Upper Austria

As is well known, Austria is divided into federal states. Each has its own government and parliament, which doesn't stop them all living together under one roof. I had long wanted to visit Upper Austria, one of the federal states. Not the city, as usual, but the real backcountry, where native Austrians live.

Two and a half hours on the autobahn, never dropping below 140 km/h, and you are there.

We had booked a hotel in advance. Although the word "hotel" is probably said too grandly. Most often it is a two-storey, or even single-storey, house where guests stay.

We checked in to a two-storey house built on a hillock.

The rooms, as a rule, are always very good; no complaints there. The equipment in them is modern too. The rooms themselves are usually not small either. And there are big farmyards with little guest cottages dotted around them.

I have never once been disappointed.

How much does it cost? Prices vary. From 25 to 40 euros per person. We paid 40. A magnificent room, a great view from the balcony. Worth it.

Usually every village has a "promenade" trail that runs through fields, vineyards and lakes, over little footbridges.

I took a walk and got a great deal of pleasure from it. Naturally, no darkness anywhere. The village, trail included, is lit. There are many benches along it. Interestingly, in front of some of them a sensor of some kind is triggered and music plays. Mozart, of course, most often. You sit on such a bench for a while and then trudge on.

We had lunch at an inn that has existed since the early 17th century. But before that there was a monastery there, built as early as the 13th century. The first monastery buildings, however, date back to the 9th century. Only the foundation is left of them.

The Austrians love their country, you can't take that away from them. In all that time I did not meet a single discarded scrap of paper. And the streets are as clean as a concert hall.

And here is a curious moment.... The farther you get from the centre, the more trusting the people. For instance, when we checked in, they asked for no documents at all.

To be continued

I confess I have never seen such a huge number of waterfalls per square kilometre. I wanted to photograph them all, and many times over. But after photographing a good ten of them I realised it was hopeless: waterfalls turn up every twenty metres. So I simply decided to walk along the narrow little river and admire the views. And since I was not the only nature lover, and ahead of me on the narrow trail there were plenty of connoisseurs of beauty, I had to wait for them to climb each next staircase. As a result I suddenly realised that I had hopelessly fallen behind my group and had no idea where it was.

My colleagues could have turned onto any of the trails I came across along the way.

I picked one, the most difficult and stony, the kind that tears even the sturdiest leather shoes to shreds.

After tramping two kilometres ahead, I understood that I had turned the wrong way. It was unlikely my colleagues had walked faster than I had. I tried to phone them: useless! No signal at all. I decided to find them and tried another road. The same result: I never met anyone from my group.

What I did see was a huge number of roe deer, who kept turning up on the trail as if teasing me. Twice I saw snakes. One of them, evidently taking me for one of its own, crawled in my direction. I refrained from close acquaintance with the reptile and quickened my pace.

At some point I understood that I would not find my colleagues. But the worst of it was that I did not even know the final destination of the route.

To be continued

But the worst of it was that I did not even know the final destination of the route. Before we set out I had asked the leader, and she had given me something vague. I had no map either. And how could a map help in a dense forest with no landmarks? First you need to fix your position on the terrain.

I remember how once on Sakhalin, during my geological field practice, the head of the party told me to carry samples to the neighbouring party. I decided to shorten the way and cut across the hills. In the end I wandered all night through the Sakhalin taiga, frightening bears. I delivered the samples. But then, when I got back to the party, I went out on a route again. They didn't even let me rest. My own fault, and we had work to do!

It looks like history is repeating itself. I was lost.

No big deal: just sit down on a fallen log and have some tea. Which is what I did.

No internet. The phone was just an empty slab weighing down my pocket. Worse, dusk was falling. In the mountains night comes fast.

Maybe someone will think that in the Austrian forests even the footpaths are strewn with sand and gravel. That is not so. There are plenty of truly wild places. There are even bears. Not far away there is even a forest that is simply called the "Bear Forest".

I decided not to drink all the tea but to divide it into three portions. In a couple of hours I could drink another cup. Luckily it was hot, which was just what I needed.

The decision was made....

