Sergey Chernikov is 25 years old, he was born and raised in Moscow, but 2 years ago he moved to live in the Arctic in the Russian settlement of Barentsburg on the Norwegian Spitsbergen. He told The Village publication why there are slippers in the Arctic, why it is impossible to drink more than two liters of strong alcohol there, and where is the Russian village from on Norwegian soil.

Why I chose the Arctic

I was born in Moscow, but I do not like this city, it is too fussy and superficial. In Moscow, the concentration of people of words, not deeds, per square kilometer of land is much higher than in other cities. At the age of 15, I started going to active recreation camps, I was mainly engaged in mountain tourism, mainly in the Caucasus. At the age of 18, I myself became a guide in the same camps and began to lead groups to the mountains on my own. In parallel, I was educated in Moscow, studied at the National Institute of Business (Faculty of Management, Entrepreneurship and Starting Your Own Business). After graduating, I realized that I needed a diploma only for show. In the classroom at the university, I was bored and uninteresting, already during my studies I began to understand that this was not mine. Every day I became more and more convinced that I would not work in the city. The soul did not want office work at all.

Wildlife is close to me, and I also like the cold climate - these were my starting points for finding a job. By chance, on social networks, I saw an announcement that guides are required for the new tourist season in Svalbard. I began to learn more about the offer and realized that this was the perfect combination for me: work in tourism, the Arctic climate and a place - a remote archipelago - there you can pause, not run.

Sergey Chernikov Photo: Facebook

On December 22, 2015, I first flew to the Svalbard archipelago. I didn’t come here for some impressions or, say, to try myself in incredibly difficult conditions. In addition, the conditions are there, there is a full-fledged civilization. I felt at home from the first day. There were no enthusiasm or disappointments, no expectations. I was driving to work.

Since then I have been working as a guide at the Grumant Arctic Tourism Center and RussiaDiscovery... There are city and field guides, they are responsible for completely different tourist products. The first ones lead excursions to villages, mostly for those who have arrived or have come (by snowmobile, boat, skis or feet) for literally one day.

I am a field guide and I am responsible for multi-day programs that include both excursions inside the villages and exits to the tundra to get acquainted with the nature and history of the archipelago. Groups come every week in winter and summer.

The tourist off-season starts in mid-autumn and lasts until mid-February. Then those who are engaged in the tourism industry leave the Arctic on vacation - in every direction, I usually return to Moscow for several months. And upon our return, we begin to prepare for the new season.

Two countries

Legally, Svalbard belongs to Norway. But a huge number of countries - Russia, USA, Great Britain, Germany, France, Japan, Netherlands, Bulgaria, Hungary, Denmark, Norway, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania, Italy, Sweden and others - began to sign the Treaty of Svalbard since 1920, they have the right to conduct economic activities in the archipelago.

In fact, practically only Norway and Russia are present in the archipelago and are engaged in coal mining, science and tourism there.

The largest settlement in Spitsbergen is Longyearbyen. It is a Norwegian village with a population of 1,800. In Longyearbyen you will not find anyone: Thais, Filipinos, British, Austrians, Italians, Germans - representatives of more than 40 nationalities live there! Barentsburg is mainly inhabited by Ukrainians. That in Soviet times, that now the majority of miners with their families come from Ukraine. This has developed historically, since at the time of the birth of Soviet coal mining in Spitsbergen, the main forge of miners was in Ukraine.

The second largest here is Barentsburg, with a population of about 500 people. I live in it. Barentsburg is a family city. Here they always say hello on the streets, spend time together outside of work, take care of each other.

Longyearbyen looks more harmonious in architectural terms, there are more shops and bars, hotels. But for me it's just a city in the north, where people live more scattered, with their own limited social circle. Although, of course, everyone, like in Barentsburg, knows each other, and in case of big holidays or tragic incidents they unite.

Outwardly, people here are no different from the average resident of Russia, they wear ordinary clothes (those who work in the village - urban, those in the field - sports, tourist), but inside they are more open and friendly than Muscovites.

Arctic life

There are many misconceptions about the Arctic. Perhaps most often I hear about how cold it is here. In fact, the climate in Svalbard is not harsh, since the archipelago is washed by the warm current of the Gulf Stream. In summer, usually plus 5-10 degrees Celsius, and in winter the air temperature rarely drops below minus 20 degrees. So it's kind of like the tropics of the Arctic.

Another myth is the lack of food. In Longyearbyen, the goods necessary for life are brought from mainland Norway, and to Barentsburg, mainly from Germany, partly from Russia. Their quality is good, musty, expired products, I have not seen in all the time. Prices do not differ much from Moscow ones. Yes, fruit on the shelves is rare, but do not forget that this is an island, so the main feature here is a huge amount of freshly caught fish.

There are no roads between the villages. In winter you can get to your neighbors by snowmobile, and in summer you can get there by water - by boat or boat. Inside Longyearbyen, Norwegians move mainly by car, while in Barentsburg, where there is only one street, you can walk to any point. Only during the polar night children go to school and kindergarten carries a school bus.

