Hello and an air kiss to everyone!
And it is airy because of the topic I am going to cover today. Skydiving has been my big desire for a long time. I am afraid of water (as you could understand from the previous article, but I adore heights, at least it seems to me). I had been thinking about it and then one day in Dubai, where I was temporarily working with children, the mother of these girls offered me to skydive together. I was very glad to have such a companion, but it didn’t work out for us in Dubai. Then I planned to parachute with my exboyfriend in his country, in Serbia. He said it would be very beautiful and much cheaper. But it didn’t work out here either. We broke up. And the desire had not left me. Then I looked at the options for jumping in August 2022, in the city of Omsk. But there it was necessary to go far somewhere, and Omsk seems to me more difficult than St. Petersburg. I mean, St. Petersburg is somehow already more close to me, I feel better here and I’m always sure I’ll find what I need. Going alone somewhere far away in Omsk gives me not the most pleasant feelings. So it turned out that I carried this desire with me through different cities and countries and was left alone with it on a beautiful evening in St. Petersburg, when I started looking for companies that would help me in making my dream comes true. In fact, I planned to skydive with a friend, but our schedules were absolutely different, and I decided not to postpone and do what I planned. So I found a couple of companies and most of all I liked the very first one I found. That’s the link though it’s in Russian: https://nebopitera.ru/
Then I had some kind of problems with the organization. They promised me that they would send the details for the payment of the deposit and they did not send anything. Subsequently I found how to pay but the bank rejected my payment, as it could be fraudsters. I had to deal with the bank. When I paid, I started calling the company, but no one answered. Here I was already starting to worry, but I was still trying to believe that everything should be fine with me. After all, I was confirmed with a flight reservation and video shooting, and I felt better that time. But still, I think it’s very strange that I had to face such a thorny path. Through the thorns to the sky.
In general, this is where my introduction part ends and I will tell you how the day X went.
I arrived at the Moskovskaya bus stop, which is in the city on the Neva.
I had to go to Gatchina (a small town 40 min away from St. Petersburg), but the problem was that there were a dime a dozen of these stops at the Moskovskaya metro station, from different sides, and I wasn’t sure which one I needed. I asked several people, no one really helped, I looked on the Internet but it was still unclear to me. Then I remembered that I had a Canadian friend who lived in Gatchina for quite a while and he went to St. Petersburg every weekend. Thus I decided to make a call to a friend, or rather write a message.
Jack (that’s the name of my Canadian friend) explained where the bus stop was. As it turned out, I was standing right there. And as soon as he told me about it, I saw my bus.
I would like to mention here that not all the buses are so old and not nice in Russia. There are many good ones but it wasn’t my case.
At that very moment, I felt that I had something strange in my hair and I placed my hand there to shake off whatever it was. And it was a wasp. It got stuck between my fingers and stung me. I screamed and threw it off my arm, but it was too late. A hellish burning pain began to take my arm, and panic and stress consumed my mind. Let me explain: I am afraid of insects, I am very afraid of bees and wasps, bumblebees and their other relatives. As far as I remember, none of the above-mentioned have ever bitten me. Maybe once, when I was a child, but I don’t remember it. Since I didn’t get involved with this (and also watched a movie where the wasps bit a little boy to death, and I, of course, remembered this particular movie during the bite I had). It turns out that jumping out of an airplane and flying down like a stone was not anymore as scary as being bitten by a small insect. And so, I was on the bus and I was showing all the passengers how bad I felt. I looked at my hand, then I started blowing, then my eyes filled with some tears (it hurt, I felt sorry for myself, I wanted to live, haha). At the same time, I sent a photo of my hand to my parents and my friend Susie (she was studying to be a dentist. I decided that she would definitely help))). All three of them said that I would live a long and happy life. Then I started searching for the information on the Internet. It’s a good thing I didn’t think of opening photos of bee victims. I don’t know what would have happened to me then. I am very glad that we had an English lesson with Susie in the morning and I told her about the fact of me planning to skydive. It was her who found the words that were important to me at that moment. She said something like this: “Everything will be fine. It is our fears that speak inside us. You will be safe, fine and you will remember it all your life. In general, try not to think about fear now but about your magical flight that awaits you. Enjoy the flight. What a cool feeling you will have just as if you have wings and you are flying. There is nothing cooler than this feeling. Capture this moment, throw the fear in the trash.“ Then Susie told me about a family whose members all skydived time from time and in total they jumped about a hundred times (mom, dad and their children). Also, my lovely friend reminded that bees and wasps usually fly and therefore that bite was also a wonderful sign. No words can descrive how thankful I was to my dear Susie!
Her words were very important to me because it seemed that the Universe did not want my jump, I got sign after sign to give up this idea. However I am quite stubborn in my actions and intentions. I still wanted to do what I planned.
