Man in the Ocean

Teodor Rezvoi has been on terra firma for more than a month after venturing a solo crossing of the Atlantic and returning to his native Odesa, his wife, son, and a great deal of publicity. He walks swaying a little, pauses by the bronze statue of Pushkin. The poet seems prepared to take off his opera hat to welcome the hero.

WHY PEOPLE TAKE RISKS

“He looks at the planet as though the sky were a matter of his nightly concern...” This is from Boris Pasternak. After talking with Fedir (Teodor is for the biographers and media pomp) I reread Frederick A. Cook’s My Attainment of the Pole and the great Sherpa mountain climber Norgay Tenzing’s autobiography Tiger of the Snows. I wanted to know if anyone could answer the question why people take such risks. What are these people like, whose concerns seem to embrace the whole planet?

I had my reason referring to the conqueror of the North Pole and the man first reaching the top of Mt. Everest. Both had gone all the way to reach their goals, experience their moments of glory and the envy of rivals, remaining idols for generations to come. Perhaps whoever reads such books does it his own fashion. Most hold their breath, shrinking from hair-raising experiences even on paper. Very few make up their mind, even if subconsciously at first, to go further, achieve more, and get to the top. How is one to define that moment of becoming confident of having made the right choice?

IF ONE ONLY KNEW

Rezvoi and I sat in a cafe, at the old Krasnaya Hotel, listening to quiet music, with his phone constantly ringing. Fedir had just returned home and everybody needed him. Some invited him somewhere, others wanted him to appear at a soiree. He had apparently forgotten how to say no.

“Perhaps you’ll try to explain to an ordinary person like me why one has to cross the ocean all by oneself,” I said.

My recorder was on but there was no reply. Now I understand why. How was he to explain something one must first experience oneself, passing thorough the phases of abuse and praise, and the temptation of big money (if ever), and then try to find a cautious answer for oneself, not others. It is a long way, and Rezvoi will have to travel it.

FAMILY TREE

If at the Hermitage, make sure you visit a gallery with portraits of heroes of the Napoleonic War of 1812 in Russia. Find the one with the legend reading Artillery General Rezvoi. He made himself famous in the Battle of Borodino, and he is a direct relation of Fedir’s. The family had not only army officers, but also university professors specializing in biology and geology. All were ordinary members of the intellectual gentry. Fedir once told me, “I can trace my family roots back nine generations.” A short statement, it contained both pride in one’s ancestors making history and a precise understanding of one’s responsibility (one must not be worse than one’s great grandfathers). He had grown used to the mountains and the sea since childhood and to being of use to the grownups. In fact, he grew up with a team of geologists working in the Palmirs. He learned to stay in the saddle at three. By five or six he was good with a pair of oars in an old boat, leaving it for the first spring sunrise at Karolina-Bugaz near Odesa. Fedir’s mother Tetiana told me a story. There was a playground at the Soborka in the center of the Southern Palmirs. Fedir, then three, climbed the balance beam, expecting Mom to be there to lend a hand. Tetiana said no, you must do it yourself. The boy was frightened, yet he did it. As he was shakily reaching the end of the beam a man passing by said angrily, “Some mother.” I asked myself if he would grow to be the man he is given a different kind of upbringing. Would he make that Atlantic crossing in his Odesa boat? Would he become the first of the former Soviet Union’s top solo rowers to conquer the ocean? Would Ukraine have a real hero admired by every boy and girl? From what I know, many at our daycare centers dream of making top killers, because they are paid such big money, the youngsters say.

BEFORE THE CROSSING

The decision to cross the Atlantic came suddenly. Perhaps some critical mass of desire or the daily routine as a web-site master of the International Ocean Rowers’ Society gave the signal. Indeed, try shaping issues with stories about how to prepare for a crossing, what adjustments to make in the boat design, ration stores, and what might happen if you forget to tie yourself to the railing.

After finally getting through from London to Odesa, Fedir told his wife Liudmyla about his decision to cross the Atlantic and heard in reply, “Are you drunk or something?” Of course, he was not drunk. Then there were talks with his mother, wife, and the elder brother living in the United States. Finally, he convinced all his near and dear. Now he had to find the money.

