Stunt on the Yenisei River

Contributed to PortNews by Alexander Chizhenok

The motor ship slows down, and all of a sudden a fleet of motorboats come from nowhere and rush to the scene. A casual observer would believe it to be a pirates attack. But no one seemed to be scared. The small boats, including those powered by Yamahas and Hondas engines, were steered by men that hardly resembled Somalia pirates. They are Siberian-born machos. Folks on board the passenger ship laden with huge bags were happily waving their hands greeting their relatives. There was nothing unusual in the scene for the local residents of neighboring villages scattered across the middle and lower reaches of the Yenisei river. This was a routine boarding and landing of passengers.

Passenger boats sailing in the summer navigation season along the Yenisei every three or four days is the most reliable, and sometimes the only way to get out of the god-forsaken backwoods to the local district town. There is an alternative – flying by helicopter which arrives once a week. But this means of transport is extremely expensive, and one has to wait for flight weather for days.

The availability of floating landing stages is the exception, rather than the rule. There are a few of them below the village of Bor - only in Turukhansk, Igarka and Dudinka. So, the locals of other villages have to practice stunt. Responsibility of the passenger boat ends when the crew helped a passenger come off the ladder. Actually, life jackets are very rare around there. The passengers wait for their relatives, neighbors, or just a local river taxi driver who would pick them up on motorboats and what is more important load the baggage, those huge bags that seem to be exceeding boat’s size. But all ended well ‘cause the weather in the village Potapovo was surprisingly calm that day. Yet it’s hard to imagine how the locals will be performing the same landing operations when the north wind will blow with one-meter high waves on the Yenisei river.

Photo by A. Chizhenok