Back in the 70s, the journal Science and Life risked publishing statistics on the disappearance of people without a trace - however, based on foreign data. The numbers were quite frightening: in countries such as England, France, Italy, the number of citizens who disappeared without a trace ranged from 5,000 to 20,000 people a year! With the advent of glasnost, similar data were published in our country. In the territory of the former USSR, there were 85,000 missing people per year, and the reasons for the disappearance could be identified in only about 60,000 cases.
Once upon a time, guests came to visit a Muscovite. The conversation dragged on, the cigarettes ran out, and the owner, apologizing, put on his jacket and, wearing slippers, went down to the grocery store located in the next entrance. But he didn’t show up at the grocery store, nor did he return home. No traces of the missing owner of the apartment could be found.
In the summer of 1973, three Leningrad students went to Crimea. On the train we met two girls who were traveling there. In Simferopol, getting off the train, we agreed that we would meet at a trolleybus stop to go to Yalta together. But the girls waited for them in vain - the boys never showed up. And only after returning to Leningrad, one of them learned from her friend that three students from her institute had disappeared, who had also gone to Crimea. The signs coincided, and the girl herself turned to the police. The young men were a very memorable group in cowboy hats, with a guitar, noisy and disordered. Two of the guys were athletes and practiced Japanese martial arts.
Another incident that occurred in the United States in the last century attracted the attention of the creator of the immortal image of Sherlock Holmes, the writer Conan Doyle. A certain family left the house, heading for a walk, but the father of the family, remembering that he had forgotten his umbrella, returned to the house. No one ever saw him again.
In 1936, a group of geologists settled in the village of Elizavetino near Krasnoyarsk. A few days later, returning home from another route, geologists saw a completely extinct village. Things in the houses remained untouched; two bicycles lay on the main village street. One of the geologists, now a professor, Doctor of Geological and Mineralogical Sciences Barsukov, still remembers with a shudder the horror they experienced while trying to enter a house whose door was locked from the inside! We had to break out the glass, and then it turned out that the door was barricaded from the inside with household utensils. A large family of four adults and three children lived in the house. Geologists reported the incident to the local NKVD department, and a car with employees promptly arrived from there. However, the search was unsuccessful, and the geologists were required to sign a non-disclosure agreement regarding this case. As Barsukov said, after some time he was summoned to Moscow by the NKVD, where he again gave evidence on this case.
In 1987, our press reported the disappearance of a small amateur expedition from Tomsk, which went in search of the mysterious “devil’s lair” - a clearing with bare earth where all living things perish. The group included one girl, two guys were from Novosibirsk. It was assumed that at the final point of the route, where the group would get off the train, two local enthusiasts would join them. All the guys were experienced tourists, they had walked through the Siberian taiga more than once, and had firearms and signaling equipment with them. In Tomsk they boarded the train and, according to the testimony of the train crew, everyone got off the train safely at the intended place. And then strange things began: two local enthusiasts who were supposed to join the expedition were told that the train from Tomsk was three hours late, and they went home to wait out this time. But the driver reduced the delay to two hours and, when the enthusiasts came to the station again, the train had already left. Nobody saw the guys who arrived from Tomsk. The station attendant said something incomprehensible: it seemed like some guys had gotten off the train, but it was unknown where they had gone. A day later, a reply was received to the telegram sent to Tomsk that the group had left at the appointed time. Unfortunately, the police joined the search only three days later, when the people who could have seen the guys had already left. Nobody saw them anywhere else; it seemed that the group disappeared immediately after leaving the train.
In 1947, a C-46 passenger plane with 32 people on board crashed in the Rocky Mountains of the United States. Rescuers arrived at the scene of the accident relatively quickly, but found only a mangled fuselage and no traces of passengers and crew. One of the rescuers had a crazy idea that people had disappeared from the plane in the air. Perhaps it was this story that inspired the famous writer Stephen King when he wrote his novel “The Langoliers.”
Here is a recent case with a Brazilian businessman. His Cessna plane crashed into shallow water literally a hundred meters from the shore in front of many people. Rescuers had difficulty opening the doors, which jammed when they hit the water, but there was no one to save - the cabin was empty. The police put forward a version: a businessman, flying with his wife to visit friends for a holiday, for some reason threw his young wife overboard and threw himself out. But this version had to be discarded: the plane's doors were locked from the inside.
Collection funny stories prepared: November 16, 2014
I studied at the Faculty of Geography of Moscow State University, and at one of the lectures on geology, the lecturer told us a story from his practice, when he and his students went to Satino for the summer.
The following is a story from the lecturer's perspective:
“I know from my own experience that an unexpected, although predictable, encounter with a bear causes such fear that the ability to think logically and take deliberate actions disappears.
So, the geologist and the worker walk along a narrow path. Suddenly, around a bend, they come face to face with a bear. It's too late to run. The geologist grabs a pistol (by the way, weapons are issued not for protection from animals, but “to protect special parts” - “secret” topographic maps). Bang, bang, bang!
The bear looks puzzled, turns and leaves. The geologist, taking a breath, examines the battle site. But there is not a drop of blood on the ground.
The geologist turns to the worker:
- Listen, I couldn’t have missed from three meters?
Worker (sarcastically):
- If I shot, I wouldn’t miss. And you pulled out a gun and shouted: "Bang! Bang! Bang!"
***
This story was told to me by my father, who was a real witness to it. This was in the late 80s. The rise of stagnation. My father then worked at a metallurgical enterprise. They worked in 3 shifts. Shift 1 started around 6-7 o’clock in the morning and in order to be at work on time, my father had to get up at 5 o’clock in the morning and go to the first regular bus. In fact, this is what the story is about. It must be said that the first regular bus during the times of stagnation was somewhat different from the others. It was distinguished by the fact that there were no “extra” people there. Only hard workers hurrying to the enterprises for the 1st shift. All this lasted for more than one year, and therefore its traditions became established. Everyone knows each other. No jostling. Everyone came in, sat down in their seats as if they had received tickets, and were on their way. Only when there were ever “violators” of this landscape of stagnation in the form of those leaving for the station in a hurry or eager to get to the central city market early.
One fine day, a lady of Balzac’s age with wallets to spare gets on such a bus.
It remains a mystery where she was in a hurry so early, however, this has nothing to do with our story... She gets on the bus. Naturally, there are no empty seats, and she, knocking the bags onto the floor, defiantly says:
-Fuuuhh
The bus has zero emotions. The lady tries again. A loud voice resounds throughout the entire bus:
-Fuuuhhh
There are no people willing to go to work standing and work hard at the machine for an entire shift.
