This is Truth.

Flight 30

The clouds broke shortly before we crossed the edge of the Baltic and sailed over Estonia. There is a fair amount of farmland, with small plots, chaotic roads, and tiny villages. There are rivers, but often nowhere to cross them. It is a pretty place, about exactly as I pictured it.

Russia is flat. I can see why the Vikings, Ogodei Khan, the Poles, the Lithuanians, Napolean, Bismark, the Poles (again) and Hitler all thought they could run the place over and take the country easily.

The farms are much larger, and are connected by artificially straight roads. For every dozen plots of farmland there is an equally large plot of dense forest. Sometimes the forest will completely enclose a tiny village, uncomprehendingly, which will seem to be completely cut off from the rest of the land. They all have small yards and ancient stone fences. Dirt paths encircle their hinterlands, and a wall of trees solidifies their encirclement. Like islands intentionally floating away from their shores – like pilgrims.

The water is terrifying. Some of the lakes in Western Russia are bluer than heaven, while others, often separated by a mile or two of flat ground, are tinted maroon as if by blood. One of these meandering lakes appeared to be ablaze, steaming, its edges melting into the putrid nothingness of the inner waters.

posted by Майлз Г. Смит @ 9:18 AM