In the morning of 29th May 2023 the legendary night train "The Red Arrow" moored at the St.Petersburg railway station. The paddler and boat repairer known in Australia as Pablo Mephisto left the carrige... During my trip to Russia, I based in Moscow. I had a few spare days before the race, so I used them for preparations. I had a few training sessions in Moscow "AAA club" and then in St.Petersburg (SPb) clubs "The Islands" and "The Pier Yu". I also met the race Commander, multiple World Champion and Olimpian Dimitry Smirnov at his club, where his club mates were preparing the new red dragon boat for the oncoming race. The weather was sunny and warm (which is abnortmal for St-Petersburg), yet very windy, with a very refreshing west breeze. Unfortunatelly, my trainings demonstrated, I have not completely recovered after COVID last year and a break, when I trevelled to Western Australia.

About Petrovsky Paddling Marathon

Petrovsky Paddling Marathon is held in the city of St.Petersburg in early June. It is a paddling festival dedicated to the day birth of Peter the Great. It's pretty unusual to celebrate the Emperor's birthday, however, Peter was a very special one. He not only founded the city of St.Petersburg, but what is more related, he founded the Russian sea fleet. BTW, during his trip to Europe in 1697 he studied many sciences and crafts, including city building, ship building, worked as an engineer and even as a carpenter.

St.Petersburg is recognised as one of the most beautiful cities in trhe World. It has multiple names: "The Northern Venice", "The Northern Pearl", "The Culture Capital of Russia". Indeed, it is really beautifull!
The marathon is not a pure sport event. There are activities like making knots, costume contest, etc. All types of human-powered crafts are allowed: kayaks, baidarkas, rowing boats, yals, rafts, SUPs, dragons, drakkars, and "the funny fleet". In the same time, this is definitely not a relaxed recreational paddle. Neva is a serious river, and the nordic weather may be very challenging. For instance, in 2017 it was snowing, and the paddlers arrived to the finish had red arms and blue lips.

Neva is flowing from Lake Ladoga to the Neva Bay of the Gulf of Finland. Despite its modest length of 74 kilometres, it is the fourth-largest river in Europe in terms of average discharge (from wiki). The Neva river is navigable. There are cargo and passenger vessels, including rapid hydrofoil ones. That's why the Marathon rules require the paddlers to keep between the right bank and the red bouys.

The race has three distances: 68km, 40km and 6km. The longest distance starts at the ancient fortress "The Nut" at the very beginning of the Neva river and finishes at Peter and Paul's fortress in the very centre of the city.


During the preparation, I learned the race results for the previous years. Trying to estimate my chances, I set a goal to finish somewhere between 25th and 50th place overall.

The race morning

In the morning on 3rd of June, I came to "The Islands" club to help with boats loading. After filling two trailers, we departed towards the race start point. The registration and the launch point was located on a small beach on the right bank of the Neva, with a great view on Ladoga lake and the Nut island. When we arrived, the beach was already crowded with boats SUPs and people. Looked, we would not find a spot to unload our trailer. However, we managed to fit ourselves, out boats, and there were some room for the other paddlers, arrived later. The orgs set up multiple registration counters, and managed to sort out the croud and avoid mess. I obtained my number and the timing chip, and hurried to equip the boat and myself. Of cause, I did not forget to make a selfie with the birthday boy: the graffity version of the Imperor's portrait. My boat was World of Kayaks WK525. I hired it from a local paddler and a beautiful lady Valentina. WK525 is a sea kayak, pretending to be a multisport. She is a pretty nice looking boat. Despite, she is wide, 54cm, the stems are almost vertical, which makes the water line long. I found, the seat was too low. This is both good and bad. The paddling position is not too efficient, but it gives more stability in rough water. Well, almost all the competitors a almost ready. Lifesavers decorated themselves with red flags. The dragons are digging the ground with their hoofs. The bombardier holds his flint at the ready. The start gate was located approx 3km downstream. The competitors could pass it any time after the official race start, and the timing system automatically checks in the crossing time. This way the orgs managed to organise a huge croud and avoided the mess. I passed the gate at 10:09 and my race had begun. I took a moderate pace, the boat was sliding on water easily. The right bank protected us from wind and the water was nice. During the first hour I overtook many boats, and nobody overtook me. After 10kms a few singles and doubles approached me and we kept paddling in a gropup. Interesting fact: unfortunatelly, the ICF marathons are not popular in Russia, and the marathons culture is different from what we have in Oz. That's why "sitting on the wash" is "mauvaises manières" there.

