Two weeks savage: How I went to the Crimea with a tent all alone
SUMMER 2016 YEAR, AGED 29 YEARS I first faced the need to go on vacation in splendid isolation. I went to my entire adult adult life with my husband, but it so happened that a few months ago we divorced and I was left alone. My summer plans for friends didn't fit in either. At some point, I realized that this is a problem - I have zero experience in self-planning vacations, in this sense I am completely not independent and do not know at all what to do. Of course, the most logical and easy decision would be to buy a tour in some all-inclusive and spend a blissful two weeks there, plying between the lounger and the buffet table. But - and I still don’t quite understand how it happened - at the end of August I collected a tourist backpack and left for two weeks on the wild Crimean coast, where I lived in a tent all the time. And it really changed me.
I remember the monstrous confusion that preceded this decision. In my nearly thirty, all that my life was built on suddenly disappeared: marriage, home, belief that there are things that are forever. There were other circumstances - affective falling in love with one person, with whom nothing came of it. In a word, it was a really tough year, and neither conversations with friends, nor conversations with a psychotherapist, nor work, nor sports, nor even alcohol, helped to get rid of the feeling of total uselessness. It took a lot of mental strength to continue to pretend that everything was fine - I did not want to look miserable in the eyes of others, did not want to complain. Often in the mornings I literally persuaded myself to go to work, which I actually madly love. After all, all I could do with full dedication was lying on the floor and staring at the ceiling, listening to some sad song on the repite.
At some point I reached a state where I couldn’t really concentrate on anything: to read, work, hold small talk, watch a movie, and even didn’t sleep at all. One morning I rode the subway and once again indulged in exhausting ruminations. It was then, in the stretch between the "Belarusian" and "Krasnopresnenskaya", I decided that I needed some radical experience that would help to rethink everything - so the idea arose to go live alone in the wild, in a tent, preferably on the shore seas. Crimea seemed to me the cheapest and geographically close option. Half an hour later I flew into the office and from the threshold called our chief editor Yura to talk face to face. I told him: "If you want, you don't want, Yura, and I'm leaving for vacation. And by the way, you won't borrow money to me?"
Instantly, in order not to think again, I ordered tickets to Simferopol and back with the departure date exactly one week later. It was at that moment when the money was written off the card, I finally remembered that I actually don’t have a tent.
Training
I was very limited in means, and a light compact and functional tent is something that costs money. Therefore, I advertised on Facebook, to which the girl almost immediately responded, with whom we had never seen each other personally before. A couple of days later, in exchange for a promise to bring her Crimean wine, she lent me a light and very compact double tent, as well as a bonus tube of Sanskrin - another item of expenses was less.
A backpack, a sleeping bag, a travel mat (aka foam), a gas stove for cooking, a lantern, a metal camping mug, a folding knife, an inflatable pillow - all this was provided by my ex-husband. I laid out the necessary equipment for the trip on the floor in my room and realized that with the tent he would occupy a good half of my small backpack. In order not to overstrain myself on the road, I took a minimum of clothes: two pairs of shorts, two T-shirts, a sweater, warm pants, socks and underwear, one pair of shoes, a hat. I twisted all the things into thin bundles, after which I distributed the corners of the backpack so that there was room for bags of cereals (buckwheat, rice), spices and cosmetic bags with a minimum of cosmetics (toothbrush and paste, sanskrin, shampoo, soap, coconut oil - without which I am nowhere and face cream).
The most difficult thing is to give up everything that is not really necessary, because I had to drag all the things myself. However, in this refusal I did not manage to achieve perfection. For example, at the last moment, I for some reason shoved my favorite home dress into my backpack — quite voluminous and heavy.
All week before departure I listened from others to stories about what a strange and even insane decision I made. Mom gave a tantrum. A longtime fan tried for an hour to reason with me on Facebook: "Hammer, baby, you are not a man, you are a woman. Why do you need all this? Hand over your tickets, fly with you somewhere abroad, I will pay for everything." "Thank you," I replied to him, "but I already have a backpack and the day after tomorrow I fly away. Bye!"
First day
The most difficult thing in the wild mountainous terrain — namely, I chose this for my trip — to find a flat, fairly spacious platform and set up a tent there. I got to the desired point about two days, already exhausted by the road, and under the scorching sun I began to look for where I would live on this deserted coast. For half an hour I jumped from stone to stone and finally chose a small area, partially littered with boulders. I had to clear the territory of them and set up a tent in a fairly strong wind - not such an easy task, especially if you do it on your own for the first time.
