For those who want to remember the May holidays not only with barbecues in the nearest forest, I suggest driving along the route from Vladik to Sakhalin.
The expedition starts on Russky Island, from where participants will reach the famous Voroshilov battery and kayak between sunken ships in Truda Bay. Further through Khabarovsk to the port of Vanino, from where you will begin an exciting sea journey on a ferry along the island of Sakhalin. On the final day of the expedition, the team will have to go through a serious off-road route to Busse Lagoon, where participants will try the best oysters and scallops on the planet, caught with their own hands.
I will join the team on Sakhalin (you can fly to the island with me).
Below the cut is a detailed program, photos and cost...
DAY 1
10:00 Arrival in Vladivostok
10:15 Transfer to the hotel, check-in, rest
13:00 Lunch
14:00 Transfer to Russky Island
15:00 Kayaking in Truda Bay
17:00 Visit to the Voroshilov Battery Museum
20:00 Return to the hotel, dinner
DAY 2
08:00 Breakfast
09:00 Transfer to Khabarovsk
13:00 Lunch in a cafe
20:00 Check-in at the hotel, dinner
DAY 3
08:00 Breakfast
09:00 Transfer to the seaport "Vanino"
14:00 Lunch in a cafe
19:00 Arrival at the port
20:00 Loading onto the ferry, accommodation in cabins (loading time on the ferry will be known the day before)
Dinner on the ferry
DAY 4
09:00 Breakfast on the ferry
13:00 Arrival in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk
13:30 Check-in at the hotel
14:00 Lunch
15:00 Transfer to the Museum of Local Lore
16:00 Excursion
18:00 Return to the hotel, dinner
DAY 5
09:00 Breakfast
10:00 Off-road route
13:00 Field lunch
14:00 Transfer to a scallop farm
16:30 Farm visit, tasting
18:30 Return to Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk
20:00 Dinner
DAY 6
Departure
No off-road driving experience is required to participate in the expedition. All necessary training will be provided by Land Rover Experience instructors on site.
The cost of participation in the expedition is 160 thousand rubles.
Air flights Moscow - Vladivostok and Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk - Moscow are not included. The price is based on single occupancy. Minimum participant age: 12 years.
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The oyster season is in full swing, and food sanctions can become a serious obstacle for gourmets and lovers of European seafood. Restaurateurs are looking for different solutions, for example, they bring oysters from Sakhalin to the Code de Vino enoteca. The editors of Lucky Ducky went to try the gifts of the Russian sea and understand the subtleties of taste in the company of the French woman Violette Laglaise, who knows firsthand what high-quality seafood is.
Food sanctions have forced domestic restaurateurs to pay closer attention to products from Russia. Thus, at the Code de Vino restaurant you can now try oysters from Sakhalin. The oyster season is already underway, and trade wars are not a reason to deny yourself gastronomic pleasures.
Sakhalin oysters are noticeably larger than their “colleagues” from Tunisia or France, and due to high demand within the country, they are also quite rare. They are wild caught, and some are sent to Asia, which, by the way, can also explain some of the shortage of this product. Taken together, the appearance of Sakhalin oysters on the Code de Vino menu is an interesting event. It’s worth trying domestic oysters if only out of interest, but if we consider the situation on a larger scale, then in this way it is quite possible to awaken reasonable patriotism in yourself: domestic oysters are in no way inferior in quality to European ones.
It seems that the vicissitudes of the sanctions are still creating interest in Russian products, but, as expected, production volumes are not yet able to satisfy demand. However, the rarity of Sakhalin oysters is an additional reason to rush to try them. At Code de Vino, the clams are traditionally served with a red onion and vinegar sauce. Due to the large size, the taste is creamier and nuttier. These oysters should be paired with serious, full-bodied, rich-tasting wines, while Tunisian and French oysters are best paired with lighter white wine, champagne or Chablis. To compare Sakhalin and French oysters, the editors of Lucky Ducky, together with Violette Laglaise, an expert from the Trade Mission at the French Embassy in Russia, went to Code de Vino for a tasting, and the restaurant director talked about why he made this choice.
