When one thinks of a place that is hard to find on maps, they think of somewhere abandoned. A place perfect for killing and hiding mutilated bodies. No one thinks of the roads full of pot holes or the birch trees that surround the entrance to an almost forgotten village.

For me it is something of a wonder that this place exists, especially after how advanced England is. I first visited the place when I was maybe 5 years of age. At the time I was living in Russia, in an area which by translation is called “Under Moscow”. The house was spacious there and we had our own little forest with a fictional house on chicken legs that belonged to the witch of the forest, Baba Yega. We added a slide and a sand pit, though the witch lived there at night and left the inside of the house a mess, my siblings and I loved to play there during the day. Sometimes we would invade the house at night and try to see the witch. Sadly, we never did.

My parents were loving and caring of the three of us, provided us with a fantasy world where we immersed ourselves in each day and begged to be allowed to stay there when night came. Our grandmother visited us and made us race to finish our meals which inevitably made us gain 10 kilograms by the end of her week’s stay. We shared the large land with our neighbours, who had an only daughter with which we played everyday, ate meals at her house and messed around in her luxurious pool. Life was carefree at the time, our only worry were the huge mosquitoes that came each spring and the worry that we did not have enough dandelions for make our crowns.

I had no other friends aside from my elder sister with whom I fought often and the skeleton thin girl next door. I did not have to make up friends though, I made them easily when the time came. Sometimes my elder step-brother would come and visit us, he looked a lot like my father. Thinner and younger, but all the men in the family shared a similar trait on their upper right lip, a beauty mark.

When my step-brother came over, he did not stay long. He would stay the afternoon and night, then he would disappear for a week, taking my father with him. They would load up the dull silver jeep with all that they needed and be off before the sun made it’s appearance. I never knew where they were going until one day, I begged them to take me with them. My argument at the time was that I was so small that I would take up half a seat and be no bother to them.

It was true, I did not take up much space, nor was I a bother. I fell asleep in the back seat closest to the right window and slept like a kitten, curled up under my step-brother’s jacket. We left in the morning and arrived late in the evening. I do not remember much of the journey or how we got there, but we did not stay long this time.

I went with them each time after the first time, it was an honour. I was accepted into the a private club and soon the trip became a sort of tradition. We would routinely load up the jeep, fight for the front seat, listen to old Russian music from my father’s CDs. Now those songs are hard to find, but I managed to find a few. On one of these trips, my father told me that the jeep was modified. The exhaust was channeled around the car and lined the right side near the front like a chimney. So that the car would not drown in the muddy and often wet terrain. The overly large wheels added to that, I could not climb them in the first couple of years. I eventually learnt that I can jump up and pull myself up into the monster jeep.

The car ride was long and lasted the entire day, we traveled from the far east side of Moscow, to the very far west side where the trees took over the land and the towns took 15 minutes to drive through. The car itself always had the same smell. Dust, petrol and in general the essence of long trips. The smell would make you sick sometimes, but that was the beauty of it all. Once you got out of the car, the fresh air would hit you like a flower truck. Unpolluted and quiet, serene I might add.

The best time for these trips was during spring or autumn, because the winter brought bone freezing cold and powdered snow that would have swallowed me whole if I stepped into it. The summer was hot and humid during the day and during the night, the mosquitos would attack. Autumn came late as ever and with the first snow fall, everything froze. The leaves became delicate and crunched under your feet, the crisp air stung your cheeks, making them pink. As autumn turned into winter, the forest became increasingly quiet, as if everything had died and you were left there alone. I once tracked too far from the car. We had parked the car in the trees next to a frozen over lake. The bare orange barked trees dwarfed everyone and everything. Yet, once you stepped outside the tree-line, you could really see that the lake contrasted the trees. It was white and still. The place felt like a graveyard and that was truly apparent when I wandered deeper into the trees. I walked along the hill, between the trees and nothing moved except for me and the wind. The quietness was strange, because nothing is quiet and for some reason comforted me.

I knew the place well enough and eventually found my way back to where the car should have been, only to discover that the car was gone. Perhaps I had been gone for too long, but I walked back along the tracks the tires left in the snow. At the time I did not have a phone and would not be getting one for another 4 years so there was no point of panicking. I got back to the rotting village I loved so much. My father was making up the barbecue since it was getting dark and did not notice that I was not there. I did not say anything to him because I did not want him to worry. Now that I look back at it, I was lucky that I had a good memory for places and that I did not wait for someone to come find me at the lake.