The day before I left, I carefully watched a few tutorials on YouTube. However, the preparation of the site and the installation of the tent still took me at least two hours - the wind, which blew almost continuously, interfered strongly. In addition, it was very difficult to drive stakes into the stony soil, and I had to reinforce the tent mostly with the help of cables, which I tied to large, stable stones found nearby. When I finished, I climbed higher and for a long time victoriously looked at the fruits of my hands. And then she undressed and happily jumped into the sea. Having sailed from the coast, I rolled over onto my back and looked around: there was not a soul around. I was lying on the water and thought the same thought in a circle: “To go nuts, go nuts, as I decided on all this”.
I remember well my first night on the coast. At the end of August, the Crimean sun - crimson, like a fresh wound - rolls over the horizon very early, at about eight, and the whole world around us is plunged into darkness, filled with a thousand sounds. Here a branch cracked, a stone fell, a fox busiedly sifted past, a scolopendra, which had been sitting in the shade all over the day, was rustling. The smallest noises are distinguishable - even despite the fact that the sea is raging ten feet away from you at full volume. Over time, you get used to it and learn not to flinch at every nonsense, but on the first night I sat alone for a long time and looked at the blackness of the night with fear, lighting a cigarette after a cigarette.
I climbed into the tent and closed my eyes, tightly clutching the tourist knife in my hand - it seemed to me that all the wild beasts had gathered around my little refuge.
During the few hours I was afraid to fall asleep, I remembered in detail my entire last year, which was so difficult and so important. I thought about my failed marriage, about the divorce, about the apartment and the things I left, about the huge piece of my life that ended, about the huge piece of life that started. I thought about all this calmly, as I should have thought much earlier, but I did not have time - everything happened so quickly, the emotions that prompted me to accomplish everything that I did were so strong. It seems that for the first time I was sitting and did not believe that all this happened to me. I repeated aloud the names of people whom I loved and love (which is essentially the same thing), told them words that I hadn’t dared to say all this time. And I wanted to believe, even though it was naive, that somewhere there they feel that right now I am thinking so much about them.
Around midnight, I climbed into the tent, wrapped myself in a sleeping bag and closed my eyes, tightly clutching a folding tourist knife in my hand - it seemed to me that all the wild beasts of the world gathered around my little shelter and carefully looked at me through its thin fabric walls. My heart was beating so hard that I could not fall asleep for a long time.
The next morning I woke up a different person. I seemed to have changed the skin.
Weekdays
Days flowed in a string, similar to one another. I immediately thought of a regime that allowed me not to run wild, in the bad sense of the word, until the last day - I had some tourist experience behind me (we traveled savages with my ex-husband several times) and knew how great it was in nature to be turned into anthropomorphic animal with a light unobtrusive admixture of human. I met such people - a little scary sight. And I had a plan for how not to become one of them.
Every morning I woke up around nine, when the sun rose over the rock and instantly glowed the tent to such an extent that it was completely impossible to stay inside. Next morning shower - in a small cave near the water I equipped myself a boudoir, where my bathing accessories were kept. I washed my face thoroughly, then swam for about 30 minutes, smeared with coconut oil and went up to a small flat area where I did a short morning gymnastics. Then breakfast. Then walk, until finally not beats the heat.
How to wash? How to wash the dishes? How to wash clothes? How to entertain yourself? How to get your own food? All this has a universal answer - at sea
In the most suffocating hours of the day I climbed into the library - a spacious cave under a large stone, where I read for several hours in a row or just lay and looked at the sea. After four she took off her mask and swam again, watching the fish and jellyfish. A few meters from the coast, my favorite flat stone protrudes from the sea, on which I loved to sit and look at the black birds, which pile up along coastal rocks and pull their necks, shifting from paw to paw. If the day was windy, I dressed and went to study the local flora and fauna - collected and dried leaves, watched insects, sifted through stones and looked for artifacts left by my predecessors. For example, once I found a round flat white stone, very beautifully painted with some amazing patterns. I still regret not taking it with me. And another time in the rock niche, I discovered a collection of animal skulls - someone carefully gathered them together and arranged them according to their rankings, from the smallest to the largest, and they stared at me with empty eye sockets, as if they were waiting for me I will find.