I’ll tell you about other signs I had. Arriving in Gatchina, I realized that I had about 1.5 hours to enjoy the city and its park. But how can you enjoy it when you are dying from the bite of a small insect?))) Then I found the nearest hospital on the map in my phone and hit the road. I had to walk for about 10 minutes though I reached it in 20 min. I got a little lost, almost ended up in a mental hospital, but it doesn’t matter anymore. When I got to my destination, I was told that they could not help me there and I had to go to the central hospital. I didn’t want to go there so much, but the fear was stronger than my laziness and I took a taxi again (taxi prices in Gatchina were pleasantly surprising if compared with St. Petersburg). The taxi driver was told a story about a parachute and a bite, to which he sarcastically remarked: “I can see you are a very lucky girl” and I defended myself by saying that I was really lucky. If he knew about my life… the driver added fuel to the fire telling me that he worked in that central hospital and that there could be no miracles and pleasant moments there so that I would not expect something like that at all. And he also amused me with his question: “tell me please, how it happened? You were just sitting at home, bored and thought: I’m going to skydive today.” It was very funny. The taxi driver was a young guy, we had a lot of fun with him those 7 minutes of the trip.
When I arrived at the hospital, I filled out some documents. Fortunately, I had my passport with me. They still needed some other documents but come on! I came to Gatchina for a few hours. Visiting hospitals was not part of my plan. Well, at least I had a mobile app from the tax service, where I got some needed information from. And they also incorrectly wrote down the street of the address where I was registered.
I was told to go to the women’s examination room. There was a tall, handsome young man with a patient of 60-65 years old. She didn’t look very well, she hardly walked, there was a wheelchair next to her, her whole body was shaking. She somehow climbed onto the gurney. It was very strange that a healthy guy didn’t bother to help her, and I, seeing how hard it was for the woman, offered her my help. Although, I understood that I would not be able to lift it. When she was lying down, she said that she was dizzy, she was very ill and she uttered such a phrase: “I got worse after my daughter’s funeral.” I was in complete shock for a moment. At first I was wildly worried about this lady and how bad and hard it was for her. Then I remembered that in a couple of hours I would be putting my life at risk and my parents were not even aware of my plans. For a second I imagined my mother in the place of this lady and immediately drove my thoughts away. But it was uneasy. I do believe that we attract everything into our lives ourselves and any person on our way is a sign, an instrument of the Universe (even if it may sound very strange for some of you), it is worth paying attention to everything that comes to us. And I began to wonder why I got such signs on such a crucial day for me? Maybe something bad was waiting for me and I had to cancel the jump… but I knew that everything should have been fine for me and my life, as it seemed to me. I decided not to give up and do what I wanted to do. Then I was still thinking about meeting this seriously ill woman and thought that maybe she had to meet me in order to feel the warmth and care from a stranger, a stranger to her, to see that the world was kind to her. What’s more I draw a parallel: there was a person who had lost faith and joy and a person who was going to jump into the sky, for entertainment, overcoming fear, and so on. What different lives we live, being in the same space. And if you approach this question from the other side: there was me who had some panic because of the insect’s bite and was a person in really very bad conditions.
Let’s leave the story about the woman (because I can talk and write about it for a long time but that’s not what I wanted to share here) and come back to the young man. He brought tweezers, took my hand very gently and took the tiny pieces of the sting out of my hand skin. I asked about disinfection (after reading on the Internet and hearing from kind people), but he said that I didn’t need anything like that, it would overgrow and heal itself. That time I realized that I came to the hospital to be looked after by a young man))). On the way out I confused the door and found myself in the isolation ward, but I realized in time that I was not there and went out.
I still managed to walk for 10 minutes near the palace and the park in Gatchina and called a taxi to the airfield.
There was also some communication with a taxi driver on the way to the event. When he found out why I needed to go to the airfield, he said: “That’s why you’re kind of tense and nervous.” I explained that I was that way not because of the flight, but because of the bite, and then he spent almost all the time telling me how he ate a watermelon and there was a bee that bit his tongue. Well, he calmed me down, relaxed me with his stories, noooo haha.
