Russian Wilderness Camp

So this week, I've been at Russian Church camp. I think I can say hands down that this was one of the roughest adventures I have ever been a part of. First off, I need to explain Russian church camp. This is not your typical camp. To even get to this camp, you have to take a ferry up the Volga River, then you walk a quarter of the mile through the woods to another river. Once you find a good place to settle, you begin digging holes…and lots of them. You dig holes for the giant tent, you dig holes to store food, you dig holes to store trash, and you dig holes to store poop. Now being that it was probably only 84 degrees, you wouldn't think that would be that bad. Wrong! You forgot that the sun is up for 22 hours at a time during the Russian summer, so it's hot aaaallll day long. On top of that, there are horseflies everywhere. I have never seen so many. I could wave my hand and I would be guaranteed to swat at least 3 or 4. On the Brightside, they only bit you if you were wet and/or sweating. On the downside, you were always wet or sweating. Luckily, horseflies only bite when it is light out. What a relief. Of course, once the sun goes down, the mosquitoes come out and they don't care if you're wet or not.

I encountered some interesting animals at camp. First, our camp was raided by hedgehogs. That's right: Hedgehogs. I didn't even know these lived in Russia. They come out at night and search for anything sweet that they can find. They're actually pretty friendly and even let you pick them up. I should have a picture of one of the hedgehogs we caught up on facebook shortly.

The second animal is not so cute and cuddly. The Russians call it medvyetka, which sounds a little bit like "earth bear" in Russian. The English name for it is "mole cricket" but since I had never seen one, I was a bit caught off guard. Here's a picture of this ferocious looking creature. The one in our tent was about 3 inches long and looked like some creature from outer space. Apparently, they live underground and eat root crops, such as potatoes, beets, and carrots. I hope to never see one again.

I have to get going, but hopefully I'll be able to blog again soon.

Until then,

Connor