Then the lady, making a completely detached look out the window, says to the whole bus:
-There are no gentlemen!
The first to respond to the call was a Georgian man sitting literally a meter away from the lady. He uttered a phrase that blew up the half-asleep bus:
-Madam! There are gentlemen! Mest netu!
After this, many vacant seats appeared on the bus. Half of the bus was just lying on the floor.
***
The passenger plane, which had taken an executive start, slowly returns to the parking lot, the passengers sit in the cabin for an hour, after which the plane starts the engines again and begins to taxi onto the runway. One of the passengers to the flight attendant:
- What was the reason for the delay?
- You see, the pilot was concerned about extraneous noise in the engine...
- AND?
- We had to wait until they found another pilot...
***
A student calls the operator of a paging company (a girl with a wonderful voice), gives the subscriber's number and says the text:
Operator:
- This is all?
- Yes, dictate, please.
Operator:
- I am now sitting in beautiful underwear. It's so white and lacy. I’m sweating a little, and I’m sitting waiting for you, how I want you! I smoothly take off my bra, throw it to the side, now I take off my panties, they fell to the floor. Now I want you to hug me, ahhh, I want you, come on!
Student:
- Aaaaaaand, you don’t have to send...
Current page: 1 (book has 2 pages in total) [available reading passage: 1 pages]
But there was a case
Stories of a Geologist
Victor Muzis
© Victor Muzis, 2017
ISBN 978-5-4483-8052-5
Created in the intellectual publishing system Ridero
THE BEGINNING... MY FIRST...
Kolyma. Flat tops of the hills.
This was during the second field season of my work on the Siberian platform working on kimberlites.
Before that, I worked in Kolyma. First, from junior to senior technician with Shulgina (he was her partner), then with Bobrov (shooting 50,000 gold scales). Only after a special order from the Ministry to transfer all technicians with higher education to geologists, all expedition technicians were transferred to geologists. He already worked as a geologist in Verkhoyansk on flyschoid strata (surveying 200,000 m-ba of tin).
Getting started as a geologist was not easy... Many of the guys had worked on surveys for a long time and were familiar with the methods of carrying out this work. I worked with Shulgina to collect the fauna when she was compiling sections and was involved in the design of numerous samples that she selected for various analyses.
But I needed the skill of a geologist-surveyor, which I did not have; I only became acquainted with it while working for Bobrov. Before receiving the position of geologist, I worked for him as a technician, transporting miners to work sites, identifying and describing mine workings, and washing the selected material with a tray.
I remember that I somehow decided not to just stick dry timber into the finished pit with the rhizome up, it was supposed to mark the location of the mine workings on the ground, but to do it as it should be - cut down fresh timber, cut out an L-shaped area at the butt and sign it. He hit the forest with an ax, but was unsuccessful. It also happens that “there’s a hole in the old woman!” The ax ricocheted and hit me a little on my leg at the ankle, on top. At first I didn’t pay any attention. Then I felt something uncomfortable on my leg... I took off my rubber boot, unwound the reddened footcloth, and then... I couldn’t put the boot back on. He described the pits directly from the all-terrain vehicle, the rock was quaternary loam (so-called Yedoma), and the miners themselves measured the depth with a measured pole and collected sand for washing.
Bobrov in the evening, leaving the route, came up to us and shouted to me from afar:
- Victor, come here!
- Go yourself! – smiling, I shouted back.
Silent scene!.. “The counselor was surprised, the carriage stopped!” Bobrov came up and I showed him his bandaged leg.
- Well, how are you now? – he asked.
“Yes, the miners will do everything themselves...” and demonstrated.
And in the camp, Dima Izrailovich gave me his 47 and I hobbled around for a bit. The leg just didn’t stay in the foot, but “flopped” right away, not staying on the heel. In Moscow, Dima put me in touch with a surgeon he knew, he felt, put my finger on the wound and said:
– You feel the tendon is damaged. The operation is trivial, if you want, we’ll do it.
But I didn't dare. And after about a year, the leg was already working normally.
And once, already in September, the snow had already fallen and the streams were covered with a thin crust of ice, I was tasked with washing several dozen test bags of frozen loam from pits. How?
“Show soldier savvy! – my father once told me. “The boss doesn’t always have to think for you...”
We loaded the all-terrain vehicle, drove the bags to the stream, unloaded them, and it left for the next “portion.” A worker was given as a partner. We didn’t have to think long: we put two tripods, a crossbar on them, lit a fire under it and hung a bucket of water on a hook. They broke the ice in the stream, scattered fragments of ice, I put on cloth gloves with rough rubber on them, so as not to prick my fingers on the crushed stone while rubbing the loam, and, lowering the bag into a bucket of boiling water, they dumped the softened rock into the tray. And there it’s the usual thing - you grind the loam, wash the rock, freeing it from clay particles and sand, and pour the concentrates into sludge cloth bags. You immediately dry the bags by the fire on the stones and pour them into small craft bags. That's all there is to it... As the saying goes: “Pour and drink!”
And I remember my first route and first geological points to this day.
“Volodya,” I remember shouting to Bobrov (the head of the Kolyma party), having met him on the first independent route. – I don’t understand anything!
Everything was so covered with turf and only the tops of the flat hills, once you rose above the 300-meter horizontal level, were free of forest. And on the slopes there is only crushed stone (gruss) in hummocks of frozen swelling. But, over time, I got used to it and even began to understand a little about something.
A hummock of frozen heaving (weathering)
But, after two years (I was in the final 2 years) of work (and a total of 4 years were allotted for shooting the sheet), the core of the party was left for publication, and the rest were distributed among other parties and in different regions.
I was assigned to the party of Dmitry Konstantinovich Bashlavin, who works in Verkhoyansk with a base in Batagai.
I really didn’t want to part with Kolyma, with the usual base villages – Zyryanka and Labueya (which is below Sredne-Kolymsk). After all, I worked there for quite a long time as a technician for Valentina Ivanovna Shulgina and even dared to call her Valya in recent years working with her. And what a hunt it was! And what fishing! How I loved these places!
Once standing at the cash register for a salary in last days work with Bobrov and exchanging jokes with acquaintances and friends, to the question of one acquaintance (a friend of my father):
- Well, where are you going?..
- Yes, to some Bashlavin! – I answered automatically.
The acquaintance grunted something in response. But imagine my amazement when I first arrived at the appointed party, because it was Bashlavin himself, whom I called “Uncle Dima” when meeting with my father, but was not interested in his last name, why I needed it. But in the party it was, of course, only Dmitry Konstantinovich. Well, Konstantinich, and only after a year of working with him.
