Russian travelers from the project “Northern Troopers” to date are considered the best connoisseurs of Taimyr and other northern regions of the country. Their invaluable experience is already adopted by the military at special seminars on the specifics of work in the conditions of the extreme North. Before the start of the expedition from Nizhnevartovsk, I talked with the leader of the Northern Airborne – a man for whom his whole team is ready to follow the literal sense to the end of the world.
Alexander Peterman is the head of one of the largest Siberian corporations “Slavtek”, a member of the supervisory board of the Union of Russian Paratroopers, a member of the Russian Geographical Society and the organizer of the expedition “Northern Troopers”. In the first expedition to the Far North he went in 2008, and the following year he headed his own team “Northern Troopers” and dedicated their first trip to the 100th anniversary of the birth of Airborne Commander Vasily Margelov. During the travel of travelers, testing the GLONASS system, was watched under the patronage of the Deputy Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation Sergey Ivanov, the researchers of the North and Federation Council Chairman Sergey Mironov supported the researchers.
“We never tested ourselves for strength and did not conquer anything”
Travelers do not like questions about the “test of male character” and “conquest of the Arctic expanses”. They say that it’s best to leave the character at home, and take discipline and will with you. Here is what the FAN interlocutor recalls about this:
– The first expedition in 2008 was ethnographic, in it we studied the resettlement of the Finno-Ugric group, were supposed to talk to the local population on the road, do blood fences. Initially, we were approached by two scientists, proposed to sponsor the expedition, we did not refuse. They offered to go – we went. But at some point, all the culturologists realized that although we were moving along a fairly soft tundra, this is not what they imagined, and they are not going at all with pleasure and breezes … Honestly, we barely drove them, kicked, you can say. After all, when you set yourself a task, you must clearly understand that you will fulfill it. And these people were just dreamers.
After this campaign the idea of the second expedition was ripe. At this time, both the state and the armed forces had definite plans, there was an understanding that in the near future the experience of hikes in the extreme North is necessary. We were given certain tasks, we began to implement them, and around the same people began to appear the same. You know, it’s when it’s cold, everyone around the fire is going to. We began to test the GLONASS system, got some tasks from the Russian Geographical Society (RGO). In the campaigns checked food, clothing, equipment. We froze, very frostbitten, but we understood how to modify the clothes. Found that hothouse locksmiths and other professionals can not listen. For example, it’s one thing in a warm garage to fasten a button on a jacket, and it’s quite another thing to do this in a frost of over 40 degrees with wind and humidity. In such conditions, even speech is changing, hallucinations begin. You leave in the morning, you go 15-20 hours, stop, you put another tent, you collect all the iron with your bare hands … We saw that the wires under these conditions simply break, so now we make special radios with helium wires that do not suffer from frost.
One of the expeditions proved to be poorly organized in terms of nutrition, we realized that it was wrong, changed the diet. It is important that food in the North be diverse. The military says: “You take lard, and that’s it.” Clearly, there is such an image: in the cold, lard with mustard under the vodka … Yes, it is good in the country, and on the expedition you do not eat this fat, and you do not eat much meat. Liquid you want, soups, so we take five kinds of them to make peas, beans. We cook meat and canned fish specially. On the road they learned that the maps in gps were very inaccurate, fell into the mountains, into the canyons, and into the open ice. But now very few people in the world know Taimyr as well as we do. We went to him and from the west side, and from the east, and through it passed, and around walked around. In good weather, I can go there without gps on my own landmarks.
But most importantly, we never tested ourselves for strength and did not conquer anything. The nature of the North is so powerful that if it let you in here, then there is harmony with you with this place. As soon as there are any ambitions or a person is dissatisfied with something – nothing happens, do not go to the extreme North. Therefore, it is important that people who are the same in spirit get to the team, and not those who came to check themselves – with such immediately problems begin. We had an experienced man in one expedition, but as soon as we moved away from Dixon, and he saw where we were going, his “house” made his fears, and they brought him that way. There are travelers whose names sound, but they never worked on the team, they can not. And this is very important. If a person gets out, immediately trouble happens. The Arctic is not a place for vanity. In the journey, we are driven by two main desires – first go there, and then return home. To date, we have gathered a very strong team. Someone, perhaps, looks at us and thinks: “Idiots, they spend such money, I’d rather be lying on the Maldives up my stomach.” Maybe for someone it looks like that, everyone in life needs different things. We are people who want to look beyond the horizon.
