Frozen fishing in Russia's Far East

Relaxing not fishing is the main objective

Russia's harsh winter has proved to be no deterrent for a special breed of fishermen in the country's Far East, Russian TV says.

Most media reports coming from Russia in recent weeks about the extreme cold conditions deal with hardship and tragic deaths.

But Russian TV has also reported on a group of fishermen who take pleasure in waiting around a small hole drilled in solid ice in the sub-zero temperatures.

The main thing is the process. The fishing is secondary.

Fisherman

The report describes how the fishermen cast their lines in icy waters on the banks of the Amur River in Khabarovsk Territory where the temperature in January sometimes drops below minus 21 centigrade.

"I caught one well over two kilograms," says fisherman Sergey Zatesv.

But the fish are not the main objective, the TV says - for the men ice-fishing is not a sport but a spiritual journey.

Patiently waiting for the fish to bite

Meditation

"It is about relaxing," says fisherman Aleksandr Sobolev.

"The main thing is the process", he adds. "The fishing is secondary."

The men consider fishing, ice, wind, cold, space and silence to be components of a meditative process.

The fishermen drill a hole in the thick ice on the River Amur which freezes over in mid-November and will remain frozen until the end of April.

According to the report, time spent fishing allows the men to bond with each other. They sit around the icy hole or a bonfire exchanging stories or simply talking about their daily problems.

"They talk about anything but the fishing," it says.

BBC Monitoring, based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.