What are Sakhalin oysters
Roman Sergeev, director of the enoteca
Code de Vino
“Sakhalin oysters are one of the few types of domestic oysters that you can try. Oysters are also caught in the Black Sea, but they either fly to Moscow or remain in the Krasnodar Territory. The gifts of Sakhalin are more accessible, but it is not possible to establish a constant flow. We would be happy to bring new batches every week, but this quantity is simply not on sale. As a result, we have a piece product that is interesting for tasting. The oysters we sampled are medium in size, with some really large specimens weighing up to 800 grams. In France, Tunisia, Morocco and along the entire Mediterranean coast, oysters are grown on specialized farms; in Kamchatka they are caught in the wild.
Residents of the Far East are familiar firsthand with the quality of Russian seafood: delicious fish, crabs, oysters and scallops are caught near them, but not all of these seafood reach other Russian cities. Today, interest in domestic products is becoming more and more noticeable. When trying Russian products, we notice that there are many worthy ones among them. Kamchatka oysters, for example, are in no way inferior to foreign ones, it’s just not possible to catch them in the same volume yet.”
What do Sakhalin oysters taste like?
Violette Laglaise, Development Expert, Department of Industry, Transport and Infrastructure, Ubiffrance Trade Mission at the Embassy
France in Russia
“I come from a place not far from Toulouse, I lived here in the South of France for a long time. Seafood is not very common in our area, but it was always present at every holiday feast. Oysters are a New Year's dish for me. We ate them every year at Christmas as a family. The table was always divided into two halves: those who eat oysters and those who do not like them. I have always loved them, especially with the sauce we were served today, various breads and salted butter.
The oysters we tried were very large. I didn’t know that they were also caught on Sakhalin. I even took pictures to show them to my parents. This is a very nostalgic dish for me. When I return to visit France, I always know which dish I want to eat first. Wine and seafood are what France greets me with. It’s very interesting what kind of nostalgic dishes Russians have. Now at this table I felt like I was in France. Decent French wine, by the way. It’s nice that the Russians understand it and do it with taste.
Everything is very delicious. Well, I'm surprised by the size of these oysters. You have to eat them a little differently, everything is a little more complicated than with French ones, but they are meatier and creamier in taste. It's unusual and pleasant. I have tried oysters from different places and I want to say that even French ones from different regions have slightly different tastes. More important than these taste differences is quality. I liked today's oysters. If it weren’t for this tasting, I would hardly have known that they existed on Sakhalin at all.”
Sakhalin. Busse: withsurreal journey of Inoceramus for oysters
« Wustritsa isho won’t hatch from a shell, but he’s already calling for her to come with a fork.
It will pierce through and - yours is gone!
She peeps pitifully, and you know, he pushes her down his throat » .
M. Sholokhov, “Virgin Soil Upturned”, 1930-1959
There are many very modest girls in the ranks of Tourist. One of them is Elena Aksenova (call sign), who made two surreal trips to Kunashir, in the Kuril Islands. He either doesn’t want to write about them, or is embarrassed, perhaps because they were not full-fledged, neither in the first nor in the second case. Despite this, both of them were filled with incredibly interesting events and adventures, bordering on radical surrealism. I took the liberty of writing about several episodes of this journey, since I myself was not only a witness to them, but also a direct participant. It all started with the fact that the sending travel company forgot to notify the receiving company about the existence of Elena and her friend.
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Unsuspecting Elena and Maria, having flown all over the country, found themselves at the exit to the Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk airport, where they came across a representative of the host country greeting the arriving group. The receiving party turned out to be, as they say, “neither in dreams nor in spirit.” This is already surreal, if you take into account the distance and 9 hours of grueling flight, against the backdrop of the unobtrusive service of our central airline. Naturally, no permits were provided to the border zone; the ship sailed to Kunashir without them.
