Have a Safe Trip

Spring walks in these parts tend to be visually minimalistic. Especially if you head out into the countryside. Things only start turning green and blooming closer to May; in April, it all looks as if nature simply hasn't made it to the paint store yet. The palette is limited to shades of grey, brown, and pale blue, with nothing brighter in sight.

One day I drove far out of the city, into the kind of landscape where vast fields are already being prepared for planting. There are no mountains here, just soft hills that gently roll into one another, with lakes and small rivers scattered in between, and villages settled along their edges.

I left the car by the roadside near one of those villages and walked along its outskirts.

Time there felt oddly split in two: on one side, old wooden houses, still holding up surprisingly well; on the other, newer dacha-style builds that look as if their owners haven't quite agreed yet on what exactly they're constructing.

A bit further on, I came across the remains of an abandoned farm. Its roofs have long since been reclaimed by nature — grass and young trees growing confidently on top — while the surviving walls carry handwritten ads from locals.

Further down the road, I reached a dam and a spillway by the lake, where a small river flowed out.

In the deeper sections, the water turned mirror-like, reflecting the structure and the people walking along the bank, as if they had come out for a walk with their own reflections.

I didn't make it all the way to the lake itself, but it was clear it was still covered in ice — the river was low, the spillway only running at half capacity.

In places, the riverbed was exposed, looking like a heap of wigs — tangled, oddly full, and just a little unsettling.

An elderly shepherd woman walked past me: headscarf, walking stick — the classic set. But she also had a mobile phone pressed to her ear, deep in conversation. Possibly negotiating something important. Maybe hooking up a crypto mining operation to the local dam — who knows.

A little further away, cows and the same sheep wandered across the field, methodically picking at last year's grass. The new growth hadn't come in yet, but they didn't seem particularly concerned.

Beyond that stretched fields — vast, reaching almost to the horizon.

A line of forest ran in the distance, and in front of it, bright yellow gas pipes stood out sharply against the otherwise muted landscape, like the only design decision anyone had bothered to make.

I eventually made my way back to where I’d left the car, next to an old road sign, rusted by rain and faded by the sun — Have a safe trip.

Well, that felt like a good sign. After all, summer was just around the corner.

Southern Urals, Russia.
April, 2020.
...