Death Forest
Issue 77 / Mon 14th Oct, 2019
Join Artem Garashenko as he tries to ride the formidable Death Forest in Russia, it actually looks pretty good, but we're not so sure if it will end up on our kitesurfing bucket list!
Kiteboarders tend to stick together, riding the same old spots and taking on the crowds wherever we go. Sometimes though, looking beyond the usual reaps massive rewards. When Artem Garashenko heard about the Death Forest in Russia he knew he had to go there, with a name like that most of us would probably head in the opposite direction!
I believe that kiteboarding offers so much more freedom in comparison to other board sports. I find myself riding at popular destinations, but I tend to have the urge to explore them a little further; find new lagoons, pools and discover new channels or rivers. I usually end up having to walk back on a sketchy surface, but that's ok!
I was on a quest to find the craziest locations to kiteboard and decided to launch my YouTube channel called 'Kiteable' and documented my adventures at exotic locations. These spots are unusual, and not your average kiteboarding spots.
After completing two episodes of 'Kiteable', the first one being at Rose Lake in Russia and the second being a salt mining factory in Brazil, I started looking for spots closer to Moscow. A friend of mine recommended a place with sunken tractors and industrial machines, which were possible to jib on. Without giving it a second thought, that spot was on my list!
It was the morning before my flight to Tarifa; the weather forecasted rain and storms, but we ventured off anyway; my girlfriend, Kate, photographer Alexey Shabanov and I.
After about three hours of driving through traffic jams, and the last 30 km off-road, we finally arrived at an abandoned location. It was sunny, no wind, plenty of gadflies and no obstacles in sight!
There were a few fishermen around that shared some information about the spot. It turned out that this place was a drained swamp where peat had been extracted at since the 1950s. When factories stopped using peat as energy, the production decreased and nine years ago, it was closed entirely. The drain pumps and channels were removed, and water filled the area. Unfortunately for us, the locals had already sawed away all the metal constructions and sold it many years ago for scrap.
The wind was picking up, and we focused on more natural things like the backgrounds, birch trees and channels, which were all perfectly kiteable.
From the very start, nothing was easy! The launching area was quite small, especially for my 17m lightwind 'Juice'; I wanted to make sure I wouldn't get stuck in the middle of those trees so decided to take the biggest kite I had!
According to the forecast, we were expecting grey clouds and rain all day, but it was bright, sunny and clear sky almost the whole time.
The first tacks were the scariest because I didn't know what was underneath me! I even put on a full 3/2 wetsuit to feel more protected despite it being very warm and the risk of overheating! People tend to assume that Russia is always cold, but it is not, and that day, it was +30 Cº, and windy.
In some places, I couldn't touch the bottom, but I often hit snags, roots and rotten trees while I was riding. A durable park board, with small fins, did the job and helped me not to crash. Then, everything got better; I figured out where I could tack and jump without touching anything.
One area that I particularly liked was just after a line of reeds, and I rode on perfectly flat water spraying green duckweed on both sides! I was able to go for two tacks until the wind gave up entirely, and my kite went down.
The moss wrapped around my lines, and so attempting to relaunch my kite, while standing on the rotten tree trunks underwater was tricky - luckily the moss was easily removable just by shaking them off my bar.
The wind was quite gusty and sometimes switched offshore, but most of the time, I was powered enough to do presses and slides in the swampy areas, and stalls on the top of the trees. Some of them were dead and dry, while others broke when I touched them with my board in the air. There were people on the shore cheering and taking photos.
One of the fishermen lent us his boat, and we went out to get some shots in the middle of the 'Dead Birch Forest', and this was the hardest part of the day. The wind started to drop, and I was trying my best not to get my line snagged on a tree or to drop my kite. But in the end, it was incredible! I carved between the trunks 1-2 meters apart from each other, did jibs, slides and jumps over them!
The feeling after kiteboarding there was extraordinary! As we were leaving, the sky turned grey, and it started to rain. Despite the gusty wind, challenging spot and multiple gadfly bites, we are thrilled that we made it! We tried to explore industrial obstacles but found a place that hadn't been touched in years with an incredible story to tell. This abandoned peat moor exceeded our expectations, and we will try to go there again, probably in the wintertime to explore the other side of the spot. Stay tuned for more upcoming adventures!
Videos
By Artem Garashenko
