Russia is a country that has a lot of ideas, legends, and images associated with it. Whether it be the countless onion-domed cathedrals, the vast tundra, black caviar, a journey on the Trans-Siberian, or nuclear warheads being paraded across Red Square, everyone has their own visions of Russia. A popular misconception my students have for instance, is that they think everyone in America thinks there are wild bears on the streets. One of the things that always interested me when I was studying Russian, and even for the first part of my stay here, was the variety of outdoor activities that people here engage in. Since making more friends, I’ve gotten to try a lot of them, my favourite being the traditional Russian grill out (shashlik). The planning for that is always quite annoying because there is always one person who invites everyoneeee they know without telling you, and trying to guesstimate how much food and supplies to bring can become an expensive pain in the ass. However, one activity that has fascinated and eluded me from day one is mushroom picking. I was first told that picking mushrooms is a popular activity here in Russian class at university, and ever since that day I’ve wanted to try it. Perhaps it’s because I hardly ever see mushrooms in the wild in the US, that the idea of a forest full of them excited me.
The only person I knew who picked mushrooms was the old lady I used to live with (Lyubov), and we had discussed going many times in the past, but nothing came of it. Well friends, yesterday was my big day. After going back and forth as to whether or not to go due to the possibility of rains, I made the decision that we should at least try. I was told to bring a bag, some water, a knife, something to eat, and anything else I might find useful. Then I was to stand at the bus stop at 8:30 and wait for Lyubov to call me and tell me which bus I needed to board. I waited at the stop and after several back and forth phone calls with instructions, I met Lyubov on the bus that takes you across the river and out of the city. We sat on the bus for about a half hour as it snaked in and out of the village across the river.
When we got off the bus, we weaved in between some apartment buildings and private houses to get to the entrance of the forest. I had expected to walk about ten minutes into the woods, veer off the path, and boom, there would be some mushrooms. I was partially right as there were mushrooms as soon as we got into the woods, but Lyubov informed me that we had an hour to two hour hike ahead of us so that we could go to a better place. She told me we weren’t hunting just any mushrooms, we were after the great Belie Griby (white mushrooms), and that they grow in the moss, which didn’t start for a few kilometers. We walked further and further into the woods and Lyubov showed me a few mushrooms here and there that were edible but that she considered shit. For being an old lady she sure cursed a lot. I was a bit worried at first because I wasn’t very good at identifying mushrooms and kept mistaking some mushrooms for others, and didn’t want to accidently poison myself. Luckily the poisonous ones are fairly obvious. We hiked on and I tried in vain to gather some berries along the way, but my harvest was quite poor. It’s a lot of effort to even just pick a handful of some of the smaller ones, especially when there aren’t many there.
Despite categorizing a lot of mushrooms as “shit,” I noticed that when we finally got to where the moss began to grow, Lyubov already had quite a few mushrooms in her bucket. Perhaps she was hoarding the good ones for herself. We steadily made our way off the path and made our way into the woods. Walking on moss was quite a nice feeling, as it is very soft under your feet. Because we had gotten there at around 11, many people had already been through the area, and the ground was littered with mushrooms people had discarded. Apparently a lot of people also thought these mushrooms were “shit.” Lyubov assured me that there were more mushrooms than people, and our search began. I had no idea what we were looking for, but Lyubov seemed to be finding stuff all over the place. At first I was fairly slow at finding anything, but gradually I began to find some here and there, but I still had no idea what this elusive white mushroom looked like. Lyubov said that we might not find any at all, but after a half hour or so, she called me over to show me her find. I had anticipated my keen eyesight being a key advantage over Lyubov’s magnifying-glass-sized-glasses, but apparently they weren’t. I was surprised she had seen this thing at all. There, buried beneath the moss and leaves was the barely visible reddish-brown cap of the Belyi Grib. She pulled back the moss to reveal a large white mushroom, the likes of which I had seen painted on souvenirs all around Russia. “Look how he sits there like a Tsar!” exclaimed Lyubov. She took out her knife and cut the mushroom just above the root, and then put it in her basket. I continued searching, and after a few minutes, I also thought I found one, however I was incorrect. Discouraged, I searched on, looking for mushrooms that sit there like Tsars. Mushroom hunting takes a lot of attention and patience, because a lot of them are hidden by moss or leaves, and good ones are sometimes quite rare. However, I soon began to get the hang of it, and after a while, I found my first few mushrooms on my own, and finally my first great white. I was very excited.
