Speed - 26 liters per hour: went to Polesie to collect lingonberries

The lingonberry harvest season in Belarus is in full swing. They say that this berry can cure everything in the world, compote from it instantly quenches thirst, and the collection process replaces a week in the gym. Our correspondents went to the Lelchitsky district of the Gomel region for a tart sour-sweet taste and berry secrets of Poleshuks.

No berries? Nervously tapping the toe of a rubber boot, tightening a scarf on my head and rushing into battle almost at dawn, but my experienced photographer Ivan and the lingonberry team from among the residents of the urban village of Lelchitsy calm down: let the dew come down. As it dried, we go on a journey on the Ouazika: not any transport will reach the most tasty glades. The relief in the local forests with a twist - after half an hour, no park attraction will surprise you.

Teacher Olga Zelenkovskaya seems to be more pleased with the trip than others:

- It is so good that you have come – you can with a clear conscience throw away all your business and go to the forest. I'm a crazy fan of picking mushrooms and berries. But I go for lingonberries less often: it appears en masse already at a time when I go to work.

Olga Leonidovna is a teacher of the Lelchitsky district center for correctional and developmental training and rehabilitation. Her work is complex and responsible, so forest therapy is a mandatory point of emotional relief. With a wide and sincere smile, the teacher suddenly declares:

- And lingonberries, most likely, will no longer be! We picked it in mid-August, and then we saw that the berry fell.

The heart almost stopped: is the report under threat? Olga urges us not to be upset:

- We will have to go around half the area, but we will find a berry! We spent the night in the woods — we bought an apartment — Vladimir Reutsky, a hunter, local historian and specialist in local forests, runs our lingonberry liner. His stories about the numerous lolchitsky bunkers or the exploits of partisans can be heard endlessly, but today our task is to learn everything about berry places.

All the locals have a special light in their eyes when they talk about the forest, as if about an older brother, a faithful helper. Vladimir Andreevich continues:

- There are several villages closer to the border. The cranberry season comes and the locals sit in the swamp for three months. With the kids. Even in November, they can walk ten kilometers behind the cranberries and spend the night there.

The wife of our escort Inna Anatolyevna assures: there are families who for a couple of seasons bought by renting berries to their apartments. And in Minsk. On lingonberry it is unlikely to rise (at the beginning of the season, procurement points took it for 3 rubles 80 kopecks per kilogram), but cranberries may well be profitable. If, of course, you work hard, adds Vladimir Andreevich:

- Honestly, every year I go to Minsk, I see how people came to work at eight or nine in the morning and at 18:00 free. The village is different. I saw it a little – everything is already on potatoes, or in the woods, or somewhere else. They only return home when it is dark. We move towards the village of Ubortskaya Rudnya, after which the forest roads begin to twist in the most incredible way. But the healers know every path here, so very soon they take us to the sleeper, flooded with sunlight. Olga Zelenkovskaya grabs a bucket and cheerfully goes in search.

- Looks like a new crop is ripe! Small, but there's a lot of it.

Vladimir Andreevich jokes:

- I just called the bear, asked not to eat lingonberries here until the journalists gather!

In this sentence, I respond to the main point:

- You got bears here?!

- Of course! And not just bears. The beast, sometimes, goes to the villages.

Inna Anatolyevna tells how on the eve of our arrival she met a lynx in the forest:

- I thought it was someone walking with a dog. It's not a dog that flies between trees. I go out into the clearing, and the lynx goes through me. I got up like I'm stuck.

- And did you take a picture on the phone? – winks Olya.

- I forgot at that moment that I had hands, not even a phone. But the lynx didn't even look at me, went on, and I got my feet in my hands - and home! Fitness in Poleska Olya shows me closer how lingonberry berries are attached to the bush - in small clusters:

- Brousnika grows everywhere, but mainly in the clearings in the pine forest. You can collect with your hands. And if the comb, then correct: no cutting edges, and between the teeth at least five millimeters. Our task is not to damage the lingonberry. You can not tear out plants with the root, break shoots and damage leaves. You can't pick an immature berry. The technique is to bend over, rip, sprinkle in the bucket, unbend and move on. A kind of Polesie fitness. I must say, more difficult than all the training in the room. The difference in preparation is immediately visible: while I bow to the lingonberry bushes twice, Olya manages to make ten approaches. Here over the clearing there is a call: “scouts” discovered an even larger deposit of “red gold”. Olya looks with pity at the first clearing, because the Polesie soul does not allow to abandon the unfinished business, but for the sake of good cadres goes to a new front of work.