Sergey Chernikov Photo: Vkontakte

There is very little time left for leisure, since from 09:00 to 22:00 I work with a tour group. In the evening, I limit myself to reading, meeting friends, or sleeping. Those who have more free time visit sports sections and a theater studio. The studio prepares performances for local residents and song and dance concerts for tourists. A special event every year is the cultural exchange between the two capitals of the archipelago: the Norwegians come to visit us, and we come to them. We share culture, get to know each other, communicate.

The situation with alcohol is interesting. You can drink in bars without restrictions, but in the shops quotas are established, introduced in the twentieth century. Miners who were not prepared for the conditions of the Arctic came to the archipelago, the infrastructure was just beginning to develop, there was no leisure, people began to drink too much. At some point, the mine owners realized that their ability to work was decreasing, and they introduced restrictions.

Norwegians have restrictions on the purchase of strong alcohol over 22%, fortified wine 14-22% and beer: you can buy 24 cans of beer, one liter of fortified wine and two liters of strong alcohol per month. The Russians have quotas only for strong alcohol. Local residents buy alcohol using special cards, which are used for accounting, and tourists must show their boarding pass when buying.

If you want to taste the local flavor, then in Barentsburg there is a whole series of cocktails and shots with history. For example, "78". According to legend, in Soviet times, polar explorers drank drinks of the degree at which they were. Barentsburg is located at 78 degrees north latitude, so the shot contains 78 degrees, it is made from rum and liqueurs.

Why travel to tourists

About 80 thousand tourists visit Svalbard annually, and now the archipelago is gaining popularity. Everyone goes for the opportunity to look at the wild nature, but at the same time there is no need to sleep in a tent and a tent, there are hotels and all conditions for the most fastidious. Another attraction here is that you can see the northern lights and polar bears at a comfortable temperature, and not in severe frost. And Spitsbergen is more accessible than other destinations in the Arctic. From Moscow, you can fly there and back for 30 thousand rubles with a transfer to Oslo.

But you cannot go outside the village without being accompanied by an armed guide.

Only if you have a license and a number of accompanying documents, then you can rent a weapon yourself. The rule is strict: last year, a tourist from Ukraine walked around the archipelago without a guide and weapons - he was found and deported.

Tourists are also attracted by the Russian village of Piramida, which was mothballed in 1998. It contains monumental buildings saturated with the spirit of the times. The local hotel has modern rooms and old ones, in which Soviet furniture and paraphernalia were specially left for tourists who want to see how it was. And in the vicinity there are large glaciers, waterfalls, high mountains with sharp peaks.

If you want to come to Svalbard, be sure to take your slippers with you. It is customary for us to take off your shoes not only at home, but also, for example, in museums, cafes, restaurants. This is a century old tradition. Miners, entering buildings, took off their shoes so as not to bring coal dust into the house.

Incidentally, coal mining, one of the main occupations of the local population in Barentsburg, employs not only men, but also women. Although they are mostly busy working in the office, canteen, school. Tourism is actively developing, in Barentsburg about 70 people work with guests of the archipelago, and this is almost a fifth of the population. There are also about 70 children, they can finish only 11 classes here, after which they go to the mainland for higher education. There have been numerous cases of the return of those who were born here in Soviet times or in modern history. We have whole dynasties of miners here.

A trip to Svalbard is such an arctic detox, when you can take a break from the hustle and bustle and figure out what you really need. Residents of megalopolises often complicate things where they don't need to, they think up where there is nothing. There is no such thing here, everything is simple here. Honestly, kindly and with heart. Many tourists leave with the thought that they did not live well before. For this I love my job, I make people a little wiser.

On Svalbard, aboard the Greenpeace Arctic Sunrise, I met the American naturalist writer Karl Safina. As an independent expert, he participates in the Greenpeace campaign for the creation of reserves in the Arctic seas.

Unfortunately, the author of the bestselling books about marine nature and the mind of animals is almost unknown in Russia. I talked to him about the virgin jungle at the bottom of the Arctic Ocean and about the fact that nothing human is alien to animals.

Writer Karl Safina in Spitsbergen. Greenpeace Photos

- Karl, four of your seven books are about marine life. Why is the ocean something special for you?

I grew up on Long Island, on the Atlantic coast. I have always loved nature, but on land it was rapidly destroyed and built up. To be close to nature, I went to the shore.

I like that people don't live in the ocean, they don't build cities in it. It is huge and full of secrets.

- What attracts you to the Arctic?

I love the Arctic for the huge open spaces... You feel its purity, primordiality.

The more southern seas are already severely devastated, disrupted by oil and gas production. The Arctic is not yet. This is the place that we did not manage to destroy. And we have a chance not to repeat here the mistakes that we made in other parts of the world.

"Svalbard means cold shore." This is a landscape that is difficult to grasp.Along the branching corridors of the coast, clouds wrap mountain tops and hide masses of bare earth. Hundreds of feet of sea cliffs appear tiny from a distance. What looks like a scattering of gravel on the shore is actually rock avalanches at the foot of the hills.