The house we stayed at was two stories high, we stayed mainly on the first floor. The front door was attached to a netted balcony and the heavy door was hard to open because it was rusted. Once inside, you would see a set of steep wooded stairs which lead to a trap door to the second floor. We did not use it during the colder months because there was no heating there. To the left in the hallway there was a bathroom which we only used to wash our clothes in and use the toilet because we took our baths in the river about 200 meters from the house or in the raised bathhouse. Opposite the bathroom, there was another wooden door that lead to the main living area in which there were 4 beds, a wooden table, a closet and of course the brick stove and chimney. The heating there was not electric. No, if you wanted the room to be warm, you would have to start a fire in the stove and the hot bricks would heat the wooden house. There we cooked our meals on the stove if we had to, but we only used it once to make soup from the fish we caught in the stream. My father did not know much about cooking and his soup was the entire fish without the guts with some vegetables and too much salt. I eventually ate it, but after that we stuck to the barbecue.

Our neighbours lived 10 meters away from us and had a very scary dog. It would bark whenever I came near and never warmed up to me. The one time I decided to be brave and say hi to it, I got bit harshly on the side. After that, I always went around the side of the house to get in. Everything had a rickety feeling to it. Everything was old and felt like it was going to break and that resulted in games. If you did not move fast enough you would fall, so we raced to get up. The added factor that the dog could get you added to our speed. In the neighbours house, I remember they had a water dispenser. Something you would have if you had no working water. It was a canister with a stopped that if you pushed up would release water. No one has those anymore because water is easy to get nowadays.

In spring the river would flood. The banks would spill and the land around it became marshy. The only way to get to the raised bathhouse by the river was to jump from one raised grass hill to the next or use the jeep. There was always the fear of snakes biting your ankles, yet that was exactly what made you sprint. There were no taps inside the bathhouse which in Russia is called Baña. We had to take the water form the river which was tinted a light brown due to the soil through which it filtered through. We would carry buckets of the stuff up the steps and dump them into the boiler in the third room. Once it was full, we stocked the fire. The Baña which was like a sauna without the steam, would take a day or two to get to the right temperature. The first room was the entrance and that is where we kept our clothes, the second room was like a shower room. There we would mix the cold water with the hot water from the boiler and wash our hair after we were done sweating in the hot room. It was always nice there and usually done in the evening. When we had quests over, they would smoke and drink outside on the veranda that had no railings.

In this place, you could see the stars perfectly. They were clear as crystal and that veranda was my favourite place to watch the night sky. It was beautiful, but I never got to stay long. I was young at the time and I had a bedtime.

The roads that worked like the cardiovascular system between the small village and homes of the people living in the forest as well as the farms, were made of sand for the most part. The sand was to help stop the fire if there were any and along the road ran trenches which had a similar purpose. I remember fondly how I was allowed to ride the buggy we acquired then. It was fast transport and used less fuel. The seats were low to the ground and only the metal framework hinted that this was indeed a fully functioning car. I was allowed to ride it on road and off road, to learn. I spent the entire afternoon showering the area and then I became the driver. I drove one of my father’s friends to the town shop. For some reason he had a ton of eggs with him. Since there were so many pot holes, I had to avoid them and of course the friend was surprised that I could drive so well.

My last visit there was memorable. The ride was nothing out of the ordinary, this time I was the only one that went on the trip with my father. I was the only child there this time and it was odd to say the least. It was strange for a teen to have no friends to talk to, but I guess I had my gadgets. The trip was calm and this was the first time I realised that adults expected children to entertain themselves. I had no problems with that. I walked the length of the river until I could walk no further, I climbed the trees I could and followed forest animals like a detective. At the time, our neighbours had an old cat that already had kittens a while back. It was easy to say that the cat was old and very grouchy, but I still tried to be friendly with it. That is where I was wrong and also where I learnt a very important lesson about watching how animals behave. As always, I would pet the cat when it would go near, however, this time it lay down showing me its belly. I thought that was an invitation to pet it’s stomach and I ended up with its teeth embedded deep into the soft muscle of my hand. Suffice to say that the trip was cut short and I had to go through an unpleasant stay in the Russian hospital and within the year I got a total of about 5 shots because of that cat.

I have not gone back since then, but I doubt I will ever be able to forget the serenity of the acres of lush forests that went under appreciated by me. Compared to London’s brick jungles, the unfriendly people, the little half abandoned village from my childhood is a haven to which I long to revisit. I’m not sure if I want to share it with anybody though. I don’t think I’m ready to let go.