To be continued

The main thing is not to fall into some pit and break your legs; that would, of course, be harder. If you are healthy, the most that can happen is hours of wandering in the mountains until you finally come out at your place.

Scratched, tired, angry, but you will come out!

The bears there are not big either; nobody even remembers the year they last attacked a person.

A snake might bite, of course, but there the important thing is to watch your step.

Seeing a snake crawl past me, I remembered an incident that happened to me a couple of weeks earlier.

I was walking the dog in the morning, buried in my phone, not looking particularly at my feet, and I stepped on some twig that suddenly began to move under my foot. Glancing down, to my horror I saw that I was standing on a long, thick snake that had been lying on the path coiled in rings. The snake writhed in confusion under my foot, working out what to do next. It seemed so stunned by my impudence that it didn't even try to bite.

I leapt away from it a good three metres at once. The snake, feeling free, began to come to, looked around, and then crawled in my direction... I backed off, and it, evidently deeply offended, crawled after me. I tramped some fifteen metres until the vermin finally got tired of this game of tag and turned off into the thick grass.

Looking around at the beauty, I crossed myself and thought that a miracle had saved me. Everything could have turned out far sadder.... And nothing had foretold trouble. An ordinary walk. And yet it could have ended in a real tragedy.

This reminded me of another incident that happened to me at Balkhash, where I went after my first year of postgraduate study to gather more material for my dissertation.

In the party where I worked there were two students from the local university who, after a day's route, decided to go to the banya (an ordinary tent reinforced with planks, with a tin stove in the corner piled around with big stones).

Suddenly one of them runs out of the banya naked and shouts:

"There's a snake in there!"

"Where's Marinka?!" the party chief shouted.

"She fell, she's lying in the banya."

"Did the snake bite her?"

"I don't know."

"Cover yourself up, will you!"

To be continued

"No, I think. It seems I fainted when I saw it. She was right next to me."

And here is what had happened.

The banya had not been used for some time, so the snakes chose that tent as their home. They hid behind the stones. And when the stove was lit, it got hot for them and they crawled out onto the surface.

To be continued

I turned the phone on.

In one clearing the internet suddenly appeared. I opened the compass to determine the direction more precisely. What on earth?! The compass needle began to spin as if someone were furiously driving it round. What kind of natural anomaly was this?

I stepped a little to the side, but the compass would not obey. Fine, no matter. Which way to go was clear enough; the problem was that coming out exactly at my place was very problematic.

But still, why won't the compass obey...

All the reference books say this land was settled by the Druids. Here they built their sanctuaries, held cult rites and made sacrifices. Human ones too. It all depended on what tasks had been set before them.

So human sacrifices were not frequent.

If I connect my wanderings with the Druids, then perhaps it is no accident at all that I got lost...

You need a sacrifice, you Celts! Not a chance, you won't get one! I'll get out of this!

I trudged on and deep in the forest saw strange heaps unlike anything I had met before. On a flat, wooded surface I saw stones stacked on top of one another. And that the structure was man-made was clear at once. As a geologist I have seen no small number of rockfalls and natural stone formations of all kinds. But what I saw differed considerably from everything I had seen before.

I felt that I had been initiated into some mystery I had never encountered before.

What did the Druids do here?

Hold some kind of services, or perhaps tear off prisoners' heads in the name of a great idea.

And how much human effort it must have taken to lift one stone onto another.

And yet among the Celts, to whom they belonged, the Druids were the most respected community. Without their approval and support not a single important question was decided.

Even the thought that I was lost faded into the background. And I was not at all interested in how much longer I would have to wander before getting out to human habitation.

I trudged on. Two kilometres further I saw a similar heap. Again in the middle of a flat plain, which does not happen in nature. And multi-ton stones lay on top of one another. I had no doubt that someone had placed them in exactly that way.

As an experiment I tried to activate the compass. Useless! It didn't work. But now the needle seemed glued to the dial.

"What is there to experiment with, it's all clear anyway," I thrust the smartphone into my pocket.

"And in general it's time to get out of this place. Enough wandering."

