Good days for sliding

I received a phone call almost every Sunday morning for the last few months. It was my friend Valera, breaking the news: "it's too cold to ski today." Ukhta had a very chilly February. Temperatures reached down to 40 below (that's Celsius or Fahrenheit) a few times and froze pretty consistently around -22 F
(pun intended). We decided that it would have to be warmer than -4 F if we wanted to get out to the woods and feel the chill pressing on our faces when we locked our skis into the cross-country tracks running downhill. So, we waited.

During the months of waiting, I slid around a few times on the ice-skating rink only 100 meters from my place. Iolanta had been an figure skater in childhood, but hadn't been on a rink in years. One night in January, I was walking around sorta bummed that I had spent the whole day indoors, heard music coming from behind the university's athletic center and followed it. The rink looked so inviting. I called Iolanta and we beelined there. The workers handling skate rentals got a kick out of my New York State driver's license that I handed them in exchange for the skates. Since then, they always welcome us by name and are happy to chat.

But, back to skis.... March's weather has been so beautiful. The temperatures have been sliding up and down between 17 F and 33 F this past week, to the delight of almost everyone. (Some people have told me that they would rather the temperatures stay really cold, so that we don't have any of this melting mess). So, last Saturday, my friend and I finally got out to the woods with skis, poles and boots. Although I had told him that I can ski (I mean, I can), I was slip-sliding all over the place while just trying to skate. Fell three times, but each time with laughs. The sun was shining and we were far enough away from the city and factories that the air felt fresh. I was so happy to be standing in snow, surrounded by pine trees. It's very rare that I leave the city for the forest outside of Ukhta, and I was craving nature. At a fork, we went left, and bushwhacked a little to get a good view of the city from a hilltop. We took our skis off and ran up a steep hill where there was an even better view, and lots of pieces of thick cardboard. Of course. I have seen this on multiple occasions. Cardboard sitting at the tops or bottoms of hills here, just waiting for someone to sit on top of it and speed-slide down a slope. So, we sled.

Funnily enough, I was invited to ski the next morning, too. By eight a.m., I was sitting with a teacher from the lyceum and her friend in a turquoise cottage in Airport, a town aptly named after the nearby airport that flies and receives a plane once a day, to and from Moscow. By nine, we heated up the cottage, and got on the skies--this time, classic style. We slid slowly, stopping many times to talk or admire the forest. The teacher in front found some cardboard in the woods, stopped, ripped it into a suitable size to be sat on and shoved it up her coat for later use on some hill. The cottage had gotten really cozy by the time we came back, so we sat and relaxed before heading back to our days in the city. The two women sang songs in old voices, sliding back and forth between tunes in Russian and those in other languages: Belorussian, Ukrainian and Komi.

These are good days for sliding.