Fleating moments

While the ticks were out there somewhere, carnivorously grinning and rubbing their little legs, scouting for a gullible linguist to sink their teeth into, Nastya’s urge to merge with nature struck again with all its usual ferocity. With the utmost seriousness, my beloved declared that we had to spend at least a full day outdoors.

There wasn’t a single chance I could weasel out of it — and here’s why: we had decided to squeeze every last drop (and a bit more) out of the May holidays. Not just to join the country in its collective springtime revelry, but to stretch the celebration by another full week using vacation days. And yet, in all that glorious idleness, my restless wife kept feeling like we were being far too slow, far too still — while life, cold and indifferent, was just passing us by.

A trip to friends near Voronezh? Not enough. A house party steeped in wine and rum? Still not cutting it. Nothing could fill the gaping pit of her desire to become one with nature.

To be fair, the house party wasn’t the original plan. Initially, we were supposed to head out into the wild. Nastya considered it outright deviant behavior not to go for a barbecue during the May holidays. But in practice, finding a cozy cabin for six — despite what seemed like endless options — turned out to be a rather tricky quest. For two? Easy. For four? A breeze. For six? Welcome to hell. Sure, we could’ve just shown up at some renovated Soviet pioneer camp, but the kind of “comfort” offered there makes you seriously reconsider your life choices. So, we improvised. Instead of singing around a campfire, we belted out backyard songs in our own living room.

And so, our great return to nature happened with just the two of us. This time, we chose “Palyonki” — a glamping site not far from the legendary Kudykina Gora (where the famously soot-faced concrete dragon Zmey Gorynych stands guard). The founders had done their best to preserve the natural landscape, carefully nesting the guest cabins into the scenery like they’d always been there.

It took us just under two hours to get there. We’d been to Kudykina Gora a few times before, so most of the route was familiar. The radio crackled softly in the background, we chatted here and there, and Nastya smiled contentedly — thrilled to be back on the road, headed toward a cozy little hideaway in the heart of nature.

To balance out the rather immodest price tag, we were promised a whole suite of comforts: from multiple air conditioners paired with heated floors, to surprisingly decent Wi-Fi across the entire glamping grounds. All the cabins were strategically turned to face the sunrise (which, spoiler alert, would come back to haunt us — but we’ll get to that later), offering guests some pretty postcard-worthy views. Hammocks, a fire pit, and even a hot tub big enough to cook a small friend group in — everything you’d want for a quality unplug-and-reboot weekend was in place and promising total relaxation.

An unexpected — yet utterly delightful — attraction of our little getaway turned out to be the resident cat, named Flea. As we later learned, the name had nothing to do with her harboring actual fleas. It was a tribute to her boundless, almost heroic level of restlessness.

Our acquaintance began as I was standing near the grill, trying to hypnotize the potatoes buried in the coals into cooking faster. Out of nowhere, a commanding “Meow!” rang out from the far end of the grill zone.

The voice belonged to a young cat with a most peculiar color palette. Imagine this: someone had very carefully painted a cat bright orange. Then changed their mind mid-process and tried to go over it with black. But they ran out of paint, and now the ginger patches peeked through here and there — like someone had tried to turn a panther into a tiger and lost interest halfway through. Add to that a pair of white “gloves” and “boots,” a fluffy cravat on her chest, and a comically white-tipped tail — and you’ve got a pretty vivid image of the creature who was now staring at me with her glowing yellow headlight-eyes, clearly hinting that it wouldn’t kill me to share a snack.

Strange that she hadn’t shown up earlier — when thick slices of pork had been sizzling over the coals, marinated in what must’ve been an obscenely excessive amount of onion. The smell was so intoxicating it could only be tamed with a cold beer — and even then, only after the second or third sip.

Just...

...like...

...that!

When Nastya arrived with a plate to collect the now-ready potatoes, she sized up the situation in a single glance. With a long sigh, she informed me that it was time to head to the table — and under no circumstances was I to feed the woolly little devil all the barbecue. My wife knows full well that my love for our furry brethren, while sincere, is heavily seasoned with Zyrtec. And since she had grand plans for that pork, she laid down the law then and there: first she eats the juicy, flame-kissed pig, and then any four-legged freeloaders might get a sniff.

