Serteya 2018 - The Return!

Thanks to Yolaine's amazing hard work to get her project funded I was able to return to Serteya - after 6 years, wow. It was so good to be outdoors for 2 and half weeks and drawing on site, lovely to see people I had met before and to meet new friends. They found paddles, a diadem (whooo), spear heads made from bone, lots of pottery and from different areas suggesting migration (the Steppe and Belarus) and wooden parts of the pile dwellings posts and floor as I understood.

July was wet and hot

I had a morning to walk around St P with Vincent, we went to the Hermitage, around Nevsky Prospect and of course to Dicksie

Then back to the forest - 9 hours by train and about 2 hours by car (train not bus, phew, shhh)

I can't believe how well I slept, so deeply. My room was on the left, Alina on the right. Embarrassingly I overslept on my first night, cringe, everyone was up and ready to start the day at 8am.

View up from my front door

The camp centre with a new covering since 2012

Main stove

Back up stove. Sveta the cook was so good - ochin vkysna, at some points I think there were up to 50 people.

Samovar for chai - cones, bark and small wood down the chimney which burn in a compartment in the centre of the samovar and warms the water surrounding it. The water is then accessed through the little tap, perfect (apart from one day when it got stuck open while I was using it - eek)

Chanterelles!!!

Sign your mug or lose it

It was so hot, so it was a relief to wash in the river, otherwise known as the kitchen sink. Sometimes 3 ducklings would float by.

Toilet - getting the camp life bits out the way first

Scenery near the camp

The Drawing Office with in the distance Sveta and nearer is Katia

They found lots of pottery pieces and some from the Steppe and maybe Belarus indicated by the pattern

Bone spear head

Yolaine wrapping up the Diadem - the Diadem made of boar tusk! I have to admit I was too fearful to even take a photo of the Diadem, something like 5000 years old

The Yolaine Maigrot Moct (official)

Pile dwelling excavation underwater site

UAZ 

River Serteyka

On a very hot day we swam in the river, where I did before when Jillian was in Serteya. The current was surprisingly strong, not ideal when trying to fend of horseflies eager to bite you in the face.

A monument to archaeology in the area

Aurelie and I walked back to the camp from the excavation, we ambled, it took us 2 hours.

Bus stop

We found a phone, it didn't work though - or perhaps we didn't know how to make it work

Monsieur Vincent

Yol and CycaHHa

2nd of August, I think it was, was Sveta chef's birthday, so the green jackets (uni students who help around the camp and on the excavation) wrote and sang a song for her and there was cake! I can't remember even now, only 2 weeks ago, if it was the same night that Volodya cut stumps and filled them with fuel to burn. 

Some bad photos of some of my drawings, if I go again - I must take a good camera

Our repeat visitor to the drawing office

Sveta learnt to draw on the dig, I hope she will continue

Igor, Boris, Sveta (artist) and Sveta (chef) - the great!

Compote made from wild apples, the best!

Yol and I took the night train back to St Petersburg from Nevel, what a joy. Russian trains are the best. We got a lift to Velizh, and then a taxi - a rather beat up Lada I think, no seatbelts, terrible roads and fast driving, but made it Nevel where we picked up the train at 12.33.