(Mis) Adventures in the Arctic Part two

January 19, 2009 (reminisces)

Today we arrived in Apatity via train. We were met at the station by Ivan Vladimirovich Arhipov, the leader of our Arctic adventures. Before I tell you more, let me describe this guy- a character if ever there was one. He is probably about 55 or older, without a hair on his head – but it is visible where once they grew. I never saw him without a smile on his face or in his eyes. This guy absolutely loves life, and has as much fun as possible. As Adrian (the Moscow coordinator) aptly put it, “I bet that “I am man” accounts for a great deal of Arhipov’s thought processes.” So true… This does not impede him from being one of the most patient and effective teachers I have ever met. I would bet that no one alive knows that area half as well as Arhipov does, he lives to be hiking around in ridiculous conditions in the mountains. He also LOVES raunchy jokes. When I first met him, I was wearing a borrowed down jacket from Adrian. While the coat fits her comfortably, on me the thing was ridiculously small. Arhipov took one look at it and told me that I had found a very nice bra. There followed ridiculous conversation between Arhipov and the other Russians in our group about what would have been more embarrassing than can be described, except I knew that they were kidding. Those guys are among the nicest I have ever met. Throughout the whole trip I was referred to as «Катёнок» (Kitten) because a) they thought my bowl was too small, b) I make silly noises on occasion, and lastly c) they liked having me around. More examples of their silliness occurred when we did the banya. We divided into girls and guys (real banya has to be segregated due to nudity) Arhipov tried to get a group of the guys on the trip to come spy on the girls. Thankfully, it fell through. In actuality, while he made all sorts of jokes about that sort of thing, he was the sweetest guy ever, and wouldn’t ever actually do something that would make us uncomfortable. His wife is going to have a baby girl in a month or two! Yay!

I learned another very important lesson this day: NEVER attempt to match Russian men shot for shot. They will win. That first night, I think a grand total of 6 or so liters (at least) of vodka were consumed between about 10 people, in the space of about 4 hours. Those guys can really put it away!