Maybe that's a good thing. Since the group was chosen, well, let’s just say “wrong.” In addition to the suspicious family of 4 people, reminiscent of the aliens from the “Hotel “At the Dead Climber”” Strugatskys, who took possession of their appearance but did not know how to behave, confusing family roles, statuses and orientation, the group included a couple of happy young people, a pensioner from Babaev and “reindeer herder Beldyev”. The young couple were glamorous and creative. He is tall, courageous, with a stamp of nihilism, she is a sensual, capricious young man wearing black glamorous glasses, tired of life. As for the pensioner from Babaev, she was an active lady, interested in everything she saw and clarifying everything she heard. She immediately condemnedly expressed her opinion about tolerance, which is alien to Russian people, about the family as an elementary unit of society, and about the importance of logging in the Vologda region, which levels this tolerance and forms a unit. Until recently I was surprised, but now I’m probably not surprised anymore, at how people get selected for tours...
I keep thinking, and if the visit to the Kuril Islands had not been disrupted, how would modest girls feel in such an environment? In general, our two heroines were offered to carry out the planned program on Sakhalin with their “native group”, and instead of Kunashir, they thoroughly got acquainted with the largest island of Russia, which they did for 10 days. One of the points on the Sakhalin program together with my groupmates was a visit to the Busse Lagoon, which is what I’m actually going to talk about in this story.
Looking back, which I already wrote about in the trilogy about northern Sakhalin, I want to explain that the second attempt to reach Kunashir this year also failed. Instead of Kunashir, Elena rejoiced at the evergreen bamboo on Shikotan and the opportunity to climb the island (25x10 km) up and down in 10 days. In addition, the very name “Shikotan” (in one of the variants) is translated from Ainu as “The best place”. Is this surrealism and a mockery of fate? Elena is too lazy to write about Shikotan. But I brought from there at least 3 thousand photographs, with amazing bays (similar to one another in the eternal fog), bamboo (except for which nothing grows on Shikotan), and crabs, from which the whole group (also, by the way, not so hot) got protein poisoning (because they didn’t feed me anything else).
But let’s return to Busse Lagoon, where we went as a whole group. From Yuzhny to Busse, through Korsakov and Ozersky, it is only about 100 km. Taking into account the not very good road - 1.5 - 2 hours drive. Everyone was a little excited about the upcoming eating of seafood delicacies. The lady from Babaev took her starting position, with her camera at the ready. The brother retired with his sister in the back seat and practiced the kissing technique. Dad sat down in the next row, occasionally looking jealously at the teenagers. Mom ignored everyone and drove in silence, motionless looking out the bus window. The young people had a fight: “she” defiantly sat down next to the driver, putting on black glasses and not paying attention to the interior, “he” was talking with our modest girls, inquisitively finding out the motives for the two friends’ journey. As for me, I talked about the island all the way, in radio mode.
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View of the Busse Lagoon in the area of the Shishkevich River. Japanese Bridge, built in 1937
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Fragment of a topographic map of the lake. Busse. Condition of the area in 1975
Undoubtedly, Busse Lagoon is one of the places on Sakhalin that is worth visiting as part of your exploration of the island. And I, of course, would put it in the TOP 5 places to visit, but with the caveat that this is only for lovers of seafood, because apart from tasting these gifts, there is nothing else to do there. The landscapes are boring. This is the very south of the Muravyovskaya Lowland (and here Muravyov and Busse are together) or as I call it “Mezhozerye”, since it is all covered with lakes that form two limnological (lake) systems - Tunaychi (in the north) and Chibisano-Vavayskaya (in the south ). All the lakes are lowlands, and there are 49 of them, the result of the work of the sea and the movement of the earth’s crust. In order to clearly imagine where we are heading, a little geography.
Busse Lagoon belongs to the Chibisano-Vavai lake system, which includes 15 lakes in the southern part of the Muravyovskaya Lowland. Nine of them are small in size and depth, swampy and located on sandy bridges between sea areas and lagoons. Of the large lakes, four lakes (Chibisanskie and Vavaiskie) are fresh, one is brackish (Vyselkovskoe) and the Busse lagoon is salty. This is explained by the temporal stages of lake formation. At an early stage of development, the lakes were typical lagoonal sea bays. Lake Bol. Chibisansky and Bol. Vawaiian separated before all others, this happened 4000 and 3500 years ago, Mal. Chibisanskoye 3200 and Maloye Vavayskoye 2700 years ago. Busse Lagoon has not lost its connection with the sea to this day.
