|
 If
you’ve ever seen a rubber woman, you know it must
take a lot of imagination to, er, handle her the way
you’re supposed to. Some Russian men and women
apparently have even more imagination to spare —
126 of them used inflatable sex dolls as flotation devices
to raft down rapids in the vicinity of St. Petersburg.
The second Bubble Baba Challenge (in
Russian, baba stands for “woman,” only unlike
the other word for woman, zhenschina, conveys not a
shred of respect) was held on the Vuoksa river that
runs in northwestern Russia a year after the first contest.
Dmitry Bulawinov, the mastermind and organizer behind
the unusual sporting event, says the idea of floating
down the river in the embraces of a rubber woman was
conceived as a joke at a party where the men got drunk
and the women didn’t show up. While considering
the possible uses for a rubber woman on a camping trip,
someone voiced the thought that a sex doll would make
a handy flotation device.
It’s far from the strangest idea
that has ever come into the heads of imbibing camping
aficionados, but unlike many other concepts of equal
genius, this one was realized in life. Bulawinov set
about advertising the sex doll rafting adventure opportunity
online, and, ten months later, in August 2003, Bubble
Baba Challenge 1 participants were eagerly hurling themselves
through roaring rapids, buoyed by pneumatic breasts
and hips.
 “I
went to the first race thinking it was going to be a
celebration of idiocy,” says Victor Kuryashkin,
a 31-year-old programmer and old-time camper who came
in third in this year’s race and won last year’s
sex doll design contest. “I think the potential
sponsors had the same attitude toward the event. But
Dmitry’s [Bulawinov] crew managed to create a good
contest.” He used the same “flotation device”
both times, which, he underscores, he doesn’t think
of as a woman — he even painted “her”
in camouflage colors and named her “The Nimble
Missile Breast-Carrier.”
Alexander Korolyov, a 45-year-old owner
of an active recreation tour company and a life-long
swimmer, came in first last year, second this year,
and plans to participate in future contests, as well
as refer his clients for joining in, says that the event
is essentially a swimming race. He doesn’t really
think of it as much of a match, though — “It’s
just fun, I don’t treat it as a contest. It’s
just a reason to go out of town for a weekend, to fool
around.” Still, this year he brought home an inflatable
mattress as a trophy, while last year’s award “was
very immodest” and “too awkward to talk about.”
Although vastly outnumbered by men excited
about floating down the river atop a rubber chick, women
did compete in the contest, finding nothing odd about
using such unusual “lifesavers.” Bulawinov
and other organizers try to be fair and leave open the
option of floating down on rubber men dolls, but unfortunately,
they can’t rent them out like they do the rubber
women. “The men are too expensive, we can’t
afford them,” he complains. The lack of manly lifesavers
did not deter Olga Alexandrova, a third category swimmer.
The 23-year-old photographer and designer finds “nothing
strange” whatsoever about the event and will “certainly”
participate next year — “I want to win!”
she says.
Next year, however, might not happen
if Bulawinov does not sort out his troubles with the
local mafia, who demand rent money for the use of the
river. In a truly Russian twist on event, the local
toughs, sure that the rafting enthusiasts are making
money off the weird race, called Bulawinov with threats
the next day after he put up flyers about the contest.
“They called and said, what are you setting up,
why weren’t we informed, you owe us money, if you
don’t give us money, we’ll screw it all up.”
Bulawinov tries to not pass his concerns
to the race participants, though — everyone went
home happy. “The participants wore life vests —
if you lose the girl, which is against the rules, you
won’t drown, even if you can’t swim. But the
woman, she helped many people, the rapids are so bad
that sometimes you don’t see the swimmer for five
seconds, and then all of a sudden out he comes straddling
the chick, happy and spewing water.” |
