By Dave Rees
The Masters World Cup of 2015, now dubbed the “Russian Adventure” was held in Syktyvkar, a city of 250,000 situated about 2 hours by plane and slightly NE of Moscow. It is the capital city of the Komi Republic, an area of Northwestern Russia that is autonomous with its own constitution, flag and anthem. Originally there were three of us from Canada, Bruce LeGrow from Newfoundland, Joe Kryger from Ottawa and Dave Rees from Canmore out to take on the Russians but later we were joined by the father/son team of Thor and Anders Vikstrom – Thor from Montreal and Anders presently living in Vermont. Bruce, Joe and Dave met up in Frankfurt having arrived on various flights on Tues March 10th and then proceeded to St. Petersburg, Russia on a Lufthansa flight – with a hot pasta lunch including chocolate cake and even wine – ah the opulence of the Euro airlines! Thor and Anders traveled via Air France and arrived through different means.
The saga started much earlier of course with the visa chase which provided some angst for those living far from a consulate. One has to be “invited” to Russia – no way to just go there. So we had to wait for an invitation from the Russian Olympic committee which was arranged by the organizers – needless to say this took time and we waited less than patiently. In the end a few extra dollars were spent to expedite the process. Joe was more fortunate living in Ottawa where he had access to officialdom. Likewise was the case for Thor and Anders in Montreal. The visa application was 12 pages and asked for some silly info for example the last two places where one had worked, supervisor names, (some now dead!), their phone numbers and what countries were visited in the last 10 years with dates of entry and exit (how could they check – no borders in Europe now) and such. To add to the angst, Dave’s Visa credit card was frozen the day after he booked flights within Russia from home in Canada – so an interesting beginning all around!
At St. P we managed to navigate past the stone faced reception at immigration where all documents were scrutinized with great care and luckily we found all baggage had arrived. Then we spilled out onto the huge concourse – a marvel of lofty windows, beams and chunks of concrete. We waited and we waited some more for the hotel shuttle. We had to overnight in St. P to catch the plane with Nordavia Air to Syktyvkar the next morning. Finally we tried phoning as Joe had a Euro phone but got somewhat stymied by the plus sign in front of the phone number. In the end it worked and we finally got the shuttle to the Crowne Plaza “airport” hotel which seemed a long way from said airport. By now it was dark and we were amazed by the amount of neon displaying various businesses and restaurants – including KFC and of course McDonalds.
The Crowne Plaza was very modern and well-appointed with a personal welcome on the TV screen on entry to the room – a high end hotel matching anything in Canada for the paltry price of $108 pus tx. The time difference played its usual wide awake at 2:00 am tricks. Breakfast was a full on buffet and of course we athletes made good on the all-you-could-eat format.
At 11:30 we travelled once again to the airport and had to go through baggage and personal security just to get in the door to check in for the flight at which point there was very much interest in Joe’s ski base rillers which were finally assessed as being harmless bits. While we waited, Dave did a “cheap” tour of St. P by photographing all of the backlighted murals in the airport. Finally we boarded and were on our final hop to Syktyvkar … with sandwiches and drinks handled by very steady handed flight hostesses – followed by a very bumpy landing on a runway much compromised by ground frost from the feel of it …. a lot of clapping by relieved passengers when the plane slowed to taxi speed! We then disembarked into a bus that drove us all of 150 m. to the terminal where we recovered luggage in a little 2×4 room from a very short conveyor – chaos for a short while! Then a short walk led by our hostess, Lena, over rough cobble to a bus for the trip to the venue and our hotel there. The bus ride went on forever and only later we discovered that the driver was apparently giving us a “tour” of the city.
The city was a mix of old and new – some of the old was of wooden construction (some even original log) which in skewed fashion showed the ever present effect of ground frost and likely as well the lack of proper foundations. The new consisted of apartment blocks in the usual former Soviet style – some under renewal (new windows) and others under construction. Certainly the large block-like tenements were the norm and looked much like the Hollywood versions that we are accustomed to seeing in the west. The ubiquitous McDonalds had also arrived in Syktyvkar along with a few other western chains. The streets were wet and the bus crashed though many large puddles and we wondered about the snow conditions and why we had packed all that cold weather gear – this city was near 62 degrees N. – same as Yellowknife in Canada – it should be cold!
