to the project. Without even noticing, we begin to communicate relatively much.
Sergey told me that in fact our “friends” are not lagging behind, but left us much earlier and told us that they would stand on the pass. The experienced hike, Yura, was very saddened by the pace of our movement, and the three of them (Ivan, Sergey and Yura) decided to go ahead in order to keep up with the schedule and collect photographic material. “What kind of nonsense ?!” - I thought. After all, it is obvious that having separated in unfamiliar terrain, it is unrealistic to get together later. For a long time I could not believe such stupidity on the part of a seasoned Kamchadala and an experienced tourist. All this greatly spoiled my mood, I was very disappointed in these people. And from that moment on, he thought of them as those who threw his friends in difficult times. Now we already survived together, with the only difference 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 state, when one cannot completely indulge in one mood, so one had to make strong internal efforts to maintain oneself in stability.

Day four

Hard night again. The wood on the shore was damp, and in order to kindle a warm fire it was necessary to make a lot of effort. Waking up at night from the cold, I spent about forty minutes to restore the fire. By the end of the night I didn’t even have the strength to blow ember. I could not wait for the morning to sleep a little without tension. But even here I could not calm down, constantly hurried and could not relax - I wanted to get to the lake as soon as possible, and therefore I constantly hurried myself.
The place where we spent the night turned out to be a kind of trap. Sergey physically could not walk along the slope where I was walking. The huge backpack shifted the center of gravity and Sergey just slid off the slope, even if he crawled on all fours. And he periodically fell into the trap of elfin wood — the backpack with a tripod was stuck in the branches, and he had to remove all his burden and drag it all in pieces. These 400 meters of trajectory and 300 meters of climb took us about 4 hours. At the same time, we forced ourselves to periodically withdraw through force. I was again tormented by mood swings. Our pace strongly oppressed me, circumstances pressed, but looking at the surrounding beauty, I was delighted and rejoiced. Beauty saved me.
Before going to the ridge, Sergey went ahead to shoot my first impressions. And always, before I opened a new view, I waited until Serega turned the camera to remove fresh and lively emotions. We went beyond the ridge. There was no lake behind it. I already understood my navigation error and knew the necessary direction. I did not want to go down and look for a road, because planned to go to the desired lake on top. Moreover, here, at the top, at an altitude of more than 1000 meters, the views were simply amazing. We went to the next log, for which I, as before, hoped to see the lake.
Bakening Volcano was a good reference point. I determined my location by compass. Everything said that the lake should be clearly visible behind that visible slope. These thoughts were very encouraging to me, I was in a hurry, I was annoyed at our pace, I really wanted to look behind the comb. And what was my disappointment when there was no lake behind the next slope. Gradually thoughts about the inadequacy of the card came, because I did not find on it the relief forms corresponding to reality. I no longer knew who to believe — my feelings or the map.
The next log is also nothing. Contrasts grew stronger: on the one hand, I did not see my goal, but the newly opening views were so pleasing to the eye that I forgot about many problems. It was the fourth day. It was already evening, it was time to stay for the night. Storming the next log was decided tomorrow. From a distance we determine the place for the night. And suddenly ... Bear! It goes like races where we set out to spend the night, goes into the distance. But this did not change our plans. Sunset caught us during bivouac work. It was probably the most beautiful sunset for the whole trip. Around - sharp, contrasting rocks, cloudless sky of amazing color, Bakening volcano, illuminated by the setting sun - I left all the work, just stood and admired the sunset. I had no such good mood for a long time.
Initially, it seemed to me a completely unsuitable place for an overnight stay was, as a result, the best overnight stay of all. Dry firewood flared up quickly, there were a lot of cones near me, which I baked in coals. From flat stones I built reflectors around the fire - it was much warmer from that. And before going to bed I put a heated stone at my feet, it was very nice to feel the heat on my feet, which were always cold in the previous and subsequent nights. The morning was so beautiful that I had almost no thoughts. They were not needed. I kind of become a part of it all. Dissolved in nature. All those difficulties, on the way to this place paid off with more than dusk and dawn. I was so charged with the current beauty that I morally soared and was in a fighting state of mind - to go further, forward, to the goal!

Fifth day

Morning. We got up. Let's go. For the next slope - nothing. No problem. I already get used to it. A much bigger problem was that the slope became so steep and flowing that it was impossible to traverse it. Sorry, but you have to start the descent. And it was more difficult for us than lifting. Especially hard descent was given overloaded Serege. Sometimes he simply could not walk and slid on the grass of the slopes. The gorge around us was getting steeper. Already beginning to dusk, and the day we passed quite a bit. In the foreseeable space, there was not a single suitable place for an overnight stay, at least more or less flat. There is nothing to do - we decide to spend the night on a slope in a small part of the forest. As it is necessary.
A terrible place - a steep slope, the 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 a number of things around it, and it immediately became mine, familiar and cozy. At night, in short periods of sleep, I even had time to dream dreams. Oddly enough, I did not dream of food or a warm overnight, these were abstractions with a blurred meaning.

