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Happiness is the most important. Conversation with Romuald Koperski.

11.06.2008 10:24:00

A conversation with Romuald Koperski, organizer and manager of the Expedition of the Century.
This was not the first pioneering achievement in your life, but I guess it was the most spectacular one. How does a man who’s done something that no one else had done before feel?
- If he loves Siberia as much as I do, he starts to think when and how to get back there. When we reached 175˚W longitude, we knew that we had done better than all the previous expeditions. Those of great budgets, many vehicles, including the assurance of helicopters. We intended to get there and come back. We succeeded, but again it turned out that the success of such an expedition is not just a question of money or equipment. The most important thing is that we were extremely lucky. We survived various difficult situations. The expedition of the century was met by the winter of the century. Where we got, the temperatures fell to minus 63 degrees Celsius. For two and a half months we almost didn’t switch off the engine. With such low temperatures, carrying out any activity was very complicated. And what do I feel now… Well, I dare to think that no one will manage to outdo our achievement. Definitely not during my lifetime.
But you didn’t reach the Bering Strait. Why?
- We could have gone on driving 200 km more and reached the strait, but then we wouldn’t have managed to come back, because the rivers, being our Siberian roads, would have melted.
How many kilometres did you make a day?
- It depended on the conditions. We drove through gales and snow storms, literally digging our way through great snow. Once we needed five hours to surmount 15 metres. Another time, at a temperature of minus 50 degrees Celsius and snow storms, we surmounted 270 kilometers in the whole week.
How did the citizens of Siberia react to your presence?
- When we were coming back, they looked at us with great respect. No one understood better what we had achieved. Moreover, they were very friendly as usual. They are really fantastic people. They lead an unimaginably difficult life, but their kindness and openness to other people are amazing. They’ll do anything to help others. They’ll never refuse to put you up and give some food even if they have very little food themselves. They know that without the help they offer to one another, they wouldn’t survive. „I must help another man, because he will help me tomorrow” – this rule is obeyed there. Siberia teaches humility and faith in other people. Thinking that if someone leads a comfortable life, you have to harm them, turn them in, because “why would somebody be better off than I am” is unknown there.
There is a lot we can learn from the citizens of Siberia…- Oh, yes. We wouldn’t succeed without their help. We carefully listened to their advice, warming the car before setting off in the coldest regions. From them we even learned how to surmount huge snowdrifts. We weren’t presumptuous nitwits who have a few bucks, came from Europe and knew everything best. We humbly accepted advice and hints.
Poles cannot even imagine such severe cold. How did you manage in so extreme conditions?
- The car's heater was very reliable. Besides, apart from a clutch failure and easily reparable minor defects, the car did very well. But in the dead of winter, even the trip from the car's cockpit to the sleeping quarters was a real excursion. During one such trip, my shoes cracked from the cold. The thermometer installed on the car cracked earlier. Bought in Poland, its scale only reached to minus 50 degrees.
And what about such trivial things as toilets?
- Well, we didn’t have a toilet in the car. So-called physiological needs had to be taken care of outside and only when we really had to. We had to forget about washing for a while. There was no shower in the car, of course. But I'd like to emphasize that we weren't three stinking men, because only when we were coming back and approaching Europe and it was getting warm, I started to smell that someone was sitting next to me. Then we washed ourselves in melting rivers.
Did any unusual things happen to you? Didn’t Siberian bears attack you?
- Animals don’t attack first. There were very many amazing stories however. I’ll describe the most interesting ones in my future book. Once, we got in the line of fire of hunters, but we didn’t get hurt as you can see. Once we saved the lives of a father and son whose car broke down in the snow. If we hadn’t come across them, they’d have died. We warmed them up and then amputated their frost-bitten fingers. That wasn’t a tragedy - most important was the fact that they survived.
When is the next excursion?
- Now we have to rest for a while but it’s more than certain that the rest will not last long. The longing for Siberia will not allow for that.
Thank you for the conversation


Iwona Marciniak talked to Romulad Koperski