By the 24th km I started feeling the disadvantages of the low seat: my back started hurt. At some point I lost time and missed the group. Finally, I decided to land for stretching my back. Later, I landed a few more times and lost totally about 30 minutes.

Soon, I passed the 40km distance start, which is the most southern point of the route. Neva turned north-west and the nice weather turned nasty. Fresh wind developed waves. All who paddled 40km, had these conditions right from the start, while we, 68km paddlers, had a 28km rest before. My back was sore, but the low seat demonstrated it's advantage. At some point, I realised, I do not need to balance, the boat does all the job for me. I relaxed and kept paddling, trying not to pay attention to the back pain.

Now, there were much more crafts on water. It was unclear, if particular boat is my competitor or doing 40km. There were many SUPs, yet many of them were not "Standing Up Paddle" boards. Some of them were "Kneeling Paddle" boards", "Laying Down Paddle Boards" and even "Sitting in a Comfortable Chair and Paddling With a Kayak Paddle" boards.

The kilometers were slowly rolling by... Somewhere the wind died down, but only to blow with renewed vigour. Here comes a sign "Leningrad Region", and soon after it - the Cable-stayed Bridge. Now this is officialy the city of St-Petersburg. Bearing in mind, that there may be no chance to land within the city border, I made my last stop just before the bridge. After the bridge, the Neva river has granite banks which makes the landing nearly impossible. They also reflect the waves and make the water pretty choppy. I passed the bridge, the passengers port and kept paddling further. The most difficult part of the race began. Wind and waves. Waves and wind. I was surprised, that it’s easier to go closer to the granite wall, since the waves are lower there. Overtaking sea kayaks, inflatables boats, SUPs and bridges I moved forward and kept watching the shore, hoping to find at least a small beach, where I could stop. At some point, a girl on the SAP who was slightly ahead of me, decided that she urgently needed to turn. She sharply turned 90 degrees, ending up about 15 meters away in front of me and for some reason stopped paddling. I had to ask her (really loudly) to keep paddling. Fortunately for both her and me, she heard my request and immediately fulfilled it, otherwise both of us would probably had a swim in the cold Neva water.

Now it's a good time to mention lifesavers. They were MANY. All the time, I paddled in the city, I could always see at least one boat with a red flag. They had a lot of job. I already noticed, a few kayak and SUP paddlers who became swimmers. As I know at least one dragon boat sank. Even the favourites of the race capsized and had a swim in the icy-cold Neva water. I believe, none of swimmers managed finish the race. Definitely, the lifesavers did save at least health of many paddlers!

In 1963 a passenger airplane Tu-124 landed on water (the Miracle on the Neva). When I appeared in that memorable place, about 9 kms before finish, I noticed a group of kayaks just next to the bank. It was a beach! I stopped and landed. While I was stretching, I even managed to take a call from my dentist! I was already tired and had no clear mind, so I wasted too much time there and got very cold. My arms became numb, so I spent a few minuts for only locking my phone in the drybag. Finally, I lost at least, 10 positions during this stop.

After the bridge, in the river bend, the waves were especially "angry" and very choppy. But I did not care anymore. Carefully, without much rush, I went through this difficult area. There were only 4 kilometers left to the finish line. I hid from waves behind the old pier and managed to switch on my camera and start recording. As my hands were very busy with paddling and bracing, I had no a good chance to do it during last kilometers. I estimated, the battery life and free memory space should be enough to record the rest of the disatnce.

