A day in the life in the village of Pyramid Bashny.Net

Good day! my name is Vladimir, I'm 33 years old and I - a guide (which allows you to travel a lot). In the spring of 2013, I worked in the village pyramid that is the archipelago of Svalbard (Arctic).

Since this is the 78th degree of north latitude, then from here to the North Pole on the doorstep - about 1300 km. In the archipelago of 2 cities where people live, I went to work in the village officially evicted Pyramid, which today officially nobody lives ...

Here, look at what one spring day on the edge of the Earth (if not accurately - that on March 26 when quite close to the onset of the polar day)




Pyramid was mothballed in 1998 and almost a dozen years stood absolute ghost town. Now - is increasingly popular item in the Norwegian tourist routes. Pyramid long time remained the northernmost settlement in the world, but there are a lot of things to come in the form of a prefix words "most northern": the world's northernmost coal mine, the world's northernmost swimming pool, a statue of Lenin, operating hotel, the northernmost in the world of piano (more precisely, even two) - in other words, a piece of the Arctic, where by some miracle managed to live and work people.

The mine closed as unprofitable in 1998, people were taken, and an outpost of socialism, which to the surprise of many foreigners, it turns out, was so close to him, gradually turned into a refuge arctic foxes and polar bears.

After decades of neglect, it was decided to revive Pyramid, inviting tourists to take a look at how he lived and worked as a Soviet miner. Tourists at first did not believe, but then stood in long queues for tours.
We've got six. "If you think that the pyramid is still - a ghost town, then you are faced with one of them, and the only one who says in English" - I often say to tourists who responded endow me with wide smiles.

Here is my working day in the Arctic.
1. Approximately 7-30 I wake up. Please note your phone no network signal, there is generally no radio, no TV, no internet, try to catch the Norwegian mobile communications can only be in one place, the so-called slats, (aka emotional spot or spot of hope) - normal geodetic rail, stuck unknown person on the outskirts of the village, but very attentive, for which he kowtow to the ground.





2. I live in a hotel Tulip - Soviet hotel, built in 9 years to conservation, this is my room, for which, by the way, we have to pay out of their wages *))





3. Brushing your teeth and washing - just like ordinary people





4. At breakfast time to complete the tables for accommodation and sightseeing tours for the previous day. I eat breakfast, to be honest, what is necessary, just recently found abandoned by someone flakes. With condensed milk and coffee - great.





5. Next Arctic, nevertheless, makes itself felt; to go out on the need to wear yourself all this is, sort of Arctic cabbage leaves. The carbine is not for beauty - around the village are bear tracks, moreover, as I spend on settlement offers, I'm responsible for their safety. So, we put on two pants, all kinds of termoveschi, windproof anorak and take the carbine with a knife.





Everything is almost 8am. The sun is shining since 4-30, and soon cease altogether to go. Go!

On the street I've met my friends - Arctic foxes. Saigon - so I called one of them. He braver all and takes treats straight from the hand, and, moreover, often building a scuffle with another fox named Sid. By the way Sid - the young and extremely handsome, I'll show you his individual photosets somehow. Can not go past them just so.

6.Segodnya I feed Saigon half potatoes and chicken bones.





7. Here's what a real fox (this is the Russian translation sounds «arctic fox») for breakfast.





8. View of Mount Pyramid (the village is named after her). Under the mountain - mehtseh, which is still full of equipment, and the left - the so-called "madhouse", a home for families with children.





In the meantime, you can catch the morning workout in the rocking chair, where, in fact, and heading.

9. This is a wooden building called "London", because there lived lonely single men. A sort of humor Soviet Arctic. By the way, far from it there is a 4-storey house made of bricks named "Paris", was once inhabited by single women. And the best traditions of the genre, between the houses standing room, apparently for secular meetings.





10. A thermometer shows the garage in the sun minus 10. But he seems so easy in the shade about 20 below zero, and every meter per second wind cools you another 2 degrees. This thermometer - the biggest optimist this morning.





11. The garage is spacious. There goes all the livelihood of the village - coal boiler and all the machines, including all your favorite 22-year-old Toyota that some Norwegian guests was called none other than Limo





12. Yesterday in the garage found 4tablichki, something like slogans. I like most here this





13. That's it - rocking. In fact, without it would have been difficult, as for sport little choice: running through the snowdrifts or race for foxes





14. Good Morning, Pyramid!





Have to do it in a hat and gloves, and being fast. The room is not heated. Here, in general, all doing pretty quickly, though time seems sometimes freezes for one mark at all ...