Low clouds at any time of the year, dry cold air, views for miles ahead. Some valleys shine in the sun, others lie in the shade. This land floats away into the distance, deceiving and detached, its head is in the clouds, its shoulders are immersed in fog. "

Karl Safina, from The View from Lazy Point: A Natural Year in an Unnatural World.

- For most people, the Arctic is the end of the world. Why does what is happening here concern each of us?

In fact, the Arctic is not as far away as it seems, we are closely connected with it.

It is important to understand that people who live thousands of kilometers from here have a very strong impact on her. We all eat fish that is caught here. We burn fuel, causing climate warming and acidification of water, we pollute the Arctic with chemicals.

The organisms that inhabit the seabed are part of the environment required by the fish we eat. The main local commercial species, cod, lives close to the bottom, it feeds on what it finds at the bottom. If you want to eat fish for lunch, you need to keep worms and corals on the seabed, because cod is part of this ecosystem.

There is no need to give up fishing. It is important not to disturb the ocean's ability to heal itself. After all, the overexploitation of the resources of the sea will be bad for everyone: fish will disappear, animals and birds that feed on it will disappear, people who depend on fishing will suffer.

You can't treat the sea like a supermarket where we can take whatever we want. Stores cannot exist without factories that produce food. Therefore, areas of the sea that a person does not touch are needed in order for them to reproduce resources.

- Many people know about corals in the tropics, but here, under the ice, life is also rich and amazing ...


Greenpeace Photos

Yes, almost all over the world, the continental shelf has been very strongly affected, primarily due to decades of bottom trawling (catching fish using heavy nets that are dragged along the bottom).

In the Arctic, huge areas have never been developed by industry. We have a chance to keep them intact.

The underwater world of the Arctic Ocean may not be as vibrant as in tropical seas. But here, on the seabed, there are many soft and hard corals, anemones, sponges, worms, crustaceans. In terms of diversity and intactness, this nature can be compared with the virgin jungle. Some species have not yet been studied at all and have not even been discovered.

- What is the danger of bottom trawling in the Arctic, which Greenpeace opposes?

On the seabed, conditions are very constant, temperature does not change, there is no wind, currents are almost not felt - nothing to do with contrasting conditions on land. Therefore, the organisms that live here need this stability.

Underwater creatures have very soft bodies. And if something heavy affects them, like a bottom trawl, it just crushes them. All of these tiny bottom organisms are the backbone of the food webs on which the entire ecosystem is built. Fish depend on them, then birds and mammals that eat them.

If you destroy one area in the sea, it will definitely affect others. Everything is mobile in the ocean, everything flows and moves and the interconnections are stronger than on land.

If you want to catch a deer, you will not be bulldozing through the forest! But that's exactly what the seabed trawl does. Especially when it happens at great depths, which no one usually bothers.

Just one trawler - and the trail will remain for tens, maybe hundreds of years. But usually he is not alone, trawlers pass over the same areas of the bottom over and over again.

One of the biggest environmental problems in Russia is oil pollution. At the same time, oil companies are beginning to develop the Arctic. How can this affect the marine environment?

Naturally, there is no oil in water. It is toxic to almost any animal. Some are especially sensitive to it. For example, fish eggs die quickly. Toxic poisoning undermines the immunity of animals, they cease to resist disease. Birds get poisoned by ingesting oil from their food.

I wrote a book about the accident in the Gulf of Mexico. (Sea on Fire: Explosion at Deepwater Horizon)

This happened in warm waters, where any help was available: hundreds of boats, helicopters. But the leak could not be stopped for four months. If something like this happens in the Arctic, hundreds of kilometers from rescue stations, in icy water, in the dark, in the middle of a restless sea, you will not be able to stop the leak in four months. It will be almost impossible to take the situation under control.

After Deepwater Horizon, large areas of coral died. A huge amount of oil still remains at the bottom, it is impossible to remove it from such depths, that is, the poisoning of the ecosystem continues.

Well, well blowing is not such a rare case, it happens almost every year in certain fields. Some of the leaks can be stopped quite quickly, but some continue for weeks.

- How soon will nature recover from the oil accident?

The colder it gets, the longer it will take to recover. At least it is tens of years. Individual organisms are less sensitive to contamination and will return quickly.

But some Arctic corals take decades to reach a height of one meter. Once the seabed has been cleared of pollution, the corals must repopulate and grow. This whole process can drag on for two hundred years.

Greenpeace Photos


Killer whales off the coast of Norway. Greenpeace Photos

- Do you think the destruction that man brings to the sea is reversible?

Fortunately, nature has a huge potential for rebirth. For example, a gray whale was practically destroyed in the Atlantic, but then began to repopulate it again, this time from the Pacific Ocean.