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The system of lakes in the Muravyovskaya Lowland 7 thousand years ago and now
Busse is one of three places in the Russian Far East that host plantations of ahnfeltia, the algae from which agar-agar is produced, a complex ecosystem that is of great importance to the biota of south-eastern Sakhalin.
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Tonino-Aniva ridge, view from Busse Lagoon to the north
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Muravyevo, view south from Busse Lagoon
The lagoon is separated from Aniva Bay by a narrow, long sand spit. Salty waters flow into the lagoon through the narrow Suslov Strait and then through several underwater channels between sandbanks. The development of life in the lagoon is very significantly influenced by the mixing of sea and fresh waters rich in nutrients, which leads to a specific hydrogeochemical environment.
Areas of sandy soils with along-shore currents are most favorable for scallops and sea cucumbers, and vast areas of silty soils mixed with pebbles and sand in the outer parts of bays and coves are most favorable for sea grasses and algae. In addition, the lagoon is rich in giant oysters, whelks, spizula, mussels, shrimp and sea urchins.
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Sea urchin
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Seaside scallop
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Seaside scallop
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Giant oyster
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Sea urchin
It is this entire nutritional substance that I would like to tell you about first of all, and then load you with interesting details related to the name Busse and other equally interesting facts. So, people go to Busse, first of all, to eat delicious food. And a lot, so it’s from the heart, otherwise there’s no point in traveling a hundred kilometers. But since the Busse Lagoon is currently a natural monument, any movements related to catching everything that lives there are stopped by the guardians of nature. Moreover, they are suppressed, first of all, in terms of accessibility, by two laws: environmental protection (natural monument) and fishing rules (bioresources). At the same time, the use of boats with a motor is prohibited in the lagoon (this is monitored by the Coast Guard) and boats without a motor (this is under the jurisdiction of the GIMS). You can use improvised means, for example, put together a raft and row with plates. Harvesting of sea cucumber and sea scallop is prohibited, all year round and from November to May, and everything else. If this is in the form of a picture, then imagine, for example, the beginning of May: a huge number of people who, during low tide, wander around the drainage area, collecting everything that moves. Suddenly, guardians of nature appear (Coast Guard, Fishery Supervision, GIMS, foresters - your choice) and stop it. In a blink of an eye, the lake is cleared of people and only boats with guards remain on its surface. The guards confiscate what they have obtained through back-breaking labor and take it away to their bins and for sale. A few minutes later, a huge number of people reappear at the drainage site, collecting everything that had not managed to hide and continues to move.
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Guardians of nature with confiscated delicacies
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Low tide
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Destroyed pier Ant
I will not give away secrets about the peculiarities of the existence of all the structures interested in the resources of this place. I will only say that they are in absolutely perfect balance, they cannot live without each other and exist in complete harmony. Don’t fill your head with unnecessary information, questions of what, how and where. Therefore, if it is organized by a travel company, just go straight to the table and start eating what God (the company) sent.
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Coast Guard rests while eating seized supplies
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Vacationers on the shore eating what was collected in the lagoon, 100 meters from the Coast Guard eating the confiscated supplies
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A ship of “scientists” who can walk along the lagoon and collect for scientific purposes what the Coast Guard confiscates and is eaten by vacationers, but legally
He usually sends oysters and lemons with them. The wine or champagne is purchased by the participants in the eating process themselves. It’s better to buy in advance in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk - there is more choice, if you forgot to buy, you can in Korsakov, in a specialized store. If you forgot there too, only Ozerskoe remains, with a minimal assortment. At worst, in the village of Muravyevo, they sell moonshine and vodka in one or two houses (grandmother, password: “there is booze”). But agree, oysters go with moonshine...
It’s worth telling about this mollusk in more detail. The giant oyster, which is collected on “islands” or “banks” (in places of mass gatherings), belongs to the bivalve mollusks. As the name suggests, it has two doors - upper and lower. Inside, between the valves, is the mollusk itself. The maximum weight of a mollusk can reach 3 kg, of which 10-15% is soft tissue, well, and of these 300-450 grams, even less is edible. We are talking about the maximum specimen, which has a shell height of 50 cm and lives for about 50 years. They collect mollusks when their size reaches 8 cm; you need to look at them by eye - the sizes are approximate. Buss has 9 cans of this kind of stuff. You can get to the “islands” by low tide. There is ankle-deep water there, sometimes it’s completely bare, you walk, look, choose, bring it to the shore, and then eat.