- Here the berry is quite ripe - it falls into the hands itself, my partner squints with pleasure.

Buckets sporadically fill with crops. The photographer and I, of course, run around and eat more than we collect, and healers work at an astonishing rate. For an hour with a little three buckets of joint efforts gained 26 liters of lingonberry. Another liter of donkey settled in the stomachs: the Polesie berry is sour and sweet, with a little tartness and a unique aroma. Inna Anatolyevna admits:

The lingonberry compote has rolled 15 cans this season. You know, they don't even drink it in the winter, but in the spring, for sowing. When you work hard, thirst torments - such a pleasure, can not convey words.

It is good to grind lingonberry with sugar, roll or freeze. In winter, you can throw a seagull with lingonberry, as Baba Shura said from the film Love and Pigeons, and bake in cakes. But even this in lingonberry is not the main thing, assures Inna Anatolyevna: - This is not a berry, this is a medicine! It is useful for the kidneys, and how a natural antibiotic works. So many vitamins will cure everything! We leave tired, but happy, clutching lingonberry buckets in our hands. Foxes ran across the road a couple of times, rabbits raced along the side of the road, jumping up. We did not meet any lynx or bear, but our escorts gave us a royal gift and took us to a secret place where horned forest dwellers often come. We had to wait a little in absolute silence, and a young, beautiful deer still appeared on the clearing. Heart seems to have missed a couple of beats from excitement. And lingonberry will now become a medicine not only for the body, but also for the soul.

PERFECT FOR EVERYTHING

In the kitchens of the best restaurants in the world, lingonberry is traditionally used as the basis for sour and sweet sauce. It is surprisingly versatile: it suits game, goes well with fried turkey, chicken, duck and even fish. Moreover, lingonberry sauce can be eaten along with cheesecakes, pancakes and cheeses - Camembert and brie. We found 16 recipes of sauce, each of which the author considers perfect, but we offer our own version - the 17th and, of course, the best.

For lingonberry sauce, you will need:

♦ lingonberry - 500g

♦ sugar - 250g

red dry wine - 50 ml

♦ fragrant pepper with peas - 1 tablespoon

♦ cinnamon - to taste

♦ agar-agar - 0.5 teaspoon

Do not forget to go through and wash the lingonberry collected in the Polesie forests. If you pour boiling water and hold a berry in it for a couple of minutes, then a natural bitterness will go away. We cook lingonberry with sugar for about 10 minutes.

But now do not be lazy and wipe it through a sieve to make your sauce more uniform. Now you can add wine and spices, and then, if necessary, tighten with agar-agar. Remember: pepper with peas is necessary before cooking - so you will preserve its bright aroma. There's only five minutes left to cook. And then you can enjoy the warm and fragrant taste of autumn!

WHY

The price of red berry

If suddenly you do not find time to go to the forest, perform a plan for steps and slopes and prepare a lingonberry yourself, we will suggest an approximate price.

In the market "Central" in Gomel kilogram lingonberry can be bought for 8 rubles 90 kopecks. This is the same berry that pickers hand over to state procurement points. In one of the largest hypermarkets, lingonberry is offered in the section of the most exclusive products. A tray of benefit will cost almost eight rubles. That’s only its weight is only 180 grams.

Freshly collected lingonberry individuals are actively implemented on the Internet. Pricing is the most unpredictable. A liter of lingonberry (this is 700-800 grams) in Novopolotsk is offered for three rubles, in Mozyr - for four, in Orsha - for nine.

SEVEN BRUSNIC WONDERS

2. Helps the health of the gastrointestinal tract: lingonberry increases the number of bacteria that support the intestinal mucosa in a normal state.

3. This berry is just a salvation for cystitis, and in general has a good effect on the genitourinary system.

4. Cranberries can lower blood sugar levels.

5. Fiber and polyphenols help the heart and blood vessels work properly, reduces the risk of atherosclerosis.

6. Cranberries normalize weight.

7. Some studies claim that lingonberry extract can protect retinal cells and improve eye health. In all regions of Belarus started collecting cranberries

Cranberries have reached maturity and the harvesting of marsh berries is officially permitted in all areas. You can collect both manually and using some devices, but they have strict requirements. The distance between the teeth of the planter (comb or harvester) should be at least 0.5 centimeters, there can be no cutting edges on the tool. The main thing is not to damage the plants.

According to First Deputy Minister of Forestry Andrey Karas, 27,000 to 30,000 hectares of new forest are created each year through sowing and planting. This is about two Gomels in area. In total, for each inhabitant of Belarus, there is more than one hectare of forested land.