But anyone who’s ever dealt with cats — any cats, of any breed or disposition — knows that boundaries mean nothing to them, and hierarchy only exists if the cat is sitting firmly at the top.

So naturally, things unfolded accordingly. First, Flea boldly slipped through the carelessly cracked front door and began inspecting our cabin, as if she’d rented it for the weekend herself. After a firm eviction, she was undeterred and continued her attempts to sneak inside — mostly aiming for the spots near the heaters.

Eventually, we managed to cool her squatter ambitions and settled on the veranda, braving the crisp spring air. This May had clearly taken a few cues from the Scandinavian playbook and wasn’t in a hurry to warm anyone up.

Flea curled up nearby, taking up a pose that screamed “Don’t mind me, I’m just hanging around,” and started grooming herself with elaborate flair. Only occasionally did her eyes — glinting with barely restrained greed — rest on the plate of shashlik, while her twitching whiskers betrayed the true direction of her thoughts.

I don’t quite know how it happened — one moment we were enjoying each other’s company, the barbecue, and the holiday. Then suddenly, poof! — and there we were, feeding chunks of meat to a sly little feline, who was devouring them with gusto and purring like a finely tuned engine.

At some point, Nastya floated a theory that I somehow act as a magnet for animals. She claimed they can sense in me a reliable source of affection and calories. And to be honest? Sounds about right.

After a hearty lunch, we decided to take a stroll around the area. The friendly administrator had mentioned a few of the local "hot spots" — namely, a trail along a brook feeding into the Don River, a spring whose water was supposedly filtered through layers of silver, and a kiosk in the nearby village where one could buy anything forgotten at home.

We chose to start with the kiosk, since Nastya was craving sunny-side-up eggs for breakfast and — classic us — we’d forgotten to bring any. The walk wasn’t long, but it was all uphill, and the trail, which gradually morphed into a narrow dirt road, twisted and turned like an ADHD python on a sugar high.

A few meters in, we realized we weren’t alone on our rural shopping expedition: Flea was tailing us at a polite distance, her tail flicking lazily, clearly intending to come along. What was a short walk in human strides became quite the trek in cat terms. I was sure she’d just see us off to the nearest bend and then lose interest — too much meat had likely dulled her wandering instinct. For a while, she did vanish from view, and we thought we’d correctly predicted her behavior, albeit slightly skewed by a belly full of pork.

But logic shattered on the rocks of fuzzy reality: when we emerged from the kiosk — which was stuffed to the rafters with everything except eggs — there she was, waiting by the door like a tiny sphinx, squinting into the sun with a look that said, “About time.”

Somewhat stunned by this rare display of feline dedication, we started heading back — only this time, Flea took the lead. Her silly tail, with its bright white tip, stood up like a flag of pride as she trotted ahead, clearly reveling in her new role as our trail guide. Every so often she’d glance back at us and let out a soft “meow,” as if urging us to keep pace. Or maybe she was congratulating us on following instructions. Or perhaps she was narrating local gossip about the neighboring farmhouses. Hard to say — my cat is rusty.

Then, suddenly, her cheerful “meow” turned into something far more dramatic — a drawn-out “mrrruooowww!” She arched her back like a sine wave and turned sideways for maximum visual impact. Scanning the area, we quickly spotted the reason for her sudden mood shift: a black-and-white tomcat was trotting by on some mysterious feline errand. He paused, sniffed the tension in the air, and gave a casual look around. When his gaze landed on our now fully-inflated tour guide, there was a flicker of confusion in his eyes — maybe mixed with apathy.

Still, escalation was averted. The monochrome citizen wisely ducked into the roadside bushes, vanishing like a ghost. Flea, having just flirted with the spirit of the tiger, deflated back into her well-fed, barbecue-drunk self and resumed our journey as if nothing had happened.

From the look in her small but calculating eyes, it was obvious she’d reached a conclusion: we were returning home to continue feeding her toward some glorious state of protein nirvana. So, when we suddenly turned off the road toward the spring, Flea froze, unsure what to make of this unexpected detour. For a moment she stood there, visibly torn between curiosity and the call of grilled meat.