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Lake Busse
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On oyster island. Photo of S. Pervukhin was taken by Yulia Gorbunova, for which special thanks to her
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There are a lot of herons on the lake
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When the tide comes in, the current becomes very strong. Photo of S. Pervukhin was taken by Yulia Gorbunova, for which special thanks to her
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A piece of the ecosystem
You have to open it to eat it. In a normal world, this is done with a special knife; on Sakhalin, such a knife is also used, but most often they use a chisel and a hammer (axe). In order to preserve the integrity of the skin, wear a chain mail glove. Having opened the sink, remove the excess, rinse with water, squeeze the lemon and “drink” over the edge. The contents of the shell slide into the mouth and are swallowed. Can be baked in a fire. To do this, without opening the oyster, place it in the fire or on the grill, 5 minutes and the “dish” is ready.
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Stages of preparing an oyster for eating. Photo of Elena Aksenova, the main character of the story
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Giant oyster and sea urchin
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Assorted from Busse Lagoon
The second shellfish that God sent is the sea scallop. Also a bivalve mollusk, reaching a maximum weight of about 1 kg, a shell height of 24 cm and an age of 22 years. They begin to collect when the shell height is 10 cm. They eat the muscle, it makes up 10-17% of the total mass. Unlike oysters, which form immobile colonies of up to 300 individuals per m2, the scallop is mobile and moves along the bottom; you will not find more than 5-7 individuals per m2. In addition to the sea scallop, the Swift scallop is also found on Sakhalin; it is smaller in size and the Bering Sea scallop.
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Changes are brewing at the oyster market, where exquisite varieties of shellfish with noble French origins rule the roost. The Sakhalin oyster is ready to fight with European competitors, familiar to domestic gourmets.
The culture of seafood consumption in Russia has not yet developed. When it comes to eating mollusks, snails and other exotics, we are far from Europeans. “We don’t really know what to do with a live cuttlefish, a live octopus, or even the more familiar oyster,” says Andrei Kuspits, development director of the gastronomic club Le Bon Gout and a seafood expert. “A word like sea cucumber seems mysterious to us.”
For example, in France, Kuspitz says, the oyster is a completely ordinary and affordable creature that is sold in markets mixed with plump, cheap fish, potatoes and meat. It is curious that schoolchildren often use it there in laboratory work (the oyster has a heart, gills and other organs important for biological experiments, it can be bought inexpensively - and it is not as scary to pick and torture as the same frog).
In Russia, oysters are eaten in restaurants on special occasions. In Moscow establishments they cost at least 200 rubles, in the regions even more - up to 350 rubles for a Fin de Claire oyster. The oyster market in Russia, naturally, is quite small and is limited to five or six importers bringing live delicacies from French oyster farms. France is the center of the oyster world; here farmers have been growing (more precisely, growing) oysters for centuries in special reservoirs with desalinated water - “clairs”. In this way, “refining” occurs, the refinement of the “full sea” oyster: that is, a wild oyster that lived in the sea is transformed into a product that has taste characteristics in accordance with the properties of the water in which it was kept.
From France the oyster is delivered by plane. Expensive logistics, customs duties (21% in total to the price of an oyster) and small volumes of deliveries made by importers (the oyster lives and retains its taste for about 10 days after it is taken out of the water, so it needs to be sold quickly, and transporting large volumes is not very interesting) - all this determines the rather high price at which the product reaches wholesalers.
The “Russian” oyster that appears on the market, mainly the so-called giant, or Sakhalin, is harvested in the wild on Sakhalin. It is called “unconventional” on the market because of its outstanding size (compared to the French one): it can weigh up to one and a half kilograms, and sometimes lives in natural conditions for up to 60-80 years. Moreover, in France and throughout the world, the most popular oysters are size “number 3”, weighing about 80 grams. “Larger ones are already difficult to sell,” says Andrey Kuspits.
