Back in Chita after a 3 year absence #4
Sunday, November 24th: The Trout Farm I was picked up at noon from my centrally located hotel Dauria by Vova (father of godson Seva) for the planned big day at his father-in-law’s (Seva’s maternal grandfather) trout farm, a 35-minute drive toward Lake Arakhlei to the west-northwest, just beyond the Buryat town of Ugdan with its spectacular Buddhist temple. Grandpa Tolya leases almost 300 acres–a 50 year lease if I remember correctly from my visit five years ago. A small river runs through it right near his huge low concrete building–really a huge warehouse. I get the impression this was the remains of a Soviet enterprise, but maybe he had it built himself. It is nothing to look at: a long low warehouse for most of it with a dirt floor, 30-40 ft ceilings inside in that main room. He’s painted the outside a dark blue, which helps appearances. On entering the property you soon come upon the building and drive past and around the back to the other side where entrance to the apartment is. In this yard is a semi-enclosed picnic area with room for 30, a new (to me) banya, and just beyond this is a large vegetable garden alongside the big building. Just above the garden on the building is a long array of solar panels. On the other side of the garden is a very big greenhouse and beyond that, the little river. In the river, held to a small dock, is what looks like a pontoon boat, but it is actually a couple of tanks for raising fish.
Inside the building, after the tiny foyer for coats and shoes, there is a long corridor that goes back to the trout farm area. On the way to the working area with the fish tanks you pass a large array of growlights working on vegetables. But before all that to the right is the entrance to the small apartment for Tolya and Galya: a small kitchen open to a small sitting area with a couch and then a bedroom the same length as the combined kitchen and sitting room.
The visit began with a walk by Seva, Vova and me to see Grandpa Tolya feed the two guard dogs living near the chicken coop. In the warm months there are also geese, ducks and more chickens. I went to use the outhouse near the coop that I remembered from five years ago, but Vova said that they have an indoor bathroom now, something they didn’t yet have back then. The dogs are fed frozen leftovers from a butcher, all collected in several barrels. There was a special bag of brown pieces that Tolya said were stomach, which the dogs really like, so he puts some of that in each bowl. One dog was aggressive and we stayed clear. The other, a huge thickly furred brown dog with big brown eyes, was friendly and playful.
Then we looked at the root cellar. It was an abandoned refrigerator van for a semi, set at ground level and then buried in 2-3 feet of dirt– a steep 15 ft hill with shrubs and grasses growing on it. It was electrified and kept at 3C. Inside were a row of huge cabbages (not his biggest he said!), shelves of preserved berries, jams, morce–a strong berry drink, pickles of all kinds, a couple of large boxes of sand with buried beets, carrots and sacks of potatoes. He said I should pick one of the 3-liter jars of morce, a sweetened drink made of berries. I chose one made of honeyberry or blue honeysuckle. Russians call this berry “zhimalos”, ie. simply honeysuckle, and it is the color of a blueberry, somewhat elongated, soft and juicy and the flavor has been described as a cross between a blueberry and a raspberry–so a bit brighter than a blueberry. Morce is usually cut with water, but is amazing straight! We had it at dinner and the remains of the jar came back to my hotel room with me.
Then we went to help Tolya start the grill for the trout for dinner and stoke the banya fire. Seva helped with that–closely supervised by Grandpa, Dad and “Papa Tom.”
While there I had a look inside the banya. It is relatively small. You enter a small vestibule with a bench and hooks for coats, and then through another door to the hot room. The room might be 6 ft wide and 10 feet long with two 6 foot benches facing each other and the rest of the space beyond them for the stove. The water tank for hot water above the stove is about 10 gallons. The stove is about the same size below with Baikal rocks arrayed around on the stove’s top around the stovepipe that rises from the stove and pierces through the water tank to the roof. Not many rocks at all, to my surprise. (I recently replaced my electric sauna stove with one with a lot of rocks thinking that would be better. ….Not so much I’m finding out…)
Back to the grill–when the fire was ready, the fish were brought out. Very small cherry wood chips (for flavor in the steaming) were arrayed thinly across the bottom of a sheet metal box, then a grill placed over them, then the trout laid closely to each other on the grill. Then a metal cover sealed the box and it was placed on the fire. The cooking went quickly, and soon the box was brought into the house, and soon after that we all sat down to the first round of dinner: trout! Boy was it good. Tender and tasty. No salt needed. The skin had the most of the cherrywood flavor. The bread was homemade by Galya–dense, moist, great crust. We could’ve had a meal of just her bread!