Having determined the south side, from which I had climbed, I trudged down along the stream. It surely flowed into some little river, and from there human habitation could not be far.

To be continued

I descended the mountain for about four hours. I walked strictly downward along the stream until at last I stumbled upon a huge house lying in a hollow.

The dusty, sweaty vagabond was noticed at once by children playing at the door, and they promptly hid in the house. I even heard a key turn in the lock.

I didn't leave. If there are children, there must be adults, and they could be asked for directions. They wouldn't hide from me until dawn.

About ten minutes later a young, pretty woman came out onto the second-floor terrace. She glanced at me fearfully. Trying to win a little sympathy, I attempted a good-natured smile. But tiredness, acrid sweat and a flushed face did their work, and it came out rather sour. Which provoked a fresh wave of alarm in her. The woman even turned to go.

And then I shouted loudly, afraid she would disappear into the house:

"Hello, I'm a tourist. I got separated from my group. Could you tell me the way, please?"

My voice did not sound as spirited as I would have liked, with some notes of self-pity. The woman paused and asked sympathetically:

"Perhaps you would like some water?"

My last sip of water had been drunk an hour earlier. Dehydration was still some way off, but of course I wanted a drink.

For some reason I could not myself understand, I refused. The woman began to insist, said she would bring a cold bottle from the fridge, but I stood firm.

Shrugging, she began to explain the way. It turned out not so very far, some 15 km on foot. Three hours' walk for a good walker. Though all those turns were confusing: "first right, then left, then left again...." I activated the navigator to sort out the route, but it "lied like Trotsky", showing a new route every time.....

To be continued

or how Russians are treated abroad

I tramped to the indicated turn, where a big house stood, and turned onto the road. Suddenly an older bearded man came out of the building and began asking where I was headed. I named the place where I had left the car.

"This is private territory, you can't walk here."

And the bearded man showed me a completely different road. What the hell! Another detour.

A police car drove past as an unobtrusive warning.

I didn't argue. I strode confidently along the indicated path, although I felt I was trudging in a completely different direction and making a considerable loop.

Never mind. I'll get there.

I walked a kilometre without a single soul. Nobody even to check the direction with.

A farm appeared ahead. Surely there would be someone there besides the cows. That's where I'd ask!

Deep disappointment awaited me. Apart from chewing cows I found no one.

Suddenly a codger of about eighty rode out of a barn on a bicycle to meet me and asked what exactly I was looking for here. Certainly not sleepy cows.

I briefly told him of my misadventures and asked about the road. The old man was moved and said it would be better to go back a couple of kilometres and continue from there.

"But the man with the beard showed me precisely this direction."

The old fellow shook his head disapprovingly and showed me a new route.

"Go through the village, then you'll come out on the road and walk along it."

The police car drove past again. Slowing slightly, it rolled on.

After a kilometre I saw a group of farmers standing by a tractor, who so diligently failed to notice me that I guessed at once they had noticed me long ago, discussed me, and were waiting to see what I would do as I passed them.

I tried not to disappoint them: I said hello loudly. They answered just as energetically, but out of sync.

I trudged on. At the foot of the road by a wayside cross I saw a woman and, sparing no vocal cords, said hello.

Too much.... I failed to delight the woman with my pronunciation: the poor thing jumped with surprise.

To be continued

Trying to make up for my fault, almost in a whisper I began to tell her of my misadventures and to ask the way.

It seemed to bring a tear to her eye. And she suddenly asked:

"Are you Czech?"

"No, I'm Russian."

The woman's joy knew no bounds: as if she had met an old friend after years of separation. And then she suddenly offered:

"Would you like me to drive you all the way there?"

I did not refuse.

And twenty-five minutes later I was already there.

I want to say that in all my years of living in Austria, this was only the second time strangers had offered me a ride in a car. Austrians do not like letting strangers into their car. Much as into their apartment. For a Russian they made an exception.

Later it was explained to me that the police had begun watching me as soon as I came out of the forest into the settlement.

And one more detail... When the woman was driving me along the road and a police car came toward us, she discreetly raised her palm. A sign that everything was fine. This Russian is not dangerous.