Rafting Russia's Bashkaus River

Although in the United States a broken raft frame might pose a problem, here, we hop out, hike into the woods, and chop down a tree for spare parts. Soon, the broken pole is replaced with a fresh one from the forest and we are on our way again.

Rafting the lower canyon

“Nice parts store,” Van says once we’re back underway. “Everything you need to fix something grows right on the spot.” “Except it doesn’t have any candy bars at the front counter,” Ben says. Soon, the canyon narrows and tightens even more. A series of waterfalls cascades down from dizzying heights on the left. Yesterday, the Ogozo River careened over a hundred-foot cliff into the river. Today, we pass another called Kyzyltak, this one falling in even longer curtains.

We feel as if we’re at the bottom of a giant funnel, its tight spout surrounding us down at the river with a broader, expansive rim surrounding us above. At a rapid aptly named Cramped, the entire river pinches into a channel barely wider than our catarafts. We get out and walk around. I glance upward and actually see the upper level of the canyon broadening out, letting in more of the Siberian sky. It’s a welcome change from the claustrophobic, vertical confines of the past weeks. Today, we also have our first relatively mellow water in nine days: a few-mile-long Class II to III section without horizon lines that we can just read and run as we go. Paddling is actually fun again. We feel like we’ve made it and left the worst behind. But it’s just a feeling, a momentary high, not grounded in knowledge.

Despite the limited supplies, Yevgheny still pawns off scraps to those who happen to be in the right place at the right time. Usually, it’s Boris and Sergei waiting like dogs. Though we miss out on this round of Yevgheny’s handouts, we make up for it with dessert. Tonight, it’s a surprise. Valeri has found some oblebiha berries near camp. You can rub them on your hands to combat dry skin and then eat them. They’re sour and different. And most importantly, they’re nutrients and calories.

“Kind of like edible Vaseline,” Ben remarks. Valeri also pulls a coup for breakfast: fresh mushrooms with boiled beans. I can tell it’s going to be a good day when Yevgheny sits next to me and dishes off his dry bread and leftover beans—like getting through a rapid when the same drop flips someone else. I get the handout despite the fact that Edge strategically cleared a seat on the log next to him for Yevgheny. “You bastard,” he says when he sees me with the spoils.

The progressive lack of food relative to the physical hardships we’re enduring weighs on everyone. Even Yevgheny’s handouts are smaller and fewer. Today’s portage is epic, not so much for its difficulty, but for all the little aggravating things that go wrong. Bow and stern lines become unraveled and catch in crevasses. We carry the boats over slippery, wobbly rocks that zero-in on shins. Crossing moss-covered logs makes us wish for ice skates. Edge and even mild-mannered Ben lose it at times with sudden outbursts. Edge slips and hits his knee, has to untangle a rope, and then slips and hits the same knee again. It becomes overwhelming. When the Latvians start conversing away in Russian at the end of the portage, it triggers a psychological breakdown.

“Ooga, ooga, booga, ooga!” Edge shouts back at them in a tantrum. He’s reached his breaking point. We all have, and can’t blame him. If the conditions are tough, the language barrier is even harder. A few ooga boogas is all their words mean to us. Russian is not a romance language where you can second-guess meanings. Ninety-nine percent of the time we simply have no idea what they’re saying. The times when they’re laughing are worse—we never know if it’s at our expense. We’re constantly left out of conversations and the whole communication loop. When Boris and Olga aren’t around, we end up simply figuring things out for ourselves. At times like these, we don’t feel like brothers on the Bashkaus; we just feel ignored.

Language barriers have surfaced on other trips I’ve been on, but never to this degree—and never day in and day out in the stress of life-or-death situations. When the Tambopata flooded in Peru, my Spanish was good enough to listen and understand, and try to communicate.. Other times, I’ve been just as much in the dark, but for shorter time spans and with less severe consequences. While in Prague to watch a World Cup slalom kayak race, my cousin Homer and I paddled the course naked (we didn’t have any shorts) at night with Czech security guards yelling from the banks. We couldn’t understand a word they were saying, but we got the gist. Another time, at the end of a four-day canoe trip down Japan’s Omono River, I almost paddled out into the strong currents of the Sea of Japan because I didn’t understand directions to get out at a fish camp on the left. But it was nothing like this, where decisions are crucial and, absent context, you have no idea what’s being said. Edge’s ooga-booga breakdown said it well for all of us.

