William Sitwell Hunter gatherer
What can beat a flaky, hot-smoked salmon fresh from a Russian river – especially if you caught it yourself?
It was a long journey to this particular fish. The salmon was in a pool in the Ponoi River, by the Ryabaga camp, a remote but comfortable collection of tents and small buildings on the Kola Peninsula of north-western Russia. My tent was heated by a small stove, which was lit by a member of staff who crept in at dawn so that there would be some warmth when I emerged from my sleeping bag.
The fish, a wild Atlantic salmon possibly heading upstream to the Barents Sea, took a curious dislike, perhaps, to my fly and made the fatal error of taking a bite.
The inexperienced fisherman, that’s me, reacted to the tug on the line with more than the usual excitement and that dose of fear that comes from the mystery of what might be on the end of the line and the terror at reacting badly and losing the fish. My guide had tried to reassure me earlier in the day, philosophising in his southern American drawl that “Fishing ain’t just about catching fish.” So there we were, communing with nature when this beautiful river beast took my fly.
After a play of several minutes, the guide helped me bank it and eased it into his net. He checked its size as it lay there panting and then got on his radio to check with his fellow guides as to the day’s bag.
The tally wasn’t reached, so this healthy blighter wasn’t a beneficiary of the catch-and-release programme. He was dispatched and, back at the camp, deposited with the chef. He would hot-smoke it for dinner.
I say it was a long way and the method of travel helped make it feel more so. A flight to Helsinki and an overnight before another flight to Murmansk, where we disembarked, had papers checked and sat in a bleak room with little to look at but a bizarre collection of brilliantly terrible postcards.
Seemingly showing off the best that this Russian city had to offer, my favourite was a badly framed photograph of a particularly bleak-looking supermarket and car park; the buildings were ugly, grey and drab, the cars similarly, and the ground was a dirty mush of melting snow. I grabbed a handful, excited to dispatch some hilarious wish-you-were-here missives.
After several hours, we were led to an Mi-8 helicopter where we sat with ear plugs staring at our luggage piled high in the centre of the aircraft. Through a dirty window, I watched soldiers walking about in their oversized caps as a man in a filthy boiler suit refuelled our helicopter with a burning cigarette in his mouth.
We took off for a two-hour ride across the tundra. There was mile after mile of nothing until we reached a small village with a filling station. We got out to stretch our legs, gazing up at a building that housed the village inhabitants; a single, very tall block of flats. After another hour or so, we finally caught sight of the Ponoi river winding through the wild landscape of the Kola Peninsula.
I was back in a helicopter a few days later for an excursion to a nearby village, Sosnovka, with its collection of small houses, a well and a generator by the Barents Sea. There I met an old couple who had known each other all their lives. They slept above an oven, offered us sticky buns and vodka and showed us their little television. There was no veg in winter, the ground being too hard to grow in, so they lived on those buns and booze and reindeer and salmon, the latter caught by them in nets at the nearby estuary.
The power went out at 10pm when the generator was switched off. “In the summer,” the man said, “I drive in my tractor to my dacha.” This was more of a shed than a summer house. I have rarely met two people more contented.
Back at camp, there was unlimited vodka and that fresh salmon, tender, flaky and still a little warm from the smoker. I may have had better salmon, but in the cold wastes of that part of Russia, after long days on the river and longer days to get there, I can’t remember any fish tasting quite so good.
The old couple slept above an oven, offered us sticky buns and vodka and showed us their little television