Audio Legend about the Great and Mighty Yenisei

«The boy was strolling, almost falling down with exhaustion. Suddenly the forest parted, revealing the Yenisei sandy bank to Vasyutka. The boy froze. It even took his breath away – so beautiful and so wide his native river was! But before it seemed to him just ordinary and not very friendly.  He rushed ahead, fell down on the edge of the bank and started to swallow water thirstily, clap it with his hands, and plunge his face into it.

– Yeniseyushko! Nice, kind... – Vasyutka sniffed and smeared tears on his face with his dirty hands, reeking of smoke.

Vasyutka went fully mad of joy. He started to jump, throw sand up with handfuls. Flocks of white seagulls flew up from the bank and circled above the river with discontented cries…”

Vasyutkino Lake by Viktor Petrovich Astafiev

What is Yenisei? Or who it is? The river is not for nothing called Yenisei the Father. You’ll say: “Well, a river”. And what else? Imagine you know that this is the fifth fullest river in the world. And this is the second largest one by the area of the basin. But the most important is how you feel this mighty river!

So, how does the Yenisei smell? –It smells with hot barbeque meat form a café on Krasnoyarsk embankment, with smoke of a fire near a tent on the bank of Krasnoyarsk reservoir, with fresh grayling, which has just been caught by gills near Yeniseisk. Someone will remember the smell of pond scum, and someone – the smell of crystal freshness. Someone remembers the smell of his beloved wife’s perfume, since this was the embankment, where you walked after you had got married in the registry office. Everyone has his or her own smell of the Yenisei. Remember yours too!

And what does it feel like? – Cold! And what colour is it? – Transparent. How does it taste? – So many our Yenisei Siberians have moved to different cities and countries and everyone has complained “water is tasteless everywhere!” Water is boiled there with all sorts of boilers and filtered with all the filters… and here just pour water from the tap – it’s clean, tasty and enough for everyone!

Yenisei River –  fogs, or rains,

And the forest is grey or red…

Yenisei River, come to me,

When I close my eyes – I’ll see you.

This is for ages, so to say, forever

With a green pine in my heart,

With the smell of the river and the rattle of the seines,

And the golden sickles of the Moon.

Yury Vizbor

A fisherman his own Yenisei. Here, where graylings and pikes live, you can hear yourself.  But I wouldn’t rather advise! It’s scary, dangerous and reckless to dive in the Yenisei. The wayward river would hardly give back what it has once rightly found its own. However, the Yenisei allows to catch a grayling. Especially, with a “balda” – this is a legendary Siberian tackle, which is considered to be the most catchy one for grayling fishing among Krasnoyarsk fishermen.

And how does it sound?! How the tender surf lulls and how the Yenisei wildly roars during the spillway! In the south of the region near the village of Lugovskoye the mighty fast river makes a sharp turning. The water washes away sandy steep banks, twisting into a deep black whirpool, dragging the pines, falling from the cliff, onto the bottom. Standing on the cliff, if to get away from unstoppable chirr of locusts and grasshoppers and kites’ cries, if to concentrate, you can hear this low, guttural rumble. The mighty river feels constricted in its banks, the water is eager to escape, it rushes to the south, and hitting on the bank, it terrifyingly moans.

The mighty water arteria of Eastern Siberia inevitably attracted people to its banks. Just during two centuries the ring of axes was replaced by the burr of the excavators’ engines. Great constructions – great manmade colossuses, which are seen even from the space: Krasnoyarsk and Sayano-Shushenskaya hydro power electric stations have become landmarks of the region. Pioneer explorers were replaced by conquers.

“On the third day to the north of Dudinka we noticed something strange in the water. Above the surface of the river some round object was rising and floating towards us. First, we thought it was an upside-down ship’s hull. But why was it moving against the current? It can’t be a submarine indeed!

– This is a real whale!

There was no doubt. In the middle of the river in the direction of Dudinka a very rare specimen of bowhead whale, about thirty meters long, that,  who knows how, had arrived from the Arctic Ocean through the Kara Sea to the Yenisei delta, was swimming. It’s too little space here for the whale, so any change of his course of moving could cause irreversible effects.

And the captain of the ship Orlov kept on following the course of approaching the ocean giant, maybe either because of recklessness, or because of the interest to see a whale closer. Our women cried blue murder, praying to change the course. But Orlov didn’t take any actions until the whale spewed the waste water high above the river...”

Reporter Stepan Ratsevich, June 14, 1957

Everyone has his own Yenisei. But what binds us with it so much? We can talk to the Yenisei. We can enjoy silence with the Yenisei. We can look into it like in the mirror and find answers to the deepest questions. You know, a human consists of 80% water. So, it turns out that the residents of Yenisei Siberia consist of 80% Yenisei! Yes, it sounds funny. But do you agree that no matter how many rivers you’ve seen in your life, just one enchants you.

I’ve seen lots of countries in all their beauty,

Wandering all my life around the world,

But only that river – the Yenisei – knows on my dreams,

And there is none more beautiful.

Yenisei River – fogs, or rains,

And the forest is grey or red…

Yenisei River, come to me,

When I close my eyes – I’ll see you.

Yuri Vizbor

We, the Siberians, soak up the Yenisei’s energy with our mothers’ milk. We are brave, strong, but at the same time flexible and patient. That is why we float along our lives as freely as the rivers do. And if someone needs – we will feed and water him. And while someone is making a choice, knowing that a river has two banks, we do not look for the banks, we dive into the great endless flow.