The Wonderful land of Zabaikalye

Everyone of us is sure to have his own place on the Earth. So do I. I have a place which I’ve been keeping in my heart from childhood. This place is the river Onon and the summer cottages situated nearby. This place is beautiful in its own way and moreover usually it depends on the season.

First, you go by road where you won’t notice anything special or worth seeing, but round the next bend... and you will admire the beautiful mountains, rocks and the twisting blue river. Next, your eyes will be fascinated by the summer cottages which look very cozy and nice. I should also point out that the owners are very kind and hard-working people. People hurry to escape from the noisy town, to leave their houses made of stone and to breathe gulps of fresh air, plunging into a different world. Everything in this world is simple but only here you feel the unity of man and nature.

I like to spend my free time or vacations at my cottage on the Onon, but the most special time for this is winter and spring. The winter... Everything around is white. We are at our cottage. My father puts some wood on the fire and it’s getting warm. Then he gives me the sledge and in some minutes I’m already sliding downhill. At this moment I’m as happy as a king. Then we go to the river. Everything around is so quiet, only the snow crunches under foot. The frost slightly nips at my face. I take some steps and I’m standing on the blue ice. Through the ice one can vividly see the fish swimming by. Then grandpa hurries me up and we continue our walk. And now that beautiful mountains are so near to us, they are huge and high. We begin to climb one of these mountains and as we climb higher and higher the big stones are gliding down under my feet. At last we’re at the top of the mountain.

From here I see a very beautiful picture: the cottages sink in the drifts of the white sparkling snow and the puff of smoke comes up from the chimney. What beauty!... Yes, the beauty and the silence reign here. Well, I think it’s enough to admire, eh? “It’s time to get back home,” – the grandfather says. So we are coming to the cottage. The grandpa shakes the snow off my clothes and valenki. Already in some minutes I am at the table and eat with gusto the pancakes cooked by my granny and I’m smiling gratefully to her. Having eaten my fill, I go to bed...

The spring is also a good time for having a rest at the cottage. The ice on the river begins to melt and the banks are full of big blocks. The air is fresh and transparent. When you leave the cottage, the following picture is before your eyes: the mountains covered with big pine-trees and birches and somewhere there is a little snow. But the most beautiful thing here is our famous pink ledum which is in blossom. And it’s so hard to turn your eyes away from the beauty!

I guess the people here are the best ones, for example, our neighbour, the grandfather Fishka. Once we were invited by him to his cottage. I remember sitting on the big trunk and being given a big bowl of bees wax. The grandfather Fishka often told me different legends. Here is one of them.

Once there lived a young woman, Maria. She liked to walk in the evenings in the glade but once a sorcerer appeared and he made a proposal to her. But as she didn’t like him at all, she refused to marry him. Of course, the sorcerer got angry and as a curse he turned her into a pine-tree. And till today this pine-tree has been standing absolutely alone on the mountain. Though the grandfather Fishka said that if we wanted Maria to be turned back into a girl we must throw 1000 poppies at the pine-tree, I hardly believe in this.

At last the winter has come, the snow is everywhere around... I’m coming up to the window... It is cloudy, the sky is cold and grey. Indeed it’s so boring.

I take my photo album and open it. And the first picture I see is of my favourite river Kamenka. Every autumn our family goes to the place which is liked most of all by us. And this autumn wasn’t an exception. I look at the pictures and remember walking along the river and it seems to me that I was there not so long ago.

When we visited our place, the first thing which I would do was come up to the river. I remember this so vividly! I go down the hillock and before my eyes is the river Kamenka. I walk very slowly because I want to hear and see everything, losing no detail. It’s such a pleasure to enjoy all this beauty of the forest and the silence which it keeps.

The river means so much for a person especially if you’re somehow related to it. The river is slightly covered with ice, which is very clear and plain. So it sparkles in the sun, the surface is so clean that you will see neither signs of the bird’s claws nor the cracks of the stones. I walk slowly along the bank and observe how the river tries to resist the frost. In spite of the fact that I saw this so many times, every year brings something new.

I decide to stand and not to hurry! On the left and on the right banks of the river the trees are standing still probably they don’t understand what’s happening to them, they can’t recognize themselves and the river either.

The river is freezing and gradually loosing it’s ringing and roaring voice. And very soon it will be completely covered with ice. But anyway now the river tries to fight off the frost’s attacks, tries to escape from its strong shackles. I think that at these moments you begin to understand yourself better, your inner world and the secrets which it keeps. And when you come back to reality you don’t want to leave this beauty. But the time passes so quickly and it’s time to get back home and I have to say goodbye to the river. See you soon, Kamenka!