When I arrived at the airfield, I walked with a confident step under the canopy, as if I was skydiving every day. There I saw several people that I asked the way. I was sent for a medical examination. They just measured my blood pressure and asked me to get on the scales. I didn’t like their scales. They showed a bad number of kg. I wasn’t ready for such humiliations))) After measuring the pressure, I asked the doctor: “Well? Will I live?” and she said to me, “of course! And why do you have such questions?” I explained that I hand’t gone to the doctors at all. She kind of confirmed that I didn’t need to, at my age. Yeah, she didn’t know how many people in my environment did so-called checkups. Then I went to pay 300 rubles for insurance and to another room, where I paid the remaining 11,500 rubles for the flight + shooting. I already had a small deposit paid. I was given a contract to fill out, I signed a few times, read everything very carefully. Apparently, I was reading so carefully and for a long time that an airfield employee at some point asked: “Are you still filling out?”, to which I replied: “I’m still reading.” And there were different moments such as even: “You must understand that such events can have serious consequences, including the death of a person.” The employee told me not to pay attention that there was a lot that scared, it’s better not to read so carefully. I also filled out a sheet where there was a bunch of all sorts of diseases (almost like in “Three men in a boat”) and everywhere I put a dash meaning I did not have such health issues. It’s good that dentistry was not listed there in any way. By the way, when I signed one of the documents, I had to put what the number of the jumps I had done before and my modest zero was surrounded by hundreds and thousands of jumps of other people. I was shocked, honestly.
After that I went under the canopy again (from where the airfield story began). There were already more people there. I saw a handsome, tall instructor and thought: “probably mine!”, but then he was assigned to another young girl. For a moment it seemed to me that I didn’t like the girl right away, haha. But only for a while. In fact, she was very pleasant and beautiful. She was with her mom. Another guy skydiving that day also came with his mother to support him. I thought at that moment that it was good that my mom was far away and didn’t even know where her daughter was. While having these experiences, it is necessary to protect the mother’s heart. I ended up with a skydiver-instructor of about 50, I think. But I am very bad at understanding ages. I could be wrong. He was neither tall nor young, but when I found out that his name was Nikolai, my heart melted right there. The fact is that my grandfather’s name was Nikolai Nikolaevich and that is why this name was for me as a guarantee that I would have a wonderful flight and a magical day on the 11th of August. In addition to that, I thought that if the instructor was older, then he was more experienced, and this is quite a significant plus when you skydive from a 3000 meter height. Also, the names of both of us began with the letter “N”. That is, we were almost like M&Ms or more precisely N&Ns. The dream team.
I chose a suit to fit me. I took a blue-orange one. Then Nikolai put some attachments on me (to be honest I am not quite sure how it’s called but you can see it on the photo down below)
After that we went outside, into the shade, to be instructed. I can say that everything was pretty easy and understandable. At the very beginning of our skydiving experience, I had to curl my legs and leave them bent at the back. I needed to hold on to the safety fastenings with my hands at the same time. Since we couldn’t hear each other at the beginning of the jump, our signals were Nikolai’s slap on my shoulder. After this clap, I had to let go of my hand or hands, look into the camera and smile. Then I was shown how to lower the straps at my feet so that I would sit in flight and feel comfortable. And we also discussed the landing. It’s a piece of cake, especially when you’re on the ground. Soon everyone was ready and we went to the plane.
That’s a small dancing movements from me before the event. As you can see I am smiling and being happy but in fact I was worrying. I wasn’t sure I was brave enough for that kind of experience.
Interestingly, it was necessary to sit slightly turned sideways and when we took off,
the plane, accordingly, was slightly skewed. We had to hold on to the hatch (window), because we were all tilted towards the tail of the car.
We were talking during the flight. I would say that it was mainly me and Nikolai who communicated. The rest, apparently, tuned in to the flight, maybe worried, maybe annoyed that they had such a sociable girl from Siberia with an instructor flying, not allowed others to meditate.
Nikolai filmed some moments. He asked me on the plane if I was ready. To which I replied: “I’m ready, if I can call it that way.” I think it’s hard to prepare for this experience when you skydive for the first time. Nikolai had a special height meter and when we flew 800 meters, he showed me and said that people jump from such a height on their own. If I had a briefing for 10 minutes, as it seemed to me. The instruction would take about 4 hours (this is according to Nikolai) and the whole day (according to information on the Internet) if someone wants to jump on his/her own. He said that there were a lot of instructions, then practice, jumping from a slide or a tower, all in the mud, tortured. In general, it’s hard preparation, but it’s probably worth it.
Looking at the height of 800 meters, I thought it was nothing at all.
To fly so low, so little, but I also understand that it’s scarier to take a step forward yourself and be responsible for yourself and the opening of the parachute. I don’t know if I ever dare to do this and whether I need it. We’ll see. But, in any case, I think (almost sure) that as soon as I have children, no jumps or even thoughts about such things will come to my mind. Or “never say never” 🙂
It was also fun when one instructor sitting next to us turned to me and said: “I wouldn’t trust him if I were you” (speaking about Nikolai). I laughed and supported the conversation. I think it was obviously seen that I liked to joke and have fun, so something like this came to my address. If I was pinched, serious and nervous, I would hardly be joked with like that.
