Taymyrethnoexp. Part I

March 8–21, 2011

We leave Yakutia behind and enter Taymyr.

In the morning, instead of the usual ’whirr-whirr,’ the tire inflator hose went ’wah-waah.’ Usually, this trick requires liquid nitrogen. But here it’s enough to just take an object outside.

An Ural truck loaded with frozen deer appears to be somewhat stuck in the tundra. The venison won’t go bad while it’s sitting here—there’s a free freezer all around.

Popigai (Sopochnoye)

Because the river became shallower over time, the village of Old Popigai was moved further downstream and renamed simply Popigai. But all the locals call it Sopochnoye because it’s located at the spot where the Sopochnaya River flows into the Popigai River.

A district police officer comes by motorboat once a year to make his rounds. There isn’t much for him to do here, however. Whatever happens in Popigai stays in Popigai. Everyone knows that one woman stabbed her husband right above the heart in a drunken brawl, but no one will rat her out.

People say Yakutia here instead of Yakutia.

The adult population trades venison for Yamaha snowmobiles and fuel for them.

No one clears the snow off the ends of buildings—it’s warmer this way.

The expedition’s arrival has aroused the curiosity of the entire village. The local residents have never seen passenger cars here.

Extreeemely mediocre handicrafts made from mammoth ivory are sold for incredibly high prices (an icon the size of a matchbox is 4000 rubles, or approximately 135 US dollars). So it makes more sense to get the raw material—it’s both more interesting and cheaper.

Every grown man in the village has an obligation to find a mammoth once a year. They take only the mammoth’s tusks and teeth, not bothering with the bones. The teeth and tusks are peddled whenever the opportunity arises. It usually arises in the summer, when cruise ships with tourists pass by.

Tusks are sold by the kilo. A tooth can be bought for a bottle of vodka (the cheapest bottle costs at least 350 rubles). Permafrost has existed here for the past 100 000 years, the bones stay well preserved.

We drive further along the river, passing Novorybnaya Village. One of my tires starts to come loose again (the tire beads keep unseating themselves from the rim because the air pressure in the tires is intentionally very low—half an atmosphere).

Here I make a horrifying discovery: Coucousique’s front axle CV boots have broken off. A CV boot is this accordion-pleated rubber casing that protects the delicate CV joints at the end of the drive axles from dirt. If sand gets inside the boot, the joint will fail and the car will become unusable. We still have an entire day of driving ahead before we reach Khatanga, which has at least some trappings of civilization. Therefore, a decision is made to call a Kamaz truck from Khatanga to tow me. I have spare parts in the trunk and a shot at getting the repairs done in a warm place.

Luckily, we discovered this just as a geologists’ road train was passing by in the opposite direction. A tractor is the only vehicle that’s comfortable to drive around here. The geologists piled out of the construction trailer on sleds and began photographing our expedition.

The tractor driver kindly agreed to give me a lift a few kilometers back to Novorybnaya.

My expedition mates sped ahead to Khatanga. And I spent the rest of the day in the village waiting for the Kamaz truck.

Novorybnaya

This village was previously located on the other bank and called Starorybnoye—Old Fishery. The new village was named Novorybnaya—New Fishery.

This is a very prosperous Dolgan village.

There’s an overabundance of fish year round, and plenty of deer in addition to the fish. Some men manage to harvest 600 deer per season. The outward signs of prosperity are that everyone owns two Buran snowmobiles and no one keeps them outside—they’re all parked in garages.

The dogs, however, sleep outside in any weather—that’s where they belong.

Novorybnayans.

A country house.

Main Street.

The general store.

Façade design.

Save and protect

The permafrost has made it possible to create an icehouse inside the hill by the river—a free eternal freezer for fish and venison storage. After fishing in the summer, you can take your catch to the icehouse and leave it there to wait for the motorboat (summer) or truck (winter) from the city.

Alexei, a real industrious and hardworking man, generously extended his hospitality and took me in. Gave me a tour, offered some tea and a meal of sliced frozen fish.

Coucousique spent all say standing at the edge of the earth with a raised antenna. On the opposite side from the edge of the earth was an incredibly beautiful halo illuminating the sky. The reader, who is accustomed to television and magazine images, will naturally assume that this is an optical lens effect. But no, my dear reader. What you see on the photo is exactly what the naked human eye sees. Without any Photoshop assistance. The only experience more powerful than this is a solar eclipse.

The day flew by quickly.

“Did you call a Kamaz?”

Coucousique drives up onto the bed of the truck. Northern lights illuminate the sky outside. The trip will take the whole night, might as well get some sleep.