Communication was a challenge for sure as the alphabet and language were nothing like ours so one could not even guess what the signs or the other passengers were saying. Even the stop signs, which in most countries use the word “stop” were not obvious – “CTON” equalled “STOP”! Certainly the Russian descriptions on the food in our hotel restaurant were an enigma even when some were translated to English. When buying something the common practice of the merchants was to display the final price on a digital device at hand and nod. Bruce had an app on his iPhone which translated and actually voiced the words from English to Russian bringing smiles from the Russian folk – smiles of understanding or were the translations truly accurate – hmmm what was it that we just ordered???
We finally arrived at our Hotel Olympiets at the Raisa Smetanina Sports Training Centre – Raisa, a local skier, was a four-time Olympic Champion in the 70’s and 80’s. The seven-story hotel is situated on the edge of the ski stadium along with a sport pavilion containing wax rooms, locker rooms, gym, medical office, a café, washrooms with showers, and three indoor ski equipment kiosks with extremely cheap prices for skis, waxes and other equipment – in some cases half of the costs in Canada. The hotel rooms had private washrooms, private showers, fridge and TV – add to that two communal saunas, a restaurant of sorts and free internet with a surprisingly large bandwidth – no problems even with the large number of people using the internet daily. The step out of the shower was somewhat high – like stepping over the brink of Niagara Falls! Heating was by hot water that was fed to the complex by a utilidor system – insulated piping from a regional or community heating plant – common to the city and northern Russia. The stairs were interesting and it seemed that all sets of stairs had odd riser heights – especially the first step in the sequence that varied from 4 – 6 inches in height both in-doors and out-doors. At the entrances to the elevator, the floors sloped into the elevator – peculiar – a purpose in mind??? The complex supports cross country skiing, biathlon (both including para-nordic), swimming (including athletes with disabilities), boxing, free style wrestling, sport shooting (including athletes with disabilities) and weightlifting. The goal of the centre is to prepare the athletes of the Komi Republic for Olympic, Paralympic and Deaflympic types of sports. Interesting that they single out the deaf athletes as a separate group -something not done in Canada.
The food was interesting but “basic” to say the least. Breakfasts were recognizable – eggs (fried and boiled), wheat and oat porridge and a peculiar “cottage cheese pudding”. Fried sausages was there most days as well but really were sliced boiled wieners. Coffee was instant from the jar by spoon and later came in small paper tubes. Tea was available as the usual packet on a string. As well there was dry cereal and sometimes yoghurt to dump on it along with lingonberries or other jam-like fruit. Solid fruit consisted of apples, pears, bananas and on one occasion – kiwi fruit. Some fruit juice. No toast!
Lunches we had in the little café in the sport complex – a limited choice. There were pastry thingies (beef something or chicken something), a burger – not sure what meat, some assorted danish-like things, and pizza – all re-heated in a microwave. It was amazing – they all tasted the same – sort of like a damp rag. However the price was right and for the burger without trimmings and a can of coke it cost 134 ru or about $2.50 CDN.
Dinners were in the restaurant at the hotel – some interesting menu items included schnitzel (stolichayi), home style meat dish (zharkoc), cabbage roll (levivie golubsty), many modes of chicken, soup made from pickles, buckwheat porridge, chicken hearts, several modes of fish, often boiled potatoes or fried rice and spaghetti noodles with straight up catsup for sauce, to name a few. Veggies were often represented by shredded carrots and beets, various pickles, olives and coleslaw. Some of the food was possibly reheated from the day before and reports of many trips to the toilet may have been the result – Vladimir’s revenge???
Skiing – ah yes, the reason we actually went to Syktyvkar. The skiing was great. The event was well organized with no serious glitches. Day time temperatures were above zero and some nights below zero and the snow was old and well transformed. With blue skies for the whole week, our waxing was not too difficult. Joe and Bruce skated all races and Dave did all classic. Thor skated one and raced two in classic while Anders skated one and raced two in classic also. Joe did a great job on our gliders for the week. With such uniform snow the klister jobs were essentially the same for each race with only minor modifications – variable amounts of this and that of the same brands and colours.
The courses were TOUGH! with some serious ups and downs. The downs caused some skiers grief and some blood was spilled on the trail by several face plants while the ups were just hard work. The grooming was very good considering the quality for the snow and the classic tracks held up reasonably well. The total entry was down from the usual and most of the younger age classes were filled with Russian skiers. In the older classes the entry was more international – numbers were a little light but of high quality. The DNS rate went up for the long races (last of the week) – maybe V’s revenge at work? The results can be found on the website MWC2015.ru but mention has to be made of Thor’s results in class 12 (85-89 yrs!) He won the skate race and was second in the two classic races. The Canadian National Anthem was heard at MWC 2015 loud and clear! Also – Bruce managed to ski each race in a different suit – not sure why but lucky 10 km suit, lucky 15 km suit and lucky 30 km suit maybe? One interesting note about results – the unofficial results were printed with Russian titles and notes and those skiers that normally would have a DNS designation had what looked like “He crapt” if one was to be using our alphabet to interpret it – interesting coincidence?