The finish was approaching slowly, but inexorably. The spire of the Peter and Paul Cathedral had already appeared ahead... I could see the Hare Island under the arc of the second-last "Liteiny" Bridge. On the right there is the entrance to the Bolshaya Nevka river, one of the rivers of the Neva delta system, where the Aurora cruiser is moored for eternity.

Suddenly, a police motor boat appeared just next to me. Frankly, I didn’t expect anything good from them. At the very beginning of the race, the Emergency Service boat passed by, made a big wash and shouted something unrecognisable to a non-working loud-speaker. In Moscow their boats regularly interfere with the trainings of the AAA club. To my greatest amazement, the boat carefully, at the slowest speed, went on a parallel course a few meters on my right, covering me with its hull from the vessels scurrying along the Bolshaya Nevka. What a fantastic escort! Thank you very much, guys! Another unusual thing was, that was the Bolshaya Nevka outlet, not inlet, and the current direction was "reversed", so it tried to suck me in, away from the Neva.

This was the last kilometer of the race. At the entrance to the Trinity Bridge, I overtook a kayak and dived into the Kronwerk Strait. Along Hare Island I accelerated and paddled in “show-off” manner, with beautiful technique (at least it seemed so to me), like if there was no 65km race, wind and waves behind. I passed under the finish gate and that's it - the race is over! Although, the surprises from the organizers were not over yet. At the finish line there was an inflatable pontoon and an inflatable ramp. As soon as I approached the pontoon, they immediately helped me moor, held the boat, and helped me get out. They grabbed my boat and lifted it and placed safely on the grass. What a service! All I had to do was convey my own mortal bones (which was also not an easy task for everyone). Upon exiting the pontoon, I received a medal for my participation in the race and went to look for my stuff. The concert was already in full swing, the participants were treated to traditional marathon food: buckwheat with meat and hot tea. Then, as usual, awards presentation, chatting with people, a concert...

Results

Results Track

My time: 6:58:49. Overall 70th out of 371. The guy who finished 50th, paddled a similar boat WK540. His time was 6:43:52, which looked feathible.
In my class (K1 hard hull), I am the 12th out of 47. The 1st place in the class was Alexey Platonov with time 5:41:21. Alexey had done the race on his new boat, which he had finished making just a day before, even epoxy resin had not cured fully.

Unfortunately, there were some hiccups. At some point, the autorities told the orgs, that the conditions on the river were too dangerous. About a half of all the boats were forced to finish just 6km before finish! I have no idea why they found such conditions so terrible. To be honest, I personally did not observe anything horrible. The waves were challenging, multi-directional and choppy, but not killing. So, that unplanned finish for 300+ crews was really sad. All the rest, however, was just perfect!

Thanks a lot to all who organised, helped, participated:
Alexey Gremennikov -- my coach from AAA-club
The clubs: "AAA club", "Pier Yu" и "The Islands" for the trainings
Valentina Nesterova for the beautiful boat
Konstantin Shakhverdov for help with moving the boat to the start and my stuff to the finish point
Dimitry Smirnov, the very beautiful Anna Medvedeva and all the orgs, lifesavers, police boatsmen, volunteers of the Petrovsky Paddling Marathon 2023
And Peter the Great for this beautiful city!

PS:

I stayed in the city for a couple more days. We met with the winner of the race, Alexey Platonov. We had a nice chat about Alexey's boats. He is one of a few in St.Petersburg, who knows and loves surf ski class boats. Alexey races marathons on surf skis he designed and built himself. And his boats are the fastest in the local paddling community. At least until local paddlers adopted ICF K1s.

A few days after, when I came back to Moscow, an announcement of the next race in the SPb region appeared: "The White Day Marathon". I wrote a comment:
-- Thinking of getting a train ticket...
Alexei Platonov responded:
-- I'll give you a fast boat!

To be continued...