Sixth day

In the morning we continued our descent. Brooks, stones, impassable 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 Serega to look at the GPS if we are right. He refuses. Convulsively I look at the map every 2 minutes and do not let go of the compass. I do not know who to believe. Believe yourself, believe the map.
Suddenly we went to the path. Her direction suited me, started walking along it and completely relaxed. On the way there were a lot of big blueberries. The feeling of hunger did not bother me for a long time, I ate the berries just because I had to eat, and, of course, because they were tasty.
Sergey methodically goes for the crests first to remove my emotions, if suddenly a view of something interesting opens up. And suddenly, at the next drop, I see water! I could not believe that I finally found a lake. I ran to him, despite fatigue and powerlessness. But disappointment awaited me again - it was quite a tiny lake, not at all the one to which I was planning to come. But I was not upset, the situation was changing in a good way, before that I had never seen lakes. I planned to deal with navigation in the morning.
Today "Meridian" - half the time of survival has passed, six days. In the evening Seryoga gives me a surprise - shows me on the map where I am. This tiny lake is on the map. I, like I felt earlier, passed by the conceived goal and was much farther than necessary. But it opened the opportunity to go to an even larger lake. And there it would be possible to hunt and try to catch a fish. Now all my thoughts are about how to get there as soon as possible.

Seventh day

In the morning, during the gatherings, we heard shouts somewhere far away. Thought it was ours. At first, they didn’t even want to respond, but the resentment from that act of separation along the route was still strong. But then they all started screaming in response. It turned out that this is a photographer Ivan shouted and searched for us. As it turned out later, all these days, when we were apart, he was the only one who even somehow cared about our search, daily carried firewood to the pass and burned signal fires. Wherever they went, he left notes, he strained Kamchatka too, to look for us. When they saw us from the pass, the Kamchatskys said the following: “All right, they have been found. We went further along the route. ” It is surprising that they didn’t think that we might need help or trouble happened to us. They just left, leaving Ivan a piece of polyethylene, taking the tent with them. Ivan stayed with us. It was nice to know that he was an adequate person.
Big lake! Finally, the shore, and the water! Come 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 sense to get wet at all, but I was so morally homesick for it that it was necessary for me. I wanted to feel the water and understand that this is not a dream and I really are here and now. Everything is the main goal at this stage. Strange, but I did not feel the joy of achieving the goal, but felt only some relief, mixed for some reason with anxiety.
Today, aesthetics prevailed over common sense: for a long time I was looking for a place sheltered from the wind, but in the end I built a hut on the shore of the lake. This is an open and more ventilated place, especially since 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 the heat, I wanted open space and beauty. I wanted to wake up and see this beauty, and not branches and thickets around me. I wanted to feel the space, not the crampedness of the next ass. I wanted to sit by the fire on the shore of the lake and admire it.

Eighth day

Came responsible, the eighth day. The main purpose of the arrival at the lake is hunting and hunting of animal food. There are fish in the lake, and gophers live in the glades around. I made myself a spear from a knife and a stick, and, gaining confidence, I went hunting. I decided to start with gophers. At first, apart from the holes, nothing could be seen, but then suddenly a couple appeared and the gophers themselves. I walked slowly, so as not to frighten off. A spear at the ready. Throw ... by! I chase after him, but he eludes me into the hole. I try to smoke them out, make a fire on top of the hole, blow the smoke inside and look around - whether they are running out of the 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 could be seen under the water. Here it is, food! But getting close to them was very difficult. When I approached five to seven meters, they began to float away, but from such a distance it was impossible to hit my spear, especially since I held the spear for the first time in my life. It also didn't work for a long time in one place - the water is very cold, and I have so little strength. But I kept trying. Guarding them on the stone, trying to drive them to himself, throwing stones from the other side of the pack, came deeper, came in from the other bank. But when a fish is not spawning, it is agile and intelligent. Throwing ... I hit the fish on the back, I see that I hurt her, but she still swims away.
Suddenly, standing on the shore, I see: a big fish is swimming, very close to the shore, in shallow water, barely lagging, obviously tired of the long swim. This is a chance. I panic, I frantically throw a spear - by. Rybina, a little worried, swims a little faster - I rush at her and try to grab with my hands - slips out! Heck! Again, throwing a spear - by, and in the meantime the fish begins to sink into the depths. I throw a spear - by. Everything ... went completely deep ... Damn! What a pity, it was a real chance, and I missed it. I desperately hoped that there would be more, waited, walked along the shore, looked out. But useless. This was the last chance.
With a feeling of utter devastation, I went back to my hut. It was very sad that I caught nothing today. Spent so much energy in empty. The only thing we have today is a dead fish that Sergey found on the shore. Together we decide tomorrow to devote another day to the hunt. The weather began to deteriorate, the sky was overcast, and sometimes drizzle broke. My heart feels sick. And it’s not even the fact that today I couldn’t eat fish or gopher, but that I wanted to include shots of successful fishing in the film and saturate it with dynamics.
At night there was a fire - the grass dried up on the hut caught fire, and I woke up in the ring of the burning exit. Put out. But even this event with fear and a rush of adrenaline did not relieve my sleepiness, I was so exhausted that I immediately fell asleep further.