The race week was started with the opening ceremonies which were spectacular – near Olympic quality. The Russians know how to put on a show! The dancing and the light show depicted the history of the region from reindeer herding to modern times with authentic and colourful costumes. A video of the ceremony can be seen at the MWC2015.ru website. A huge number of people attended – the giant hall was filled to the rafters.
On the rest day we ventured into town with our hostess, Lena, to guide us. We had a very interesting tour and were able to capture some of the ambiance of Russian life. Bruce and Joe were on a mission to find real coffee and threatened to tie Dave to a bungie cord as he kept falling behind mumbling something like “just trying to absorb the culture, Guys”. Finally we did find real coffee and fine desserts on the 13th floor of a tall building in the downtown. The shops that we did manage to see had everything – electronics, clothing, leather goods, toys and other goods – all of fine quality and at reasonable prices compared to our dollar but likely expensive against the ruble. However the people of Syktyvkar were certainly well dressed and seemed busy, many with eyes glued to iPhones and tablets. We tried another trip to town on the relay day and were without Lena – disaster! – we took the wrong bus and did a one hour tour of the outskirts arriving right back to the stadium where we started – so much for our tourist skills! Anders and Thor did the proper thing and had Lena give them a tour of the city that day.
The banquet finale occurred on the last day, post 30km classic race. It was held in a large hall where one could hardly see the far end and had several long rows of tables stretching full length. We were seated across from the Americans and just up-table from the Italians, one of whom chose to attend in his sleeveless underwear top – showing his biceps with pride. The tables were set with appies including “danishes” with lingonberry centres and the “famous” ones with mashed potato centres along with tiny cups of fish bits, meat bits and other stuff. Included were two bottles of wine, cranberry juice and one bottle of vodka – all of which disappeared rather quickly. No replacements! We went light on the appies expecting a large main course but to our chagrin the main course was a small bit of battered fish with either rice or pasta – tasty but only a morsel by athlete standards. No dessert! Of course there were the requisite speeches and the awards for the final races of the day – Thor garnered his silver. Thus ended the week officially.
Finally it was time to leave and busses were organized the next morning to take us to the airport – starting at 3:00 am which required a 2:00 am wake-up! We were to be on the first bus with the Norwegians, Swedes and USA – however the bus filled in an instant with people and equipment so we got on the second bus. Big mistake as it was only half full it waited for more passengers while all of the other buses pulled out and left. Several people on our bus started harassing the driver and the organizing committee rep on the bus – “we could miss our flight with a late check-in” and so on. Nothing was happening as there seemed to be concern that the Austrians might be left behind and we waited while someone went to their cabins to chase them down – no Austrians to be found! So off to the airport finally.
On arrival – we discovered that the airport was not open and our earlier angst was wasted. We all huddled about for a while and soon went through a security screening and on into the “wedge” (in Europe – no one “lines” up) to check in. Bruce and Joe chose to hang back on the wedge periphery; whereas, Dave, Anders and Thor moved with the crowd. We all got checked through and the plane lifted off on time at 5:30 am for St. P – we all sighed in relief to be on our way. At St. P Bruce discovered that his baggage had not come with the plane – no reason given and we could not understand how it did not arrive – the plane never touched the surface of the earth between Syktyvkar and St. P! So Bruce spent another two hours in a wedge at the baggage “services” desk and was the last person standing with his complaint – after doing the dance with a blond haired gal for so long he was ready to “grab her by the neck” in his words! Seems like there was no way he could get his stuff on another plane even though he and Joe were staying overnight in St. P – however – all luggage did catch up with Bruce about a week later in Deer Lake, NF. We surmised that Bruce’s baggage was put aside as the plane got to full load in Syktyvkar. Joe and I were lucky as everything worked out including my flight later that day to Frankfurt which was in doubt by rotating strikes by Lufthansa – they rotated in my favour.
Meanwhile Anders and Thor discovered in Paris that Air France had overbooked their flight and they were bumped and so started a day of frustration trying to get to Montreal. At one point they were to be re-routed through Morocco but finally reason prevailed and they passed through New York instead. As to getting reimbursed for inconvenience they were to mention Gilbert’s name when they filled out the forms – Gilbert???
So endeth the Russian Adventure and all is well……
Respectfully, from the dubious memory of Dave (Masters Class 9)