So there you go! Looking at the topographical basis of the maps, I saw a continuous brown and all in continuous close-in curlicues of the relief - a mountainous region... How can you go on routes here? And the flyschoid strata - I remember them from Crimean practice - are a continuous alternation of sandstones and siltstones, and everything is compressed and crushed into continuous folds... But how to understand them?
“Nothing,” Ten (a geologist from the neighboring party) encouraged me. “In a couple of years you’ll get used to it and figure it out.”
Indeed, after a couple of years I somehow got used to it and figured it out. Both for cross-country ability and for flysch...
What does lamb taste like? I immediately felt the difference after venison and sokhatina.
Farewell to Ostashkin. River Ulakh-Muna.
And how I liked these places!
But that’s not the point again!
After completing 4 years of work on the allotted “sheet”, the head of the party and the senior geologist remained to publish it, and we, geologists and technicians, as usual, were assigned to other parties.
This is how I ended up in Igor Mikhailovich Ostashkin’s party to work in a completely new region of the Siberian platform on the left bank of the Lena River. Two parties were already working there - Sibirtseva (base in the village of Zhigansk) and Shakhotko (base in the village of Olenek).
In the party, which was new to me, there were three senior geologists (women) and a technician, but they did not go into the field, some for family reasons (?), some for health reasons. And Ostashkin, apparently, needed a young but experienced geologist who could be sent on business trips to local territorial geological organizations (in Nyurba and Mirny) and used as an independent detachment for field work.
In the first field season, Ostashkin wanted to test the method of enlarged spot sampling (ALS) in the area of one of the kimberlite fields, taking it as a standard, and verify as many photo anomalies there as possible in order to check some statistics.
I flew into the field first. I flew to Nyurba for a week on a business trip and flew to Zhigansk. I really liked the hotel in Nyurba for geologists (house for visitors) - clean and cozy.
Hotel
Having arrived in Zhigansk, I settled down in a room with the guys from Sibirtsev’s party, received equipment and food from the warehouse and began to wait for Ostashkin. And in Batagai, the familiar Batagai, where the administration of the expedition was located, I, unexpectedly for myself, gave the following radiogram:
“In addition to what I received in Zhigansk for I.M. Ostashkin’s party, please send the following:
1. Rubber boats LAS-500 – 2 pcs.;
2. Canned beef stew (terrible shortage) – 2 boxes;
3. Condensed milk (shortage) – 1 box;
4. Large wooden trays – 2 pieces (terrible shortage);
5. Large cast iron frying pans (shortage) – 2 pcs.;
...and some more dishes. And signed – Muzis V. A.”
There was no direct communication between Batagai and Zhigansk and I gave the radiogram rather to clear my conscience, just in case. But “there” they were apparently so surprised at my impudence that... they gave me everything I asked for. Maybe they confused me with my father and didn’t pay attention to the initials. Don't know. Or maybe the name Ostashkin did its job - he flew from Africa and worked for the first field season as the head of the party. And he was on friendly terms with the chief geologist of the expedition... I don’t know.
"Bee" - AN-14
One day, “Pchelka” unexpectedly arrived on a special flight from Batagai, apparently ordered by Sibrtsev, and Petrov, the escort, told me: “Your application is there.” Now it’s time to surprise myself... How well everything coincided.
They sent two huge plywood boxes with 500 (factory packaging), and canned food, and frying pans (which I was especially happy about), and saucepans.
Soon Ostashkin arrived and we flew to the field work site. In this area there was a geological settlement left by exploration geologists of the Amakinsk expedition. It was left due to the completion of work.
We chose a large hut for housing with two rooms (30 sq. m. each), an entrance hall and a storage room. It was either an administrative or office hut. In the very first days we glazed the damaged windows from the found whole block window glass(I amazed Ostashkin by taking out a glass cutter from my supplies), they repaired the roof with the found roofing material, put together bunks, and I even brought a homemade, but skillfully made, rocking chair from one of the huts.
MI-4 helicopter.
Having climbed with him through the dumps of all the previously identified kimberlite bodies of this field, and they were located quite compactly, taking rock samples and walking the lower parts of the slopes and streams, he, making sure that I was well oriented from aerial photographs, left me to certify the fifty identified photo anomalies, and he rafted down the river to the Tyung River, where Sibirtsev’s party was based.
The design of his rafting structure is interesting: he placed a catamaran of two 500-kW on a raft made of dry boards, to which he attached four skids (like a sled). The pontoons were rigidly attached to the raft. Thus, the loading of the boats increased, and their bottoms were reliably protected from cuts on the rifts. The structure, of course, is quite heavy and not very good for small rivers with rapids, but quite stable and convenient for rivers with deep reaches.
Farewell... Muna River
We helped them raft down the Ulah-Muna, dragging their “structure” to its mouth (10-12 kilometers), and then the two of them rafted down the Muna. His worker was Sasha Arefiev, an electronics engineer and a passionate hunter and amateur fisherman. Sasha made and gave me a knife skillfully made from a file with a twisted wooden handle in a wooden sheath, fastened with copper rings from cartridge cases. It was one of the most convenient knives I had, besides two German bayonets and pocket knives. For some reason I kept losing pocket knives with antennae for pulling cartridges out of guns. And Valera Istomin subsequently lost Sasha’s knife when I forgot the knife in the base village, and Valera took it and used it the whole season. He liked it too. But in one of the routes the knife jumped out of its sheath, and Valera did not notice it. Only the scabbard remains. I was very sorry for this loss.
And with one of my penknives I calmly and easily butchered a shot mountain sheep (in Verkhoyansk) - that’s what skill means. I was taller than a small herd that was slowly moving upward. I lay down behind the mane of the watershed and when the first one appeared, I aimed and shot. Having rolled down the snowfield, he left a whole red stripe on it, but when I cut it up, I could not find the entrance hole. No entry, no exit! And the bullet from the carbine, it turns out, entered exactly into the ear.
I was provided with food for the entire season, supplied with a WWII-era RPMS radio and three workers.
In the abandoned village of geologists
This is how my long-time dream came true - to live in a hut, where it is cool in hot weather, where there are no mosquitoes, and in bad weather it is warm from the potbelly stove. You sit by the stove in a chair, swing, and outside the window there is rain on the glass or flakes of snow... Speedola is playing... Lepota!
Well, now that the introduction is over, we can get down to business!
It was my first time working independently and I loved it. Every day, with the exception of rainy days, we climbed the slopes, went out to anomalous areas, well defined on the slope by the thickening of alder bushes and willow grass (up to 1.5-2 m high), digging in the lower part of the dense bush areas to the permafrost (cm 40-60 ) and collected the selected eluvium into test canvas bags. Then we went down to the river and washed the rock with trays.
