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Storms, bears, nuclear tests: When equipment fails, people continue working

Vera Kovalenko who has been working in meteorology for 49 years said that in extremely low temperatures equipment may be acting up, unlike people, who continue working in any circumstances
Vera Kovalenko in Sverdlovsk Meteorology School, 1969 Personal archive of Vera Kovalenko
Vera Kovalenko in Sverdlovsk Meteorology School, 1969
© Personal archive of Vera Kovalenko

MOSCOW, December 14. /TASS/. Vera Kovalenko is a meteorologist. She has been working north of the Arctic circle. Her kids grew there, and her son continues the Arctic dynasty.

Opposite Novaya Zemlya

In the 1960s, the Novaya Zemlya was a range for nuclear tests. The Khodovarikha meteorology station, where Vera worked from 1969, is on Russkii Zavorot Peninsula in the Pechora Sea. The Novaya Zemlya is, so to say, opposite it. Vera shows the map: right, across the strait. Meteorologists were not notified about the tests.

"We saw a nuclear mushroom cloud, when an explosion occured on Novaya Zemlya at night. We saw it, registered it and described it as an anomaly: at night in the north above the sea there is an orange mushroom cloud. We reported it, and were told it was nothing special but a test. Back then, we did not know what it was."

Vera began working at that station right after graduating from the Sverdlovsk Meteorology School.

"There were no vacancies anywhere closer," she laughed. "Nowadays, most graduates come from the Novosibirsk college."

Vera did not know much about what it was like to work in hydro-meteorology or ocean studies. She was only familiar with a girl, who after graduating from a meteorology school came to her native city - Naryan-Mar.

It was almost the edge of the world, though not absolutely isolated. In the late 1960s, the station included a lighthouse, where four staff members lived with families, a small military base with a radar station. Transport communication was mostly by air. Those small settlements back then had better supplies than they have now.

"We had even a post helicopter, and planes would fly to fishing settlements where there used to be post offices. Once a week or ten days, we had mail flights, and every month, flights served the lighthouse, the military base, and taking a flight out was not a problem," she said. "Nowadays, all the post offices are shut down."

From south to Arctic circle

At that meteorology station, Vera met her husband. Vyacheslav managed the station. "We got married and lived together for 42.5 years," she said.

Her husband had come to the Far North from Kuban (south of Russia) - to replace a friend who worked there.

"Vyacheslav came to Arkhangelsk, took a course and became the head of that polar station," she continued.

Vera has been working in meteorology for 49 years: most stations were north of the Arctic circle on the Barents Sea, along the navigation route. In the Arctic, she says, meteorology services are of high importance, as many lives depend on them.

"In a snowstorm or fog, no planes or helicopters will fly. We must report that there is no visibility and it is stormy or foggy. It is important for people’s safety to report what the weather will be like tomorrow," she added.

Most devastating are strong winds. They may affect both the navigation and flights.

"We are on the sea shore, and no big planes fly here. [Antonov] An-2 and helicopters have to observe certain wind speed limits. If the wind is more than 12 mps, we consider it a storm, and we report storm warnings to airports," she said, adding that vessels require information on wind speed and on ice.

"If everything is stuck with ice, a small vessel would have to request an icebreaker."

In the 1970s, Vera’s husband went to the construction site of the Shapkino station for geologists.

"Back then, in the Nenets Region an exploratory expedition was working, and they needed to determine levels of the Shapkino River, and thus the expedition made a house for us, equipped a site, and Vyacheslav supervised the construction, installed our equipment. On June 1, 1974, he and I and our kids opened that station," she said.

The family had two kids - the daughter was only 12 months old. Before 1980, the family worked at two more stations on the coasts of polar seas.

"On the seas - because my husband was a fan of hunting and fishing," she continued.

Kids, like many children of people working at polar stations, studied at a boarding school. They saw mom and dad during holidays only. 

In 1982, they moved to the Indiga station on the Barents Sea, some 17 km from the settlement. There, the family worked for more than 20 years.

"Now, our son and daughter-in-law work there, for 25 years already," Vera said. "His wife was a surgery nurse in Arkhangelsk, and she followed the husband."

Speaking about her son, Vera disclosed that he mastered the job of a meteorologist through practice. "Before school, our kids understood the Morse code," she remembered.

The son has been managing the station, and the parents worked as meteorologists there. The mom often replaced the son and his wife, when they went away on holidays. Once, when the children were away, in 2014, a bear came to the station.

"We had a dog, it was barking, almost lost its voice. The bear came up to the pit, where we threw tins, it used to come there for two days running, though getting to the station was rather a long trip for it - when it was not there, we managed to run to the site. We did not have a gun."

Bears, both brown and polar, are the biggest danger at polar stations.

"Work couldn’t wait, and we worked. Repelled the animals, shot. In early May, two polar bears came to Khodovarikha. At three at night we registered data on the sea.. I had a bad feeling. "I won’t go," I said. The husband asked: "Why?" I said: "Well, you go. He steps out on the porch and hears the roaring, the horse was neighing - the lighthouse staff had a horse. He rushed in, shouting: "Give me the gun!" I said: "Which gun, why?" "There’s a bear," he replied. Then he realized he needed a signal pistol, not a gun… Away it went.

In 2019, one of the stations - on Vaygach Island - was equipped with cameras and a fence. If the system proves to be reliable, similar ones will appear at other stations where predators are frequent visitors.

However, most animals are peaceful guests. Once, in summer, a little hare used to come to the station.

"It comes, sits in the corridor, I carry it away from the house; look - it’s back."

Changing climate

The climate north of the Arctic circle has changed, Vera said. In the 1970-80s, it was the classical Far North with severe winters: freezing cold and snow.

"From around the early 2000s, or even the late 1990s, for example, on the Indiga, there have been lots of strong winds. A wind of 15, 20, 30 mps blowing from one direction may stay for a week. The winds blow like inside a tube," she said.

Winters are milder, even the sea near the station remains without ice - the wind would not let thin ice remain on top and blows it away. "This year, at the station, all antennas and satellite dishes have got broken… Understand, this means no Internet, how can we work without it…"

Nowadays, weather data are transmitted via the Internet, and in the mid-1990s they were coded. The speed requirement was 60 characters per minute. Modern stations have automatic meteorology complexes, from which data are displayed on a monitor: air temperature, humidity, soil temperature, wind, air pressure, precipitation. Specialists still estimate the latter by eye.

"A specialist gets outside and watches what precipitation would be like. A shift is eight hours long, and we either observe it from the inside or get outside," Vera said.

Life at polar stations is not easy. At Indiga, people have to melt snow to get water.

"We melted snow in winter, when the well froze to the bottom. Now, my son drives a snow bike deep into the tundra, to a lake. They have all conveniences now, about which we could only dream: a shower cabin, a boiler, a dishwasher, a washing machine, freezers and fridges. In the past, we could not have much as we did not have sufficient electricity." However, a fridge was an extra in winter, and in summer, they used to put ice into the basement, and it remained frozen there through the summer.

"Nowadays, there are fewer stations: they are now about every 100-200 kilometers along the shore. They are used to study ice formation and to continue ice observation - ice is different in every area," she said.

Vera continues working - she verifies data from stations. Equipment is fine, but verification is still necessary. Stations north of the polar circle make her nostalgic.

The modern automatic meteorology station cannot replace humans. Those are not emotions, she said. The stations use certain parameters, but they cannot analyze the cloud cover or precipitation. Besides, in extremely low temperatures equipment may be acting up, unlike people, who continue working in any circumstances.