MOSCOW, February 7. /TASS/. Every year, the Mikhail Somov research/survey vessel departs from Arkhangelsk, carrying food, construction materials, equipment and personnel. People working at hard-to-reach meteorology stations know the ship very well. Getting to a "polar shift," or leaving for a holiday, or to receive supplies once in 12 months - this is what the ship is used for. A TASS correspondent, Vera Kostamo, has joined the crew to cover the seventh voyage in 2021 to its final destination - to the Wrangel Island, and back. Here is the final story about people, meteorology stations and the Arctic seas.
The Laptev Sea / The East-Siberian Sea. Getting along with bears
Small ripples on the gray water. From the very shore to the horizon stretch to so-called baijerakhs - mounds that emerge from the melting underground ice. From the helicopter, the station and the meteorology site are like tiny toys on those "bubbles."
The weather station is on the western side of the Kotelny Island, the New Siberian Islands Archipelago.
Blue-eyed dogs meet us on the porch to the module house. Their warm foreheads push our hands - do pat me. The meteorologists live there with six dogs. It’s tough without them - bears are nearby.
"Over 20 years, a few buildings have drowned. Under this module, the permafrost has been thawing," meteorologist Lyudmila Bondar told us.
Lyudmila was born in Gomel, studied in Moscow and was sent to work in Tiksi. She said, the occupation choice was not hers - the husband took the decision. They decided to try working in the North, and then - got unable to do without it. They’ve changed many stations, and finally settled at the one on the Kotelny. If a person falls in love with the North, the North loves the person in return, she said.
It took her quite a time to get used to the specific nature: "not a bush, not a tree." With time, she realized and appreciated the beauty of the high latitudes. Like at many other stations, they have many potted flowers - everyone misses seeing green leaves.
"Here, we do not have soil, like on the mainland. Ice and a thin layer of soil, which is rather like clay. Thus, for every plant we had to bring soil," she said.
Strong winds are nothing special on the island. The temperature of minus 33-36 is typical for winter. The ice thickness in the sea may reach 1.8 meters.
"Bears are here all the time, we get along well. Can’t be otherwise. The landscape here is very complicated and it’s dangerous to be walking carelessly," Lyudmila said.
The East Siberian Sea. Three black dots
Each barrel contains 180 liters of fuel. The helicopter carries them in huge nets. In order to receive the cargo, a team flies off [the Mikhail] Somov. It’s no fun to stand there under the landing helicopter. The snow beats against the eyes - people normally wear glasses or masks for protection.
The helicopter is approaching, we can see its round belly. The net is adjusted to the rope, which comes from the hatch. The team catches the net and throws the barrels onto the snow. While Mil Mi-8 fetches another portion, the team rolls the barrels aside. A heavy routine.
White all over: the eye is unable to catch a thing. Nothing exists: no land, no sky, no horizon. The snow is pure like a bride’s dress: the perfection.
Maria Volynets has been working in Rau-Chua for 23 years. She started as a cook, and after 2003 she has been the station’s chief manager.
For everyone, the coming vessel is always a fuss. And still, Maria treats everyone with tea, manages to fill in all the papers, to receive all the food, fuel, and to tell the story of a cat from an animal shelter, which sailed in a boat to get to the station. Cats are rare at stations. Dogs - are for protection. At times, not only polar bears come to the people. Sometimes, brown bears are visiting the site. Maria has met the predators a few times, and one occasion was very interesting.
She was coming out from the greenhouse with vegetables and greens and could heard a hissing.
"I was petrified. I saw three black dots - two buttons of eyes and a nose. A mother bear and a cub running around it. I waved on her saying: "You go, I’m not touching you, you do not touch me." She stepped forward, head butting me in the belly," the woman said.
Maria was cautiously retreating, but stumbled, fell and screamed of surprise. The bear turned to look at her. Maria remembered about the dogs and called for them. One dog bit the bear right on the nose, the other grabbed the baby. The bear and the cub retreated to the sea.
"Husband heard the noise, ran out in slippers, carrying a stick. Later on, we laughed heads off remembering it. Back then, I come into the house and say: "That’s it! We are packing and leaving. I’m not staying here!" Husband calmed me down, and after that occasion he always accompanied me to the equipment site. For six months, I could not get rid of those three black dots in my dreams."
The East Siberian Sea. Freedom from everything
At the shop in Aion we were surprised to see even apples. Moreover, milk, candies and cookies. We were happy. It was the first shop we visited over a long time.
"Quite many products are beyond the expiry date. Most products are shipped once a year, and additionally between March and May some are brought in by snow roads from Pevek, to where they come from Vladivostok. Before New Year, a shipment with fresh products from Magadan comes to Pevek - the cargo is distributed between the city and the settlements. Fruit and vegetables normally finish within a couple hours," Alexey Avdeyev, the station’s chief manager, said.
The station’s staff is six people, plus two come from the village to work for a few hours. The main staff is from Novosibirsk. Aion’s school is for first four years, and later on the students leave for a boarding school in Rytkutchi. According to Alexey, the youth tries not to return home. This explains why specialists at the station come from other regions.