German bayonet. The handle was carved by Kolya Tverdunov.
In the evening I went out to the river with a stereoscopic plastic 3-meter fishing rod and used fly fishing with a small three-piece (with a bunch of curls, curled with a lighted match until curled), and caught small graylings. It was too shallow here for large fish. Partridges could be shot right between the houses - if you walked quietly, they gave themselves away with an alarming guttural gurgle.
Having worked the area, we loaded the 500 with food, sleeping bags and personal belongings and moved several kilometers higher along the river (like “Barge Haulers on the Volga”). Here, too, there were houses and a former processing plant, built to evaluate the diamond prospects of the identified kimberlite bodies.
You don't have to go far.
Having chosen the most decent house, they covered the roof with a bright green thick tarpaulin, and in order not to tear it, leading the potbelly stove pipe through the roof, they brought it into the attic, and along it with metal boxes scattered in the factory, to the unboarded up gables, and continued their work.
Looking ahead, I can tell you a funny story about Kolya Tverdunov, who the next year ended up on this site and settled in the same house.
“We settled in,” he said, “they lit the stove and I came out of the hut to admire the river and the surrounding area. I was standing, looking around the surroundings, the factory, and casually glanced at the roof of the hut... And I was dumbfounded! The stove is burning, but there is no chimney or smoke. I rushed into the hut... The stove hums calmly... Everything is fine... What the hell is this?! I climbed into the attic, understood everything and calmed down.
It should be added that Kolya had some kind of tragic incident related to stove fumes with one of his relatives, so he treated these matters very sensitively and cautiously.
Constitution Day. Kolya Tverdunov (left) and me. September.
Somehow I can’t get to the main part of my story. And it happened during my second field season of working on kimberlite bodies. But the first determined the second. If there were no results for the first, there would not be such an interesting second. As without a beginning there is no end...
Since a small number of satellite minerals could be mistaken for some contamination from already identified kimberlite bodies higher up the slopes (and one of them, located on the very surface of the hill, gave a wide trail of contamination down and to the sides along the slopes, a kind of triangle), that I I worked the site, one might say, mechanically, hoping more for the results of mineralogical analysis. I sent mine samples for mine analysis relatively regularly, a helicopter from Zhigansk happened to fly to me and brought fresh batteries (I had something with the power supply for the radio - I heard everyone perfectly, but I was only in Shakhotko’s party, and even then weakly) and even somehow... then Ostashkin himself flew in, preoccupied bad connection with me, and brought a new radio.
Vasily Georgievich, a radio operator at the base in Zhigansk, an adult, hefty man, a former sailor (with whom I was on friendly terms), having examined the walkie-talkie brought from me, blocking all the stations on the air with his bass voice, he told me:
– Vitya, what are you saying there, the walkie-talkie works great!
In general, he always treated me friendly and even when I was working in a detachment with Shulgina in Kolyma and the connection in the detachment was with me, he forgave me, apparently due to my youth and respect for my father, for some freedom on air when I broadcast : – RSGV! RSGV! Here is the RJ sign Muzis Jr. (instead of the required RJ Sign M). In general, he was very strict on air. But that's a different story.
I myself guessed that it was not a matter of the radio, but when I realized what was the matter, the season was already coming to an end. As they say: “It wasn’t the reel...”.
So, I sent the concentrates to Zhigansk, and the mine laboratory was in Moscow, and Moscow was far away and I was well aware that I would receive the results only at the end of the field season. But I had no doubt that work on our site would continue.
We also worked on the second section. They set up a bathhouse in one of the houses, and since the rooms were large and the windows were broken, they repaired everything as best they could and installed two potbelly stoves. It turned out warm and free.
Bath house.
You can also tell us what we used to bake the bread. Very simple. At both sites (villages), the predecessors installed two iron barrels, laid horizontally and filled with pebbles and sand on top and sides, and almost half of the bottom was also filled. The door is simply a square hole cut out at the end with an ax. Two hours of heating, the coals were raked out, the molds with dough were put on a shovel, the cut-out window was covered with the same shutter and sprinkled with the selected coals. A damp tarpaulin mitten and a flat stone tile were usually placed on the pipe. You wait about forty minutes and you get the baked loaves - delicious bread. The crusty crusts were especially held in high esteem. The itinerary included tea and bread with sugar. It was later, when they began to supply us with minced sausage and “Tourist’s Breakfast” in cans (instead of stewed meat) and enough condensed milk, we took with us for lunch a can of minced meat or condensed milk for three or four.
Bread oven. Side view.
The livestock were not so great, there were few grayling, but in the area with the factory there was a small lake and, having found two crumpled “muzzles” made of metal mesh on the shore, I straightened them, tied them with a rope and threw them into the water. In the evening I checked - it was full of small fish, some up to 5 cm. I found some old kettle here, dumped the fish into it and returned to the house with a kettle full of fish. They didn’t even gut the small ones, they wrapped them in gauze and boiled the ears, but the larger ones were gutted and even fried.
Little hare
By mid-August, the bunnies had grown up, we didn’t touch them until the fall, and when they could no longer be distinguished from their parents, I carefully opened the window and clicked on one of the little things. Sometimes they would hang out on the top floor of the factory, in the evening they would crawl out of the hole and frolic among the bushes and all sorts of iron rubbish. They turned white and were clearly visible even at dusk against the background of yellow-red dwarf birch bushes and greenish moss.
You can also talk about the “guests” who visited this “reference” site. The first to land were the “Mirnians” - a small detachment of three young guys (a geologist, a radio operator and a worker) landed at the factory, and then rafted to the main village. We greeted them cordially, as it should be in the North. They settled in the large room next to ours. The radio operator climbed onto the roof and stuck a pole for the antenna into the corner, and in doing so simply pierced the roofing felt, which amazed me with its “simplicity.” And of course, when it rained, it leaked through the roof into the attic, and from there into our room. I had to climb in and fix it. That's why I spent them with a light heart - God save us from such reckless fools.
Roof repair
The second guests were a detachment of Shakhotkinites, who drove past us to the lower section and back on an all-terrain vehicle, “taking into their hands” several of our bread baking molds lying on the street near the “bread” barrel. “We first took it, and then we thought, what if it’s yours...” they said when they caught us on the way back. I gave them these forms because... I had a reserve, but I thought: “It turns out that reckless foolishness is found not only among Mirny residents.” And I was also somehow unpleasant that they shot right in front of our eyes one of the hares that we grazed and did not touch until the fall.
