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Episode: snowy owl and chicks

 

Riho Västrik, director of the nature film The Great River, opening in the Artis cinema on Thursday, explains to Looduskalender in an express interview why he went to make a film about the distant Lena river three years ago.

 

The film “The Great River”  is about the giant water body of Lena, with a length of 4400 km which Estonians hardly can grasp. How much does climate and landscape change in that space?

The film is about the source and the outflow of the Lena. The 4000 kilometres in between we don’t take up, although we have also filmed in the middle reaches, for instance at the Pillars of the Lena. The Lena begins in the mountains, on the slopes of the Baikal range, flowing through the Siberian taiga, steppes and tundra to flow out into the Arctic Ocean. Where there are more mountains the river bed is narrower, where the fettering rocks disappear the river spreads out kilometres wide in the landscape. Its delta area is only a little smaller than all of Estonia.

A large part of the river flows on permanent frost. That is difficult to grasp because the mouth of the river is largely on the same latitude as Estonia. But despite this islands of permafrost occur as far as to Baikal and this means that for most people who live at the banks of the Lena it is also their only source of water.

 

What does the river Lena mean to you, the director of the film "The Great River“?

 

It is a romantic adventure where the aim of course is to experience something and to find knowledge about something. Visiting the Lena during three years confirmed the validity of the original idea – this "great river“ acts as a magnet and not only for the animals and birds living on its banks but also for people. For one thing its virginity,  in the upper as well as the lower reaches, foranother its size and power. The taiga surrounding the sources of the Lena also seems like water – a world ocean. Looking from a higher vantage point at the billowing bluish green expanse that disappears beyond the horizon your own insignificance is brought home to you, but with the proper  skills and a good will there is no need to be afraid because of this smallness.