Then I realized why by chance I got the instructor that I got. We were the most talkative persons on the plane. I told him about my English lessons, where I was, where I lived, what languages I spoke, where I was from and some other moments. It turned out that he also traveled a lot and had been spending several winters in a row in India. And (what impressed me), he made about 12,000 parachute jumps. He was the master of sports also skydived in the army. I knew I was in safe hands! Of course, the universe tried to help me again. Thank you! Then Nikolai told me another joke about the knowledge of languages. I can say that we had fun. At some point I noticed that the girl who got the young and tall instructor was listening to us and smiling. And I wanted to say at this point something like: “a good showpresenter, dancer, funny contests, my number +79 …….contact us. Now we are also working in the air). I have not yet abandoned the idea of trying myself in a stand-up field. It’s something like: “the old lady was 73 years old, she stubbornly continued to search for her mission in this life and the dream profession.” Story of my life I guess. Then I once again told Nikolai our instructions when I needed to pull my legs up, where I put my hands, what I put away, and so on. I just wanted to repeat this before I went into the unknown. He said it was perfect that I remembered everything while skydiving for the first time.
And here is the moment X. The first person flew by himself and this caused me a storm of emotions, but I didn’t show them, I left everything inside myself. There was just a man, one second and he was already somewhere far away from us. Then the second one went, already an instructor with a passanger. The next ones were the girl with the tall guy. And soon there we were. By the way, I asked Nikolai how they distribute “passengers” to them. He said that the taller ones take heavier participants and that he had already flown with heavy citizens and that he should be given those who were smaller and lighter. It definitely put a smile on my face and I asked again, waiting for a compliment: “so I’m in the category of easy traveling companions?” He confirmed that it was so. Then, perhaps, I could forgive them that unpleasant figure on the scales about my weight. A figure covered in darkness, which my lips cannot pronounce at this late hour (I’m writing a blog in the evening while my memories are fresh).
So, we approach the door or hatch (how is it in English? Well, you probably understand me).
I had the position that was discussed in advance with my lord of parachutes and here we were flying. Those were the most terrible feelings during the whole event! Just imagine: you are flying down like a stone with a speed of 50 meters per second (even the wind in St. Petersburg has not seen such a speed), the skin of your face is shaking, it is unclear how to breathe, because an incredible jet of air hits you. Not much is visible, because everything is so fast, sharp. My best friends and at the same time enemies were horror and fear.
Fortunately, it didn’t last long and soon Nikolai discovered our friend – savior, called a Parachute. After that moment it was magical. I realized that I am not afraid of heights (with water it would be like that). I was very comfortable both high and low. The main thing is not to fly head over heels down, and if you hang and look down, it’s a beauty, a fascinating sight. Nikolai showed me something, told me, took pictures of the moments, then he let me control the parachute, that is, I turned us left and right.
“I believe I can fly, I believe I can touch the sky” (c)
Looking around, from the high above
That was an air kiss…
The moment of our landing was also very successful. I landed on Nikolai, so it was quite comfortable. Not far from us an instructor landed, the one who said “I wouldn’t trust your instructor if I were you” and he heard Nikolai said on camera: “Congratulations on your first jump. Natalia, well done!” and at the moment when I replied that “Nikolai, also well done,” that instructor commented: “And Nikolai well done.” I can say it was funny and cute.
Seeing my partner and mentor in one person, collecting a parachute from the ground, I asked if I could help him with something? It seems he said that I could help him financially . So I have never crossed paths with him again. Just kidding)) then we went to under the same canopy. He sent me my videos, which I sent to my parents, who had no idea what their daughter was doing. I sent the video to my mom and dad and to those who were aware. I didn’t want to send it to everyone, because I wanted to tell them in person, at our meetings, or first send a link to my blog so that the person would know my story in all its diversity. And, to be honest, I absolutely do not know what I was guided by, realizing that I wanted to tell someone the story right away, someone through a blog or Instagram, or personally. I don’t understand at all where I got these thoughts and feelings from.
And Nikolai also handed me a certificate confirming that I had made my first parachute jump, in tandem from a height of 3000 meters (initially I hoped for 4000 meters) and his German surname was listed there. Thus he joked: “Natalia, you can consider that you had a ride on an European car”
I then wondered if I would have flown myself. I understand that I’m not afraid of heights, but oh, these first 20-30 seconds and the understanding that you are responsible for the opening of your own parachute. I’m not sure I want that. Not at the moment, anyway.
If anyone is interested in jumping and you dream about it, then, of course, I would recommend fulfilling your dream. But it’s up to you. If you still have questions, I will be happy to help and answer the points you are interested in.
I wish everyone to have an easy flight, through life, and in the sky!
История Современной Золушки из Вестминстера. Westminster's Cinderella. 