After eating this first round, Tolya gave us a tour of the trout works. Well, there weren’t any! Most of the equipment I saw five years ago was gone because of two things. The first was that his electrical system got blown out by lightning this summer. He now has a big array of lightning rods. But secondly, he is upgrading. For the first 8 years of this trout farming venture, he used what were apparently state-of-the-art tanks, filtration systems, etc. They were German. He said that technology hasn’t changed much. The 10 tanks he has room for would require a staff of 6-7 people. The new system he is getting is Russian and very new. It only requires two people to run the 10 tanks. How did Russia end up making the better tech? He smiled and said, “Sanktsy…” Sanctions. Of course, the question is money and he needs big loans. Sounds like he’ll get them. I asked how soon these big plans would be finished and he wouldn’t answer, so I said, “Like in 10 years?” and he quickly said, “No, more like two.”
Back to the kitchen where Vova was preparing his Chinese rice noodles dish. I think I’ll try this at home. It starts with soaking the big long thick straight rice noodles that kind of look like fat spaghetti. They soaked for an hour I think. Then he sauteed thinly sliced beef. While that was going on he cut a lot of garlic into little nuggets. Finally the noodles and garlic went into the pan with the meat and it was seasoned with white pepper, a very dark thick soy sauce and a light soy sauce. That was it.
While Vova was cooking, Seva tugged at my arm and finally got results. I went to the bedroom to see his Matchbox car collection. It was impressive. We sat on the floor and raced cars at each other. The objectives: speed and spectacular crashes.
When round #2 of dinner finished with Vova’s noodles, it was banya time–around 5pm as the sun was getting very low. Men were first this time. It was kept a bit cooler for Seva, around 175F. He wouldn’t take a banya last year, but likes them now. After being in the hot room for 5-8 minutes, getting warm and a bit sweaty, we then stood around outside to cool off. It was about 20F, so not bitter, and there was no wind. Then back for rounds 2-4. When back inside, there was some beating with the branches (oak leaves this time), and aromatic fir tree oil in the water, then back outdoors.
These last three times outdoors we flopped in the snow. This was a first for me. I have some experience with the polar plunge, but this is colder! The water in a polar plunge never gets lower than 33 or 34F. This snow is 20F at best and like needles! No one laid there more than 5 seconds and then you’d roll over for another five, then back in the hot room for brushing with the leafy branches followed by beating. NOTE: “beating” sounds harsh, but it isn’t at all and it feels very nice.
Standing around on the little dock on outdoor break #2, Tolya showed me where they jump in the small river in the summer, and also for Russian Orthodox Epiphany, January 19, in a kind of annual adult baptism. He showed me the video of him, his son, and a friend, doing the triple dunk while crossing themselves last January 21. I asked what the air temperature was. It was -40F. A video cannot convey the intensity of this!
As we were finishing up, the ladies came, Elena, Galya and Varya, and we were crowded together in the banya for a few minutes, and then the boys left, standing around under the clear night sky several minutes to cool off before going back into the apartment for the next round of eating: buuzi and then tea and dessert.
Buuzi are the large Buryat meat dumplings with a twist pattern and a small hole on top. They are very popular here. Then tea, with an “anthill” cake–a mound of cookie bits bound together with dulce de leche Russian style which is a bit darker and thicker–and a torte with fruit and whipped cream.
There was toasting. NOTE: a lot more “toasting” on this trip than in the last several visits. Does it mean something??), so, using euphemisms, we got warmer and sweeter. We also got louder. That was fun. Galya began to use her schoolgirl English which is pretty darn good considering. She said, “Tom, you are family.” That meant a lot to me. I’m still surprised how much it means to me to be a godfather. I’m glad I’m finally getting to know Seva a little bit. I like the guy! He likes me, too.
In the midst of dessert, I suddenly got a cramp in the back of my leg. Tolya saw me stand up abruptly from the table to stretch it out and insisted that I come over to the couch where he gave me a fierce friction-type massage, rubbing hard down the backs of my legs through my pants and then seemingly trying to pull the bottoms of my feet apart! Yikes! After 10 minutes of that, I was ordered to sit very still relaxed for five minutes, then sit up, at which time he took my blood pressure in both arms. Happy to say both arms showed excellent numbers! What a hoot!
I didn’t want the day to end. But it did.
