These magnificent fells, Lovozero mountains, rise up to the clouds in the heart of Kola Peninsula. This is wild land in the North. It can take you, but it can give you a lot as well. Nowhere else have I seen so many cloudberries on may way. But I could pass by since they were not ripe. Perhaps they were late, or I was too early. In the North the snow may fall before you even realised that it was a summer. Or, if it is, it may still fall. In the wild it is never late or early. The time is "now" and the place is "here" and you must survive.
Long before the Sami people lived here, and they still live. When they came, they didn't build roads and railways which you'll probably use now. And when you come by car, as I did, the road ends here in Lovozero village. You can't get much further to the east in Kola peninsula by car than this. And if you could, there wouldn't be wild any more. If we don't see any signs of so called 'civilization', we often think that there is no-one. Or even that there never have been anyone! But the truth is that humans have been everywhere. They have crossed every river and wetland, they have drinken from every source of water, they have stepped on every stone and watched every tree!
I would say that those humans that 'have been everywhere' were really civilized. They easily make me belive that "I am the first here". And I like that feeling.
Matti Pellinen