In the end, greed won. She trotted after us with renewed determination, clearly plotting to divert us back toward the more promising direction — the one where sausages might rain from the sky and meat fell from human hands like manna.

On the way to the spring, we followed a creek and almost immediately spotted signs of recent rodent glory — courtesy of the local beaver population, immortalized in a song not too long ago. All around us were trees gnawed clean through at the base, felled like wooden sacrifices to the gods of dam-building. And then came the dams. At least four of them, each one built with a level of care and craftsmanship that would've made a Soviet engineer weep with pride.

Flea trotted along behind us with fearless determination, navigating the rain-softened trail while thoroughly sniffing everything in sight. She took every opportunity to sharpen her claws on each fallen trunk we passed. Whenever we hit a particularly mushy patch, she'd snort in indignation, search out the driest way across, and keep tagging along without missing a beat.

The water at the spring really was pretty tasty. (Back home, I tested it with my personal TDS meter. Came out at 124 ppm — not bad at all for brewing coffee… What? Did you forget you’re reading the story of a hardcore coffee nerd?)

While Nastya and I filled up a bottle and took a few sips, Flea clearly struggled to understand why on earth we’d hike all this way just for some water. But the moment she realized we were heading back, she immediately resumed her role as expedition leader, glancing back every so often and nudging us forward with her soft, bossy meows.

We, meanwhile, couldn’t get over how seriously she was taking her self-appointed duty of care. What was driving her? Was it gratitude for the barbecue bounty we’d shared? Or maybe — just maybe — like any exhausted mother of many, finally freed from the demands of her offspring, she just wanted to travel as far and wide as her little, white-tipped tail would carry her?

But even her vagabond spirit (or should I call it full-blown dromomania by now?) was put to the test when we returned to the glamping site — only to immediately set off again down another trail. This one snaked along the same creek, eventually leading to the Don River. The look Flea gave us was loaded with a newfound contempt for all things pedestrian. Still, she sighed with the kind of grim resignation usually reserved for Tolstoyan heroines and once again trotted after us.

Clearly protesting this fresh assault on her tiny cat limbs, she occasionally plopped down right in the middle of the path and let out a dramatic, echoing meow, as if appealing to our common sense — or perhaps cursing us for subjecting her to feline ultra-marathons. Nastya and I took turns trying to coax her to go back, but the cat was unmoved. Once it became clear we weren’t turning around, she’d let out a tragic meow and bounce after us with the weary determination of someone who’s accepted their fate.

I won’t lie — I was this close to turning back myself. The poor thing was suffering, dammit. My heart, ever tender toward all things four-legged, cracked a little more with every pitiful mewl rising from the tall grass. But just as my resolve was hanging by its last thread, the trail showed mercy and opened onto the Don. Before us spread a picturesque view of the river, framed by moody skies and the sharp bite of May weather that seemed to have borrowed its thermostat from Scandinavia. Had it been a few degrees warmer, I might’ve even taken a dip.

Flea, however, was not impressed. Judging by her restless pacing and wide-eyed glances, she’d clearly never ventured this far before. The terrain was unfamiliar and unsettling. And yet, she stayed close, circling our feet like an anxious nanny unwilling to abandon her foolhardy charges. We even joked that some dormant maternal instinct had short-circuited in her brain and now she was convinced we were her reckless kittens, bumbling through the world unsupervised.

Once she was certain we were heading back toward the glamping site, Flea took the lead like a furry bullet, darting ahead with a ferret-on-three-espressos kind of energy. But after a few hundred meters, her battery finally drained. She slowed to a dignified stroll — not forgetting, of course, to nudge us along with the same demanding meows that had punctuated our entire scenic detour.

She led us right to the cabin door before putting on one last show of unbroken spirit. Despite the rain that had finally started to fall, she still had gunpowder left in her metaphorical flintlock. The door hadn’t even fully opened before she slipped inside like quicksilver and went straight for the heater like it was her birthright.

We had to evict the shameless squatter with a generous severance package made of leftover barbecue. Only then were we finally free to collapse in peace and enjoy the stunning view from the panoramic windows, our feline overseer now purring somewhere just outside, presumably plotting her next dramatic entrance.