Khatanga

In the morning, the Kamaz arrived at the auto garage. There was already a jolly bearded man waiting for us outside, talking in a spellbinding stream of profanities delivered with the virtuosity of a harp player. Zhenka, aka The Greek. A jack of all trades and always the life of the party.

Zhenka drives a white Trekol ATV. It was thanks to him that Coucousique got repaired and the expedition was able to continue. People like Zhenka allow me to claim that there’s no such thing as bad people in the North.

As a rule, all the vehicles here have big wheels. The likes of ours never leave city limits.

Coal needs to be sifted through a screen outside so that the coal dust doesn’t explode. The screen is actually the bottom of a handbarrow. You throw in some coal, pick up the handbarrow, carry the coal over to the furnace. Every detail has been thought through.

Khatanga’s main landmark is a mural of staggering hideousness.

Peace Keep

It’s visible from everywhere.

An ethnographic museum with an unbelievable letter N.

MUSEUM OF ИATURAL HISTORY AИD ETHИOGRAPHY

A mammoth museum founded by a French adventurer.

And a venison storehouse next door.

Khatanga once had normal building numbers that were legible from a distance.

15 Krasnopeyev St.

Later, for no discernible reason, they were replaced with small and illegible ones (but hey, at least they’re “like the ones in Moscow”).

15 Expedition St. Protect your home from fires!

Typical Khatanga.

A police station.

The main notable detail here is the ability to determine where heat leakages take place. Heat escaping from buildings turns into clearly visible snow buildups.

We continue onwards. Our next destination is Norilsk. Few have managed to get there by road from Yakutia, even on a truck.

Laying tracks where wolves once shat.

Kheta

No shortage of coal here.

The local residents marvel at the expedition’s arrival.

Katyryk

Comfy Internet in the midst of a comfortless snowy expanse.

The improvised CV boot devised by Sasha the tow truck driver. This boot will get me to Moscow without any problems, then last me another week of driving around Moscow until I get Coucousique to the shop.

The most striking thing about the North is how clean it is. In three weeks of driving, I didn’t have to wash the windshield once—it was clean every day. There’s no mud here in the winter. No dust. None at all. No need to refill your windshield wiper fluid.

There’s no mud. But there’s all the snow you could possibly want.

An exotic sight to our eyes: a sled train. To the sled train drivers, the exotic sight here is our passenger cars. The geologists climb up onto the roofs of their Ural trucks and fill their camera memory cards with photos of us. Meanwhile, we photograph them.

Volochanka

We pass some Baptist sectarians.

God is love

Wolf hunters.

We become fully one with nature.

And nature wouldn’t mind becoming one with us. A blizzard hits. Wiping the windshield offers visibility for about ten seconds. After that, invisibility sets in.

In this kind of weather, the best thing to do is pull over and take a nap. Or get online.

Snowed in.

We keep driving down the rivers.

Pass some ice mounds.

The climate is far from pleasant. Wind speeds are at 15 meters per second.

We look for a crossing. The ice is too thin in some places.

The Kamaz decides to go its own way and makes a break for it. What breaks as a result is the ice, leaving the front wheel fully submerged in water. Letting it sit there is not an option—it’ll freeze. And the truck can’t back out on its own (the depth is just over a meter). We join our cars together with cables so that the Kamaz’s built-in winch has some kind of anchor point to use. As we mess around, a flock of Ural trucks shows up and pulls our buddy out.

A shower and a sit-down meal at a table, rather than crammed sideways into the driver’s seat, would be really great right about now. We should be able to reach Norilsk in another day or so.

Almost there.

But dusk sets in, a snowstorm hits, we have to stop for the night. Alas, no shower today.

It’s unclear for whom these “No Fishing” signs were meant—whoever manages to get out here is guaranteed to be fishing in complete solitude.

The last few crossings. It seems as though we might get there before dark.

We decide to take a break for lunch. The first two cars stop at the designated lunch spot. The second two struggle to cross the remaining 500 meters for another hour. There’s such a strong blizzard that the tracks get completely blown over with snow in a matter of minutes. It looks as though this place hasn’t seen a living soul in a month, even though a car just drove through here.

Dusk. A snowstorm starts up again. We’re so close to reaching a real road. We’ve got to make it today. And right at this very moment all our cars get stuck in the snow at once. Everyone has to dig themselves out, inch forward, use their winch to pull out one of the other cars, move a bit further. Night sets in. Visibility drops. We’re on the verge of giving up. Everyone makes one last-ditch effort—and suddenly the storm dies down and lights appear in the distance. Many lights spanning the entire horizon. It’s what cities look like from make-out point in American movies.

We’re moving. Driving. Silence.

Pavement.