Or, for example, today we saw five or six walruses on the beach. But before there were thousands of them, people killed almost everyone. Now that the extermination has stopped, they are gradually returning, sailing hundreds of kilometers from Franz Josef Land.

Usually, when you stop killing animals, they regenerate. Seals are whales or fish. As soon as they are left alone, taken under guard, they return.

Therefore, marine reserves are essential. The animals of the Arctic need a space where they can feel safe.

We just need to let them live.

The largest city in the Arctic is hoping for global warming, which could bring him good luck in trade with the revival of the Northern Sea Route.

It's noon in Murmansk, but the sky is dark. On Lenin Street, one can only discern squat silhouettes wrapped in fur. This is a polar night, and it will last even more than a month before anyone here sees the sun again.

Context

Murmansk, a harsh and expensive city

Pohjolan Sanomat 10/05/2016

Murmansk still connects its future with oil production in the Arctic

The Independent Barents Observer 08/14/2015

To Murmansk under fire

Radio Liberty 05/04/2015 When it collapsed Soviet Union, in this city, the world's largest settlement in the Arctic Circle, a sharp decline began, its population dropped from almost half a million to some 300 thousand.

But now many here expect the city to be reborn, because the Kremlin believes in the strategic importance of the Arctic, and the Arctic ice is melting due to global warming.

The main hope lies in the Northern Sea Route - a route through the Russian Arctic from Murmansk in the west to Kamchatka in the east. The transit route from west to east is one third shorter than the route through the Suez Canal. It can be used to transport huge volumes of oil and gas across the Arctic to the domestic and international markets. At present, ships going along this route are necessarily accompanied by a nuclear icebreaker, but the ice is melting, and quickly, so the situation may change soon.

In 2016, the Arctic was exceptionally warm.

"We have all the conditions here to become a major transport hub," says Vasily Osin (as in the text - editor's note), acting head of the regional ministry of transport. According to him, a large-scale project for the reconstruction of the Murmansk port will be completed in the coming years, and Moscow has already announced a program for the construction or modernization of ten ports in the Russian Arctic to help revive the Northern Sea Route.

Murmansk was founded in 1916 at the end of the tsarist empire. It was developed as an arctic gateway to the Soviet Union, mainly thanks to its ice-free port. At this latitude one would expect a freezing cold, but the climate softens the influence of the Gulf Stream somewhat. The weather in the city has always been unpredictable: rain in January, snow in July. This is why many locals are skeptical about the phenomenon of global warming: many deny it as a Western myth.

But, no doubt, something is changing. Satellite images show record low ice levels and the navigation season is lengthening.

“Three years ago, it was only at the end of July that it was possible to go to the Kara Sea, and this year - already in mid-July,” says Maxim Belov, a member of the local parliament and chairman of the economic committee.

Belov, 35, a fourth-generation resident of Murmansk, has an innate resilience to latitude conditions. He dreams of a time when new ports will provide free passage for thousands of transit vessels in the Arctic region.

"Of course, it will take 10-15 years, but more and more shipping companies are realizing that they can save a lot of money, and perhaps they will decide that it will not cost much more to equip ships with ice-class parameters."

Traffic on the route is now extremely negligible, accounting for only a small fraction of the traffic from the end of the Soviet Union. In 2011, Putin allocated state support to the Northern Sea Route and predicted that "over time, it will become an international transport artery that will compete with traditional trade routes in terms of service cost, safety and quality."

Putin also stepped up Russia's military activities in the Arctic and rebuilt a number of Soviet military bases in the region.

Russia is now building new icebreakers, the largest of which, Arktika, will be commissioned next year. This 173-meter icebreaker will become the world's largest ship capable of breaking ice up to three meters thick.

A warming Arctic should, in theory, make it easier to explore for oil and gas, although this area is controversial both economically and ethically.

With falling oil prices and US sanctions against Russia, many of the Arctic's hard-to-reach resources have become less attractive in the short term.

For many years the Shtokman gas field, one of the largest in the world, was considered a potential driving force for the development of the region. But in 2013, the Norwegian company Statoil abandoned the project, and a year later the French company Total followed. The Shtokman field is one of the main storehouses of gas resources in the world, but access to it in the Arctic requires a number of technological breakthroughs, and it is unlikely to be profitable in the near future.

Currently, the largest natural resource development project in the Russian Arctic is the liquefied gas plant in Sabetta at the mouth of the Ob River. According to plans, it will be launched next year, and gas will be delivered to Europe via the Northern Sea Route.

But due to the melting ice, environmentalists warn that exploration of hydrocarbon deposits in the Arctic can be fraught with danger. WWF oil and gas project coordinator Vadim Krasnopolskiy says global warming and shrinking polar ice may not be too good news for shipping either.
“Ice cover will definitely remain in the Arctic over the next few decades, and if ice melt accelerates, floating ice sheets and icebergs will appear. In the past ten years, adverse weather conditions have been observed twice as often. This is the Arctic, even if the thermometer goes up. "

It's not easy to live in Murmansk. As in the Soviet economic system, Russian laws provide incentives for residents of the Far North to compensate them for the hardships of the climate. Civil servants are paid significantly more than people in similar positions in other parts of Russia. The official vacation is longer, and every two years every local resident receives a free plane ticket to relax in warm regions within the Russian borders.