Not legends but anecdotes are told about our businessmen, always mentioning a 600 Mercedes, gold pectoral chains, palaces built in fashionable suburbs, yet I cannot recall a single story with a check signed to help this country’s international prestige. No, I do not mean election campaigns; they are an altogether different story. A truckload of greenbacks? No problem. But who in his sound mind would pay for a crazy planning to row solo across the Atlantic in a boat the way you do across the Dnipro? This must have been exactly Odesa Mayor Ruslan Bodelan’s impression. Rezvoi and his mother tried to get an appointment with him twice, but without success.

Fortunately, there were other crazies like Fedir in Ukraine. The Day was among the first to tell about the now famous Borys Lytvak Center in Odesa. Looking youthfully slim in his 71st year, Mr. Lytvak listened to Fedir’s story and was immediately interested for two reasons: (a) his plan meant overcoming physical pain and getting the better of oneself, all this very close to the center’s idea, and (b) Fedir’s character was very much like Lytvak’s, and if it hadn’t been for his age, he would have done likewise.

Mr. Lytvak told me later, “I looked into his eyes and realized that he would go about it the right way, that he would win. But first I called the head of the regional health department and asked him to arrange for a thorough medical examination. I had to make sure Fedir had a clean bill of health, physical and mental. The man was gorgeous, healthy. And then we started to look for money.”

Lytvak’s Center for the Rehabilitation of Physically Handicapped Children and Future Foundation are nonprofit organizations, helped by clever and kind-hearted people. Yes, we still have such individuals. Lytvak, however, could not bother them with financing Fedir’s project. He managed to get through to Volodymyr Horbulin who knew how to contact Odesa Governor Serhiy Hrynevetsky, then on an official trip abroad. He did and the governor made a call to Volodymyr Filipchuk, chairman of the board of Odesaeksimnaftoprodukt [Odesa Oil Product Export-Import Co.].

The result of the telespace bridge was that Borys Lytvak told a press conference at the World Odesa’ Club:

“Yes, we have the money for the crossing, courtesy of Volodymyr Filipchuk’s company.”

LONELINESS

“You can feel it almost at once,” Fedir Rezvoi admits. “As soon as you can’t see the shore any longer you know you’re out in the ocean all by yourself. Was I scared? I was after the shore disappeared and I realized I was really alone.”

Gradually one gets used to the ocean, he told me. Fish follow the boat, and one starts to treat them like people. A couple of fish became his travel companions, they swam after the boat, now getting closer then moving away, like ichthyologists wondering at a new subspecies. But one had to treat fish with discrimination; some were scary. Once a giant swordfish appeared and moved close to the boat. If it got really interested, Rezvoi said, he wouldn’t be at the Krasnaya Hotel to talk to me over coffee.

The ocean is an alien medium to man. Aleksandr Beliaev’s science fiction story about Ichthyandr, a young fellow with implanted shark gills, can be considered a remote possibility. Rezvoi, fully aware of dangers awaiting solo rowers on the high seas, was wary of large fish (no one knows what’s on its mind) and ships.

One night he was caught in a severe storm. Fedir crawled up on deck and saw a huge ship moving in for a head-on collision. He tried to raise her on his satellite phone but got no answer. He fired flares and signaled with a powerful red flashlight. No one seemed to take notice. At what seemed the very last minute the ship veered off and he received a message of apology from the bridge: “Sorry, sir, we didn’t notice you immediately.”

Fedir spent all 67 days of the crossing literally tied to his boat. He could not unbuckle his sort of safety belt even for a minute. He told me a lot of stories about solo rowers getting killed in the ocean simply because they wanted to feel free, even if for a minute, rather than chained to their vessels.

I tried to picture myself in his place. Yes, it was scary not to feel securely linked to the boat. A sudden wave could throw you overboard or you could fall over when leaning out too low, with the boat giving a sudden lurch. It was all frightening.

“Did you tie yourself to anything inside the cabin?” I asked.

“I sure did,” he was surprised at the question. “Anything could happen, you know.”

Of course, his daily schedule onboard was carefully worked out before the crossing, but a lot of ideas arose in the ocean. For example, rowing only during the day and sleeping at night. Of course, he would have a break now and then during the day, but no nap after lunch, he assured me, otherwise you would be too lazy to row and get off schedule. A lot of things in the boat design had to be changed. He is friends with the noted Russian solo mariner FСdor Koniukhov who is planning a crossing starting this October. They agreed on a rendezvous, so he will have to let him know about the design adjustments. That’s standard practice for all solo ocean-crossers. They take care of each other.

