A Portrait of the Scientist as a Young Woman by Lindy Elkins-Tanton

Author:Lindy Elkins-Tanton [Elkins-Tanton, Lindy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-06-07T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 6

Past Is Prologue

Partway back to Ust-Ilimsk on the Angara River, motoring south, after sixty miles of pristine wilderness, Sergei invites us to spend the night at his fishing camp at the mouth of the Kata River. Sergei’s fishing camp consists of several nicely built wooden houses with a collection of outbuildings, all connected by neat wooden pathways and set into a great meadow, mowed into lawn near the buildings. At the dock we are met by two young Siberian huskies, Pulya and Chama, bowing to Sergei, wriggling, yodeling. I immediately acutely miss our border collies at home, and Turner and James, and I even miss a Siberian husky from our past, Natasha. Dogs.

There is a bear skin on the wall, and there are great soft couches, and a satellite television, and a framed photo of Putin bare-chested on a white horse. Volodia makes macaroni with meat mixed in and we add hot sauce and horseradish. We have a little pepper vodka, and some tea. Then Sergei tells us the sad news: a big hydroelectric dam is being built a distance downstream, north of here. The dam is being completed this year, while we are there on the river, and as soon as the dam is complete the river will start to rise. The water is expected to rise twenty yards at the Kata mouth, where we are; the whole fishing camp will be destroyed and submerged underwater. Downriver, authorities have already evacuated and burned to the ground a whole village.

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