My parents owned a ship-building company—specifically, barges—so I’ve been
around the ocean my entire life. I know how to row, sail, tie knots;
everything that’s associated with ships and boats. It pretty much consumed
my being. It wasn’t until I was in my twenties that I started to get into
hiking. I was kind of sick of the water, so I wanted to do something
land-based, and that was the best I could come up with. I loved it, so I
started doing it more and more. Meanwhile, my parents were trying to put
themselves on the map by constructing the longest barge in the world. At 500
meters, it surpassed all others by a great deal, and they were proud of
themselves for it, even if there weren’t many uses for the darn things. They
were also faster than most ships of the day. With no cargo, they could reach
a cruising speed of nine knots, which was pretty impressive. Oh, and they
could move on their own, so that was cool. The company spent most of its
money on these three giants, and they weren’t shaping up to give us much
return on the investment. They needed to show the world what they were
capable of. They needed to market themselves. They needed a big show. So I
came up with a plan. It was ridiculous and silly, but if I could just get
people to hear about the company, it would have been worth it. I decided to
try to walk from my home country of Russia to the Nation of Alaska. Crazy, I
know, but with these barges under my feet, I figured that there was no
reason I couldn’t get this done. It’s good that there were three of them,
because I don’t know if it would have worked with just two. They could be
attached to one another back to front, allowing travel between them. They
weren’t meant to move across the water like this, but they could stay
together just fine for long enough to allow me to step from one to the next.
Again, we were all well aware of how crazy the plan was, but it worked.
After I stepped onto the second barge, the first one would be detached, and
propelled past the next two. By the time I reached the end of the third
barge, the first one was attached in front of it, and the second one was
already on its way to getting in front of that one. It took a lot of fuel to
make this happen. The idea was for me to walk all the way from the
Easternmost tip of Russia to the Westernmost tip of Alaska by foot. If the
barges moved significantly forwards, it would have defeated the
purpose. The drivers had to be really good at not letting them drift too
much, and keeping the undertaking as authentic as possible. In total, I
walked over 83 kilometers. I probably walked farther than that actually,
because the rule was for the drivers to err on the side of Russia, meaning
that if the ships drifted at all, they would have to compensate, and usually
that meant they were overcompensating. The distance itself was obviously not
that big of a deal. Fifty miles is a relatively easy trek for even an only
moderately experienced hiker. Still, the barges weren’t the most comfortable
surfaces to walk on, and it was pretty boring most of the time. Even so, I’m
proud of myself for having accomplished it. The barges themselves didn’t get
much use after that, since they were still so absurd, but the publicity
stunt worked. I mean, just hearing about it put my parents’ ship-building
company in people’s minds, and when they were in need of a ship, they
thought of us before all others. The company thrived after that, and they
were able to sell it off for a pretty penny. They knew that I didn’t want to
inherit it from them, but I still got a decent cut of the sale, because they
considered me so instrumental in its value.
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