GOLDEN PRAGUE BY THE BERING SEA

There were days when this place was full of life and people busy digging gold, getting rich, shooting each other. Not any more. What is left is an empty shore with a few shabby tents amid the rocks. Some last mohicans still try to make a modest living by collecting tiny bits of the precious metal. Who are these strange people?

GOLDEN PRAGUE BY THE BERING SEA

One would rather be Czech than Russian. Czechs have no problems with their American visas and the duration of the stay. Like Martin Burda, who simply walked into the American embassy and got a six months visa just like that. After last year, he is now completing his second round of gold digging in Alaska.

Martin The Czech, 23, single, lives with his parents in Prague. Unable to find a steady job there, he is looking for better fortunes on the cold distant shores of the Bering Sea. The ones he found are rather mixed. The good ones, in the form of minuscule particles of gold, he has shown, with much reverence and multiple precautions, to a travelling Russian journalist, Alexander. Alexander The Russian was quite impressed by the contents of two small plastic cans, which used to hold film for a camera, now filled with gold to one third of their very limited capacity.

«Careful! Don't sneeze!», cautioned Martin The Czech. And for a good reason. Gold in one of his cans looked more like dust and could easily go with the wind, in the good company of his dreams... The other can had more substantial pieces, the biggest reaching half the size of the nail of a little finger.

Martin The Czech has been here since mid-summer. Winter is coming very soon, and it isn't easy to carry on, not when it's freezing cold during the nights.

The tent he is living in looks awful, but he does not mind. Not with the improvements he made. He has attached a big piece of waterproof fabric on top of the tent, with a hole in it, which he has covered with a piece of transparent plastic. So in its own modest way, this tent is like a seaside residence with a view. Since Martin The Czech did not carry any electric drill in his primitive luggage, I wondered how he made holes to fix the plastic «window» to the fabric. Like all other Slavic people, Martin The Czech learnt to be ingenious through his vast experience of shortages: so he used an old nail heated on a fire to burn the holes.

When he is not at work, Martin The Czech indulges in some recreational activities, like shooting mice. He put together a piece of wood, a spring and a rubber band, which effectively propel a tiny stick with a needle attached to its tip. Enough to kill the little bastards, thus sparing the hard earned rations which Martin The Czech is very reluctant to share with them.

After inflicting considerable damage to his population of rodents, Martin The Czech goes out to collect some dry wood on the beach and start a fire. The best part about the meal he is cooking — beans — is that it's cheap. And there it goes. In a makeshift baking stove he dared erect without any license from the local authorities, Martin The Czech bakes some bread. And there it goes too!..

His patience with this recurring menu is wearing thin. But he cannot afford more luxurious staples. Last year, he erroneously assumed that the initial lack of final product was mostly due to his inexperience. This year, he is wiser and realizes that in this business, he lacks not only the product but also the future.

The real bonanza comes with a big storm which shakes soil and brings in a fair share of golden sand, a single catch of which could be worth a few thousand dollars. But Martin The Czech has never been so bloody lucky. Lately, he has got in three ounces. He has to ship them to Seattle or some place like that, to some «head office» which will eventually pay him. But this money is as elusive as the golden sand: there is food to be paid for, and the rent of the dragging equipment, which eats half his income. To fly back to dear Prague, he will need another thousand plus for the fare, and he simply cannot show up empty handed at the happy family reunion, right?

...The long evenings are full of boredom, and reading is a way out. There is a choice of two books for the occasion. One book is fine, it's about a country called Peru, but the other is less exciting because there is not really much to read since it is an album. That's about all the fun Martin The Czech can get, that is when he is not taking pictures with his camera: a sunset, a beautiful night, a few teardrops of gold... A nice aurora too, a bit on the dark side though, but understandable since it was taken during the night season last year...

He did not have much luck with the Alaskan girls either; they tend to ignore him. Even though slightly upset and disappointed, his proud inner Czech self adamantly rejects the alternative in the form of a romance with a drunken Native.

When it was time to go, Martin The Czech showed how he worked. He donned a diving suit, pushed the dragging machine into the freezing water, lowered its hose and started the engine. Then he watched carefully the moving sand for signs of gold. Tough job!

After this demonstration of Czech hardships for the sake of Russian curiosity, Martin said good-bye and went back to cold beans and drying bread, his only companions for the last six months... Poor Czechs — and lucky Russians who are not receiving visas — or shall we say sentences? — for such long stays.

Alexander The RUSSIAN