Ice fishing warms a villager's heart

OIMYAKON, Russia — Outside the village, sitting in a cozy cabin set in the snowy woods, Vladimir Atlasov, a technician at the town's power plant, was spending another frigid night ice fishing on the Indigirka River. His eyes wrinkled with pleasure as he downed another shot of vodka.

The fisherman tore off a bit of bread, wrapped it around a bite of horse meat and sprinkled the tiny sandwich with salt. To please bayuani, or the spirit of the hunt, he doused it with vodka, opened the door of an iron stove and threw the offering inside.

A blue globe of flame shot out of the coals as the alcohol burned. Grinning, Atlasov rubbed his calloused hands. The sacrifice ensured good luck.

The day's shroud of gray-blue clouds had finally cleared, letting temperatures slide. Stars like silver needles bore holes in the sky.

As Atlasov stepped outside, he pulled on a gray knit cap and sheepskin gloves; he didn't bother buttoning up his coat or his underlayers of flannel and cotton.

He trudged through the dense woods, which gave way to the banks of the frozen Indigirka River — a silent incandescent field of white almost a half-mile wide. The inky figures of Atlasov's fellow fishermen moved like shadows across the drifts.

He stopped short of a pond of open water, surrounded by thin ice where he had bored five holes about the size of dinner plates. The night before, he had attached nets or baited hooks and lines to the bottom of slender birch tree trunks about 12 feet high, then lowered them gently into the holes.

Now was the time for harvest.

Taking off his gloves, he smashed the newly formed ice sealing one fishing hole. Using his bare hands, he cleared the ice chips. Then he slowly pulled up the trunk. At the end of a short piece of line wiggled a Russian burbot, about 8 inches long.

Over the next 30 minutes or so, he retrieved another half-dozen fish from a series of holes near the ice. His gloves remained in his pocket.

His wife cooks his catch. "But my favorite way of eating them is to cut the head off and eat them raw," Atlasov said.

He fishes at temperatures below minus 60, spending hours on the ice. When a visitor prepared to leave the ice, Atlasov offered his bare right hand in friendship.

It was warm to the touch.