One in a thousand - Lake Belyo in Khakassia

It is immediately clear that this trip will be by someone else’s rules. In the first second (and the next couple of days) it is quite stressful. But sometimes, bending under the unusual to us foundations, crawling out – reluctantly, under the whip and kicks and non-musical wheezing about the “white bath” – from our heated, well-fed and sleepy comfort zone, we risk finding something inaccessible to us before.

So instead of fighting and arguing, I decided to pretend to be a foreigner in my home country, in my hometown, twenty centimeters from one of the people closest to me, and see what would come out of it. Relax and have fun, as they say.

In the courtyard the last hot weekend of July, and therefore the short Siberian summer in general. I plunge into a half-sleep (which can not be done at all!) under the flaming rattle of old men Gipsy King (Mr. Casual Overkill by some unthinkable miracle bypassed both Garika and a man in round black glasses) and cozy rocking of the car, and it comes to my mind how exactly a year ago I sat on the sea shore in the Chinese city of Dalian and literally dreamed of being on Lake Belø.

During this trip, this idea will come to my mind at least once more, and I will explain it in more detail. In the meantime, a brief geohistorical reference on the topic of Khakassia and its natural reservoirs of varying depth, width and degree of salinity follows.

So, you may be surprised, but on the territory of the tiny republic of Khakassia in comparison with the whole of Russia there are about a thousand (1000!) different lakes. They differ in size, degree of flow and salinity. Simply put, there are salty and fresh. A good half of this thousand are considered very large - an area of 10 hectares. In the list of the largest freshwaters are: Itkul (area 23.3 km2, depth up to 17 m), Black, Fyrkal, Oshkol, Bugaevo. And to the salt giants it is customary to include Belyo (area 75 km2, depth up to 48.2 m), Shira (area 35.9 km2, depth up to 21.8 m), Tus, Jirim, Vlasyevo, Gorky, Ulug-Kol and Uskol.

Our destination is a huge, seventy-five-kilometer salt Khakassian “bath”.

Belyo consists of two lakes connected by a narrow duct (or separated by a narrow isthmus - who likes it more), also called ples: Large and Small. As the name suggests, one of them is slightly smaller (and salty), the other is the opposite. The total area of their mirror is really huge, and therefore emerging from behind the next hill, and seeing in front of you, reflecting the sky and the sun lake, first of all with a completely childish delight you think: “the sea”. But then the prudish mind comes to itself from the first plague of the species and begins to look for inconsistencies and shortcomings: there you can see both the forest and the coast, well, what kind of sea is this?

Of course it's not the sea. This is -- who would argue? -- a lake. That's it!

It is only after four hours to open the doors, and for a while the watered, soaked through the smells of steppe grasses and lake salt, the air fills the whole world perception. They want not just to breathe, but to choke and maybe even die. Of happiness, of course. To think about it, this morning I thought the air in my hometown was quite fresh.

Thirty minutes of fuss follow. Americans like to speculate that the impetuous nature of Russians with our characteristic periods of laziness and periods of violent activity is largely explained by tight swaddling in childhood. Perhaps there is an element of logic in their words, but personally it seems to me that this is not their business at all and it would be better for them to watch the obesity of their children with the same zeal.

And now the tent is dismantled, the awning is stretched, and the sun loungers are directed towards the lake, like a pair of aircraft carriers ready for the last battle.

First steps into the lake:

I enter the water and the calm, glowing purity of the lake engulfs me. Swimming forward is always a great pleasure. You feel like an astronaut who's lost his fald. Small and helpless, flying towards the stars, which, of course, he is never destined to meet. Scary. But so mesmerizingly beautiful. In the distance, in a light blue haze looming hills of this kind, as if I are no longer on Earth at all, but at least on Mars. The huge sky stops hanging and opens overhead with a huge topographic map – a real cloud atlas. I swim and bustle city days, stress, fear and fatigue, if not go away, then at least clogged in the corners, struck by the intensity of sensory experiences. I'm swimming and I know I can swim and swim again. Forget, close your eyes and a second later be on the other side. A body in salt water is almost weightless, like the best version of itself.

I absolutely do not want to go back, even the water, which seemed ugly cool at the beginning, now feels like something dear and tender, but common sense takes its course. The hills ahead are like unattainable stars.

Rowing back is incredibly boring. The piled prosaic nature of the species turns tantric love with the lake into a routine working day of porn workers: monotonous movements, deprived of meaning and pleasure. Instead of the cosmos of water / sky / hills, only the shore is ahead: tents, cars and bare bodies of varying degrees of friedness and attractiveness, as well as chairs, pit smoke from fried kebabs, children, dogs, children, dogs ... but not garbage. This after China strikes me to the core, no less than the recent sight of bluish mounds.

Steppe grasses, lake surface and hills that cannot be reached:

Last summer in Dalian, a not-so-best-known seaside resort, I was shocked by the level of pollution. Smoke air. Dirty, littered sea. Dirty beach. Peak season? I guess, but still. Right before my eyes, the local family, frying kebabs and with pleasure, swallowing them, folds the tent, collects things and leaves napkins, bottles, bamboo swords and other wishes of happiness to all other visitors to the beach. Why, well, why don't I believe that in the off-peak season, they would have done otherwise?

Even on the last weekend of July, the shore of Beleu remained untouched by garbage, and the waters were clean, despite the fact that on the shore Cirque du Soleil met with Mamaev invasion, took him to the opera and, it seems, even tried to have children.

Tents, trained elephants and fakirs:

Another feature of the steppes of Khakassia is a truly "lunar" climate. The stupid heat of the day is replaced by the sun disappearing behind the horizon, to the penetrating cold, which creeps from behind the back of the Eden snake and begins to whisper in the ear sly thoughts about woolen socks, fleece jacket (two!) and, perhaps, a hat.

The sunsets here cannot be ruined, even by filming them on your phone:

This sounds like a serious drawback, but in fact turns out to be full of joy. The fact is that this climatic feature makes the rest here diverse. During the day, you can drink kvass or cold beer, swim plenty and roast in the sun, while the evenings are ideal for gatherings by the fire, hot tea and cozy kutanya in clothes. Just take her with you.

For people with allergies to the cold and other lovers of increased comfort, individual recreation centers can offer wooden houses equipped with electricity, toilet, beds and certain protection from rain, wind and other bad weather in Khakassia.

The night side of the loo. Belyo. The fire here is very appropriate:

But for me, they all have one inherent flaw. Even being close to the lake, they manage to be too far from it, allowing the whole motley tent camp to squeeze between themselves and the water expanses.

My place on this lake is at the front. Only on the first line. Where I'm only a ten-second barefoot run away from the water. Nothing separates my eyes at all.

Forgetting about the towel, I allow the scorching sun to deal with the salt drops on my back, sit down in a worn cloth chaise longue, touch the cold glass of a glass giving off with hops with my lips, and, measuring, look, look, look at the miles of sparkling mirror surface and the hills hovering above it in the air.

Author of text and photo: Konstantin Levtin