15. Dips failed, can not be said about the pictures, well, I sorry. *)))





16. All that time to move back to the hotel.





17. By the way, in between times: the keys from Paris who?





18. Can a short way, and can be long, I always choose long - there always look at a tiny wooden building of the airport. Surrounded by mountains, the building looks like David against Goliath at





19. Meanwhile, I come to the hotel Tulip. Metal flower of the same name was set when in the course to mark the day when on the lawn, which was brought here by barge, suddenly bloomed tulip. By the way, the Pyramid - the only place in the archipelago, where in summer you can meet the high grass, just the same one lawn. In winter it from under the snow trying to dig up a local variety of Arctic reindeer.





20. Near the entrance - a short biography at





Time to eat something. basically here carbohydrate "diet" - the helicopter brought several bags of rice, flour, potatoes. But with more complex protein food. However, there is cod, and if the word cod, usually on the continent as something suspiciously lead nose, here it is real, northern, delicious *))

21. Now you have to go out and stomp to the staff for the session. You can walk - it's about 20 minutes one way, but today we use the benefits of civilization - Toyota Helux. Along the way, is worth here is such a sign:





22. Coal past pyramids ended in 1998 ...





23. In the car, changing simkarty. Moscow card accepts Net Com and insanely expensive, Norwegian Telenor much cheaper and better to be kind of like catching the faint signal coming because the fjord. Almost 10 am





24. Behind me is the same rake. Picture taken from the roof of a pickup





Next phone in the cold publishes plaintive squeak, and simple, so disconnected ... well, there is often: always wonder who will hold out longer - in the cold fingers typing a message or battery. Today, battery lost. I'm going to make a copy of the pictures that I saw once in a network.

25. This is a box, inside of which are laid communication, and on top you can walk. Seems to get about.





Food in the port, there is need to check houses for tourists. Today, we are waiting for the three managers of the largest travel company in Svalbard. But I still do not know what they are actually staying in a hotel ...

26. The port is a huge tape on which the coal was loaded on a ship going to the continent. Now it is - just openwork design of metal and wood, when viewed from a distance





27. Nearby the abandoned building of the former CHP. Made on me, probably the most painful impression, when I was there: everything inside as if blown up. Here to make a film about the war, and then people from the crowd said they were uncomfortable inside. In addition, there is constant noise from polusorvannyh metal sheets, personally I first took a carbine with a fuse that is where, when, because of these sounds seemed to me that I was someone goes ... *))





I have about an hour and a half before the arrival of a group of tourists (based on experience from previous days), so it's time to see a couple of sheds, which is always something interesting. Go ahead!

28. In one of the barns found this picture





29. At first I thought it was paint or chemicals, but then opened one of the boxes found within the contents



30. I do not know about you, but for me - so it is incredible that all these drums and six packed in each of these discs - all films that are twisted at Pyramid!





31. Like a film studio conceived move, but was never able to take away all their footage



32. Another newcomer caught two twin, labeled as "IDH 2, 5". If they come to life - I would not be surprised or slightly; here at Circle unusual things happen.



33. Okay, go ahead. Near the beginning of the galleries, which rose miners and coal down from the mountain has a training center. All covered with snow at the very most. Catches some horn.





34. ... and fuse. "Before the explosion test the circuit!" And only checks out of hiding! As well there is no need to check anything. In addition, cover all the dark or covered with snow.





35. Going on to the barn in which the stories, sports equipment was stored. That's really what I'd like to see. Content inside speaks for itself. Judge for yourself.





36. And now hit of the season, as they say: a bunch of poles of bamboo! 78 degrees north latitude actively used bamboo. Imagining skiers Arctic sticks with here, I could not help laughing, remembering the phrase "It combines incongruous ...»



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I go out there with the feeling that ride on a time machine, and as a free option, it still had a button "to make the surrounding atmosphere unreal." Go back to the Tulip, which had driven a group of guests. All Norwegians. After a brief greeting am their first look dining room.

37. Actually inside in the dining room

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38. Meanwhile, guests scurrying hither and thither, photographing everything in its path *))

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Before the main staircase is unique throughout the archipelago mosaic. There was no one else tourist who would not have died down for a couple of seconds before it and then diligently taken photograph.

39. Generally speaking, the dining room is so beautiful that will give here a photograph in which there are no Norway. Judge for yourself:

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Saying that, among other things, she also worked 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and all the food was free, am stunned tourists along the main and only street, named after the 60th anniversary of the Great October Revolution.