In the summer, a polar day lasts for almost two months in the city, when the sun does not set. And in winter, the polar night lasts 40 days. At the beginning and end of the polar night, the sun only peeks out slightly over the horizon for three hours a day if the weather is clear. The sky is barely lit with orange rays, which turns the snow-covered city into shimmering pinkish tones. On cloudy days closer to the winter solstice, there are only a couple of hours of dull, gloomy light in the afternoon.

But some Murmansk residents argue that the polar night is nothing compared to the polar day. Sunlight around the clock forces the body to produce endless stores of serotonin, and this leads to insomnia and burnout.

But, despite all the climatic difficulties, the inhabitants of Murmansk are surprisingly attached to their city. As in other regions of the Russian Far North, people are characterized by friendliness and warmth that cannot be found in other parts of the country.

“We don't have the sun, so we need to warm each other with smiles,” says teacher Irina Rybakova.

During the oil boom of Putin's first decade, money poured into cities like Murmansk. Most of the city's housing stock is outdated and gradually deteriorating due to the climate, but new shopping centers and multiplex cinemas appear, and a new philharmonic society opened in November. Exclusive restaurants offer arctic delicacies such as fried deer tongue and local seaweed ice cream. And although many locals dream of leaving Murmansk, many eventually return.

“I wanted to leave, I even bought an apartment in Voronezh, but after living there for some time, I realized that people are so different that I simply cannot leave here,” says psychologist Marina Myzheritskaya.

It would seem that everything speaks against Murmansk, but Russia is distinguished by an almost unconscious attraction to the Arctic and a desire to revive the region economically and militarily by all means. On the monument to the Conquerors of the Arctic in the center of Murmansk there is a wide range of dates from the great northern expedition of Vitus Bering in 1733-1742 to the solo flight of Valery Chkalov over the North Pole in 1937 and the expedition of Artur Chilingarov in 2007, during which on the bottom of the sea under the point the poles fixed the Russian flag.

“I love the Arctic and believe in it. We must make life in Murmansk prosperous, ”says Maxim Belov.

Sergei Chernikov, 25, was born and raised in Moscow, but moved to the Arctic two years ago, to the Spitsbergen archipelago. He told The Village why there are slippers in the Arctic, why it is impossible to drink more than two liters of strong alcohol there, and where is the Russian village from on Norwegian soil.

Why I chose the Arctic

I was born in Moscow, but I do not like this city, it is too fussy and superficial. In Moscow, the concentration of people of words, not deeds, per square kilometer of land is much higher than in other cities. At the age of 15, I started going to active recreation camps, I was mainly engaged in mountain tourism, mainly in the Caucasus. At the age of 18, I myself became a guide in the same camps and began to lead groups to the mountains on my own. In parallel, I was educated in Moscow, studied at the National Institute of Business (Faculty of Management, Entrepreneurship and Starting Your Own Business). After graduating from it, I realized that I needed a diploma only for show. In the classroom at the university, I was bored and uninteresting, already during my studies I began to understand that this was not mine. Every day I became more and more convinced that I would not work in the city. The soul did not want office work at all.

Wildlife is close to me, and I also like the cold climate - these were my starting points for finding a job. By chance, on social networks, I saw an announcement that guides are required for the new tourist season in Svalbard. I began to learn more about the offer and realized that this was the perfect combination for me: work in tourism, the Arctic climate and a place - a remote archipelago - there you can pause, not run.

On December 22, 2015, I first flew to the Svalbard archipelago. I didn’t come here for some impressions or, say, to try myself in incredibly difficult conditions. In addition, the conditions are there, there is a full-fledged civilization. I felt at home from the first day. There were no enthusiasm or disappointments, no expectations. I was driving to work.

Since then I have been working as a guide at the Arctic Tourism Center "Grumant" and RussiaDiscovery. There are city and field guides, they are responsible for completely different tourist products. The first ones lead excursions to villages, mostly for those who have arrived or have come (by snowmobile, boat, skis or feet) for literally one day. I am a field guide and I am responsible for multi-day programs that include both excursions inside the villages and exits to the tundra to get acquainted with the nature and history of the archipelago. Groups come every week in winter and summer. The tourist off-season starts in mid-autumn and lasts until mid-February. Then those who are engaged in the tourism industry leave the Arctic on vacation - in every direction, I usually return to Moscow for several months. And upon our return, we begin to prepare for the new season.

Two countries

Legally, Svalbard belongs to Norway. But a huge number of countries - Russia, USA, Great Britain, Germany, France, Japan, the Netherlands, Bulgaria, Hungary, Denmark, Norway, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania, Italy, Sweden and others - began to sign the Treaty of Svalbard since 1920, they have the right to conduct economic activities in the archipelago. In fact, practically only Norway and Russia are present on the archipelago and are engaged in coal mining, science and tourism there.