The third was a detachment of three Amakina geologists led by Belik, an Amakina elder, about whom I had heard a lot from our senior geologists who were well acquainted with many of the Amakina geologists. There were also two of his dogs with him, a young, very playful male and the old legendary Tyukha, Belik’s faithful companion on all his campaigns, about whom I had also heard a lot and now saw. He even named one of the kimberlite pipes he discovered after him.
Belik also landed here on some business of his own and, having completed it, offered me:
- Come with us to the mouth.
And I went with pleasure. One of his companions was a young girl, Irina, with whose name I had a whole episode associated later, when I secured a small promising plot of land on the Ukukit River. Having selected from top to bottom about a dozen bags of eluvium from the slopes in increments of 50 m, I washed it and established where the abundance of satellites abruptly ends. The next day, taking a tripod with a magnetometer, we climbed the slope with the firm intention of opening a kimberlite pipe. Having reached the intended point, I noticed some light spot on the larch. It was a note on which was written: “The IRINA tube is open.” Year and signature – “Belik”. This was the year we met on Ulah-Muna. I was offended.
And one more thing. Having reached the mouth with them, we had dinner, they began to set up a tent, and I “went off to look around the surrounding lakes” nearby. I shot two muskrats there and, arriving at the tent, hung the carcasses on a larch tree somewhere at head level. Having climbed into the tent, I also lay down - I had a down-padded sleeping bag. How naive I was! The next morning, at the site of the carcasses, I found only a piece of tripe near a larch tree, and before my eyes, old Tyukha “picked up” it. The young dog simply stood on his hind legs and pulled the carcasses from the tree.
“That’s how I boasted,” I thought. And Belik said:
– Muskrat is like a treat for a dog.
It was also a shame. But there is no one to blame, it’s your own fault.
Having finished work on the upper section, we loaded into the 500-tank, rafted to our first camp and began to wait for evacuation. This is not a quick thing, the helicopter is sometimes busy, sometimes “on duty,” sometimes on a special mission or medical flight... Here we also encountered the first snow in early September.
True, I managed to go to those two lakes at the mouth and catch several muskrats. So that was enough for a hat. But I especially remember spending the night in a hut with a large gap between the ceiling and the wall. I lit a large stove (apparently a bread stove), covered with pebbles, stuffed it with firewood, how long it would take to chop, and walked to the lakes at dusk. In the dark he returned, put some kind of wooden shield on the heated stove, dozed in the warmth, looking at the stars, and at dawn he went back to the lakes. On each lake there was a brood that had already grown up.
Evacuation
So, we calmly collected the equipment, dried and rolled up the 500-thick, and nailed down the boxes with the samples. All the dishes and buckets were put in a large plywood box from the boat, they carried everything to the helipad and covered it with a tarpaulin, weighing it down with the same boxes and the boat. They left only personal belongings, a walkie-talkie, sleeping bags, a saucepan and a kettle...
When the helicopter arrived, we loaded up and flew to Zhigansk. This is how my first field season went on the Ulah-Muna River in the Verkhne-Muna kimberlite field.
The most wonderful memories, a wonderful season, wonderful days...
But this is not the end of the story, this is just the introduction to the second season!
In Moscow, we prepared materials about the work done and the compilation of albums on the decipherability of kimberlite bodies. And in total about 300 “pieces” were identified on the Siberian platform. So far, it has turned out that about 15% are decipherable on aerial photographs.
– Where are your vaunted statistics? – Ostashkin once said. - Why didn’t you find one?
What could I say? I shouldn’t tell him that, due to the routine nature of the work and little skill in kimberlites, I simply mechanically did the intended work and relied only on the mine analysis of the laboratory.
Lesha Timofeev
Gradually the results came from the laboratory and then, somehow, we were given another report. Most of the samples were empty or indicated weak contamination, but one sample amazed me: it contained the minerals of olivine, picroilmenite and, most importantly, a lot of ankylite - not the number of grains, but the percentage! A lot - 5 percent (if not 15). Now I don’t remember exactly...
What kind of ankylitis? What do you eat it with? It was inconvenient for me to ask about this in my party, showing my incompetence, and, before looking at the textbook, I went for a consultation to Sibirtsev’s party, to Lesha Timofeev, my colleague, my living walking reference book on all emerging issues.
He immediately said that this is a mineral of ultramafic rocks from the rare earth group and is found in small quantities in kimberlites. I delved into smart books and realized that the set of minerals I encountered is inherent in different rocks, but together they could only be contained in kimberlite. And I showed the result of the analysis to Ostashkin - statistics work! At least one photo anomaly was confirmed. This place was interpreted neither as a spot on an aerial photograph, nor as a dark trail, but as a break in a structural ledge. Here comes a ledge along the slope... and how someone swallowed a piece of it...
Ledge break
“We’ll assure you for the next season,” said Igor Mikhailovich. Almost the entire composition of Sibirtsev’s party was handed over to him and he planned further work on “our” site using airborne and ground magnetometry, associated metallometry using ground magnetic profiles, mining operations (manually, without explosives) and carrying out USW in some areas of the territory allocated to us.
For the field season, I have designated a large, long stream, a tributary of the river. Ukukit, on which you could try rafting in deep water on rubber pontoons 500. In the estuary parts of the tributaries of the stream itself, it was necessary to carry out USW; visit the “Naked” pipe, which opens up as a rocky outcrop on the right slope in a cliff on a river near the mouth of the stream and verify several photo anomalies that stand out in the photographs as dark spots with clear or blurry contours.
And now, having flown to Nyurba for a week, I am again in Zhigansk, the base village of the expedition. There weren’t that many houses for rent and our accommodation was cramped, but friendly and fun. The party was young, friendly and cheerful; the main field workers were recent graduates of a geological institute or technical school. We teased each other all the time...
So, having worked in Verkhoyansk with Bashlavin, I learned from him to be foresight and since then I have tried to foresee, if possible, everything that might be encountered during field work. And I used some of Dmitry Konstantinovich’s statements as sayings and instructions, which amused the guys and even the gloomy Ostashkin.
I remember once, tired of waiting for the helicopter promised every day, Bashlavin said: “We need to break the weather!” Let's leave! – And we, having removed the camp and loaded the all-terrain vehicle, drove out into the drizzling dampness to a new camp site... The helicopter caught up with us an hour after leaving...
- We need to break the weather! – smiling, we began to say often, without moving from our place.
Or else - Bashlavin was a passionate hunter, in any case he loved this business. He chose the farthest routes so that the opportunity to meet a deer or ram was most likely and he had a rifle, not a carbine, to shoot at longer distances. And he shot, sending bullet after bullet, taking into account the lead. And he got there... 300, 400, 500 meters away, and often in pursuit. And he took two workers to make it easier to bring the loot to the camp. And by the way, he was our main breadwinner.
