Petropavlovsk - First impressions

"It is 9:15 local time and the weather in Petropavlovsk is NASTY!" is verbatim what the Aeroflot flight attendant announced in a heavy Russian accent on our approach to PKC, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatksy. Unfortunately I didn't have the good fortune of a window seat like Colleen so I didn't get the opportuinity to see the volcanos poking through the cloud cover as we flew in.

On my way off the plane and onto the a overcast and dreary looking tarmac I managed to lose my lovely Kashmir Alpine beanie (Another reason to return to Gulmarg next year!). PKC airport is nothing to write home about. Furtunately the weather wasn't as NASTY as I had anticipated and I didn't mind waiting in the parking lot for the outhouse that is the baggage claim to open. Mine was the last piece of luggage to arrive. Marja, who had had a very short connection in Moscow feared that she wouldn't get hers at all. Hers was the first to arrive.

The countryside we saw in Kamchatka on our drive from the airport to our unimaginatively named Hotel Petropavlovsk was much like the snow and mud covered industrial wasteland I associate with the Soviet Union and my first trip to Russia in 1993. I had heard about the ship graveyard in Petropavlovsk but I hadn't realised that every house in the countryside would also have a graveyard for cars. It would seem that the rest of the world sends their cars to Kamchatka to rest in peace.

I am told there are only 3 hotels in Petropavlovsk and hotel Petropavlovsk is the second best. We share the hotel with other Vertikalny Mir skiers and boarders and a few blood thristy bear hunters. I too was warned that on occasion we share our ski room with a bear skin. If one of them leaves a gun around, they will be lucky if all I do is mess with the sites.

I am surprised by how well the hotel staff speak English. Another pleasant surprise.

In the afternoon we headed out to the local market; a fish and caviar lovers dream. Strangely however there was a long queue for eggs. This too reminded me of Soviet days when queueing for food wasn't uncommon. What I found puzzling about this however was that there were other stalls selling eggs. If someone can explain all of this to me, I am all ears.

We had lunch in a local bistro. I cant read the menu and I left the ordering up to the others. I am tired and I am happy to eat whatever is put in front of me. Patrick and Marja quickly made friends with some locals and were pretty soon knocking back Vodkas.

Moscow to Petropavlovsk

Tony had noticed that on our flights to Patropavlovsk we were all entitled to a 40kg baggage allowance. What a pleasant surprise. It was only when we arrived at the airport that we saw why. With our snowboard bags and gear, when compared to our fellow passengers, we were still relatively light packers.

I think our fellow passengers broadly fit into three categories: There were fellow skiers and snowboarders, there were Russians taking every conceivable luxury and household good presumably not available in Kamchatka, and lastly there were American and German hunters packing some serious heat!

It turns out that Kamchatka also attracts a lot of hunting tourism. I am a little uncomfortable with sharing the beautiful surrounds and natural beauty of Kamchatka with hunters. I do not object to hunting per se. I have shot at a few ducks on a friends farm before. Had we been successful we would have taken them home to his mother and they would have been lunch. I however do draw the line somewhere. It just doesn't seem right to me to travel half way across the world to a place that has less stringent regulations than your own countries to go out and shoot bears whilst they are still yawning and stretching out after having just woken up from their winter hibernation. What chance do they have when they still have sleep in their eyes? I just don't get trophy hunting.

We all managed to land the front row of economy which is great if you can stretch your legs out into the aisle. If like me, you are sandwiched in the middle, you have a X hour flight without straightening your legs. I guess it could have been worse. I could have been allergic to pollen and been sandwiched next to a flower weilding mamuschka like Colleen and Andrew

The person sitting next to me was Marja Persson who it turned out that was heading out to join Patrik Linqvist and others in Kamchatka for a shoot and would be flying in the same helicopter as us.

I had some sleeping tablets shortly after take off (the guys behind us were using vodka instead) and managed a few fitful burst of sleep before being woken 7 hours into our 9 hour journey for breakfast, my 9th airline meal in 5 days (was it breakfast?). I still wasn't quite with it when we touched down to an overcast Petropavlovsk at about 10 am local time.

It was a very uneventful flight really. I remember it being dark only very briefly. In future I would try to get a window seat so that I could take a look at the volcanoes poking through the clouds in event of bad weather. I also would ask not to be woken for food. It seems you have no choice.