About six o'clock — and I very quickly learned to distinguish time by the sun — I dined, then I read for another hour, and if I wanted to look at other members of the human race, I jumped 30 minutes along the stones towards the nearest summer cottage with the only grocery store in the whole neighborhood and a small cafe, where even there was Wi-Fi. There, I sometimes chatted with some vacationers, local or the same savages, like I, sat on the Internet, and when I really wanted to, I would buy something harmful like ice cream or cheburek and immediately eat up under a little stunted tree. Then she went back to meet the sunset, took an evening shower in the sea to wash off her daily sweat, went to bed and instantly fell asleep to the righteous. So I lived for two weeks, and this was without exaggeration the best two weeks in the last few years.
In the sea
There are several questions that most often ask me about living in the wild. Here they are: "How to wash?", "How to wash the dishes?", "How to wash clothes?", "How to entertain yourself?" and "How to get your own food?". To all this there is one universal answer - at sea.
Salt water and hard types of algae perfectly wash the dishes. For the hair and body of the sea is also quite good. Standing ankle-deep in the water, I lather from head to toe, and then dived deeper to wash off the foam. For a person, of course, it is better to use fresh water, and sources that can always be found in wild tourist spots come to the rescue - there were two of them near me.
Food - also in the sea. Not so far from me lived people who every evening took fishing rods, got into the inflatable boat brought with them and got breakfast for themselves, lunch and dinner the next day. With fishing, I don’t have much, but catching crabs in stones is not so difficult - sometimes there are instances of such impressive size that it’s scary to take them in hand. However, there is no reason to linger - the crabs are so nimble that it is worth gape, and now you are left without lunch.
When I woke up in the morning, I didn’t even think whether to wear shorts now or not. I just walked naked about my business and sometimes I remembered about clothes only in the evening when it got cold
I used to wash with soap — there was nothing particularly dirty with stones and trees, and sweat and rock dust from clothes were easily washed off with suds and sea water. In the heat, clothes dry out in a couple of hours - just lay them out in the sun and squeeze them with stones from the wind.
However, I rarely had to wash in the Crimea - I almost did not wear anything. I have no ideology on this subject - I am not an apologist for naturism, but I like not to use clothes when there is such an opportunity. On the wild coast, in the heat, rags seem to immediately lose their relevance, become redundant. When I woke up in the morning, I didn’t even think whether to wear shorts now or not. I just went naked about my business and sometimes I remembered about clothes only in the evening when it got cold. At some point, this state of affairs began to seem so natural to me that, without any ulterior motivation, I began to upload quite frank, according to my friends, photos (which I took with a timer on an iPhone) to my instagram. Already in Moscow, I was asked more than once why I did it, what my goal was. In fact, I just walked like this all the time and couldn’t even think that the pictures of my bare, tanned ass or stomach could upset someone greatly. And such cases were: for example, in the midst of my vacation, my former classmate unsubscribed from me, who considered my account "porn". Surprisingly, but a fact - in 2016, many still consider the naked body to be porn, hello, Jock Sturges!
But I was distracted. All local raves also pass to the sea. The underwater life can be observed endlessly, and at night the water is highly phosphorus - to see the light show, just put your hands under the water and move them.
Food
Certainly, crabs alone will not be full, and then cereals, vegetables, fruits and everything that can be obtained in nearby stores come to the rescue - so it’s better, of course, to settle where they are in relative availability. There is another option for those who live near some village: the locals often sell milk from their domestic cow, as well as vegetables and fruits from their garden. Announcements about this often give right on the fences.
I bought buckwheat, tomatoes and cucumbers, nuts and dried fruits, greens, and also, of course, seasonal fresh fruits - all this had to be carried along the stones to the tent, kept in the shade away from the sun and carefully packed - ubiquitous insects, especially ants, all the time they strive to settle in the fact that you actually save for yourself.
It is most convenient to cook on a tourist burner (there is a lot of fuss with fires), but a mysterious story happened to mine. I checked her performance in Moscow before the flight, and when I arrived at the site, it turned out that the burner had a strange way to break. As a result, all the two weeks I had to be content with cold buckwheat — from the night I filled it with water, and by morning she, having been saturated with moisture, was ready. When there was cold it became completely unbearable, I warmed up buckwheat a little in the sun.