Sign language, at least, is universal. The next Class V is a gnashing monster, with sharp rocky teeth guarding its entrance and deep holes that could swallow our rafts whole. After scouting, we believe we can run it—a faster, more fuel-efficient alternative than portaging. As usual, Ramitch, Sergei, and I play the Russian equivalent of Roshambo—a game where everyone throws out up to five fingers and you add them up to see who it lands on. Only this time we all three throw fists, which count for zero. Though we’re fully prepared to run the rapid, Ramitch sees it as an omen. He looks at Sergei and I and wiggles two fingers upside down in the air. We’ll walk. It’s another portage. This simple twist of fate, all of us throwing zeros, feels like it could have saved our lives. Not really wanting to run the rapid anyway, we carry the boats and gear around. The almighty fingers have spoken.

Ramitch’s physical communication tonight at camp is just as easy to understand: he raises the drinking flag from a nearby tree, a homemade emblem with a picture of a paddler below the words Team Konkas. We brought 12 liters of vodka and Everclear-like rotgut for barters and celebration. Unlike trips in the states you don’t just dip into the libations at random. Everything is a ritual. “Even though we have only one more day in the lower canyon,” Olga translates, “we are not out. We still have to be careful. Sergei’s flip yesterday could have been far worse than just a broken frame. We have been lucky.” As if on cue, Sergei the Tall breaks out a ziplock bag of precious sugar cubes and passes them out to help everyone be more alert tomorrow.

Putting together the wood frame

“We are real men on the Bashkaus,” Ramitch continues through Olga. It sounds funny coming from Olga, but he means what he says. For them, running difficult whitewater is a way of proving themselves. In a socialist society, if you work hard and do a good job at something there is little reward. In a capitalist society, if we do a good job we’ll likely see a reward. On the river, however, they can do a good job and be rewarded instantly. When we ask Olga about Ramitch’s “real men” comment, she tries her best to explain. “Our boys are not satisfied,” she says. “They need strong water to be men.” “Still, I don’t know too many real men who suck sugar cubes,” Ben says under his breath.

The ramblings aren’t all talk. With their cigarettes and chiseled features, any one of them could easily star in a Marlboro commercial. While we feel soft, they’re hard—from home lives as well as their lives in the canyon. Their quest to be “real men” seems not to be based on machismo, but on a recognition of the fact that on a river such as this, we all share a common ancestral denominator: we’re all simply trying to survive, learning that we can, and getting better at it daily. To them, real men survive at all costs. The Bashkaus certainly is a good testing ground. When something goes wrong, like Sergei’s flip, the cigarettes go in, the axes come out, the trees go down, and the situation gets remedied.

True freedom is being aware of this ability to act. I think of “Me and Bobby McGee,” a song I belted out for them around the fire. Nothing left to lose also means everything to gain. We all have our lives to lose, but the Latvians perhaps have a greater need to be here than we do. With less freedom over their own fate, they have less to lose. Conversely, we have less to gain from being here. Unlike Olga’s comment about her “boys,” we are satisfied with our normal existence. We don’t feel we “need strong water to be men.” While this trip has made us appreciate our own freedom, we don’t need to prove anything here to anyone, not even ourselves.

trading vodka for sheep

Only, we do want to prove our worth to the Latvians, to show that we have the mental and physical fortitude to belong side by side with them in the canyon. And we’re fast learning that this is far easier to achieve when you work as a team. The beauty of paddle rafting is that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, and everyone has a say in their craft’s fate. Emerging safely after a rapid is far more important than any personal accomplishment en route. One hero can’t always raise the performance level of the entire raft. A brilliant, course-saving rudder stroke does little good if the next wave knocks us over. Because of their upbringing in a system that better develops a sense of sharing and group-centeredness, the Latvians seem more socialized to this sense of community. We noticed it first when they loaded the train back in Moscow, and we see it each day on the river. They know how to work together without individualized competition, which is a harder concept for us to grasp. We’re more individualized, self-centered, and competitive. It might not be coincidence that four-person catarafts were invented in Communist Russia and one-person oar rigs in the United States.

Here, deep in the canyon, we’re relearning something we’ve intrinsically known all along but have somehow forgotten. Synergies arise in working together. Like throwing a draw stroke right when it’s needed or hitting a swimmer with a throw-rope, the team experience is natural and reflexive for the Latvians. And it’s become so for us.

This becomes more important than ever the next day. After an hour on the water, the river calms abruptly. It becomes a lake. Still in the heart of the canyon, the eerie tranquility seems out of place. So do the dead trees sticking out of the water with ghost-like driftwood caught in their branches. Rounding a corner, we see why. A giant landslide has careened down a side canyon on the right, completely blocking the river. We have to crane our necks skyward to see where it came from. The result is Perestroika, the worst rapid we’ve seen yet….