"I’ve graduated from the Novosibirsk meteorology college and later on from the geodesy academy. After the army, together with a friend I went to a hard-to-reach station. The nearest source of fresh water was 7.5 km away. The fire wood - also rather far. No conditions. It was back in 2011. Everything I earned, I invested in the station," Alexey said.
After first three months in the taiga, he continued, it becomes very though. At that time, every person realizes being cut off the society, lacks sounds - as if you are all by yourself in a vacuum. The perception of life and death gets changed.
Alexey’s job experience is eleven years. He has worked at a few stations.
At a hard-to-reach station in the Khabarovsk Region, he ran into a tiger. He was working not far from the house and did not notice a tigress was watching him. The animal was just a few meters from the man.
A colleague, who saw everything through the window, was at a loss. He was knocking on the glass and only shouted "Run." Alexey says, the man was clearly shocked.
"I couldn’t make out what he wanted. The tigress was about to jump when it saw I was not afraid, and thought better of it. As for me, I simply didn’t see it. I went to take a gun and flashlight. I climbed the roof to see where I was. I directed the light to the place where I used to work, and saw: the eyes and a huge face. I was shivering. Made a shoot next to it. She seemed to ignore it. Nor did she react to the dogs. Later on, I learned the tigress had got a deer not far from the station, and for another week she kept wandering nearby," Alexey told us.
In 2015, he was promoted to the Shantarskiye Islands.
"We moved there by a motor boat in mid-July. I saw the station and refused to go ashore. The territory was between the swamps and the sea. After the taiga, the wonderful nature, the tigers and bears. Where am I? - I was asking myself," he said.
Later on, having traveled the islands, he got overwhelmed with the Shantary. Right now, he plans to go there on holidays. The climate conditions there are not easy. The summer is short, and winds never stop. The season of storms begins in October, the water rises by 6-7 meters. Winds of about 30 mps may continue for months. In summer, snow drifts around the house may grow three meters high, and an air pocket embraces the porch. When the meteorologist was to take measurements at the site, he had to put a ladder on the drift to climb over that pocket.
"The sense of life changes. Get to the sea shore, sit by the fire, what else could you need? It’s impossible to explain the condition - the freedom from everything. No feelings of money. It’s nothing special when you work for years without a single thought of money," Alexey said.
Once, a blogger visited the station, and later on in a post he mentioned that the meteorologist was in search for a wife. A flow of letters poured on the station.
"Our mail almost acted up, we were cut off communication," Alexey laughed. "Here, you get used to the state, where you don’t have personal life. Nobody wants to go to the stations. No more friends in the city. Only those, who are in the same profession." Alexey is still single.
The man had a tradition: on coming to a new station he nailed a cell to the wall. The sign is meant to demonstrate - that, other, life has remained in the past.
The East Siberian Sea / The Chukchi Sea. Polar bear’s maternity
The 180th meridian cuts the Wrangel Island, sometimes called as polar bears’ maternity house, into two almost equal parts. It is the final eastern destination of the Mikhail Somov’s voyage.
In addition to the meteorology station, the island is the home for the central cordon of the nature reserve. Inspectors work on the island year-round. Every two inspectors share one module. Ulyana Babiy, head of the nature reserve’s science department, stresses staying through winter on the island is not a heroic deed any longer - conditions are quite good.
On the island now work wind farms, at the cordons - solar batteries. WWF Russia has presented comfortable 9-meter trailers to the park.
Ulyana has been working on the Wrangel for six seasons.
"I was mad about the North, dreamed of being here. My family is scattered across the CIS, I do not feel a southerner, though I was born in Moldova. I’m comfortable in the North, people here are more simple and more sincere. The drawback is - the life seems to go by. Though, nowadays we have communication, social networks. Theoretically, social networks exist, but realistically they all are only online," she said.
The nature reserve’s scientists begin every field season with counting dens - in late February - late March. The season ends in October after they have calculated polar bears.
"WWF Russia have given to us four drones, two of them are with infrared thermal imaging. We now can locate dens from the air. We are still working on how to use them better. The conditions are complicated: low temperatures, and we hate to bother the animals too much," she said.
Between the seasons, birds come, and the scientists go to cordons. The birds will remain on the island for a certain time, and the people have to manage all they need.
At the cordon, Ulyana lives for about two-three months. She cares about everyday life all on her own.
"For example, as for ringing, white geese, which I study, cannot remain inside the corrals for more than 14 hours. We do our best to keep the birds comfortable, we hurry and don’t sleep for days," she continued.
The island is the territory of bears, white geese, walruses, sea birds, and not the island of humans. Here, on the Wrangel, this is felt most clearly.
"The purpose of nature reserves and of our work is to make sure next century we do not wake up on the Earth, carefully paved with asphalt," she stressed. "The reserves are the reference territories, which still have the wild nature."
A few hundred meters from the cordon musk oxen are grazing. The fog is spreading onto the ground to disappear the next moment. We are looking forward to a long trip home. We head for Arkhangelsk.