— In this sense, Russia in the early 1990s, when interest in the “bourgeois” oyster began to awaken here, turned out to be an excellent market for the French: we “chose” all large sizes, since some of the quickly rich Russians preferred everything big: if oyster , if it’s too expensive, then let it be for the whole plate.”
“Just think, there’s a big difference: eating a dozen elegant French oysters weighing 150 grams - or one weighing one and a half kilos,” laughs entrepreneur Alexander Ezhel (trading house “Pearl”), one of the pioneers of the Russian oyster niche. Thanks to the expanding presence of the domestic product on the market, the oyster in Russia can “simplify”, become a more democratic, accessible and not the most expensive delicacy, Andrei Kuspits is sure: “I think that this trend - the democratization of the oyster - will fully manifest itself within five years.” .
To make oyster logistics more efficient and extend the terms of its sale, Russian producers have developed special systems for keeping and “growing” oysters in aquariums—“overexposure.” “These are “dolphinariums” in which the survival rate of mollusks is very high,” says Andrei Kuspits. — They can be accumulated there. Mollusks live in such aquariums for a very long time, while the oyster, for example, does not experience seasonal changes: it believes that it is winter and hibernates. She eats almost nothing at this time, loses weight and becomes tasty and beautiful.” The lifespan of oysters and other sea creatures in holding systems can reach one and a half years, assures Alexander Yezhel, whose company Zhemchuzhina was one of the first to introduce this equipment to the Russian market. “Previously, such systems were also used,” explains Yezhel, “but mostly they kept fish there: carp, trout. But it was more difficult to make marine aquariums; a different alloy was required.”
Yezhel considers the aquariums developed by his company to be his main competitive advantage. First of all, he promotes his equipment to restaurants, thus hoping to seriously increase sales of domestic seafood. In Yezhel’s aquariums, not only oysters can live, but also other sea creatures: scallops, cockerel, crabs, spizula, lobsters, lobsters. One aquarium can hold up to 400 kilograms of live products.
Yezhel claims that in three years he has installed almost 1.3 thousand aquariums in Russian restaurants, and his company’s sales doubled in a year. The recipe for success is that Yezhel primarily develops regional markets: Moscow is too heavy, crowded with competitors. “Moscow accounts for 5% of our sales,” he says. The entrepreneur keeps seafood products in warehouses in the Moscow region, and also carries out direct deliveries to the regions from production sites. Sales are especially good, naturally, in resort areas, in the south of Russia.
“When promoting the Russian oyster, you need to give people a story - tell them where it was caught,” Alexander Yezhel explains his policy. “So that a person would be interested in going to a restaurant and eating an oyster from Russky Island or Shikotan, where he may never visit.”
Two Russian oyster bars operate in St. Petersburg, one was opened in Moscow.“In a few years, oyster bars will appear in most Russian cities,” he predicts. — Moreover, their range will be wider: not only oysters, but also other types of shellfish. This topic will become very fashionable, but now it is just emerging. The situation was the same with “quasi-Japanese” cuisine: it took a long time to become fashionable, but then there was a real explosion.” According to Kuspitz, an oyster bar does not require high investments: installing an aquarium system with a loading capacity of five tons can cost 5 million rubles. “It’s just an open area without a hot kitchen,” adds Alexander Yezhel. - One bartender. Lack of additional premises, approvals from firefighters, exhaust hoods and other things.”
But in general, the oyster is clearly not a product for wide sale. In order for it to move into the category of a mass-demanded product, it is necessary to significantly increase market volumes - and this is possible not only by expanding the range of its production in wildlife. Prospects for the development of Russian oyster farming are also visible. For now, these are more like experiments, says Andrei Kuspits. According to his information, oysters are grown in small quantities on the Black Sea (farms in Utrish and Taman). Alexander Yezhel also believes in the prospects of oyster farming in Russia, where there are optimal natural conditions for this. But today, he complains, oyster farming in our country is fraught with too many problems. It is impossible to obtain permission to import planting material from France, and there have been no oysters in the Black Sea for a long time, and it is also very difficult to register the use of water territory and a plot of land to create a farm. “I have already organized two oyster farms - in Morocco and Sri Lanka,” the entrepreneur boasts. “It’s still much easier to grow an oyster there than in Russia.”
