Day 15: Autumn impressions, heading north

As we're settling in, loading batteries, preparing equipment, discussing what we have filmed and photographed and found so far, we decide to start off with getting a glimpse at how autumn feels here, and to drive north, a direction we have so far not explored much. We're curious how the lake looks like when you leave the main Old Believer's area.

And we want to first of all collect some film and photo impressions of the autumn season. These will also help us to feel the season. After all, it's quite a change: In summer, the villages are quite lively, lots of families use the opportunity to visit their (often elderly) relatives, holidaymakers come from the cities, people make weekend trips. If you walk around the villages and small towns in summer, there are children and there's action, people sit at the beach, there are queues in the shops, and everything feels very active.

We're pretty sure the mood in autumn will not be as optimistic and nice. With all the weekend visitors and families gone back to their homes, we even expect some places to feel quite empty. Add the autumn light to the emptiness, plus maybe some fog and gentle rain, and you're likely to get a certain melancholy. We drive north to slowly get accustomed to the new mood. We explore some forests, endless beautiful beaches that are now deserted, we're observing the one or other harvest, and of course we also find quite a number of dead fish on the sandy beaches, probably victims of the exceptionally long and hot summer.