Day nine

Closer to morning I jumped from the fact that my pants lit up. Too close moved to the fire. Now, on one leg there was a big hole, and on the second - a melted area. By some miracle I did not burn myself. This event, on the one hand, upset me, still sorry for the clothes, and on the other - it was a good moment for the film. Drama, you know! That morning Seryoga will come - I will tell him everything.
Despite the night peripetias, I tried to get up early. I noticed that a large fish is swimming right next to my camp. I will try to fish here for the remains of a dead fish found yesterday. The big fish was still afraid to come close, so I made an improvised trap. He took the top of the thermal underwear, put elastic thin branches inside, tied a rope at both ends - there was some semblance of a net. I put all this on the bottom and put a piece of fish in the center.
The idea was that the fish, attracted by the smell of bait, would swim over this trap - at that moment I had to pull the ropes. The net would have finished, and the fish would be inside. While I installed the whole thing, I managed to catch a small fish right by hand. ABOUT! How I caught fire! Despite its tiny size - it was more than a fish, it was a distant hint of good luck! I decided to immediately prepare it - tore off the first large sheet, wrapped it and put it in the embers. The time to its preparation seemed like an eternity. And here it is - baked. This smell is driving me crazy. Having bitten off the first piece, I felt how time stopped. “Divinely,” is all I could say. And that was actually the case. “I have never eaten anything tastier in life,” I said, already licking my fingers.
Excited by this luck, I began frantically fishing with my hands and a trap. But he could catch only two small fish with his net. Towards noon, the fish became rare and nimble. I was completely frozen standing in the water and stopped fishing. Already outside the context of survival, we tried to fish on a tee hook, but also to no avail. Nibble over. The rest of the day we again tried unsuccessfully to catch gophers. And in the evening I returned to the most ancient way of human food - gathering. I collected a full blueberry pot with a whiteberry, a part I ate so, and the rest was kneaded and warmed up on a fire - it turned out something like jam.
Despite today's catch, the mood was to hell. The main task is that the extraction of animal food was not fulfilled. I wanted to catch something significant, not so much to satisfy hunger, as to saturate the film with events. This greatly grieved me. Well, on top of that, I didn’t get very comfortable working with the camera - I said a lot wrong and wrong.
For the third day, I was sleeping on one side, from which my whole body ached. Apparently, I chilled the muscle on the thigh, from this there was a burning sensation in it, sometimes not allowing to fall asleep. For some unknown reason, my hand was very swollen, it worried me, I was afraid that it was an infection. Sleep went completely morally and physically broken.

Tenth day

It was drizzling all night and morning did not meet us with a sunny dawn. It is time to return. I left my little camp with a sense of unfulfilled debt and thoughts that I would need to come back here and finish the job. The remaining time will be fully given back, and nothing interesting will likely not happen. I already quite really felt a breakdown - the guys with heavy backpacks were going uphill faster than I was light. Because of the raw shoes all the rubbing and wounds on the legs got worse, it was painful to go.
In the evening we managed to reach the house that we found on the second day of survival. All terribly tired. Naturally, I couldn’t spend the night in the house, and moreover, I couldn’t even use the last place of the night, since This place has already been filmed. The drizzle did not stop all day and, apparently, was not going to stop at night. I already thought about spitting on everything, falling somewhere under a tree without a fire, and just enduring the night cold. But still I find the strength to collect firewood and build a shelter.
That evening a feeling of terrible loneliness came 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 started talking 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 fundamental internal change.

Eleventh day

Gloomy morning I was woken by Serega with a camera, who came to shoot a traditional morning interview. I do not remember what I said, but this was the first interview in which the idea of ​​“How it all got me” was traced. It was the eleventh day. In theory, I had to survive for 12 days, but one more night would not change anything, and the remaining time would not contribute anything interesting. Therefore, we decided that if we went to the road today, we would complete our survival and go home. This decision pleased me. I have been living in a mode for several days: “the main thing is to hold on a little longer”.
We went on the road. Sergey announced the official completion of survival. And I went into a state of phlegm and fantastic calm. Everything - I survived, I managed, now nothing scares me!
The guys offered me to eat dry mashed potatoes, but I refused, I wanted the first thing I would eat was something else. It has long been pondering what I would most like, and came to the conclusion that it was just fresh bread. We lit a small fire and began to catch passing transport to Petropavlovsk. We took some more videos. In the end, we picked up a regular bus and our wandering ended.

Read the interview with the hero of the film :)

PS
In the blog of our photo gallery there are a couple of posts about this adventure with photos: one and two .