Birkeskovene

På den anden morgen var toget allerede fire hundrede kilometer øst for Moskva. Polly vågnede op på det lille klapbord, hvor hun havde tilbragt natten under et hjørne af kvindens beige cardigan. Lyset gennem vinduet var det bløde grå af en tidlig sommermorgen i nord. Kvinden var allerede oppe og drak te fra et glas med en metalholder.

On the second morning, the train was already four hundred kilometres east of Moscow. Polly woke up on the small folding table where she had spent the night under a corner of the woman's beige cardigan. The light through the window was the soft grey of an early summer northern morning. The woman was already up and drinking tea from a glass with a metal holder.

"Birketræer," sagde kvinden.

"Birches," the woman said.

Polly kiggede. Udenfor vinduet løb hvidstammede træer forbi med tres kilometer i timen. De var overalt. De fortsatte. De stod ikke i lunde. De var ikke i lysninger. De udgjorde hele landskabet. Skoven var blevet en kontinuerlig kendsgerning.

Polly looked. Outside the window, white-trunked trees were running past at sixty kilometres an hour. They were everywhere. They went on. They were not in groves. They were not in clearings. They were the entire landscape. The forest had become a continuous fact.

Dette var den vestlige kant af det russiske birkebælte. Hvidbirk, Betula pubescens. Nogle dunede. Nogle sølvagtige. Arten har det bredeste naturlige udbredelsesområde af nogen løvtræ på Jorden. Den kan vokse på land, hvor næsten intet andet vil. Den trives i kolde, næringsfattige jorde, i moser, på skovkanter, hvor større træer ikke kan få fodfæste. Det er træet, der siger: her har været en brand. Eller: her vil der komme en skov, men jeg er her først.

This was the western edge of the Russian birch belt. White birch, Betula pubescens. Some downy. Some silver. The species has the widest natural range of any deciduous tree on Earth. It can grow on land where almost nothing else will. It thrives in cold poor soils, in marshes, on the edges of forests where larger trees cannot get a foothold. It is the tree that says: there has been a fire here. Or: there will be a forest here, eventually, but I am here first.

Den unge mand med den bærbare computer, hvis navn viste sig at være Pavel, kiggede op fra sit tastatur. "Du er papegøjen," sagde han på fladt engelsk. "Jeg lagde mærke til det." Han vendte tilbage til sit tastatur. Kvinden, som hed Galina, hældte et andet glas te op og tilbød det til Polly. Det havde farven af stærk rav. Citronskiven på toppen flød som en lille gul båd.

The young man with the laptop, whose name turned out to be Pavel, looked up from his typing. "You are the parrot," he said in flat English. "I noticed." He went back to typing. The woman, whose name was Galina, poured a second glass of tea and offered it to Polly. It was the colour of strong amber. The lemon slice on top floated like a small yellow boat.

Polly tog en forsigtig slurk fra kanten af glasset. Det var meget varmt og meget sødt. Samovaren for enden af vognen havde kørt uafbrudt i tolv timer.

Polly drank a sip, carefully, off the edge of the glass. It was very hot and very sweet. The samovar at the end of the carriage had been running for twelve hours straight.

Polly hoppede hen til vinduet. Birketræerne fortsatte. Af og til en tynd sort flod. Af og til en lille landsby med grå træhuse med udskårne vinduesrammer. Så flere birketræer.

Polly hopped to the window. The birches kept going. Occasionally a thin black river. Occasionally a small village of grey wooden houses with carved window frames. Then more birches.

"Den længste del af denne rejse," sagde Galina, "er træerne. Folk forstår det ikke, før de tager turen. Du sidder i et tog i seks dage og kigger ud på træer. Der er ingen ende på dem. På kortene er det en grøn farve som enhver anden grøn. I toget er det noget andet."

"The longest part of this trip," Galina said, "is the trees. People do not understand this until they ride it. You sit in a train for six days and you look out at trees. There is no end to them. In the maps it is a green colour like any other green. In the train it is something else."

Polly vippede med sit røde hoved.

Polly tilted her red head.

Taigaen begynder teknisk set et sted forbi Volga. Skoven, hun kiggede på nu, var stadig blandet europæisk skov. Men strukturen af den, måden den fyldte vinduet uden noget landemærke til at forankre den, var allerede det, taigaen bliver til. Det meste af Rusland er dækket af skov som denne. Omkring fyrre procent af landets areal er taiga. Landet indeholder omtrent tyve procent af al verdens stående skov. Fra luften, om vinteren, er Rusland mest sne på træer.

The taiga begins, technically, somewhere past the Volga. The forest she was watching now was still mixed European forest. But the structure of it, the way it filled the window without any landmark to anchor it, was already what taiga becomes. Most of Russia is covered by forest like this. About forty percent of the country's land area is taiga. The country contains roughly twenty percent of all the world's standing forest. From the air, in winter, Russia is mostly snow on trees.

Polly tog en anden slurk. Pavel tastede. Galina vendte tilbage til sin bog. Toget holdt sin jævne rytme. Udenfor vinduet gled fire hundrede kilometer forbi, som om det var én kontinuerlig birk.

Polly drank a second sip. Pavel typed. Galina returned to her book. The train made its steady rhythm. Outside the window, four hundred kilometres slid past as if it were one continuous birch.