New Year in Different Countries

POOR FATHER FROST, or THE GEOGRAPHY OF NEW YEAR Over the past 10 years, we have celebrated New Year in different countries—at these blue dots on the map. At first, from Southeast Asia and Siberia, our New Years moved from east to west across the Northern Hemisphere. After the Pole of Inaccessibility, they began moving east again, but this time across the south of the planet. You certainly can’t envy Father Frost, hauling our presents around the world after us! There are places in the world where presents simply cannot be delivered. For example, at Point Nemo . The old fellow had to fly to the very south of the planet on Valentine’s Day as well—when our crew celebrated our second New Year of 2019, complete with all the proper New Year traditions. The wizard went on holiday a month and a half late, because he simply could not fail to bring presents to the yacht moored in Ushuaia, the southernmost city in the world. Father Frost was so exhausted that he even dropped the young sailor’s doll along the way. We found it under the dinghy a day later. But let’s take things in order. First, Father Frost had to race to Southeast Asia. 2011 – Koh Samui, Thailand This is Nastya at the Flower Festival in northern Thailand Back then we did not yet have a yacht, but our love of freedom and adventure burned brightly. Incidentally, it was an advert on a coconut palm on the Thai island of Koh Lipe that launched our sea odyssey :). But that was in 2009. Now it is 2011. Picture the scene: I am seven months pregnant, with a temperature of 38.5 and bronchitis, in the company of three children. One is still a baby, and another is lying down with a temperature of around 40. Andrei is at Samui Hospital, beside the bed where our friend Olya, delirious with dengue fever , is seeing in the New Year. Her daughters are celebrating with us. Masha has dengue fever too. And Dasha—one year and eight months old—is keeping the whole company entertained. Only nine-year-old Nastya is still on her feet. She prepared the sole dish on our New Year table: Olivier salad. The year 2012, when everyone was waiting for the end of the world—remember? The Gingerbread House, the Altai Mountains . This New Year passed without injuries or horrors, so we remember it for its warmth and cosiness. There were friends, candles, a Christmas tree and fireworks, a banya and an ice hole. And also a trip to the Blue Lakes, which appear in the bed of the Katun only in winter. 🙂 2013 – Koh Samui, Thailand . I celebrated this spectacular New Year in a cast, with pins in the bone after breaking my arm in the Canary Islands. That was also when we went sailing for the first time in our lives —exactly one week after the operation :)). 2014 – at the Gingerbread House, the Altai Mountains . It was the best New Year celebration with friends, concerts, fireworks, swimming in an ice hole and a New Year fairy tale. 2015 – the island of Malta , Mediterranean Sea . On Catholic Christmas, I tried to burn some aubergines in the oven, but came back just in time. The four of us spent New Year’s Eve aboard the yacht, watching films and listening to the Kremlin clock chime. Having conscientiously done our duty in the field of family happiness, we decided to celebrate the Old New Year differently. Thanks to this resolve, Lady Mary’s command team left the young sailors to spend the night on the boat and went to the Russian Ball . For the occasion, the captain’s wardrobe aboard the yacht even acquired a white shirt, sharply creased trousers, shoes and a bow tie, while my evening dress finally justified its presence on board. 2016 – at the Gingerbread House , the Altai Mountains It was our last New Year at home before the circumnavigation. The grand celebration at our house, which I had begun preparing a month in advance, went completely down the drain. I came down with influenza—not to be confused with an acute respiratory viral infection—and spent New Year’s Eve lying down with a temperature of 40.5. The children kept the stove going and somehow managed for the entire week while I was comatose. Meanwhile, the captain, who had waited in vain for us to fly in, was alone in the Canary Islands preparing the yacht for her circumnavigation. 2017 – already on the far side of our first ocean , after a 23-day Atlantic passage , on the island of Grenada in the Caribbean. There, together with our old friend Leonid, captain of the yacht Lastochka, and our new sailing friends—Lyosha Goolfstreamer and Dasha Olen—we drank champagne and listened to all the presidents whose countries we had any connection to. 2018 – in Panama , at Shelter Bay Marina with the local sailing crowd preparing to transit the Panama Canal. 2019 – at Point Nemo —the Oceanic Pole of Inaccessibility —the point in the world’s oceans farthest from any land. Just the four of us. Neptune was there in the ocean with us too, of course, and somewhere far away, in the same stormy latitudes of the Southern Ocean, Fyodor Konyukhov was rowing his boat. It was our most unusual and most physically and emotionally difficult New Year. New Year at Point Nemo 2020 – in Cape Town, South Africa . We spent a lovely Christmas visiting the head of the Russian School in Cape Town . New Year’s Eve itself was beautiful, but not particularly lively. 2021 – in the fine city of Perth , Western Australia, together with the Mosaic Russian School. Now that was fun. Our young sailor made her solo stage debut with the song “Three White Horses.” To be honest, during rehearsals the day before, I seriously wondered whether our Lada might be better off devoting herself to chess after all. But her brave teacher, Marina Potekhina , managed to coax the young sailor’s vocals into something resembling a song. New Year’s Eve at Mosaic, while the captain and young sailor temporarily perform the duties of Father Frost and the Snow Maiden The year 2021 Yes, we were supposed to celebrate this New Year of 2021 in Tahiti , timing it to coincide with the glorious completion of Russia’s southernmost circumnavigation ever , undertaken by a crew with children. But, as with many of you, our plans have temporarily fallen through. The young sailor and her best friend Mila swap roles Happy New Year, dear friends! May 2021 bring your problems to a happy resolution, and bring you happiness and the energy to move towards your dreams! We wish you the chance to celebrate New Year in different countries. And from the bottom of our seafaring hearts, we thank you for travelling the most difficult routes with us. Thank you for your support, for staying in touch by satellite in the heart of the ocean, for your warm words and for worrying about us when we are in storms. You warm us greatly and keep us from giving up in difficult moments. We value every one of you! Wishing you great, powerful wings, friends! We thank Iridium-360 and MVS Telecom for communications at sea, and for ensuring that on difficult journeys amid the Roaring Forties, the dry deserts of Australia and the great vast “Nothing,” we remain connected to the world. Thanks to your tracker and support, our friends and followers can see on the map the track of our route in real time, along with the weather and even the temperature outside our wheelhouse window :). We thank the cosiest and most creative online school— the Geographical School of the Holy and All-Praised Apostle Andrew the First-Called —for the pleasure our young sailor gets from her studies and the interesting activities. Thank you for the warm atmosphere, well-organised lessons, close-knit community and creative classes. The young sailor with a friend and the Geographical School flag on the edge of a canyon in north-western Australia A huge thank-you to Dmitry S. from St Petersburg, Nikolai N., Igor S., Valentin K. from Moscow, and our wonderful support group from our Travely Family YouTube channel for the New Year gifts sent to PAYPALME/travelyfamily . Your contribution to the expedition’s ship’s fund is being used to prepare Lady Mary to continue sailing through the Southern Ocean. Let’s head into the New Year together! Be afraid of nothing; make your dreams come true! Anything is possible if you truly want it. And everything will be all right! Your Father Frost and Snow Maidens #travelyfamily