The largest settlement in Spitsbergen is Longyearbyen. It is a Norwegian village with a population of 1,800. In Longyearbyen you will not find anyone: Thais, Filipinos, British, Austrians, Italians, Germans - representatives of more than 40 nationalities live there! Barentsburg is mainly inhabited by Ukrainians. That in Soviet times, that now the majority of miners with their families come from Ukraine. This has developed historically, since at the time of the birth of Soviet coal mining in Svalbard, the main forge of miners was in Ukraine.

The second largest here is Russian Barentsburg, with a population of about 500 people. I live in it. Barentsburg is a family city. Here they always say hello on the streets, spend time together outside of work, take care of each other.

Longyearbyen looks more harmonious in architectural terms, there are more shops and bars, hotels. But for me it's just a city in the north, where people live more scattered, with their own limited social circle. Although, of course, everyone, like in Barentsburg, knows each other, and in case of big holidays or tragic incidents they unite.

Outwardly, people here are no different from the average resident of Russia, they wear ordinary clothes (those who work in the village - urban, those in the field - sports, tourist), but inside they are more open and friendly than Muscovites.

Arctic life

There are many misconceptions about the Arctic. Perhaps most often I hear about how cold it is here. In fact, the climate in Svalbard is not harsh, since the archipelago is washed by the warm current of the Gulf Stream. In summer, usually plus 5-10 degrees Celsius, and in winter the air temperature rarely drops below minus 20 degrees. So it's kind of like the tropics of the Arctic.

Another myth is the lack of food. In Longyearbyen, the goods necessary for life are brought from mainland Norway, and to Barentsburg, mainly from Germany, partly from Russia. Their quality is good, musty, expired products, I have not seen in all the time. Prices do not differ much from Moscow ones: rice - from 50 rubles, milk - 100 rubles, a bar of chocolate - 100 rubles, canned fish - 50–70 rubles. Yes, fruit on the shelves is rare, but do not forget that this is an island, so the main feature here is a huge amount of freshly caught fish. In a cafe, a portion of fish costs 80 rubles, this is my favorite dish, since there is no time to cook myself. As soon as there is free time, we get together with friends and bake it.

There are no roads between the villages. In winter you can get to your neighbors by snowmobile, and in summer you can get there by water - by boat or boat. Inside Longyearbyen, Norwegians move mainly by car, while in Barentsburg, where there is only one street, you can walk to any point. Only during the polar night, the school bus carries children to school and kindergarten.

There is very little time left for leisure, since from 09:00 to 22:00 I work with a tour group. In the evening, I limit myself to reading, meeting friends, or sleeping. Those who have more free time visit sports sections and a theater studio. The studio prepares performances for local residents and song and dance concerts for tourists. A special event every year is the cultural exchange between the two capitals of the archipelago: the Norwegians come to visit us, and we come to them. We share culture, get to know each other, communicate.

Locals buy alcohol using special cards, which are used to keep records, and tourists must show a boarding pass when buying

The situation with alcohol is interesting. You can drink in bars without restrictions, but in the shops quotas are established, introduced in the twentieth century. Miners who were not prepared for the conditions of the Arctic came to the archipelago, the infrastructure was just beginning to develop, there was no leisure, people began to drink too much. At some point, the mine owners realized that their ability to work was decreasing, and they introduced restrictions.

Norwegians have restrictions on the purchase of strong alcohol over 22%, fortified wine 14-22% and beer: you can buy 24 cans of beer, one liter of fortified wine and two liters of strong alcohol per month. The Russians have quotas only for strong alcohol. Local residents buy alcohol using special cards, which are used for accounting, and tourists must show their boarding pass when buying.

If you want to taste the local flavor, then in Barentsburg there is a whole series of cocktails and shots with history. For example, "78". According to legend, in Soviet times, polar explorers drank drinks of the degree at which they were. Barentsburg is located at 78 degrees north latitude, so the shot contains 78 degrees, it is made from rum and liqueurs.

Why travel to tourists

About 80 thousand tourists visit Svalbard annually, and now the archipelago is gaining popularity. Everyone goes for the opportunity to look at the wild nature, but at the same time there is no need to sleep in a tent and a tent, there are hotels and all conditions for the most fastidious. Another attraction here is that you can see the northern lights and polar bears at a comfortable temperature, and not in severe frost. And Spitsbergen is more accessible than other destinations in the Arctic. From Moscow, you can fly there and back for 30 thousand rubles with a transfer to Oslo.

But you cannot go outside the village without being accompanied by an armed guide. Only if you have a license and a number of accompanying documents, then you can rent a weapon yourself. The rule is strict: last year, a tourist from Ukraine walked through the archipelago without a guide and weapons - he was found and deported.

Tourists are also attracted by the Russian village of Piramida, which was mothballed in 1998. It contains monumental buildings saturated with the spirit of the times. The local hotel has modern rooms and old ones, in which Soviet furniture and paraphernalia were specially left for tourists who want to see how it was. And in the vicinity there are large glaciers, waterfalls, high mountains with sharp peaks.