“Did you feel lonely out there?”

“No,” he replied after a pause. “Maybe I was lucky, for I met big ships and yachts, and even a colleague. The first such rendezvous in the history of solo crossings, I was told.”

He was not strictly alone also thanks to the satellite phone. He would place a call once every day to say hello to mother, wife, and son. And Lytvak who was now also one of the family, and to talk to people at the Ocean Rowers’ Society. He received letters on the Internet, sometimes from his mother, but not often as such messages were heavy on the family budget.

He would read books some of the nights. He took with him a collection of Zhvanetsky humorous stories, but the subject turned out mostly sad and serious.

“You get to feel very different about things out there,” Fedir nodded his head in some direction behind me. “Perhaps I had to make that crossing to think over what I had experienced in my past thirty-three years: what I had accomplished, where I had failed, and also what I would have to do. Here on solid ground there is no time for such thinking... Too much hustle and bustle, and you’re never so keenly aware of death breathing down your neck. Out there you start to think, whether you like it or not after the shore disappears over the horizon. And I felt like that up in the mountains when I was climbing, but out in the ocean the sensation is much sharper.”

Sometimes he was haunted by smells that could not be there, only on solid ground. He did not mind it at all. Once he was awakened by the incredibly real aroma of roast potatoes with garlic, onions, and oil. He thought that being on terra firma was great, better than anywhere else.

RETURN!

It took Rezvoi’s character to refuse something considered perfectly routine procedure at the end of home stretch, with the shore so near. He refused to be towed to the Barbarossa harbor and spent almost 24 hours rowing against the current and strong wind. Inside the cabin was damp, and it stank of mold. What saved him was lavender oil presented him by a Frenchwoman colleague before the crossing. Its fragrance overpowered everything.

Teodor Rezvoi, a Ukrainian national, resident of Odesa, disembarked in the Barbarossa harbor at 19:30 local time on December 18, 2001. He had sensed the closeness of the shore almost 24 hours before he could see it. He could smell wet grass and flowers, he says. The smell was so strong it seemed like the island was right by the boat. It was close indeed, comparatively, but no one could have smelled anything at that distance — no one except a man who was finishing a crossing of 2,550 nautical miles.

Once in Ukraine, things took their usual course. The mayor of Odesa had refused to help Rezvoi with his project. However, as soon as he learned about its completion and that Fedir was on his way home, he started calling, probably in anticipation of forthcoming publicity. Volodymyr Horbulin with Fedir’s mother and wife met the hero at the Kyiv rail terminal. He had closely followed the voyage for over two months. The previous morning in Odesa, Rezvoi received a check for a new apartment from Serhiy Hrynevetsky. The governor knew that Fedir and his family lived in the remotest residential district of Odesa, renting an apartment and paying big money. Rezvoi brought souvenirs, including an oar for Borys Lytvak, not a spare oar, but one of the pair he had actually used onboard the Odesa.

Rereading Tenzing’s Tiger of the Snows, I spotted a passage. The great Sherpa mountaineer described a crowd surrounding him, getting so thick he thought grimly that he would no longer be able to lead a normal life, and that the only way to have a happy life would be to take his family to an isolated place where they could live in peace and quiet. But this would also mean defeat and retreat. He prayed to be spared the ordeal. All he wanted was for them to leave him alone with their politics. Then everything would be all right. Just so long as nobody tried to manipulate him and use him for their own ends; so nobody would ask why he spoke that particular language, why he wore Indian, Nepalese, or European clothes, why the flags were arranged in this and not a different pattern, as he unfurled them on top of the Everest. This bothered me not so much because it concerned me as because it concerned the mountain; it is too big, too precious for such trifles.

Teodor (Fedir) Rezvoi is at the peak of glory. He was invited to visit the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, he received a message of greetings from President Kuchma, and they say an audience may be in the offing, for the hero entered Ukraine into a list of countries whose rowers performed feats to immortalize their names.

Rezvoi is still resting on the laurels, enjoying solid ground under his feet, visiting the bronze poet Pushkin that seems headed for the Krasnaya Hotel. He has had no time to write a story of his crossing. He may have new crossings in mind. I sincerely wish Fedir to remain the way he is now, a man just back after a long road of gaining an understanding of human possibilities.