It is better to bring a minimum of spices, salt, tea and coffee with you from home, pre-packaged in the most ergonomic and airtight containers (my favorites are the pre-washed plastic packages from the photo-film film or Kinder Surprise round boxes) - so, in my opinion, easier and more convenient than buying it all on the spot. In particular, in many small Crimean shops, salt is sold only in packs per kilogram - that’s enough for a company of soldiers. As for cutlery, there is a necessary minimum - one plate, one cup, a kettle, a Swiss knife and a spoon. The latter, by the way, I hurriedly forgot at home, because of which I was forced to eat food with my hands (yes, yes, including buckwheat).
Other
The most difficult thing to learn is not to trust nature - you realize too quickly that it is completely indifferent to you, but to those strangers whom you occasionally meet. Sometimes, on a stone, where I lived, tourists from the neighboring village idly walked, sometimes I had neighbors for a while - all these people (usually men) were certainly interested in a young half-naked woman living in a tent all alone.
In the movie "Wild" there is a very accurate episode on this topic - the heroine Reese Witherspoon, who has lost her strength during the first stage of her lonely journey with a backpack, meets a man somewhere in the field and asks him to help her. They get into the car, and she takes every word, every gesture, as a prelude to rape. То же самое несколько раз было и у меня. Например, однажды ко мне на камень приплыл какой-то байдарочник и долго приставал ко мне с настойчивыми подозрительными вопросами о том, как я живу здесь совсем-совсем одна, долго ли ещё пробуду и далеко ли отсюда можно встретить других людей. Может быть, он и не хотел ничего плохого, но в какой-то момент я схватилась за нож - в конце концов, имей он дурные намерения, моих криков никто бы не услышал.And once, right next to me, a man in the years decided to spend the night, a seasoned visitor from Sevastopol: when I went to bed, I firmly barricaded the tent with stones — which, it seemed, amused him very much.
I met several girls who, like me, spent their summer in a tent solitude. And they all talked to me about it - a lonely savage always arouses in general quite understandable curiosity among the men who are in her way. Such curiosity is easily converted in your head into a sense of danger, anxiety is also quite understandable. It will not be superfluous to recall the recent flashmob I’m afraid to say - in particular, thanks to him, hundreds of women learned that they are not alone in their habit of squeezing keys in their hands whenever they are alone on a dark street. In Crimea, I carried a knife with me everywhere (who knows) and, whenever possible, tried to avoid contact with people of the opposite sex who occasionally appeared on the horizon. Vigilance is rarely superfluous.
I no longer think that my life has failed. The feeling of amazing simplicity and correctness of what is happening now rarely leaves me
But I want to tell about one acquaintance separately - it seems that this is a good story for the final. It took place on the first day of my journey. Coming out of the airport of Simferopol, I got on the bus to Sevastopol in mixed feelings: I was all alone and, of course, worried - what was waiting for me there. Almost no one was in the cabin, except for a few grandmothers with seedlings and a married couple with a child. Five minutes later, a handsome young man came in with a tourist backpack, who also, like me, was traveling somewhere savage alone. At the first stop we talked - he said that he had come from St. Petersburg and was going to Cape Aya, where a friend was waiting for him. We chatted about this and that all the way, and when we drove up to Sevastopol, I glanced at the sky where thunder clouds were gathering and said worriedly: “Damn, it seems to rain soon, as it is out of place. Then my new friend turned to me, I squinted because the sun hit him in the eye, and uttered a phrase that I still repeat to myself whenever I start to worry about something. He said: "Listen, let him pour it."
When we said goodbye to him, he shook my hand and instead of "bye" suddenly said: "Never be afraid of anything." And then, of course, I could say that after these words I was not afraid of anything, but this would not be true - I was terrified many times. But I tried - and still try - to remind myself that if it suddenly pours, then it's okay, even. And immediately it becomes somehow calmer. By the way, I was very lucky with the weather - not a single rainy day. So I was completely worried.
I returned to Moscow in mid-September - black, salty and calm as a reptile. She got a second job, arranged the room in a new way, went to the drawing courses, went to St. Petersburg, and made some nice new acquaintances. I do not know how it happened, but I no longer think that my life has failed. The feeling of amazing simplicity and correctness of what is happening now rarely leaves me. But if it happens, I remember that guy from the bus. Or how once in Crimea a huge nasty scolopendra sat on my arm — nothing could be worse than that.
Photo: Hgalina - stock.adobe.com, yuliasverdlova - stock.adobe.com, Iva - stock.adobe.com, personal archive