It was high time for coffee — especially since our current residence boasted not only a built-in fridge, dishwasher, and washing machine, but also an induction cooktop. As the self-proclaimed household tech expert, I took it upon myself to establish contact with said cooktop. And, in accordance with the highest laws of cosmic irony, I failed spectacularly.

The panel flat-out refused to turn on. All my attempts to reason with the touch controls were met with the cold, infinite blackness of deep space. I tried tracing the power cord to the socket, but that led nowhere — it disappeared behind the kitchen cabinetry and into the thrilling unknown. Applying my advanced knowledge of appliance connectivity — that is, yanking the cord a bit — I determined that it was indeed plugged into something, since it resisted all efforts to drag it out for a more aggressive interrogation.

While I groaned and wrestled with the kitchen’s shadowy innards, Nastya sprang into action and called the front desk. Together, we tried pressing buttons on the cooktop once again, now with a sort of half-crazed determination. Predictably, nothing happened. The receptionist apologized profusely, summoned the local “specialist in general issues,” and offered to pass the time with some casual small talk.

The specialist, clad in camouflage and purpose, arrived with commendable speed. He fiddled with the fuse box, jabbed the unresponsive panel with a well-calloused finger — and achieved exactly the same result as the rest of us. Then, with a thoughtful grunt, he followed my earlier path into the bowels of the cabinetry. One by one, he unplugged the dishwasher and fridge — presumably to intimidate the cooktop into submission. Yet even he couldn’t reach the elusive power cord.

Things were heading toward a relocation: the receptionist had already suggested moving us to another cabin, and since it was a weekday, there were plenty of vacancies.

And that’s when my beloved wife, who had been watching the whole circus from her chair, leaned forward with a glint in her eye. It seemed that she saw something in that pitch black abyss of the kitchen cabinets. I don’t know if the abyss stared back at her Nietzsche-style, but at some point she muttered, “I think I see something…” — and dove headfirst into the cabinet like a human swallow.

For a few suspenseful moments, there were rustling sounds — then a triumphant shout, immediately followed by the beep of a revived cooktop. Victory! Turned out, the plug hadn’t been fully inserted into the socket. But because of the tight space and our, ahem, less-than-svelte physiques, neither the camo guy nor I had managed to reach it properly.

I’ll never stop admiring my wife for the sheer force she brings to any challenge life throws her way. Faced with that kind of pressure, even the most stubborn obstacles crumble in confusion and quietly retreat.

As it turned out a bit later, the coffee I drank had some rather unexpected perversions in store for me. Instead of the usual jolt of energy, it hit me with a wave of cosmic melancholy and soul-crushing gloom. I drifted around the cabin like some solemn, sorrowful ghost, sighing heavily now and then and thoroughly confusing my wife.

Back in our teenage years, we used to have a slang phrase — “catching a sour one.” It referred to someone suddenly becoming grumpy and withdrawn for no apparent reason. Well, let me tell you with full authority: I was absolutely, 100% catching a sour one.

In an effort to apply the first law of Tech Support (“Have you tried turning it off and on again?”), we went to bed. I was desperately hoping that morning would, in fact, be wiser than evening, and that my moody emotional software would reset itself to a factory default of cheerful.

It worked to an extent. The next morning, the sun was shining from everywhere. It felt like it was beaming straight out from under the bed. Panoramic and oddly-shaped windows are great — just not when you’re trying to sleep in. Even the birdsong was tolerable. But the relentless rays of light offered zero chance of a lazy morning. They hit your eyes with the gentleness and tact of a Gestapo officer during an interrogation. Like it or not, we were up early.

There was no sign of Flea anywhere nearby. Presumably, she was still recovering from yesterday’s marathon, tallying up her mileage and burned calories. Or maybe she'd remembered her maternal duties and was off doing some parenting.

We had a slow, quiet breakfast and eventually hit the road.

Later that day, after we got home, Nastya sent me a video — a few ginger, bug-eyed furballs galloping across the wooden walkways of the glamping site, launching themselves fearlessly into the tall grass from tree stumps.

We’ll have to come back one day. Just to see if they’ve inherited their mother’s boundless energy — and that strangely oversized sense of caretaking.

A trip well done.