And, returning to the camp, one day, to the question of Ivan Raskosov, our radio operator (from the old guard), who met those coming from the route, standing by the fire and leaning his elbows on the tagan: “Well, how is it, Dim, what’s there?” Bashlavin began to tell how he met a ram, how he shot, but he left and said that he saw blood on a pebble... Ivan agreed, shook his head sadly, and when Konstantinich went to his tent, he said after him, smiling and clearly teasing: “Hunter.” damn"...
Since then, the expressions “Hunter of horseradish” and “there was blood on the pebble” have also become our frequently repeated expressions.
Mountain sheep
I was somehow lucky to meet living creatures not far from the camp. Sometimes you shoot a partridge, sometimes a duck, and once, returning from the route, I noticed two sheep grazing on the slope of a hill right next to the camp. I crept closer and fired from a small-caliber rifle (they didn’t manage to send me a carbine from Zyryanka this season - it was in storage at the Internal Affairs Directorate there). I felt that I had hit, fired again, releasing the clip (the sound of a shot from a small rifle is not the roar from a carbine) and for some reason I ran out of cartridges. I usually had a decent supply. We burrowed into the tent and watched as one was grazing, the quiet clicking of bullets on the gravel did not particularly bother him, and the second looked around anxiously, not trying to leave. Slowly they moved up the slope to the top. We were waiting for Bashlavin and when he arrived, we rushed to him:
- Konstantinich! Rams! One is wounded! Finish it off! “Bashlavin, grumbling something, carefully crept up to the foot of the hill and shot at the wounded man. He fell, and the second jumped up and disappeared behind the hill. Inspecting the loot, Bashlavin told me:
“You broke his knee joint and it was difficult for him to move.” This is an adult ram. If you wounded the young one, the old one would leave and take the young one with him.
Preserving meat by weathering
We stored meat in different ways: at Shulgina’s, we salted it in plywood barrels from under dry potatoes or in milk flasks, placing them on the frozen ground; at Bashlavin they put it in a large canvas bag and, tied with a rope, they threw it into the stream in a deep but flowing place; at Ostashkin - hanging on a bed in the shade in the breeze.
And in Zhigansk, for example, I was amazed by the party executive. I was used to the fact that you literally had to beg for any thing you needed from equipment or food. I remember Zhenya Dykanyuk, together with Volodya Antonov, jokingly, but with a serious business look, coming with an application to the office, they asked the storekeeper:
– Are there any excavator buckets?..
- No! “Immediately, without even thinking and without a hint of a smile, she answered seriously.
– What about key locks?..
And here, Lachevsky, large, elderly, gray-haired, unusually calm man, simply told me: “Let’s go see...” We went to the warehouse and I got what I asked for.
Me and Lachevsky on the banks of the Lena. Zhigansk.
I flew to the site chosen for work together with Lesha Zhadobin, an elderly but strong radio operator partner (of the old guard) and a RPPS radio with a double set of batteries, two 500 pontoons, equipment and food for half a season. And, although there were only two of us, there was quite a lot of stuff. The helicopter dropped us off on a small sand and pebble patch. We chose a flat area nearby, but higher up, and set up a tent.
Attention! This is an introductory fragment of the book.
If you liked the beginning of the book, then full version can be purchased from our partner - distributor of legal content, LLC liters.
Help for those who don’t know: “baba” is popularly a cast-iron bandura for driving piles. So, this story happened to one geologist, on another expedition, in the sunny city of Inta near Vorkuta.
The cold is wild, it’s clear that they took it to warm up, and after the next portion, the grandfather is given the task of sending a telegram with the following content: “Baba has broken down.” Send a technician urgently." The telegraph operator, who immediately found the reason for the nonsense being sent (grandfather’s medicine for the cold), boldly changes the text to: “A woman has fallen ill. We urgently need a doctor."
P.S While everything was being sorted out, grandfather was given a day off, who needs it - without Baba?
Far East. Sopki. A geological exploration helicopter, three people inside, and equipment for the cost of the helicopter. Suddenly the compass fails. The hills above are all the same, the clouds are wild, it’s not clear where north-south and, especially, the base are. They are flying. Suddenly, below there is an Aboriginal-looking man with a rifle.
The helicopter flies up and hovers over him. They shout to the guy, saying which side is which. The man can’t hear because the propeller is noisy. They go down a little lower - the man doesn’t hear. They throw down the rope ladder and make a sign to climb up.
The man climbs in and is already lifting his leg to climb into the cabin, when one of the geologists sees that a heavy tarpaulin boot is preparing to crush some super-expensive and necessary device.
The man did not react to the screams even at close range, then a command decision was made and the geologist punched the man in the face, causing him to fall onto the moss from a height of about fifteen meters.
The helicopter raised the ladder and quickly disappeared - don’t call this guy back. I don’t know how the helicopter got to the base, but I wonder what the hunter’s feelings were...
My first year of work after receiving my diploma. Summer. Expedition. Together with my partner, a fellow recent graduate, we walk the route. The day is hot, and soon our flask runs out of water. We decide to go in search of the source. In order not to carry everything with us, we hide our backpacks and hammers in the bushes, taking only a flask. We descend into the valley, where we pass a large herd of grazing cows. We move on in search of an outlet for underground water.
And then we hear a familiar sound - the sound of a hammer hitting a stone. We pass the turn - yes, a geologist is working on the outcrop. He is no longer a young man, about fifty years old. It is immediately clear that he is a geologist; he is wearing a creepy-looking black robe, which in Soviet times was issued to geologists for field work. (We suspected that the same ones were issued to prisoners, only ours were distinguished by a patch on the sleeve - a red diamond with an image of a drilling rig and the inscription “Mingeo SSR”).
And I’m wearing a faded sundress and a white scarf, my companion is wearing a T-shirt and tattered shorts. In my hands I hold a flask, which from a distance looks exactly like a can, only instead of a handle there is a strap to be worn over the shoulder.
An unfamiliar geologist looks around, notices us and begins to work, as they say, for the public. He will chop off a sample, examine it carefully, squint, frown, throw it in the dump, and repeat it all over again. It dawns on us that he takes us for a shepherdess and a shepherdess who brought him a drink of milk and froze, spellbound by the work of a learned man.
Having exchanged a wink with my friend, I come closer, making my face as stupid and enthusiastic as possible. A geologist works even more passionately. I come close and calmly ask:
- Colleague, did you really manage to discover fauna in the Grushkinsky formation? This will be an event of world significance!
(The fauna is the imprints of extinct animals, the Grushkin Formation is the so-called silent strata, where no one has ever found these same imprints).
