Dallas-Kalevala

Obihiro, Japan

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Dallas-Kalevala

Obihiro, Japan

Type

Cultural › Cultural Center

YEAR

2002

Dallas-Kalevala is a
journey from todays existance back to origines of people living between
Finland and Hokkaido. It is also a personal journey to feel genetic
memory in places people always have been moving between east and west. Our
journey started in Helsinki Finland and ended in Obihiro Hokkaido
Japan. The trip was made by car - Land Rover Defender. We followed
roughly the borderline between taiga and tundra, cities and nomads.
This is the climate area the northern civilizations exist. We photgraphed grandmothers, collected old axes and recorded local radio. Each place the same prosedure.Daily
routines included finding diesel, making documentation, finding food,
navigating, asking for the road, driving and setting up camp in safe
locations. We slept in the nature and avoided big cities. When the road
stopped we got diesel from road construction workers of the future Amur
highway or from timber machines. This fuel was for free or exchanged to
Finnish beer or conservated food.12.000 km included good roads
with relatively high speed, bad road on which we could keep quite
normal speed but personal cars were crawling, tracks suitable only
for military trucks and jeeps, road construction beds in different
states of process and off road to some extreme nastiness with mud,
rivercrossings, wet land, dust and dirt etc. Our Defender was equipped
with a snorkel, winch and bottom armor. We crossed 10 bigger rivers and
many more smaller ones. The car got stucked several times and was
dragged onwards with the winch. We carried with us 140 litres of spare
diesel in canisters. Between Cita and Simanovsk there is no roads shown
on map. This distance is about 1000 km. Near Erofej Pavlovic
some 40 km north of Chinese border and river Amur the journey faced its
hardest difficulties. We tried to approach Erofej Pavlovic from Amazar
but got stucked in an endless wet marshland. The clouds were promising
heavy rain which would mean us spending the rest of the year in the
mud. Step by step we got back from the marsh with winching and some
unconventional methods of subconscious driving. Just before the rain
which made the whole marsh to a floting field of muddy porrige. We
managed to go round the wetlands and found againg the construction site
of the future highway. No bridges of course and the track was cut by
the deep river Urka. Two of the big military 6 x 6 wheel drive Kamaz
trucks had tried to cross it and the wrecks stood in the middle of the
deep river together with a huge road construction machine that had
tried to come to help them. The river was too bad. No chance to cross
it and we had to turn back.Luckily we were not alone with the
problem. Vasili and Sergei from Sahalin needed to get their Kamaz also
to the other side of the river and together with them we managed to
organize us an own train in Amazar on which the vehicles were mounted.
It took us four days with the train to cross the river. Due to Russian
railroad logistics we had to travel back to Mogocha to be connected to
a bigger train, then again to Amazar and finally over the river to
Erofej Pavlovic and further to Skovorodino where we got the car of the
platform.We carried with us conserved food and Finnish beer to
celebrate important moments. Fresh fish from the rivers and shashlik
brought occasional luxury to the daily life. Our medical pack included
surgery eguippement, oxygen, anti-shock liquides, antibiotics and other
drugs. We had contact with doctors from EMA -group (Emergency Medical
Assistace) every third day with a satellite telephone to report our
location and state of fysical and mental health. In case of trouble we
could contact the EMA doctors to get on-line medical assistance, which
was luckily not needed. Also evacuation procedures were prepaired.We
know it is possible to go from Finland to Japan on ground. It has
always been possible. What was important to realize was how natural it
has been for the people to move east-west wise. One grandmother in
Burjatia was half Ukrainan half Chinese. One grandmother in Sahalin was
born in the Finnish border in Karelia and spoke Karelian Finnish. The
grandmother in Japan was born in Sahalin. In the middle of Siberia we
could see Tatar villages. In Irkutsk there is a lively Chinese market.
From Ural to east every modern car is a second hand vehicle imported
from Japan. Asia as we see it starts in Amur, not in Ural as we have
been told. Siberia is not Europe and not Asia. Everywhere in this
nordic borderline we could feel home. We could understand the logics of
the nature and how man is facing his surroundings. Birch tree, kuckoo
and the same stars followed us all the way. Japanese turist is a
legend. For us now you are just the next door neighbour.The
work was done in co-operation with: DEMETER, Lapin Kulta, Lohjan
Laatuautot, Off Road Center, Land Rover Finland, Land Rover Japan, EMA
-group, Benefon ESC!, Sonera, Haglöfs and Lundén Foods.Antropo-artistic journey by Casagrande & Rintala for Demeter 2002 - Obihiro, Hokkaido, Japan.