40. Traditional photo at the northernmost in the world Ilyich

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41. Ilyich even though the northernmost in the world, but still standing there alone for many years, his facial expression, there is something a little crazy (I have a lot of pictures of different images of Lenin, but this one just a little crazy)

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Go to the CSC - cultural and sports complex. Inside, everything is preserved almost perfectly. On the walls - pictures of the past performance of the ensemble performances. Stunned Norwegians seem to gradually begin to envy the luxury. Such capital structures in the nearby Norwegian Longyear not. Later, when they learn of the existence of the pool - it will finish them completely.

42. CSC (main lobby)

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43. Gym

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44. Showing Norwegians small room, something like like rocking. The first week I arrived, I trained in here. At the words "And now I will show you a rocking chair in the style of Rocky Balboa" are all widely smile and agree with what he saw. By the way pancakes on a bar made of lead, cast by some convoluted form.

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45. On the second floor - library, from which there were only cards that you can order books, but the room with musical instruments. Tourist learn Russian national instrument "gives jazz» *))

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46. ​​The view from the second floor KSK

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47. Go to the pool now. Semi-Olympic standard - 25 meters. While the boys were shocked and bewildered roam the perimeter, considering wooden decorative grilles and commentator booth somewhere near the ceiling, time to take a photo without *))

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48. At the substantive, but rather the spiritual part of the tour is over. We turn to food urgent. Today dinner with tourists.

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49. Usually served soup, hot and salad. All Scandinavians love borscht, though utter a word for them is almost impossible.

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50. After this, the group leaves, each me goodbye waves. Here in general few people and just leave without saying goodbye, not accepted.

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51. After their departure comes a period of relatively free interval of time during which you can drink coffee or read an e-book.

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52. Here I was overtaken by the idea that in Moscow, for example, even in the winter, my jacket is not so heavy, and all because I usually do not dragging around in pockets that have to wear here. Shake out the contents of the pockets, leaving only the cap and liner.

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About three days dressed, go out on the street again. Came a Norwegian guide one of the local tour companies. Good man, sociable. Once served in the Soviet-Norwegian border (his phrase on an intricate Russian: "Stop! Scatter hands! This is the boundary of the Soviet Union!" I have long remembered with a laugh). I promised to show him mehtseh, which we do not normally drive tourists.

53.Sobstvenno Casper

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54. He arrived with his brother and sister. We climb into mehtseh. They genuinely surprised at the sight of all that there is left.

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55. Dream technicians

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Then we see that in Tulip goes even some group. So it's time to come back. In parting, I ask Casper from Longyearbyen to bring wine to celebrate a birthday Alexandrovna, our cook. He promises to transfer to someone of the guides, and says himself that he would go with a group of skiers on the continent for 2 weeks. Well, I hope our feldegerskaya service (as I call these eyes for transmission Longyearbyen) work. And of course, good luck Casper, come back!
He dovozit me to the hotel, the hall is already sitting group.

56. Here, nobody should warn that the removal of the top clothing and shoes. Everyone knows it themselves.

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57. In the meantime, almost 4:00

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Here, as at first sight very surprised man with a huge knife and a rifle behind his back, especially if it's a girl. But then you get used - everything here so go. Arctic life dictates its own rules of conduct.

58. A journalist of the local Norwegian newspaper

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If you think that this is why I'm here do not show other people in our commune, it is what every busy with his business and crosses we do not so often.

59. A rare shot which fails to remove: Petrovich (who is in charge and it is often jokingly referred to as "the governor of the Pyramid") and our cook Alexandrovna.

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60. Going to the port Petrovich check houses, so here are called three cabins, converted into something like a hostel. Houses in order. I go out to photograph the glacier Nordenskiöld. Before him, it seems no more than 4 kilometers, but in fact it is an optical illusion. 17 kilometers - that's how much to him.

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But still I want to show you the rest of the residents of our village. Go back to the garage. I'm looking for Vitalik and Oleg.

61. Finally find Vitalik. He, too, as I am from Russia. In fact, talking about him, he closed, but it is not. Photograph him for repairing some apparatus, while he tells me a story about how in the past year a team from National Geographic did a photo shoot with him for hours ...

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62. Then Oleg been looking for. Here, everything is more complicated, we have to ask permission of his sfotkat. As a result, he poses in the coal boiler.

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63. I came out of the garage. That's about to come visit.

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64. Here comes Petrovich on a scooter and says that some group has already arrived. These are the guys that we expect. Now he pokniten me to the hotel on this unit by the name Viking

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