Somewhere along the southern shore of Lake Ladoga we stop to buy freshly smoked fish from the old ladies hawking it on the side of the road. Soon afterwards the scenery noticeably changes. The road now passes through increasingly long and dense stretches of pine forest. Occasional clearings reveal villages, slender silhouettes of wooden cranes towering next to the water wells, timeless landscapes that have not changed in at least two hundred years. We are no longer in the crumbling outskirts of Europe; we are now entering the Deep Russia.

Another hour and we turn off from the main road onto a narrower lane that plunges straight into the dense forest. A car, an old Audi, passes us with three young men waving manically and yelling something unintelligible through rolled down windows. This brings back memories of when I was nearly run off the road by some rednecks in Missouri or Alabama, so we ignore them and keep our windows rolled up. The Audi speeds off and disappears behind a curve ahead. Twenty minutes later we enter Babayevo.

The car stops in front of a gate. I can see a vaguely familiar log house behind picket fence. Blackened logs and slightly sagging roof betray its age, but overall it still looks pretty solid. Taking in the surroundings stirs up memories. I recall vividly the two months of exile I spent here one summer waiting for mother and father to go on vacation so that we could all spend August on the Black Sea. I remember falling off my bike almost on the same spot I am standing on right now. It was a really nasty fall onto a gravel road, where I tore up both of my knees, driving some of the stones deep under my skin where they had to be pulled out using tweezers. I still have the scars as a reminder. Has it really been almost thirty years?

Several people emerge to greet us, including the guys who passed us on the road earlier. Now I notice their Audi parked on the side of the road a few meters away. No one looks familiar until an older woman joins them and then I recognize my Aunt Valia, older than the last time I saw her and not as tall, but with the same piercing grey eyes.

Without words we embrace. We stand there, slightly swaying, drawing comfort from each other’s presence. When we finally separate both of us have tears in our eyes. She introduces us to the rest. I do not recognize her two daughters: Lena and Larissa, since they were only nine and four when I saw them last. Turns out that one of the guys whom I mistook for belligerent rednecks is her boyfriend, who volunteered to wait for us on the main road to make sure we find our way here. I feel a tinge of guilt for my earlier reaction, but he does not seem to be too upset.

We go inside and I experience an instant flash of recognition from the summer all those decades ago. The house is furnished with old, but well-kept furniture, with potted plants on the window sills and faded rugs covering the creaky wooden floorboards, a flat-screen TV on a doily-covered sideboard being the only reminder that it is now the early 21st century. A small dining table, pushed up against the back wall underneath a large lace curtained window, is literally covered with all sorts of sumptuous home-made delicacies: baked golden mini-pies, salads, pickles, wild mushrooms, piled up bunches of red and black currants, vegetables and fruits from the garden in the back, carafes of ruby-red wild berry juices and big round bottles of liquid, soon revealed to be superb local moonshine infused with herbs. The whole scene looks to me like some fantastic Tarkovsky and Greenaway collaboration.

Glasses are filled, the 100ml faceted ones, not some miniature shot thimbles, toasts are said and I marvel at how easily the moonshine goes down. One after another, we drink, we cry, we tell stories and sing songs. I allow myself and my sorrow to dissolve in the alcohol and the loving embrace of this place and its lovely inhabitants. More people arrive, almost everyone a distant relative, and each wants to have a toast with me. Soon I lose count of the amount I have drunk and by the time seven o’clock approaches things get pretty fuzzy. After this the most vivid memory I have is hitting my head on a sagging ceiling beam on my way to relieve myself. Photos, taken just before our departure, show me practically being held up. Inna manages to keep her wits and not succumb to the same state, so it falls on her to maintain our collective human face and save me from any embarrassments.

We say our goodbyes, load into the car and start our way back. Inna gets in the passenger seat and I sprawl in the back semi-conscious and with head aching from colliding with the ancient beam. It is still summer and gets dark pretty late this far north. As the sun nears horizon the moisture in the air begins to condense, forming a layer of wispy fog in the forest clearings and in the midst of it the ancient villages with haystacks and water well cranes take on a timeless fairy tale look. The landscape we are passing is simply breathtaking, again recalling a Tarkovsky film, and I could have easily been enraptured by this magic had I not been suffering so much.

Eventually I fall asleep, but soon wake up feeling noxious. As if reading my mind, the driver pulls over. I crawl to the edge of the seat open the door and vomit. Done, Inna mercifully hands me some water, I crawl back inside and fall asleep. Some time later I wake up to another wave of nausea and, once again, our telepathic driver pulls over. For the second time I crawl to the edge of the seat, open the door and begin to vomit. As I heave the last remaining contents my stomach my eyes move up and I see right in front of me a pair of black leather boots with specks of fresh vomit, presumably mine, splattered all over. Surprised, not recalling anyone wearing similar boots, I follow their length up to see the dark blue uniform trousers of a traffic cop. At this point my fight or flight instinct kicks in, to be specific, wisely only the latter, I instantly withdraw inside like some underwater worm, shut the door and try to hide in the plain view, waiting for the consequences.