I figured we would be in the woods for an hour or two tops, because Lyubov is 68, and let’s face it, staring at the ground for hours on end hunting fungi can lose its novelty quickly. However, I was wrong. We wandered around for hours. After four hours I told her I thought we should begin to head back because of the approaching rain, and my hunger. My real concern was that the internet company was supposed to come to my house. Lyubov was not worried about either, and we continued on, perching on a log for a bit to eat some sandwiches that she had brought. I got up and wandered around, and found two huge white mushrooms right under the log we had been sitting on.
After our lunch, Lyubov kept wanting to wander off in all different directions to search for more mushrooms. I was done for the day and still worried about the internet, and the approaching storm. By this time the sky was beginning to darken with storm clouds, and we had lost our path. I told Lyubov I thought we should go, and she said ok, after she explores one more area. I followed behind her. By this point, neither of us had really found anything for a while, and the search was just boring. Finally she admitted defeat and decided that we should head back. But head back to where? There were no paths in sight. Luckily there were no bears in sight either. She asked where the sun was and we finally found it peeping out from behind some approaching clouds. She got out her compass and I followed her. It was a while before we found a path, but it wasn’t ours. I told her we should follow it anyways because it’s bound to go somewhere, but she wanted our path, so we trudged through the woods further. Finally we found something resembling a larger path, and to our luck it had some people (and dogs) on it. I convinced her to ask the people for directions, and after somewhat ignoring us, a man half-heartedly pointed us in the right direction.
There were two ways to get back to the village we needed, the long way, and the longer way, and Lyubov was disappointed that we were going to be going the longer way instead of the long way. I didn’t care, I just wanted to go home. By now the sky was almost pitch black and I could see lightening off in the distance. I had come prepared with an umbrella, but I could see this was going to be bad. It rains a lot in Siberia, but I don’t ever really notice storms. Lyubov kept trying to pick any mushrooms she could find along the path, which slowed us down a bit. It’s interesting to note that on the way in, these mushrooms had been shit, but now she was grabbing anything she could find.
After a half hour, it began to sprinkle. Then, it began to rain. Then, it began to pour. Then, it began to storm. Then, it began to flood. This was one of the worst storms I had seen in Tomsk, and later I would find out that certain areas of the city itself had become so flooded that the buses couldn’t even move. We got lucky…I guess. Lyubov busted out some ponchos, and I used my umbrella, but neither were very effective defenses against the torrential downpour that was occurring. What would have been a nice defense would have been a car. And we saw lots of cars. I counted around 30 over the course of a half an hour that just drove on past us. I kept expecting one of them to ask us if we’d like a ride, but Lyubov said it would never happen, and it never did. Everyone did slow down to look at us though. It made me really disappointed that during a storm, no one with means of shelter stopped to help an old lady. It was somewhat of an apt metaphor for a lot of what goes on in life here, and elsewhere. Everyone slows down to look, but no one stops to help.
Finally after about an hour, we made it back to the village, and after waiting for a while at a bus stop, we made it onto a bus, and then home. We were completely soaked. I had stupidly worn one of my last pairs of clean pants, and would not have a washing machine for another two weeks, but I was at least home and had the ability to dry off. And thus ended our mushroom adventures. I am eagerly awaiting another chance to set off in search of the Great White, the one who sits like a Tsar beneath a blanket of leaves and moss, but I have yet to make another expedition. Hopefully, next time it won’t rain. For those interested, the internet company never did come.
And some photos:
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