The result was strong. The poor geologist's hammer fell out of his hands and his jaw dropped to his chest. He tried to catch his breath for about five minutes, after which he said:
- Well, guys, you give it! So play it! I took you for locals, I saw cows grazing nearby. And we laughed together for another half hour.
And half an hour later we were sitting in the camp of our colleagues, who turned out to be geologists from Moscow, and our new acquaintance, laughing, told everyone this story. Soon the inhabitants of both camps became best friends.
Geologists joke
Somewhere in Primagadanye A student trainee came to join the film crew. By tradition and simply on personal initiative, the staff tried to tell her as many scary stories about bears as possible, and also gave specific instructions in case she met the “owner” - they say, scream as much as you can and climb the nearest tree. And for you - on the very first route, this student and a geologist came face to face with a breeding bear. Over the next minute or two, only the student took active action, who, in full accordance with the instructions, squealed and climbed onto the nearest larch. And since the tree was no more than 3 meters high, it very quickly reached the top; the larch bent at the same time, and the student hovered a meter above the ground, continuously “giving sound signals.” The geologist had a carbine, which is probably why he appreciated only the comical side of the situation. It’s hard to say what the bear was thinking. Probably the same as most of his brothers when meeting a person, something like: “There are all sorts of people walking around here!” And he left the stage first.
One day the chief geologist squad returned to base abnormally pale and thoughtful. To a completely natural question about his well-being, he answered that he had a fight with a bear (to complete the picture, I will add that in terms of build he is much closer to Paganel than to Ilya Muromets). The sequence of events, restored from his words, is as follows. I forded the river channel and saw a bear cub ten meters away. Mamanya did not keep her waiting - she broke through the bushes and attacked. In the allotted 1-2 seconds, the target of the attack only managed to pick up a cobblestone and poke the bear in the face (!). For some reason, the bear did not run directly at him, but as if tangentially, as a result of which she flew past, hitting our boss sideways and thus transferring him to the “ground”. Then the situation repeated itself, only the bear, according to the boss, turned her head to the side (perhaps even for a bear it is unpleasant to get hit in the nose with a bullet). After the third touch, the little bear decided that mom had won due to her clear advantage, and left. And the bear probably decided - who am I going to show off for here? And she also left, leaving the pale chief geologist to think about the meaning of existence.
Autumn. The team has completed work on the project. The base has been collapsed, leaving only the outhouse building to be dismantled. In addition, there is a small, several kilograms, remainder of explosives from mining operations, which also needs to be destroyed. And so the idea of combining two destructive processes was born. And then a helicopter arrived to pick up everyone, and with it a drilling crew that was picked up along the way. The spectators arranged themselves in an amphitheater. The usual manipulations of the explosivesman, and in place of the toilet a kind of nuclear “mushroom” is formed, which, with a gust of wind, carries a finely dispersed substance directly to the helicopter and spectators.
To call this scene silent would be an attack against the truth...
The team collects 200,000-scale “streams” in the tundra. The base is a beam dragged by a tractor. One night it froze, and the tractor could not pull the beams out of place. A.I., an amateur explosivesman (besides the fact that he is also a professional), says: “Now we’ll wrap a detonating cord around the skids, slam v and we’re good to go!” Colleagues don't mind. Some sleep on the upper bunks, some eat porridge straight from the pan. A.I. enters the beam and warns: “Now it’s going to boom.” It banged. Windows and doors were blown out, a sleeping person fell from the top bunk, a pot of porridge was on someone's head...
A.I. adjusts his glasses and informs: “Wow, I forgot to cut off the bay...”
A week of bad weather at a temporary base. It's a pity for time, the season is short. Senior group O.S. can’t stand it and proposes to organize an “officer’s” route - without workers, testing, documentation and radiometry, just to solve some geological issues. We leave the car with driver Zhenya in the valley and the two of us climb onto a low hill. Along the way we meet deer, which O.S., a very temperamental hunter, puts to flight by shooting from a carbine and begins to pursue. Unarmed, I returned to the car. Zhenya's tea is ready. We settled down in front of the hood (the rain had subsided for a while), slowly sharing our thoughts on the prospects for the season. About 15 minutes later, sad O.S. returns. His exculpatory phrase is interrupted by a shot - apparently, out of grief, he forgot to unload the carbine. The bullet flies between the driver and me, 20-30 centimeters from Zhenya. A few seconds of deathly silence. In hindsight I remember that we looked funny. O.S. froze and looked like wax figure. Me too, probably, with a mug of tea in my hand. Zhenya covered his crotch with both hands, slowly turned around, walked away a couple of steps and turned back to us (maybe he was afraid that O.S. would shoot again?). The first sound that broke the silence was the sound of tea being sipped; I did this automatically.
Central Chukotka, early July, first routes of the season. We descend with radiometrist Shura along a rather steep (35 degrees) slope along large blocky debris. We come out onto a small snowfield. I accelerate somewhat recklessly on the loose firn and, when the firn gives way to ice, I lose control of the situation. It’s not possible to brake with a hammer; after all, it’s not an ice pick. I ride quickly on my belly, feet first. I was lucky - a couple of meters before the edge of the snowfield my foot fell into a crack and escaped without injury. He sat, shook the snow out of his ears and field bag, and met Shura, who came up 15 minutes later, with the words: “Well, where are you hobbling around? I showed you how to do it."
The student trainee remained on duty at the base. The activity is not difficult. Having nothing else to do, I swept the beam, opened the door to throw out the trash, and there was a large bear’s face. I couldn’t think of anything better than to pour the trash into it, slam the door and hide behind the stove. The bear didn’t come in, he was probably offended.
One day in early autumn, A bear appeared in the snow at the percussion-rope drilling team. Almost the entire team locked itself in the industrial booth, except for the most sluggish assistant drilling foreman. The comrades did not show proletarian solidarity and, despite loud calls, did not open the door, obviously they were afraid that the bear would come in for the company. Well, for some time (about 15 minutes) the pombur ran from the bear around the beam. Then a tractor drove up and the bear left. They opened the door and stood under the life-giving waterfall of fair criticism. And then someone noticed that bear tracks go around the beam in a chain, and there are human tracks only at the corners (the beams are standard, 7 meters long). Human possibilities are limitless.
According to the stories, in one of the detachments there was a record-breaking phlegmatic student. He became famous for the question he asked a geologist when they encountered a bear on a hill. The student who was walking first turned around and asked: “What should we do with him?”