Spitsbergen is more accessible than other destinations in the Arctic. You can fly there and back from Moscow for 30 thousand rubles

If you want to come to Svalbard, be sure to take your slippers with you. It is customary for us to take off your shoes not only at home, but also, for example, in museums, cafes, restaurants. This is a century old tradition. Miners, entering buildings, took off their shoes so as not to bring coal dust into the house.

Incidentally, coal mining, one of the main occupations of the local population in Barentsburg, employs not only men, but also women. Although they are mostly busy working in the office, canteen, school. Tourism is actively developing, in Barentsburg about 70 people work with guests of the archipelago, and this is almost a fifth of the population. There are also about 70 children, they can finish only 11 classes here, after which they go to the mainland for higher education. There have been numerous cases of the return of those who were born here in Soviet times or in modern history. We have whole dynasties of miners here.

A trip to Svalbard is such an arctic detox, when you can take a break from the hustle and bustle and figure out what you really need. Residents of megalopolises often complicate things where they don't need to, they think up where there is nothing. There is no such thing here, everything is simple here. Honestly, kindly and with heart. Many tourists leave with the thought that they did not live well before. For this I love my job, I make people a little wiser.

Memories of Academician E.K. Fedorov. "Stages of the Long Way" Drummers Yu.

"I love you!" - flew through the Arctic

It was a long time ago, in the thirties. But recalling the first meeting with his future wife, Anna Viktorovna Gnedich, the venerable academician Fedorov became agitated as if it happened only yesterday ...

A.V. Gnedich and Zhenya Fedorov (junior)

Meanwhile, everything happened very casually - in the laboratory, among the awkward cabinets full of instruments. Fedorov came here for practical classes and waited for a researcher to finally appear who would lead them. The "researcher" was a short girl in a shabby work coat. None of them perceived this acquaintance as an event from which everyone will begin a new countdown in their own life. Only later, years later, both confess: something arose between them then, some kind of spark flashed. But, as often happens, they just did not notice her on the run. Fedorov left for the North and only from time to time recalled Anya, smiling dreamily for no one knows what. For some reason, even thinking about her, my soul felt warm and calm. Of course, he didn't know if she remembered him the same way.

Children of E.K. Fedorova (from left to right) Irina, Evgeny, Yuri

But one day the icebreaker Malygin came to Tikhaya Bay, to Franz Josef Land, where Fedorov was to spend the winter with other polar explorers, with all the gear and equipment for a long expedition. Fedorov that day stood on the dock next to Papanin and peered into the boat that had rolled away from the Malygin board. There was one woman in it, and, of course, it was Anya Gnedich ... Then for the first time he thought that this was probably fate. He stood in Tikhaya "Malygin" for only a few days, but it was those days that decided the most important thing in their relationship.

The polar day was over, the long night was approaching. Anna had to leave, and both knew that now they would not see each other soon. As a souvenir of herself, she left the usual gray mitten. Fedorov hung it on a nail in the laboratory, above his desk. And one deaf polar night, looking at this mitten, Fedorov decided on an act that the whole Arctic was talking about the next day: through the night, through the deserted ice spaces, a radiogram flew from station to station that polar explorer Evgeny Fedorov loves a certain Anna Gnedich and asks her hands!

The response radiogram was not long in coming. Perhaps this is the first case known to me when lovers confessed their feelings in such an unusual way ... On the expedition to Cape Chelyuskin in 1934, they were already together. Both, despite the fact that they are only twenty-four years old, are already experienced polar explorers, with an impressive list of scientific papers. Together with Papanin's wife Galina Kirillovna, Anya became one of the very first polar women. They did a common job, they had mutual friends. And when the plane did not return with their comrades Vorobyov and Shipov and Fedorov on a dog sled was preparing to leave in search of - in the night and in a blizzard, Anna, swallowing tears, collected him on the road. She had a good idea of \u200b\u200bhow such a trip could end. But she couldn't let it go. As well as later on the expedition to Taimyr, in which Fedorov went alone with a friend - on foot, without a radio, for three whole months. And the return of her husband from the famous drift of the four daredevils on an ice floe, followed by the whole world with a sinking heart, Anna was already waiting on the mainland with her first child, Zhenya's son ...

In 1946, Evgeny Konstantinovich had a second son, Yuri, and in 1951, a daughter, Irina.

Evgeny Konstantinovich's life let go of everything in full - both gains and losses. He is an academician, world-renowned scientist, vice president of the World Peace Council. But by the time we met, Anna Viktorovna had already lost three goals. She was gone, but for him she remained close. As then, in ancient times, when boundless spaces of ice and snow lay between them ...

