Preston
Harriers Road Section
:- Roadblog
From
Russia With Love. By Alan 007 Appleby.
Alan flies the flag. The new Russian flag looks like French.
Carnations laid on the plynth. See below.
Celebrating The Great Patriotic War. What we call 2nd World War.
You can imagine the size when you see the carnations on the plynth.
The
Great Russian Race
Leg 10,
Tatarsk to Omytinskoye, 731 km in 6 days, 30th July – 5th
Aug
The title had an appeal to it; I once
read about the Trans Siberian Railway and often thought about a run in
Russia
. Apart from the running, the other
aims of this event were to raise awareness in Russia of charitable giving, it
isn’t something they do much of, and as part of the agreement each British
runner had to raise as close to £1000 as possible.
This money is to be used to improve Russian orphanages throughout the
area we ran through and is to be distributed by the Charitable Aid Foundation
linked to UNICEF.
1 in 74 of the Russian population is an
orphan.
Two teams were involved every 6 days for
15 weeks to run from
Vladivostok
to St. Petersberg, 11,000 km (the seventh day was a changeover / rest day) we
had a Russian support team and two Brits Steve and Johnny both fluent in
Russian, the Russians didn’t speak English at all.
The Russian runners came from the areas we were running through and spoke
as much English as we did Russian. 6
were from the
Omsk
area and 2 were from
Tyumen
(next region going west) all ran for two legs of the race, and 4 of them were
running in the
Omsk
marathon two days after we finished.
It was envisaged a Russian and a Brit
would run together for 10k, then changeover to the next pair etc each pair
running in the morning and again in the afternoon so covering approx. 120 km per
day. Each day started between 7.30
and 8 am. With 12 Brits running and
8 Russian runners on our leg the numbers on the road at any one time varied
quite a bit, but everyone except Phoebe did at least 120k.
Phoebe ran 100k, she was an 18 yr old from Marlborough College, competed
in teams sports, not a runner, trounced the Russian lads at backgammon and card
games all week, and was very glad when the last 5k was complete.
The Brits comprised 8 – 18 year olds
from
Marlborough
College
, 1 from Gordonstoun, 2 chaps from
Gloucester
and me. The Russians had 7 male and
1 female aged between 20 and early forties.
The initial impression of our start town
Tatarsk was of a drab, bleak place; however, the people put on a concert for us
which was very good, three singers, dancers and a folk music group.
They showed us around their museum which was mainly to do with
commemorating the Great Patriotic War (WW2).
When you see the size of their war memorials compared to similar sized
English towns it isn’t surprising that there is more reverence attached to
their remembrance ceremonies. The
local people fed us and provided our accommodation at each of our evening stops.
As we progressed westward there was a general improvement in food in that
there was more variety, the accommodation except for
Omsk
was basic and the toilets were something else.
I went to the toilet in the airport at
Omsk
and I was so put off I waited till we arrived in Tatarsk and even there it was
only desperation that enabled me to complete the task.
The toilets were one outstanding memory,
another was buckwheat. Like Italians and pasta and Irish and potatoes, with
Siberians it’s buckwheat. Buckwheat with sausages, small burgers, with all
types of meat. We had it for breakfast, at lunch, and for evening meals, like
pasta and potatoes they can be a little bland on their own. With buckwheat there
were no sauces to add flavour just buckwheat and meat. The bread was hard and no
marg. or butter, but before the week was over I was getting quite used to it and
it wasn’t so bad.
