Birkeskovene

På den anden morgen var toget allerede fire hundrede kilometer øst for Moskva. Polly vågnede på det lille klapbord. Lyset gennem vinduet var den bløde grå af en nordlig sommermorgen. Galina, den ældre kvinde, drak allerede te fra et glas i en metalholder.

On the second morning, the train was already four hundred kilometres east of Moscow. Polly woke up on the small folding table. The light through the window was the soft grey of a northern summer morning. Galina, the older woman, was already drinking tea from a glass in a metal holder.

"Birketræer," sagde hun.

"Birches," she said.

Polly kiggede. Udenfor susede træer med hvide stammer forbi med tres kilometer i timen. De var overalt. De fortsatte. De stod ikke i lunde eller lysninger. De var hele landskabet.

Polly looked. Outside, white-trunked trees were running past at sixty kilometres an hour. They were everywhere. They went on. They were not in groves or clearings. They were the entire landscape.

Dette var den vestlige kant af det russiske birkebælte. Hvidbirk har det bredeste naturlige udbredelsesområde af nogen løvtræer på Jorden. Den vokser, hvor næsten intet andet vil. Det er træet, der siger: her har været en brand, eller, her vil komme en skov, men jeg er her først.

This was the western edge of the Russian birch belt. White birch has the widest natural range of any deciduous tree on Earth. It grows where almost nothing else will. It is the tree that says: there has been a fire here, or, there will be a forest here, but I am here first.

Den unge mand med den bærbare computer, som viste sig at hedde Pavel, kiggede op. "Du er papegøjen," sagde han på fladt engelsk. "Jeg lagde mærke til det." Han vendte tilbage til at skrive.

The young man with the laptop, whose name turned out to be Pavel, looked up. "You are the parrot," he said in flat English. "I noticed." He went back to typing.

Galina hældte et andet glas te op og tilbød det til Polly. Det var ravfarvet. En tynd skive citron flød ovenpå. Samovaren for enden af vognen havde kørt i tolv timer i træk.

Galina poured a second glass of tea and offered it to Polly. It was the colour of amber. A thin slice of lemon floated on top. The samovar at the end of the carriage had been running for twelve hours straight.

Polly tog forsigtigt en slurk fra kanten af glasset. Det var meget varmt og meget sødt.

Polly drank a sip carefully off the edge of the glass. It was very hot and very sweet.

"Den længste del af denne rejse er træerne," sagde Galina. "Folk forstår det ikke, før de kører den. Du sidder i et tog i seks dage og kigger ud på træer. Der er ingen ende på dem."

"The longest part of this trip is the trees," Galina said. "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."

Taigaen begynder efter Volga. Omkring fyrre procent af Ruslands landareal er taiga. Landet indeholder omtrent tyve procent af verdens samlede skov.

The taiga begins past the Volga. About forty percent of Russia's land area is taiga. The country contains roughly twenty percent of all the world's standing forest.

Polly tog en anden slurk. Pavel skrev. Galina vendte tilbage til sin bog. Udenfor gled fire hundrede kilometer forbi, som om det var én sammenhængende birk.

Polly drank a second sip. Pavel typed. Galina returned to her book. Outside, four hundred kilometres slid past as if it were one continuous birch.