I HAD a terrifying experience recently. Lightly dressed, I got lost in the forest as darkness was falling on a May evening when an unseasonable night frost had been forecast. I was in a complete panic, and yet I could not have been more than a few miles front civilisation in the form of Sheremetyevo, Moscow's International Airport.
I could hear the planes going over, interrupting the sweet song of the nightingales; but the roar of their engines was of no help to me at all. As I ran round in circles, trying to decide whether the bark of that birch tree was familiar, whether I had seen that clump of grass before, I might as well have been in the thick taiga (pine forest) of deepest Siberia. The forest was taking its revenge.
I had gone in with a Russian friend called Larisa to look for lily-of-the-valley. The lily is listed in the Red Book, Russia's catalogue of endangered plants, but it is still to be found in carpets on the forest floor, and every May Russians gather it regardless.
Spring was late this year and the lilies in the Khimki Woods, on the northern edge of the city, were still in tight bud. "Never mind," said Larisa, "the forest is rich. We will find something else."
The forest is rich indeed. Russians, whose folklore revolves around the woods of birch and pine, cedar and oak, traditionally regarded them as a protecting force which feeds them. In autumn they yield nuts, berries and protein-rich mushrooms, which nourish not only the animals but many a family too poor to buy meat or fish.
In spring, the woods offer another delicacy, ferns. Ferns?
Do not imagine that Larisa gathers and cooks ferns because she is poor and hungry. Her husband works in real estate, which makes him a wealthy New Russian. Rather, she has some Korean blood in her family and knows the old Far Eastern recipes. Fern stems, when cleaned, look and taste a little like asparagus. With the right spices added, they make a good curry.
We went deeper into the woods in search of the ferns. They are not to be confused with the little horse tail, an ancient plant which used to grow to the height of trees when dinosaurs walked the Earth or with the cruder bracken. Real ferns cut delicately at the tip.
"Over here," I yelled and at that very instant a bird shot up from the ground, crying loudly as it flew to a tree. It continued to scream at me from its new perch. I looked down to see a broken nest and egg yolk all over my shoe. It was a distressing moment, and from then on things began to go wrong.
We had each gathered an armful of ferns but, in our excitement, and then shock over the bird, we had lost all sense of direction.
The last rays of the sun were glinting through the trees. We had Larisa's nine year old daughter, Masha, with us, which was what made the prospect of a freezing night in the forest really frightening. Had we been two adults together, it might just have been an uncomfortable adventure.
And it was at this point that I began to remember the other face of the forest in Russian culture.
The artist Shisdhkin may paint bear cubs gambolling in sunlit glades, but when the forest is angry, the folktales warn us, we should beware of Baba Yaga, the evil witch, and the kikimoras, or female hobgoblins, who inhabit the bogs. They punish those who come into the forest with aggressive intentions.
Increasingly, Russians have been showing disrespect to their great natural treasure. The forest is so extensive it stretches from the edge of Moscow to the Pacific Ocean and there are still remote parts of Siberia where no human being has ever set foot there is a dangerous tendency to think it is infinite. But as with the Amazon rain forest, the treasure is slowly being eaten away.
For example, the Karelians in northern Russia are concerned about the way their politicians are selling off timber to the Swedes. And the Siberians are upset about the death of freshwater seals in the polluted waters of Lake Baikal. Retribution is bound to follow, the traditionalists and the ecologists say.
That night, however, we escaped the forest's punishment. As the last light faded I heard dogs barking in the distance. We turned from the wrong path we had taken and followed the sound until we came at last to the edge of the woods. The dogs were Alsatians guarding a building site of fancy mansions being put up for the nouveaux riches. Another incursion into the poor forest. But on this occasion, I was grateful for it.