“Without the people of science in the Arctic, you can not touch anything”
In Arctic expeditions, the Northern Troopers also carry out RGO research missions. For example, it monitors the pollution of Arctic regions. And again the word to Alexander Peterman:
“Do you have any idea how messy everything has been since the last decades?” In the winter, we call in, how much garbage we see, and I’m even afraid to imagine what will open there in the summer. Of course, it’s important to take out the garbage from the extreme North, which accumulated there from the Soviet era, but there is a very real danger: now some official is wiser, makes a decision, gives his brother a tender, and he will go to clean up the Arctic. But without the people of science, there can not be anything to touch, there are things that do not even need to be touched. For example, the remains of the expedition of Peter I – they may seem to ignorant people with ordinary old logs, unnecessary firewood. I seriously fear that they will come with the good intention of cleaning old barrels, and with these barrels they will demolish everything. Perhaps, we should not hurry, we must carefully study for several years, seriously approach the harvesting of the Arctic, and then start thoughtfully.
Records in the Arctic is better not to put
This year, the Northern Destination expedition will once again try to break through to the Northern Land and the Arctic cape – its long-standing goal, which has so far failed to reach. In one year, prevented early coming down the ice, in another – the illness of one of the participants. When the conversation with Peterman comes about the safety of one of the team members, the traveler is not up to the record: human life in the extreme conditions of the extreme North is always valued more than ambition.
– Now the cape is Arctic. Let’s see if we can reach this time: the border guards recently called, they said that in the Vilkitsky Strait the ice had already broken. He is there in the thickness of 2-3 meters, it tears like a piece of paper. In the Arctic, by the way, it is very noticeable how much the climate on the planet is changing. When we walk along the coast, we see that all the huts that were once built at a safe distance from the water are now completely washed away or washed up. The water rises, something changes in nature, and it’s literally in recent years since 2008 that we go to the Arctic.
I hope that this time we will manage to reach the Arctic, this is an old dream. It’s one thing to fly there as a tourist, drink vodka there, fly away and tell everyone where you’ve been. It’s another matter to reach the expedition. When we went to our first expeditions, there was such a fuss, everyone wanted to set records. But then they realized that this is such a stupidity, this is exactly what you can not do. Now we go quietly, carefully studying the situation along the way. Everywhere we are waiting for along the way: at polar stations, in villages, in schools, in the church, which we helped to restore, at frontier posts – all have established long-standing friendly relations.
When we first got acquainted with people at polar stations, at outposts, there was not even a connection, we gave them telephones to call home. Now everything is secured, the repair of polar stations begins. Yes, they, of course, are not yet in the state in which they should be, like American or British bases in the Antarctic. Border guards go about in such clothes, in which the breadth of Moscow is walking, well, is it possible? Then, after some event, according to the decree of Moscow, from all the polar stations, they were taken away with a service weapon. Imagine, young guys, girls every 3-4 hours should reach the shore in the polar night, measure the water level, the temperature, and around the bears … They go with the rocket launchers against the bears – yes it’s easier to shoot yourself right away! It’s such stupidity, it’s impossible even to comment. Although this can be solved by electric shepherds, as in Soviet times they did, it’s just that nobody cares about this yet. For the time being, for the most part, everything is built on the courage and selflessness of people, although progress is already evident. Imagine, we come to the settlement of Gyda, whose names were not known before. We are told: “We had Putin here, and in other towns too.” And it’s not that the big boss came, looked and left. No, the development is already underway, a technique has appeared, Yamal and Taimyr are being studied.
“In the North you are charging like a phone from a network”
Peterman tells us that the expedition “Northern Troopers” follows its own routes, but often travelers intuitively enter the ancient roads of the first explorers and explorers of the North.
“We often think about what it was like for those who walked up to us, about a hundred years ago, when there were not even maps … All the travelers of the North are extraordinary people, heroes, and any Arctic journey is a feat. When you yourself experienced the difficulties of crossing the North, then it’s scary to read about past expeditions. Papanin, Vilkitsky, Dezhnev, Chelyuskin – anyone, they all performed feats. Or the expedition of the era of Peter I – these people for 10 years came from Arkhangelsk, incredibly hard to break the road to the East! Of modern travelers, of course, Vladimir Chukov is delighted – this is a man who performed all his tasks in an autonomous mode, which is very important. It’s one thing when you are put on a helicopter clothes, food, or you yourself bring for some distance. Chukov always goes on his own, he has already twice passed through the pole to Canada. He knows the Arctic very well, and his advice from our expedition has always been to the point.
The Arctic is a sacred place for us. When I first went on an expedition, I felt as if I had gone to a sanatorium. In the Arctic, you are like a sitting phone, which is connected to the network, and it charges from it. A very unusual place, with a powerful energy, beautiful nature, sunsets, sunrises, with such beauty that you can not even give pictures. And the most valuable feeling is when you are standing on some piece of land, and you realize that no one before you was here, that you are here first.
The start of a new expedition of the Northern Assault is scheduled for March 15. This time, along with a proven Peterman team, the military will leave for the northern expanses: experienced travelers are gradually transferring their knowledge to Russian special services, who will have to learn how to effectively serve in the harsh conditions of the Far North.
Evgenia Avramenko, RIA FAN
http://riafan.ru/508546-lider-ekspedicii-severnyi-desant-peterman-arktika-ne-mesto-dlya-tshcheslaviya