The run into
Omsk
was a real event. We all assembled on the outskirts of the city after
completing the days running. A convoy of 6 DHL vans (they were a main sponsor),
extra police escort cars, TV crew and van, about 40 local runners along with our
2 4x4’s the bus and wagon and trailer. Eventually the logistics of the convoy
was sorted, the TV people were interviewing some of the local Russians and Steve
and the director Alexander. We all lined up four abreast with the Russian and
Union Jack flags at the front and set off into the city at an easy jog. At first
there were not many people about but as we went further into the city especially
at the bus stops lots of people were waving and clapping as we went by. The
whole road in our direction had been cleared of traffic, at main junctions
everything was stopped for us, people had got out of their cars and were waving,
the TV crew were filming, really was amazing. About half way into the city a
shower came on and we got soaked, the Russian runners were saying not to worry
the rain would soon stop. I tried to tell them that where I came from it rained
like that a lot of the time, it was no worry. The centre of the city had banners
over the road for the Omsk marathon which was to take place the next weekend, as
we turned a corner we came to this huge eight lane bridge over the Irtysh river,
going over this was the biggest climb of the week, at the other side we left the
road and went through an underpass to a square at one end of an avenue, at the
other end of which was a huge war memorial statue. There was a rather moving
ceremony here with yours truly lowering the Union Jack in front of
the statue with the TV crew filming while their national anthem was
playing, then walking forward to place a red carnation on the monument.
The smallest village we stayed at,
Zeemino, had just over a thousand inhabitants, this place was what I imagine a
Soviet ‘collective’ would be like, lots of people working in the fields
adjacent to the village. They were building large long haystacks and massive
bunkers with fodder which they were covering with earth. We were put up in a
school with all our beds in a corridor, but there were no wash facilities so it
was arranged that we would go to private houses to use their banya’s. Steve
took five of us to the house of an old lady and her daughter. It was single
storey brick built with a small enclosed plot at the side and some outbuildings
the nearest turned out to be the wash house. Two of the young lads went first
and we stood outside while Steve told them what to do, meanwhile the old lady
came out and was talking away to us but to no avail. When Steve appeared he said
she was inviting us to go in the house to wait. We went through a porch and
lean-to conservatory into the kitchen then the living room. The houses may have
looked drab on the outside but it was nice and cosy inside. The old lady told
Steve she was 78 and had lived in the village since being moved there with her
husband when she was 19. He had been killed in a tractor accident, their son had
died aged 39, and the daughter had been bitten by a tick when she was 17 and
caught encephalitis which left her slightly brain damaged. The daughter came
into the room in quite a tizzy, she had gone to see if the lads were still in
the banya and couldn’t understand why they still had their shorts on.
“How can they wash”, she kept saying
in Russian, Steve tried to explain, both ladies were laughing and shaking their
heads.
The village had decided to bring a gas
supply in from the main pipeline and each household had to contribute towards
the cost. The old lady had given a cow, they had another cow but it had gone
sick after it’s mate had been taken. She was telling Steve what it would cost
for a cooker and fire and saying how much her pension was. She had only recently
stopped working in the fields and had never left the village only to go to work
about 5km away.
The wash house was a small wooden cabin
whitewashed inside, you undressed in the first room which was used as a
storehouse, then you opened a small heavily felted (like underfelt) door and
entered the washroom proper. I didn’t see a fire but there was a brick box
with the hot stones and next to it a 45 gallon drum with the top cut off, this
held the hot water and a milk churn held the cold. We had two large enamel bowls
which we ladled water into to wash and then tipped over ourselves to rinse, then
you poured water onto the hot stones, it instantly turned to steam and the
temperature shot up. I was in there with Nick, he didn’t bother with the birch
twigs but I had a go. You had a bunch of twigs with the leaves still on, you put
them in hot water to soften them then flailed yourself. It wasn’t painful and
was supposed to help cleanse the skin along with the steam, as the temperature
drops you pour tepid water over yourself then cold to close your pores. I seemed
to carry on sweating for ages afterwards, but you did come out like a new pin.
We left the old lady’s house with
plenty of “spaseeba’s” and “da sveedaneeya’s”, and we asked Steve if
we could give the lady something towards her gas cooker. He said he would check
with the Russian director, Alexander but he said no as it may cause problems!
The lady and her daughter had put the fire on to heat the water and had had to
carry the water in buckets from a standpipe out on the road. That was an eye
opener.
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