From the book The Most Mysterious Secret and Other Plots the author Akunin Boris

I don't like Bonaparte 03/16/2013 I finally understood this after reading Lewis Cohen's book "Anecdotes about Napoleon." In my youth, I remember, I was outraged by the disgust with which Tolstoy describes Bonaparte in "War and Peace" ("The trembling of my left calf is a great sign" etc.). I believed that Leo

From the book How We Saved the Chelyuskinites author Molokov Vasily

I love the North! They say that after a catastrophe people start to get lost and fly badly. But the catastrophe did not affect my nerves. True, I began to turn gray, but my nerves did not weaken. I received an ANT-9 in Moscow and an offer to fly to Siberia. This was my first big flight after

From the book Secrets of the Lost Expeditions author Kovalev Sergey Alekseevich

Henry Goodson. Life for the Arctic The extremely rapid growth of the economic and political strength of the Republic of the United Provinces at the end of the 16th century led to the fact that the Dutch began to crowd out the Portuguese and Spaniards everywhere in the world market. IN

author Lizun Vladimir Nikolaevich

The revival of territorial claims to the Arctic Despite the fact that many countries have claims to the territory of the Arctic, these claims have remained under wraps for many years, which is most likely due to the fact that these countries did not see much reason for permission

From the book Depth 4261 meters author Lizun Vladimir Nikolaevich

Territorial claims for the Arctic a. Russian FederationBeginning in 1926, the Soviet Union, and then the Russian Federation, made claims to sovereignty along the geographic triangle, which begins in Arkhangelsk, stretches east to Bering

From the book Love for History (online version) part 9 the author Akunin Boris

I do not like Bonaparte March 15, 11:07 I finally understood this after reading the book by Lewis Cohen "Anecdotes about Napoleon." In my youth, I remember, I was outraged by the disgust with which Tolstoy describes Bonaparte in War and Peace (“The trembling of my left calf is a great sign,” etc.). I believed

From the book "The Russians Are Coming!" [Why are they afraid of Russia?] author Vershinin Lev Removich

I love you, life ... In general, the "real" people did not differ in any way from other peoples of the region. Would. But. A special, from nowhere, an element of their worldview that distinguished the Chukchi from other peoples of the tundra was their attitude to death. Not so much a stranger (Yukaghirs and

From the book of Molotov. Half-Power Overlord author Chuev Felix Ivanovich

“I love poetry” - Yevtushenko is a person alien to Soviet power, but capable and can adapt. A fitter. Shakes it with the wind. He wrote poetry about Stalin as "the best friend in the world." Of course, who just did not sing! Stalin himself called it the Socialist-Revolutionary bend.

From the book Soul of a Scout under the diplomat's tailcoat author Boltunov Mikhail Efimovich

"I LOVE YOU, RUSSIA ..." In 1951, the life of Alexei Lebedev seemed to be broken in two. The first half stayed there, in aviation. The second is intelligence. There he was a front-line squadron commander, an ace pilot, a Hero of the Soviet Union. In intelligence, he also became an ace. In five foreign

From the book Stalin's SMERSH. The best special operations of military counterintelligence author Lenchevsky Yuri Sergeevich

Chapter nineteen. Years later, across distances - a meeting with a former spy The author of the book decided to "treat" his colleague Vladimir Roshchupkin to a meeting with a former spy. Vladimir Timofeevich Roshchupkin - Colonel of the FSB of Russia, candidate of political sciences, professor of the Academy

From the book Hike "Chelyuskin" author author unknown

Deputy Head of the Expedition I. Baevsky. Getting to know the Arctic The Northern Sea Route is one of the greatest challenges of the second five-year plan. Having mastered this gigantic waterway, we will get a regular transport connection of the richest regions of the Siberian North with ports

From the book Journey to the Eastern Lands by Wilhelm de Rubruck in the Summer of Goodness 1253 author de Rubruck Guillaume

CHAPTER FIFTEEN Continuation of the journey from Saray through the Albanian and Lesgiya mountains, through the Iron Gates and through other places Having thus left the Saray on the feast of All Saints and heading all the way to the south, on the feast of St. Between Batu and

From the book of 500 great travels author Nizovsky Andrey Yurievich

William Stefanson conquers the Arctic On his first big trip to Arctic Canada, William Stefanson set off in 1906. For a year he studied the life and life of the Eskimo tribes in the vicinity near the mouth of the Mackenzie River. In the early spring of 1908

From the book United States of America. Confrontation and containment author Shirokorad Alexander Borisovich

From the book Twelve Poets of 1812 author Dmitry G. Shevarov

Song ("I love a bloody battle ...") I love a bloody battle, I was born for the royal service! Saber, vodka, hussar horse, With you my golden age! I love a bloody battle, I was born for the royal service! I'm damn glad for you, Our mother Russia! Let the Frenchies

From the book Living Ancient Rus. Student book author Osetrov Evgeny Ivanovich

I love you, Khokhloma I don't even know when I first saw you. I think we have known each other all our lives. I remember piles of black and gold bowls sold in the bustling market squares near the Volga quays. How the golden patterns of dishes sparkled in the sun, brighter than which, probably,

views