Once upon a time there lived a cat on a drilling crew. In the conditions of developed socialism, he grew up extremely spoiled (in a culinary sense, and apart from fresh fish and venison, he ate nothing). But one day the brigade was picked up by a helicopter, but the shift did not arrive and the weather “closed in”. And the cat lived in a locked beam for 10 days without any means of subsistence. The replacement that arrived was greeted with a heart-rending meow. For the sake of an experiment, the heartless proletarians poured rice cereal on his floor, which the cat ate with a crunch.
There seems to be some kind of general philosophical subtext in this story...
We once shot a deer, Although this is an everyday matter, it is still illegal. It's towards evening (in polar day conditions). We climbed into the tent, frying the liver, and suddenly we heard the sound of a helicopter, well known to all initiates. We looked out and it was flying straight towards us; the worst was naturally assumed - a hunting patrol raid. General alarm: within 20 seconds, horns, hooves, skin and tufts of wool are buried (and the meat itself is similar to money in the absence of smell). The helicopter lands 200 m from the tent, two gloomy guys pull out a gravimeter, hastily take readings and fly away without even saying hello.
One beautiful polar morning two geophysicists In the process of recovering from a hangover, we ate a cactus growing peacefully on the windowsill for a snack (there was nothing else edible in the house). I don’t remember how they got rid of the thorns - either they pulled them out with pliers, or they simply peeled the cactus like potatoes. They said it tasted like cucumber.
The following story requires a little explanation. The hunting authority cannot hold you accountable if your net is set, it is full of fish, but you are simply nearby and do not hold the net in your hands (it is difficult to prove that it is yours).
A Ukrainian proletarian set up a net on the lake. The next day I was getting ready to pick the harvest, and had just put on my wetsuit when a hunting surveillance helicopter materialized straight from parallel space. I couldn’t think of anything better than to get down on all fours and start picking mushrooms on the shore of the lake.
- Is your network?
Rybak.
- But no...
E r d i n s p e c t o r.
- What are you doing here?!
Rybak.
- I’m collecting mushrooms...
E r d i n s p e c t o r.
- Why in a wetsuit?!!!
Rybak.
- That’s why...
A ballad about safety instructions.
Two workers carry a rail along a horizontal mine working. The one behind him trips and drops the rail on his foot, breaking his finger in the process. Naturally it hurts. With a hiss, he pressed his leg up, grabbing the insulated cable running along the wall. The one who was walking ahead turns around and sees the situation that was repeatedly described at the safety briefing - electric shock (the person cannot unclench his hands and speak). The first thing is to protect your friend from the action of the current; At the same time, you cannot touch it with your hands, it will hit you. Well, he grabbed some kind of wooden rod and then bit his colleague’s hands - another fracture. While the cage was descending, the injured man lost consciousness from pain. His friend was at his best here too - he began performing artificial respiration and broke a couple more ribs.
One day in early July, the temperature set in for several days. about 25 degrees, so it was hot in the closed cabin of the all-terrain vehicle. All-terrain vehicle Vasya opened the doors, and to prevent them from slamming, he tied them with wire. When he was driving along a shallow river channel among tall (two meters) bushes, a bear appeared right in front of the all-terrain vehicle (obviously, the bear was somehow abnormal, because an all-terrain vehicle in the tundra can be heard several kilometers away). Vasily’s natural reaction was to try to slam the doors - an unsuccessful attempt for the reason stated above. By Vasya’s own admission, his imagination immediately painted him a terrible picture: the second bear was holding the door with its paw...
Somewhere in Primorye the detachment arrived at a new place. There is a lot of work, everything is busy. While the supply manager was in charge of the arrangement, the boss assigned the worker a pit, very close to the base, and he himself, in order not to waste time, set off on the route. At the same time, the caretaker gave instructions to another worker to dig a hole for the toilet... In short, a problem arose - the boss came to document the pit, and there was already a “birdhouse” above it.
The story, in principle, is not very funny and a little strange. At the end of the season, I was sent with an all-terrain vehicle to the base of a neighboring detachment. Since I didn’t yet have my own service weapon, they gave me a double-barreled shotgun “to protect secret materials.” A couple of days later we return back at night. I’m riding next to the all-terrain vehicle Tolya, hugging a gun (unloaded, of course). About five kilometers before the base, hares jumped onto the road. We stopped, and I sleepily felt around under my feet to see where the bandolier had fallen. Tolya: “Yes, shoot, it’s loaded...” He fired, but didn’t hit. Only at the base, when I had slept off, did it dawn on me that he had loaded the gun on purpose, secretly, while I was getting out to relieve myself. And he took the safety off (he looked strangely when I put my head on the guns on the way...). Why he did this, I don’t know.
It so happened that at the beginning of the ’91 season We sat without fresh meat for some time. We agreed that the first successful hunter (and we worked in several groups) would definitely inform his colleagues about the joyful event. And in order not to speak in plain text over the radio (after all, most of the deer shot are domestic, split from herds), they adopted a simple coding - they say, “uncle has arrived.” Every other day on the evening call:
- First, fourth, fifth - twelfth. Everyone, come! Uncle has arrived! How did you understand? Reception.
- Twelfth - first! Very good! What about the big uncle? Reception.
- No, no. Twenty kilograms without guts
Another day later:
- First, fourth v twelfth. Come get your uncle soon. How did you understand? Reception.
- Twelfth - first. What, ANOTHER uncle has arrived, another one? Reception.
- No, no. This one will just start to stink soon.
It must be said that the official attempts to encode messages were no less idiotic. For example, for some time they tried to remove messages about explosive materials from the airwaves. We changed “explosives” to “powder”, “detonators” to “pencils”, and “fire cords” to “threads”. Therefore, one could often hear the following: - Saccharin is the first - the seventh! We've run out of pencils, mining work has stopped!!! - Seventh to first. Tomorrow we will send you a helicopter with pencils
A geologist in the tundra teaches a student intern lithochemical testing. It's not a difficult task - two handfuls of dirt and a label in a bag, tie it and put it in a backpack. At the first picket, samples were taken together, then - one by one, “leapfrog”. We walked through the entire profile in half a day and sat down to rest. The geologist asks in a fatherly manner: “Well, do you understand how lithochemistry is collected?” The student answers: “Not really. It’s unclear why the soil needs to be shaken out of the bag.” It turned out that at each picket he shook out the old sample and put a new one into the same bag. So I came with one sample.
(moral: even selecting lithochemistry requires some intellectual effort)
Late August in the tundra. First snow. A hungry geologist on his route hears a small group of deer slowly moving among the moraine hillocks. He attached the carbine to the stone and waited. When the first deer appeared, some tundra god apparently advised us to wait a few seconds. And, as it turned out, not in vain. The sledges followed the reindeer.
