The Russia that I Know
The ice-breaking supply vessel (IBSV), Pacific Endeavour, is eye-catchingly out of place when she berths in the port of Kholmsk (Southern End of Sakhalinsk Island, Russia)! It stands out like a sore thumb, a talking point for the locals and in-essence one ungainly blotch of colour on an otherwise drab landscape!
As winter sets in and the inhabitants of Kohlmsk stock-up and prepare for the harsh months ahead there is nothing to look out-to-sea for, just a blue-grey and flat expanse of water that holds no mystery or secret, just the knowledge that soon will come the ice, the cold and the need to keep warm. Sometimes the train ferry that works its way from Kholmsk to the mainland pushes its way in or out, nobody cares as it's been doing that for the last decade and more and although the black belches of smoke get bigger each year it remains unseen to the local eye.
Inland and away from the port are the unwashed grey-colored look-a-like council estates, the remnants of communism standing hideously on hills with nothing but the simple wish to be torn down, removed from history and forgotten about! Pastel colored ladas faithfully continue their good work, taking potholes in their stride and keeping the links of the silent community together; once green army trucks continue to ply the streets but instead of soldiers, farmers and haulage company employees sit in the driver seat, but all pass silently by.
Beyond is nothing! To go up into the hills is to face the bears, the hermits and the cold. Up into the hills there are trees and forests, twigs that stick out of the ground and most are devoid of leaves or colour as they wait for the summer to come, the one that never arrives!
Down in the harbor, amongst the cranes and the derelict buildings that once housed the workers of the state, the might of the party and faithful, are the ships, the vessels that keep the link to the oil fields further north and the cash cow that will never bring the expected change-of-face for the drab city they work out of! And there right in the thick of things is a large pug nosed lump of modernity, a massive wall of orange called the Pacific Endeavour that sticks out like a sore thumb.
