Hide and seek

Today (Thursday) after class I got on the Marschroetka to Berdsk, to Marina, Sasha and Vania. A Marschroetka is A=a mini-bus that can carry 12 people and takes you within an hour to the kitchen with lots of tea and a mother that is over-worried. I figured out what the most strategical place to sit is, which is either next to the driver or in the back. Otherwise you are likely to end up the one having to collect the money or telling him when to stop.
When I arrive in Berdsk and I manage to find my way through the labyrint of blocs and small playgrounds to number 36, Marina welcomes me with stuffed peppers and tea. After the late lunch I try to study but am luckily freed by Marina who tells me to come on a little trip.
We are driving an hour east-wards, past closed factories and small towns and villages where people are left without work. We are passing fields, forests and some small lakes. We are on our way to Griboj, a village that has the name of the purpose of our little trip. Griboj is a bit off the (under construction) asphalt road, and we pass the houses with fences coulored in pink, green and purple. People look up when we drive towards the forest. I wonder whether these houses have streaming water. Winters must be cold, and white, though there is lots of wood…
The people from the small village have probably been before us, there is hardly any grib = mushrooms left.
Everywhere around Berdsk I have seen people with plastic bags or buckets bent over walking through the forest. There are around 10 different types and I have no knowledge whatsoever about eatable or poisonous mushrooms, luckily Sasha and Marina do. It feels a little bit like Easter-egg-hunt and am overjoyed when I find a group of big black mushrooms. We go home with 5 litters, little for an 1,5 hours search, but it is great to come out, to smell the fresh nature, to feel the vastness of ‘Siberia’. Fields, forests, and a single asphalt road that brings you to Kazaksthan or Mongolia.